Frayed Knot

Not that I know of. They're really looking for a RH bat more than anything. Plus Lofton can't play the field on anywhere near his old level and with Endy around you don't want him for defense either.

Tweaks his knee on on his first pitch of the spring and will need his knee scoped, possibly making him not ready for opening day. This is the same knee he had surgery on (torn cartilege) in October

Bartolo Colon looks like he'll be signing with Boston while Trot Nixon hooks up with Arizona. But that still leaves a pretty heftly list of the newly unemployed, including hitters: Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza, Shawn Green, Shannon Stewart, Preston Wilson, Reggie Sanders, Kenny Lofton, Rondell White, Corey Patterson, Ryan Klesko, Julio Franco and pitchers: David Wells, Kyle Lohse, Freddy Garcia, Russ Ortiz, Eric Milton, Aaron Sele, Rodrigo Lopez, Armando Bentiez, Arthur Rhodes, Jose Mesa & Antonio Alfonseca

]Where's David Wright? Back in Virginia for grandmother's funeral

I think Steve's roundabout point is that Bonds was seen as guilty by many due to the fact that he theatened to, but never did sue, the authors for spreading those "lies" about him in their book and never really sought out the media to deny his use. Clemens, on the other hand, did exactly what Bonds was critisized for NOT doing yet is still seen as guilty. The problem with Roger's strategy is that if you're going to take that road you have to have the truth on your side in order for it to work -- especially when the news comes out this morning that lawyer Hardin now admits that ... well, maybe Roger WAS at that party.

Triple initial guys that come to mind: Ugeth Urtain Urbina -- who recently went from the clubhouse to the big house Marion Michael Morrison -- who famously changed it to John Wayne and from 'Catch 22' there was Major Major Major -- who the army felt they had no choice but to immediately promote to the rank of Major.

AG/DC wrote: Delgado strikes me as somebody who did some boxing in his younger days. Actually his sport in his youth, other than baseball, was volleyball.

Dunn's HRs would leave any park ... including Yellowstone. I doubt GAB is affecting his totals all that much. He wouldn't be my favorite player to get; kind of one-dimensional, slow of foot and an absolute butcher with a glove. But .400 OBPs and prodigious power can't be easily dismissed. That said, it's too early for me to worry about '09 1Bmen at this point. Welcome aboard DDD

You know what we be even better than two guys squaring off in an in-game fight? A Full-Fledged Rumble!!! Can't you just see it? Two teams facing each other on the field snapping their fingers as they size each other up: MILLEDGE: When you're a Met, You're a Met all the way From your first pinstriped shirt Til they trade you away WAGNER: When you're a Met, you get torched from the fans, til you shut down the game, and you get a big hand ALL: You're never alone, you're always disrespected! Even at your own home frustration is expected From the well-connected! BELTRAN: When you're a Met you're the top cat in town I'll kick Jimmy's skinny butt for the MVP crown SANTANA: Now I'm a Met as I've inked my big deal and the crap they gave up makes it seem like a steal ALL: The Mets are in gear, we'll deal with those imposters 'Cause every Puerto Rican star is already on our roster DELGADO: Here come the Mets, in our last year at Shea when the Phils fly to town we'll just swat them away MINAYA: Our roster's so deep, our rotation's a dream it's the best in the league ifyouknowwhatImean ALL: Here come the Mets, we ain't gonna get beat out on Roosevelt Ave, or even down on Broad Street Even on Mother Lovin' Broad Street! Yeah!! or not, whatever.

Oliver Wins !!!!

I don't care one way or the other if dirt gets spilled on Scott Boras, but whenever I hear Sheffield talk I tune it out until it sounds like the parents on a Peanuts cartoon Wah-wah wah-wah. Wah wah wah wah wah wah Whenever he gets one os these burrs under his saddle he'll go on one of these tirades where he rants for about 20 minutes straight ... and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"I guess knowing numbers it’s like knowing the flip side of a 45. It seemed to be the right thing to do. " I get the feeling that wasn't just some random throw-away line from Marty. Noble lives (or at least did) in the Port Washington area where he was friends and neighbors with long-time NYC disc jockey Pete Fornatale. Fornatale has been at Fordam's WFUV for the last decade or more where he does a Saturday afternoon show. So on one of Pete's shows just over 6 years ago (on Feb 2nd to be specific) Fornatale had Noble on his show and let him play guest DJ for a few hours. Marty proceeded to spin a bunch of his favorite records (a lot of early '60s stuff as I recall, which makes sense as it would have been 'his era') but specifically he was steering the playlist towards those records that were the 2nd hit for each group. IOW, never the debut song or hit single for each artist but rather their 2nd charted hit, the 2nd single release from an album, or a B-sides of a more famous hit. The method to his madness, and the thing which confirmed Noble in my mind as a closet numbers freak, was that ignoring the #1 hit fit the theme of the day. The date was, after all, 02/02/02.

