Frayed Knot

'Silly' .... #@&*)$ auto-correct

I don't think I've ever seen Brett Gardner make an out. Keith Lockhart on those '90s Braves teams was the same way.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I've caught up on the entire Ken Burns Vietnam in the 1st inning Wait until the 7th inning stretch which, for some reason, the Yanx are allotted more than twice the usual break as compared to other teams. You can catch up on the other nine episodes during that break.

HA! Swinging bunts work both ways!!

It's just not a Yanqui game until they extend an inning with a swinging bunt. That's probably one of the few stats NOT tracked, but I suspect the Yanx lead the majors in that category by like 80% over every other team. Twins going K, K, GO, K with two runners on or with bases loaded is obviously a big deal tonight. And only Buxton's speed kept that GO from being a GiDP

Arizona also was able to flip their record from 69-93 in 2016 to 93-69 this year - and do so without actually changing a whole heck of a lot except for health and, I suppose, luck. But that's a tale for tomorrow's WC IGT

Ceetar wrote: Anyway, did we post game stuff yet? It's Luis Severino against Ervin Santana on ESPN at 8pm. Kind of cool that the Twins were able to go from 103 losses last year to a playoff spot this season - even if just barely over .500 and with only a slight positive in run differential And even if they seemed ready to quit the race in August when they dealt away a top reliever (to the Nats) and the starter they had just dealt for one start earlier and sent him to a team they were competing with for a WC slot (the Yanx - Jamie Garcia). And even if the Twins "sprint" to the playoff consisted of them busting out of a crowded race by going 14-14 in September and still secure a spot without much of a sweat because every other team was busy playing like shit. And, as mentioned before, even if they have like 5 wins in the Bronx during the entire 21st century so far.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: That bit about the "third or fourth time" is really superfluous, isn't it? I don't think so. You mentioned multiple times that only reason you were even interested in draft position for the coming year was the supposed make-up of this particular draft, a claim which made me curious as to the source of your information. Anyways, here ya go: Digging around a bit last night, that Jim Callis piece that your linked Harper piece cites was the one example I came up with also where deep draft and 2018 were mentioned. But Harper seems to be interpretting Callis is a way to fit a predetermined conclusion. Saying there are (right now anyway) a top two isn't the same as saying there's a huge fall-off after them. Hell, every list has a top two and the one thing we can probably count on is that they'll change over the next eight months. And by citing 2011 as a comparable draft he cites a year where there decidedly were not a couple outstanding and obvious picks followed by a marked fall-off, and one where the order was not all that predictive of who the future franchise-type players were going to be. Not that I wouldn't want Gerritt Cole, Trevor Bauer, or Dylan Bundy (picks 1, 3 & 4), but the picks from second five -- Anthony Rendon, Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez (#s 6, 8 , 9) -- currently look better than the first five. And not mentioned by Harper (or Callis for that matter) is that the #2 & 5 picks from that year have yet to see a day in the majors and one of them (#2) almost certainly never will.

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- ALMOST the worst ERA in team history [5.01 vs 5.04 in 1962] for a team whose history includes some of the worst seasons in ML history, and all that during a year when experts and fans alike figured a top five pitching staff in the league at worst and probably better than that - and if the ERA itself wasn't bad enough there's the 6.56 1st inning ERA. That's 131 runs allowed / 118 earned. Can't blame that shit on the bullpen or the manager's use of it. Just for shits and giggles, that's just about exactly double what 2016's 1st inning numbers were: 3.28 / 65 / 59 Need to fight your way out of holes much? - the planned 1 - 5 starters made barely 50% of the starts [86 of 162] for the year, while even the 1 - 7 made just over 3/4 of them [126 of 162 - 78%] IOW, we needed 36 starts from the 8th starters and above. Montero was essentially the team's 8th starter as the season began and he wound up in a 3-way tie for 2nd in number of starts and 3rd in innings pitched, behind only JdG in starts and him and Gsellman (by 2/3 of an inning) in IP And those figures would be worse if we ignored the final two Syndergaard "starts" which were really planned 1 & 2 inning affairs which just conveniently were in the 1st innings. In all, 3 of Syndergaard's 7 starts lasted 2 innings or less, and that's the guy who was the opening day starter But other than those small problems, I think the staff did quite well this year, no? And other than that one incident Mrs. Lincoln ...

I had a feeling JdG was going to chop the locks sooner rather than later. He had mentioned a while back that they sometimes bothered him when he pitched but felt somewhat tied to the image since that's how he looked when he first broke through as a pitcher. But after this year's team, even if not personal, disaster of a season, he probably figured that this was as good a time as any.

I'm not up on all the details of this deal with the Braves and them supposedly skirting the int'l signing caps or whatever, but it just shows that when you put artificial limits on what folks are permitted to spend, or earn, or accumulate, those same folks tend to look for ways to get past such boundaries. I believe there are a number of college hoops coaches who could tell you all about that and soon may be required to tell some judges and juries all about it.

