Frayed Knot

Pujols OPS/OPS+ @ age 29 = 1101 / 189 at age 37: 672 / 80 So a loss of 429 OPS points or from a hitter 89% better than league average to one 20% below Cabrera @ 29 = 999 / 164 at age 37 (a partial season) = 746 / 104. His full seasons at 36 & 38 were 744 / 97 and 701 / 95 The lesson being that of course Pete can be a DH at that age. He can be one now but his position is hardly the point. It's that even if he agrees to only an eight-year deal what the team (and fans) should expect is a significant diminishment in his offense over the length of the deal. Plus he's not starting at as high a level as Pujols or Miggy--or Howard or Judge or Freddie for that matter, a quintet with eight MVPs among them. Pete's best OPS+ to date is 147 and that was his rookie season. Pujols never had an OPS under 150 for the first ten seasons of his career. Miggy was north of 150 in 10 of his first 13 seasons with two of the three 'under' years coming prior to him being old enough to buy booze.

Now go look at the drop off in the production from Pujols and Cabrera between their age 29 and 37 seasons.

Joel Sherman takes on the Pete Alonso Conundrum. He doesn't call it that (perhaps because my pending copyright of the phrase would cost him plenty if he tried) but he does take on the whole sentiment vs practical angle for a new POBO and new-ish owner, the projected dollar/year projections, and comps from Freddie to Pujols/Miggy, and even Aaron Judge. Good reading. https://nypost.com/2024/01/20/sports/mets-stuck-in-pete-alonso-contract-limbo-ahead-of-walk-year/

Very good book from a handful of years ago. Haven't gotten around yet to the movie, the 3-1/2 hour running time being one of the obstacles. It's funny, I have no problem sitting through a lengthy movie in a theater (providing it's a good flick of course), most recently I wasn't the slightest bit antsy during the 3:01 OPPENHEIMER. Yet I find that I possess less and less patience in recent years for watching even standard length movies at home. Too many distractions and too easy to take them, I guess, so I often break up the viewing over two or more sessions. Not an ideal way to watch one I realize.

Oddly enough, that song was used extensively in the movie. no it wasn't

I'm the other ****

AMC Lincoln Square appears to be the lone true IMAX location in NY for this one.

It was filmed to be seen in IMAX but there are only a handful of theaters in the country (i think i heard <20) which are equipped to show it that way. * 19 domestic, 30 worldwide

The good news is that if I do decide to check out BARBIE so as to not be the only one without an opinion of it come Monday morning, my local has 27 showings of it running tomorrow. First airing commences at 9 AM with the final one at 10:50 PM I mean, really, there's just no excuse not to.

I have a pink t-shirt from a long ago bike ride I did. Can, and occasionally still do, wear it around. I pretty sure the real Ken (by that I mean the real fake Ken) was neither blond nor wore pink. It is a '90s movie being made in 2023 in that the '90s were the prime era for making moves based on baby boomer nostalgia topics, mainly on TV shows from bb's youth. The problem now is that even the youngest boomers are about to hit 60 as the oldest creep up on 80. Not exactly your prime theater-going audience and probably less likely now than they were 30-ish years ago to wallow in rewatching new adaptations of every sit-com, cartoon, or toy they ever watched/owned.

No and no

Let's leave his personal life out of this, OK?

The 2011 Philly season ended with 1 - 0 loss to StL in the first round of the playoffs with Howard grounding out to end the game/series. In trying to get out of the box he collapsed in a big heap and needed to have his huge self carried of the field. I can't remember now the specific injury -- Achilles tear maybe? -- but he took all winter and half the next season to heal (July 6th was his first 2012 game). Never real mobile to begin with, he became increasingly Mo Vaughn-ish after that.

