Frayed Knot

It's sort of just been moved up to the front burner. Now that the CBA is behind them the two sides time to talk about the kind of stuff that's not under a deadline the way the meat of CBA issues are. That said, I'm still in the same place that I was last May when this thread started: if they want to quicken the pace of play there are about 85 ways I'd get to before I'd hit on automating the IW, and if they want to tweak the strike-zone for some other reason I'm willing to listen to their logic but I have a hard time envisioning how it helps with this specific issue.

Another season like this past year -- 12th best player on a 90-ish win team -- would be enough for him to pass Franco, but he'd probably need to beef that up to more like a Top-Seven finish with an equally good or better team in '17 to catch Piazza, certainly not a given seeing as how he doesn't have a set position coming into the year. Considering that he's already ahead of MP in seasons as a Met (10 to 7) with around 15% more games / PAs / ABs, etc., even before tacking on whatever he'll accumulate this coming year, that they're already in the same neighborhood isn't surprising. Failing to catch him next season means that he'd then have to re-up on a new contract for '18 or beyond so that gets a little more problematic and the next jump from Piazza to Strawberry is even more substantial. I believe the Lawrence Fishburn character in APOCALYPSE NOW was named after Clean Jones. [fimg=300:35fbm4o1]http://www.laurence-fishburne.com/images/uploads/work/ApocalypseNow_03.jpg[/fimg:35fbm4o1] Tyrone "Clean" Miller

Just the fact that Rubin would often take the rare MLB off day and use it to head up to Binghamton to check out the AA squad was shirley a pace not to be kept up for long.

[table:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]30[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]NOAH SYNDERGAARD[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]29[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]YOENIS CESPEDES[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]28[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]ASDRUBAL CABRERA[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]27[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JACOB deGROM[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]26[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]BARTOLO COLON[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]25[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]CURTIS GRANDERSON[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]24[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]NEIL WALKER[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]23[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]STEVEN MATZ[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]22[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]ADDISON REED[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]21[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JEURYS FAMILIA[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]20[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]WILMER FLORES[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo] [tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]19[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JOSE REYES[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]18[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]ROBERT GSELLMAN[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]17[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]SETH LUGO[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]16[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]MICHAEL CONFORTO[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]15[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]HANSEL ROBLES[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]14[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JERRY BLEVINS[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]13[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]KELLY JOHNSON[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]12[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JAMES LONEY[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]11[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]T.J. RIVERA[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]10[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]RENE RIVERA[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]9[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]LUCAS DUDA[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]8[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JUAN LAGARES[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]7[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]DAVID WRIGHT[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]6[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]MATT HARVEY[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]5[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]TRAVIS d’ARNAUD[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]4[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]ALEJANDRO DE AZA[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]3[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JAY BRUCE[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]2[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]JIM HENDERSON[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][tr:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]1[/td:1x9687qo][td:1x9687qo]BRANDON NIMMO[/td:1x9687qo][/tr:1x9687qo][/table:1x9687qo] As far as how this affects the overall Rankings, it brings us to 686 total players, Tom Seaver to Gus Bell. Our new Mr. 500 is Miguel Cairo 400 = Charlie O’Brien 300 = Eric Hillman 200 = Anthony Young 100 = Art Shamsky Eight new players earned spots in the Top-500, pushing out the likes of Willie Harris, Hideo Nomo, Damon Buford, Fernando Vina, Buddy Carlyle, Kevin Collins, Ray Searage, Dicky Gonzalez, and Ron Locke New to the Top-50: Jacob deGrom New to the Top-100: Yoenis Cespedes, Noah Syndergaard, Jeurys Familia, Bartolo Colon No longer in the Top-100 all time Mets: Dennis Cook, Al Jackson, Frank Viola, Aaron Heilman Newcomers in 2016: Brandon Nimmo starts his CPF Rankings Project journey in 667th place. Hope to see him climb in the near future. Jim Henderson - 646th Jay Bruce - 627th Alejandro De Aza - 603rd —————————————— Rene Rivera scores high enough this year to get on our Top-500 list at 456th place TJ Rivera - 426th James Loney - 408th Jerry Blevins - 366th Seth Lugo - 309th Robert Gsellman - 287th Neil Walker - 205th and Asdrubal Cabrera wins best newcomer of the year by placing 156th For players already on the list to start 2016: Kelly Johnson jumps up from 493rd place to 343rd Hansel Robles from 374th to 263 Addison Reed from 583rd way up to 220 Michael Conforto from 262nd to 191 Steven Matz from 336th to 161 Travis d’Arnaud’s poor score this year winds up dropping him two slots as he passes Orlando Hernandez but is in turn passed by three others - 138th to 140th Wilmer Flores - 160th to 126th Juan Lagares - 98th to 94th Yoenis Cespedes - 189th to 93rd Noah Syndergaard - 169th to 83rd - just ahead of Ed Lynch, right behind Randy Myers Jeurys Familia - 113th to 80th - just ahead of Dillon Gee, right behind Bret Saberhagen Bartolo Colon - 133rd to 75th - just ahead of Ron Hunt, right behind Mike Pelfrey Matt Harvey loses two spots, falling from 64th to 66th, on account of being passed by Granderson and deGrom Curtis Granderson - 88th to 62nd - just ahead of RA Dickey, right behind Turk Wendell Jacob deGrom cracks the to 50 by jumping from 69th to 47th - one spot ahead of Hubie Brooks, right behind John Olerud Lucas Duda didn’t have much of a season, but the handful of points he did get were just enough to have him swap places with John Stearns for 38th place, one slot in back of Dave Kingman Jose Reyes’s return nets him enough swag to jump from 12th place into 8th, passing Howard Johnson, Sid Fernandez, Clean Jones, and Edgardo Alfonzo along the way, looking to see if he can catch John Franco and/or Mike Piazza in 2017 And David Wright’s scant number of points inches him closer to Tom Terrific but still leaves him a good distance from taking over the top spot.

