Frayed Knot

Benjamin Grimm wrote: That signing never made any sense to me. There was certainly some logic to it. We've been short of having a legit complement of OFers for years now and have been lucky with a couple of low-budget chances (Hairston - Byrd) just to fill some of the spots we did have. That C. Young had good seasons in the past, isn't injured, wasn't old, can play CF (I still don't think we have a handle on how well Lagares will hit) can run, etc. made him a decent candidate to have a bounce-back year in a field, beyond Granderson, that's full of questions marks [Lagares, Brown, Nieuwenhuis, MdD, EYJ]. It obviously hasn't worked and it cost them a lot more money than the others to find that out, but the move never struck me as odd. A bit wishful maybe, but not odd. If there's any truth to this, it really sucks for Sandy that the plans leaked. Is there anything with this team that doesn't leak?

A look at the NL East standings through Run Differential - with actual records and projected (pythagorean) records based on RS/RA TEAMRS/RAACTUALPROJWASH+4039 - 3542 - 32 (1st)ATL-1438 - 3736 - 39 (4th)MIA+137 - 3838 - 37 (2nd)PHIL-2634 - 4034 - 40 (5th)NYM-235 - 4138 - 38 (3rd)

Somehow that one Muffy muffy-ed wasn't scored as an error. Niether was the Granderson misjudge but that one's more understandable. But, yeah, both non-plays extended the inning which in turn extended Niese by at least 20 pitches, fluffed up his ERA, and shortened his day by at least one inning.

Zvon wrote: 17 hits. Wow. Or, as we usually call it, an above average week.

Peterson's side of the story was always that 1) he barely saw Kazmir pitch aside from once or twice during ST and therefore had very little opinion of him one way or the other. He was the ML pitching coach remember and SK spent very little time on the big league side of camp. 2) his only pre-trade recommendation about him was that, with few exceptions, HS-drafted pitchers usually need 5-600 innings of minor league pitching under their belts before they're ready to pitch at the big league level. Kazmir, just 20 y/o at the time, had around 200 and only 26 above A ball 3) the 'fix him in ten minutes" comment about Zambrano was about a specific and minor flaw in his motion Peterson never claimed that he thought Kazmir was an arm injury waiting to happen or that those 'biometric' check-ups they took the staff to that one spring in Brmingham, AL threw up any red flags, nor do I remember any legit news hound claiming that Peterson said or thought so. Somehow though, that Peterson personally denounced Kazmir and/or declared his motion to be a disaster in waiting became gospel among certain crowds, and of course the "fix in ten minutes" comment was twisted into a promise to turn Zambrano into an All-Star. And look, none of this is to argue that it was anything other than a monumentally stupid trade. It's just that those who go out of their way to stick the blame on their favorite targets just make the situation worse because then nobody learns anything from it. At least one of the "wise old men" in Fred's kitchen cabinet was a big Zambrano fan although for the life of me I had no idea why; my sole memory of him prior to all this was him walking Yanqui hitters all over two ballparks. But because the team was 2 games over .500 and as little as 1 game out of 1st place in mid-July, the brain trust decided it was a 'Go For It' year and had no time to wait for a maybe prospect (pitchers are always 'maybe' prospects ... until they're not) still at least 300 innings away from contributing according to their pitching guru. Problem was that, between July 10 and the trade weekend at the end of the month, the Mets went 5-14 including 0-5 to Atlanta to fall to a full 9 games out. By then the reasons for doing this type of deal had almost totally reversed themselves but, hey, the wheels were already in motion and, because there was no specific captain to even give the orders to start turning the ocean liner around, the deal got done by its own momentum. (The Bay of Pigs failed with similar logic. By the time the go-ahead was given at least half of those involved knew it was both a stupid idea and probably doomed to failure ... 'but we've put too much planning into it to stop now') The trade was ten years ago next month.

