Frayed Knot

Bart Hubbach - NYPost: Manuel and especially Warthen were not happy with the ability of Omir Santos and, to a lesser extent, Brian Schneider to call a game and handle the Mets' pitching staff last season. That helps explain Minaya's decision this week to sign veteran backup catchers Henry Blanco and Chris Coste and continue his pursuit of a veteran starter -- most likely ex-Giant Bengie Molina -- at the Winter Meetings ... coupled with the presence of catcher-in-waiting Josh Thole at the Triple-A level leave Santos the odd man out despite earning a spot on the prestigious Topps Rookie All-Star Team. Santos, 28, always was unlikely to return as the Mets' starting catcher, but the unhappiness within the coaching staff at his defensive abilities now appears to have [him] ticketed back to the minors, or perhaps even out of the organization completely. http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/mets_still_looking_for_catching_nhTRlskBAFcDoHmT6jfnfL The "prestigious" Topps Rookie award? How many rookie catchers are there in a given year?

metirish wrote: Did Feliz get benched for the playoffs? , something went on there IIRC. No. You may be thinking about O. Hudson at 2B w/the Dodgers. Feliz has played 3B virtually every day since they signed him from the Giants 2 years ago. That was a very unheralded signing that worked out real well for them especially for his defense and reliability. It's part of the reason I'm surprised they opted to change.

I think Mike Silva speaks some truth here: Aside from the seemingly required "never when it counts" statement about a closer that is. The Polanco signing struck me as a bit odd. Not that he's not a decent player, but the outgoing Feliz played as a good a 3B as anyone (prolly should have a GG or two) and is only older by a few months. Philly gains a little bit of OBA with Polanco (based on recent seasons) but not more power as he moves to a position which usually asks for more power and where he hasn't played in several years. Seems like a neutral move at best while giving up the known quantity and fit for one with not a lot of upside.

Most media types I hear/read seem to be all for a 7-game first round so I expect this 'story' will get a decent amount of play even though it's really just a trial balloon floated by someone with no power to make it happen. Most who back the longer series fall back on the "more fair" argument, as in the better team has a better chance at prevailing if the series is longer. And that's probably true, but once you make the decision to allow non-winners into the post-season you then have to accept the idea that they're going to advance every now and then. It's like the WC proponents spend half their time talking about how great the inclusion of the wild cards were and then spend the rest of it trying to rig it so they get no further.

Yeah, keep in mind that this idea comes from the new player assoc head who (reflecting his players) sees it as a way to generate more dough. The players also don't like the extra off-days within each round and hope to trade the one for the other. But Selig and the networks negotiated those extras days just prior to last year's playoffs and did so specifically to avoid games going up against each other and aren't about to throw more inventory into the mix. This whole thing is a non-starter IMO. If it were up to me, not only would I keep the first round at five games but I'd like to see them played all in a row - no days off at all. It's not like teams don't regularly play 5 days in a row during the season even with a city switch thrown in. OK, maybe the one or two series that involve the most (read: coast to coast) travel get an off-day - but that would be determined by the circumstances not the most attractive TV match-up. And, while we're at it, can the 2-2-1 format and revert back to 2-3. They're constantly fixing stuff that ain't broke. Of course none of this happens unless MLB is willing to take a few decimal points off the check FOX et al are signing so it's not going to happen even though Bud now agrees that the plan he agreed to is stupid.

but I believe there is more parity in Football than Baseball. No there isn't. The cap-less MLB model has produced as many or more different champions and different finalists over the last 10 years and over the last 20 as has the strictly-capped NFL - and that's true even though the NFL allows half-again as many teams (twice as many in earlier years) into their playoffs each year and has a much shorter anything-can-happen schedule.

In fairness, Mora wasn't even a particularly good 3rd baseman for much of his time in Baltimore. He got better as things went on but was considered well below average for years. Bordick wasn't as good as hoped, but the real problem was him getting hurt late and having to rely on the backup's backup in the playoff.

A similar tact could be saying that the draft picks would just go to waste since; 'it's the Mets and they'd only draft some piece 'o shit anyway'. btw, is anyone besides me a bit stunned - not so much that the BoSox offered him arb but that the Braves jumped on him so quickly? With a one-two punch of Mike Gonzalez & Raphael Soriano (are they both back?) Atlanta wasn't exactly hurting for back-end relievers. Plus, it's not like their last late-30s ex-Met LHP FA pick-up which cost them a pretty decent draft pick worked out all that well. The deal, btw, is for one year plus a vesting option.

I tend to do less complaining about network p-b-p and/or color men than most - but geez he was awful. Especially when you consider his bloodlines, it's stunning how his lack of baseball IQ popped up at least once an inning it seemed. Yeah one could knock his grandfather for being a bit of a clown or his father for sounding like a regionalist homer, but at least both of them knew their stuff.

metirish wrote: Giants declined to offer salary arbitration Tuesday to catcher Bengie Molina. Normally I'd say that's good because it won't cost any picks to get him. In this case I think it's NOT good because it makes us more likely to sign him. Anything above a one-year deal won't make me happy.

There were some gaps between all those hard-hitting backstops, but still that chain was strong enough to spoil a certain pct of Met fans into thinking that a top offensive threat at that position is more or less the norm and Schneider took some heat for not being one of those guys.

