Frayed Knot

Centerfield wrote: I can see Maja's buttcheek. Normally one has to pay extra for that, but getting it free here is only one of the benefits of participating in the TCD.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: It does count for less ... bad seasons like 2017 get less weight than good seasons like 2015. Right, by a factor based on win totals. So the 15th best player in a 66 win season, for instance, gets 3/4 of the point total that the same rank player gets from an 88 win season. 60 would yield 2/3 of 90, etc. Bonus points are given for season which include post-season and increase the deeper that team goes. No system is going to be perfect and we certainly make no claims (despite what BatMags thinks) that this one is. The key is to balance a player's rank within his year vs the year itself so that neither factor is overemphasized. So we fooled around with, and then test-ran, various formulas before launching this project and came up with the one we best thought mimicked reality.

dgwphotography wrote: That, and the entire pitching staff spending time on the DL, not to mention the season starting with Doc in rehab Sure. I was just looking to point out the contrast between the guy who was never accepted by fans vs the one towards whom a sizable portion of fans mentally hung onto years after his sell-by date. Backman had BY FAR the lowest OPS on that '87 team [below Raffy Santana, below the decaying carcass of Gary Carter] yet never gets a whiff of blame - except from my friend at the time, Bruce, who maintained a hatred of Backman every bit as irrational as the love was for others, but Bruce always had a tendency to zig when others zagged.

Edgy MD wrote: SteveJRogers wrote: A lot of it was there from the start though. The idea that the Met owners were trying to make the Mets more bland and mechanical has always been a knock against the move. Not to mention the assertion that he was a bad influence on Doc & Darryl which clearly was a wrong assertion. It's always been a silly assertion. And it wasn't there from the start, but retroactively — and in some cases, bizarrely — re-writing history. Kevin Mitchell was never the Mets' leftfielder, not as a full-timer. They had a three-way platoon between left and center for the second half of 1986, and he was squeezed in all around the diamond, earning him the nickname "World." It was an explicit part of Frank Cashen's philosophy to make one major lineup change each offseason, to keep things chuning and players from getting too comfortable. Being set at most positions, they saw the ad-libbed outfield alignment as a spot to target, and spent the 1986-1987 offseason looking to set on a fulltime leftfielder and maybe a shortstop, and seriously considered a major trade moving all of their top prospects in a huge deal for Harold Baines and Ozzie Guillen. They instead went for McReynolds. The wisdom of that may well be argued (they made a lot of questionable consolidation trades in this period) but imagining a business meeting where the minority owner of the defending champs barks at the GM that they need blander players (and the GM seriously acts on this) just stretches all credulity. But folks have been imagining it for 30 years, and lacking evidence, they take speculation as fact, or just make evidence up. The champion of McReynolds wasn't the Wilpons nor was his acquisition out of any desire to make the Mets "blander". That's absurd revisionist history. Look instead to Joe McIlvane who said at the time and since that KMcR at U-Arkansas was THE best amateur player he ever scouted. McIlvane became the Mets scouting director in 1981 but it must have been after the draft (or he was overruled) because that was the year the Mets took Terry Blocker with the 4th overall selection, two picks before the Padres grabbed McReynolds. By '87 McIlvane was asst GM and determined not to miss out on him a second time and obviously was successful in pushing for the trade. Remember that McReynolds was essentially replacing George Foster as far as succeeding him as opening day LF'er; Mitchell, as mentioned, was not exactly the entrenched incumbent. When adding to a team coming off a dominant season and a WS win, opting for McReynolds over the half-season rookie was a no-brainer purely on baseball merits. What fans of that era could do was point their fingers instead towards good ol' fiery Wally and his 70 point tumble in OBA between '86 & '87 [113 OPS+ to 63 !!] as one factor for the next season not going as well as the previous. But of course that doesn't fit in well with the pre-determined narrative and fans were still calling for Wally's return into the next decade despite him having only one post-NYM season ('90 w/Pittsburgh) where he even resembled the player he had briefly been in '86