You know, if Peterson really DID see something that could make Zambrano better and/or he wasn't hurt, and it results in the Mets actually winning in 2006, we might even be able to forgive. Plus they were probably right about Kazmir's delivery and chances it would lead to injury, just not how long he'd be able to succeed before it happened. That brings up the other Kazmir conspiracy: that it was Peterson who ordered the whole thing. Again, the blind leap of logic where underlings call all the shots being totally embraced in both cases. Joe Benigno was big on the Peterson as dark angel angle. For maybe four years after that trade he'd ask each baseball insider guest on his show whether Peterson was the real force behind the deal and each one of them would totally dismiss the idea of a pitching coach ordering trades. And then at the end of each interview Joe B would tack on; 'Well I don't care what [he] said, we all know it was Peterson'

Edgy MD wrote: It's been a while. I wouldn't be shocked if Leiter himself heard the story second-hand and nonethless has come to accept it as fact, and believe he was there. Again, it's just too perfect, and, well, ballplayers can be like that. 'Specially ones who talk for a living. This was a bunch of years ago--IOW, much closer to the incident itself--and he certainly didn't sound like he was bullshitting, intentionally or otherwise. It was more like; 'Yeah that happened', before going on to say how ridiculous it would be for a couple of veteran ballplayers to go running to upper management demanding the kid's banishment over a five second incident involving a clubhouse radio, and how even more absurd it would be for mgmt to both listen and follow through on it as if acting on orders. But for those already pre-disposed to think that way I'm sure it makes perfect sense - but then again the CIA hiring a barely literate loner and supplying him with an $18 mail order gun in order to kill the leader of the free world makes perfect sense to a lot of people.

The story was accurate, I've heard Leiter talk about it. That it was blown up into the sole reason for the trade was, of course, the bullshit part of it all - but the 'wound lickers', at least half of whom were predisposed to blame bad weather on Leiter & Franco, gobbled it up with a spoon and had no problem treating it as stone-cold fact.

All three runners scored for the Brewers today after a bases-loaded wild pitch.

Would be nice if we were sitting on a three games to none lead heading into tomorrow's finale after giving up a total of just three runs so far in the series ... but whatyagonnado?

Kazmir had the bad timing to: - be coming up through the Mets system at the time when the Wilpons decided that their GM, Jim Duquette, wasn't ready to operate without training wheels so they hired a group of 'wise older men' to oversee things only to see them decide that the future was NOW!!!! and the team had no time to wait for even well-regarded prospects. and - get dealt to Tampa Bay before they had people in place smart enough to know that rushing him up to the big leagues wasn't in anyone's best interest. Kaz's clone coming up today under the same circumstances wouldn't be traded away by the current Mets mgmt and, even if he were, he would be treated better by the Rays current brain trust.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Good lineup A good lineup that actually went Single - Walk - RBI Single after two were out and none on. Not sure we've done that yet this year ... get a two-out hit I mean.

Granderson - RF Murphy - 2B Wright - 3B Duda - 1B CYoung - CF Flores - SS Teagarden - C deGrom - P EYoung - LF

"Wright was clearly going to be out, but that's completely irrelevant." --- I don't think it's irrelevant at all. "Under the old rule Wright should've lowered his shoulder and tried to clobber the catcher," --- And as far as I know (although I'm getting more confused by the day) he still can. The new rules merely state that a runner can't go out of his way to bowl over a catcher who's giving him another option, aka: access to the base. "So when Salty CLEARLY stepped in the lane between the plate and Wright in a very distinct blocking motion, with the ball still in the air by third base, he should've been ruled in violation of the new rule. That's EXACTLY what the rule is for." --- I'm not sure how we define "a distinct blocking motion" here. Salty's foot was in front of the base which would have given Wright the right to slide/barrel through it/him and, if said foot/other body part were still there prior to him having the ball, the ump should be calling Wright safe even if the tag is applied in time. But the foot (or entire leg, or lying down across the path, or whatever) is no longer illegal once he has the ball and, in this case, the ball got to home about 5 minutes prior to the runner. "Not that they enforce it accurately there either, but wouldn't he have been called for obstruction of he blocked second base like that? or first?" --- Again, as with any other base, if the fielder has the ball he also has the right to be in front of the bag. The only real difference with home is that the tradition of barreling over the catcher grew because there's no penalty for over-running.

