Frayed Knot

Torre's made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to retire, that he'd like to manage more providing the right situation presents itself. If he were to proactively declare himself out of the NYY pool of candidates he'd be doing a favor (IMO) to those who - despite the continuing string of playoff appearances - seem bent on cutting him loose. "Hey he walked away from US ... WE don't have any blood on our hands"

FOX's Ken Rosenthal drops a line about the Mets looking into the mascot-looking David Eckstein with the thought about moving him over to 2nd base. A FA who is coming off making $4.5mil in the final year of a 3 year/$10.5mil deal, Eckstein's offense is essentially the same as Luis Castillo's: DE (2005-2007): 1,564 ABs; .297/.345/.375; 13 HRs LC (2005-2007): 1,570 ABs; .295/.369/.368' 8 HRs The concern about his defense was that he didn't have the arm for SS where he's been his whole career. Presumably that wouldn't be a problem at 2nd although you wonder if he has the quick release you'd like for turning DPs. He always seemed to have an almost Pennington-like slow release which took almost max effort just to get the ball across the diamond. He'll turn 33 in January, some 8 months older than Castillo.

btw, Shapiro's sister is married to NYJ coach Mangini.

Or he could take the viewpoint that quitting takes them off the hook. By not quitting he forces the brass to publicly announce that THEY are the reason he's not still Yanqui manager.

MFS62 wrote: OK, then what other theories do y'all have? Rule 1: Hitters go in streaks Rule 2: Refer often to Rule 1

And then the pitchers: Maine - All-Star caliber first half, then a sinking ship for 2 months which was righted at the tail end with a gem which almost saved the season Perez - When he wasn't melting down on the mound in a sea of walks and HBPs he was leading the team in ERA and tied for lead in wins. Hernandez - Was the best starter on the staff ... when he was available Wagner - A near perfect 1st half (1.64 ERA, 0.92 WhiP) turned shakey later on (3.90, 1.40) Glavine - His best run came down the home stretch ... until it fell 3 games short Heilman - Very odd year in that his outings seemed to be either perfect ... or perfectly horrible. Gave up just 22 hits and 25 BBs/HBPs - and 36 of them scored!! Feliciano - Probably the most consistant reliever all year - but a ton of walks Sosa - Started out great in the rotation ... then lost his job ... then found himself in the bullpen Martinez - Pitched well in his return, but still just 5 starts and 28 IP Smith - First 17+ IP were scoreless, then allowed 17 ER over the next 27 Pelfrey - Too many walks kept him from putting together more than a good inning or two in a row. Schoeneweis - Strong finish can't erase a horrid 1st half Mota - Too many HRs ruins what is often great stuff Burgos - Showed glimpses of promise Sele - Not only didn't pitch very well but also virtually no important innings Lawrence, Vargas, Humber, Collazo, Williams, Park, Muniz, Adkins & Urdaneta ain't making the cut. Which leads us to the combined list: 30 - Wright 29 - Beltran 28 - Reyes 27 - Maine 26 - Perez 25 - Delgado 24 - Hernandez 23 - Wagner 22 - Glavine 21 - Alou 20 - Heilman 19 - LoDuca 18 - Feliciano 17 - Green 16 - Castillo 15 - Milledge 14 - Sosa 13 - Easley 12 - Castro 11 - Gotay 10 - Martinez 9 - Smith 8 - Anderson 7 - Pelfrey 6 - Chavez 5 - Gomez 4 - Schoeneweis 3 - Mota 2 - Velentin 1 - Burgos On the outside looking in: Adkins, Alomar, Ambres, Collazo, Conine, DiFelice, Franco, A. Hernandez, Humber, Johnson, Lawrence, Newhan, Sele, Urnadeta, Vargas, Williams So go ahead, show me where I'm nuts.

I like to start these by sorting out the position players from the pitchers and then combine them later. First the hitters: Wright - Led team in virtually every offensive category and was miles ahead in both OBA & Runs Created. He's the top position player this year and it's not even close. Beltran - Fast start but then a slow stretch lingered well into mid-year before a good finish. Still, the final numbers added up to a pretty good year even if they pale against the near-MVP 2006 Reyes - Great start, horrid finish. Ran well, power plummeted. Delgado - Disappointing year even if still occasionally dangerous Alou - Was great while he was available but all that missed time puts him behind the full-timers LoDuca - Bad offensive year. Only brownie points for being the catcher gets him this high. Green - Not nearly enough power from a corner OF position, but was somewhat reliable and finished strong. Castillo - May not be a keeper, but hit & played 2nd well enough after the trade deadline to earn first place amongst the irregulars Milledge - Was a shame that he wasn't available when the rest of the OF was dropping like flies or we may have actually seen him on the field for an uninterrupted stretch. Easley - Nice versatility and some monster moments Castro - Awesome slugging but injuries blew maybe his best chance at semi-regular work Gotay - Nice fill-in, and maybe more than that in the future. Anderson - His ridiculous RBI/Hit ratio puts him much higher than just 69 ABs would usually merit Chavez - Nice to have around when he was around, but reduced offense compared to '06 reminds us why he has been a 4th outfielder at best Gomez - The fans who fell in love with his speed and were ready to say he'd bypassed Milledge seemed to miss some anemic slugging and lack of walks. Valentin - Been gone so long you almost forgot he was here didn't you? Newhan/Franco - Newhan wins this battle on account of 3 XBHs to 1 DiFelice, Conine, Ledee, Johnson, Ambres, Alomar, & Hernandez all have no shot at making the final cut

