Frayed Knot

Will we ever be entirely certain who is and isn't Spawn of Garvey?

Yeah, Johan's pen apprenticeship was mostly caused by necessity from the Rule 5 situation. Plus he was still real young then. I don't think there's any point in trying to pigeon-hole him as a reliever or starter right now so I'd just ignore the talk and see how things go. I also haven't heard that [u:1ppts3hh]the club[/u:1ppts3hh] has any plans to use him as anything other than a starter. Don't put much stock in the AFL stats. It's the end of a long year and a lot of young players are tired by then. Plus it's a known hitters' haven.

Something about the personalized jersey (maybe the number) amused us no end A uniform number that was in tribute to his favorite ... stadium usher.

Kevin Goldstein, the prospect guru at at 'Baseball Prospectus', checks in with his Mets list His lists go to eleven and also throw in a couple of bonus names at the bottom. He tends to be a much easier marker than Sickels, giving out far more '5-Star' rankings than JS does 'A' or even 'A-' grades, so you just need to adjust your head accordingly. Five-Star Prospects 1. Jenrry Mejia, RHP Four-Star Prospects 2. Fernando Martinez, CF 3. Wilmer Flores, SS 4. Ike Davis, 1B Three-Star Prospects 5. Jon Niese, LHP 6. Brad Holt, RHP 7. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, OF 8. Josh Thole, C 9. Kyle Allen, RHP 10. Ruben Tejada, SS 11. Reese Havens, SS Four More: 12. Jeurys Familia, RHP: Familia had the best pure arm on an impressive staff at Low-A Savannah last year, but most see him in a future relief profile. 13. Cesar Puello, OF: An athletic Dominican who has impressive tools, Puello also has considerable rawness. 14. Jefry Marte, 3B: Marte wasn't ready for a full-season league, but he has the ability to move back up the list. 15. Juan Urbina, LHP: He�s a big bonus Venezuelan who has crazy upside, but he needs considerable refinement. As the number 1 prospect Mejia gets a full write-up - while those who pay for their subscription will get the same for each on the list: 1. Jenrry Mejia, RHP DOB: 10/11/89 Height/Weight: 6-0/160 Bats/Throws: R/R Drafted/Signed: Dominican Republic, 2007 2009 Stats: 1.97 ERA (50.1-41-16-44) at High-A (9 G); 4.47 ERA (44.1-44-23-47) at Double-A (10 G) Last Year�s Ranking: 7 Year in Review: This right-hander took a big step forward in 2009, as he reached Double-A as a teenager and more than held his own. The Good: It's rare to find a fastball with plus-plus velocity and movement, but Mejia has just that. His heater sits at 93-95 mph, touches 98, and features heavy, hard sink, generating as many grounders as it does swings and misses. He'll flash a plus changeup that also features significant downward action. While he's a bit undersized for a starter, he's broadly built (well over his listed weight), has clean arm action, and scouts have no problem projecting him as a starter. The Bad: Mejia needs to find a consistent breaking ball. He gets around on his slider too often, leading it to sweep across the plate on a single plane. His pitches have so much movement that at times he has trouble controlling them in the strike zone. Ephemera: While Mejia got hammered in the Arizona Fall League to the tune of 25 hits and 21 runs over just 14 1/3 innings, there was a bit of silver lining, as he did not give up a home run and generated 21 ground-ball outs against just six of the fly-ball variety. Perfect World Projection: Mejia will be an upper-echelon starter. Path to the Big Leagues: Power arms like this are rarely blocked. Timetable: While Mejia will continue his development as a starter, his fastball alone could land him in the Mets� bullpen at some point during the season.

The real impressive number for Big Frank is .419 - as in career on-base pct. - That's 21st highest ever; - 18th highest among those with 5,000+ ABs; - only Pujols (.4271) and Helton (.4273) are higher among actives; - only Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx and Pujols higher among RHBs; - from the group ahead of him only those with self-inflicted wounds: Barry Bonds and Joe Jackson, are NOT in the HoF

I certainly hope that any decision as to which Mets get statues consults the CPF Rankings list.

I conflate Thomas with Jeff Bagwell. Not that you'd ever confuse the two but both were 1st sackers born on the exact same date: 5/27/68 Bagwell was the better all-around player but injury-shortened seasons and an injury-shortened career kept those cumulative totals low enough to the point where it could keep him out of the HoF where I think Hurt gets in pretty easily. I suppose the possibility exists where Bagwell misses his first couple of tries before the two wind up with two dates in common to celebrate.