The average MLB game on Friday night lasted 3:25 - with only 3 games clocking in at (barely) under 3 hours: 2:59, 2:52, and 2:48 Only one of the fifteen games went extra innings.

The rule, as I interpret its intent, is simply that the catcher can block the plate only if he has the ball and that the runner can hit the catcher only if he he's given no path to the plate. It doesn't mean blocking the plate isn't allowed, and it doesn't mean steamrolling the catcher isn't allowed, only that there are specifics as to when each party can legally do what. Where the confusion seems to be--and apparently what had Sandy, who was on the rules committee that devised all this, raving mad last night*--is that some read the rule as if the catcher can never be in the baseline at any time prior to receiving the ball. If that's truly what they meant, and Sandy himself seems confused as he carefully said after the game that the rule isn't necessarily what the rules committee decided but rather a later compromise involving the union, then Wright was essentially safe the moment Salty planted a foot in the path no matter if David was 5 feet or 50 feet away from home when the throw came in. I certainly don't see it that way - although at this point NO ONE seems to know what's going on: not announcers, not umps, not managers, not players, not the guys who had a hand in making the rule (see my comments about the Pirate game from the other night earlier in this thread). To me it's only illegally blocking the plate if he actually blocks Wright from reaching the plate. But by the time David got there Saltalamacchia had already caught the ball, smoked a cigarette, and made a few phone calls, before calmly putting down the tag. What's the difference if you don't "have a lane" when you're 30 feet out? And if you don't have a lane then either slide or crash into him and you'll automatically be safe. But calling a catcher for obstruction because he set himself in a position where he'd be obstructing if a runner were actually there seems beyond silly and Terry came off last night like someone looking for a loophole in order to negate a bad decision. * although it's unclear how mad he was at the rule and how mad at just another frustrating loss

Plawecki is a “future All-Star” and “the best catcher in the organization" - or so says an American League scout quoted in a John Marzano NY Post article, “He can hit, catch, throw ... his mechanical flaws are easily correctable" the scout said. "From level to level, he needs to get [locked] in with his arm action and the arm path, and once he gets that locked down, he’s going to have a better-than-average arm.”

Wright should NEVER have been sent. Even if there were two outs that would have been a shaky call. With less than two it was just dumb. Nieuwenhuis had to go -- that throw was from at least 30 feet further away than the one that nailed Wright -- and he would have been safe had he made a straight-in slide. And of course the biggest culprit is 2-10 w/RiSP and one of those 2 hits led to a run while the other just led to another out.

Part of the problem is that these players have gotten so used to that off-center slide that they use it almost automatically. And now the new rules have just pushed them towards it even more. Had Nieuwenhis slid straight in there's no question in my mind that he would have been safe - but he seemed to intentionally avoid doing so. That Terry seems confused about the whole deal isn't helping, but in Terry's defense, a lot of people seem to be confused.

In the meantime, this was just another one of these 8-1/2 inning, low-scoring, 3-1/2 hour game -- and it still was quicker than the Yanqui game (which is still ongoing)

d'Kong76 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: SLIDE TO THE FUCKING BASE!!!!!! Yes, and if it's blocked you'll be vindicated. (rule still sucks) I can't tell anymore if the rule suxx or not because I don't know what it is. I thought I did originally but now I'm not so sure and, what's worse, no one else seems to be sure either.

Plus we make a fuckofalotta outs on the base paths -- caught stealings, GiDPs, tag outs, doubled-off, etc.

One for their last 786 w/RiSP has something to do with it too - and even when we do get hits there it doesn't always score runs!!

SLIDE TO THE FUCKING BASE!!!!!!

Edgy MD wrote: Wright, though... did he slide past the plate because he quit on the play or because he was deferring to his understanding of the noo rools or something? Like I said, there seems to be no common understanding of how this rule is supposed to work. The Pirates lost a force play at home a couple days ago because Russell Martin was standing on the plate and this somehow got interpreted as illegal blocking ... ON A FORCE PLAY! ... WHEN HE HAD THE BALL!!!