Centerfield wrote: More and more, as these reports come out, a pretty clear picture emerges. Both Wilpons care quite bit about winning. Not just games, but back pages and praise from the fans and media. They especially care about competing with the Yankees. Seemingly at an unhealthy level. As I (and others) have said for years; it's not that they don't care -- I've never bought the narrative where their only goal is to separate fans from their money -- it's just that they don't know how to go about putting a plan into place and sticking with it. Too often they're caught between wanting to delegate to real baseball men yet also thinking of themselves that way too and thinking their interventions are necessary, or at least helpful. Lefty Specialist wrote: I've never seen a team that manages the disabled list worse than the Mets. And this pre-dates Sandy and Terry. 1) A guy gets injured. 2) You don't play him for a few days but don't put him on the DL, thereby playing essentially with a 24-man roster. 3) You play the guy after a few days and he's rusty/awkward. Questions arise, but you still don't put him on the DL, saying he'll be back in a few days. You're still playing short-handed. 4) A few days later you play him but he looks hurt or aggravates the condition. 5) Finally you put him on the disabled list. The number of times the Mets have gone through this process are too numerous to count. How many times have we heard 'The Mets really only have a 3-man bench tonight'? I think this stuff is a lot more common than fans tend to think and that if you -- me, us, any of us -- followed a different team as closely as we do with this one we'd see the same type of thing often. It would be nice if injuries worked like litmus paper where a distinct positive or negative result came up immediately but medicine isn't always like that.

Nymr83; you list only 29 players ^^^

Lefty Specialist wrote: Vic Sage wrote: i'll believe it when I see it. something about the Mets bench makes managers stupid. This. I'll believe in Callaway when I see how he actually manages a game over the course of the season. And, until then, we're no closer to having no closer.

"McReynolds I was much better than McReynolds II. " -- Certainly "When I think of McReynolds, I remember him taking out Scioscia to score in the NLCS." -- That's the thing about McR, I remember him winning games with catches, with throws, and once when he not only broke up a bases-loaded GiDP but did so by depositing the SS about ten paces into left field while the winning run scored. Problem was, he'd then walk off the field with an expression as if the play won the game but had also killed his favorite dog in the process and he'd wind up winning no fans and quite possibly even losing a few.

Youse guys was right. This was brutal to do. 30 - deGROM -- clearly the best pitcher in the lot and the only one on the team to have a good season AND go wire to wire with it 29 - CONFORTO -- best Runs Created on the squad, and even missing the final month he was 4th on the team in PA 28 - BRUCE -- kinda sad when the guy they tried to deal pre-season and then did deal at mid-season was the second best player 27 - CESPEDES 26 - REED 25 - DUDA 24 - GRANDERSON 23 - CABRERA 22 - REYES -- nice 2nd half saved him and earned him a re-up 21 - BLEVINS 20 - WALKER 19 - d'ARNAUD 18 - SEAWALD 17 - NIMMO 16 - FLORES 15 - WHEELER -- 2nd best starter had a 5.21 ERA 14 - TJ RIVERA -- if only he could actually play the field 13 - LAGARES -- if only he could hit 12 - GSELLMAN 11 - AOKI -- .371 OBA is nice fil-in work, even if only for 100 ABs 10 - MONTERO 9 - MATZ 8 - R. RIVERA 7 - PLAWECKI 6 - HARVEY 5 - SYNDERGAARD -- leading the team in ERA (2.97) counts for something even if only over 30-some IP 4 - REYNOLDS 3 - ROSARIO 2 - SMITH 1 - EDGIN/ROBLES -- I'll have to decide here. Edgin had the better ERA but Robles the better WHIP and twice as many IP oe: and I just realized I forgot Lugo so I obviously still have some work to do here

McReynolds definitely had the lack of outward passion charge leveled against him. That and bad timing -- getting there, as he did, one year after the big one -- were his biggest problems. He didn't help himself with a couple of comments, but mostly those just gave extra ammo to folks already predisposed to dislike him and those comments would have been ignored if from another source.

- Beltran was imported, rather than home-grown like Goodenberry - The hiring of Omar combined with his early acquisitions of Beltran, Delgado, et al was seen by some as a 'No Gringos Need Apply' move ... They're taking our jobs!!!!! - There was a sense that he was too cool for school, aka: not fiery enough [see Edgy's post] - he got off to a bad start (1st season was some 150 points of OPS under his previous seasons) - he got injured a lot ... don't dismiss how much fans hold it against injured players - Mets didn't win it all with him - the strikeout

Jose's second half of .265/.344/.455 -- w/27 of his 68 hits going for XBs -- is encouraging for whatever his role may be.

Centerfield wrote: ... I have never seen a batter receive so much blame for one at-bat. A lot of that has to do with Beltran not being all that popular with a certain segment of NYM fans prior to that. iow, those blaming Beltran for that AB probably weren't pre-disposed to give him a break anyway.

Nymr83 wrote: Carter should have been a Met! He was. One of the better trades of the entire 1980s

MFS62 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Vic Sage wrote: did Boone date JLo, too? Let's face it, the number of guys Jennifer Lopez hasn't been linked with is pretty minimal so, yeah, probably. I'm patiently waiting my turn. Bring a magazine and a sandwich, you might be waiting a while.

