Frayed Knot

A 5-game series thanks to an early season rainout. And, if you look at the game times, it's kinda like a 3-game set followed by a 2-gamer. First there are 3 games within about 24 hours: Friday is a day/night DH 1:00 & 8:00, with a 1:20 game on Saturday. They then get a day-and-a-half off before getting the Sunday night game followed by a day game on Monday - 2 games within about 15 hrs. Fri 1st game: CM Wang vs Jason Johnson Fri 2nd game: Ponson vs Jon Lester Sat: Randy Johnson vs Josh Beckett Sun: Mussina vs Schilling Mon: Lidle vs Wells Not surprisingly, ESPN's going hog-wild on this one; picking up the early game on Friday, then Sunday night for their nat'l telescast, and again for Monday's game. FOX gets Saturday's game. Yanx made a move today, calling up a reliever after Wednesday's starter Cory Lidle went on the 'Bereavement List'. I don't know what the details are but it all sounds a bit too, how you say ... convenient! They get an extra arm in the pen as the #5 starter is unavailable for the 4 days before returning just in time for ... his next start!. Could be a legit reason for it but you just knew this rule would get abused as soon as a strategic edge could be exploited. Maybe the team sent some of his relatives to Mariano's pool. Yanx start the series with a 1.5 game lead. Boston had the day off today while the Yanx were getting their butts kicked and their bullpen raked by Baltimore. Torre kept the real pen guys out of the game of course. Dotel got smacked around and he's not gonna see action in a close game any time soon.

I knew he played some outfield early on - although, looking it up, he played there more than I remember: 76 games - he played 3 games at 3rd as it turns out. Had 11 assists including being part of 2 GiDPs - I wonder if that 1/3 inning at 2nd base was in the resumption of the "Pine Tar" game when Billy put out an ass-backwards lineup because he was pouting over the decision?

Class ain't got nuttin' to do wit' dis Back to topic (sort of): A quick check of [u:784d9832e4]Runs Created[/u:784d9832e4] (a mathematical approximation aimed at showing how many runs said player's offensive input produced) shows: Jeter = 92; Reyes = 91, to this point in the season. Or, [u:784d9832e4]Jeter = 7.74 RC/per 27 outs[/u:784d9832e4] (an approx # of runs an "all-Jeter" lineup would score per game) Reyes = 6.79 RC/27 The difference is due to Reyes making more outs on the season (lower OBA) Last season Reyes = 4.26 RC/per 27

Yes, but only with a player who was on your 40-man as of Aug 31. So if Pelfrey, for example, were called up on Sept 7th he could still be put on the post-season roster as an injury replacement (like if Willets accidently drops a cinderblock on Glavine's toe). But if you trade for someone on Sept 2 he could NOT be subbed for an injury. Obviously, DL'd players like Cliff, Ramon or Petey are eligible even if still on the DL come Sept 1

<<<----- And I've become Kaz!!!! That it's late August and we haven't played them yet is a big part of it obviously. But it seems to me that they've just been a totally anonymous team all year. This new non-Coors-like baseball being played out there - due both to the makeup of their squad and the now-famous baseball humidor - has taken away virtually all of what we used to know about them. Lotsa new faces as well.

Good stuff dude. I think the Rox have been off everyone's radar for most of the year - even though they're still in the muck of things in both the NLWest and the WC chases. And now we know them!

Mattingly did play a game or 3 at 3rd base (left-handedness be damned) during a short stretch when the Yanx were really strapped with injuries - but he certainly didn't "come up as" a 3rd baseman.

I blame him for just not making the trade he had ready to go. This assumes that there WAS a trade (or trades) ready to go. It takes two to tango and a GM can't unilaterally decide to make a deal unless he has a partner agreeing to the swap. Maybe it's just post-deadline spin but: - the Giants maintain that Schmidt wasn't available - the A's ALWAYS maintained that they'd need to be blown away for Zito - and not only did numerous reports have the O's backing out of any deal involving Oswalt (which would allow them to flip him to the Mets) but the Astros deny that they even offered Oswalt to Baltimore in the first place. But my belief is that had he been willing to trade Milledge that he could have had someone out of Schmidt-Zito-Oswalt. Between just the rumors of any or all of the above trades, to the Manny discussions of a year or so ago, I think it's clear that Omar IS quite willing to deal Milledge.

Glavine - 3.2 Bradford - 0.8

The 'NOFFENSE' has returned.

Reyes misses a lot of catchable line-drives. Either he fumbles them like he just did there or justmisses them with poorly-timed lunges and leaps. It's one of the things that I think is keeping him from being an elite defensive SS. He's got the tools to be one, but he isn't yet.

This is the same crap we did last time against Leiber. He's supposedly a sinker-ball pitcher but we're forever popping him up. We got fortunate w/his error last game. No such luck this time so far.

