Frayed Knot

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Didn't we once calculate how long it would take Tom Seaver to drop out of the top 500? I think the answer was something like 60,000 years. A discussion after the 2007 season results were final led me to declare Wright to then be 'a minimum of six good years away' from potentially catching and passing Seaver. Now, three seasons later - thanks in part to two of the last three years being sub-80 win seasons - it's clear he'll need more than just three years and will have to step on the gas to get there in four more. As things stand now he's a virtual lock to pass Franco & Piazza next season and into the top 5. The big gaps ahead of him are between the 4th & 5th slots, and then between #1 & #2.

13th actually, but still. btw, this thread should eventually be moved to the Ranking Forum.

With the incorporation of the 2010 composite list into our player rankings, David Wright moves to #7 overall up 7 slots from the end of 2009 - speeding him past Al Leiter, Keith Hernandez, Howard Johnson, Sid Fernandez, Cleon Jones, and Edgardo Alfonzo while becoming the first guy to crack the top ten since Piazza & Franco earlier in the decade. Other active players moving up (or not) as a result of 2010: Reyes from #24 to #17 Beltran -- 23 to 20 Santana -- 72 to 50 Pelfrey -- 120 to 78 Feliciano -- 91 to 80 Angel Pagan -- 203 to 98 Castillo -- 113 to 102 F. Rodriguez -- 222 to 139 Francoeur -- 234 to 170 Thole -- 566 to 275 Parnell -- 414 to 316 Dessens -- 583 to 336 Cora -- 426 to 431 (going the wrong way) Misch -- 483 to 487 Santana’s move knocks George Foster out of the top 50, while Mike Cameron & Roger Cedeno drop out of the top 100 as Pelfrey & Pagan move in. 14 players hit the list for the first time: RA Dickey - 168th place Ike Davis - 177 Jonathon Niese - 214 Hisanori Takahashi - 224 Jason Bay - 237 Rod Barajas - 308 Manny Acosta - 393 Chris Carter - 412 Ruben Tejada - 430 Dillon Gee - 446 Henry Blanco - 465 Raul Valdes - 485 ----------------------- Lucas Duda - 509 Jenrry Mejia - 538 And, for the first time since the invention of this goofy project, the list of players who received at least one vote somewhere is over the 600 mark (605). Sounds like a lot until you realize that nearly 1 in 3 players ever to put on a NYM ML uni didn’t even get that far. But, since we use just the top 500 for our ‘Player Status’ list, the addition of the new players means that we say goodbye to the likes of Pumpsie Green, John Thomson, Tom Sturdivant, Doug Simons, Bill Spiers, John Cangelosi, Jack Heidemann, Mr. Dae Sung Koo, Chuck Taylor, Bill Denehy, Kuan Acevedo & Julio Velera. The current ‘intro guy’ for newcomers (#500) is now the great Greg Harris. Mileposts: #100 - Ken Boswell #200 - Ryan Church #250 - Al Luplow #300 - J.C. Martin #400 - Gene Walter #500 - Greg Harris

RANKPLAYER30D. WRIGHT29A. PAGAN28J. SANTANA27R. A. DICKEY26I. DAVIS25M. PELFREY24J. REYES23J. NIESE22H. TAKAHASHI21J. BAY20F. RODRIGUEZ19C. BELTRAN18J. THOLE17J. FRANCOEUR16R. BARAJAS15P. FELICIANO14E. DESSENS13L. CASTILLO12B. PARNELL11M. ACOSTA10C. CARTER9R. TEJADA8D. GEE7H. BLANCO6R. VALDES5L. DUDA4J. MEJIA3A. CORA2P. MISCH1F. NIEVE

Figure to keep this open until New Years - so speak soon or forever ...

metirish wrote: I am urging people here to rent it so we can havIe a good chat about it. You want me to rent not only a chick flick but one that got almost universally lousy reviews? Not even the cute Amy Adams could make me rent this even if it was Leap Day.

Part of the reason we set things up the way we did was so that the 'answer' wound up being the sum of all the pieces and therefore things like popularity, recency, and/or personal feelings for or against particular players wouldn't play a role. So, yeah, part of the reason Carter is seen to be too low is that he was a likable player who was acquired in a great trade which was the final piece for the last great Met era - even if those memories tend to emphasize the good while ignoring the rest.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Of course though, when G-Fafif notes that Kingman ranks higher than Carter, he gets a polite and reasonable acknowledgement that, perhaps, Win Shares is better. No one ever suggested it wasn't. You seem to be confusing this little gimmick we've got going here as some kind of system that's being trumpeted as the final word on NYM history. It isn't and it never was anymore than our Schaefer PotG/Y is the final word in determining in-season greatness. It, like Schaefer, is a fun in-house thing which is totally voluntary and was actually born of several different projects that got going here separately which we at some point cobbled together as a way to determine the order of the players next to each poster's name. But when I point out the overall absurdity of assigning a nebulous number 30 to someone for having the best season in a given year --- the same 30 whether it's for Gooden85 or Swan79, I get the runaround for nine or ten posts, heels dug in all the way deep to oppose whatever I might write. Most of those "nine or ten posts" were yours, sometimes three or four in a row seemingly in answer to yourself and/or in contradiction. When three separate people chime in either with explanations or to say they're not sure where you're headed there's a chance that maybe it's you who weren't making yourself clear. So chime in all you want with suggestions, improvements, condemnations, but you might want to lose the martyr complex.

