Frayed Knot

Which, of course, gives the 'IFSPA' ammo to claim; "hey, the trade was about to go down when the injury happened and you can't prove it wasn't ... and therefore we were right again!!"

1) No HR haven please. Keep it at least a neutral park, or even one favoring pitchers at least slightly.2) The only nod to Ebbits field was supposedly the outside architecture design -- it's not like they were intending to mimic the whole park.3) It doesn't need to be perfectly symmetrical, but some of the newer parks seemed all tricked up just so they can claim it's quirky.4) 45K seats sounds a bit small. Lots of the new parks in the smaller cities have gone this way but that's in part to create a kind of artificial demand by intentionally limiting supply. A good team here doesn't need that. It doesn't need to be 55K+ but it seems to me it should be more than 45.5) I'm not a big fan of indoor ball but if a removeable roof prevents rainouts, helps out those who have distances to travel in iffy weather, and increases the attendance in those early-April games, I think they believe it'll worth the cost. It also allows the stadium to be used for other things in the off-season.Put it in if you want - just promise to only use it if neccesary.6) It's going to have a corporate name folks. Just hope it's not one of those fugly-off-the-tongue hi-tech corporate monikers.

That the team as a whole is closer to the top of batting stats on the road and lower at home isn't surprising seeing as how Shea plays as a pitchers' park more often than not.But I'd be shocked if you could find some kind of telltale "trait" indicating which players would succeed at Shea and which wouldn't to the point where it would even remotely useful as a predictive factor. "Flukes" - or just random variations if you prefer - are likely the better explanations.

Freddie & Jeffy haven't released any of the current details yet *** (SHOW US THE STADIUM PLANS NOW!!!!) *** but I would think that constructing a building that is intended for 45,000 but is able to be expanded in order to seat 80K pretty muchshoots down the whole sliding roof thingie, no? ... at least for thetime that this Olympic conversion thing is still a possiblity.They had apparently decided a few years back to do away with thesliding field idea that was in the orig plans.

]How will the rest of us follow that act?By including mulitple pictures of Eva Longoria!!! ]I didn't remember that Billy Beane had actually made it to the big club with the Mets.2 singles & a double in 18 ABs over 2 seasons ('84-'85).The guy that scouted and recommended him just retired last year to all sorts of acclaim for his great scouting/front office career -- I'm guessing that this pick wasn't on his highlight reel.

"Prince really ought to play for the Twins"Or the Royals ... where he could be teamed with Jeff King, Mel Queen, Jack Hamilton, Earl Averill, Duke Snider, Bris Lord, John Tudor, and Marv Throneberry.

If you buy the notion about success in hitting over different situations being largely random then there is some hope for improvement just by chance:Current OPS:None-on: .743 - 7th in NLRunners: .756 - 14th in NLRiSP: .712 - 15th in NL2-outs RiSP: .677 - 14th in NLWe should be scoring more runs simply by accident.

"How do you score when Molina hits the ball fair on a scorecard and is out running into the ball?"Unassisted putout to the closest fielder - in this case the catcher.A similar grounder hitting the runner going from 1st would result in a PO to either #3 or #4; those are more common."Haven't seen Piazza so whack since that spring training episode with I forget who"Guillermo Mota

It's Pedro's world, the rest of us are just living in it.The Scoscia/Molina contingent are making a habit this weekend of arguing home plate calls they have no hope of winning.Nice slide by Wright.

btw, that site was boasting yesterday that "sources were telling them" that a possible refurbishing and/or replacing Shea in conjunction w/a revised Olympic stadium plan were in the works.Of course that story had already been printed in the NY Times the day before.So I guess we can narrow the list of their secret sources down to the sub-set of people who can both read and have access to at least 75-cents.

Floyd - 3.5Benson - 3Anderson - 2Beltran - .75Heilman - .50Piazza - .25

"Despite some confusion over whether Reyes or Cairo should catch the infield popup for the final out of the inning, the ball gets caught and the inning ends."And - just to point out how pre-judgements enter into things sometimes - can you imagine the raking-over-the-coals Matsui would get from fans for daring to bump into Reyes while taking his pop-up?

Good catch/my bad.I actually do know the difference but I have trouble keeping my 'Rods' straight sometimes.Uh, lemme reprase that ...

That pitch was likely a strike - but the ump went out of his way to find himself a fight there.

One of these days we gotta start turning innings like these into more than one freakin' run. -- doubles off the wall, singles, wild-pitches, walks ... and only a one-spot to show for it.We did this against Houston last week too and never recovered.

That was the freakin' AB of the year -- Right. Fuckin'. There!!!!

WAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

MUTHAFUCKINSUNAVABITCH - I thought that was gone!!!!!

Cliffy's the last chance for a hit w/RiSP.I think we're 0-for-85 otherwise.

And now that Cammy got on base by not bunting ... I don't want Beltran to FARGIN' BUNT EITHER!!!Hit one into the gap and let's go home.

DON'T FARGIN' BUNT!!!!

MUTHAFUCKINSUNAVABITCH!!!!

"The perfect Mets, in your world, made a perfect choice yet again"Yeah, that's what I said. Don't know how you summarized it so perfectly!

]it turns out this kid we've kept languishing in the minors and would have kept down there for months and months until this sudden injury, actually can play MLB!I'm still curious about the color of the sky in the world where keeping Reyes & Wright down on the farm - 19 & 21 y/olds at the time - for a collective total of a few months combined at anything above A-ball - constitutes "languishing" ... but I suppose that's another argument.On the Heilman/Ishii deal, it's nice to look at in retrospect or in the future, but we also have the hindsight of Heilman turning in a few performances which far exceeded anything he put up when he WAS given the chance in '03/'04: 19 GS, 6.36 ERA, 1.71 WHiPIt's also not a good idea to go into a season w/only 5 starters. The Phillips/Ishii deal was a reaction to the Trax injury - which was followed almost immediately by the Benson one (and then briefly Ishii). Heilman got his starts in spite of the trade w/LA. Now I don't have a problem - discussed in another thread - of swapping Heilman & Ishii, either now or if trends continue, but I see that situation as a luxury worth having, not as a problem to overcome. If depth in the pen is a weakness - as it is just about everywhere - this is a good thing, not a waste.JP's skills were nothing special and not so tough to replace.P.S. I knew it was you also (or at least strongly suspected).

fwiw; Buster Olney on BB2N says that Cincy claims not to be in trade mode at this time.Also Olney, plus Gammons the other day on the radio, both say that Prince Fielder remains a year or so away from being ready - which is only significant in that it means there's no push to deal Lyle Overbay any time soon (unlike Weeks being ready helping to push Spivey out the door)