I find it amusing when folks think themselves able to predict future injuries.

Wilmer wins his Arb case netting $2.2 instead of the club's figure of $1.8 - essentially loose change under the couch cushions in today's game.

Blevins for one year at $6 mil plus an option for 2018 acc to unofficial reports. Sandy gets his price again. Certainly beats the hell out of the 3/$19 (plus option) that the Rockies gave Mike Dunn earlier this winter, especially seeing as how the two LH relievers are more or less the same guy. In the four seasons starting with 2013 the stats favor Blevins in H/9 (7.2 to 7.9), BB/9 (3.0 vs 3.7) and obviously WHiP (1.13 vs 1.26); Dunn slightly in K/9 (9.9 vs 9.5) and ERA (3.38 vs 3.56) Dunn is also a year and a half younger (32 in May vs 34 in Sept) and has been available for more appearances (273 to 211) but that's almost entirely on account of Blevins' lost 2015 year due to the broken arm rather than anything chronic or age related.

Kevin Kernan -- the Post's man who's skipping the Super Bowl circus this year in order to get a jump on the Florida beat -- asks if Conlon is the Mets' next rising star? 47 Irish born big leaguers but none since 1945

Gorzelanny is one of those names I knew (like you could forget a name like that?!?) but couldn't have told you where he's been recently or in his career. Turns out the answer is Pitt, Cubs, Nats, Brewers, Tigers and Indians over the past 12 seasons. Hasn't pitched much at all lately -- just 3 IP in 7 appearances for Cleveland in 2016 -- turns 35 in mid-season. On the other hand it's a minor league invite. Salas was certainly good at year's end in 2016, although that was quite UNcharacteristic of how he had been prior to coming aborad so we'd be best to remember SSS before we expect to see six months of that.

NYDN: "Baseball will make a decision on Jeurys Familia by Opening Day, MLB commish Rob Manfred said Friday." Well that's helpful.

My favorite story of Mets on the road involved me and Hubie Brooks after a game in Montreal one time. The story's too long to go into here, plus the gag order on speaking publicly about it remains in effect until 2024, so I'll just say that it started out quite innocently at a bar on Rue Sainte Catherine and wasn't until later that things got a bit out of hand. Also, Hubie's "injury" during the next Met road trip that took them into Montreal had more to do with a hold on his visa then it did on the "hamstring issues" that were leaked to the papers. It all ended well at least as the charges were eventually dropped after the goat was returned to its rightful owner. I also maintain to this day that I had no idea the goat was underage at the time.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Favorite memory inside was the Todd Pratt homer against the D-Backs in 1999 to win the division series. An entire stadium held its breath for a split-second and then exploded. Incredible. The only people that didn't hold their breath for a split-second that day were those of us in the waydafuckupthere seats in the RF corner upper deck because that angle gave you a knife-edge view along the entire length of the RCF wall thus allowing those sections to immediately see the ball bouncing around underneath the scoreboard. So rather than having to wait for Finley to check his glove then do the shoulder-slump thing, we knew Finley didn't catch the ball before Finley knew that Finley didn't catch it. We also has a several second jump on Pratt knowing (he was still standing and staring after I celebrated then turned towards the IF) and, upon listening to the radio replay on the way home, it was obvious that we knew before Gary as well.

At least this was merely a new logo/mascot and not an entire change of name and 'Brand' as the team will retain its long-time name of 'Spinners' in a nod to Lowell's history as a textile town. The new mascot is 'Canaligator', apparently a reference to a series of canals that run through the town where conceivably an alligator might hang out if they were native to the Bay State, which of course they aren't. He also brings to the games his wife 'Allie' and daughter 'Millie' who are presumably the other two in the picture there although it doesn't speak well for Allie or Millie that they both essentially look just like pops. I suspect that young Millie doesn't get many dates on account of that, well that plus the fact that the nearest Alligators to her are either in zoos or in, y'know, South Carolina and there's no direct Amtrak service from there to Lowell.