I have better memories of Beltran than of Santana

I thought it was really embarrassing when the guy from Cooperstown briefly announced that La La Land had gained entry.

Centerfield wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Vic Sage wrote: at some point, A-Rod went from reviled PEDS poster boy to media darling ... I still think he's a corrupt, cheating asshole. And we all know how much a sordid sports background serves as a detriment to a post-career media life. Oh wait. Are you referring to Pete Rose? Not specifically. More referring to the idea that the worse you act as a player or coach during your career -- self-aggrandizing loudmouths, show-offs, dirty players, press-conference assholes, etc. -- the more likely TV networks are to trip over each other to hire you the second you quit. It's not a universal truth (Phil Mushnick columns notwithstanding) but it's pretty darn close. I have not watched one minute of his segments, but I question the sanity of viewers when I see that he's popular enough to bring back. I don't tend to give much of a shit about these things. Unlike football where, because almost all fans consume it the same way--through the filter of network TV--the drama of who's calling which game on what network and who's replacing who on the pre/post/halftime show is treated as if it's as important as the games themselves, the makeup of the SNL baseball crew and other such stuff are barely a measurable factor in the experience of most baseball fans. I just really posted this so as to get in the joke about ARod being the next MFY manager - a joke I'm just NOW realizing would have been much better had I (actually the auto-correct function) not misspelled Boone in the subject heading. As I've said before, my problem with SNB has long been more with the production of the game rather than with any particular voices. ESPN doesn't think you tuned in to watch a baseball game (they don't care about it so they don't understand why anyone else does either) they think you tuned in to watch ESPN and therefore consume ESPN people doing ESPN things while plugging other ESPN shows. So, in my case anyway, swapping Vasgersian for Schulman or Rod for Bone (that time it WAS intentional) makes little difference to me. But those who do obsess over such stuff, including those (maybe especially those) who don't otherwise care about baseball, seem to think that ARod was terrific in his FOX stint last year and very much earned his way into this job. The fact that both networks are willing to share him means neither wants to lose him even if it means sharing with the enemy.

Vic Sage wrote: at some point, A-Rod went from reviled PEDS poster boy to media darling ... I still think he's a corrupt, cheating asshole. And we all know how much a sordid sports background serves as a detriment to a post-career media life. Oh wait.

Vic Sage wrote: did Boone date JLo, too? Let's face it, the number of guys Jennifer Lopez hasn't been linked with is pretty minimal so, yeah, probably.

After replacing Aaron Boone as MFY 3rd baseman 14 years ago following Boone's knee injury and subsequent surgery in an off-season basketball game, Alex Rodriguez will replace Boone on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball team joining lead voice Matt Vasgersian (himself a replacement for Dan Schulman) and holdover Jessica Mendoza. The unusual part of the arrangement here is that ARod will also continue to work at rival FOX on pre and post game shows during the playoffs. FOX and ESPN are getting along these days about as well as Macys and Gimbels did in MIRACLE ON 34th STREET so this talent sharing arrangement seems odd to say the least. I also guess this means that it's time to place your money on Rodriguez as next Yanqui manager ... y'know, considering who he'd be replacing.

As far as I can tell, the basis for this whole "rumor" stems from some off-hand remarks given to the Pioneer Press by Twins hurler Ervin Santana. HE mentioned Colon and the Mets but it's not apparent that either Colon or the Mets have yet to mention each other. * and the Mets now claim to be surprised by the mentioned and deny even thinking about it The value here is that it was sourced, rather than the typical "according to a person close to the Mets" nonsense that we normally get from sportswriters. Sourcing allowed us to see where the information was coming from and make our own judgement as to its accuracy. Yes it was 'sourced', but that source was nothing more than Colon's buddy saying that he thought Bartolo might like to go back to the Mets. No Mets sources were involved (or even ones 'close to their thinking') nor was Colon himself. That doesn't make the article false, it just means that any conclusions drawn from it -- **THE METS ARE MAKING LIKE TIMBERLAKE AND TRYING TO BRING SEXY BACK** -- are like third generation speculation. And while the Minnesota paper didn't appear to check with the Mets for comment, when Ackert (NYDN) did their response was basically: "Huh, we're doing what now?"

BA tabs Andres Gimenez as their #94 prospect ... and there were those who said that the Mets wouldn't land anyone in the Top-100 this year. How wrong they were!!

Rumor has the Brewers making an offer to Darvish -- something that might make a dent in the FA logjam -- although no word yet as to how much, how long, or even how true.

My memories of Chasen Bradford are hazy as I tend to conflate him with Chasen Sanborn, even though Bradford is much more mellow. Sanborn always played like he was overly-caffeinated.