Frayed Knot

Ceetar wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Why not Flores? He hits lefties like he's Willie Mays in his prime. What has to happen for Flores to get more playing time than he's gotten? hit righties maybe? That, plus not hitting the DL at the same time a position is wide open for him because someone else is on the DL would be a fun new idea. That was essentially his story for much of 2016. Between Wright & Duda & Walker & Cabrera all needing time (and sometimes months) off, Wilmer could easily have had 500+ ABs last year.

Nats pick up Joe Blanton on a one-year deal to strengthen their bullpen. Part of the famed 'Moneyball' draft (24th overall in 2002) he struggled mostly as a starter for four different clubs across ten seasons. But since skipping all of 2014, he then returned as a reliever and put together two pretty good seasons in 2015 & '16 spread among KC, Pitt, and LAD.

Under the long-held theory about the back bone being connected to the neck bone and the neck bone connected to the shoulder bone, etc. 'The Puma' @ NY Post David Wright’s chances of beginning the season with the Mets now appear razor thin. The Mets captain returned to New York on Tuesday and was diagnosed with an impingement in his right shoulder, according to general manager Sandy Alderson, which precludes Wright from throwing. “He’s not going to be throwing for a couple of weeks and probably not throwing with any real zip for a period after that,” Alderson said. “He can continue to DH, but in the meantime he will be doing lots of shoulder exercises.” Alderson said the impingement is correlated to Wright’s surgery last June for a herniated disk in his neck. IOW, lotsa playing time for Flores & Reyes

MFS62 wrote: I wonder if the rule is still on the books, but is ignored? Yes, and yes.

I went to see who was taken after Harvey in that first round ... but also a ton of guys who never made it out of the minors - even high picks who only played a year or two of pro ball! I stat I've heard before is that on average about 1/4 of all 1st round draft picks never see a day in the big leagues - and that's even limiting it to just the top 30 picks before getting into the supplementals. That failure rate almost always includes someone -- or several someones -- from the among the top-10 overall picks. There is some thought that teams are getting slightly better at the whole draft thing in recent years* so that the 75% success rate is creeping up a bit but, even if true, the progress is only incremental the degree of progress is tough to quantify. * a quick check of the 10 year span from 2000-2009 shows 76% who did make a ML roster (72 of 300 did not) although the 2000 & 2001 drafts were particularly bad: 14 of 30 failed to make an ML roster out of the 2000 group (including 5 of the top 10) and then 11 more in 2001 (incl. 8 of the first 17 picks) and therefore dragged the overall average down. Take out those two years and the success rate of the more recent eight drafts nudges up to just over 80%, although still almost always with at least one top-10 pick failing to make that ultimate graduation step.

Ceetar wrote: Someone tweeted recently about how no one complains about automatic icing anymore. Leaving aside that one prevents the skirting of rules and one codifies it, I suspect IBBs will be the same 3 years from now. Banning the contested icing rule was mostly a player safety thing as the NHL decided it didn't want two flying players trying to beat each other into the corner simply to determine where the face-off would be. Automating the IBB serves no purpose other than the supposed time saved which is really no time at all. If we want to make cross-sport comparisons (which are usually pretty meaningless anyway) the better equivalent might be if the NFL had decided that since the PAT was near-automatic anyway they should instead make a touchdown into 7 points and save the time it takes to first change up nearly all 22 personnel on the field on then to officially tack-on the almost always predetermined point. In a rare display of inventiveness I think the NFL actually made the right call on that one as moving the try back both sliced a chunk off the near-guaranteed success rate at the same time it made the 2-point try more attractive (most coaches are still too chicken to go for two except when forced to but that's a whole separate problem). The auto-IBB just takes a strategy that the team almost never screws up and removes the almost part. But hey, it'll save 6 seconds/game.

Closest I could find. [fimg=400:7wl5c7hc]http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/snl/images/1/1e/Fred_Garvin.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111027155028[/fimg:7wl5c7hc]

Yes, supplemental picks are generally treated as 1st round picks distinguished, if at all, as 1 and 1S. The exact number would fluctuate from year to year although generally is lower in recent years than in the past.