Milledge is probably the one recently (sort-of) traded youngster whose trade has the chance to burn us. I know it's fashionable in some circles to treat him as an already-proven bust - but he'll still only be 25 around opening day and, after not getting enough minor league time, is an everyday player w/a shot at taking off for more than that. Of course his departure brought in two players who filled everyday positions for a team w/a shot at post-season so maybe it was worth it even if he does start soaring in Pittsburgh or elsewhere.

...

Steve, If you're going to respond to what I write at least respond to what I write while you're responding to what I write otherwise don't respond to what I write. Alright?

Speaking of Miss Rheingold, this poor guy looks like he misses Rheingold: -- from the editorial page of the NYDN 2/2/74

Vic Sage wrote: wild horses could not drag me into a theater showing this movie. I'll volunteer to be tied to those horses with you so as to make it even tougher to drag either one of us there.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: SteveJRogers wrote: Speaking of morning shows, I can't quite confirm if Mike Greenberg of ESPN is a Met fan, big Jet fan but he never really shows his hand when talking baseball. They talk baseball on that show? He's a YLDB Good call! That show is all-football, all the time. I'll give them another four weeks to continue rehashing the Super Bowl before they start to go into withdrawl, drawn out of it for a month of "Will Favre retire" debates, followed by weeks of "is Favre/Manning/Montana the best quarterback of all time" before they grab Mel Kypier Jr. out of hibernation to start salivating over the NFL draft. They do occasionally get Jayson Stark on the "OnStar/Subway/this spot for rent" hotline to rip the Mets and praise the Phillies. Used to get Peter Gammons and Steve Phillips, but I suppose both are unavailable these days for contractual/therapy reasons. And Greenie is absolutely a YLDB. It's ESPN, whaddya expect. Greenberg & Golic as personalities are unobjectionable enough - but what can you say about the show other than that it contains all the strengths and weaknesses of being part of the 'World Wide Leader' machine. As with most espen shows, their hosts are expected to know and easily chat about football and basketball but then need to rely on one of the hired nerds when it comes to baseball. Having Stark, Olney, Kurkjian (and, until recently, Gammons & Phillips) [strikeout]in chains[/strikeout] I mean on retainer means that there's usually a scheduled baseball chat not too far away, but once those 12 minutes are up they act as if they've done their penance and can go back to the NFL draft or NCAA hoops which, after all, each provide their network with something like 1,467 hours per/week in programming. Then when it's summer and there's nothing else to talk about but baseball ... they all go on vacation. In short, I don't think Greeny cares that much about baseball except to the extent that his young son is a Jeter-worshipper and he often takes him to games. Golic acts as if he's a big Indians fan but that's mainly to maintain his 'Im a blue collar guy from Ohio' image and I suspect he hasn't watched an entire baseball game in at least a decade and attended one in maybe two - with the exception of those occasions when the show is done from a remote and even then I'd put $20 on him spending 7 of the 9 innings with the free food spread.

SteveJRogers wrote: Speaking of morning shows, I can't quite confirm if Mike Greenberg of ESPN is a Met fan, big Jet fan but he never really shows his hand when talking baseball. They talk baseball on that show? Greenberg is from NYC, although went to school in Chicago and worked there for a number of years. He's a YLDB

Certainly a LH threat off the bench ... but, jeez, Delgado is a better fielder.

I believe a few of those.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'd prefer to see Chris Carter in a 10 ... In honor of the band 10CC of course.

I don't know why anyone puts any faith in mock drafts. They are worse than meaningless. Particularly when the college/HS season hasn't started yet in most places.

First guy I remember to use that excuse was Wade Boggs after his long-time side-action went public with their affair. IIRC, he came up with that self-diagnosis after watching an episode of 'Geraldo'.

attgig wrote: are we really going to go above slot to sign a good prospect? or are we going to get scared like a small market team, and sign someone who's going to be projected as a late 1strounder? C'mon, in which 1st round have the Mets done that? This whole 'not going over slot' complaint exists but it's NOT that the club willingly passes on known quantities early in the draft out of cheapness. What they're doing not doing is spending over the recommended levels with later round selections in order to attempt to buy some raw but possibly high-reward kid out of a college commitment that might pay off down the road. That's something they could be doing and should be doing if/when the find the right candidate but it's also a method that's going to produce a lot more misses than hits.