Frayed Knot

Did this supposedly occur in Florida?? If so, what is a 16 y/o unsigned and (because of age) unsign[u:8fbc5202b8]able[/u:8fbc5202b8] player doing in Met camp?

What those who (wrongly) expected the Americans to dominate missed is that, while we probably have the best overall depth, plucking an A-S team from any of the other countries who have pro leagues (Japan, Korea, Cuba - or significant players in MLB: PR, DR, Venz) negates that depth as does the unpredictability of a short series. It'll be interesting to see what happens if/when Cuban players are finally freed. There'll certainly be some quality players from there, but I'm not sure if anyone has a handle on what kind of [u:693a681ab5]quantity[/u:693a681ab5] they have who can play at an ML level.

The last paragraph in the espn piece was the key: General manager Jim Bowden had threatened to put Soriano on the disqualified list, which would prevent him from playing, accruing service time and receiving his $10 million salary. So not only would he not have been getting this year's money as long as he refused, but no service time accrual means he would have pushed his FA-gency back one season and therefore missed out on the big money next year. Principle only goes so far when there's millions of buckos on the line.

That's because he often seems to decide ahead of time whether or not he's going to swing at a pitch.

"The problem is that Hernandez hasn't walked or hit for an extra base even once in 38 at bats, and it's not like he has a strong history of doing either--he's only had a good half season." So you're saying that the radio callers should maybe put the Andy-Handy bronze plaque on hold for a bit yet?

From the Klapisch article: One Yankee insider seemed to speak for the entire organization when he said, "That's definitely not the Sori that we knew. If he'd ever run into a problem like that with us, you know Joe [Torre] would've handled it. And Sori would've listened." Except that the Yanx DID want to move him to the OF - CF in particular - and he balked then too. Granted it's a bit different in that he didn't refuse a direct assignment seeing as how the Yanx were considering moving him there as a future move to eventually replace Bernie, not an immediate one. But let's not pretend that it's a stone cold fact that 'it would have been handled' without a hitch. Buck and the Rangers discussed displacing him also and that raised a fuss. Geez, it sounds like this is exactly 'the Sori' that more than a few somebodies know!

Fearless Prediction: Wagner's first blown save will bring howls of despair from all over Met-dom about why he had to "turn into Benitez" as soon as we got him. After all, he's never blown a save prior to this season.

It's probably nothing ... which was also my first reaction to Saberhagen's finger injury.

Somebody in my family (probably Dad) has/had a book on Monopoly which took a very Sabermetric-like approach at analyzing which were the best properties to own from a cost/benefit standpoint. I forget most of theie conclusions although I seem to remember that the Orange props were up there based in part on the fact that a lot of peeps wind up landing there after being sprung from the pokey. Railroads & Utils were also a good buy IIRC.

Of course we did have one Francis Xavier Healy with the club for years (but thankfully no longer)

Just as you guys start to praise their defense ...

]Pena's the collective darling of statheads Actually, he's been more the darling of the "tools" crowd than the statheads. He was talked about in terms of having "Sosa-like talent" ... IF he could ever harness it. Sort of the anti-Moneyball player as his low OBPs will attest. He was - like this F. Martinez guy the Mets signed last summer - a big bonus guy that the Yanks signed as a teenager (actually, the Mets originally signed him but the signing was voided a few months later). The unconscionable part wasn't that the Yanx gave him some major buxx ($2+mil I believe) but that they gave him a Major League contract even though he was not yet 17. That started his 'options clock' immediately and ultimately meant that he was required to be kept in the Majors long before he was ready. The Yanks obviously weren't going to keep a not-ready-for-prime-time player on their roster during a pennant race so dealt him (and paid the bonus guarantee) to Cincy to re-acquire Henson who they had signed and traded a year or two earlier. This now looks like Pena's 4th ML season meaning he'd be under Boston control for this coming year plus the next two.

Well that too obviously. But if ML players won't consent to play - and remember, this thing needs approval from the PA - then the next version will never get off the ground no matter how many tickets and dorky shirts they sold this time out. Step 1 depends on a resonable amount of participation on their part.

The reaction of the players is obviously the key to the long-term success of this thing. If those who played this year are no back telling all their teammates (as opposed to telling the media what they think they're supposed to) that they were real into it and what a great experince it was (or how much less boring than ST it was) then the next time you'll see players making excuses to play instead of the handful who seemed to be looking for excuses not to. But if they say it was more trouble than it's worth ...

