Frayed Knot

Fortunately I was no longer watching at that point.

Is anyone here really surprised at the results so far? ... because I'm not. All this fucking team does is hit HRs* and it usually doesn't even matter who's up there or who's pitching. The remaining things to do tonight: - not get no-hit - keep Cano's HRs under five - keep the score under a dozen * more than half their runs this season have come via the HR

Yeah, but there's got to be some diminishing returns at some point - especially when you're going after teams with such small national followings and such minor TV markets as Pittsburgh & KC. "Gee, those four games we already had aren't enough. Let's send a team plus all the production costs out to Pittsburgh to add that Pirates/Royals matchup to the mix and then we'll REALLY have things covered."

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I may be wrong, but it seems like Savannah is a detour. The real prospects go from Brooklyn to St. Lucie. Those that go to Savannah are (mostly) the ones who are less likely to make the big leagues. No, not so much. Savannah is the lowest full-season league so most of the guys except for higher-level college picks will go through that level at some point. Brooklyn is often the first stop for some of the "name" picks because it's a short-season league and therefore tailor made for newly signed picks. And, at least some people believe, that because it's a Wilpon-owned team that they tend to stack it with guys who maybe should be a bit higher up so as to increase the success (and therefore attendance and what not) of the stadium in Coney Island.

That (nmyr's categories) is pretty accurate in a general sense although there are always the exceptions. More advanced college draftees (high round juniors or seniors from top programs) for instance sometimes start at levels higher than Low-A (Savannah level). Dominican (and other Caribbean) players usually start in the DSL teams because they tend to be younger than even HS picks, but that same track exposes them to much more baseball and coaching at a younger age which in turn tends to make them advance quicker and so you might see some ahead of their American same-age counterparts as they move up the chain.

It's not like we weren't warned this was coming folks. From the very first entry in the KTE Assignments thread: FMan: "I would love to take the two Yankee series. I think that's the best vehicle for dick jokes"

G-Fafif wrote: With 47 K's thrown in over those 49.2 IP. And 3 walks !!! That's sick if you're NOT a knuckleball pitcher.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Not a lot of love for that critical Pirates-Royals matchup. THIS is the real problem with the FOX package. It's not that they have exclusivity over their weekly time-slot; as I've argued here before, this is going to happen no matter what network gets the right to GotW in the future. The problem is that instead of a GAME (singular) of the Week the way it used to be, or even a regionalized game from among 2 or 3 different choices, they've now taken to regularly having five or six games under their control which knocks even more games off the local stations and also out of any EI or MLB.TV packages that fans pay for specifically to get when they're out of town. Plus, I don't really see what FOX is gaining by having to do the production costs for yet another game and an extra announcing team only to turn around and show that game to such a small portion of the U.S. market.

Edgy DC wrote: Cecchini signed. $2.3 million. $2.55 mil was the recommended price for that slot - so that gives the team an extra quarter-mil to throw around some place else if there are any tough signs in later rounds.

MFS62 wrote: Ceetar wrote: Yup, the incentive has to be for guys to sign earlier now because they're competing against other picks for that money. The guys the Mets drafted will also be competing for [p]laces to play. Remember, the Mets will have one less rookie level farm team this year than in the recent past. But still the same number of teams as most organizations (they previously had a extra one before their recent cut-back) so it's not like these incoming players will be unusually strapped for openings. The instructional league and/or camps in the Dominican will take up the slack. Remember also that the draft is smaller than it used to be (50 rounds down to 40 this year) so any final jobs to be filled will be with non-drafted signees and the like. And finally there's the Int'l signing deadline (something that also has new money rules to it) less than a month away which provides a new crop of players.

TV viewing options for out-of-towners w/o the Extra-innings package: Friday -- MLBN at 7 PM EDT. I believe this one will be broadcast nationally so everyone should get it. Probably they'll just pick up one of the local feeds but you'll have to tune in to find out which. Saturday -- FOX network at 7PM EDT, subject, as always, to regionalization - see other thread to see if your area is getting this game or some inferior one instead. Sunday -- TBS at 1PM EDT. National broadcast so available to all. Network announcers but usually not bad and will probably include Darling.

