Frayed Knot

="metsguyinmichigan"]="metirish"]Less IL play is all I can think of right now , I like IL play but I really have little interest in playing Kansas , Detroit and the like. I like it -- heck, LOVE IT -- when they play in Detroit. I actually get to see them play in person. And that's the type of thing that makes IL play a good thing. Sure, but they play Detroit, what, once every 3 or 4 years? And even then it's only 50/50 that they do so in Detroit. What's it been, two series in Motown over the last dozen years? And that's the whole fallacy about the idea that IL allows more fans to see their team. If you were 'MetsguyinEastMissouri' (or LA, or SF, or EastTexas, etc.) you went from 3 visits/year down to 1 partly on account of IL play. IL games are played instead of other games, not in addion to them.

Looks like some of those guys might have pitched for the team when it was called Fort Duquesne

There's a couple ways this could all go. Either they sell it all (and the seats, from what I understand, were spoken for very quickly) which would give the Mets & the city & whatever selling agent they're using reason to claim that they priced the stuff correctly or even generously all along. Or it doesn't and the assorted junk starts to build up in that warehouse and a couple of months from now becomes bargain-hunting time for a bunch of savvy fans looking to pick stuff up.

Just looking at Pitt's last decade or so of 1st round drafts. They weren't quite bad enough to have as many Top-5s overall as TB did, but they didn't have anywhere near the success in picking either: 1996 - RHP Kris Benson (1st overall): Won some games for them but largely derailed by injuries 1997 - JJ Davis (8th): A HS 1B picked just before Michael Cuddyer and Jon Garland, he had 100 ML ABs and is out of baseball. 1998 - Clint Johnston (15th): HS LHP picked right ahead of Lidge & Kip Wells, he was in a few games in Low-A for Pittsburgh and then disappeared for 4 years until resurfacing w/the Toronto system. Injuries, I assume, were the problem. Hasn't played since 2005. 1999 - RHP Bobby Bradley (8th): A HS played picked right ahead of Zito, Sheets, and Brett Myers (9th, 10th, 12th) he never played in the majors and looks to be out of baseball 2000 - Sean Burnett (19th): 2001 - John Van Benschoten (8th): 2002 - Bryan Bullington (1st): These 3 were real killers. One HS pitcher (Burnett) and 2 via colleges, all were stymied several times by injuries and never matched the draft day hope. Bullington, in particular, was the "safe" pick over HSer BJ Upton meaning that Pitt passed on the risky upside in favor of the more likely quick help and wound up getting neither. They released him last Spring and he's resurfaced with Cleveland. Burnett & JVB are still with the team and pitched a few innings in MLB this year. 2003 - Paul Maholm (8th): Pitching well enough for Pitt 2004 - Neil Walker (11th): A HS catcher taken while higher ceiling/bigger money stars like Jared Weaver and Steven Drew were still available. He's still in the Pirate system although not too promising at this point. 2005 - Andrew McCutcheon (11th): A very promising lead-off type OFer in the Pitt system, probably will see him next year. 2006 - Brad Lincoln (4th): RHP out of Univ Houston. Now coming back after missing all of 2007 w/injuries 2007 - Daniel Moskos (4th): A LHP out of Clemson U., they reportedly were scared off by $$ demands of college catcher Matt Weiters this year's minor league player of the year (next pick by Balt). At least he hasn't been hurt yet. 2008 - Pedro Alvarez (2nd): Fortunately the signing thing straightened itself out.

As far as the draft part of it goes the Pirates made a few bad choices w/top picks over the last decade. Sometimes those decisions have been driven by money, sometimes not. They've also run into some incredibly bad luck health-wise with legit pitching picks.

The only team missing from 'the final four' that would really make Steiny's head "asplode" is us! Think about it; - the hated Red Sox - he's always hated the hometown Tampa team, even when they sucked - and then there's Torre proving he CAN succeed w/o pinstripes - and then le Metsies would be grabbing the headlines every time Setting up that foursome alone would have been good enough reason to beat Florida in the last week.