Carter's spot has probably been the subject of as many questions/objections as anyone - except maybe for how Steve Trachsel (although no longer) got into the top 50. Kid's problem remains that, of his five seasons in orange & blue, only three were any good and the last was almost non-existent (28 hits, 2 HRs). Had his career taken a gentler slope downhill - instead of the off-the-cliff plummet it did take - so that he was able to merely crack the top 20 Mets in that final 1989 season he would have accumulated enough points to slip in ahead of Kong. But, alas, he got saddled as the 26th place finisher* that year and fell short. * Unfortunately, most of the discussions that went into deciding the ranks from past years were lost in a server crash a few years ago.

Going ... going ...

Roxanne clearly fails the 'films named after a song' part of the equation.

Bumping this up to the top seeing as how it’s been dormant for several weeks now. Anyone who still wants to chime in with a list of their own, an update to an existing list, or just throw in some comments do so soon before we put this to bed. What we have so far is a fairly tight consensus emerging - especially as compared to last year’s where opinions were all over the place with top ten votes according to one not even making the cut for another. Here, so far anyway, the top 5 almost all got top 5 votes from everyone even if not always in the exact same order. Beyond that: - Pelfrey rates as high as 2nd place (GFaFiF) and as low as 10th (Edgy) - Reyes varies from 3rd place (Seawolf) to 10th (Vic Sage) - Niese goes from 7th (V. Sage & F. Knot) to 13th (Edgy) Biggest spreads so far are for: -Francoeur: as high as 9th place (TransMonk) and as low as 25th (VFC) - Rodriguez: 5th (Edgy) to 16th (GFaFiF) - Thole: 10th (VFC) to 21st (GFaFiF) - Dessens: 14th (F. Knot) to 27th (GFaFiF) - Tejada: 13th (GFaFiF) to 30th (VCF) - Parnell: 14th (LWFS) to 29th (Seawolf) - Acosta: 11th best (Edgy) to not mentioned (GFaFiF)

My first thought on this thread was: 'Wait a minute, Cher's son in 'Mask' died before he ever had any kids so how can there be 'Son of Mask' ?!!?'

Edgy DC wrote: I'm pretty sure that Jim Carrey's life is still pretty good. He is, as of very recently, a grandfather. He's 48, his daughter (his only child from what I can tell) 23.

I once heard Warren Zevon complain about being commissioned to write a song for a movie which turned into 'Things to do in Denver When You're Dead' - only to have them name the movie after his title but then not use the song. IMDB lists the song as part of the credits but they also throw in a disclaimer about every song not necessarily being used or appearing in the soundtrack. Having never seen the movie I'm not sure whether it's there or not.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: [sure. You knew it all along. But still, I had to murder about nine cyber trees before you would give me any love. Grudgingly. No, because between answers which seemed both contradictory and only somewhat nothing to do with the questions I asked and the multiple posts tacked onto each other I had no idea where you were headed. I disagree with your comment, though. The system is not less than perfect. It's cocky doody is what it is. Yeah, well opinions vary. The system doesn’t work. Every system ever invented is merely an approximation of what the "true" answer is - especially when the basis of it is nothing more than opinion to begin with. Feel free to ignore this one if it offends you so.

Made a few minor adjustments from my preliminary lists and my earlier vote in the rookie thread. 30 - Wright 29 - Pagan 28 - Santana 27 - Dickey 26 - Pelfrey 25 - Reyes 24 - Niese 23 - Davis 22 - Takahashi 21 - Rodriguez 20 - Bay 19 - Beltran 18 - Thole 17 - Dessens 16 - Francoeur 15 - Feliciano 14 - Parnell 13 - Barajas 12 - Tejada 11 - Castillo 10 - Acosta 9 - Carter 8 - Valdes 7 - Mejia 6 - Cora 5 - Blanco 4 - Duda 3 - Gee 2 - Misch 1 - J. Feliciano

If your point is that our rather simple system provides a less than perfect measurement of All-time Met-ness then, well yeah, I think we already knew that.

Edgy DC wrote: I'm done. I'm lost.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Before adjusting for team W-L record, the best '86er should have a higher score than the best '80er. The ranking system overemphasizes team performance at the expense of the player's performance Aren't those two sentences at odds with each other? - In the first you say that the team outcome should trump what the individuals did - and do so twice, and apparently do so automatically regardless of the accomplishments in question. - while in the next you claim that team performance is overemphasized at the expense of the player.

The best player on the 1980 squad shouldn't receive the same "30" that the best player on the 1986 squad received. He might receive the same '30' but a very different score.

