Frayed Knot

Edgy MD wrote: God, it's nice to see a ballpark with the field level filled. Amazing what happens when you don't price the prime tickets at four-figure levels.

Day 1, 05/01/2014. Starting outfield: Granderson, Lagares, Chris Young. Sitting: Eric Young (1). Day 2, 05/02/2014. Starting outfield: Granderson, Lagares, Chris Young. Sitting: Eric Young (2)

If this is ____day it must be ______ ________ hitting clean-up. No CarGo for the Rox Juan Lagares, cf Daniel Murphy, 2b David Wright, 3b Chris Young, lf Curtis Granderson, rf Josh Satin, 1b Travis d'Arnaud, c Ruben Tejada, ss Zack Wheeler, rhp Charlie Blackmon, cf Nolan Arenado, 3b Troy Tulowitzki, ss Justin Morneau, 1b Wilin Rosario, c Chris Dickerson, lf Brandon Barnes, rf D.J. LeMahieu, 2b Jorge De La Rosa, lhp

Probably too long to tweet. Besides, we all know Gary drops by here so it's only a matter of time until he reads it on his own.

Atlanta yesterday added Chris Johnson to the multi-year contract club with a new three-year deal. This joins several other long-term signings they made during this past winter (discussed earlier in this thread) and leaves only Evan Gattis among their starting eight NOT signed past this year and he's just a 2nd year player and is therefore under team control for a while anyway. Gattis - under team control thru 2017 Freeman - signed thru 2021 Uggla - thru 2015 (on a tail end of a five-year deal) Simmons - thru 2020 Johnson - thru 2017 (w/option for '18) B Upton - thru 2017 J Upton - thru 2015 Heyward - thru 2015 IOW, get used to this lineup because, for better or worse, it looks as if they're prepared to live or die with that crew and that we're going to be seeing those faces for the foreseeable future. It's a different story on the pitching side where I believe only Teheran (2019 w/option for '20) & Kimbrel (2017 w/'18 option) are signed beyond this year, although several others are still under team control anyway although several of them are injured as well.

No said this was going to be easy. Including the games of May 1st here, the entire NL East is now at or above .500 and the overall division record (+14) is tops in MLB AL East = collectively 3 games below .500 AL Cent = -3 AL West = -1 NL East = +14 NL Cent = -6 NL West = -1 Translation: NL East are beating up on each other and then turning around and beating up everyone else. And, yes, if you do the math you can see that the NL has an early lead in inter-league play (24-17). The AL has had the better of the play each season since 2004

WALK-OFFS: 1. New York 2B Daniel Murphy was hitless in four at-bats on Thursday as his 10-game hitting streak came to an end. ... 3. Mets 3B David Wright is 3-for-10 with five walks against De La Rosa. Be nice if Murphy and/or Wright come ready to swing tonight. Other than David's 1st inning line-out there were some bad ABs by both on Thursday, often either leading off innings or w/MoB and on a night where the guys surrounding them (Lagares, Duda & CYoung) rang up five hits. Murph taking a tepid swing--seemingly content to simply slap the ball the other way in a situation where the count was in his favor and a runner needed at least moving over if not driving in--was particularly frustrating.

Germen - 0.6 Valverde - 0.2 Lagares - 2.0 d'Arnaud - 2.0 CYoung - 1.0 Familia - 0.2

I know it's Colorado and they're often towards the top in a lot of offensive categories, but ... - they're on top in RS/G ... by nearly a full run!! - they're tops in BA ... by 27 points!! - in OBA by a dozen points - in SLG by 65 points! - in Hits, in 2Bs, in HRs Q: Who's hitting over .300 on this team? A: Fuckin' EVERYBODY (well, just about) We better have our pitching shoes on.

Yeah, I saw the EYJ = WAR leader thing the other day ... but he's still the guy I'd sit down in favor of Lagares Speaking of Lagares, what's the corresponding move? --- I think it's probably Nieuwenhuis getting outed (so to speak) which would suck for him being from the Denver area and all.

The pitching in general and the starting in particular has been saving us while, for the most part, the Noffense continues. 3, 0, 3, 2, 1, 3, 7, 0, 1 runs allowed over the last nine games (2 w/extra innings). That's a 2.09 ERA even weighed down by the seven run game that was mostly the result of Mejia's blow up inning. Even the pen, missing a closer and after a train wreck of a first week or so, has been good lately.

