Frayed Knot

=Centerfield post_id=51559 time=1606857605 user_id=65] Wait, so is this guy like, good?

So tomorrow is the deadline for teams to offer -- or not offer -- contracts to their pre-FA guys not already under contract for 2021 https://nypost.com/2020/11/30/mets-tendering-steve-matz-would-be-the-right-move/Ken Davidoff in the Post makes a case For keeping Matz

NY Post: The Mets' search to bolster their front office has hit another dead end, when Chris Young pulled his name from consideration to be the team's general manager, The Post has learned. Young, MLB's senior VP of on field operations, withdrew because of family considerations. He lives in Dallas and has children ages 8, 10 and 12 and felt this was not the right time to uproot despite being intrigued by the position with the Mets.

Paddy Power* Odds: -- Starting Rotation Slot: 1000-1 -- On Opening Day Roster: 100-1 -- Minor League Cotract/ST Invite: 10-1 * w/apologies to MetIrish

I'd bet heavily against this happening.

At some point ump Montague was claiming that Sheen didn't have the actual ball, but it sounds more like he had lost track of the fact that Arthur Richman had put it on the market.

Frayed Knot wrote: Wasn't there some dispute a bunch of years ago over what ball was the actual Buckner ball?!?! IIRC, wacko Charlie Sheen bought what was said to be THE ball but the RF ump claimed it wasn't real since he was the one who picked up the ball that night and he knew where it was ... and that where was not in Chuckie Sheen's paws. Not sure how/if that all got resolved but it would be a shame if Uncle Steve only Thinks he has the real one.

Wasn't there some dispute a bunch of years ago over what ball was the actual Buckner ball?!?! IIRC, wacko Charlie Sheen bought what was said to be THE ball but the RF ump claimed it wasn't real since he was the one who picked up the ball that night and he knew where it was ... and that where was not in Chuckie Sheen's paws. Not sure how/if that all got resolved but it would be a shame if Uncle Steve only Thinks he has the real one.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/25/mlb-free-agency-2020-george-springer-would-shine-with-mets/https://nypost.com/2020/11/25/mlb-free-agency-2020-george-springer-would-shine-with-mets/

Frayed Knot wrote: =nymr83 post_id=51288 ] The Mets are likely best positioned to take advantage of the DH. Certainly of the NL East teams. But that alone is a poor reason to support the DH rule. I remember NYM fans in the mid-80s wanting the DH because we had Rusty on the roster ... but that shouldn't be the point. Is it a rule that makes the game more interesting or less?

=nymr83 post_id=51288 ] The Mets are likely best positioned to take advantage of the DH. Certainly of the NL East teams.

Frayed Knot wrote: First of all, great thread title. Secondly, it's amazing sometimes to see how things in baseball's off-season move at the pace of a relay race at a Molina family picnic. On the player FA side of things it's at least partially explainable by the lack of a salary cap. In the NBA & NFL the money available to players is not just a finite number but a publicly known finite number so the players are, in effect, playing a game of musical chairs and tend to jump into the first one they see figuring that missing out on that one might just leave them without a chair entirely and that it's not like the next chair is going to have a better cushion anyway since the league mandates that all cushions be the same. A bit of a tortured analogy perhaps but the point is that the NBA FA season (in a normal year anyway) seems to entirely take place inside about 48 hours and most of those deals are (not legally but also not so secretly) cut prior to when the official start of the period even begins. The NFL is kind of the same except that the 'Franchise' and 'Transitional' player tags effectively skim the cream of the FA crop off the top each year leaving the FA signings to be mostly faceless guys fighting for a limited amount of positions for a mostly fixed amount of dollars so, again, there's pressure to grab the first offer you get for fear it won't be there if you dare to take even a few days to contemplate what else might be out there. In MLB, those hours and days-long time frames get stretched out to weeks and maybe months as if part of a slow-moving game of chess (redundancy?). But none of that should apply to front office positions in baseball so this is kind of strange and not something for which I have a logical explanation, especially seeing as how the field of qualified possibilities is smaller (at least at the upper ranks) and the openings so few that one would figure things to move more quickly.

Oh I don't think they HAVE to have someone by tomorrow. But it has been close to four weeks now with seemingly little or no movement apparent, a pace which feels oddly par for the course.

First of all, great thread title. Secondly, it's amazing sometimes to see how things in baseball's off-season move at the pace of a relay race at a Molina family picnic. On the player FA side of things it's at least partially explainable by the lack of a salary cap. In the NBA & NFL the money available to players is not just a finite number but a publicly known finite number so the players are, in effect, playing a game of musical chairs and tend to jump into the first one they see figuring that missing out on that one might just leave them without a chair entirely and that it's not like the next chair is going to have a better cushion anyway since the league mandates that all cushions be the same. A bit of a tortured analogy perhaps but the point is that the NBA FA season (in a normal year anyway) seems to entirely take place inside about 48 hours and most of those deals are cut (not legally but also not so secretly) prior to when the official start of the period even begins. The NFL is kind of the same except that the 'Franchise' and 'Transitional' player tags effectively skim the cream of the FA crop off the top each year leaving the FA signings to be mostly faceless guys fighting for a limited amount of positions for a mostly fixed amount of dollars so, again, there's pressure to grab the first offer you get for fear it won't be there if you dare to take even a few days to contemplate what else might be out there. In MLB, those hours and days-long time frames get stretched out to weeks and maybe months as if part of a slow-moving game of chess (redundancy?). But none of that should apply to front office positions in baseball so this is kind of strange and not something for which I have a logical explanation, especially seeing as how the field of qualified possibilities is smaller (at least at the upper ranks) and the openings so few that one would figure things to move more quickly.

