Frayed Knot

I know what the point of it is. The problem is that PECOTA depends mostly on finding similarities and there just can't be that many for a teenager jumping from low-A to ML for them to compare. I mean it's nice and all that they've got his ML numbers beating out his stint in St. Lucie, but finding a formula (or set of formulas) that works for the majority doesn't always work for the outliers and extremes. That, plus the fact that he's extremely unlikely to pitch above AA ball anyway, makes those projections for him pretty meaningless.

]They really aren't sure what to expect from Gaby, but on average, they think he'll be pretty decent. All of which is pretty irrelevent since there's little chance he'll pitch in the majors this year. Prospectus, of all places, is usually extremely conservative about projecting pitchers and it's tough to imagine they think someone who pitched well in low-A but then stumbled during his brief stint in high-A will actually put up those kind of numbers at the highest level this season!

The topic of the pitching coach came up during NYDN Met reporter Adam Rubin's appearance on Patchy's radio show the other night. Coming up is the 3rd and final year of the initial deal Peterson inked w/the Mets, which becomes even more significant when you remember that his tenure pre-dates both Willie & Omar. So the question is where Rick sits with those he works for even though they didn't hire him. Rubin's comment was that if asked a year ago he would have sworn there was no way Rick would be back mainly because there are/were those in the front office "who absolutely hate him". No names were named of course but the critics are in that layer of advisors that exist between the manager and the Wilpons. But he also thinks that at least a portion of that venom has died out even though Peterson will probably remain a somewhat divisive figure who not a whole lot of folks are wishy-washy about. There's also the notion about how Peterson meshes with Willie. Rubin didn't think they "clash" a lot per se, just that the numbers-oriented coach isn't always on the same page as his by-gut-feeling manager. And finally there's the question of whose call it'll be. You get the idea that Peterson was originally a Wilpons-by-way-of Howe hire (not sure how much input Duqe had), one that they wanted not just as the ML PC but also as a organization-wide "CEO of Pitching". At this point, under the "full autonomy" regime of Omar, the call whether or not to re-hire will theoretically be his to make in conjunction with the manager. It all could make for an interesting sideshow to follow during the season.

They're projecting those numbers for Gaby Hernandez as a major leaguer???

Yeah, he actually said earlier this winter that he was done playing at any level. Interesting that he's being brought back, even if only for a short stint. Not that I don't think his goofy personally can't adapt to teaching but he and the org parted on really bad terms. Guess he either forgot or figures that those he was butting heads with are no longer here (Phillips). Remember they didn't give him a NL Ch ring for his partial 2000 seasons (or eventually did so reluctantly) even though they did give them out to others with lesser contributions.

Nothing wrong in theory with hypotheticals. What makes the ones here bullshit is that they're not looking for answers they've started with them and are concocting whacko situations designed to "prove" their point by pretending that not only is there one and only one correct answer but that it's somehow cast-in-stone knowledge that Willie will react to it in a different manner than would any other person with even a casual knowledge of baseball.

This whole thing has become a really stupid exercise in hypothetical bullshit.

Ignoring for a second the outcomes of such a sudden loss of effectiveness: DL, sidework, etc to find out what the problem is; that are far more likely than a banishment to the bullpen ... How long a rope will a theoretical shaky Pedro get before such a demotion happens? -- A long one How much rope has his decade-plus stunning career earned him? -- A long one How much will Willie give him? -- A long one How many managers would do the same? -- All of them

This whole thread in fact smacks a bit of deciding that mismanagement is a given so let's get a jump on things by deciding ahead of time which data fits the definition and act as if those chips are already in play. There seems to be this notion that undeserving vets were carried all year while deserving youngsters were on the sidelines being screwed over. Except that Mathews, Aybar, and Heredia were used sparingly and dumped early, and even DeJean (who at least had a good half Met year under his belt) never made it to mid-season. Let's also not pretend that Hernandez wasn't just a washed-up has-been himself at this point last year (he barely made the team) or that a sizeable pct of NYM fans didn't believe that Heilman was already a confirmed bust. So before we act as if Julio's ~ 6.00 ERA from last year means he's a confirmed albatross while Bell's ~ 5.60 somehow represents that of a stud being passed over; or that Iriki - already all but labeled as dead wood - will be held onto at all costs ... even though Koo, acquired under near identical circumstances last year, got all of 23 IPs, let's see what actually happens.

