Frayed Knot

McCullough also fails to even mention Lucas [9-for-46 w/15 Ks] Duda as one of the players in the mix.

Piazza as dirty wouldn't shock me in the slightest either, but it's these kinds of statements being passing off as near proof that muddy the discussion more than clarify it. "There was nothing more obvious than Mike on steroids," says another major league veteran who played against Piazza for years. "Everyone talked about it, everyone knew it. Guys on my team, guys on the Mets. A lot of us came up playing against Mike, so we knew what he looked like back in the day. Frankly, he sucked on the field. Just sucked. After his body changed, he was entirely different. 'Power from nowhere,' we called it." All fine, except that his "power from nowhere" started with his first full season in the minors at age 22 and was evident virtually immediately from day 1 in the majors. When, exactly, was "back in the day"? High School? Junior College? Shit, I put on some 25 pounds of (non-excess) weight between the ages of 18 & 22 or so and never even touched a bar-bell much less a steroid.

MFS: are you taking the Giants? Mole: Cards or Cubs (or both)? ... your choice PHIGroupWASHbmfc1/Edgy DCFLAGWreckATLFrayed KnotCINEdgyDCPITTEdgy DCCHIC---StLMFS'62HOUMGiMMILWTransMonkLADG-FaFiF=#FF0000]SFG=#FF0000]MFS '62??SDPSeo=#008000]COL=#008000]LWFSARZLWFSNYYFMan99BALJCLTORJCLTBRLWFS =#BF0000]At Bat On Deck =#008000]In the Hole

Yes

Nymr83 wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: They should lock him in a room with Suzyn Waldman for 48 hours. You might as well schedule his murder trial for the next day. "OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS, ROGER CLEMENS IS BEATING ME OVER THE HEAD WITH MY MICROPHONE" Nah, Suzyn would be too busy blowing Roger for him to attack her.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: So let's say just for the sake of argument that Torres is eligible to come off the DL this weekend. Would he be any better a leadoff man than Tejada? Any better a power threat or gloveman than Nieuwenhuis? How would you solve this "good problem to have"? One idea would be to install Torres in CF and slide Nieuwenhuis over to RF cuz it's not like Duda is burning things up to the point where he should be considered an untouchable incumbent. Would help the overall 'D' too.

... as was Jamie Moyer, winner of a game last night. Not many here you could imagine still playing and some seem downright ancient. Tracy Austin Billy Beane Manute Bol Roger Clemens Chris Chelios Eric Davis Clyde Drexler Patrick Ewing Doug Flutie John Gibbons Mike Golic John Harbaugh Evander Holyfield Bo Jackson Jackie Joyner-Kersee William 'The Refrigerator' Perry Jerry Rice Rex Ryan John Stockton Darryl Strawberry Herschel Walker

Fman99 wrote: Ugh, if you give up 2 runs for every run you score, well, hell, I don't see how you can win that way. And yet another 1-for-2 exchange! You don't usually see buy-one-get-two sales like this outside of Jos A. Bank clothing stores.

Two guys thrown out at the plate this game on plays when neither should have been going.

Wright ties Straw for team RBI lead even though on an ugly infield single. Wright now on base at least twice in every game he's played this year.

David Wright is a golden God.

seawolf17 wrote: The second-best college outfielder IN THE COUNTRY is right out here on Long Island, Mets. MAKE IT HAPPEN. http://throughthefencebaseball.com/2012-draft-top-10-college-outfielders/19817/ http://www.goseawolves.org/sports/m-basebl/mtt/jankowski_travis00.html - I'm seeing Jankowski's name in late-1st and/or Supp round mocks, so that 2nd NYM pick remains a possibility. - For those interested in catchers, there are two being talked about in the 1st round The one - Mike Zunino - out of U-Florida is almost certainly NOT lasting until the 12th pick. The other is a HS kid out of Louisiana who should be drafted on account of his name alone: Stryker Trahan sounds like a guy who has some kind of super-powers - For those interested in short-stops might want to look to the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy and pick up Jesmuel Valentin-Diaz, the switch-hitting son of former MLer (and NYM) Jose Valentin.

12Am and 12PM should be banned from the lexicon. It should be either noon or midnight. I always learned that, because a new day began at a second after midnight, that midnight was considered PM while the designation '12 AM' meant noon. But, yeah, I would be hesitant to use either because there's probably about a 50/50 shot that whoever you're telling it to thinks of it as the other way around. Just one more reason for the immediate adoption of the 24-hour clock. I remember a whole buncha years ago Johnny Carson gave a guest spot to some ordinary LA-area citizen because he had made a minor local news story out of successfully fighting a parking ticket on the grounds that the parking hours sign was misleading due to the 12 AM/PM confusion.