Pitching comparisons: Santana vs Dickey -- Very close seasons. One wasn’t there at the beginning, the other not there at the end. But in between had identical records (11-9) and both deserved better support. Similar ERAs (Dickey better by 0.14), and essentially identical WHiPs. Dickey actually walked fewer but didn’t K nearly as many. I’m putting Johan up top on the basis of 3 extra starts and 25 more IP. Pelfrey -- Led staff in wins, IPs, and starts. Was lights out for a while but also had more bad games than the above two which led to significantly higher ERA & WHiP numbers. Niese -- 2nd on the team in games started and might have been up there fighting it out with the leaders if not for his late season crash ‘n burn. Takahashi -- Allowed fewer baserunners/IP (WHiP) than anyone on the staff while flopping between starting (12 starts), long relief, medium relief & short relief, and finally was near flawless during a short stint of closing. Rodriguez -- 25 saves vs 5 blown with a 2.20 ERA and reasonably low WHiP would be considered a decent to good year for a closer if not for how it ended. Dessens -- Lower ERA than anyone on the team not nicknamed KRod while filling a variety of roles. Also walked very few (almost a freak show on this staff) which is how he was able to K just 16 batters in 47 innings and get away with it. Parnell -- You’d like to see young guys like this less confined to specific roles, but he did OK at times with the limitations Feliciano -- Too many walks (even if some were strategic) pushed his WHiP up high but maybe that’s part of the bargain when you appear in 9 games per week. Acosta -- Too many walks (lather, rinse, repeat) but over a K an inning while less than one hit per. Valdes -- Mejia -- Gee -- Acquitted himself well in a brief time Misch -- Decent stats but appeared in just 12 games Nieve -- Overuse caught up to him. Too many HRs Igarashi -- ERA over 7 Maine -- WHiP near 2.00 and 8 HRs in less than 40 IP Perez -- Like Maine but worse Stoner -- Green -- Now I have to figure out how to combine the two halves.

Specifically to the Dykstra/Bonilla thing; - Dykstra's problem was that in his five seasons with the Mets two of them were partials and in the others he platooned much of the time. So, while he may have been on some great teams, he never wound up as being one of the top guys in any one of them ended up ranking as the 19th, 10th, 6th, 5th, & 19th best Mets on those squads. - Bonilla on the other hand had much higher ranks - he was voted 3rd, 1st, 3rd & 4th place in 1992-95, and then 27th best for his 'contributions' for 1999 - even though they were all sub-80 win teams.

Yes, they are already baked in. The player's score he gets from finishing high or low on the ranks of his fellow Mets for a particular season is then multiplied by the number of team wins* that year. So a top of the list player in a 90 win season is rewarded 1.5x as well as his counterpart in a 60 win year. * Plus bonus points for any post-season advancement.

Looking at the position players first: Only four players played essentially a full season which, along with their level of play, puts them a clear jump ahead of the rest. Wright gets my top spot -- led team in PAs & ABs, 2Bs, XBHs & HRs (by a lot!), TBs, SFs, OBA, SLG, IsoP, Runs Created and RC/27 and those last two weren’t all that close either. OK, he also led in Ks & Errors ... Pagan - a season as good or better than most of us hoped as he proved himself to be a real, live starting outfielder this year. Still, he barely out-hit Wright in BA despite leading by wider margins all year; didn’t walk much, had wide RH/LH splits and doesn’t slug like the corner OFer he mostly is on this team (at least for now). Very nice season and completely turned around his bone-headed running/fielding gaffes from the previous year, just not the best on the team. Reyes - I’m giving him 3rd place amongst hitters over Davis on the basis of a similar number of XBHs (50 vs 53) and the position he plays and despite the lower OBP (33 pts) Davis - seemed lost in the middle there for a while after a strong start and before his good finish. Stabilized the position defensively and managed to maintain a decent OBP (.351) even as the BA sank. Lots of Ks and GiDPs Of the less-than full-timers: Bay - Really?!? The 5th best offensive player? Ummm, yeah. Look, as disappointing as he was considering the money and all, he managed 32 XBHs in 400-some PAs and a decent OBP (.351) while he was there even if the HRs were virtually non-existent. Beltran - Started to come on at the end but too little too late. Essentially had Bay’s stats only with half the ABs and not the edge defensively that he’d usually have. Thole - Little power to speak of but got on base and impressed behind the plate. Francoeur - 5th in ABs on the team. Ummm, played a good outfield and had a nack for the occassional big hit Barajas - Solid six weeks of power. Then nothing. Tejada & Castillo - Tejada made outs more often (.298 OBA) but also fielded better and at least managed to hit the occasional double so he wins this race. Castillo is next. Carter - Most all-around useful bench player Cora - Unfortunately, this is what backup middle infielders look like when pressed into full-time service. Blanco - Threw out runners and hit like ... well like a backup catcher Duda - Power and walks, even if not much else. Felicano - A pinch-hitter with lousy OBA and little power. Was useful defensively. Evans Outside looking in: Tatis, Hessman, Mathews, Arias, Jacobs, Catalanotto, Martinez, Nickeas, Turner