Frayed Knot

Too many damn walks!! - Walking MdD constantly (plus a few others) added pitches and took away innings from Syndergaard. The first one (runners on 1st & 2nd - 2 out) seemed semi-intentional to load the bases for Zimmermannnn (questionable strategy IMO) but the rest weren't. Come to think of it this was the case with Harvey in the first game. He pitched around Harper in the 1st inning and got burned by on a couple of cheap hits. But you're Matt Fuckin' Harvey dude and have a great (though small) record against Harper, go after him early in the game!! - Then the Parnell walk to Ian Desmond fucked up the whole 8th. Desmond has power but he can't tie the game with the bases empty and pretty much suxx this year. Again, go after him! But once he got on they were forced to play MdD deep in 'no doubles' so he dropped one in that Lagares normally puts in his pocket and things went straight downhill from there. - Got screwed on both the Duda half-swing in the middle innings there somewhere and again on Kirk's called-strike 3 in the 9th. - Played these guys close both in this series and in the season overall (overall stats are near identical) but we're now 2 games down to them in head-to-head and 3 down overall. Moral victories are NOT a consolation here.

deGrom - 3.5 Mejia - 0.4 Parnell - 0.6 Familia - 0.3 Campbell - 1.6 Flores - 1.6 Granderson - 1.0 Plawecki - 0.5 Tejada - 0.5

Harvey - 3.0 Lagares - 1.0 Campbell - 0.5 Tejada - 0.4 Duda - 0.1

It is a way to back up the old, "when he hits it, he hits it hard". But, as Rob Deer (the first name that came to mind) showed us, the key word in that sentence is "when". Its a new statistical toy to be used when convenient. Except that Campbell is K-ing at a below average rate (about half of what Deer was doing in a much less K-happy era) so it's not really the same thing here. This is more in line with the oft sneered-at BABiP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) which argues that on balls put into play that stay in the yard (IOW: take out all K's, BBs, and HRs) the success rate on those plays tends to be subject to a degree of good or bad fortune. The counter to that (which Gary Cohen brings up all the time) is that of course guys who hit the ball harder will have a better shot at a better BABiP so how can you say it's luck?. Factoring in 'Exit Velocity' sort of combines the two and says that if you're putting balls into play both often and hard and yet still have a poor BA to show for it then it really is closer to bad luck than bad skill. Deer's problem wasn't that he was hitting 'At 'em' balls since most of the few balls he did hit wound up in places that were unaffected by fielders. Campbell's got the opposite problem.

You're seeing 'Exit Velocity' quoted more and more lately although so far it's mainly been used for gawking purposes and for announcers to have data to back up their statements that he hit that ball REALLY hard - as if the fact that it landed in the 14th row of the second deck wasn't evidence enough. That said, I think it does have a value beyond just that even if this article mostly picks and chooses its spots to prove that: '7th best on the Mets among 'X' ABs or more' (is that really a good thing?), or 'among the best over the last 18 days' (or however they put it). I think everyone appreciates the concept of hitting into bad luck and that bad outcomes aren't always evidence of bad ABs or a bad approach. Prior to seeing that piece I'd have probably said that Campbell's been somewhat unfortunate although probably not enough to change religions or anything. This data that the Mets have plus the fact that his K-rates are below league average probably says that better things are ahead for him even if we're not sure how much 'better' really is.

Terry had already PH'd for Parnell (the Cuddyer walk) so he wasn't an option to stay in for the 9th. Certainly could have gone to someone other than Familia once the lead got big but managers tend to dislike getting their closers up and then not bringing them in. I too was thinking of letting deGrom hit but it's tough to argue with even before the result turned out how it did. Nieuwenhuis's hit should have been a hit rather than an error - but he also wasn't running immediately so I'm not going to feel sorry for him on that front.

Nymr83 wrote: Can't find the out of town thread, but Nate Karns for Tampa threw 5 shutout innings and homered for the only run of the game! Mets pitchers - you have been challenged! That was off Phils Phenom Phitcher Aaron Nola making his ML debut (Nola should pitch for the New Orleans Zephyrs) who pitched pretty well himself: 6 IP, 1 R, 5 H, 1 BB, 6 K. Also hit a single himself

Detroit needs pitching (who doesn't?) but there's only so much they could expect from a 1/3 year rental. Fulmer? Montero? Mejia? Two of those three? One of them plus one of something lesser? Rumor has it (and Francesa has pronounced it so) that "The Big Four" (deG, Hovvey, Syndy, & Matz) plus Conforto are 'untouchable'. Maybe Wheeler isn't but he's off the market right now for other reasons. Would you do Nimmo? The at-times rough start for Plawecki certainly isn't going to make him unattractive to teams. If I knew Wright was actually coming back this year I'd be more gutsy to make a short-term move like this. But, w/o Davey, our offensive woes aren't going to be even partly solved by the addition of one good (though hardly great) bat.