Gary alluded during the telecast of Sunday's game about how many former 1st round (or 1-Supp) draft choices the Mets had in that day's starting lineup. Going through this year's roster - or at least the potential one - I find: MATT HARVEY - picked 7th overall by the Mets in 2010 MICHAEL CONFORTO - 10th - METS - 2014 BRANDON NIMMO - 11th - METS - 2011 NEIL WALKER - 11th - PIRATES - 2004 DOM SMITH - 11th - METS - 2013 GAVIN CECCHINI - 12th - METS - 2012 JAY BRUCE - 12th - REDS - 2005 SEAN GILMARTIN - 28th -BRAVES - 2011 JOSH SMOKER - 31st - NATIONALS - 2007 TRAVIS d'ARNAUD - 37th - PHILLIES - 2010 NOAH SYNDERGAARD - 38th - BLUE JAYS - 2010 KEVIN PLAWECKI - 38th - METS - 2012 DAVID WRIGHT - 38th - METS - 2001 And since I was getting much of this info from last year's page on BB-Ref, I'll also throw in: JAMES LONEY - 19th - DODGERS - 2002 KELLY JOHNSON - 38th - BRAVES - 2000 (who'll probably be back on before long anyway) (note to team: try and secure the 38th pick each year - good things seem to happen in that spot) Other NYM 1st round picks still active elsewhere: MIKE PELFREY (Tigers) - 9th in 2005 SCOTT KAZMIR (Dodgers) - 15th in 2002 IKE DAVIS (Dodgers?) - 18th in 2008 MICHAEL FULMER (Tigers) - 44th in 2011 Most of us hear each June (and often repeat) the old adage about how the draft is such a crapshoot, and to a certain extent it is with plenty of stories of 1st round bombs balanced off by picks like Piazza (61st round) or Keith (42nd). But the percentage of 1st rounders having successful major league careers are MUCH higher than those picked in any other round that, flawed as it may be, it's still the overwhelming best source of talent.

sharpie wrote: Went to bed right after Fay Dunaway read the wrong movie so I missed the final drama. Same here. how does stuff like that even happen. And who discovered it? The accountants? Duplicate envelopes is apparently the answer -- Dunaway & Beatty were handed a copy of the Emma Stone - Best Actress card and saw 'LA LA LAND' mentioned. But if the idea is to keep everyone in the dark about the winner -- I guess so as to maintain 'The Big Reveal' even among the presenters -- it's obvious that someone had to know and it seems odd that they'd keep a couple of the accountants backstage there just in case something that couldn't possibly happen actually happens. And if someone is going to know anyway then you might as well clue the presenters in before they go out there just to avoid something like this. They are actors after all and so you figure they can fake surprise as well as anyone.

This just in: the Cleveland Indians were the actual winners of the 2016 World Series.

He apparently hit the wrong 'Talk-back' button (Ronnie's un-used one instead of his own) when trying to talk to the producers. Not sure what it is exactly that he said that wound up going out to the general public, but it wasn't anything too scandalous.

I also can't believe that Napoli would have signed in a place where he wasn't pretty much assured of being an everyday starter (or that the Mets would have paid him enough to eschew other such offers). He's also played all of 50 innings in corner OF spots - although perhaps oddly all at the age of 33 in 2015

David Cone: "I like their [Keith and Ron's] fearlessness" -- in response to a Bob Klapisch question about the booth work of his former teammates. Translation: Those uptight stiffs at YES wouldn't allow me to get away with 1/10th of what those guys say.

Zvon wrote: Wowzers, against the wind. And off a Lefty!!

Edgy MD wrote: Rowen's bringing it from 7:30. Yeah, Gary claims that this Rowen guy brings it from even lower than Chad Bradford but I think Bradford was even lower. Rowen is lower than Joe Smith as I remember it, but not Bradford. And we got Keith bringing an Arte Johnson mention. I'll take 'References no one under the age of 55 will get' for $400 Alex

Yeah, C. Affleck's past transgressions for alleged harassment issues (settled two cases out of court) may just be enough to lose the award that seemed like it's been his for about four months now. No real clear-cut favorite if it's not him though. And, yes, Viola is a lock as putting her in the Supporting Actress category seemed to be designed to do just a year after #OscarSoWhite Supporting Actor goes to Mehershala Ali Picture/Director - LaLaLand walks away with both Screenplays: Adapted is probably the big nod that ARRIVAL gets Original does the same for HELL OR HIGH WATER Oh yeah, and Emma Stone wins big. I rarely see even half of the movies/actors nominated, but I'm never wrong about these things except when I am.

