Frayed Knot

Thome also had 93 total HRs, a 38 HR season, a .400+ career OBA, a Silver Slugger award and a middle-of-the-pack MVP finish by the time he was Duda's age. And then he got good.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: 5) Duda cheaper for longer Only one year's worth. That's the difference in service time which, in some ways moreso than performance, is the biggest factor in salary. Arb & FA will each come one year later for Duda. I'd deal Duda first also in this scenario. As a side note: Looking over Duda's stats (now that his 2012 ABs are conveniently just about equal to what he got in all of 2011) I was partially surprised to see that his HR-rate is actually up a bit l this season compared to last - I would have guessed he was down some. But the problem is that his BA is down about 50 points and that he's hitting doubles at about half the pace.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: WTF? How many New Yorkers dream of going to North Dakota to see minor league baseball? When you figure that you can do the baseball thing in Fargo and then combine it with a side trip to the Raccoon Lodge Cemetery in Bismark, well then, it becomes too good an opportunity to pass up.

Good thing we built up a big lead early yesterday. After 5 full innings the score was 9-1 - The Mets sent just 13 more men to the plate for the remainder of the game, and not only did just one of them reach base (Turner's 7th inning double) but only 2 others even got the ball out of the infield (FOs by Nieuwenhuis & Bay). And if you want to back that up to the final two hitters in the 5th -- Dickey's GO & Tejada's K which followed the one-out 1B & 2B by Turner & Thole -- then 12 of the final 15 failed to clear the IF - The Nats, on the other hand, sent 24 more hitters to the plate starting in their half of the 6th and 12 of them reached base. Now they weren't exactly smacking the ball all over the park seeing as how that parade included 3 infield hits plus the Wright error and a HBP, but still.

Nymr83 wrote: i also dont get that "he hit the lotto" feeling at all about baseball players. Eckstein made it through multiple levels of minor leagues where players are paid to weed bad players out. there is no minor-league screening process in NBA/NFL and guys definitely make those teams who arent ready to play but they are there based on POTENTIAL alone because the team has no minors to stash them away (and weed the bad ones out.) There have been #1 overall picks that never played in the majors!! but even jamarcus russell had his chance for the Raiders. That was part of the fun/frustration of that whole thread. One of the guys who kept insisting he could out-hit Rey finally conceded that while he probably couldn't do so at that moment it would be a different story once he had his Single A, Double A, and Triple A training. IIRC, my response to him was that was like saying that I could run back kickoffs in the NFL once they agreed to spot me that pesky first 98-1/2 yards. Then of course there's the whole question about who the fuck is going to invite you to play Rookie ball in the first place?

He also pulled LaRoche. Think of how all that would have looked had Harper's AB w/bases loaded in the 8th continued the inning. He wouldn't even have had to hit a GS (even though I know that's what we were all thinking) but if his bloop that Nieuwy caught on the run dropped in instead Davey would have been within 2 or 3 runs, with runners on, and with the 3 & 4 slots coming up, but his actual 3 & 4 hitters already in the shower. And to think that just a couple of days ago some were calling a stolen base attempt in the 2nd inning of a scoreless game "over-managing".

Ashie62 wrote: 1. Sell whatever you can in the next two weeks...Muffy....Hairston.... 2. F/A Market Then you might have something like this lineup below...You could find a 2B that can play second and a bona-fide OF Slugging threat in the F/A market....Justin Upton is supposedly available by trade. 1B Davis 2B ? 3B Wright SS Tejada LF Bay or SLUGGER CF Den Dekker RF Duda C Thole Flores is a ways off as a corner.. But the whole point about this thread was to question how good are the likes of Davis, Tejada, Den Dekker, Duda, and Thole (either now or in the future) so this lineup is at least as iffy as the one we're wondering about now - and that's before we even get to "?" at 2B and "Slugger" in LF. Dealing Muffy and Hairston isn't going to net much. Yes, I think we're going to have to go outside the org for offense. Ideally SOME of the young parts we have now will blossom into above average ML players; the key is to figure out which ones and sell on the others, hopefully to someone who believes more in the guy we're selling than we do. I remember the mid-90s Yanx opting to keep Bernie Williams over Gerald Williams. It wasn't a popular decision at the time or even necessarily the obvious one, but it was clearly the right one in the long run and even though they didn't really get much for GW (although Graeme Lloyd helped them win the '96 WS) such decisions are often what make or break a team.

I've always thought that part of the reason baseball fans always seemed to get more pissed off at high salaries and/or work actions of their players than those of other sports is that baseball fans tended to view the gap between themselves and the guys they were watching on TV as much smaller than did the fans of pro football or basketball. It's most likely the size thing. It's easy to say that just because you're not 6'10" or not 319 lbs that there's no way you could be in the NBA or NFL, but seeing a David Eckstein have a decent career or some other normal sized player and the mental leap to thinking that the only reason you're on your couch watching him rather than the other way around is because he was the winner of some sort of lottery that you forgot to enter. It's totally untrue, of course --Orel Hershiser, hardly known as a braggart, once said that the average fan would be hard pressed to catch a pitch from a ML pitcher much less hit one-- but it's definitely a trend I've noticed over the years. There was once a thread started on a previous forum to this one about who thought they could hit ML pitching better than Rey Ordonez. Not sure if the questioner was serious or not but the first several answers were definitely so and they were all variations on the theme of: "Oh I easily could" - and Rey, for all his faults, had gotten two knocks off of Kerry Wood the night before.

