Frayed Knot

So two starters [Holmes / Peterson] plus those five relievers available all along ... and then 28 spare parts.

Is that overall or just this season?

Bobby Jenks was huge, both personally [listed at 6' 4" / 275 - and was every bit of that] and as a rookie out of the pen for the ChiSox WS team of 2005 My one over-riding memory from that post-season was the time Sox had two right-handers warming up in the pen. When manager Ozzie Guillen signaled for a reliever the crew in the pen didn't know which one. Ozzie, seeing their confusion, spread his arms out wide to indicate the big dude and the pen immediately knew what he meant. Typical high octane reliever in a lot of ways. Capable or dominant outings but, like a lot of that type, walked too many and ultimately had a short prime and short-ish career. A seven season career, six with white socks on and his final one wearing red socks, but was done by age 30. 44 y/o

Pete [737 -- 1090 -- 1150] sometimes seems like he's the only thing keeping this team from being shut out every night. Also Torrens and some marginal gain from Taylor, but neither of them play everyday or gives you much offense to begin with. And it's not just that production is down from the rest of the crew when 'ducks are on the pond' (whether in scoring position or not), it's that it's not even close. Every one of them loses at least 100 points of OPS when bodies are on base with Lindor losing over 300 and Soto over 500 (the latter of which scarcely seems possible). Even when it's a stat as simple as HRs: the Mets are 6th in MLB in the number hit but a shade over 2/3 of theirs are solo (and lately more like 90% *) while the MLB avg is 59% * actually 90.48% -- 19 of their last 21

Worst offenders Lindor: Bases Empty 882 OPS -- Men On 571 -- w/RiSP 566 Nimmo: 820 -- 705 -- 679 Soto: 1134 -- 618 -- 596 McNeil: 917 -- 686 -- 754 Alvarez: 672 -- 626 -- 561 Vientos: 675 -- 603 -- 571

Why Thank You, Ben. I'm enthusiastic about you too. [FIMG=300]https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/h4Danx25bhtuorh7fZW8bJ-650-80.jpg.webp[/FIMG]

And right now it involves (OF) Carson Benge and (P) Jonah Tong. Those two Binghamton Rumble Ponies will be representing the NL in the ASG-week Futures Game in Atlanta (Sat July 12, MLBN and mlb.tv)

We're playing semantics here. No one is arguing that 'clutch hitting' is something that certain players or teams do or do not "own", or that what happened last week is predictive of what will happen next week. But we can assess what has already happened and that's that this team has been lacking with timely hits for essentially the entire season and in doing so their output of runs scored has been far lower than what would normally be expected from the input. Compared to the six teams closest to them in OPS (the three just above them plus the three just below) the Mets are averaging nearly 2/3 RS/G lower than the average of those six, a rate that puts them more than 50 runs* fewer than expected for the season to date. * 43 fewer than the Yanx, -80 to Cubs, -64 to Tigers, -29 to Red Sox, -35 to Rays, -17 to Phils

Clutch remains not a projectable thing. That doesn't make it non-existent. When a team is in the upper echelon [top 6] in OBP, OPS, SLG and yet middle of the pack in runs scored that points to consistently not getting hits as often at the right times or situations. The fact that, through more than half a season now, the team's OPS is 70 - 80 points lower runners on (in scoring position or otherwise) than it is with bases empty backs that up. With bases empty the collective team is bit better than this season's version of Francisco Lindor. With runners on they're somewhere between Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez.

There will come a future day when I will have totally forgotten that Colin Poche was ever a NYM. That day may occur sometime later this week.

The turnstiles at Grand Central don't turn as rapidly as the Met Count does these days. You can't tell the players With a scorecard.

