Frayed Knot

Astro fans are no doubt thinking back to Memorial Day this year when they were down 8-2 to the Twins before putting up 11 runs in the 8th then 3 more in the 9th to win 16-8 Unfortunately, this isn't May and these ain't the Twins.

Yeah, I'll put 5 Crane bucks on Altuve - based mainly on him not having a big eight-week long doughnut in the middle of his season. Those guys will probably be 1-2 in either order on account of Trout missing too much time with the thumb injury, but it should be close either way. My only point was that Judge's 3R HR tonight wouldn't help him and if post-season was counted the race would tilt even further in the little guy's favor.

Gary Sanchez and Evan Gattis both have the body mass to make for pretty good pair of bar bouncers*. But unfortunately the two of them are catchers for a living and neither one is exactly putting on a catching clinic here tonight. It's like you got 500 pounds of bears back there wearing oven mitts and batting around play toys. * I think Gattis actually was one at one point

Grand slam Judge. -- 2 on actually AL MVP -- notes are already in so this one won't help him. Besides, if the post-season counted he definitely wouldn't win it.

Morton has had a promising but injury plagued career prior to this year but has been a different pitcher this season since being healthy. Also, prior to that Judge HR (which wasn't Morton anyway) the six MFY hits consisted of a bunt single, a swinging bunt single, another infield single, a bloop single, that fly ball which Maybin decided he was afraid of for some reason, and a 315 ft YSIII special. It's not like he was getting hit hard. Not that the Astros can complain as they haven't hit shit all series.

Fman99 wrote: I missed the HR,... Low outside to a RH batter, butt flying out, emergency stick-the-bat-out swing, 3rd row in the RF seats.

It just wouldn't be a Yanqui game without a swinging bunt, then a bloop, followed by a 3R 315 ft HR - all with 2 outs.

41Forever wrote: I just realized the plan has the Mets and Phillies in different divisions. That's part of what I mean by creating one problem for every one they supposedly solve. I remember watching a game out of Pittsburgh during a time when one of these realignment plans was newly floating around, and the p-b-p and color guys (forget specifically who they were) kept saying that all they wanted out of a plan was one that would get them back in a division with the Mets & Phils. It's funny how one of the "fixes" virtually all of these have in common is putting StL & KC together as if both being in Missouri makes it virtually required that they be put together, but none of them mention the breaking up of Philly & Pitt who are also in the same state and, oh yeah, had a century's worth of tradition with each other but somehow don't rate the same deal.

Proposals like this are being floated all the time. Problem is, most of them are done for no reason other than someone thinking they've come up with a 'New and Improved' layout where the divisions look neater when circled on maps and the final result winds up creating as many problems as it purports to solve. This one is at least thinking about the kind of thing that would need to occur if and when the owners get the expansion bug again (they do like them some entrance fee cash). That said, he loses me with the part about the 'Top Four Teams in Each Division advance' and is apparently under the impression that an increased inventory of post-season games is what baseball fans -- many of whom often admit to, if not flat-out brag about, how little attention they pay to playoff baseball once their team is eliminated -- are clamoring for.

So it's back to this series tonight as the scene shifts to the Bronx Nice for Houston to be up 2-0, but it's not like they've been hitting so far this series -- four runs total and they were lucky to get a couple of those: HR making it over the wall by inches; Altuve's mad dash home and the dropped throw or he's out by nineteen feet -- but now they're not going to have Keuchel and Verlander to fall back on for the next few games. I mean, Charlie Morton had a nice year but it's not the same and he goes up against the suddenly rejuvenated CC Sabathia 8:00 -- FS1

My only points were that, despite him being a virtual unknown when the year started, Sewald was probably, at worst, a top three NYM reliever this year; that I didn't think his season was particularly given to extremes in performance; and that 'Schaefer' placing him in an essential dead heat with the other two probable top guys hardly makes that a flaw in the system. And of course this argument will be taken up/extended later on when we get around to our year-end Top-30 ranking project, in which the Schaefer results will play only a minor role. Y'see even in CPF-land, Schaefer results don't wind up being the final word.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Don't tell me that you're suggesting that the goal of a Met reliever, in the real-life real-live world, is to tailor his outings to win the CPF Schaefer award? Sure, that was exactly what I was suggesting; that the Schaefer points are more important than the real season. Not sure why I didn't put that more plainly the first time around. This is beginning to seem a bit like your draft/tanking argument. That one you based entirely on the "fact" that next year's draft is not just uniquely strong at the top but also one where there's a large and known gap between the first few and and next few picks so that a small difference in standings this year will result in either hitting or missing on a franchise changing player even as MLB drafts have rarely if ever shown that to be the case. Here your starting point is that Sewald's season was one of extreme highs and lows even when compared to other NYM relievers. Not quite sure how you even measure all that. He had three outings where he gave up at least 3 runs, more than Blevins and Reed but not more than the likes of Smoker, Salas, Robles, Bradford etc. and of course he had more outings, more innings, and a longer season than just about everyone else so had more chances for bad days. Blevins was the only one with more appearances but his outings were mostly confined to 0.1 and 0.2 inning stints against favorable matchups for him (L vs L) so, again, fewer chances at blow-ups. You then went through a whole lot of math to essentially tell me that Blevins had the better ERA which I was quite aware of. I'm also aware, as are you, that reliever ERA is only marginally interesting. The other thing you seem to be missing here is that IT'S THE FUCKING SCHAEFER VOTING!!!, a mild daily diversion to keep ourselves connected and occupied while honoring a throw-back tradition to old Ralph/Bob/Lindsey broadcasts. I'm pretty sure none of these guys are putting this on their post-career resumes. I'd say that at worst Sewald was the Mets 3rd best reliever this year, marginally behind the two guys he finished marginally ahead of in the Schaefer voting. Man, what a gaping flaw!