Bronson Arroyo and his white-boy corn-rows head to Cincinnati (along with a pile of cash) for OFer Wily Mo Pena. I reckon Wily Mo platoons w/Nixon in RF and also allows Manny to DH on occasion while Papi slides to 1st.

"They did four weeks this year, so it's not that much different" Except that these 4 weeks were at a time when they'd be in baseball anyway. Trying to pull this thing off in November adds 6 or so weeks to their schedule in addition to the time they ordinarily spend. Or, looked at another way, 6 less weeks of vacation/rest time. Giving them tardy slips to come to camp only somewhat makes up for that, plus it adds to the "disruption" of camp that some are complaining about now. I think this is all a moot discussion anyway. I don't think there's anyone with MLB who wants to do this after the season.

Yeah for about a week, not six.

Your sked has players who have been at it everyday from February -October signing up to be part of a national team from as early as Oct 10th thru the end of Nevember? The Republicans will nominate Hillary as 'Queen for Life' before that happens.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: So that projects Leiter as the Mets' 6th best starting pitcher (or 7th, depending on where Coney ranks in the two categories he's not listed in). 5th best by our count - Darling just falls short. Maybe that's a flaw in our system whereas Ronnie boy got lower scores as aresult of having better & higher-scoring teammates although our rules do account for that somewhat. ]factor in relievers (Jesse and Tug have to rank pretty high, I'd say) But not high enough - although Franco is. And it's funny how people forget how trashed Jesse was in NYM circles at the time. Time wounds all heels I guess. ]and then such hitters as Piazza, Strawberry, Hernandez, Carter, Alfonzo, Cleon, and 12th starts to look like a reach Yes, Yes, No, No, Yes, and Yes Remember that this list has a cumulative score to it so longevity factors into things big time. Carter had only about 3 good NYM years and is considerably lower than most suppose. Cone's in the same boat. Our TV announcers occupy the two slots right behind Senator Al.

And on the CPF list, the only winning-er pitcher that's behind Al is Darling (and just barely) while the only other person mentioned on any of those 3 lists who's also behind him is Cone (and, again, not by much).

Al was just fine for the majority of his time as a Met and was terrific for a significant chunk of it.

I don't think there's a chance of that for several reasons. - The players would then have to "gear down" after the season is over, then "gear up" again a month or so later, ... then down again once it's over, ... then up again in time for ST - There's still the problem of FA and other unattached players who aren't going to be insured at that point. Plus there's all that FA business & GM meetings going on at that time - and finally the problem of getting someone to televise it just as football in full swing (remember, the almighty pigskin controls EVERYTHING in TV land). Not to mention the holidays and all. As one baseball person said when someone suggested a post-season tourney: 'The players won't play in it, the insurers won't insure it, and the television networks won't televise it'. In other words, that idea is pretty much dead in the water. If this thing happens again I'm almost positive it'll be during a similar time-frame to this one. They've got some tweaking to do, but I think they pulled their maiden voyage off fairly well.

Yeah I think that ws pretty much a planned exit. The Yanx didn't even have a legit job opening for him even if he pitched well. Maybe he was hoping to impress in ST as an audition for some place else - but where exactly was he going to go anyway? But now I guess since he officially retired as a Yanqui, the number retiring ceremony will be scheduled for later this year.

At one point Jon Miller is talking about the Cuban trainer who is one of the sons of Fidel; so he's saying something along the lines of: 'there's [whatever] Castro, the team trainer who's the son of the Cuban ... ' -- and then he paused several times as if searching for the correct word, and I'm screaming "DICTATOR ... DICTATOR ... say DICTATOR Jon" -- but he wimps out and settles on 'President-ay'

There's definitely some talent on this Cuban team ... but they've been lucky as hell for 2 straight weeks now. They were within a hair of being eliminated in the prelims (LET THE BALL HIT YOU REUBEN!!) and have put together more rallies with dinkier hits than anyone I've ever seen. They've got about a dozen hits in this game -- about 4 of them have been hit hard. Their pitchers all seem right out of the El Ducky mode: lots of pitches, take forever to throw, pick-pick-pick around the zone, and give up a lot of baserunners but never let them score. They've been bailed out by tons of DPs - some on account of bad plays by the opponent.