Frayed Knot

If Trump owned the Mets, he'd blame this incident on the Mariners and try to void the trade and get Kellenic back. If he succeeded in that, even you'd love him for it. That's what Steinbrenner used to try and pull. He'd trade for some guy, not like his first outing or two, claim the other team withheld injury information from him, petition the commish's office to void the deal, and then denounce the commish as "Anti-Yanqui" when he wouldn't listen. btw, Trump & Steiny are so much alike it's almost surprising they weren't biological twins. They were pals to a certain extent and there's no doubt that if ol' George were still around he'd be the Trump-iest supporter out there and would probably (again) pressure his employees to donate their money and then force them to lie about it if an investigation came up. That (in the closing days of the Nixon era) was what got him his first suspension from the game.

I [CROSSOUT]wonder if[/CROSSOUT] hope that the Mets can use this incident to void the entire remainder of his contract Don't think there's ever been a case of this happening. The Yanx made noise about trying to do that when Giambi "apologized" (without ever saying what he was apologizing for) and was coming off a suck/injured season with a whole lotta money still due. They got nowhere with it and then never brought it up again after his hitting returned to form. The whole testing/punishment rules were collectively bargained and I can't believe that the union would ever agree to even the possibility of allowing teams to use a positive test as a way to negate contracts and earnings beyond the stipulated length of suspension. IIRC, Cano will even continue to accumulate ML service time during his suspension. Not that service time will matter in his case but punishment on top of the punishment isn't something at the club's discretion.

Coming into the 2020 season, Stroman & Wheeler had virtually identical career ERAs and WHIPs, Stroman had 14 more career starts, 100 more career IPs, was signed for the coming year, was a year younger, was arguably coming off the better 2019 season (.74 ER/G less) and doesn't have TJ surgery in his past. A declarative statement about how one was demonstrably better than the other is tough to back up. Expecting 90 starts -- or what worked out to a pro-rated 35 or so -- from three pitchers and getting instead a total of six horrid ones is a bit more than "bumps in the road" or something that can be overcome if only they had nabbed the 'right' #5/6 starters. Back of the rotation guys are back of the rotation guys for a reason and those slots are unlikely to be grabbed by guys with 'Solid Starter' stamped on their foreheads, particularly when they're not even being promised a starting job. It's great if and when your back-enders do fill in ably when others go down but usually the way you know who those guys are is to wait until the end of that season and say, 'Yeah, that's the kind of guy we needed'. And then the next season that guy might just go back to barely hanging on while someone else will be the new Mr. Right-on-time. And my point here isn't to defend Wachacello; they were hired as back end of the rotation filler who then unexpectedly were needed to start one of every three games during a fucked-up season and didn't come close to matching what one assumes we would have gotten from the two they replaced. The one bright side was that some of the games they did start mean that day's starter gave up runs at barely more than half the rate on days when their starts replaced a Matz start. So, y'know, there's that.

I have no idea what you two are even arguing about so I'll stay out of that end of things, but here's how I saw the whole Wachacello/Wheeler situation. The Stroman trade the previous August was to make him Wheeler's replacement, or at least act as Wheeler insurance. Whether they had already decided not to pursue Wheeler by that point is speculation. Wachacello were acquired to cover the 5th/6th starter/longman role. Neither had been good in '19 but both were better in '18 and considerably so prior to that, and both still young enough to where a bounce back season from either/or was a reasonable possibility. As it turned out, Porcello pretty much repeated 2019 in 2020; Wacha fared worse. But the biggest problem wasn't them but the fact that we got zero starts out of Thor, zero out of Stroman, and zero GOOD starts out of Matz (OK, maybe ONE), all of which left nearly 1/3 of the starts (19 of 60) to the two imports who, in effect, became not the 5/6 starters but the #s 3 and 4 behind JdG and Peterson.

He's in a similar boat to Lugo - has a partially torn UCL and is pitching with/through/despite it. Hes not as good as when he first arrived. I suspect someone will give him front-ish money for a couple years but to me he's more a 3-ish guy going forward and I'd be cautious on the length.

He's not a CF and, although he won a Gold Glove back in '17, you watch him now and you can't see how such a thing was ever true. iow. he's not even a good corner glove now. Not too old to hit though ...

http://archives.thecranepool.net/17000/f1_t17083.shtmlhttp://archives.thecranepool.net/17000/f1_t17083.shtml

=kcmets post_id=50763 time=1605560719 user_id=53] I'm laughing a little about the short-lived Sergio Ferrer Forum.

It was really during the (9/11 delayed) MFY/ARZ WS that traffic started to pick up over here to the point where a bunch of folks realized that is simply made more sense to use this place as their full-time board rather than just as a refuge for complaining about the head-bashing idiocy at the old joint. Hence Nov 1 as the (more or less) anniversary date.

At some point he began to lose playing time at a faster clip than we were losing participating members.

=kcmets post_id=50726 time=1605544744 user_id=53] And here we are decades later lol.

Edgy MD wrote: What's the deal with five-year plans? Worked for Stalinist USSR ...oh wait, it didn't.

Agreed. And can we at least wait to see how he'll own the team, who he'll choose to run the team, and what the results of him running the team will be before we start worshipping just the simple fact that he owns it?

I understand why they're talking to him but he's not the guy you'd want as your #1, even for just one year. I strongly suspect he'll wind up back in StL as they'd be the most likely to give him a two-year send off contract. On the other hand they were perfectly willing to allow Pujols to walk and never had a reason to doubt that move.

