Frayed Knot

=bmfc1 post_id=27962 time=1575849183 user_id=73] Look at that, the Mets have a Di and a De.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Chubby guy with a crewcut. Yeah, was the kind of guy you wouldn't want to see do much flexin'

May he do for the Phillies what pilfering Bryce Harper and JT Realmuto away from division rivals did for them in 2019 (a one game improvement in their record)

What I think I'm going to remember most is that we lost not one but two complete seasons to his UCL replacement surgery, essentially erasing 1/3 of his time as a Met with one tear.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: What do we know about this guy other than he tried to buy the Dodgers, too? What I know is virtually nothing, so I went to the unimpeachable source of WikiPedia to find out that: - he's a 63 y/o Great Neck, Long Island native with an economics degree from Wharton School of Penn who learned risk through playing poker before borrowing money to get into money management - now based in Greenwich and Stamford, CT, he runs POINT72 Asset Management - estimated personal wealth of $13.6 billion which, according to Forbes Magazine in 2016, made him the 30th richest person in the country - currently with wife #2 whom he married in 1991, had two kids with #1, 4 more with #2, plus #2 brought one of her own into the mix. Apparently he lives with all seven. - in 2009 he was sued by first wife over charges stemming from the hiding of assets concerning their long-ago separation agreement. Initially dismissed in court, in 2013 an appeals court revived the charges. [Quoting from Wiki now]: Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Pierre Leval said [first wife] Patricia Cohen had made a “plausible” allegation that Steven Cohen had concealed the $5.5 million during negotiations on a separation agreement in 1989, which preceded the divorce. The revival of the lawsuit comes amid mounting pressure on Steven Cohen over an insider trading investigation that led to last Friday's arrest of Michael Steinberg, one of Cohen's closest confidantes at SAC Capital [predecessor of POINT72]. Also in March, SAC affiliates reached two civil insider trading settlements totaling nearly $616 million with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. One of the civil settlements has won court approval. SAC neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in either case. Steven Cohen has not been accused of wrongdoing. - and speaking of billions, the Showtime series BILLIONS (which I've never seen) is "loosely based" on former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's account of his legal battles with Cohen and his company(s). - he's a avid art collector & supporter - funds PTSD and mental health programs for vets - donated to a PAC supporting Chris Christie

=Centerfield post_id=27514 time=1575474812 user_id=65] Armando Benitez was a bad pitcher.

After first embracing, and later rejecting (even to the point of firing the architect responsible) the idea of signing almost everyone to long-term deals [Kimbrel, Simmons, Upton, Uggla, others] the Braves quickly reversed course and these days seem to be opting for the strategy of longer deals for arb-eligible or even pre-arb players [Albies, Acuna, Freddie] but shorter-term/big-bucks ['Let's see what ya still got'] kind of deals for older ones [Donaldson, Markakis, and now Hamels] As always you've got to pick the right guys to slot in each category -- the downside is putting yourself in the situation where you (and the fans) are saying: 'We paid $20 million for this lame piece of shit?!?' -- but if you do it's probably the right way to go.

Does the "he wanted his own tent in Spring Training, so the Mets didn't sign him" story, count as part of the A-Rod myth? That Arod/Boras wanted a whole separate marketing arm to go along with the contract has been confirmed over the years by multiple sources from other clubs who were in on various ARod negotiations and also later on by Boras himself (to Francesa IIRC). And I think it's reasonable to assume that that was all A factor in them not signing him or at least in them getting out as early as they did, that they realized that what it was going to take to sign him was more than they thought was wise to invest in 1/25th of your roster. And, as things turned out, the team that did sign him wanted out of it before the contract was 1/3 of the way done and paid multi-millions more just to make it go away. The two teams that were most in on trade talks, even though the two richest in baseball, wanted multi-millions in relief before they'd take on the remainder (you may recall that the BoSox wanted more relief than the MLBPA deemed was fair and so they dropped out). And the team that wound up with him had to then re-buy him on the open market four years later when he opted-out of the deal. Now one could argue that the '24-and-1' deal was a convenient excuse to get out of the negotiation they weren't up to in the first place. But when presented with all the facts of how the life of that deal went down, the come-back argument that: 'Well he had Keith Hernandez footie pajamas as a kid so he would have signed with us for half as much' defies both logic and basic intelligence.

=stevejrogers post_id=27508 time=1575473326 user_id=57] Murphy is the Knight/Mitchell of the 2015 NL Champions.