Certainly. I focused on those two because they represent two opposite ends of action taken by their clubs: - Philly opting to effectively make the 30+ Howard a Phil-for-life, perhaps against better judgement - Atlanta choosing the more unsentimental and unpopular route of pivoting to another choice as soon as they realized that they couldn't keep the guy who had been a favorite in their system for 14 years within the terms they set. Neither approach is necessarily right or wrong, just examples of two potential paths involving big Pete

The idea that we're going to sign him at some price and length is certainly reasonable but the presumed inevitability of it begs the question of, then why not now or even why hasn't it already happened. And it of course still could. Just because they hit an arb number doesn't mean they can't come up with something longer that we'll hear about between now and opening day. But if nothing happens prior to the end of the '23 season then Pete is looking at complete free agency just a year away which provides all kinds of reasons for a player to NOT sign a L-T deal while also giving the team a slightly larger disincentive to commit a player will have already hit 30 y/o, especially one who is limited to the one position on the field (two if you want to treat 1B & DH as interchangeable) where it's easiest to find a bat. Another potential comp is Freddie Freeman whom the Braves famously allowed to walk away despite coming off four straight top-10 MVP seasons (including one 1st) and a WS title. Now he was turning 32 as he hit FA-gency, not 30, so the comp isn't exact and Atlanta had already squeezed 11 full seasons plus a cup of coffee year (he debuted in late 2010 a few days prior to turning 21) out of him to that point. His new deal with LA will still have a few years left by the time Pete can leave on his own so we likely won't know by then if Freddie turns out to be a good long term signing by the Dodgers or more a wishful thinking one.

Just to stipulate, the 'Pete Alonso Conundrum' is neither a lost Robert Ludlum book, nor is it the band that opened for BTO on their western Canada tour back in the '80s The question, of course, is when/whether the team should stop paying him year by year and plunge into a long term contract. The comp that keeps popping into my head, maybe because it serves as the cautionary tale, is Ryan Howard. Both are large, slugging 1st baseman who reached the majors in their mid-20s Pete did get a slight jump on Howard by playing a full season at age 24 where RH was just getting his feet wet (39 ML ABs) but Howard quickly jumped to higher peak seasons. [td]AGE[/td][td]Ryan Howard[/td][td]OPS+[/td][td]Pete Alsonso[/td][td]OPS+[/td][td]24[/td][td]39 ABs[/td][td]122[/td][td]ROY-1, MVP-7[/td][td]147[/td][td]25[/td][td]88 G, ROY-1[/td][td]133[/td][td]Covid Season[/td][td]122[/td][td]26[/td][td]MVP-1[/td][td]167[/td][td][/td][td]133[/td][td]27[/td][td]MVP-5[/td][td]145[/td][td]MVP-8[/td][td]146[/td][td]28[/td][td]MVP-2[/td][td]125[/td][td]MVP-17[/td][td]124[/td][td]29[/td][td]MVP-3[/td][td]141[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]30[/td][td]MVP-10[/td][td]127[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]31[/td][td]MVP-10[/td][td]126[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]32[/td][td]71 G[/td][td]91[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]33[/td][td]80 G[/td][td]115[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]34[/td][td]153 G[/td][td]92[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]35[/td][td]129 G[/td][td]96[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td][td]36[/td][td]112 G[/td][td]85[/td][td]-----[/td][td]---[/td] The mistake the Phillies made, and I remember thinking this at the time, is that by the time they signed Howard to a multi-year deal he was already into his early 30s and in what turned out to be the start to a significant decline in both output and availability. Had he been with the Braves (then or now) they would have wished him well and immediately set off looking for a replacement. Of course had Pete come up with the Braves they probably would have signed him long-term coming off his rookie season (or maybe while still in the middle of it) but the Mets haven't shown that they buy into that philosophy and certainly weren't going to do it in the midst of the Wilpon/Cohen transitional mess. Alonso becomes a FA the winter he'll turn 30 following the '24 season. Given the length of contracts now in vogue it'll be tough NOT to sign him into his late '30s and we know that the track record of aging sluggers in the steroid testing era, even among the elites (Pujols, Cabrera) isn't a pretty one. If you want to pick another slugging comp, Judge, with an MVP plus two other top fives under his belt, just signed for 9 years starting at age 31. Be interesting to see how that one turns out. So I guess what I'm asking here is, what's your plan Stan?

There's an old line about how the small guy has to prove he can play while the big guy has to prove he can't. So, yeah, particularly when they're in the early stages of of rating talent, the smaller ones really need to stand out in order get selected. With your friend's kid, if he shines in JuCo maybe that gets him to a bigger school which, if he continues to improve, makes him a draft pick even if he never gets any bigger. Jett obviously has enough skills and potential to not just get drafted but make the top half of the 1st round. Do that and they stop caring how tall you are.

What's his non porn name?

****, I'm not going to be in Flowood until January!