808 PAs / 674 ABs going into today's (Sat 6/28) game -- so that's 25.7% of their PAs w/RiSP [3,144 total PA] or 24.3% of ABs [674/2,771] . Mets have a higher than average OBA so it stands to reason that a higher pct of their plate appearances would come with runners on while their BA is right at MLB average. A simpler way to look at all this is via OPS which is the stat that most closely correlates to runs scored. The correlation between RS and BA is positive but not all that strong. SLG is a stronger link, OBA is better still, and OPS better than all of them. Mets started today 6th of 30 in MLB OPS, yet 14th in runs scored. Of the top 11 OPS teams, every other one has their RS (1-30) rank within two slots (one way or the other) of their OPS rank The only team with a wider disparity than the Mets (-8) is the [fill in the blank] A's who are 12th in OPS but 24th in RS The Brewers (+12) are the team on the other extreme: 19th in OPS, 7th in runs scored. Not surprisingly the Brews' 703 overall OPS turns into 740 w/RiSP while the Mets go in the opposite direction: 743 to 694 This all comes on the heels of the stat thrown out during last Saturday's game by the FOX crew which showed the Mets 3rd in hard hit pct, behind only LAD and NYY. And since you figure that a higher hard hit rate should beget a high OPS, the Mets are somewhat failing to turn their hard hits into bases won. Not a big gap (3rd to 6th) but one that implies a few too many at'em balls and not enough fortune in finding holes. Then, once you tack on their failure to turn that already lower-than-expected OPS into runs at the expected rate, their run scoring troubles just get compounded.

Jason Heyward just released by San Diego [.176/.223/.271 in 95 PAs]. You wonder if that's it for him after 16 seasons even though still 'only' 35 y/o (36 in Aug)

Maybe if Thor shows some sort of return to form while with the ChiSox it'll lead to an opportunity with a major league club. couldn't resist

Hmmmm. One day after his loooonnnggg HR last night. But, as I posted in Saturday's IGT, not only does he just have 29 hits this year (.236 BA) but 23 of those hits are singles (3 2Bs, 3 HRs). So even though his current BA is right in line with his career norms, the isolated Power (Slg Avg - BA) is WAY down. For '23 & '24 combined his IsoP was right at 200 where this season it's exactly 100 even with last night's HR factored in. With MLB average typically around 150 (currently 153) that's a big fall. Put another way: 100 puts you slightly below where Torrens is this season. 200 puts you up there with Nimmo and Lindor who have 58 XBHs between them (29 each).

Justin falls between Wayne Garrett and Rod Gaspar alphabetically. Those names have been side by side since 1969. Brilliant!!

btw, I love that this thread is now 2-1/2 years old and still going strong.

Boras will certainly point to Judge and Freeman for ammo. Not that Pete is as good as either of them but that, at age 35, Freddie currently sports his highest BA and his 2nd best OPS of his career. And Judge, in the midst of his age 33 season, has his highest BA, OBA, SLG, OPS, OPS+ of his career by A Lot! 'So you see, Steve and David, Boras is bound to say, you've got nothing to worry about when it comes to signing mid-30s sluggers. Particularly when the guy we're talking just had (assuming current pace) 'HIS best season ever for BA, OBA, SLG, OPS and he's three and five years younger than those guys. And if you don't think so I've got 47 other teams waiting to talk to me and surely some of them will see it that way.'

In your previous post I meant to add the caveat that the above projection dates were based on Pete not hitting any more HRs today. So ignore everything I wrote above ... y'know, like most of you usually do.

And now he's no HRs away from tying Wright. With Pete's HR pace picking up lately, the timing for the tie-Straw and break-Straw now projects to occur in late July. It was mid-August last time I checked. At his current HR pace for the year, #252 is slated for game #105 on 7/28, right in the middle of the remaining west coast swing to SF & SD, with #253 slated for four to five days later when the club is back home.

He doesn't appear to be pitching that badly [3.43 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 10 G/8 Starts] but Taijuan Walker is being moved to the Philly pen - even though it was former Marlin Jesus Lazardo who gave up 12 ER on 12 Hits/3 BB in 3-1/3 IP on Saturday to the Brewers.

There's an ad on the CitiField outfield wall for Milagro Tequila

Cool. If you want some exercise walk some of the hills in Pittsburgh. Their steepness is legendary.

Saw it like a million years ago (maybe not that many, probably more like 37) but don't remember anything at this point.

Jonah Tong had a perfect game going for 6-2/3 in a DH which, in the minors, is designated as a 7 inning game, and ... he was pulled from the game. Reliever TJ Shook K'd his lone batter to complete the combined Perfecto for Binghamton.