Frayed Knot

I nominate Bradford for God.

Def a good player ... just not so much anymore. Maybe a change of scenery does him some good.

Well, let's figure that Green is owed something on the order of $13.5mil - $9.5 for next year - $2m buyout for the following (highly doubt he's getting the '08 option picked up) - plus maybe $2mil for the remainder of this year If Zona picks up anywhere near half that amount then it's a reasonably good investment for us even if he doesn't discover the fountain of youth. That it makes our outfield very LH-heavy: Cliff, Tucker, Endy, Ledee and now Green it's a bit surprising that Diaz is being released as opposed to jettisoning one of the recent pickups. I admit that I didn't think of Alou until I heard it mentioned a few days ago. He's righthanded and a better hitter than Green and isn't on the hook for next year. On the other hand, he's a lousy fielder and baserunner at this point.

Back to Jeter for a second; Look, he's having a terrific season and deserves to at least be in the discussion of year-end awards if things continue as they are. It's just so damn frustrating to hear people - some of whom could even have votes - discuss his 9th inning RBI bloop hit as if an award clincher. "Because that's what Jeter does", said Washington' Post/ESPN's Michael Wilbon ... and I can't even go into the lapping that went on with Joe Badabingo and partner du jour yesterday; "it's a joke that he hasn't already won several" considering how clutch he is. It's this 'proof by anecdote' method that drives me nuts, as if Joe Mauer's higher BA on a team that steamed back into a race in the toughest division in MLB by winning something like 40 of 50 couldn't possibly have produced as many BIG hits as Jeter since us NYC-ers don't see him as often. In some minds this is strictly down to Jeter vs Ortiz and Jeter sealed it this weekend because he proved (all together now) that he's a winner!!!!

The canonization of Jeter went into overdrive mode yesterday. On both radio and TV I heard that he put a headlock on the MVP race on account of this series as if he were the sole reason for the sweep. Yeah, he had a couple of big hits over the weekend, but y'know who else did? .... EVERYONE!!!! Giambi homered twice and knocked in 4 in the game 4 extra-inning win (including the game-winner) yet Jeter was being lauded for his "clutch bloop". Jeter had a bases-clearing 2B which helped break open a game ... and so did Posada ... and so did ARod. Meanwhile, Abreu was on base around 75% of the time and he and Damon were, without a doubt, the best offensive players out there. But, of course, none of the others has the same pre-written story about them just waiting for an excuse to run it.

Initially it looked like it might be just a nepotism promotion, but LFer Chris (son of long-time LaRussa pitching coach Dave) Duncan has been bopping the ball to the tune of .345/.401/.661 with 14 HRs and 23 XBHs in just 168 ABs in this, his first go-'round in the major leagues.

CFer Edmonds is aging and slowing. Still dangerous on occasion, but not the player he was a few years back.

I have nothing against Koch and kind of liked the fact that he rarely even pretended to be a sports fan -- but I don't look at him as "Our" mayor and, as far as I'm concerned, the fewer politicians at these sort of things the better. The Yanqui "ground-breaking" ceremony the other day must have involved 30 of them.

I suspect that before Koch showed up in the Mets dugout prior to the final out he got himself a quick briefing from his aides to explain to him that this is a baseball game and the team is the M-E-T-S. Koch certainly knows a good photo-op when he sees one but is/was a total sports neophyte and probably couldn't tell you whether a baseball is wound with string, stuffed with feathers, or pumped up with air.

]Of course Offense is the last thing wrong with the Red Sox, even tho Coco suxxxxx. Nice to see that after scoring about a million runs over the weekend (but giving up a billion) they pick today to get shut down by Cory Freakin Lidle and crew during their one and only good pitching performance. The difference between Coco & Damon has been massive this week as well. Part of the overall diff was because Coco got hurt opening week but even since then he's got a .320-ish OBP and - despite his stunning, game-saving catch against Wright - there have been a ton of hits this week which fell justoutofthereach of a running/leaping/lunging Crisp.

I heard that "report" too but it's basically just speculation at this point. The thinking is that since his contract is up after next season that this winter would be the time to either talk to him about signing longer or maybe explore trading him before he can walk on his own if the Mariners' slide into mediocrity (or worse) is getting to him enough to make him want to look elsewhere.

