Frayed Knot

I think you can say that Harrison here tried a bit harder to get out of the rundown than did Chris Young earlier. I mean he was four feet out of the baseline, but if you're Tejada you can't assume you're going to get that call.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Night after night, this team leaves itself absolutely no margin for error. And that's how you wind up seven games below .500 with a positive (+1) RS/RA ratio

Our thrown out on the base paths count for today is two (so far anyway).

Free Baseball!!

I don't know exactly how this one is going to end but, however it does, I don't think I'm going to like it.

How many times is this shift against Pedro Alvarez going to backfire before we stop using it?

There may well be stats that show him better higher up in the lineup than lower. But that still doesn't mean there's a cause and effect thing going on, particularly since he's just now getting to the point where he's got a full season's worth of ML stats under his belt. I wouldn't base much of a conclusion on that kind of sample size.

I'm sure he got a no-trade clause when he signed his big deal well before so the 10-and-5 rights kicked in.

MFS62 wrote: Climbing up on my soap box. Isn't there ANY communication in this organization? Doesn't the major league team read the reports submitted my their minor league managers? Don't they read the stats? Over the years, I've followed the box scores of my kid, Lagares, and he has hit about 50 points HIGHER when batting in the top half of the order. Climbing down, now. But do you really think that there's a cause and effect thing with lineup position?

And all this because deGrom failed to cover 1st base.

Duda's 2-RBI single past Ike opens the scoring in the 4th and clearly proves that the Mets got the better of the 1B-man swap.

Pirates pull off a 'change of scenery' deal prior to tonight's game with the Angels, swapping one-time closers who had recently lost those positions - sending Jason Grilli to Anaheim in exchange for Ernesto Fieri. Grilli had recently been told the Buccos were handing the closing job to Mark Melancon and Fieri had lost, at least partially, the Angel's closing job to one-time NYM side-armin' Joe Smith

Wright told reporters he originally injured his shoulder a few weeks ago sliding headfirst, and then hurt it again twice during Thursday�s game. Revised lineup: 1. Curtis Granderson � RF 2. Ruben Tejada � SS 3. Daniel Murphy � 2B 4. Lucas Duda � 1B 5. Chris Young � LF 6. Eric Campbell � 3B 7. Juan Lagares � CF 8. Travis d�Arnaud � C 9. Jacob deGrom - RHP

I don't get too hung up with that kind of stuff and frankly never quite understood the obsession some fans have with playing team accountant. We have no idea what the budget is going to be going forward, or even if there is some hard and fast number, so this nine months in advance type of speculation is pretty much pointless in my mind - but feel free to engage if you want The biggest off-season question -- starting right about now really -- is what to do with Murphy. Is he more valuable as a keeper or as trade-bait? Is he worthy of a long-term contract or do they continue to take things year-by-year? My guess is that mgmt would prefer to either go one way or the other with him (meaning L-T contract or move on) rather than go on with single-year contracts. I suspect at least two of your group won't be here, Parnell & EYJ most probably. Gee, on account of his record for the last two years (albeit partial ones) would get a sizable bump - Duda & Tejada probably less so but just about all guys in their situations get some kind of jump just from upping their service time and having established themselves as everyday players. But in all I don't know that the high/low parameters on any of these guys are going to make or break other moves or how you'd know that even if you could accurately forecast their 2015 salaries.

Torres - 0.5 Black - 0.1 Edgin - 0.3 Duda - 1.6 Wright - 0.8 Murphy - 0.8 Abreu - 0.4

Hey why not just hand these guys a bunch of runs without going through all the trouble of making them actually earn any of it.

With the pitcher coming up and two outs the decision to send Abreu makes more sense. Yeah it was a slow runner and a shallow hit, but with even a slightly an off-line throw you steal a run there.

Edgy MD wrote: See how much sweeter the curvature is on this lineup if you bat Tejada seventh? I can't believe Terry didn't take that into consideration.

Or we could use the best hitter we have with experience at the SS position ... Jacob deGrom!

Curtis Granderson, rf Daniel Murphy, 2b David Wright, 3b Lucas Duda, 1b Bobby Abreu, lf Juan Lagares, cf Travis d'Arnaud, c Ruben Tejada, ss Daisuke Matsuzaka, rhp Hey Chris Young, thanks for the 3 HRs over the last two nights ... now go grab some pine!

Oh I'm not saying I think Atlanta or Milwaukee would dump their guys in favor of Tejada - it's just that I was surprised to find both Simmons & Segura w/OBAs so low that even their power edge wasn't enough to make up the gap. But what it does mean for right now (and, again, this is only a right now kind of move and not an endorsement of Ruben as SS for the remainder of the decade) is that over 1/3 of the league is employing SSs who make outs at a greater rate than our guy, and that the one thing we don't need right now is making outs at a greater rate.

bmfc1 wrote: Also, doesn't sending Flores down impede the progress of Matt Reynolds who was just promoted to LV? Doesn't mean Flores has to play SS while down there. Look, I don't think either Tejada or Flores are long-term solutions to the SS position (ideally one's a backup and the other is an emergency SS at best who plays elsewhere the majority of the time), but for the present situation I can understand this move.

Edgy MD wrote: Teams with Most Frequently Appearing Shortstops Getting Out-OPS'd by Ruben Tejada San Diego, Cincinnati, Pittsbugh, Seattle, Milwaukee, Miami, Oakland, Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Tampa Bay... ...Yankees. I'm shocked that this list finds Milwaukee with Segura and Atlanta/Simmons on it even though I figured going in that there'd be a number of clubs getting worse production than the Mets are getting out of Tejada as there just aren't a lot of hitting SSs in MLB right now.

Yeah, he'd get picked up pretty fast (not always to start) and likely wouldn't have to change cities if he didn't want to as the Yanx would scoop him up in a New York second. In the meantime, this doesn't mean that the Mets have dubbed Ruben as their long-term solution to SS, only that he's hot right now (his version of hot anyway - OBA over .350 since the end of April as compared to Flores's .250) and that if you're going to have an ersatz SS backing up your main guy then you might as well have the ersatz one who's hitting right now (Campbell) while letting the younger one who's not get regular ABs in Vegas.

MFS62 wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Ediolgis Villasmil and Shane Bay finished up the combined 2-hitter. How did my kid look? A prospect or a suspect? Like an eye-chart.