Frayed Knot

Getting back to the supposed Eff & Jeff rift for a minute: The linked Puma article wasn't much of anything really, mostly just reiterating in short form what Sherman had written about more extensively a week or so earlier and linked a page or two earlier in this thread -- https://nypost.com/2018/09/05/what-wilpons-need-to-learn-if-they-actually-want-mets-to-win -- and it didn't around to the conclusion that Sherman did which is the need for a true baseball man to be installed between the 'Pons and their GM I'm not sure that a lot of fans outside of Chicago & Oakland realize, for instance, that Theo Epstein and Bill Beane aren't even GMs anymore. Both moved up to 'Club President' positions years ago and in turn hired their own GMs to do, well, GM stuff while they run the overall franchise and report to the owner(s). Not that every other club runs that way or needs to run that way to be successful, but when you've got owners with buttinski tendencies having a buffer would shield the GM from interference in day to day operations and, more importantly, would be the man to set the overall trend/philosophy/direction for the team. But there's little to indicate Fred is ready or willing to cede that kind of control and therein lies the problem: that you've got owners who think of themselves as baseball people as well and don't think they need someone to do what they feel they are already capable of doing themselves. Not that they're quite on a Jerry Jones/Cowboys kind of level (he's his own actual GM) but towards that end of the scale.

So deGrom gives up three hits in seven innings ... all in a row.

Brewers at Wrigley for a three game set is the marquee matchup of the week. Brews started the week only 2.0 games out in the Central and are now only one out (and 2.5 ahead of 3rd place StL) thanks to getting the win on Monday. How's this for a relief outing?: Brews up 3-2, Josh Hader (the tall long-haired lefty we saw earlier in the year) comes on in the 7th and goes K, K, K then returns for the 8th and goes K, K, K Those six batters? Only David Bote, Addison Russell, Daniel Murphy, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Javier Baez. And all in just 24 pitches.

The Mets are good at that, making great moves on paper.

Centerfield wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: * that the reason Alonso hasn't been called up so far is because mgmt is desperate to manipulate control over him thru 2025 -- I don't even think that's A factor right now and it certainly isn't THE factor I certainly think it is A factor. I think having to protect him in the Rule 5 is a big one. Maybe the main one. I think you're confusing rules here. Rule 5 doesn't have anything to do with this except that NOT bringing up Alonso now might help to prevent someone else from being exposed to Rule 5 this winter. Alonso isn't on the 40-man roster and doesn't have to be put on this winter (minor league service time, etc.). I actually DO think that's a factor in NOT bringing him up now. The NON factor IMO (or at least the much smaller one) is the idea that having Alonso under control seven years from now will even be a big deal at that point.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Maybe he'll be putting on the Mister Met costume. I don't think his head would fit in the costume.

Maybe I'm not understanding the conversation between you two, but I look at your list and I feel like most of them were delayed a year. I mean, I guess you could argue over what "delay" means. I think the point is that the timing of the call up insures that the club gets 6+ seasons of control rather than just 6 (making the club out of spring training) or less than 6 (calling up the player in April). Every player on your list had 6+ years of control. The way I'm thinking about "delay" is when a player is ready to be called up but the team bumps him until the following mid-April in order to (theoretically) gain an extra year of club control. So neither Smith nor Rosario would have been on 2017's team by this way of thinking unless ones believes they were ready in April 2017 (which neither clearly was). And if the others noted above were only being delayed for control purposes then there was no point in waiting until June, or July, or August, etc., because that additional two, three, four months gains you nothing. The classic manipulation/delay case in recent years was with the Cubs and Kris Bryant. The baseball season, for accounting purposes, is 182 days long (I guess now it's 186 with the revised calendar) but anyone logging at least 170 on the ML roster gets credit for the entire season. So the Cubs took Bryant -- a #2 overall draft pick from a major college program and a top five prospect across the board -- and "decided" he needed more seasoning in the minors ... two weeks more seasoning to be exact, and they pretty much telegraphed the fact that that's exactly what they were going to do ahead of time. Scott Boras objected but he was powerless to prevent it. And, btw, this whole mid-April thing only matters if the player stays in the majors for good once being brought up, something that's tough to know ahead of time in each case. So Smith and Rosario, for instance, already have different ML service times under their belts despite being called up almost simultaneously. To summarize my overall point(s): * I disagree with the notion that Dom is already past his sell-by date to the point where his worth has decreased to 'bag of balls' level. We fans tend to lose patience with rookies and are only too quick to on to the next pretty young thing forgetting why we liked the first girl in the first place * that Dom doesn't much matter because Alonso has surpassed him anyway and is the clear best choice for 1B in 2019, over Smith or a host of other candidates -- this might turn out to be the case, but it's hardly carved in stone and is a long shot bet at best IMO * that the reason Alonso hasn't been called up so far is because mgmt is desperate to manipulate control over him thru 2025 -- I don't even think that's A factor right now and it certainly isn't THE factor * but it must be the reason because the cheap-ass Mets do this all the time -- No they don't