With the closer being maybe their only weakness, the Nats went out and signed veterans Joe Nathan and Matt Albers to compete for the back end job as the team futures along youngster Koda Glover (23 y/o, 20 IP in '16). Nathan is rumored to be 78 y/o and in his 34th season, but none-the-less is unsecured upon across nearly seven innings pitched for three different teams over the last two seasons combined. But at least it's not like he's coming off of multiple TJ surgeries or anything. Albers, a mere 34, saw his ERA & WHIP rise just a bit to 6.31 / 1.68 during 58 games for the 2016 White Sox

Don't know about you, but whenever I'm in eastern Massachusetts, my mind usually turns to ... Alligators! OK, MY mind doesn't, but apparently someone's does; probably those guys at Brandiose. [fimg=500]http://mlb.mlb.com/assets/images/2/3/8/214896238/cuts/Spinners_yl98ebsc_uh2mfq7z.jpg[/fimg]

24 hours or so remaining for any revisions/corrections. I believe CF & Edgy at least were/are planning to revise.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I have a friend like that. A Mets fan his whole life and then he went MFY around '96. The really disturbing thing about him is that he now denies that he was ever a Mets fan. Very few things in my baseball fandom disturbed me as much as Met fans who decided that it was OK to root for those mid-'90s MFYs, that the fact they had 'Doc & Darryl' made them good guys and that most of the rest of the cast were unobjectionable too, and finally that Steinbrenner had now mellowed to the point of practically being a turtleneck and windbreaker clad Care-Bear. If I actually believed in things like jinxes and karma I'd place all the blame for the decade-plus of MFY success on those supposed NYM-fans.

Still cautiously flirting with Blevins

Two of the gals obviously didn't get the message about frayed denim short-shorts being required attire. Might the preggo one in the middle be Walker's?

If I were Syndergaard I'd try to get ahold of Maja and immediately set about attempting to create the next Thor.

Centerfield wrote: I think what offends the baseball guys are the idea that a football player can fail at that sport, then just jump over and play baseball. I think they feel that this suggests that baseball is in some way easier or inferior to football. Which is, of course, really stupid logic. Michael Jordan failing at baseball while being maybe the best ever at basketball proves nothing more than the fact that Jordan was less suited to (and less practiced at) baseball than he was at hoops. But it's not like the sport of baseball gained anything by his brief failure. The argument some of these baseball defenders get behind is that some poor baseball lifer is being denied a spot on a roster, an argument which actually fit Jordan better as he was promoted directly to AA where he held down a spot all year despite being a .200 hitting corner OF without power. Tebow hasn't even gotten to the point where that kind of decision has come up yet.

https://soundcloud.com/altsportstalk-com/sets/qbc-recap-show audio of all the panels. Listen to the Bobby Valentine one, he's got good stories. Bobby Valentine to umpire: "Can I get thrown out for what I'm thinking?" Umpire: "No" Valentine: "So I told him what I was thinking" I think the story is attributed to hoops coach Rick Pitino who once asked the ref if he could get a technical foul for what he thinks. When told 'No' he responded, 'well in that case I think you suck!' According to the story, the ref was then laughing too hard to give him a 'T'.

Some pretty scary shit for new Brave Sean Rodriguez. A Florida man (of course it's Florida) is trying to run from something and so he decides the best way to get away is to steal a police car. But during his getaway he t-bones Rodriguez's car at an intersection causing the cop car to burst into flames killing the perp. Rodriguez himself was unhurt but his wife and two young children are all hospitalized with a variety of serious injuries although all are expected to recover. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/214682878/braves-sean-rodriguez-family-in-auto-crash/

Gee Keith, do you think that might have something to do with Tebow being essentially a beginner thrown into his first game action in a league which is often used as a showcase for teams to put their up and coming hopeful stars? Look, the odds of Tebow ever appearing in a ML game are a thousand to one if not longer. But I'm not sure who's worse, the football press who's pissed off at him for committing the sin of choosing to do something with his life other than football, or the baseball purists who act all offended by someone who doesn't come up through the normal channels even one willing to subject himself to the tough road of back fields and bus rides.

... but not sure every team in the AL West ought to pay the price! I guess one could argue that Houston was set-back because of the act years ago and this is just now making up for it, even though I don't know that it's ever been proven that their picks or roster were actually harmed by what the guy stole. But certainly the fact that StL could have thrown a wrench into Houston's draft plans is enough of a reason for the penalty. Would be a juicier revenge story though if the two teams were still division rivals. I'm suspicious that Correa and Correa alone takes the fall. From a criminal sense I don't think either MLB or law enforcement had any evidence that anyone else but him was in on the ploy. From MLB's viewpoint this does punish the current the StL front office as responsible for what he did whether any higher-ups had knowledge or not. StL's 1st draft pick this June will now be the 94th overall, three slots ahead of the Mets' 3rd choice.