Hitters: (from above) Wright - Beltran - Reyes - Delgado then: Tatis Church No one would have predicted this order a month into the season, but Tatis's edge in the B/O/S stats plus more XBHs, fewer Ks & fewer GiDPs in slightly fewer ABs makes up for the difference in OF defense. Schneider Better second half somewhat erases the totally power-less first Murphy The Ks are a little worrisome (28 in 131 ABs) but getting on base nearly half the time and having 1/3 of his hits for extra bases is enough to push him ahead of several others even with the comparative lack of playing time. Castillo Easley OK, we all know how much Castillo and the whole contract thing bit the big one this year, but it's not like Easley was so hot himself. So it becomes a coin-flip between Luis's better OBA and 17 of 19 steals versus Damion's 18-11 edge in XBHs in virtually the same number of ABs. Castro Another year, another season of tantalizing power and of not being around often enough when we really could have used him. Chavez He really can't hit. But his main asset it that he's usually around when we need a warm body. Pagan Was having a terrific April in Alou's absence. Then he disappeared over a wall and then disappeared completely. Evans Had some good moments. Still needs work Alou 17 hits and only 4 Ks in 45 ABs shows what might have been Casanova Wins the battle of the seemingly interchangeable, pudgy, fill-in catchers even though I barely remember him at this point On the outside looking in: Cancel - Anderson - Argenis - Nixon - R Martinez - Clark - Aguila - Molina - Phillips Pitchers Santana - Pelfrey Perez Maine Similar stats all around (P = 10-8; 4.22 ERA; 1.40 WhiP) (M = 10-9; 4.18 ERA; 1.35 WhiP) Ollie gets the edge based on 54 more innings pitched Wagner Stats look better than he really was (2.25 ERA; 0.86 WHiP) but him not being there really showed how much he was missed. Smith Decent WhiP and ERA (1.29; 3.55) plus the ability to keep the ball in the park makes him this year's tallest midget in the circus (best of the middle relievers) Martinez The hint of a return based on the handful of good starts at the end of 2007 never materialized. Sanchez - as many bad outings as good Schoeneweis - actually had a decent ERA but I remember lots of inherited runners allowed to score and rarely pitched to more than one or two batters at a time Heilman - 55 free passes (BB + HBP) in 76 IPs! A plunge of disasterous proportions Feliciano - and the leadoff man is on Figueroa A couple of good starts before turning back into a pumpkin. Then some useful relief work after that. Ayala Overall stats don't look all that good, but he was brought in to plug a big hole and filled in admirably for a while. Stokes Threw some useful innings down the stretch Vargas Managed to pitch in 11 games while starting 4 of them early in the season and I have virtually no memory of him at all Not quite: Niese - Muniz - Sosa - Knight - Armas - Wise - Parnell - Rincon - Kunz Now combined: 30 - Santana 29 - Wright 28 - Beltran 27 - Reyes 26 - Delgado 25 - Pelfrey 24 - Perez 23 - Maine 22 - Tatis 21 - Wagner 20 - Church 19 - Schneider 18 - Murphy 17 - Castillo 16 - Easley 15 - Smith 14 - Castro 13 - P Martinez 12 - Sanchez 11 - Chavez 10 - Schoeneweis 9 - Heilman 8 - Feliciano 7 - Pagan 6 - Figueroa 5 - Ayala 4 - Evans 3 - Stokes 2 - Vargas 1 - Alou Which means Casanova loses the battle for the final spot

And the Sawx win in the 9th on a bloop and a bleeder. and they're loving that dirty water

And they miss the squeeze play!!! and Boston gets out of the inning. Scoscia plays a little too much small ball for my tastes, although that wasn't a bad time to try a squeeze. Still, he gave up two outs bunting after a leadoff double was the possible winning run.

And it backfires on him as the Angels get a big two-out hit from Toriiiiii to tie it up. Now they're threatening to go ahead in the 9th following a leadoff 2B & bunt.

Game 4: - Francona pulls Lester despite 7 shutout innings and only a 2-run lead. - Okajima gets the first two in the 8th but then walks Teixeira and now Masterson will come in to face Vlad.

