Frayed Knot

The OF gets an assist on plays like that?!?! Based on what Gary said they do. If true I not only had no idea but I also don't think they should. Hockey goals get two assists. A single out in a baseball play shouldn't.

13 Mets to the plate, 5 Ks + 1 GiDP; 2 singles, one of which left the infield, and one out left the infield. All off a guy who I think Gary said was pitching for the Canadian Mounties rec league team until recently.

He's probably not going to hang around long enough for us to bat him around. Either way, it's a good thing we're not seeing Greinke tonight otherwise we might be getting 2-hit or something.

John Gant = 22 y/o former 21st round draft pick (2011) out of a Savannah, GA HS 4-5, 4.70, 1.57 in 11 starts in AA Robert Whalen was the 12th round pick in 2012. 21 y/o in Hi-A PSL: 4-5, 3.36, 1.28 in 14 starts + 1 relief

Nymr83 wrote: it says "small sample size" and "BABIP adjustment coming" (currently .203) It says 'Really Suxx' is what it says.

It'll help (or at least it should) and at no cost at all to the team this year and no obvious cost long-term.

Doesn't help that their side has more HRs (2) than ours does balls hit out of the infield (only Plawecki's FO to Puig). Oh and btw, we're the ones facing the 28 y/o career independent league guy making his 1st ML start.

Again with Mayberry, he HAD been good vs LHPs but suddenly isn't. Maybe more time and he reverts to form but it sure isn't looking that way. His splits for his career were: 833 OPS vs LHP, 646 vs RHP. This year he's at 628 & 464 IOW, while his hitting vs LHPs is still better than it is vs RHPs, this season he's hitting LHPs (aka: the job he was brought in to do) worse than he traditionally hit vs RHPs and THAT says as much about his year as anything.

This is pathetic. Absolutely inexcusable. And unfortunately, absolutely predictable. The front office will use injuries as an excuse, but every team has had injuries, including Washington. Bad luck happens. And when it happens, legitimate contenders field a lineup that is weaker than they hoped, but still competitive. You only get stupid lineups like this when you aim for mediocrity. This was "predictable" only if you know in advance that every single player on the roster (except, oddly, for Granderson as he was taking the most shit early in the season) is going to have an off-year. Mayberry: Career OPS = 734. 2015 = 550 Kirk: 708 >> 613 (and much of that was from one day) Campbell: 680 >> 576 Lagares: 703 >> 612 Duda: 830 >> 754 (and that's after a hot start - it's been about 550 sine June 1st) Murphy: 752 >> 708 Cuddyer: 813 >> 683 Recker: 646 >> 506 So, no, as big a blow as Wright exiting Game 9 with a hamstring issue and missing the season until at least mid-August is or d'Arnaud's two separate injuries are, it's not just the injuries, it's that, in addition to those injuries, the winter's biggest acquisition is failing miserably, that the non-injured established players have either flat-lined (Murphy) or regressed (Duda, Lagares), and that backups to these injured and/or under-performers are grossly underperforming themselves or are proving to be not ready (Flores, Plawecki + the entire bench). Sure the GM bears the ultimate responsibility for all this. But to label THIS level of ineptness as utterly predictable is hindsight. To use an example I've used before, Washington's GM Mike Rizzo is a genius this year in getting past his injuries because he went into the season knowing that Danny Espinosa was going to raise his OPS by nearly 200 points over what it was the last 2 seasons [581 to 744] and that 30 y/o career minor leaguer (13 ML ABs prior to 2015) Clint Robinson was not only going to be capable of replacing Ryan Zimmerman but out-hitting him [765 OPS to 611] as well. He also banked on the 32 y/o Yunel Escobar jacking his OPS up 120 points from 2014. And what those step-up players have allowed the Nats to do is that on days (like probably this weekend) when they have to start several from among the .211-hitting Matt den Dekker (OF), the .214-hitting Tyler Moore (OF), the .197-hitting Lose Lobaton ©, and the .192-hitting Dan Uggla (2B), it means they only have 3 or 4 holes in their lineup rather than 5 or 6. It makes a good bit of difference. Luck is the residue of design ... except when it's also the residue of luck.