It always seemed that when he started going good he'd get injured and then when he played for a decent stretch in a row he'd stop hitting. That and the part about the defense not being as good as advertised. Never thought he was a great acquisition when he arrived but he was only occasionally as good as I thought he'd be.

Blanco was also one of the early reciptients of the CPF Anglicized nickname trend; I think only Jose Mesa being tabbed as 'Joe Table' preceded Blanco's handle of 'Hank White'

Blanco's def up there among the best defensive catchers in either league. I recently read a piece that referred to him as the catcher people think Jose Molina is. As long as he's not looked at as a #1 guy he's worth a look-see. Hard to get a definitive read on Thole's defense in such a short time - but he certainly looked to be boxing a bunch of pitches around over those last few weeks.

Many of these arguments should be written up and sent to SI. Keep them clean and without making them sound like simply anti-Jeter screeds, but bitching about it to ourselves only goes so far - and by 'so far' I mean nowhere at all. It's not going to change anything for this year obviously but companies are more sensitive to negative public feedback (product complaints, season ticket non-renewals, etc.) than most people think so maybe it'll affect their methods in the future. - So mention how he's not only not the most deserving baseball player this year but not even the most deserving candidate on his own team. Mariano's 500th save was a MUCH bigger milestone than the breaking of the 20th best team hit record, his age-defying level of excellence is more impressive, and he's MUCH better at his position than Saint Derek has ever been at his. Or is it just that married Spanish-speaking bible-readers who don't date starlets not rate as highly? - Talk about how if they want to give it for a long-term body of work why Federer is not first in line. - Or about Bolt following up a stunning year with another stunning year!! - breaking 4 world records in a 12-month span, several of which at a Beamon-esque level is events usually measured by eyelashes. - or about Gebrlselassie's overall dominance or just about how their short-sightedness of reducing their sports-view to only those events covered by U.S. networks in prime-time reduces their once-broad view of sports to the Chris Russo level of tunnel-vision. The more I think about this the more I think that their reasoning probably deals more with the magazine hemorrhaging readers and the idea of having a camera-friendly athlete who plays in the media capital of the country on the cover appeals to their bottom line. 'And besides, we're paying Verducci all this money so we might as well put him to work during the winter too? After all, who the hell would we get to write about track? The last time we employed a writer who knew his way around a track was when William Nack was writing about Secretariat.'

Check out Grote rolling the ball to the [u:y3xza3ub]1st base side[/u:y3xza3ub] of the mound after the 3rd out. He used to claim that he always left the ball on the far side of the opponents dugout so that their pitcher would have further to walk to get the ball. He was a real SOB (the good kind).

Depends on how the vesting option vests I suppose. If it's some sort of tap-in minimum thrown in there simply so they can claim that it's a one-year deal then they're being stupid. But, if not, while I know he wasn't exactly a fan favorite in Met-ville numbers like his are essentially what those from backup SS looks like. I've never been much of an Andy Handy fan and he also hasn't played much SS over the last two years.

My earlier point about Bolt is that I'd be willing to bet that if the folks at SI were queried as to why not him one of their answers would be that this was not an Olympic year and therefore not on most people's radar. Besides, this might be Jeter's last best shot at it and how could those folks look themselves in the mirror for the rest of their lives knowing that they failed to get Jetes this honor when they had the chance? I just hope it's not a re-run of the Jordan SotY issue (actually I don't care as I don't read the mag anymore anyway). That one wasn't just an article within the mag on Jordan it was virtually an issue-long shrine to the guy, complete with a hologram cover where MJ smiled at you as you viewed the cover from different angles. I think there are Vatican press releases less laudatory of the pope than that issue was towards Jordan. Not that it kept them off his shit-list a few years later when they ran a cover suggesting he bag his fledgling baseball career and, as we found out via his basketball HoF speech, his shit-list has a long half-life.

Bolt's fine with me, I'm just trying to look at this through SI's prism. Track barely registers with the American public and when it does it only does so in Olympic years. Using that logic, Bolt's main claim to fame came during 2008 and not 2009. And, yes, they should be rewarding the accomplishment or the event and not just the popularity of said accomplishment or event, but as the focus on sports here grows increasingly narrow towards only the big TV sports the attitude that steers those awards only towards the "mainstream" only absent some extraordinary feat becomes increasingly likely IMO. IOW, whose face on the cover is going to sell more magazines: Jeter's or Bolt's?

It's the old cumulative award deal. Joe Paterno got his a handful of years back following a good though hardly groundbreaking year. See also Henry Fonda's oscar for 'On Golden Pond' or Pacino's for 'Scent of a Woman'. It helps to have no outstanding candidate elsewhere. I hadn't even thought about who else might be deserving this year. Pujols? Kobe? Rothliesburger? No golfer emerged or dominated. Nadal was injured and stumbled while Federer needed to win the U.S. and didn't. People seemed to get excited by this Pacquio? guy but boxing is dead. Not an Olympic or World Cup year which takes out those from "minor" sports.

I wonder if the Snooze had to pay royalties to Wallace Mathews to use that line about Beltran and the bat on the shoulder? Or maybe 'ol Wally just realized that he's used it so often over the last three years that this was a good time to release the domestic rights on it.

This is one of those flicks where I'm listening to the debut of the sequel being trumpeted as if it was the follow-up to 'Born to Run' even though I have absolutely no memory of the original even existing. The Johnny Depp pirate movie series was the same way.