List your favorite stats, factoids, or just plain quirks that helped make the 2017 season such a ridiculous ride for the NY Mets such as: - the guy whose role was to be that of the all-purpose fill-in infielder, Reyes, wound up leading the team in both Games Played and PA/AB - the opening day starter and presumed #1 pitcher wound up with just 5 more appearances on the mound and 27 more innings pitched than the 3rd string catcher -- Syndergaard/Plawecki

batmagadanleadoff wrote: ... But it's different when the Mets have a chance to draft a special player, which many commentators believe would be available to the first four or five, maybe six teams picking. This draft is supposed to be top heavy loaded. This is at least the third or fourth time you've made reference to this now, what/who are your sources for this? Now I don't claim any particular expertise in amateur baseball or the draft, but with what little I do know I'd find it stunning if there's anything resembling a consensus among supposed experts that: 1) there are several sure-first studs at the top of the draft that separate the best of this coming year's crop from those the top of any other given year that such potential team-changing players represent a large gulf in talent between what's available those teams with the first few picks and what's left over for the next few selections III) that these things are known 8-9 months in advance of the draft and 4-5 months before the HS and college seasons from where these guys will come even begin

Frayed Knot wrote: Who loses more games during September, the Indians or the Browns? The final September/1st of October totals: Indians: 26-4 Browns 0-4

I remember one year where there were simultaneous -- or at least somewhat overlapping -- game times involving some of the early round contests and MLB took a verbal pasting for it, so I think they're likely to take criticism either way. I recall Francesa in particular going apoplectic over non-exclusive game times, screaming about how 'you'd never see the NFL do anything like that!' Really Mike ... you mean the NFL has figured out a way to jam 11 playoff games into a five week span and somehow manages not to have any of them infringe on any of the others? What genius that must take! I wish MLB had someone that smart since slotting a max of 43 games into a 30-day window is practically the same thing. And, yes, the one way to avoid late scheduling decisions would be to not allow the networks to decide which games go where but MLB, along with all the other sports (aside from 'The Masters'), long ago ceded away scheduling authority in favor of larger piles of cash.

Mets would have needed three extra losses to slip into the 5th slot instead of 6th (go 9-20 in Sept/Oct instead of that torrid 12-17 pace they did set) or four extra (8-21) to nab 4th

Not sure that the networks consider Keith to be disciplined enough for booth work. 30 minutes where he'll be -- what, 1/4 to 1/3 of the talking time? -- is much less risky than having him on for 3-1/2 hours as the main wingman for the p-b-p guy. And of course the most important item for Keith-world: How does this affect his tax bracket? Living in Florida gets him out of paying state income tax but only if he lives there at least 1/2 the year which normally leads him to bolt Sag Harbor as soon as the season ends. Will another (two?) weeks away from home on account of this gig tilt the balance and leave him coming up short on the FLA residency thing?

Of course "resigning" from a job where your contract had run out is really just semantics. And speaking of semantics, Sandy wafts back to his days as a lawyer and goes full legalese in order to explain his view of the matter: “From our standpoint I think we are at the end of a seven-year run and we need to make a change in direction ... That’s often code phrase for changing positions and jobs and that I think is what we foresee here.” and “the unavoidable fallout from a change in manager is that coaching positions become question marks ... we will start [interviewing] in earnest over the next few days. We certainly don’t want to waste any time.”

Yeah, I can't summon the energy to care who is, or isn't, on pre-game shows. I rarely watch them anyway even when I am watching the series they're attached to. FOX gets the AL playoffs this year (and of course the WS) which means Keith is going to have to do some research - or rather some researcher is going to have to feed him a bunch of facts. In other Keith is famous news, I noticed the drop date on the book has been pushed back to next spring. They seemed to originally have been aiming for this fall sometime.

The good thing about baseball is that, in a short series or a single game, you never know. Unfortunately with these two teams, ya kinda do know. In the Reg Season over the last 10 years (2008-17) Twins are 16 - 50 vs NYY -- and in their last four playoff series (the only ones they've ever played against each other) the Twins have NEVER won a series and have won just two games in total, losing the five game ALDS four times: 1-3 (2003), 1-3 (2004), 0-3 (2009), and 0-3 (2010) Shyeeeet, the fucking Rangers don't fold that bad when they see pinstripes! Overall in the post season, the Twins have lost six straight playoff series, coming up winless in the 2006 ALDS vs Oakland, and losing 4-1 in the 2002 ALCS to Anaheim for a whopping 2 - 19 record. The last post-season series they won -- in fact the ONLY post-season series they won since the 1987 World Series -- was the ALDS in 2002 beating Oakland three games to two, that was the series which eliminated the 'MONEYBALL' A's as depicted in the book/movie. The eventual winning run in that series was driven in on a double by the Twins 26 y/o platoon DH who came in an inning earlier on a L/R switch, David Ortiz. Two months later, Minnesota would release him.

I'm pretty sure this will be next year's top ten: 1 - TIGERS 2 - GIANTS 3 - PHILS 4 - WHITE SOX 5 - REDS 6 - METS 7 - PADRES 8 - BRAVES 9 - A's 10 - PIRATES The Tigers appear to have lost their way into the top slot on the final day while the Giants were busy winning their way out of it. So maybe Brian Sabean will be the guy who winds up slitting his throat over this, but I tend to doubt it. oe: I had the Pirates and A's flipped - correct now

Yanquis/Blue Jays game "wins" the race in the synchronized game time contest. The 2-1 Toronto win is the first game today to reach a conclusion.

Eh. He's having a good series, nothing more.