FINAL ORDER -- NL MVP Freddie - Mookie - Manny Also: Tatis Jr., Soto, Ozuna, Trea Turner, Grandbaby Yaz, Corey Seager, Trevor Bauer, Trevor Story (clearly the Trevor votes were split), Acuna, Dom, etc. -- AL MVP Abreu, Ramirez, Le Mahieu Also Bieber, Trout, Cruz, Tim Anderson, Lowe (TB), Luke Voit, Tendon, Teoscar Hernandez (TOR), ... (15th) George Springer Trout, for his career, is now 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st, and 5th. Clearly he's not what he used to be. -- NL CY Bauer (1st EVER winner for Cincy), Darvish, deGrom, ... Zack Wheeler 12th -- AL CY Shane Bieber, Maeda, Ryu Gerritt Cole 4th -- NY ROY Devin Williams - Bohm - Cronenworth Andres Gimenez = T-7th (1 3rd place vote) -- AL ROY Kyle Lewis (SEA) - Luis Robert (CHW) - Cristian Javier (HOU) -- NL MOY Mattingly (MIA) - Jayce Tingler (SDP) - David Ross (CHC) -- AL MOY Kevin Cash (TBR) - Rick Renteria (CHW) - Charlie Montoyo (TOR) North Carolina is still counting their ballots

I hope that Steve Cohen considers him to be Alberto Giacometti's "L'Homme au doigt" of this FA class. And remember: l'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace

Benjamin Grimm wrote: So we'd have Springer in center and Conforto and Nimmo on the corners? That represents a lotta OF'ers on base (and a potent 1-2-3 in the lineup maybe) specifically a .383 OBA for that trio across the 2019 & 2020 seasons combined [just over 2,000 total PAs].

What Sandy has said to date is: Bauer “would be a great personality in New York ... the kind of guy that fans would endorse. We're in the entertainment business.” Bauer's response was: “I heard Sandy's comments, and it was refreshing to hear him speak that way about me, ... In the past, a lot of the narrative surrounding me is I couldn't handle a big market, a big media market, I was a headcase, or whatever the case is, that's kind of been the narrative. So to hear that someone as high-ranking as Sandy feels the way he feels about that is refreshing and good to hear him speak like that. I'm certainly very appreciative of that." I don't translate either side of that to be evidence of a love-fest. Sandy/Stevie don't want to give the impression that they're going to be scared away by someone who is a little different, nor is it in Bauer's interest to act like he needs the perfect conditions to succeed and start shutting doors before this whole thing even starts.

Michael Hill, 49, Harvard grad, former head of baseball ops for the Marlins (2013 - until recently "squeezed out" by Jeter), is the first known name to have https://nypost.com/2020/11/11/mets-interviewing-ousted-marlins-president-michael-hill/interviewed w/Sandy for the team President position. "Hill would bring the blend of analytics and old-school scouting savvy to the position that it's believed Alderson has been seeking." sez the Puma

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: ... an interesting figure in that he was drafted 9 rounds ahead of Nolan Ryan by the same scouting team. Gotta question the strategy of a scouting team who apparently decided that girls names were a drafting priority: Leslie Norvin Rohr, Lynn Nolan Ryan Maybe that partially explains the troubles of the 1960's Mets Also Rohr was born in the UK, went to HS in Montana. Hardly your typical path to the bigs.

Edgy MD wrote: Lindor's not a free agent Even if we repeat it often enough here that he is?

Ok, but what is the limit? Don't know, don't pretend to know, don't care.

The interesting thing about him was that he came up as a guy prone to K-ing but morphed into a low(er) K guy (who knows what even constitutes 'low' these days) even at a time when K-rates continue to climb in the sport. 2015: 28.1% (K/ABs) 2016: 27.6 2017: 20.2 2018: 22.4 2019: 23.6 2020: 20.1 Or by ABs per K 2015: 3.6 2016: 3.6 2017: 4.9 2018: 4.5 2019: 4.2 2020: 5.0 Now cynics might note that maybe that's the result of the Astros increasingly knowing the pitches that were coming and perhaps there's something to that especially since he wasn't the only Astro to do so. But those changes are also significant enough (especially starting in 2017) and have kept the trend long enough to treat them as at least mostly real. It's the difference between K-ing between 1/4 and 1/3 of the time as a rookie to down around 1/5 now, or over once per game in the beginning to more like four Ks every five games now. That's not just a statistical quirk. Already 31 y/o (two months ago) you'd want to consider the length of the deal you'd offer and he's neither the true ball-hawk of a CF you'd love to have nor is he likely to stay in the middle of the field for long. But for the next couple of years at least he should be a terrific fit. Plus he's semi-local [Avon, CT and UConn] and despite the fact that his paternal grandfather was a black man from Panama who immigrated sometime during the middle of the 20th century while my clan is decidedly white and landed in this country about a century before it was even this country, I'm still determined to find a genetic link I can use to go and hit up old "cousin George" for some tickets now and then.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=50462 time=1605132570 user_id=68] So we shouldn't pursue Lindnor because his contract might break the 2021 budget and thus prevent the Mets from filling other needs.

ALL spending has a limit. It's just that not all limits are as limiting as others. Where this winter puts the Mets in at least a theoretical advantage is that most clubs look to be tapped out on their budgets on account of Covid losses while uncle Stevie doesn't have that around his neck -- well, as a minority partner, he likely had to kick some money into the pot to cover shortfalls but not to the degree that other owners did in 2020 -- so he can be spending while others tighten. That shouldn't mean it's a good time to start tossing it around like a drunken sailor on shore leave, but it's certainly a better position to be in than one with loans, Madoff clawbacks, and other deficits over your head.