ARod would have signed with the Mets in 200/2001 for a deep discount (some opinions posited around half) compared to what he eventually got from Texas. Much of this shit was based on his (slight) NYC roots (born there, grew up largely in the DR) and his self-proclaimed boyhood Keith Hernandez fandom which he'd conveniently drop in to conversations whenever he wanted to stir the pot - as if those factors have ANY historical basis on why players make their FA choices. That he often spun the same tale about Dale Murphy (the Braves, via TBS, were the only games he could watch from the DR, and it was the reason he wore #3 in his career) gets ignored as does his stated goal to not just maximize his contract but set records in doing so (the $252 mil total was purposely chosen so as to be DOUBLE that of the recently signed Kevin Garnet in the NBA). With Carter the argument is largely the shading between him being A final piece of the puzzle vs THE final piece. That he was the final BIG move made in the winter of '84-'85 and went on to have two top-flight seasons while handling the young pitching staff as the team jumped from 90 regular season wins to 98 and then 108 makes a good argument for the 'The' side. That there are those who black out from their memories that what followed were three increasingly lame seasons after the championship doesn't change that. The Knight argument, on the other hand, always bugged me; wasn't true then, isn't true now. After being the backup more often than not in '85 (and not real well liked by fans) Ray had a nice season in '86 [12th best WAR on the team] and even that was largely based on a hot April & May [1078 & 857 OPS'es vs 704, 577, 741, 801 the remaining months]. The WS MVP was an added bonus although that was more a case where there was no single outstanding player so his 9-for-23 (7 singles) was deemed the best candidate. Fine, no problem there. But it's like it either never occurred to the Knight worshipers that Ray was: a) 34 y/o in '87; went on to have OPS+ seasons of 83 & 53; c) was out of the game after that, or that we had HoJo manning his position [OPS+ of 133 & 124 in '87-'88] or they somehow believe that his decline would have magically been forestalled had he remained in NYC. There's a more or less parallel Darryl Strawberry line of logic which ignores that he essentially had ONE good season as a full-time player after leaving the Mets. Hell, he only had one full-time season post-NYM (his first LAD season was his only one to top 300 ABs). But it's always fun to pretend that the injuries, age, drug abuse, illnesses, attitude problems, and erratic behavior wouldn't have happened if only he, like Knight, had had the good sense to 'stay home'.

For the record, Not once have I killed anyone with an axe and even the ones I've injured with them have all recovered with few, if any, lingering effects.

This makes the Braves the first team to pull off the d'Arnaud d'Aily d'Ouble (though not concurrently) having previously employed older brother Chase d'Arnaud (32) in 2016 & 2017 Chase split 2019 between the Rangers and Royals AAA affiliates hitting ... ummm, not very well, and he doesn't have the luxury of hiding a weak bat behind calling himself a catcher.

Jeremy Hefner to be the pitching coach, so sez MLBN's Hey,Man and https://nypost.com/2019/11/26/mets-hiring-jeremy-hefner-as-pitching-coach/doubled down on by the Puma P.S. I always get a kick out of reports saying that they "confirmed" some other reporter's earlier report. It's like they're trying to say that they separately confirm that the previous reporting is accurate, except that it always comes off to me as them saying: 'Yes, I am hereby confirming that that other person did in fact report this' ESPN does this a lot, I believe in an attempt to make it seem like every bit of news is broken by them. If they do report it first then they claim it that way. But if someone else reports it first they lead with the declaration that they themselves are confirming the news while mentioning in passing and after the fact that said news was first reported by someone else via some outside organization. I mean, sure, someone else actually broke this story ... but the confirming, now that's the important part!

You know what's really sickening about this? Okay, lotsa things. But what really annoys me is this: take Jeter's best season. Whatever you think is his best season - go with it. A-Rod had five, six, seven whatever seasons better than Jeter's best. By OPS, Rodriguez notched seven seasons above Jeter's best and twelve above Jeter's second best. By OPS+ those numbers are at six and twelve And then there's WAR per season while they were teammates: 2004 (ARod's 1st NYY season): Tops on the team vs Jeter = 3rd best on team 2005: 1st vs 8th 2006: 4th vs 2nd 2007: 1st vs 6th 2008: 1st vs 6th 2009: 6th vs 1st 2010: 5th vs 11th 2001: 5th vs ??? (not in top 12) 2012: 11th vs 9th But at least Jeter was the better fielder ... on wait, he wasn't. So shirley he stole bases at a better clip ... except that he didn't (81.2% to 78.6%)

Their argument is that they're pissed off that they spent too much money for a player and, rather than admit that it was their fault for misjudging him, they're using this as an excuse to claw back some of the money. They did this with Giambi once they were shocked, SHOCKED to discover that there were steroids going on in the back of Rick's Cafe, and they tried the same with ARod. All bad investments but none were their fault as long as you can blame it on the player somehow. They had no case whatsoever with Giambi, especially after THEY specifically crossed out any references to steroids as a clause in his contract, and wound up dropping the matter once he bounced back after one lost season. They wound up settling with ARod for some undisclosed sum in lieu of the final year of his contract just to make him shut up and go away.

