Frayed Knot

The Yanx are actually having a weird kind of season so far in that in a lot of ways they're getting better contributions from no-name irregulars than they are from their high-priced starters. C - Posada was hitting but playing only occasionally with a foot which now turns out to be broken and has landed him on the DL, Meanwhile, Francisco Cervelli is hitting .357/.432/.471. 1B - Teixeira started horribly and is only somewhat better lately (.214 BA). 1B/DH Nick Johnson is ... wait for it ... on the DL and needs wrist surgery 2B - Cano was great in April but has cooled SS - Jeter has a .319 OBA 3B - ARod has just 6 HRs and most of those in the last week or two. OF - Granderson in on the DL and Swisher has been merely OK, but Brett Gardner and Marcus Freakin' Thames have much better What's been good is their pitching, Sabathia and Burnett as expected (except their last starts) but Phil Hughes in particular. And you think our bench is patchwork, try Ramiro Pena (IF), Randy Winn (OF), Juan Miranda (DH/OF) and I don't even know who the new backup catcher is.

In retrospect, one of the biggest plays in the game was Pudge Rodriguez's brain-freeze on the base paths. That snuffed out a potential big inning. Imagine how knee-knocking that later Adam Dunn AB would have been had the score been a tick or two closer than it was.

Oddly, I noticed that last Saturday there WERE games on MLB's Extra Innings on Saturday afternoon - whereas usually only night games can be shown via EI. That's happened two or three times this year while the rest of the weekends have had the daytime blackouts. I don't know why some weeks and not others.

I'm not sure that announcing five minutes before game time that Maine would not start and is going to get checked out the next day (whether he wants it or not) because they didn't like the looks of his warmup tosses would have made this whole tussle go down any better. Shirley someone would trot out the story about how Tom Seaver didn't feel so good during warmups for his imperfect game all those years back (there are others as well) and about how Jerry is so desperate to save his ass that he couldn't even wait until game time to start panicking.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I like it, especially when the Mets get to play the Tigers. I've seen a number of interleague games -- Reds/Tigers, Indians/Brewers, Twins/Brewers and two of the Mets/MFY games and Mets/Tigers twice -- and they're fun. This year I'm going to see the D-Backs and Tigers. I understand it from a viewpoint of a fan, like you, way out of his home element - but the Mets come to Detroit, what, once every 5 or 6 years? Probably longer in some cases. And, of course, every series they play in Detroit means one less series they play somewhere else which detracts from that misplaced Met fan's opportunity to see his team. In the meantime, I'm not knocking going to a big-league game, but I don't see where a Tigers-DBacks game is anymore interesting than say a Tigers-BoSox or Rays game.

Bottom 9th in Atlanta against Cincy - down 9-3 Mike Lincoln pitching: - Glaus singles - Hinske singles - Escobar singles - McLouth singles (2 runs score) Nick Masset pitching - Ross walks (bases loaded) - Prado reaches on error (Cairo) (1 run scores) Arthur Rhodes pitching - Heyward strikes out Francisco Cordero pitching - Conrad hits GS (4 runs score) The GS went off the top of the fence AND the fielder's glove. Conrad thought it was caught and started to throw his helmet before he heard the stadium erupting.

Riggleman double-switching in the 5th inning?!?

Nice stick from Ike but he's having a funky trip around the bases this inning -- stayed while he should have gone on two different balls to the OF but is still alive despite advancing only one base.

From the IGT (cuz I hate when topics like this get lost in threads): Ken Rosenthal says that the Mets are shopping Castillo to make room for Murphy. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/MLB- ... May-042710 The Rosenthal piece contains the usual story about how the Mets are talking to other clubs (like there are times when that ever stops) and he even jokes about how that phrase is basically on his laptop's version of 'speed dial'. The part I don't buy is the one about how the impending return of Murphy makes this more likely. He never was a 2nd baseman, has barely tried 2nd base, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks he can be even a passable 2nd baseman. And if that means a lot more starts/fill-ins for Cora that's not exactly an upgrade. In other 2B news, Kaz Matsui (hitting a lot worse than Luis this year and last) was just DFA'd by Houston with a decent amount of money on his deal. Presumably they tried to deal him before cutting him loose too.