I think I saw at some point... and I'm pretty sure I remember not liking it. Either way, I guess this means it wasn't very memorable.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Eighth-round draft pick of the Phillies in 2014. Went to high school in Hendersonville, Tennessee, a town (or city, who knows?) ... Well to do suburb of Nashville. Many country music stars live in Hendersonville.

Any image problems Bobby Bonilla had as a Met were caused by one person ... Bobby Bonilla. Blaming various media people is a red herring.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: =Centerfield post_id=51054 time=1605833318 user_id=65] For those that feel a grown man shouldn't wear another man's name on his back, what if that name is also your name? Make sure the uniform number is different?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: He would be only the fifth Mets player named George ... Odd, considering that signing him would make him the third Springer to play for the team. One would think that Georges would be considerably more common than Springers. Or, put another way, that would mean exactly half of all the ML Springers in history would have spent time on the Mets. Now not much time so far considering that Steve Springer totaled 5 ABs in 1992 (and never appeared in a ML game again) and Dennis racked up a grand total of 11-1/3 IP in the 2000 season so George doesn't exactly have a large barrier to clear in order to claim the title of best ever Springer on the Mets. I think he's already sewed up the best ever pro baseball playing Springer. * Ed Springer - a Canadian native whose lone season came in 1889 for Louisville in the American Association when he was 22 y/o. He'd live for just another 2-1/2 years * Brad Springer - the Detroit native saw time in the 1925 season for the StL Browns and in '26 for the Reds. He appeared in a total of just 4 games as a reliever. * Dennis Springer - a knuckleballer (I've had some knuckleHeads in my family) who pitched for six teams over eight season from 1995 to 2002 * Steve Springer - Long Beach, CA native and a 20th round draft pick by the Mets out of baseball hot-spot University of Utah was an infielder who got four starts/12 ABs for the 1990 Indians then one start/5 ABs for the '92 Mets * Russ Springer - Prior to George, Russ held claim to king of the Springers in MLB. The Louisiana native came up with the Yanx and became a durable, if mostly unspectacular, reliever [740 Games, 27 starts] across 18 seasons for ten different teams. And in looking all this up I discovered that active player Carson Fullmer (2016-2020; White Sox, Tigers, Orioles) sports the full name of Carson Springer Fullmer which indicates to me that he's quite possibly got a maternal Springer somewhere in his midst (that maternal middle name thing is popular 'mongst us WASPs) so he qualifies as an honorary Springer. OK, this got me going. Now we HAVE to sign George!

=Centerfield post_id=50904 time=1605721450 user_id=65] Rumblings are that Mike Chernoff is the current favorite for POBO. I'm hearing he's a smart guy. Local roots, and gets Cleveland to the playoffs every year on a shoestring budget.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: I don't know how much defensive acumen drops off once the bat disappears, but Realmuto could still be very useful if he remains an elite defensive catcher even if the bat becomes average. I like this dude a lot. McCann has a rep as a superior defensive catcher as well -- or at least he does in everything except pitch-framing which might become a thing of the past if/when Robo-Ump comes to pass -- although all of this is based purely on things I've heard/read as I've barely seen the guy. And while I'm not trying to sell him over Realmuto, I just think he can likely be had for a shorter term which might be the way to go when considering over-30 backstops. So I want them to pursue Realmuto, I would just like this to be the smart NYM front office who remembers that there's always a price **In Anything** at which you need to be willing to walk away.

And, btw, McCann was actually the better offensive player during the truncated 2020 season [890 OPS to 840]. Now Realmuto still owns the much better track record over his career and more recently [2017-20: JTR = 783, 825, 820 vs McC at 733, 581, 789] so the trick is to discern whether McCann has recently 'found it' offensively or is he merely riding a one-year bump built on a small sample size*. Was his 890 OPS in 2020 his outlier season or was it the 581 he put up back in '18? * not just the shortened season but he played in only 31 games in 2020. He didn't miss any time, the ChiSox just switched off between him and Yasmani Grandal. He crushed LHPs [1242 OPS; 744 vs RHP] in 2020 and in general has fared much better against them in his career [834 vs 639]

If nothing else, this brings at least the possibility of D J LeMahieu into the picture.

The biggest drawback to me is that he'll turn 30 during ST and it may cost too much (in years) to make out-bidding everyone else a smart move. He's got unusual athleticism for a backstop so maybe he'll be the one to defy the odds for longer ... but, still, everything has a sell-by date. One of the 'fallback' options, James McCann, is already 30 (31 in June) but could likely be signed for a shorter term and therefore a better risk even if the lesser overall player right now.

More specifically, Theo talked about working with non-profits for a year or so, but also said he he looked forward to a "third chapter" in his baseball career.