Charlie and Eli Sisters (Joaquin Phoenix & John C. Reilly) are enforcers/hit men for a monied tyrant on the west coast during the gold rush era. They get a job to go fetch somebody. Not everything goes as planned.

That was my impression as well.

He did show some degree of slugginess before knocking 12 & 13 HRs in approx 350 ABs each in 2016 & 2017 Those years translate into a 137 & 162 Isolated Slugging, not quite the 187 of this year but league average-ish at worst and of course everyone's power was up this year. What upped his standard Slugging Average in 2019 was that his BA was up some 20 to 50 points above his career norms (likely the BaBiP factor ^) And what this all basically translates into is a good defensive catcher (or so they say) with a low BA and occasional pop ... iow: a backup catcher straight out of central casting. That he'd be coming at a backup role after being a more-or-less starter over the last couple of seasons [PAs = 373, 391, 427, 439 from 2016-19] could be a good thing. Turns 30 in mid-season 2020 so should be at or near his prime.

=G-Fafif post_id=27023 time=1574452800 user_id=55]Steve Marcus's “small Hall” bit I can see (distaste for Jeter notwithstanding). But this, though it's Rieber's right as an accredited BBWAA member — I really hate “take his vote away” reactions — is absurd.

This is a far better idea than my first thought after reading the subject heading, which was: What in the hell do we need Brian McCann for, and didn't he already announce his intention to retire?!?

And now it becomes more understandable why the Yanquis reversed their usual method of sticking through a contract in the Ellsbury case ... because they plan to file grievances to get as much of it as possible back. Claiming that he sought and received treatment not authorized by the club, one he clears waivers (at which point he'll no longer be in their employ) the Yanx will file paperwork with the idea of getting the remaining season of his contract changed to a non-guaranteed one. It is also possible that they'll try to recoup some of the money already paid to him although that's not clear at this time.

Although it would be understandable if you thought he has already been out of the game for years now, the Yanx released Jacoby Ellsbury today in order to clear room on their 40 man roster. 'Stealing him' away from the BoSox by signing to a $148 million FA deal in December of 2013, Ellsbury totaled just over 2,000 PAs as a Yanqui and a .264/.330/.386 slash line over pieces of four seasons (2014-17) in what might be described as the most stunningly bad FA deal in history. Ellsbury was last seen pinch-running in Game 4 of the 2017 ALCS. He then went on to miss all of 2018 & 2019 and so the Yanx will now pay off the remainder of his contract for the 2020 plus a $5 million buyout for 2021. And before someone adds that of course they ate the money it's what they do, this is actually NOT what the Yanx typically do. I can't remember the last time they even agreed to eat a small contract much less something even coming close to this large. They even kept Kei Igawa on the payroll for the entire length of his five-year deal despite most of that money being paid up front and far past the time it was obvious that he'd never again pitch in the major leagues. So for four seasons Igawa commuted from his home in Manhattan to make over 100 starts for ScrantonWilkes-Barre to earn his contract which, for the Yanx especially, amounted to tiny fraction of their overall payroll (some $3/yr).

Mako Shark doo doo doo doo doo doo do - Mako Shark doo doo ... Gerrado Parra signs with the Yomiuri Giants

... and these visions of Yeonis / make it all seem so cruel

Flushing native, former first round draft pick (22nd overall by Toronto in 1990), and former Oakland, Cleveland, Atlanta, MFY, Texas (and Oakland again) hurler Steve Karsay https://nypost.com/2019/11/17/ex-yankee-steve-karsay-to-interview-for-mets-pitching-coach/will interview for the NYM pitching coach job The 47 y/o Karsay worked in the Indians org from 2012-2018 then spent 2019 as the Brewers bullpen coach. His previous accomplishments in Queens involved pitching for Christ the King HS and later serving up a certain post-9/11 HR to Mr. Piazza