i don't usually watch horror films, but this one sounded unique so i gave it a try. -- Yup I'm glad i did. -- Yup

I'm assuming they'll hold Alonso down in the minors for a month or two to prevent his FA clock from starting. It's what they do. and if they didn't bring him up when he was raging hot this year they'll wait to bring him up next year. I'm betting they trade Dom Smith this winter for a bag of balls, and roll with Bruce at first until Alonso comes up. A couple of things here: -- delaying call-ups a month to delay FA-gency ... "it's what they do" Not with Wheeler they didn't, calling him up in mid June Not with Rosario either (Aug) Not Reyes (June - plus he had <1/2 season of AA by that April) Not Wright (July) Not Conforto (Aug) Not Dom Smith (Aug) Not Nimmo (end of June) Not d'Arnaud (Aug) Not Harvey (end of July) Not Matz (end of June) The closest arguments you've got for that is either Syndergaard or deGrom - both in mid May, or about a month after necessary to gain one FA year. But deGrom was barely even a prospect at the time so there was no reason for that to factor into the decision, so we're down to maybe Syndergaard among the current group as he was at least a top-15 prospect that winter with a full year of AAA under his belt. The other is that I think we're in danger of falling into the 'prospect fatigue' trap with Dom to the point where we've already moved on to the next pretty young thing to come along. They're very different players so it's tough to ever compare the two even though they play the same position. But the idea that many have given up on the younger of the two (Smith) and believe that the older / lower drafted / worse fielder one is already so good that he's being unfairly held back which can only be the result of the delayed FA maneuver is stretching things more than a bit. Alonso had a very nice half-season with the bat in Bingo and a slightly lesser second half in Vegas (though with more power ... but it's Vegas) for a player where his bat is said to be his only asset. The obvious answer has to do with the 40-man roster and Alonso not needing to be protected this winter (meaning someone else can be) and the fact that, yes, they have other folks to try at 1B right now. Bruce is under contract and is also a better bet to hit next year than Alonso. Look, I hope the guy goes on to have a great career but some seem to believe that this is already a done deal. He's simply not the kind of prospect you move things around for simply to delay the possibility that holding control of his rights in the season seven years from now is going to be a valuable asset -- Ike Davis anyone? -- even if the team did have a track record of doing such stuff (which they don't appear to).

Braves took three of four from the DBacks, winning in the 10th inning twice and today hitting three 9th inning HRs for a come from behind win. Big Lucas was one of them. They do that a lot, the Braves do. 14 of the 24 runs they scored in this series came in the 8th inning or later. Meanwhile, the Dodgers were taking 2 of 3 from Colorado which puts them just 1/2 in back of the Rox Following their sisters of the poor tour (in which they went 18-8 vs the likes of Balt, DET, ChiSox, Miami, etc.) the Yanx wound up splitting six with Oakland (1-2) and Seattle (2-1) but it hardly matters at this point unless they somehow go on to sweep the BoSox in the six games those two have remaining over the final nine days of the season. Boston, meanwhile, is trying to prevent getting swept by Houston tonight. Pretty much the only AL post-season question left is whether the Yanx are going to host Oakland in the WC game or the other way around, and even that isn't nearly as meaningful as many like to make it.

Wright HR'd in the simulated game, which is fitting since most NYM HRs in CitiField this year were also simulated.

Mets are being out-hit in this game 12-10 thru 7

And the Twins follow that up with a base hit. Oh well. And, not surprisingly, he's being pulled. 4-0 KCR, but two on and no outs.

Frayed Knot wrote: Some dude named Lopez has a perfect game thru 8 for the Royals in Minnesota looking him up ... Jorge Lopez, from Puerto Rico, turns 26 later this month. Has seen pieces of two seasons with Milwaukee (2015 & 2017) before being dealt to KCR just before the July deadline. It's his 18th career ML game, 8th start. 2-5 record to date. 100 pitches so far. Walks the leadoff hitter. No hitter still intact obviously, but perfect game is gone.

