Frayed Knot

Ashie62 wrote: In 2017 the MFY's are far far superior and interesting than the Mets. Which, even if true, absolutely misses the entire point of the ongoing discussion.

Ashie62 wrote: I admit I was one of the biggest supporters of the Cespedes signing. We got robbed. That's absurd. He's played over 200 games as a Met in less than 2 seasons, producing 54 HRs and over 100 XBHs while the team has twice made the playoffs including going from 3.0 games out to winning the division by 7 in the first two months after he was acquired. He's injured now, it happens. So is Trout, and Freeman, and Donaldson and Tulowitski. Also Zach Britton, Dustin Pedroia, Adrien Beltre, Madison Bumgarner, Felix Hernandez, and those are just the ones off the top of my head. Prior to this, Cespedes was on the DL once last year and it was for the minimum 15 days. There are 110 games left this year -- more than 2/3 of the season -- and I suspect he might impact a few of them. After that he's signed through 2020 Yeah, rob me like that again.

Well that was thoroughly disappointing. Seemingly on a roll and then two runs in 18 innings.

Wheeler allowed 5 leadoff runners in 7 innings (and now Blevins makes it 6 innings out of 8) but was saved by three GiDPs

And we currently have managed just three rather tepid singles thru 5 innings off of Chase Average here. Plus his pitch count is so low I think he could go 17 innings if needed.

The Brewers just hit two consecutive infield pop-ups -- one with two on and one with the bases loaded -- and the Mets somehow turned them into zero outs.

I have a good idea, let's have all our starters put the leadoff guy on each and every inning and see how that works out over the course of the series.

Edgy MD wrote: So, this is our seventh game against the Brewers. Eric Thames: the real deal or a flash in the pan? I don't know, but Eric Sogard sure is an All-Star

SteveJRogers wrote: Cue the "Area around YS is a dangerous war zone" articles and "never again will I go there" horror stories* on any mass audience platform you can think off. An argument that may have flown back in the late-'70s/early''80s but certainly doesn't today. It also totally ignores the fact that they were cramming 4 million into that place (well, the old version of that place) just a decade ago for a team that a significant portion of the fan base openly professed not to like very much. But now that they've at least partially got the younger/cheaper/homegrown roster they claimed all along to want (while at the same time counting the days until they can sign both Harper & Machado) attendance and revenues have fallen off the table.

I didn't even realize, until Gary mentioned it during the game last night, that this is a 1:10 first pitch today. Chase Anderson is one of those pitchers whose complete average-ness makes him virtually anonymous. a 29 y/o Texas RH'er drafted in the 9th round and now in his 4th ML season (first two for ARZ, last year and now this one in MILW), he seems to make every start and fall right in the meaty part of the statistical curve to the point where I suspect he might have been created in MLB Labs out of spare parts from a previous generation of average pitchers: 25-27; 4.19 ERA; 1.35 WHIP; 7.4 K/9 / 2.9 BB/9 Zack Wheeler opposes

Despite so many other things going right for the Yanx this season (Judge, Castro, Gregorius, Severino, Gardner, etc.) last night's 10-4 loss to the Orioles was the third time in the last four outings that Masahiro Tanaka got his ass kicked: 7 earned on 9 hits over 5.1 IP (very deGromian of him one could say). Even including the one good start he's had over the last four that's 22 runs allowed on 30 hits (incl. 8 HRs) in just 17.2 innings. Take out the one good one and those numbers get real ugly, like ERA of 18.30 ugly.

The club has an option on Cabrera: $8.5 mil for 2018 or $2 mil buyout If/when Rosario comes up it's almost certainly because they're handing over the job to him and they're not going to want to pay $8.5 mil to a mentor/backup. And from Cabrera's view, he's not going to turn 32 until November and so is likely to want to be someplace where he can at least compete for a full time job and he knows it's not going to be in Queens for the same reason Bartolo knew he wasn't going to get regular starts here. The one caveat in all this would be if he's willing to no longer consider himself a SS. That would open up several possibilities.

Too early to decide.

Well if they go for a full-time replacement SS then it's going to be Rosario, there's no doubt about that. Neither Reyes nor Flores are the future at that position and Reynolds and/or Cecchini would be temporary placeholders at best. But I think they're a while from putting Cabrera out to pasture.

Just when you thought it was safe to start peeking at the team ERA again. Not only three (and almost four) XBHs allowed to the first seven batters here, but deGrom's gone to deep counts on just about every hitter so far.

I don't think this needs to be a binary choice of either now or not until next year, only that a single play shouldn't be dictating such things. And while I agree that the number of errors by itself is a poor choice of metrics, that was what Kernan used to advocate for Amed in the fist place. My guess is that we'll see Rosario before this season it out, specifically when to be determined by a whole bunch of factors.

Frayed Knot wrote: So I'm think that maybe a strategy of allowing fewer baserunners tonight would be, y'know, a nice idea. I'm declaring that to be JdG's mission tonight. JdG apparently didn't get my memo.