No, just the one, but they're putting several of their Saturday games into prime time this year.

Well, as always, you have to take into account the totality of the player's NYM career and not just its peak(s). Keith's 'problem' (if you can call it that) is not only that everyone ahead of him lasted longer in a Met uni than he did but his seven seasons in blue and orange were somewhat watered down by his first one being a partial season and then the final two where he was rapidly fading into the sunset. That last season in particular killed him. With even a decent finish to his NYM career he's probably 6th or 7th. Keith is also still tops among those who lasted seven or fewer seasons (by a small margin over Leiter) although he's almost certain to lose that title to Wright after next year's vote.

Yeah, Jerry has enough problems without blaming him for things not under his control. - Murphy played 2nd base in the AFL because that's where a spot were open (teams apply for limited spots for their players) and because if you want to find out if the guy has any defensive versatility that's the best place to do it. - he got stuck in LF during his early stint in the majors because that's where there were ABs to be found. It was either that or sit on the bench because there was certainly no case to be made for starting him over Wright or Delgado. Sounds to me like Jerry was doing the guy a favor. - Pagan's biggest problem over the last few years have been his bad fundamentals and his inability to stay off the DL while other injuries were opening up opportunities all over the field

Which Hernandez is higher, El Duque or El Duquecito? Oh, O. Hernandez (#119) is MUCH higher than L. Hernandez (#359) Even with his lost final season, El Duque was a major player on two separate good teams while Livan snagged just 13 points (18th best player) on the 70-win 2009 club. Livan didn't reach the level of Roberto Hernandez (236), and of course none of them can touch long lost brother Keith (#12) Is the full list available? If someone (KC usually handles this) has the ability to turn a spreadsheet into a pdf file and has a place to store it I'll send them both the alpha & numeric versions.

My heart is a saxophone solo from a third story window just before dawn -- Marah

Mostly agreed, FK. As frustrating as Ks are to watch, Wright's actually being pretty damn productive this year. Even including the last few terrible games, he's walking a lot more (which makes sense, since he's only seeing 43.4% of pitches in the strike zone-- a career low), and putting up a .390ish OBP while slugging pretty decently as well (.509). Except, until recently, Wright's BABIP was as absurdly high as last year (pushing .400), and he's hitting a lot fewer line drives, so that and the skyrocketing K rates (which are no illusion-- he's swinging at more stuff outside the zone, and missing a lot more stuff inside it than he ever has before) suggests he may be due for a drop to AdamDunnLand, average-wise. And if and when Wright does find himself in DunnLand BA-wise (and with less power and fewer walks) THEN he'll be staring into a vortex of suck. In the meantime, if Somers or anyone else in the NY press wants to find someone who actually is making a lot more outs than normal - what with his OBA down nearly 100 points from last year or 72 points off his career norm - they'll have to look to the guy playing SS in the Bronx.

I get the stereotype about middle of the diamond guys supposedly being better bunters, but I"m not sure how it applies to yesterday's top of the ninth: GMJ is an outfielder. Well, he's still a middle outfielder therefore he was born with the speedy/slappy/gritty gene meaning that bunting in innate with his kind. By the way, Matthews sac bunted on a pitch that was high and outside and ball four by a wide margin. Unless Castillo was running on that pitch, I don't see why GMJ couldn't improvise on Jerry's call in order to work out the walk. With a 3-1 count, GMJ should have anticipated the possibility that the next pitch might miss the plate by far. This was my biggest problem. Once the count got to 2-0 is there anything wrong w/Jerry REMOVING the bunt now that his batter has a supposed edge? Geez, zone on an outside pitch and try to take one to RF. It'll still get the runner over and maybe you'll get a hit by accident. And that's the larger problem, not just that he chooses the "wrong" strategy but that he won't deviate from it even if circumstances change.