Yeah, this is an absurd time to post this, but I hadn't seen the list until today and I know there are several people here very good at digging up 6 month old threads before they post something so they'll probably find this one next May. 1. Nationals 2. Mariners 3. Padres 4. Pirates 5. Orioles 6. Giants 7. Braves 8. Reds 9. Tigers * 10. Nationals (aka pick 9A) this is the first year that compensation is awarded within the 1st round for failure to sign last year's 1st round guy. Washington had, but didn't sign, the 9th pick in 2008 so they get the pick right after #9 this year in addition to their regular pick. This obviously moves everyone else down one slot. 11. Rockies 12. Royals 13. Athletics 14. Rangers 15. Indians 16. Diamondbacks ------------------------------------ 17. Dodgers 18. Marlins 19. Cardinals 20. Blue Jays 21. Astros 22. Mariners (also a compensaton for failure to sign a 2008 1st-rounder, the only difference here is that their guy was a college senior so is NOT subject to the Aug 15 deadline and could still sign between now and next June's draft) 23. Twins 24. White Sox 25. Mets 26. Yankees 27. Brewers 28. Phillies 29. Red Sox 30. Rays * 31. Yankees (compensation for failure to sign 2008 1st-rounder) 32. Cubs 33. Angels Those teams above the line have their 1st round picks protected from compensation for FA signings. Those below do not.

Clueless line of the week goes to Alfonso Soriano when asked what he'd say to the Cubs fans; "Be patient"

I haven't concocted a whole list yet, but I think it's safe to say that the top six this year, in one order or another, are going to be: Santana, Beltran, Delgado, Wright, Reyes & Pelfrey. The four hitters no only all played 159+ games this season but had over 100 Runs Created while no one else on the team even reached 50 - the gap was that huge. On the pitching side it's not quite so massive but I'd still argue that Santana & Pelfrey are significantly ahead of the rest of the pack. So then the question remains as to the order. I'm going with this one. 30 - Santana A CY-caliber season (whether he actually wins it or not) which kept getting better as the games got tighter 29 - Wright Took some hits for coming up small in certain clutch spots, but still topped the team in BA, OBA, SLG, XBHs, RBI, BB, 2Bs, Sac Flies, & Runs Created, plus played some terrific defense despite the occasional case of scatter-arm 28 - Beltran 27 - Reyes This one was a virtual dead-heat in my mind. Reyes had a higher BA & steals while Beltran better OBA, SLG and SB% . Both had 72 XBHs and were a toss-up in Runs created I'm giving Beltran the edge based on Reyes's weak September (again!) and I think Carlos played a better CF than Jose did at SS 26 - Delgado Second half MVP no doubt and a barrel full of huge hits, but the first half counts too as does defense at his position 25 - Pelfrey A rough start and maybe started to tire towards the end but, in between, he showed why he was a top pick

The list of candidates: Hitters (26) listed by plate appearances: J.Reyes - Wright - Beltran - Delgado - Schneider Castillo - Church - Easley - Tatis - Chavez Castro - Anderson - Murphy - A.Reyes - Evans Pagan - Casanova - Alou - Cancel - Nixon Aguila - R.Martinez - Clark - Molina - Phillips Nunez Pitchers (24) by innings pitched: Santana - Pelfrey - Perez - Maine - Martinez Heilman - Smith - Sanchez -Schoeneweis - Feliciano Wagner - Figueroa - Vargas - Stokes - Muniz Sosa - Ayala - Niese - Knight - Armas Wise - Parnell - Rincon - Kunz A few notes to any newbies or part-timers who haven't seen this before and want to participate; since this, like our daily PotG poll, is part of an ongoing project it's one of the few places where we have some actual rules. What we do is choose the top 30 players from the 50 available on this year's team and rank them from best (30) to worst (1) based on their contributions to this year's team. Anyone or everyone is invited to submit a list of their own.. How you come up with such a list (numbers crunching, gut feeling, Ouija Board) is up to you although you should be prepared to explain and/or defend your choices if your logic (or your IQ) is questioned. Also remember that it's actual contributions to this year's team and that we're not grading on a curve. So no one's rank should be raised or lowered based on how he did in relation to his reputation or contract; or on speculation as to how he would have done if only the stupid manager played him more; or based on how bright a future you think he has with the club. Unlike our PotG project, this one isn't just a simple case of tabulating quick votes. Instead, it becomes an ongoing discussion in an attempt to reach some sort of consensus and we'll usually keep this thread going as long as there's enough activity to warrant it. If you don't want to submit an entire list you can still join in critiquing the lists of others. Or you can just ignore the whole thing altogether, what do we care?