I've mentioned Cliff Robinson before as one of those guys that's helping the Nats over their injuries this year, first to Werth and now mainly for Zimmerman But before we give GM Rizzo too much credit, Robinson is a 30 y/o career minor leaguer (13 ML ABs prior to this season). He had some good minor league numbers but so did Val Pascucci. Their other savior has been Danny Espinosa. Once their regular 2B-man and a guy I thought was destined to be better (offensively & defensively) than Desmond. But he slumped badly over the past two years hitting .200 over 2013-14 combined, at one point talking about giving up switch-hitting, etc. Looked totally lost. Point is, going into this season I would have bet on a combo of Kirk & JMJ being much better options off the bench (forget for a second that the positions don't match up exactly) than Robinson + Espinosa but not only hasn't it worked out that way but it hasn't even been close. Bench players are a lot like middle relievers in that it's tough to predict from one year to the next how someone is going to perform. Rizzo can claim he believed in Espinosa all along (and I think he probably did) but he also picked up the Uggla-ness that is Dan Uggla over this past winter so that belief apparently only went so far. And all of this points out the larger problem with this NYM season. It's not just that Wright & d'Arnaud and, to a lesser extent, Murphy have been missing, or that Cuddyer has underperformed so much at the same time Duda & Lagares seem to be regressing, it's that the guys slated to back them up have all failed so miserably: JMJ, Nieuwenhuis, Campbell, Recker, Muno, Monell, etc. You can overcome one or maybe one and a half of those conditions but we're currently running up against all three: missing starters, backsliding vets, miserable bench.

8-7 isn't terrible for what was named a "brutal" stretch, particularly one that started 0-3. It's no way to gain ground on anyone but at least we're not losing at a time when such things seemed almost probable. This past weekend, as far as the NL East goes, wound up as a net neutral as the Nats were losing two of three to LA. So this series starting tonight essentially winds up as the telling one both for the post-ASG stretch to date between us and the Nats, and for our record for this looked-forward-to/dreaded section of the sked. Could be as good as 11-7 (and 1st place) which certainly sounds a lot better than 8-10

Missed much of this, but drifted in and out after the 10th. One for 26 w/RiSP isn't a statistic, it's a typo!!

Hawk Harrelson is at least, Hawk. His act, while not everyone's cuppa tea, isn't an act at all, that's really him. (I actually don't mind him although I only hear it in small doses and I don't have any pro or con interests with the ChiSox). What Edgy & I are talking about from last night wasn't a bad announcer and that he spent 20 minutes talking 'Mizzou Football' likely wasn't his fault (although maybe he enjoyed it too). But it was something he was obviously being ordered to do and they were all too willing to have the baseball game shoved aside while their fall programming schedule was being primed. And my overall point was that, whatever the weaknesses of SNY, at least we know their main interest is baseball during baseball season. But to these FOX or Comcast regional channels, the local baseball team is just some outfit they have a contract with and they're there to serve the corporate interests first and the local team only if and when it's convenient. oe: and while I'm on a rant: their fucking crawls at the bottom annoy me too. When I'm watching a baseball game I don't need constant updates telling me the Tour de France standings, that the green bay Packers signed their 6th round draft pick, who is going to miss 1/2 day of mini-camp with a sprained pinkie, WNBA scores, and all theory kinds of shit I did NOT tune in to see. If you want to give me once/twice hourly updates on baseball scores then fine. But beyond that quit shrinking my screen with useless junk.