D'oh! I meant lowered. From 15 inches to 10

There were a slew of Met-fan radio callers who were prematurely going overboard in their comparisons between the NY short-stops early in the season. But, at this point, it's not so crazy anymore - even as Jeter is putting up his best season since maybe '99. ABsH2Bs3BsHRsRBIRSSB/CS (%)BBKBAOBASLGIsoPOPS Jeter44615327310718126 / 3 (90%)5371.343.419.484.141.903Reyes482144231514599849 / 12 (80%)4061.299.354.496.197.850

MFS62 wrote: didn't they lower the mound after the 68 season? Yup. I picked that year specifically to give some contrast as it was probably the most pitching dominated one since maybe the Woodrow Wilson administration. They raised the mound in '69, then let the DH in 4 years later - and both were, at least in part, a reaction to the stranglehold the pitchers had gained on the game.

For perspective purposes: 2005 NL AVGs: BA = .262, OBA = .330, SLG = .414, OPS = .744, IsoP = .152 Lg Leaders: BA = .335 (D Lee). OBA = .445 (T Helton), SLG = .662 (D Lee), OPS = 1.081 (D Lee) 2005 AL AVGs: BA = .268, OBA = .330, SLG = .424, OPS = .754, IsoP = .156 Lg Leaders: BA = .331 (M Young), OBA = .440 (J Giambi), SLG = .610 (A-Rod), OPS = 1.031 (ARod) And for kicks ... 1968 NL AVGs: BA = .243, OBA = .300, SLG = .341, OPS = .641, IsoP = .098 Lg Leaders: BA = .335 (P Rose), OBP = .391 (Rose), SLG = .545 (W McCovey), OPS = .923 (McCovey) 1968 AL: AVGs: BA = .230, OBA = .297, SLG = .339, OPS = .636, IsoP = .109 Lg Leaders: BA = .301 (C Yaz), OBA = .426 (Yaz), SLG = .552 (F Howard), OPS = .922 (Howard)

All seven occured on the road. Reyes - Philly Alfonzo - Astromdome Straw - Wrigley Carter - SD, I think Kingman - ? Washington - ? Hickman - ?

Another good measure of power is IsoP (Isolated Power). It really shows raw power better than SLG because, since BA is the basis for SLG, the player with the higher BA has a head start in SLG even if he's not a very good slugger. IsoP simply shows the difference between BA & SLG -- iow, it's SLG with all the singles taken out. As an example, in 2004 (his first year w/the Mets) Mike Cameron had a very similar SLG to Ichiro (MC = .479, IS = .455) so that a quick look tells you that they were similar sluggers when, in fact, they are anything but. That was the year Ichiro hit .372 - so his IsoP was just .083 (.455-.372) as nearly 86% of his hits (225 of 262) went for singles Cameron's .479 slugging was off of a BA of just .231 - giving him an IsoP of .248 -- as just 53 of his 114 hits (46%) were singles The other thing to remember is that no one stat tells you everything. OPS has gained acceptance because it correlates best with runs scored (ie, teams with the highest OPS will usually the most runs more often than the team with the best OBP, which rates higher than SLG, which trumps BA, which in turn is better than say SBs)

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I understand the urge to want to merge OBP and SLG, but adding them together does seem overly simplistic. It is - but the quick & easy-ness of it all is why it's caught on. There are those who'll argue that sticking a coefficient in front of the OBP portion (often 1.4) gives you a better guide OPS' = 1.4* OBP + SLG

]I assume that OBP measures the percentage of times a player reaches base per AB. So if Babe Ruth's career OBP is .474, Ruth reached base almost half the time he strode to the plate. Is this accurate? Yes. A good way of thinking about OBP is that is shows you the pct of time the batter does NOT make an out. That's why it's more important than plain old BA. ]For SLG Babe Ruth's career number is .690 does this mean that Ruth collected 6/9ths of a base for each AB? Accurate yes (although it's 69/100 not 6/9), but that's kind of an odd way of thinking about it. SLG is a better metric than BA because it doesn't just count the hits but gives the batter extra credit for the big ones. Since BA treats all hits alike it's a bit like saying that my handful of nickels & pennies is worth more than your quarters and dimes simply because I have more of them. Counting each coin's worth (SLG) gives us a better measure. ]OPS is just a mystery to me. I know that it is gotten by adding OBP and SLG and I understand that an OPS of .900 or higher is elite but what exactly does the number mean? 90% of what? The number itself doesn't really mean anything in this case; it's merely the sum of the other two. Since the others look at things from a different angle (OBP measures how often, SLG measures how well) it's like putting together two one-legged creatures in an effort to walk better.

... 3 HR guys that is? It's a record now held by 7 Mets. I'm sure they mentioned the entire list on the air -- but by that point I was only sorta watching and not really listening. Jim Hickman was the first. And I personally remember Kingman, Carter, Strawberry & Alfonzo So it looks like I'm missing one.

Reyes - 4.8 RHernandez - 0.3 Heilman - 0.3 Feliciano - 0.6

Preston Wilson has now been granted his unconditional release from the Astros. So basically, that means he's pick-up-able by anyone for just the pro-rated portion of the ML minimum.

He ain't hittin cheapies neither!

ARod soap opera update of the night. - he botched another ground ball, good chance it was a DP ball, and allowed a Bal'mer run to score - he then came up with the bases loaded and no outs ... and singled in a run 3-1 Orioles after 6