So, August maybe?

The key phrase here is the part about this one being a "Chinese-US co-production". This makes it almost irrelevant whether it plays well on this side of the Pacific as long as it sells to the market of 1.3 billion on the other side where it can serve as a metaphor not so much for the U.S./Mexico border but for the Chinese keeping their foreigners out, either the scary ancient "monsters" for whom the wall was originally built or the more modern type in a region that's long been distrustful of outside influences and in a country which issued just 1,576 permanent residency cards last year (that's like 0.0001% of the country) and even that paltry figure represents a large increase from previous tends. Plus it's chock full of Chinese heroes and a plot where the foreign mercenary follows them instead of the other way around, all very good for Chinese self esteem. Plus Damon gets to build himself a huge new audience that he hopes will demand his participation in their movies long after he's too old to play Jason Bourne or astronauts. But, yeah, it's on the HSI-NGSI list for me too and on this one I wasn't even remotely intrigued by the trailer.

Looking at the box score, I see our offense with 16 Ks and 0-fer-7 w/RiSP Mid-season form already I see.

A no-hitter intact and no hitters are in traction. Good day so far.

Edgy MD wrote: An executive order, done with no real vetting, and pretending that the public will is on your side because you know what's best. I think MLB would push back on the "no real vetting" part. Commish Manfred was on 'Mike & Mike' this morning where the pace of game stuff was the main topic. Among his claims were that many of these ideas are coming from the fans and that, for instance, most support the idea of the automatic IBB. Other stuff: - their evidence is that strike zone has crept downward by 1.7" over the last 8 years, so a rule change to raise it up 2 inches would be nothing more than a way to counteract the drift in recent years since the last time the zone was redefined. And if a side effect of it is that it helps get the ball in play more often during a time where nearly 30% of all ABs end in a K or BB (was fairly recently in the low-20s) so much the better. - they are always "looking at and reviewing" the amount of commercial time on the broadcasts - they'll continue to monitor the developments in robo-ump technology. Says it's not quite there yet but within a few years they'll have a major decision to make on it - the runner on 2nd in extra innings rule was never intended for major league play, only the lowest rungs of the minors where spectators are practically non-existant

The Braves just signed Sanders Commings, a University of Georgia and later KC Chiefs defensive back who wants to give baseball a try despite having not played since high school. The soon to be 27 y/o had his NFL career curtailed to just two games on account of separate injuries involving a broken ankle and a broken collarbone. He was once a 37th round draft pick (2008) of the Diamondbacks. I don't expect that this signing will generate the publicity, the animosity, or the handwringing that the Mets signing of Tebow did.

So I was in the theatre a couple months ago and one of the coming attractions was for a historical drama involving Stalin's systematic starvation of the Ukraine in the 1930s. OK, I thought, looked pretty cool (although don't most trailers?) especially since I tend to go for movies about important events and this particular one is a largely under-emphasized even though it may have killed 20 million. I then largely forgot about it after seeing the trailer although some remnant of it remained in the back of my head somewhere. I got reminded of it this week as this is the weekend BITTER HARVEST opens. But then I see the 2/3 page ad in today's NY Times touting the flick with a photo of a young and of course beautiful couple with the tag line: Stalin's tyranny could destroy their country, but not their love Yeah, I think I'm going to skip this one. The 9% rating on 'Rotten Tomatoes' isn't exactly an inducement to go either. I mean, I realize that the flick is just out and there may be some votes still coming in from outlying precincts, but shit, even FIFTY SHADES DARKER is getting a fucking 8% 'Fresh' rating and I'm pretty sure even the folks who like that movie would, under truth serum, pretty much admit that it sucks, as did its predecessor, but they got hooked on the book(s?) and wanted to see some of the kinky shit acted out so they couldn't resist.

I know that for some reason Asdrubal seems like an older player (he does to me anyway), but he'll actually play the entire 2017 season at age 31 having had the calendar flip on him to that number during the off-season. So while we may see some regression to the mean (his 2016 OPS was some 60 points above his career norm) he's not a likely candidate for any kind of drastic age-related decline.