Edgy MD wrote: This dopey Missouri football player they're interviewing in the booth is driving me crazy. I've got to pay for the upgrade to get the SNY feed. If you're watching via MLB.com don't you get your choice of feeds? Either way, spending a full inning interviewing a (supposedly amateur) quarterback during a baseball game is borderline criminal IMO. Say what you will about the inherent conflict of interest with the Wilpons owning SNY, they have kept their promise to not be hands-on controlling the content (Hello YES!) and having even a semi-independent outfit covering the games beats the hell out of what most teams have which is a station subservient to a corporate master -- in the case of the Cards' outlet it's under the FOX umbrella as are many teams, several others use a Comcast station. But if I tune in -- and PAY to tune in -- to watch a baseball game and instead wind up being ambushed by what is essentially a 20-minute commercial for their larger corporate interests (SEC Football - Coming Soon!!) I'd be throwing shit at the set. Short sideline interviews are one thing (I don't usually like them but I can handle the occasional one) but keep them short and don't act as if the ballgame no longer exists because you got 'an exclusive' (yeah, you and 40 other outlets) with the next hyped, exploited, and ultimately disposable flavor of the month teenager.

Edgy MD wrote: Weird game. I'm on some strange meds tonight and the game pace is warping in my head. The pace of this game as glacial almost from the very start - even the between innings gap seemed longer. So it's not surprising that it winds up as a 3-2, 8-1/2 inning game which broke the 3 hour mark. That stupid-ass replay review which a) shouldn't have been done and should have been confirmed in like 17 seconds, didn't help. I blame Tony LaRussa.

Syndergaard has his run. Not looking like he's going to get another.

This week from BA's 'Hot List' 14. Amed Rosario, ss, Mets Team: high Class A St. Lucie (Florida State) Age: 19 Why He�s Here: .400/.429/.550 (8-for-20), 3 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 2 RBIs, 1 BB, 1 SO, 2-for-2 SB The Scoop: Rosario is nearly three months younger than the Florida State League�s other standout 19-year-old shortstop, Willy Adames of the Rays, and until recently his youth and lack of full-season experience had shown. Yet Rosaio returned from a brief disabled-list stint to hit with authority in July, showing his usual bat-to-ball ability and line-drive stroke. Scouts expect his power to play eventually, though he hasn�t homered yet in 2015.

LF - Randal Grichuk (R) Former first-round pick of the Angels who came to the Cardinals in the David Freese trade (along with Bourjos). Having a nice breakout season (.853 OPS) at age 23. 29 of his 53 hits for extra bases. Leads the NL wth 6 triples. Grichuk wound up on the Angels via the pick they got from us for the Frankie Rodriguez signing (24th overall in 2009). They actually had back to back 1st round picks that year for losing both K-Rod and Teixeira. With the Teixeira pick (25th) they chose some guy named Trout. You wonder if, or to what degree, the Angels wanted Freese because of his "clutchness" coming off his stunning NLCS/WS performances in 2011. Not that he's been a bad player otherwise but he's been pretty much average since the deal and never really matched his regular season stuff with StL: 783 OPS w/StL have fallen to 706 as a LAA

We split four games with these guys earlier in the year even though were pretty much out-played by them the whole time [lost 9-0 and 10-2, won 5-0 and 2-1] Need to be more better and less lucky against them this time around.

Part of Harper's problem had been his injuries - which may or may not be a predictable problem. This is, so far anyway, his first truly full season and, at a year and a half younger than Trout, he'd be a good guy to bet on. Bryce is, quite possibly anyway, on his way to a Triple Crown this year (last done in the NL in 1937) so let's see what happens.

Edgy MD wrote: I haven't detected any gooeyness. I'm worried that Met fans are getting a bit gooey on Zobrist. Real nice player who would be handy to have around but should hardly been considered a savior particularly now that he's 34 y/o, has missed some time this year due to injury (sound familiar?), and is currently hitting 75-200 OPS points off his peak seasons (2008, '09, '11). And with trading competition for him likely, his two months of ABs -- which will come at the expense of someone because he's NOT an everyday SS -- aren't going to come cheap.

My memory of Looper was that he was much better in 2004 than in '05 and this method certainly backs that up: [ERA jumped from 2.70 to 3.92, WHIPs from 1.22 to 1.47, Bl Svs: 5 >> 8, etc.] It was on Opening Day 2005 where he blew Pedro's 8 inning gem by serving up back-to-back HRs to Adam Dunn and Joe Randa (thus inspiring 'original jb's' infamous "Looper" comment which became a forum staple for a time) and it was because of that game that he seemed to acquire the forever rep among Mets fans as a 'failed' closer as if the entire previous, and pretty good, season had never happened. He did somewhat bounce back from that start and pitch OK but, as mentioned, he had a rough September (3 of his 8 blown saves ... who did he think he was, Benitez?!?!?!) and, yeah, I remember whispers of injuries and lower radar gun figures. I thought I remembered him missing a bunch of time after that but he hooked on with StL the very next year (the same team that had originally made him the #3 overall draft pick in 1996) and pitched steadily for the next four seasons although his closing days were finished. After one season of middle relief the Cards (re?) converted him to a starter where he started 30+ games each year (2 w/StL, 1 w/Brewers) with mixed results before calling it a (12 year) career at the age of 35.