I'm sure he's agreeing to a minor league deal with the implication that the O's are seriously considering him for the first available ML opportunity (and with Baltimore that's never far away). The dude is now 50 years old with like 8 kids ranging from very young to college age (one was even picked in last year's draft), and a huge charity that he and wifey run. There's got to be a point where all that traveling for the next-to-nothing pay and time away from home that minor & indy leagues dish out where he's just going to say "that's enough".

Between there being no eye-popping talent at the top of this year's draft combined with the new cap system in place, it took just three days for the #1 overall pick to sign this year. Under the old rules, few players at or near the top of the draft would sign early because they all wanted to base their pay on what everyone around them got, and even then teams would reach agreements only to sit on them for days or weeks while MLB decided whether they wanted to "approve" the deal. But now, Puerto Rican SS Carlos Correa has signed with the Astros for "substantially less than the $7.2 million signing bonus" that was prescribed this year for the 1/1 slot. What this means for Houston is that they can use whatever money they "saved" there to go over-slot for other picks, namely their 2nd pick Florida high school pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. McCullers (not surprisingly the son of former ML-er Lance McCullers Sr.) was considered 1st round talent but slid to the 41st pick out of concerns about his asking price to skip college. The recommended contract for his slot is $1.25 mil. This announcement should start the ball rolling on 1st round selections signing. Also the signing deadline was moved up from mid-August to mid-July so even the difficult negotiations should get wrapped up and announced sooner than in past years.

The pool picture sent me off my chair. Robertson, btw, not yet back in the Yanqui pen. And while we're on that subject: to illustrate the over-riding importance of having that stud shut-down closer, the Yanx have blown exactly One Save since Mariano's injury* (April 30th) and that was the first opp Robertson had (gave up a game-losing GS while leading 1-0). They've also lost two games in the 9th that were tied going in but Sandman probably doesn't even pitch in either of those. I think those who want to anoint Rivera as the greatest PITCHER ever need to pay attention to stuff like this. You don't win that title going 50-some innings per year I don't care when those innings are. So we can expect Rafael Soriano to close if such occasions arise. Remember that this was the guy the Steiny boys signed w/o Cashman's approval or even knowledge after Cash had stated publicly that he wasn't worth the money or the draft pick they wound up giving up for him. He's been pitching reasonably good this season [good ERA though ugly WHiP so you wonder how long he can keep this up] but at $21 million (salary for '11 + '12 seasons) for all of 59 innings of 3.33 ERA/1.35-ish WHiP to date, it turns out they need him more than they thought. I wonder if the Stein boys are giving Cashman a hard time about this. Or maybe they're just abusing him for the skank he was fucking but is now stalking and suing him. * Mariano just recovered from a blood clot that was only discovered following the knee injury - so he's yet to even have the required surgery for his knee although that'll occur sometime in the next week or so.

Jamie Moyer Is ... a Norfolk Tide That's where Baltimore is currently stashing him following their signing him to a minor league deal. Gotta hand it to the old fucker, he doesn't give up easily.

Runs Scored - Met Career ** David Wright - 738 ** Jose Reyes - 735 Darryl Strawberry - 662 Howard Johnson - 627 Edgardo Alfonzo - 614 Mookie Wilson - 592 Cleon Jones - 563 Carlos Beltran - 551 Ed Kranepool - 536 Mike Piazza - 532 2nd place among active NYMs -- Daniel Murphy at 154 (58th place and closing in on Doug Flynn); 3rd is Jason Bay (81 and holding) Yeah, I think David is going to be at the top of that list for a long while.

- Pulled back a game on Washington today - also stuck one more between us and Philly as they lost their four-straight to the Dodgers this week - and we will leap-frog past tonight's loser between Miami & Atlanta (Braves lead 3-1 in the 8th) while staying within a half-game of the winner In all, not a bad day.

