Frayed Knot

"Manny Ramirez's agent saying that Manuel Aristides does not want to go to the Mets." a) Good! Never put too much stock in what Manny (or agent) say today because tomorrow may bring a totally different slant c) see b

You could also argue that Duqe is arriving at Bal'mer at a good time too; Mazzone on board for 3 years, but no Sammy, no Palmiero, and no Ponson (they do still have to pay fat Sidney although they're trying to get out of that one). Plus the team is sitting on a potential financial windfall due to getting a majority chunk of the new Balt-Wash TV network - essentially the money to get Angelos to stop crying over the "intrusion" on his territory by the Nationals.

A lot depends on how you word the "title". Someone (I think it was Jayson Stark) mentioned how Biggio has the most games under his belt for anyone making the series for the first time. IOW, others have played longer but never made a WS at all (Palmiero, Dawson, Williams, Banks). And yeah, if Pamiero is still active (my guess is that he never plays again) then Biggio wasn't even the longest suffereing guy to begin with. Not sure who the new "active" guy is. On that cover: Weaver went for Brown - and gee, didn't THAT work out well? Pettitte went FA - although they got a draft pick out of it Clemens "retired" Contreras went for Estaban Loaiza and Mussina went to shit!!! And, if you remember, Wells was also on that staff but was feuding w/George that week and refused to be in the shot.

Milledge was already as high or higher than Duncan on the pre-'05 lists, prolly based on him playing a premiere defensive position. Duncan has a nice swing according to those who follow such stuff but it's questionable whether he can stay at 3rd and a move to 1st means he'll really have to hit. An average that plummetted into the .230s this year won't help his star (although he's still just 19 and in AA) and the gap between him and Milledge will almost certainly grow in the next round of assessments. ]i don't quite remember that article or that thread It was one that Doc-Sal-Bret used as an excuse to jump all over many of us about. Seems that our opposition to Madden's conclusion was proof not only of our swallowing the Wilpon kool-aid but also a blatant acknowledgement that we selectively accuse journos of making up their facts only when it suits our agendae.

No, that would be "top" MFY prospect Eric Duncan ... top being a relative term here (Jeff, you may remember, throws left-handed). Eric was drafted in the late 1st round the same year as Milledge (#28 or so to Milledge's #12). He signed quicker and got off to a fast start which was used as ammo in a Bill Madden article (which was critically discussed here at one point) lambasting Met minor league director Gary LaRoque. (paraphrasing) 'the rest of baseball was "stunned" when the Mets chose Milledge over the superior Duncan' claimed Madden in a NYDN piece, a claim that holds little water since; a) 15 other teams then passed on him too the pre-draft buzz put both players right around where they were eventually drafted c) Madden did himself little good when he referred to the NYY prospect as "Chris" Duncan. (Yo Bill, if you're going to take dictation from your Yanqui front office friends, at least copy down the name correctly) d) Duncan stumbled this year while Milledge progressed nicely and will almost certainly be higher on everyone's prospect list next Spring.

Please explain your answer/ give some examples.

Jeff Bagwell & Frank Thomas Both long time stars who had their first full season in 1991 (Thomas had a late 1990 call-up) wind up injured and contributing very little to the year when their teams finally make a WS; 100 ABs for Bagwell this season, 105 for Thomas, which contributes to the similarities in their parallel careers. ABHRRBIH2BRBBKBAOBASLGBagwell

- It's the '02-'03 NYY pitching staffs facing each other!! Pettitte & Clemens vs Hernandez & Contreras - A Central Division team will win it's first WS ... there's just no way to avoid it - Biggio gets the 'most games played w/o a WS' tag taken off him. Not sure who gets it now? I don't know who I'm backing in this one. I'll usually pull for the NL tem but for some reason I seem to be leaning for the Sox. What tends to happen in these cases when I don't have an obvious rooting interest is that I just hope for a long, exciting series and by the end I'll find myself hoping for one outcome or the other although I'll have no conscious memory of making a decision about it.

I try not to place too much stock in the value of coaches (although pitching coaches certainly have more influence than others) but, assuming this goes through, it's tough not to look at this as a win/win for Met fans: He not only takes a bullet away from the Braves and does NOT hand it to the Yanx but he specifically hands it to one of their opposition. Not surprising that things didn't work out w/the Yanx. I think what he had with Atlanta was as a major player of a system-wide philosophy of instruction, strategy and development; similar to what the Mets envision for Peterson. With the Yanx, and all the various minions trying to poke their noses into everywhere just so others won't get the credit, he'd have been lucky to be the first voice that his immediate staff listened to.

Bagwell's problem is in his shoulder (and has been for years). So running shouldn't be a problem but they might be concerned about how he'd hold up to multiple ABs per game. He did say on the post-game that he'll be lobbying for the DH assignment and it's not like they've got a ton of great other candidates; Palmiero, Vizcaino. Lamb and Burke (if Tavarez starts) are useful players but hardly scary DH types. * cross-posted w/Annie

"Have we yet reached the point where the market for sports news for the sake of fantasy leagues is more valuable than sporting news for thesake of real leagues?"I haven't but 'The Sporting News' apparantly has.They're very fantasy oriented and has almost none of the journalism that MFS62 mentioned earlier. They had actually been changing for years, I just hadn't realized how farthey'd fallen until seeing these recent issues. And for a mag that once covered only baseball, their NASCAR section is larger than their baseball and they went about 8 or 9 consecutive issues during July & August with nothing but football on the covers ... mag editors seem to be under the opinion that putting baseball on the cover doesn't sell issues.I don't think FOX owns it, they just share on-line info.