Absolutely. Oliver's career - both prior to coming to the Mets and since - has been so erratic that I wouldn't know where to start with a multi-year offer. And from the player's end he probably wouldn't know where to settle either. Perez could hit the FA market this winter as an under-30, top of the rotation type pitcher -- which is why I don't think they ever would have gone for the suggestion of a 3-year deal in exchange for getting their price at arbitration. I'd be very surprised if a deal with him for beyond this year even gets discussed prior to the season ending.

At least some of the remaining guys available (Kyle Lohse, Jeff Weaver) are simply asking for more money than anyone is willing to pay them by most reports. I suspect both will get jobs ... but will have to come off their demands for price and/or years.

So I reckon this place is covered for rain but not air-tight for AC? In other Florida baseball news: It looks like an agreement for a new Marlins stadium is all but a done deal.

- Whether my new jeans make my butt look too big - That Hillary will rally from her deficit and we'll have to hear about 'The Comeback Kid II' for the next year - The outcome of that all-important Supporting Actress award - Am I using the correct brand of fabric softener? - That Brittany is hooking up with the wrong guy again ... or did y'all just mean NY Met concerns?

Also no jobs right now for Bonds, Sosa, or Clemens. Under different circustances that could have made for one helluva HoF class in 2013. Of course under different circumstances maybe some or all of them would still have jobs ... or maybe would have hung it up years ago.

metirish wrote: It's time they streamed Mets games over the internet. Well they are if you subscribe via MLB media or whatever they call it. WFAN can't do it through their site because those rights belong to MLB.

Yanx moved to CBS 880 from ABC 770 a couple years back. I believe ABC still does some "minor" sports (Seton Hall hoops I think) but I'm not sure whether they'd want to blow a hole in their evening talkers' lineup (Mark Levin, Bob Grant and blondie Laura whatshername would be most affected) on an every night basis like they'd have to do for baseball. The weak signal problem was one side-effect to the Knicks/Rangers (and Jets) move to 1050. The quickly found out that there are a ton of "dead" areas where that signal doesn't carry well (the main reason why the fledgling WFAN got outta there quickly when 660 became available). That frequency now has signed up smaller stations on the east end of LI, for instance, to reach previously unreachable fans. If 1050 could prove to that they can cover a wider area they would kill to have baseball.

metirish wrote: In that bit it mentions that the Mets WFAN deal is set to expire after 08, surely they won't leave the FAN , will they? Probably not, but it's always possible. The MSG teams (Knicks, Rangers) left a few years back when they and FAN mgmt had a vast difference of opinion as to the worth of their broadcasting value. Basically FAN said they weren't in the business to lose money on rights fees simply for the 'prestiege' of hosting those teams and they refused to pay what MSG was asking. So MSG decided to produce their own games and simply sell them to a station looking for an entry into the NYC market - and found one in the desperate-to-get-a-toehold ESPN affiliate (1050 WEPN). ]Where would they go etc? Any one of a number of stations would pay good money for baseball on the radio. The question the Mets would have to ask themselves, if it ever comes to that, is whether whatever extra money they might score from shopping themselves around would be worth losing the reflected exposure by being associated with the 800-pound gorilla of sports radio stations.

