Frayed Knot

Sounds like Huntington is perhaps floating the idea to Pirate fans that next time he trades someone but doesn't get a "name player" in return that they shouldn't necessarily look at it as a negative. Pre-inoculating himself against future bad publicity as it were.

Tough to ignore the 5.13 ERA, a full run higher than last season; the 1.57 WHiP, 0.17 above 2015; the jacked-up HR rate, 20 already (2nd in NL) matching last season's total in 75 fewer innings. I was thinking that no one would touch him on account of the contract ($10 mil in 2017, $11 in 2018) but there are 500K club buyouts on both years so whoever has him is really on less than a half year's commitment and, bad as he's been, he's still a not quite 30 y/o (Oct) who throws with his left wing. But none of that does Pittsburgh any good now as the $7 mil they're paying him this year is sunk costs and they'll likely be paying a chunk of the remaining freight for this season if/when they do work out a deal. Sudden thought: wonder if the Yanx have anything that playoff-hopeful Pitt needs? They always like LHPs in da Bronx (except when it's in the form of the decaying carcass of CC Sabathia) and Girardi essentially said last night that Michael Pineda remains in the rotation because they have little other choice; "it's who we have so he has to get it done" - though I'm guessing that the 3 HRs allowed in 5 innings last night doesn't qualify as 'getting it done'. They also just demoted Nathan Eovaldi to the pen. Pitt certainly doesn't need OFs so you wouldn't think Beltran would be high on their list, nor DHs which scraps half the rest of their roster, and you think the Yanx would be in the mode right now of hoarding prospects rather than dealing them, although that apparently depends on whether you're talking to the baseball or money men in that org. That leaves their vaunted bullpen trio (too rich for Niese) or various spare parts such as lesser bullpen arms or maybe backup catcher Austin Romine to help while Cervelli is out injured (Yanx & Pirates seem to swap catchers all the time).

Centerfield wrote: During a radio interview Friday morning, Huntington had some rather candid remarks about the struggling southpaw, who he acquired from the New York Mets over the winter for popular second baseman Neil Walker. Niese hasn't worked out in Pittsburgh, and Huntington's comments - coming amid reports that he's currently shopping Niese - indicated he may be wishing for a reboot button. "In hindsight, maybe the two fringe prospects and trying to figure out where to re-allocate the money might have been a better return (for Walker)," Huntington told 93.7 The Fan's morning show. "That's where the results take us." Ouch!

The above-mentioned Yulieski Gurriel* has signed a five-year / $47.5 million deal with Houston according to sources although not yet confirmed by the team. The 32 y/o recent Cuban defector had worked out for a number of teams including the Mets. * Apparently this is the correct spelling even though Gourriel had been widely used.

I see our RiSP skills didn't erode over the break; they started at nothing and stayed there. The only hit /wRiSP tonight is Walker's HR. Even the run-scoring bouncer isn't a hit.

Edgy MD wrote: Reyes got a shout of "Wife beater!" just before that RBI grounder. Forget it Jake, it's Phillytown.

Good send with one out. You hold there with none, but a good, aggressive play in that case.

Those last two innings really slammed the brakes on this game. The first four innings flew by in less than an hour, then the 5th & 6th alone took more than that.

But with only one out to get, the double switch allows Robles to pitch the next inning. (responding to the anti-DS crowd)

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I like what the Red Sox do. I may be mistaken but I believe they have a system for retiring numbers. A player must be in the Hall of Fame and had to have played at least 10 years for them. THAT's a guy whose number should be retired. That is a pretty good rule of thumb, but it might be a little too strict for my taste, which is stricter than most. But I think the Mets should eventually retire 5 for David Wright, and he's very unlikely to ever meet that criteria. I agree that strict rules would only lead to exceptions being made (Pesky for The BoSox) which then render the strict rules kind of meaningless. But I would set some sort of standard built around the idea of: - all or a significant majority of the player's career as a Met. That eliminates Keith, Carter, Mays, and Beltran amongst others. Also Strawberry if counting by seasons even if not by GP/ABs - HoF caliber or at least a lengthy star-level resume: bye-bye Eddie Krane & Franco - some sort of good character clause. That makes Doc & Darryl with their numerous arrests, suspensions, etc. tough sells, and possibly Reyes also even if he were to suddenly find the fountain of youth and unexpectedly give us say five more good seasons.

Those who voted 'NO' -- or want to change to that now -- are essentially arguing that his career was/is over. He's 10 HRs away and, even in the post spinal stenosis diagnosis era, he's HR'd 11 times in 300 PA. That's more or less a half season's playing time for a guy who has four seasons after this one on his contract. It's always possible that he is indeed done, but I'd vote against it, and if he's not done he's going to get there.