SteveJRogers wrote: First up, Toppless Mets for the 1973 NL Champions I refuse to participate in this quiz because I think the idea of putting out pictures of topless Mets is cheap exploitation and I won't be a part of it. Plus I bet it was all fucking Jeff's idea. Now if they wanted to put out cards of topless Met wives that'd be a different story. Hey, in the fight against exploitation, you can't do it all so sometimes you have to pick your battles.

This year's 15-11 April is the best one since 2010 (not that that start prevented a July/August collapse) or, prior to that, the ones from the good years of 2006 & '07 2013 = 10-15 2012 = 13-10 2011 = 11-16 2010 = 14-9 2009 = 9-12 2008 = 14-12 2007 = 15-9 2006 = 16-8

Somebody finally got to Aaron Harang as the Marlins torched him for 9 runs last night (so we gained a half-game on 1st place whilst doing nothing but getting wet) Harang's outings to date this season: Runs allowed -- 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 9 Hits allowed -- 2, 2, 5, 0, 6, 10 All outings were between 6 and 7 innings, until last night when he was yanked with 2 outs in the 5th

I assume that ARod could work out w/the Yanx at their Tampa facility, BUT 1) they probably don't want him there. They said as much back when he made noises about coming to spring training and I doubt they'd be any more anxious to see him now 2) what good would it do? It's not a 17-year veteran is going to get much out of playing simulated games with teenagers or verse-vica. Extended ST is geared toward either young players not ready for league play or injured vets on rehab. I could definitely hear a Yanqui exec saying: 'You wanna stay in shape rich boy? Then go hire a trainer and stay the fuck out of our hair and away from our kids'

Matt Eddy of BA on Nimmo -- Be very encouraged that Nimmo�s [2013] hand injury has healed and he can get on top of the ball again. Be wary of his .479 batting average on balls in play. His secondary skills are good for his age, but his power is not otherworldly, so his rate of productivity could look a lot different once the singles stop falling. (For whatever reason, he�s also hitting .458 at home. Is this a fluke, or does he see the ball very well in St. Lucie?) The Mets have to be thrilled with the early performance. It could be a real confidence-builder going forward. He actually went 0-4 yesterday although w/a walk.

Rained out in Philly, rained out in Baltimore (2nd straight night), rained out in the Bronx. BARBRA STREISAND LYRICS - Stoney End - A-Z Lyrics Never mind the Barbra Streisand. For all of Babs' vocal abilities, this sort of pop/rock tune isn't exactly in her wheelhouse. If interested, check out instead either the Laura Nyro original or the Sara Bareilles cover from a recent R&R HoF show. Nyro may not have had the largest portfolio under her belt (a product of quitting the music biz rather young) but, damn, she was good.

Edgy MD wrote: The Stone Poneys themselves. Right era, wrong dark-haired chanteuse.

I don't think this year's Yanx have the same severe good/bad split that the late '90s teams consistently had which led to the occasional blowout on those days when a poor start by a starter or a heavy recent pen workload gave Torre the urge to rest his high-priced arms. The MFY teams of that era out-performed their pythagorean projections consistently for years and I thought the pen set-up had a lot to do with it. But this current MFY pen seems neither as good or as bad at the extremes and so I expect that this year's rather extreme "over-achievement" [.577 winning pct while allowing 10% more RA than RS (110/121)] is more likely the result of a small sample size skewed by the two large blowouts. At least I'm hoping it is because I'd hate like hell to see them keep it up after doing this all of last year too.

I'm betting that a lot of this is a (over) reaction to that Facebook stuff. They probably don't believe that Met fans are out-numbered--at least not in as large a ratio and in certain areas--as that survey shows, but that fewer of them are willing to publicly announce their fandom. So they trot out some hastily thrown together letter complete with the stamp of approval from past heroes spanning several eras in an attempt to buck up the troops and get some of them out from hiding. And, as usual, NYM mgmt retains a unique talent for looking worse pr-wise after their pr move then they did beforehand.

Well played sir.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Wonder if he bought that shitty watch with a starter check from his new account? And because it went along so well with the free toaster.

Never mind the forecast 'cause the sky has lost control

Mainly the division is simply beating up on each other. Yanx are 5-2 vs Boston but not dominating any other East team. Hard to project too much on RS/RA this early. The Yanx +/- despite its winning record is largely skewed by losses of 16-1 and 13-1

Niese - 4.4 Matsuzaka - 0.2 Valverde - 0.2 Murphy - 2.0 Tejada - 1.3 CYoung - 1.2 Satin - 0.7