And the red-headed mountain man hits a 3R walkoff HR

ARod is back in the studio wondering how Bellinger got the pitcher to drop the flip without even hitting him with his pocketbook.

Considering that Sewald wins this "award" by being compared only to other NYM relievers, it's tough to see how the 'flaw' in Schaefer rewards him more than any other. He led NYM relievers in innings pitched this season and looks like he was behind only Addison Reed in allowing baserunners (WHIP). Meanwhile, the so called #1 reliever on the team missed most of the year, the #2 guy (Reed) was dealt away in mid-season, the #3 (Robles) was worse than awful for stretches, etc. Given the chance to study the whole group and come up subjectively who I think the NYM 'Reliever of the Year' was (and we will before the winter is out) I'm not sure I wouldn't come up with Sewald. He also edged out Blevins in the 'Schaefer vote by all of 0.06 and Reed by 1.65, so it's not like the results of this process resembled that of FDR over Hoover.

So we have a player of the year: deGrom, and, in case that player isn't a pitcher, there's a pitcher of the year: in this case also deGrom. But in those years where the player & pitcher are the same there isn't a non-pitcher player of the year. That (position) Player of the Year this year, if there were such a person, would be Conforto. Wait, that tote is imaginary?!? Not sure why I had so much trouble keeping up with the voting this year. Even the total I did manage required a lot of going back and filling in as deadlines approached which is hardly the best way to handle things. I think the 2016 season when I voted as a different person each game gave me something extra to look forward to each game (Ooh, who am I going to be today?) Maybe I need to come up with a new gimmick for next year in order to keep myself disciplined.

That was certainly an interesting trip around the bases for Culberson, the SS replacing Seager on the roster. - first he hits a leadoff double, but then a Sac Bunt doesn't move him up because he balked at moving when the bunt was towards the 3rd base side - then an infield single fails to move him up as it was also on that side of the infield so again he held - then, after all that, he gets thrown out at the plate on an outfield single but gets the call reversed on the blocking the plate call

That was a PERFECT block of the plate by Contreras. MLB very much screwed up when they decided to "fix" that rule and I love hearing Ronnie say so with the whole sport watching.

Corey Seager left off the Dodger NLCS roster with back issues

Hoe-Lee-Shit ... I can't believe he a) tried that and pulled it off!! On the other hand, counting on Sanchez to bungle a ball thrown to him improves your odds a bit. and the game was under 3 hours

Keep that saddle on and ride 'em another lap!!! (but get him a run or two first)

96 pitches thru 7 IP on just 4 hits and one walk ... Verlander should have another inning in him, or at least enough to start the 8th. With closer Giles (maybe?) unavailable after his heavy workload last night, I'd sure try to get at least one more out of JV.

Now THAT is how you challenge a call (Gardner's attempted triple - I'm a few minutes behind here). Houston's 3B (Bregman) immediately signaled to his bench who immediately took his word for it -- no waiting for microscopic analysis from the eye in the sky -- and it turned out they were right. If you're the manager and your fielder/runner leads you astray on that then you don't listen to him on the next one But an instant decision keeps the replay for what it was designed for and not for the ticky-tacky plays at 1st base in the 1st inning. That trying to stretch with two outs and Judge on deck was a stupid move by Gardner just makes that play a win-win all around.

The thing is, even if we just want to cite the between inning commercial breaks which were probably more like 60 seconds back then and nearly 3 minutes now (2:55 is supposedly the limit for post-season games) that still only accounts for maybe 3/4 of the extra 44 minutes [1:55 minutes x 16 breaks]. But that ignores that these were hardly identical games. The 1960 game managed to get in an extra 11 plate appearances, 14 more runs, 13 more hits, 1 more walk, and 4 more pitching swaps in some 13 fewer (non-commercial) minutes. Last night's game had nearly perfect conditions for a quick(-ish) game -- low scoring, one in-inning pitching change, home team won so no bottom 9th, etc. -- and still they didn't get close to getting it in in under 3 hours and wouldn't have even under regular season commercial break rules either. There's just too much dead time in between 'action'. After the second of Houston's two runs last night it was another two minutes or so until the next pitch because the Yanx treated it like some existential crisis that needed to be discussed, analyzed, and strategized before they could proceed. It was a fucking 4th inning RBI single fer crissakes, pitch to the next hitter! Tanaka wound up getting Beltran on a 2nd pitch groundout to end the inning once the committee meeting broke up which meant that, by the time the top of the next inning started, there had been two pitches thrown during the previous five minutes. THAT is what needs to change.

OCT 13, 2017: an 8-1/2 inning game where 3 runs were scored in total on 11 hits and 4 walks; 5 pitchers were used to pitch to 66 batters, only once was there a mid-inning pitching change Game Time = 3:20 OCT 13, 1960: game ended on the 2nd pitch of the bottom of the 9th after 19 runs on 24 hits and 5 walks; 9 pitchers were used to face 77 batters, there were five mid-inning pitching changes, and then there was the delay where they had to carry the injured SS off the field. Game Time = 2:36 Just sayin' btw, on that Yanqui/Pirate game, how's this for a quick hook by Stengel (on what would turn out to be his final game managing for the MFY): 1st inning (Bob Turley pitching): Fly-out, Pop-out, Walk, 2R-HR, Pop-out 2nd inning: leadoff single - GONE. The reliever (Bill Stafford) allowed 2 hits plus a walk to score both the inherited runner plus one of his own before getting out of the inning. Casey then went to a new pitcher for the 3rd inning. [u:3dbts4r8]Game 2 at 4:00 EDT on FOX network (not FS1)[/u:3dbts4r8]