WE'RE NUBMER 13!! WE'RE NUMBER 13!! btw, Philly (10 earned vs Miami) and Cincy (5 ER in 8 IP vs TOR) have already lost today so their pitching stats aren't getting any better in tomorrow's update either.

Edgy MD wrote: In theory, yeah. I guess the scorer felt it was OK to award the batter as many bases as the winning runner took to score. Or simply feel that the hit was sufficient enough that he was going to get there anyway, something that wouldn't always be the case particularly if there were two outs at which point batters have little incentive to even try for 3rd. They would though if there were zero or one out though as now he becomes the new winning run. Only if the runner were thrown out at the plate for the 3rd out of the inning would it seem to me that the strict 'which came first' test needs to be applied. Pre-1920 rules awarded the batter only the amount of bases needed to score the run, even on balls over the fence. When records started to be computerized in the late 1960s it was discovered that Babe Ruth lost a HR this way. A debate quickly ensued about whether to award him #715, one that had implications for Hank Aaron as the specter of him catching Babe was then starting to look like a real possibility. In the end it was ruled that the standards of the time should apply and Babe wound up 'stuck' on 714

NYM pitchers had just one 1-2-3 inning last night (Smoker in the 11th) but still managed to blank them in 10 of the 12 frames. But we probably shouldn't count on the Brews leaving 14 runners on base or going 2-15 w/RiSP again. And one of those hits actually scored a run (1st inning double). We handed them 3 of their 4 runs via a bases-loaded walk plus the two-run error. So I'm think that maybe a strategy of allowing fewer baserunners tonight would be, y'know, a nice idea. I'm declaring that to be JdG's mission tonight.

There's a school of thought that the Braves rushing Jeff Francoeur (who just recently filed his retirement papers, btw) was a factor in his inability to ever learn strike zone judgment. Promoted at age 21 with about 1/2 a season of AA under his belt, he had a respectable .268 BA and already 200 XBHs in the majors by mid-way through his age 25 season (and was a plus defender) when Atlanta decided to bail on him because his lack of strike zone knowledge kept a ceiling on his OBA Raw athleticism allows you succeed for a while but eventually that catches up with you and Frenchy's walk-rate never climbed above a level of about 1/2 to maybe 2/3 of where you'd like to see it, or about at the level where Rosario's is now. Not saying that that alone makes the two equivalent cases, but Bobby V used to talk about wanting to see a player 'put his current level behind him' before moving on. Some extra time certainly couldn't hurt Amed particularly at a time when the Mets have three, and maybe 3-1/2 (Reyes, Flores, Cabrera, TJR) players already sharing two positions.

This soap opera continues to spin. Jeb Bush is dropping out of his bid to buy the Marlins even amidst reports that the price is dropping far below the original rumored $1.4 billion. This leaves Mr. Jet-ah scrambling for other financial partners and the door a bit more open for other groups to jump in.

MFS62 wrote: Guerra pitching for them? This means war! Yeah, but it's Junior Guerra so it'll only be a little war. Junior Guerra's full name is listed as Junior J. Guerra, making one wonder if his son is Junior J. Jr. Weird career path for Guerra. Didn't sign until he was 21 (practically ancient for a Dominican). He played in all kinds of minor and foreign leagues (including the NYM system in 2008) before making his ML debut (3 games - 4 innings pitched) with the ChiSox in 2015 at the age of 30. Last year he started 20 games for Milwaukee with pretty good success [9-3; 2.81 ERA; 1.12 WHIP] but this will only be his 3rd start this year.

The missed pop-up yesterday -- which was also Cabrera's second error in two games leading to 3 unearned runs and his 7th across 33 games -- not surprisingly brings out the 'Don't just stand there, do something!!' crowd. Kristie Ackert in the NYDN argues that this should open the door for more Wilmer with increased days off for Asdrubal and more Reyes at SS. Terry has already announced that WF is starting both today and Thursday (didn't say specifically where) so we shouldn't read anything into it when the lineup in announced this afternoon. Kernan in the Post, meanwhile, plays the 'Must bring up Rosario' card noting that there's no way he'd make seven errors in 33 games unless he turns out to be the type to melt under the glare of the ML sun, which is a nice scenario except that Rosario has made nine in 50 minor league games so it's distinctly possible he could make seven or so fumbleroonies in his first ML month whether they're pressure caused or not. A recent report said that the Mets are waiting for Rosario's plate discipline to catch up to the rest of his skills (13 walks this season in 206 ABs - you'd like to see closer to 10%) before calling him up. I don't think the 'Super 2' question is a big deal although it's a (sort of) deadline that should pass in the next 2-3 weeks so if they are thinking about a call-up soon it would make sense to hold off just a bit longer now. Mainly I suspect it's the thinking of them wanting a player like him to play regularly when he's called up which, in this case, would mean kicking two of the three of Reyes, Carbrera, Flores to the curb and/or bench. If another injury pops up then it could be a different story but I'm not sure they're ready to do that just now.

And Mr. Asdrubal is off da hook!