... and I went on to channel Fletch in my distaste for Tommy Lasorda. My MFY friends (back when I still had some) used to tell me about their dislike for Tommy Lasorda. "What" I'd say, "that harmless little ball of goo? ,,, he's just a bit dopey, but certainly not someone worth hating!" By the time 1988 rolled around I knew what they were talking about.

bmfc1 wrote: FK--thanks for the note on all the close losses. Maybe this is what happens when one manager is playing three dimensional chess and the other is playing checkers. Yup! Every single one of those one-run losses was Terry's fault.

Niese - 3.7 RRamirez - 0.3 Valdespin - 2.8 Thole - 1.0 Murphy - 1.0 Wright - 1.0

These are the type of games the Nationals have been playing, and mostly winning, all year. Every time I turn on one of their games in the mid innings it seems like it's still scoreless, or maybe 1 or 2-zip. That's what happens when you get nearly 70% quality starts Of the last 13 NYM losses to the Nats this season and last -- seven have been by 1 run (including twice in extras) and two more by 2 runs The remainder were by 3 (once), 4 (twice) and one 9-run blowout

Until the 9th inning anyway, this game was the story of the big hits we didn't get and big ones they did: LaRoche's two-out HR and then Lombardozzi's two-out double. We play a lot of games just well enough to lose to these guys.

How close is that play at home if they let the throw go? Hard to tell from what I saw but if that's going to be even semi-close you want Torres to go there.

Davey being pretty cautious taking out Zimmermannnn after just 6 innings. I'd like to think that bodes good things for us.

Swan Swan H wrote: Don't need forever. Three or four more innings would be fine. Will that be enough for us to score though?

Edgy DC wrote: Young's only at 58 pitches? Yeah, but he's letting too many lead-off and/or one-out batters reach. Can't keep that up forever and preserve the bagel on the scoreboard.

The next person in this thread bitching about using Beato last night who actually suggests an alternative will be the first. And I mean someone who was usable in last night's game, not just a non-specific cry of "somebody out there" or Ashie screaming "Street" at random intervals.

I'm not buying this Terry blew the game stuff. The alternative to bringing in Beato there was to let Byrdak [who started his outing going Single - Bunt - Triple] stay in against the RH hitting Moore who had already taken one LHP deep -- OR bring in one of Bautista or Rauch which I'm sure would have been met by lots of approval and not at all subject to a second guess -- OR bring in one from Beato/Rauch/Bautista even earlier to face their two best RH hitters (ZImmerman & Desmond) and not do the double IW thing. Or is there some trustworthy guy in the pen I'm missing here who was left out there just waiting to help? Does Terry get any credit for PH-ing Murph for his catcher when he did which forced a double-switch of Thole each of whom would up getting two hits? Does he get any for PH-ing Valdespin for Bay even as many here pre-decided that was something he'd never have the guts to do? Does the manager share in any of the reflected glory when the team comes back twice in the late innings or only the blame when the remaining players available give it back?

RRamirez - 0.8 Bautista - 0.4 Murphy - 1.3 Torres - 1.5 Hairston - 1.3 Tejada - 1.3

Edgin - 0.5 Rauch - 0.3 Tejada - 1.5 Valdespin - 1.0 Davis - 1.7 Murphy - 1.0 Thole - 1.2 Torres - 1.7

Tejada - 1.5 Wright - 1.5 Nieuwenhuis - 1.5 Hairston - 1.5

Y'know one thing I noticed while looking at the pitching comparisons between the two teams: - the Nats have used just 15 different pitchers this whole season and only 6 starters (5 of which have started 84 of their 88 games) Only CM Wang (injured and demoted), Brad Lidge (cut) and something named Ryan Perry (8 innings) have pitched this season but are not presently on the club. Drew Storen when he comes back probably later this week will be another and they'll likely call up John Lannan just to pitch in a DH they've got scheduled for Saturday, but that's still a ridiculously small amount for being past mid-season. Hell, LaRussa could probably be talked into carrying 15 at one time and might use nearly that amount in a single nine inning game (and not even a close one). - the Mets in those same categories?: 23 & 9 (and all nine have started at least twice). Plus the effects of the Gee injury haven't really been felt yet. Yeah the results (or lack thereof) obviously determine the number to a large degree, but I think the number helps out the results too. I mean there's definitely a benefit to having virtually the same cast of characters getting regular work and in somewhat defined roles vs the shuttle in/ shuffle out revolving door.

Ashie62 wrote: Told ya Still waiting for your alternative suggestion.

That wasn't too predictable.