Well I'm ready to start taking a crack at this. For those of you newbies or part-timers who aren't familiar, the CPF Annual Ranking Project is like a season-long version of our daily Player of the Game awards ... only different. Rather than awarding a score to each player, you're creating an ordinal list of the best 30 players this season (from among the 49 that appeared) from biggest to smallest contributions. And rather than just submitting a vote and counting them up we tend to hash over them a while arguing specific points about who should be ranked above who and other such stuff. How you arrive at your answer is strictly up to you although you should be prepared to explain and/or defend your choices or even change them if persuaded enough by those questioning your logic, your knowledge of baseball, or the size of your brain. There's no specific time limit here as we usually let this go on as long as there's still enough discussion to keep it going. Eventually we arrive at some sort of consensus and put that "into the books" as our official 2007 ranking. Said ranking will be combined with the ones we did for the previous 45 seasons which creates the overall player list of best ever Mets which is where those names connected to your posting levels come from. You can participate by submitting your own list in full, or just sit on the sidelines and argue specific points such as why you believe that player 'A' deserves to be higher or lower than 'B' and the rest of the crew must be drunk for not seeing it that way, etc. You also are, of course, free to just ignore the whole fucking thing altogether ... although doing that precludes you from ever complaining that your designated whipping boy du-season is ranked too high when you're suddenly saddled with having his name next to your posts for a week or so. Here's the roster we need to deal with: The 25 position players who got into at least one game this year (in order of ABs) Reyes - Wright - Beltran - Delgado - Green LoDuca - Alou - Castillo - Easley - Gotay Milledge - Valentin - Chavez - Castro - Gomez Newhan - Anderson - Franco - Conine - DiFelice Ledee - Johnson - Alomar - Ambres - Hernandez And the 24 pitchers who appeared for the blue & orange in 2007 (in order of IPs) Glavine - Maine - Perez - Hernandez - Sosa Heilman - Pelfrey - Wagner - Feliciano - Schoeneweis Mota - Sele - Smith - Lawrence - Martinez Burgos - Vargas - Humber - Collazo - Williams Park - Muniz - Adkins - Urdaneta

Edgy's office has itself a serious dose of pulp friction.

I'm in the same boat where I've got no strong rooting interest either for or against any of the remaining teams - which is good cuz then I can just root for two long & exciting series. Or what sometimes happens is that I'll find myself late in the series pulling for one side over the other without any conscious intent to do so. I suspect I'll wind up pulling for Cleveland & Colorado

- "would it make sense for him to DH every game in the AL?" PH maybe, DH no. - "Has a pitcher ever served as a DH in every WS game in an AL park before?" No

Sets up some nice pitching matchups for the next round too since Boston is going to have almost a week off and Cleveland managed to save Sabathia and Carmona from having to go a 2nd time.

If you don't put dumbo-ears on base Joe then you can't face the tying run. Remember that.

That Derek Jeter ... he always comes through (repeat as neccesary)

And even if you're not going to "change" closers, you're simply opting to let Betancourt continue off what was a very quick & perfect inning. THEN if he gets in trouble you can think about Borowski. Borowski's numbers are somewhat skewed by a horrible early season - but part of that horror was a 6-run 9th by the Yanx back in April that culminated by a 3R walk-off by ARod ... who's hitting 3rd in this inning.

Nymr83 wrote: then make the rule "you can replace for injury (or even for any reason) a player who has not yet appeared in the series" Which will take care of all those guys who hurt themselves getting off the bus I suppose. And even those who appear in a game can sometimes affect it by being threats off the bench or out of the pen and forcing a strategy from the other side. Not that I want to make a big deal out of this -- it's just that during the first opportunity to use it a team does just that for what may or may not be a legit reason and I suspect it won't be the last time.

Indians need a few more runs so they can Borowski-proof this game.

Jeter & Abreu with consect 1-out singles ... but an ARod 'K' and a sliding catch by Lofton on a Posada bloop gets Paul Byrd out of the inning unscathed.

Wang on just 3 days rest not looking like a great maneuver early on -- 2 runs on 3 hits in inning one

Nymr83 wrote: ... how does this rule work in the WS though? it seems like unlimited replacements with no downside Egg-Zacktly

A rule new to this season allows an injured player to be replaced [u:adec6baf5e]within the same post-season series[/u:adec6baf5e] instead of the previous way of having to wait until between rounds if your team advanced. The Yanx have taken advantage of this to (after last night's stellar performance) remove Clemens and add Ron Villone for the remaining two games against Cleveland. My problem with it is that it's too easy to manipulate. A back-end pitcher or a one-time starter can simply be discarded for a similar replacement after he's used; same with one bench player for another if you see that the two remaining scheduled pitchers for the other side are both lefties. I don't know whether the Yanx are manipulating things in this case, but since the league can never prove that a player is NOT injured there's no real way to oversee whether it was actually neccesary or sneaky and strategic. Now there is a downside to it in that the "injured" player is then not eligible for the [u:adec6baf5e]next[/u:adec6baf5e] series also - so even if the Yanx do advance Rajah could not pitch against Boston (although could still return for the WS). But it still allows for a desperate move just to get to the next series whether it was really neccesary or not.

The Native Americans needed more than just one run out of their three hits plus a walk in that inning.

I'm shocked that the network stayed with George's little 'watch how patriotic I can be' routine. YES does it every night but that's understandable.

SNL is often funny, just not since the Carter administration.

Kid Carsey wrote: Lazy question, who is this dick in the booth with Tony? Chip Carey (Harry III) on p-b-p and Bob Brenly is the other. Jhonny Peralta = not very good SS. He's VERY slow in getting to balls and again in getting rid of them. Cost his pitcher at least 2 or 3 outs just in this series. Needless to say, he isn't a very good speller either.