Agree with an assessment that after a few poor starts the decision should be made that that stint signals the end of productive pitching and should automatically trump the successes of the previous 14 years? ... Ummm, No.

I generally find the whole concept of, and analysis over, pre-season predictions to be thoroughly uninteresting.

Heilman leaps ahead of Seo & Hernandez!!!! Film at 11

Willets Point wrote: Whatever happened to Rusty's restaurant? I never went there myself. There were two actually. The original was up on 73rd & 3rd IIRC. I used to hang around with a girl who lived up in that neck of the woods so we went there a bunch of times (she admitted to having a crush on RS as a young girl). It was the more sports-themed of his two places. On one wall was a sequence of snap-shots of him making that '73 NLCS catch and subsequent crash. Another displayed all 20+ years of his baseball cards. He was still doing some game announcing when he announced one day that he was closing it up due to ridiculous rent increases. A second shorter-lived one was a more corporate looking one in mid-town (47th & 5th). I was there once or twice but one day I looked up and it was just gone.

I had two seperate "first" impressions of Rusty. 1) First time I saw him at a stadium. He was still with the Expos at a time when most of my baseball had been viewed through a b&w TV, so while I knew who he was I had never really "seen" him. I was in the RF stands at Shea when his hat fell off as he was making a catch ... and I'm not sure I had ever seen hair that color before. That hair color would mellow in later years but, at that point, it was obvious why Daniel Joseph had acquired his particular nickname. It truly looked odd upon first viewing. 2) Seeing him in person for the first time up close ... and realizing how freaking huge he was!! This was while he was still playing; heavier than he was as a young player but still not yet as "portly" as he was in his last years and in retirement. But he was just big in every direction: taller than the 6'1" he was often billed at, very wide back, deep chest, the whole works. Dressed in a suit he looked like a gray flannel section of the Berlin wall and at least as immovable. My lasting impression is that those whose only memories of him were of the final PH-ing years of his career missed a pretty darn good all around player. Most know about his nearly 300 HRs & 500 2Bs, but he was also a very good fielder with a terrific arm (which never really recovered from that '73 NLCS injury), and while he was certainly never fast, he wasn't nearly the Clydesdale that many remember from the tail-end of his career.

Benjie Molina (finally) to the Jays; 1 yr/$5mil I may be wrong here, but I thought the purpose of holding out was to do so for more money. He shoulda called Omar back.

Edgy DC wrote: I'm working on something. I'm sure you are.

Nothing's been added to the master list yet but,since no one else seems particularly interested in adding their two cents or defending/explining their choices if they have made some,then I guess this year's order is pretty well set. Taking the lists submitted and coming to a consensus by taking an average after throwing out the high & low extremes, leaves us with: 30 - Wright 29 - Martinez 28 - Floyd 27 - Glavine 26 - Reyes 25 - Beltran 24 - Piazza 23 - Cameron 22 - Benson 21 - Hernandez 20 - Seo 19 - Heilman 18 - Diaz 17 - Zambrano 16 - Castro 15 - Jacobs 14 - Looper 13 - Anderson 12 - Meintkiewicz 11 - Matsui 10 - Woodward 9 - Padilla 8 - Cairo 7 - Ishii 6 - Trachsel 5 - Koo 4 - Bell 3 - Offerman 2 - Williams 1 - Aybar Got some votes but remain on the outside looking in: Graves, Takatsu, DeJean, Ring, Daubach, Santiago

Just a single line in Phil Mushnick's NYPost column today, but: "The Mets' new SportsNet NY, say sources, has reached an agreement with DirecTV " What's encouraging here - aside from those who use DirecTV obviously - is that the channel's availability on satellite gives cable customers an alternative which in turn will put pressure on the cable companies to strive for an agreement. Cablevision, for instance, lost a significant # of subscribers to satellite TV with their whole YES flap a few years back - customers who most likely never returned even after things were settled - and now have an incentive not to do so again.