Edgy DC wrote: Von Ohlen was a Flushing High product who became a free agent after a couple of years at Tidewater without getting a call. He signed with the Cards and fashioned a 4+-year career for himself. Until that son of a bitch blew off Roland's head.

Well, a comeback was looking like a possibility ... until we went K, K w/2-on and then they went SF, 1B

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I appreciate the friskiness/emphasis on run scoring. But, um... what long man is pitching those other eleventeen innings to go tonight? Eh, it's not like we have another game 12 hours after this one or anything. Oh wait ...

As if this game isn't bad enough so far ... we're getting some knocks but are hitting some absolute at'em balls. oe: and as I'm typing this we finally get a hit but on a piece o' shit pop up

Here's the first problem, even NOT allowing runs to score, Johan hasn't exactly been a model of efficiency so far this season. You'd like, as a pitcher, to keep pitch counts down to no more than 15 per/inning while 13 or lower is considered good. Johan this year: Game 1: 16, 13, 16, 13, 26 Game 2: 27, 28, 14, 11, 15 - followed by a 6-pitch walk to his only batter in inning 6 So he's really only had 1 inning that would be considered a low work-load effort, several more that were around average, plus 5 more that were way above the norm ... and, again, these were during innings where he only gave up one run total And then today, of course, it was 21 in inning one and was over 30 in the 2nd before being yanked. Now he did K 13 over those first 10+ innings so there was some ability to put hitters away even though that's specifically what he couldn't do tonight. And, yeah, the errors didn't help tonight but at some point he's going to have to find a way to get through innings a bit quicker or he's not going to last very long in any game or for the year as a whole.

There's already talk about how/if teams are going to get around such limits. From BA just this week. Q: What's to prevent a team from circumventing the draft spending cap by signing picks at or below their assigned values and then handing out a million-dollar contract to a family member as a "consultant" or "interpreter"? MLB can't tell teams who they can and can't hire as front-office personnel or how much they can spend on them, can they? A: MLB has tried to curb amateur bonus spending almost forever. In 1946, 19 years before the creation of the draft, baseball instituted the first of several variations of a bonus rule. None of them proved effective, in part because under-the-table payments were rampant. "We'd pass a bonus rule and by the time we got out of the room, we already figured out how to skin the cat," former Tigers GM Jim Campbell told me years ago. "There was no way to really police it. You could hire a kid's uncle as a scout. He might actually be qualified, but it was still questionable." Don't expect to see similar hijinks with the draft rules in the new CBA, however. MLB has informed clubs that any attempt to avoid the tax and draft-pick penalties for overspending is prohibited, specifically mentioning undisclosed agreements between teams and draftees. If a club hires a relative of a draftee and pays him an exorbitant salary, Commissioner Bud Selig will step in.

Nymr83 wrote: When you are winning, few care about how well you are perceived to have drafted. They should. Also, with so many high picks and Wilpon's buddy not calling in MLB' sloan to help him out or whatever, I want to see if the Mets will pass on anyone to stick to Selig's "slot", which would be another way to fuck up (and I'd argue far less forgiveable than subpar talent evaluation) The so-called 'slot-drafting' wasn't what most fans seem to think it was. The Mets, even while sticking strictly to Bud's notion of a voluntary cap, weren't passing on known higher talent while intentionally grabbing lesser/cheaper guys. Where the slot stuff kicked in was in not taking chances in later rounds with usually raw but high-ceiling HS kids who weren't polished enough for the upper rounds but could frequently command bigger bucks because they had a scholarship in their back pocket. Under the new rules what MLB is trying to cap is a team's total expenditure in one year. The plan has various complicated rules but the basic idea wouldn't necessarily limit one player's bonus but would require a team to cut down elsewhere if they did go high on one or two selections.

Nymr83 wrote: Edgy DC wrote: Will also be an instant fan favorite because of his hustle and all out style. = White guy, fun Polish name. ...Or he turns into Jason Tyner. Or Gomez who had maybe one good year elsewhere. In the first round, give me a guy with some pop in his bat! Like Rob Stratton maybe?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Jose, by the way, is currently hitting .238 for the Marlins after ten games. 10 hits (3 doubles, 1 triple) in 42 at bats. 4 runs scored, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, 3 stolen bases in 5 attempts. His OBP is .289 and his SLG is .357. Well, he's no Ruben Tejada.

Gee - 3.6 Davis - 2.7 Bay - 1.7 Tejada - 0.7 Thole - 0.4 Nieuwenhuis - 0.4 Rauch - 0.25 Byrdak - 0.25

Pelfrey - 3.0 Davis - 2.0 Wright - 1.0 Duda - 1.0

Niese - 3.0 Parnell - 0.5 Rauch - 0.4 Wright - 2.2 Duda - 2.2 Tejada - 1.0 Thole - 0.4 Nieuwenhuis - 0.3