PHIGroup ProjectWASHbmfc1/Edgy DCMIAGWreckATLFrayed KnotCINEdgyDCPITTEdgy DCCHICattgigStLMFS'62HOUMGiMMILWTransMonkLADG-FaFiFSFGFrayed KnotSDPABN-SeoCOLLWFSARZLWFS=#FF0000]NYY=#FF0000]FMan99BALJCLTORJCL=#0000FF]TBR=#0000FF]LWFS =#BF0000]At Bat =#0000FF]On Deck =#008000]In the Hole

** THOUGHTS ON THE GAME ** 1) R. A. Dickey was Reliably Awesome !!!! 2) I wouldn't have pulled him there in the 8th 3) Murph is swinging like he's trying to NOT strike out; I have not much faith in him for hitting something hard right now despite two hits today 4) Mets hit five come-backers, the Nationals four. The NYM figure includes the one Murph hit into a 1-2-3 DP but not the one he hit for a single off Gorzelanny's glove 5) The Nats, on the other hand, led the Mets 3-2 in grounding out to 1B unassisted. Between "Thoughts" 4 & 5, that's a lot of easy outs for one game. 6) Quintanilla, injury or not, made a lot of nice plays today. Nothing eye-popping so much, but a lot of sneaky/tricky ones with little margin for error. He'll be getting some beer from me for this game above and beyond his two hits & 3 times-on-base. 7) He held Harper to 3-for-16 this series although one of those was the extra-inning game winner. Today he never got one out of the infield. Doesn't mean all those outs were easy though. 8) CPF veterans know that true TotG round-ups are supposed to have TEN Thoughts and traditionally require many exclamation points!!! 9) But I can't think of that many!! 10) If Frank-Frank is going to serve up HRs in save situations they might as well be solo jobs while sitting on a 3-run lead

MFS62 wrote: The draft is over and the Mets drafted six catchers and ONE outfielder. Just sayin'. Later Mgmt was pretty clear about favoring middle of the field players - the idea being that most amateur catchers & SS wind up being nudged elsewhere on the field as competition gets tougher and so you get your coverage that way. Start with corner players and, if their bats don't play up as hoped, there's no where for them to go. Bryce Harper? - was a catcher as an amateur Craig Biggio - catcher Dale Murphy - catcher more than a few current ML relievers - catchers And probably half the ML position players (the RH-throwing ones anyway) plus a few of the pitchers were short-stops at one point in their amateur or lower minors career Plus you've always got guys from previous drafts, non-drafted FAs, int'l players, and numerous other pick-ups to consider.

Yeah, our shitting the last few days was in spite of shifting, not because of it. Terry likes to shift a lot. Don't remember a NYM team that did so this much.

It's getting tough to tell the active and healthy players without a scorecard. Just since yesterday: - R Ramirez to the DL - Young added to the 40 and brought up - Rauch is not with the team but is not DL'd either and won't be with the club for a few days - activated Batista - designated Egbert - activated Bay - activated Beato - put Young on the family leave list

In addition to the other demotions over the last few weeks for guys that were in similar situations to Ike (Gaby Sanchez, etc.) the BoSox sent down Daniel Bard yesterday (the same day his little bro got drafted). He was last year's 100 mph-throwing set-up man, briefly a closer, then turned into a starter, and now is in Pawtucket as a project.

Nymr83 wrote: Who replaces him? . Duda/Rottino

Much of the speculation coming up on this draft was how and if teams would attempt to manipulate or do end-runs around the new cap rules. Early analysis from those who tally these things is noticing a trend towards a larger than normal run on college seniors. Normally they're sort of the red-headed step-children of the draft because the real good ones never get to that point and even a late bloomer is older and therefore has less time to make it or flop. So seniors, because they have always had no real fall-back position except maybe independent leagues and therefore have less leverage and are more likely to be herded into below-slot deals, become more attractive this year because every below-slot dollar a team saves on one guy is an extra dollar that can be spent on someone else, most likely a HS-er with a scholarship offer, who may be a tough sign.