"I remember when the Sporting News had a weekly article on each teamby one of their beat writers"I remember that too.It was a good introduction to my young self to writers like Joe Falls outof Detroit and the like.I recently followed a link off of something and got myself a free subscriptionto The Sporting News which I hadn't seen in several years.What I've discovered - in addition to the fact that they've gone from being "The Bible of Baseball" to a magazine that barely cares about baseball - is that it's frickin awful. I'm getting it for free and feel like I'm being over-charged.

That 'Player of the Game' stuff exists solely for the sponsor product tie-ins so they have to announce it before things are over otherwise no one would ever hear it. Not worth getting upset about. Marty Barrett, you may recall, was PotG in '86-Game 6. The 'Congrats Boston Red Sox' message is one of those things that's kinda funny in retrospect even though it - like Keith's famous beer drinking after his AB - would have become a critical flashpoint among fans had the results not turned out happy. Turns out that they had the message ready to roll and the operator hit the wrong button which put it on the real scoreboard instead of the preview screen. Oops!

Would you have walked Pujols yesterday? NO As good as Albert is, you'd still be going from a situation where a HR beats you and a double ties it -- to one where they just need a Reggie Sanders single to tie the game and a double or HR to beat you. Not good odds IMO.

Better yet, read the part in [u:8f4af1d5e7]Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty[/u:8f4af1d5e7] where the clubhouse crew had to first do up the NYY clubhouse in anticipation of their impending win ... and then tear it all down and move things over to the Arizona side when the 9th inning fell apart. And through it all is superstitious Steinbrenner screaming at the poor kids working there that "it's all your fault" if the Yanx don't win because he didn't want them "jinx it" by setting up until the game was over despite the logisitcal nightmare it would have been for both the MLB & FOX folks.

* He has more power than you'd think by looking at him. Marcus Giles * He runs well for a big guy. Derrick Lee * 500 career games pitched, 20 saves almost all long time relievers * First pitch fastball hitter Jose Reyes * He's a battler Art Howe * He's either on or off... there is no in between. Victor Zambrano * It's too bad he'd peaked by the time he turned 25. Fred Lynn, Dwight Gooden * Just because he's a closer doesn't mean he's particularly good. Dan Kolb * I didn't think he was capable of having a season that good. Brian Roberts • When the season started, I'd never heard of him. Jorge Cantu (well, barely had heard of him)

My first instinct was to write Safire to tell him of his gaffe, but then figured at least 1,000 people would beat me to it.

metirish wrote: Frayed Knot a question, out of the three who would you want at the plate tonight in that situation?... This season that answer is probably Eckstein. Over the last 5 years or so I'd take Renterea. btw; I got a kick out of that 'largest state' comment too but it wasn't McCarver, it was Brennerman.. McCarver/Buck aren't doing the NL game. Maybe Seawolf is losing it too?

Eckstein's surprised me to a certain degree as well. Not that I thought he was bad, just maybe that StL overpaid for what they'd get. Turns out that he had the best year of that 3-team* SS "swap" which is something I wouldn't have guessed either. And I still can't help thinking that one of his throws is just going to plummet & stop on the way to 1st. That said, he did pump up his numbers this year a bit; BA up 18 pts, OBA up 34, Slg up 63, xtra base-hits from 27 to 41 ... while Renterea in particular struggled. HE might have had the worst year of the 3 (30 errors) but I was real impressed with Cabrera's defense over the past 2 series. * Cabrera from Bos to Ana Eckstein from Ana to StL Renterea from StL to Bos

Hey, this is fine w/me. We would have had to go the entire week w/o baseball otherwise.

Man that joint got quiet in a hurry!!

Great Googly Moogly!!!!! I wonder if this is a sign that Lidge has some sort of mental deficiency?

There's an on-line article on Brandon Wood in today's Baseball America http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/2005afl/051017notebook.html He did have a ridiculous season. It's still only High A ball - although Wright jumped from that level to the majors in just half a season. And while you should tone down those numbers a bit - seeing as how the California Leauge is sort of the polar opposite of it's east coast counterpart (Fla St League) in that most of the sites there are in those high/hot/dry inland California cities making them tremendous hitter-friendly parks - those are still some sick stats..

Willets Point wrote: Guillen used only five pitchers and 15 players overall in the entire ALCS! Some managers will do anything to keep Timo out of the game I suppose.

And speaking of umps' calls, Posednik just got away with what Cameron couldn't earlier this year. Y'know the one where he catches the ball yet drops it on the transfer even though no further throw/play was in order. No hint of a call from the men in blue nor a mention from those in the booth. That's probably one of those rules that dates back to the day when gloves snagged things only slightly better than kids winter mittens and just has never been taken off the books. I was shocked when that got called this year on Cammy. And now another bad call as I'm typing!!!! Pitcher Escobar tags the runner with his glove as the ball is clearly in his bare hand. He even threw it after the tag as an indication that HE knew it wasn't legit but the 1st base ump doesn't see it. They've now reversed the call after a conference. Scoscia's arguing about it but I think it's more from accumulated frustration more than anything else.