Scouting report from BA: At a strong 6-foot-1 and 211 pounds, Conforto�s power-and-patience approach is what drew the Mets to make him the 10th overall pick out of Oregon State. He has a powerful lefthanded stroke and above average bat speed that allows him to drive balls all over the field with authority. Conforto has an advanced and patient approach with a career .382 OBP in the minors that fits the philosophy that general manager Sandy Alderson and his staff covet. He�s shown the ability to be selective at the plate, rare for someone his age and with his brief amount of pro experience�just 133 minor league games. Conforto�s swing can get long, leaving him vulnerable to plus velocity inside, but he worked extensively with hitting coach Benny Distefano in Brooklyn last season to improve on this area of his game, focusing mainly on his hand position and weight transfer to help him attack balls on the inner half. Defensively, Conforto has earned some praise for the strides he has made in the outfield this season. He is still solely a left fielder, with average range and arm strength, although he�s shown an ability to gun down runners as he did in the Futures Game earlier this month in Cincinnati. As he�s shown in his brief minor league career, it�s Conforto�s bat that will do the talking when he makes his big league debut, presumably tonight at Citi Field against the Dodgers. He projects to be a middle-of-the-order force and run producer with the ability to swat 20-25 homers a year while getting on base at a high clip. WHAT TO EXPECT: Conforto was drafted six picks following another advanced college bat that shot through the minor leagues, Cubs catcher Kyle Schwarber, and the Mets can only hope for the same kind of success from their young lefty swinger that the Hoosiers product has enjoyed. With just 520 professional at bats and a sparse offense around him, Conforto is being thrust in to a situation most front offices don�t prefer placing an elite prospect in, but as Conforto has shown, he will give a professional at bat and he isn�t afraid to work counts and wait for his pitch to drive. The power, paired with the new (well, newer) dimensions at Citi Field, will play well at the big league level and expect quite a few doubles with a few of them leaving the yard. The question is, will anyone else from that lineup be on base for him to drive in?

Speaking of 1st round picks (now that one is getting his call-up today) Gavin Cecchini (12th overall in 2012) rode a 13-for-30 week into the #7 slot of BA's 'Hot List' this week. Gavin Cecchini, ss, Mets Team: Double-A Binghamton (Eastern) Age: 21 Why He�s Here: .467/.500/.667 (13-for-30), 5 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 7 RBIs, 2 BB, 2 SO, 0-for-0 SB The Scoop: New York�s No. 6 prospect at midseason, Cecchini is converting scouts who were not believers by showing power and steady defense. He has toned down his leg kick, helping get his hands and bat quicker to the ball. Overall Binghamton numbers: .306/.366/.442 over 372 PA That's not a ton of power (29 of his 103 hits for XB, 19 2Bs, 3 3B, 7 HR) but it's respectable. Meanwhile the K-rate is low (~10% of PAs) and the BA & OBA are particularly nice for a SS listed at 3.5 years younger than the AA position player average. Clearly his best season as a pro - which beats the hell out of having your future behind you. Like Dom Smith, this one started slowly and wasn't looking good for a while but that's nothing unusual for many HS picks.

It's been tough to figure out the A's this year -- we've discussed before about how their RS/RA and W/L records have been wildly divergent* all season -- but the Kazmir trade probably signals that they're ready to deal. [fimg=100]http://mcgady.net/Casab/main/Greenstreet6.jpg[/fimg] 'He's a difficult customer that [crossout]Rick[/crossout] Billy Beane, one never knows what he'll do or why' * The gap is not as bad as it had been (the A's have actually won a few close games lately) but Pythag says their record still should be a full 10 games better than it is.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: A coupl'a things: nobody was elected to the HOF in 1971. Berra, the top vote-getter, received only 67% of the vote (242 votes out of the 270 needed for induction.) Brain fart, probably due to looking up vote totals late at night and somehow coming to the conclusion that the HoF threshold was a 2/3 vote rather than 3/4 and saw Yogi at 67.2% Wonder if there was screeching that year (like there was a few years back) about how an election where no one passed proved that the system was broken and therefore needed a total and immediate overhaul.

The problem is that the Ramones were never much of a radio band. That they weren't was more the fault of the radio industry than the band's, but that's a separate topic entirely. Point being that unless you were one to actively seek out music beyond that which was a staple of mainstream programming and therefore your car pre-sets then it's entirely likely that you didn't hear a lot of Ramones over the years.