Some dude named Lopez has a perfect game thru 8 for the Royals in Minnesota looking him up ... Jorge Lopez, from Puerto Rico, turns 26 later this month. Has seen pieces of two seasons with Milwaukee (2015 & 2017) before being dealt to KCR just before the July deadline. It's his 18th career ML game, 8th start. 2-5 record to date. 100 pitches so far.

When Carlos Santana comes to bat in Atlanta, I wonder if the organist there plays the opening strains of 'Black Magic Woman'?

His pitch counts are just so ridiculous. But for one pitch he'd be tossing a shutout but he's still managed to get just one out in the 5th with a pitch total that should have him in a similar spot in the 7th.

I gotta think that with between his bat-on-ball and low-K/all-field kind of skills being so rare in today's game -- and quite possibly under-valued -- that there's got to be a spot for him on the roster. Whether that's as an everyday starter or not is still open to question.

Biggest series of the Sept 7-9 weekend: - Braves @ Diamondbacks This one actually got underway on Thursday with the Braves bouncing back off that brutal loss to the BoSox by beating Grienke and the Snakes - although it took them 10 innings after blowing another 9th inning lead. Bigger for ARZ than the ATL from a standings point, but the Braves need to start winning games at some point after muddling along at .500 for more than two months now. Dodgers @ Rockies Another one too late for many of us, but the Rox have a 1.5 game lead on LA and 2.5 on Arizona and neither trailing team is sitting in a WC spot at this point (StL & MIL are) Astros @ Red Sox Boston's up by 10 games over the 'Stros so even if you think HFA is a huge deal in a potential ALCS this series likely won't matter on that front. But a matchup between the two best AL teams is always a fun thing in September especially if it sets the stage for an October redux

I'd venture to say that most fielders who trap balls are well aware that they didn't actually catch them. I'll then go further out on a limb to say that NONE of those trappers-turned-glove-holder-uppers ever get a sudden change of heart and go to the umpire requesting that the batter plus any and all runners be allowed to advance in spite of the temporary misdirection.

Sherman's march (on this topic) continues.

smg58 wrote: And how does the league not suspend him over this? Guys, this is the equivalent of an outfielder holding up his glove on a ball he knows he trapped, an attempted fake catch that's happened multiple times per week ever since Nelson Doubleday's ancestor fake invented this game. If you can get away with it then you get away with it. There are guys paid to correct things like that but it's not the player. And if both the men in blue AND the team in Dodger blue fail to notice and/or take action at the time then it's 'Play On' and tough titties if you got a fast one pulled on you. I think Frazier should be up for 'Player of the Week' honors for this ... or at least I would if he had any actual hits to go along with it.

smg58 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: I know if Todd Frazier, 2017 Yankee thirdbaseman, pulled it off I'd be disapproving, so I wouldn't be particularly consistent if I didn't declare him forthwith to be a vile, reprobate cozener. And yeah, it can be argued that the Mets are playing out the string, but the Dodgers sure ain't. If the Dodgers had lost that game, they'd have grounds to file a protest to restart the game from that point. Not a chance! It's an umpire's judgement call which we learned (assuming the Toddfather isn't pulling everyone's leg here) a day or two later was the wrong one. But judgement calls weren't protestable (is that even a word?) even before the advent of replay, only misinterpretations of rules, but especially so seeing as how the Dodgers had every right to ask for a replay but opted not to.

smg58 wrote: So are we OK with this? I am.

btw, caught just a bit of Nats/Cards last night. Nats were already down 3-0 in the top of the 1st (the recently dumped Matt Adams hit the first of his Two HRs against the team who dumped him) when Harper doubled w/2 outs. Now it's unlikely he could have made it a triple but the way he ran simply assured it. Then a single followed but Harper neither ran hard on that one either nor did he slide at the plate where he was tagged out. Nats went on to lose by one. 1) Does Harper even want a big contract at the end of the year? He certainly isn't playing like he does 2) Is it any wonder why the Nats are now 2 games under .500 despite the expectations AND despite still being +64 in RS/RA ? That's better than the Phillies (who have a negative RS/RA) and the Pythag calculation says they should only be two games behind the Braves (not 7.5)