Meet Wayne Hagin

Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus did get a better article out of it in a piece he wrote the other day [below]. Chass's problem is the same one a lot of pundits have in that they over-generalize the point of the book and what the concept of 'Moneyball' really meant. That said, I think part of the problem was with author Michael Lewis for his occasional over-the-top prose. Fielder, for instance, went 9 or 10 slots before Oakland had its 1st pick that year so they couldn't have drafted him anyway. The "too fat" comment was probably gratuitous as 'The Prince' was exactly the type of power + OBP guy that 'Moneyball' was supposedly all about at the time. The A's "didn't consider" Fielder because they pretty much knew they had no shot at him. The other thing Chass is ignoring is the role that money played in those 2002 draft picks. Brown was drafted that high not because the A's thought he was better than all other picks left but because they couldn't afford to dole out first round money to every pick they had lined up that year and therefore were looking for "hidden" talent that they could make 1st & supp round picks but pay 3rd & 4th round money to players who were only too happy to take is since, going in, they weren't expecting to be drafted anywhere near that high. Goldstein: More than a year ago, an A’s official sent me an email asking me, half jokingly, to stop mentioning Moneyball. It was an understandable request. Baseball changes quickly, and the lessons from Moneyball, or maybe more accurately, the lessons that the readers often perceive from Moneyball, no longer really apply. In 2006, Oakland selected a high school pitcher with their first draft pick, shocking many of the book’s diehard fans, and if you look at their renewed system after all of the trades, the biggest strength of the system is now a plethora of those high-ceiling young arms that give many of the risk-averse shivers. Moneyball is a dead issue it seems, even to the A’s. And now comes word that one of the players, who often unfairly represented Moneyball, has hung them up, as Jeremy Brown has not reported to camp this year, and informed the A’s that he is retiring. For none of the right reasons, Brown was kind of forced to wear the jersey of Moneyball. The A’s gave him over $300,000 to sign when many teams would have never have drafted him. If you balance the scales in a certain way, Oakland was more right about him in many ways that some of the scouts were. He really could produce offensively, batting .268/.370/.439 in six minor league seasons, including a .276/.364/.469 line last year at Triple-A Sacramento. In 1904 at-bats, he delivered consistency on a secondary skills level, with 115 doubles, 68 home runs and 288 walks. In the end however, that body, the one that wasn’t selling jeans, worked against him. Brown was often injured, and a downright bad defensive catcher – anything but agile behind the plate, with an arm that wasn’t very strong. With the offensive profile of a backup, as he was never going to hit for much of an average, Brown ended up miscast for the role, as there is little room on a major league roster for an offensive-oriented reserve catcher. So while overall, I think it’s fair to say Brown turned out better than many thought he would, he still didn’t turn out good enough to be a big leaguer – so at best, it’s a moral victory, and in reality, it doesn’t mean much at all. And with that, I will now finally honor the request that came from that Oakland official. I’m done talking about Moneyball – and so should you be.

Vic Sage wrote: i guess i'm getting old. I got about 1/2 way thru and had to turn it off. Lunchbucket wrote: I find these movies generally hard to take at first -- they come off like they're all about laughs through vulgarity -- but by the end they've demonstrated real heart and humanity as well I finally got around to this one ... and I find myself agreeing with both of the above. I was ready to his 'Eject' part way into it, but (after taking a break) stuck to it and it did get better as it went on. I'm not as ga-ga as most of y'all but it did make a nice rally from the mid-point on - and the hottie-geek matchups weren't as tough to buy as the one in 'Knocked Up'.

vtmet wrote: Technicality question here... If you pinch hit for your catcher, and then the backup catcher gets injured or ejected during the game...can you activate a coach in the middle of the game and ship a player out (DL or AAA) and get that coach in during that game...or would you have to wait until the next game to use him? No ]Guys have gotten traded during a game before and showed up & played for his new team before, so I don't see why you couldn't do it.. Not during a game they haven't. ]it's not fantasy baseball, where the roster is set for the day until the next day Yes it is

="G-Fafif"]I read the man once described an impending storm with incredible precision. The Dodgers were at Braves Field in Boston and while he was doing play-by-play, Red described how the rain was now pelting this part of town, and that part of town, now a few drops on the Charles River...until the first drizzle hit the outfield dark skies finally opened up over the ballgame. Astounding. My father told me that story. I don't know whether he was remembering it first-hand or was just relaying it as it was told to him, but it was right along the same lines. It was one of those summer storms you could not only see coming but knew that as soon as it hit there was going to be no more baseball for a while. So after describing its progress for an inning or two he called an inning-ending ground-out to 2nd with the words; "... and there are raindrops on the bill of his cap as he throws to 1st for the out" The fielders then sprinted for the dugout as the deluge followed seconds later. Newsday's sports media writer Neil Best devotes his Sunday column to Barber: http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/sports/ny-spbest175581463feb17,0,6685651.column