MFS62 wrote: Wright is rapidly falling into the vortex of suck. The strike-outs are alarming but so is over-reacting to just that one stat. Wright is NOT making outs at a greater rate than his lifetime norms and is slugging at above lg avgs. It's not a great year but it's also not a "vortex of suck" Last night, Steve Sommers said that Wright seems to have lost his game. Somers may be entertaining (to some) but he is *THE LAST PERSON ON EARTH* to look to for advice ... on anything! And nobody seems to know how to reverse the process. It doesn't need to be "reversed"

New feature at Nats Park tonight: with Livan & Dickey on the mound, all pitches will be timed with a sun-dial instead of a radar gun.

... it plays into archetype-thinking that only guys who play the middle of the diamond know how to get a bunt down. The corollary to that line of thinking is that everyone who plays in the middle of the diamond automatically knows how to get down a bunt, something which Jerry - along with a number of others - clearly buys into.

Yeah I was going to ask whether the top-50 icons are not showing for everyone or just me. We should either figure out a way to fix those or kill them. They're distorting the screen.

I missed much of tonight's game so I'm not sure if/how much this was talked about, but an AP report on WFAN's website says: The New York Mets are planning to start right-hander R.A. Dickey on Wednesday, and left-hander Hisanori Takahashi also will take a spot in the team's beleaguered rotation. Dickey is scheduled to be called up from Triple-A Buffalo after the Mets finish a two-game series at Atlanta. He'll start the opener of another brief series at Washington. The knuckleballer has previously pitched in the big leagues with Minnesota, Seattle and Texas. The Mets demoted Oliver Perez to the bullpen and are expected to put left-hander Jonathon Niese on the disabled list with a mild strain to his right hamstring. The other vacancy in the rotation comes up Friday against the Yankees. It'll go to Takahashi, who is 3-1 with a 3.12 ERA in 15 games out of the bullpen.

OK, it had been two years since we updated our Rankings list. The usual reasons apply: computer crashes, new forum software, laziness, etc. But now the results reflecting the inclusion of the 2008 & 2009 seasons have been loaded into the system and are currently reflected in the new and improved status levels. A quick overview: 591 different players have now received points in at least one year. Our new “entry level” guy at #500 is now the immortal Pumpsie Green as more than a dozen players got drop-kicked out of the top 500 since our last update. So say so long to the likes of Kevin Bass, Tom Parsons, Danny Garcia, Bret Mayne (we’ll remember you), and also Jeff McKnight as the man of many numbers now has another one: #505 Other benchmarks include: #400 = Clint Hurdle #300 = Jim Fregosi #250 = Bob Johnson #200 = Todd Pratt #100 = Roger Cedeno Newbies to the list from last season include: Pat Misch at #483 Sean Green at #459 Alex Cora at #426 Bobby Parnell at #414 Fernando Nieve at 397 Livan Hernandez at #359 Nelson Figueroa at #305 Omir Santos at #293 Gary Sheffield at #244 Jeff Francoeur at #234 Francisco Rodriguez at #222 Other current players: Angel Pagan = #203 Fernando Tatis = #133 Daniel Murphy = #129 Mike Pelfrey = #120 Luis Castillo = #113 Pedro Feliciano = #91 Johan Santana = #72 John Maine = #65 Jose Reyes = #24 Carlos Beltran = #23 David Wright = #14 And in other terribly exciting news, Carlos Delgado gained just enough points in his abbreviated final NYM season to jump to 48th place thus solving what was probably the biggest comlaint we’ve had about this project for the last half-dozen years; Yes that’s right, Steve Trachsel is no longer part of the top 50. The equally popular George Foster now holds the fiinal spot.