Colon - 5.0 Granderson - 0.5 Flores - 0.5

d'Kong76 wrote: Wright to resume baseball activities next week. Seriously, does anyone care in terms of 2015? I hope the Mets don't. Sure I care. Will it make a difference in the Mets standings? ... it might. And, either way, having him play this year is a lot better than him not being able to play this year.

Well, it's ONE HoF vote revealed, and it's one from 44 years ago. So the background here is that I'm trying to clean out my mom's house which not only suxx but it's complicated by the fact that she had most of my father's stuff and he never threw out anything. And I think many here know my dad was an artist - a cartoonist to be precise which put him in a position to be at least on friendly terms with a lot of guys a lot more famous than him. So anyway I'm going through his files and came across a handwritten note to him from Willard Mullin, a name many here will recognize for his artwork on most of the NYM early yearbooks and prior to that in NY newspapers going back to earlier decades. And it's just a quick handwritten note on a piece of 5x7 note paper about some function they had both recently attended talking about nothing important. But at the end, knowing dad to be a big baseball fan, he sticks on a P.S. saying: "My vote for Hall of Fame was for three, and Only three, I thought should be in -- Wynn, Mize, and Kiner" The date was from Feb 1971 so this obviously dealt with the vote from the previous month. In that year only Yogi Berra (on his first try) got the requisite 75% so it sounds like maybe Mullin was part of the no first-timers school of thinking. Early Wynn finished second that year with 66.7%, Kiner 3rd w/58.9%, Mize was 6th getting 43.6% (Enos Slaughter & Gil Hodges were 4th & 5th). All of Mullin's votes would later get in: Wynn in the very next year, Kiner and Mize, who were both in their 9th year of consideration at this point, would get pass the threshold in 1975 for Ralph while Mize would have to wait for 1981 and a vote by the Vets committee. And then maybe the coolest part was that famous Willard Mullin signature at the bottom of the note, all those left-leaning vertical letters in his name unconnected to each other.

Not that it mattered, but when was the last time we had a half-swing call go our way? That strike 3 on Grandy was pretty questionable. And if you want to smack Mattingly do the same to the umps who overturned that HBP call. It may well have hit him but there's no way that the video evidence showed it. As Ronnie said, that's not even remotely the type of call that peeps had in mind when they concocted the replay rule. But as I said, once you go down that path it's not so easy to keep those kinds of calls from being micromanaged. Well at least we're not going to get Greinke tomorrow.

Any chance we had at coming back in the 9th is about to go out the window. Gilmartin didn't exactly get smacked around but they all found holes like it was payback time for all those GiDPs earlier.

OK I'll say it, we're in danger of being skunked here by Clayton.

Nymr83 wrote: his OBPs are gag-worthy, Actually they're not - at least not this season anyway where his .319 OBP clocks in at a few ticks above league average. What folks need to realize is that this isn't turn of the century baseball anymore when .340-ish OBPs were the norm. That said, he's at best a short-term replacement for what we hoped Cuddyer would be. NY Post is talking about either Will Venable or Geraldo Parra with Zobrist being tagged as "a long shot". I could see him being the kind of guy who'd get traded and subsequently get insanely hot. You definitely see him as the streaky type, although Boston was hoping for one of those hot streaks when they traded for him last year but didn't get it and had no interest in hanging onto him for this season.

11 years (minus a week) from when he was first traded.

Just for once I'd like to check into a Yanqui game and NOT see them up 2 or 3 to zip in the 1st inning. I swear they must score 80% of the time in the 1st inning. On edit: 4-0 and still counting. Eff-You You-baldo Jimenez

Syndergaard - 3.0 Robles - 0.25 Mejia - 0.25 Nieuwenhuis - 1.5 Plawecki - 1.0 Murphy - 1.0

btw, I propose a rule where if a manager loses a challenged call based on his belief that the runner who was safe by 19 feet was really out because his left toenail came off the bag for a milli-second during his slide, that said manager should: a) be ejected lose all his challenges for the rest of the year c) be forced to manage the remaining games of the season in a pink skirt