Game 3: Sox down 1-0 in the 2nd when Ellsbury pops up w/2-out & the bases loaded ... only 2Bman Kendrick and CF Hunter play 'You got It' and the ball falls untouched and all 3 runs score. I keep hearing what a great fundamental team the Angels are yet every time I see them it seems like their making mistakes somewhere - eapecially by making a ton of outs on the basepaths. Their pitching carries them more often than not and that allows you to win games when you're not playing sound ball. Becket's been laboring from the beginning. And, in typcial RedSox/AL tradition, it took them over an hour to play the first 2 innings.

Phils batted 34 times in the series (8 times each at home and 9 in each road game) and were shut out in 29 of them. But when they did score they had big innings almost each time and their pitching, with the exeption of Moyer, shut the Brews down completely.

Yup - which is why it's so dumb to quote stuff like that. Like there's actually some connection once you're beyond 2 or 3 seasons. The streak consists of the game from the other day plus the 3-game sweep last season the 3-game sweep in 2004 and the final 3 games of the '86 ALCS

Game 2, 9:30 Sox lead 1-0 Matsuzaka: 18-3, 2.90 vs Earvin Santana: 16-7, 3.49

Game 2, 6:00 Rays lead 1-0 Mark Buehrle: 15-12, 3.79 vs Scott Kazmir: 12-8, 3.49

Leave the ribbon up until the new tower is complete and then replace the old with the new.

AG/DC wrote: Packages can always be built, but heres the list of players I'd consider in one-for-one deals for David Wright: Hanley Ramirez Who is, perhaps not coincidently, the only one that BP put ahead of Wright in their list of players they'd most want to build around over the next 5-7 years.

Couple things about the pen: - Met starters actually covered a learger pct of innings than the average team and I don't believe it changed that much between managers, although I don't have specific data on that. Lack of innings for the starters wasn't the real problem unless one wants to take them to task for not providing the super-duper # of IPs that would be needed in order to save us from the rotten pen. - The Met pen had by far the largest gaps in their pitching splits for throwing to their opposites (LHPs vs R and RHP v L) meaning that it was almost necessary to do the 6 reliever conga line each night. Then, tacked on to that, came the lack of Wagner combined with the ineffectiveness of Sanchez & Heilman which made the mgr depend even more on the guys with the built-in half-lives. As someone mentioned, do that often enough and you'll eventually hit upon someone who simply sucked that night but, in this case, the horrid splits might make inaction even more likely to make the predictable occur. In the final game I saw the Schoeneweis/Helms matchup and just asked him to get through just this one right-hander!! ... and he couldn't even do that.

]Can you not have two senators in the same party, with the same voting record and the same lack of indictments, and one be far more effective? Well sure, especially when you have Senator Jeter casting all his votes in the clutch.

"What to make of the large man , lasted only 3+ innings in game 2 against the Phillies" Mostly just a bad game, everyone has them. In this case it was probably made more likely not just from pitching on three days rest but on the cumulative effect of doing so several games in a row. The PAP score is also an attempt to measure the cumulative effect of pitching late into games in numerous starts, although they're looking at it as a future injury indicator moreso than for single-game ineffectiveness. It's weakness is that it's a one-size-fits-all deal and what's minor "abuse" for one guy might be major for another while safe for a third. Seaver recently talked about the fact that he had a pitch-count in his day even though it was never discussed openly at the time. But he knew what his was as did his pitching coach and he pitched with that end-line in mind if it was getting late in games. But he also added that his count wasn't necessarily the same as Koosman's, and Kooz's was different than Ryan's, etc. (Merged from CC Sabathia, 12/10/2008)