... I got all my closers with me. A couple remarks were thrown around last week about feeling more secure with Jeurys in to close games than at any time in recent memory. So I wondered how that FEELING would stand up to some sort of statistical backing, y'know, like one I could make up on the fly. What I included: NYM closers for the last 20 seasons, 'closer' being defined by the guy who led the team in saves that year. The one exception was 1999 when Franco (1st half) and Benitez split the closing duties almost in perfect halves, so in that case I counted both of them giving us 21 rather than 20 'seasons' of data. In the case of 2015 I'm taking the liberty of extending Familia's stats out so as to project to a full season. What I looked at: Games pitched, games finished, IP, Saves, Save pct, ERA, WHIP, OPS-Against, K/BB ratio What I did with it all: Simply ranked each of the above category and assigned points from best (1) to worst (21) in each. Then sum all the totals, lowest score wins. Is it perfect?: Fuck no. - I should take Mejia's starting data out of 2014 but that sounded like too much work. - There's no leverage involved bad stats are simply bad stats and good are good no matter when/how they came. IOW, no consideration was given to Armando being perfect except for September games vs the Braves when he'd fall apart completely (I mean everyone knows that, right?) - The two 1999 closers are put at a disadvantage in stuff like G, GF, IP because neither was in that job the whole year - but of course part of being a good closer is to be there the whole time - These stats, just like any stats, can't tell the whole story. What I found: We are in fact in the best statistical year for a NYM closer and it's not even close. Familia ranks (or, more accurately, is projected to rank) 3rd highest in games pitched, 3rd in games finished, 3rd in innings pitched, 1st in saves, 2nd in save pct, 1st in ERA, 2nd in WHIP, 2nd in OPS-A, and 6th in K/BB ratio [3+3+3+1+2+1+2+2+6=23] You can see the rest below with kind of a log jam there from 4th -7th place placed in no particular order. CLOSERYEARPointsFAMILIA2015 - Proj23BENITEZ200048WAGNER200652LOOPER200474WAGNER200774BENITEZ200274BENITEZ1999 (2nd half)74BENITEZ200178FRANCO199792PARNELL201395RODRIGUEZ201099WAGNER2008101RODRIGUEZ2009103MEJIA2014106FRANCO1996121FRANCO1998123RODRIGUEZ2011141LOOPER2005144FRANCO1999 (1st half)145BENITEZ2003152FRANCISCO2012160 Top Seasons: Games: Benitez 1999 (77) Games finished: Benitez 2000 (68) Innings: Mejia 2014 (but that's his couple of starts screwing up the data). Without him it's Looper 2004 Saves: Projected for Familia at 49. Now it's Benitez 2001 Save Pct: Benitez 2001 (93%) ERA: Familia 2015 WHIP: Wagner 2008 (0.89) OPS-A: Benitez 1999 (496) K/BB Ratio: Wagner 2008 (5.2/1)

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I just found out, from a partially accurate facebook post, that Mike's father Jeff was a Blue Hen. I knew the name Jeff Trout as he had a ton of school records in bb and played in the minors for several years. Yeah, the story at the time was that the Angels scout in charge of the NE region had played with Trout Sr. in the minors and made the connection between the name and New Jersey (son went to the same HS as father). That in turn led to him paying more attention to young Mike than any other team and therefore less reluctant to go that high on a kid from the non-baseball hotbed of NJ who wound up being passed over 24 times before the Angels drafted him with the compensation pick for losing Mark Teixeira to the Yanx. Pops' final year in the minors was a full season of .321/.406/.451 at AA Orlando - so I'm thinking that maybe an injury ended things. Or maybe he just figured that, being 25 y/o already and in his 3rd season in the AA level, that it was simply a good time to get out.

I (briefly) heard this being debated twice in the last few days on radio. Both times the guys took Harper based on his "edge" even while acknowledging that Trout might be the better all-around player.

I saw a publicity photo of the starters Greinke and Keuchel taken yesterday w/o uniforms. It looked like a mis-matched pair of guys just a year or so out of high-school where the surfer/jock was temporarily forced to hang out with the headbanger who spent all his time in metal shop.