A: a Soler flare

Future International MLB Teams: The Tokyo Roses The Seoul Searchers The Manila Folders (they always fade down the stretch) The London Bridges The Stockholm Syndromes The Berlin Walls The Warsaw Packs The Dublin Ups The New Dehli Sandwhiches The Khartoum Strips The Vienna Sausages The Brussells Sprouts

And that's a large part of the problem with outsiders (read: fans) judging prospects is that we barely had any info to form accurate distinctions and so we tended to treat all prospects as if they were the same; Straw turned out great ergo Escobar is "the next one", then Escobar was a bust therefore let's get rid of Milledge before everyone else finds out he is too ... or something along those lines. There's much more info now available to the average schmuck. The internet carries a lot (although much of it roto-driven) to the point where the big city newspapers are being forced to pay attention to the farm systems that they ignored wholesale for years. Most of us still haven't seen these guys play, but at least we can get a bit away from the simplistic A = B = C analogies.

"Escobar wasn't close? I seem to remember him being highly ranked." He was, and then he wasn't. The problem with Escobar is that most of the hype about him stemmed from his "tools" matched with a really good year he had as a teenager at low-A ball. At that age and level a lofty ranking is based more on potential and dreams than actual results. He then developed back problems and missed an entire season. He got back on track and folks still kept their eye on him but was never quite as young or quite as special as he was that first year .. but of course the hype is slow to die. He was certainly a good prospect (and "not close" may have been over-stating it) but he wasn't really a cream of the crop guy at the time of the deal that many remember him as and that he had briefly been.

No, some guy on a message board claims he knows "a source" who claims some form of this is being discussed. Wake me when it happens. In the meantime a NYM "official" is being quoted in actual newspapers as saying Milledge isn't going anywhere and that they see him as a ML reg next year. In the meantime they hung onto Heilman, Reyes & Wright and dealt [u:6b090d73b1]for[/u:6b090d73b1] Diaz & Nady & Ring (4 letter name guys only is obviously their policy). We'll see how many of the ones they didn't keep we're gonna miss. At the time he was dealt only Kazmir was a top 25 prospect. Escobar, Jacobs, Hernandez, Peterson et al weren't close. Petit might be close this year but he was also dealt for a multi-time All Star who filled a gaping hole. That's a far cry from "they all suck" and "zhlubs" are better every time.

]An attitude that prospects all suck, and we'd better get some MLB-veteran zhlub for them right now while they still bear an air of freshness about them, leads to disaster And Gee ... that's EXACTLY what I'm arguing too!!!!

]But if you have many more prospects going out than coming in over a period of years, as the Mets have over the past six years or so, you're trying to fill an inside straight with fewer and fewer cards in the deck. Not neccesarily. While no one's saying you should deal off as many as possible (the StL example is merely one where something like that HAS worked recently) the prospects that really matter are the true gems and those are always going to be vastly out-numbered by the never-will-bes. If you're smart enough to indentify and hang on to the jewels while waving the others in front of some desperate GM's eyes like some shiny bauble and extracting the correct MLers out of him then you can reap the best of both worlds. Cetainly hanging our hopes on Escobar, Ochoa, Eric Cammack, Grant Roberts, Pat Strange, Ty Wigginton, Matt Peterson, etc would have gotten us nowhere. There's a thread around here (currently playing in a featured archive near you) where I went through the best prospects of 2002 just to see how many would have looked like good "gets" with 3 (now nearly 4) years of hindsight. Not all that many as it turns out and that was from a list of the best of the best from all 30 ML teams. One team will be lucky to have more than 1 or 2 of those at any one time. Minor league players are a commodity. They can be useful if kept or they could be more useful traded away depending on the situation. I don't object as a matter of principle to doing either.