Hansen & Timlin absolutely killed the Sox out of the pen this weekend. Seanez & Tavarez did too but it was kind of expected from them. Timlin's been a big part of that pen for a few years now and Hansen was expected to be after being widely rumored to be 1st round draft bait for both local teams last year (local boy and all - Glen Cove, St Johns) but both crashed and burned. More than a few columnists worte how the Yanx "blew it" by not selecting him last year as they assumed that his path to shut-down closer/set-up man was only a matter a weeks or months away. Now, 14 months later, he's struggling to even establish himself as a ML player.

There's basically two types of PTBNLs 1) where the teams already know who's being traded but for various reasons can announce it yet (player on DL, roster issues, etc.) 2) where the team is given time to decide who they want - usually from a group of players And Chiti was part of #2. The Mets probably dealt Chiti under the guise that Cleveland could give them any player on their ML roster as of a certain date ... at which point Cleveland decides that Chiti wasn't too swift once seen up close and so they sent him when the time came to close the deal.

<<<<------ My wayward son I suppose what this could all mean is that it frees a Bell/Ring type of guy for a trade and still gives us a fallback guy to cover any pen emegencies that come up. Plus Mota's also the "live arm" type (J Julio. O Perez) that Omar seems to like as a possible reclamation project. Other than that I don't really understand his apparent obsession with "fixing" a problem that isn't really broken. Even in the post-Duaner era we've still got the #1 pen ERA in the majors.

Sure it can be a minor leaguer -- in fact, I'd be surprised if it weren't. It may just be a PTBNL because they haven't decided on who it'll be yet. Typically the Mets could give the seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" a list of several ml-ers and let them choose later on after doing some scouting. I can't believe the bait here would be anything substantial.

Willie has already said Williams will get one more start at least. One of the StL games (forget which). And even if they were so inclined to make Heilman as starter (and I don't think they are) I HIGHLY DOUBT they'd do it so late in the season. Boston's in the same quandry with Papelbon and THEY WANT to convert him eventually but are afraid it's much too late to 'stretch him out'.

Good thing Piazza's gone

My initial reaction: WTF?

OHernandez - 4.1 Delgado - 2.0 Beltran - 2.0 Heilman - 0.5 Bradford - 0.5 Wagner - 0.9

SteveJRogers wrote: ="Frayed Knot"]At least the fans had enough class not to boo Sisk's introduction. I was surprised. Me too. Doug Risk was the 1986 edition of Mel Rojas, Rich Rodriguez, Jorge Julio, ect, ect, ect... I'm well aware of what Doug Sisk was but Met fans have got to do a few things here: 1) stop acting as if treating less-than-heroic players like they ran over your pets makes you some sort of discrimnating and knowledgable fan. That they managed to do this for one night is both encouraging and surprising. get this idea out of their heads that they've been a fan-base with a history of being tortured by bad bullpens. Just take your brief list for instance: Rojas was lousy for part of one season and was gone. Rodriguez barely lasted longer than that, and Julio was here barely a month and had about at least as many good outings as bad. Furthermore, NONE of them were the main option out of the pen and only with Rojas was that notion even a possibility. That fans then go lumping Franco, Benitez, Orosco and now Wagner into their pantheon of relievers who they believe to be worse than dime-a-dozen underachievers whose existance tortures their daily fandom is further proof that some need different hobbies.

At least the fans had enough class not to boo Sisk's introduction. I was surprised.

I don't want to say that the pitching's been bad in this series but 3 hurlers who have appeared this weekend have already been released: The Sox have dumped starter Jason Johnson & reliever Rudy Seanez off their roster, while the Yanx DFA'd starter/reliever Sidney Ponson

Williams - 2.3 Heilman - 1.8 Milledge - 3.0 Wagner - 0.8 Delgado - 1.2 Tucker - 0.9

Oliver Perez: 7 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, 11 K (wasn't there a bet along these lines?) - plus a perfect inning/2 K save from the newly demoted Heath Bell Doesn't sound like Williams's injury would prevent him from a next start and tonight's performance was certainly enough to earn him another go around. But if he can't go we should have 2 other choices ready for Petey's next slot (prob Fri): either Perez or Bannister (who was just on the wrong day to go this time)

Sox = Pathetic In fact, if you count the 'Mets Classic' currently running on SNY, they're sucking on two different channels at once right now. They've walked about a billion Yanx so far this weekend and have given up 2-out hits all over the place. Damon's absolutely killing his old team.