Still Cespedes-less Reyes - 3B Cabrera - SS Granderson - RF Walker - 2B Loney - 1B d'Arnaud - C Nimmo - LF Lagares - CF Colon - P O. Herrera - CF P. Bourjos - RF M. Franco - 3B T. Joseph - 1B C. Rupp - C C. Aschie - LF F. Galvis - SS C. Hernandez - 2B J. Hellickson - P

Second half gets started with our nearest rival but one we haven't seen since losing on an 11th inning walk-off infield single back on April 20th. They've been an erratic team this season, at first surprising everyone with a 14-10 April thanks mainly to a ton of one-run wins (they're still 20-9 in 1-run games). But their negative run differential caught up with them eventually sending them plummeting to 19-35 in May/June. They then turned that around again just prior to the break going 10-3 although against mostly weaker competition: ARZ, KC, ATL, COL Changes since we last saw them: - Cody Aschie is off the DL and back in LF where he occasionally swaps with Eric's brother Tyler Goeddel in what could be our first Goeddel-v-Goeddel matchup - Tommy Joseph has replaced Darin Ruf as the RH-hitting platoon at 1st base and already has 11 HRs since his mid-May debut. The 24 y/o Joseph is a former 2nd round pick by SF who was sent to Philly back in the Hunter Pence deal. He'll play 1B most days with Ryan Howard down to about a twice a week guy these days. Friday, 7:05 -- Jeremy Hellickson [6-6; 3.92; 1.20] vs Colon Saturday, 7:05 -- Jerad Eickhoff [6-10; 3.80; 1.26] vs Verrett Sunday, 1:35 -- Zach Elfin [2-2; 4.08; 1.22 - in 6 ML starts] vs deGrom

As the second half of the seasons starts and the Yanx hanging around .500 for most of this year, their business side and their operations side are apparently at odds over whether to fish or cut bait. Wally Matthews reports that Brian Cashman wants to deal off some of their high-priced aging talent -- maybe McCann, Ellsbury, Miller -- but the Steinbrenners and all-around asshole Randy Levine want to hang on to the idea that they remain contenders. Meanwhile, the Sox are have already nailed down their third major deal of the month.

Red Sox staying busy and ahead of the curve - acquiring LHP Drew Pomeranz, who just appeared as an All-Star in San Diego for San Diego, in exchange for a minor league prospect. All pending a physical, etc.

soupcan wrote: How many ultimately mediocre players on every other team in the majors have similar accomplishments and don't have their numbers retired? Quite a fucking few I'm thinking. Sure, but a bunch of mediocre players (or at least mediocre careers) are honored too and that gets far too many fans to say 'Why Not Us?'. I noticed during this AS week for instance that the Padres retired Randy Jones's number for his eight year SDP career and one CY award (which should have gone to Koosman). They also retired Steve Garvey's number who was a Padre for like and hour and a half, but I already knew that. "The Mets dodged a bullet when the Dodgers signed Straw." -- Agreed, but that's another thing that's a tough sell to a number of fans who seem blind to the facts that he broke down during that first FA contract and wound up being dumped by LA before it was even over. Also, the attitude that the team screwed that one up wasn't helped by the authors of 'WORST TEAM MONEY CAN BUY' spending 3/4 of the book harping on the idea that not signing Straw was the worst NYM move ever and the one most responsible for killing the dynasty and that year's team when to me they mostly just seemed pissed that it made their jobs less interesting because they no long had their 6-1/2 foot go-to headline guy around every day. Ultimately Straw is just doing some publicity for the mini-film airing tonight (haven't seen/heard Dwight anywhere) even though he's been pretty clear that he's mentally put his baseball career behind him in favor of his current life/family/recovery/ministry, which (assuming it's true) is all well and good but it also gives him little reason to care have he comes off in these things so I suspect he's mostly saying things that he thinks sound good at the time.

Centerfield wrote: Well, ratings are sagging everywhere as a result of having 1000 channels to watch. But part of the reason the ASG lost some value (I imagine) is interleague play. All of a sudden it's not interesting to watch and AL pitcher face an NL slugger. It happens every night. As you say, there's a whole host of reasons. But this started back when the idea of rating for an 'Event' starting to erode was still sinking in and when MLB & FOX were fairly new to each other. And so I suspect both sides were looking for a twist both to goose ratings and distract from the tie game scenario until someone said; Hey, what if ..." Personally I've always thought the home-field thing was silly although not as criminal as most seem to find it. Probably that's because I never had a problem with the alternating years schedule and because I think that HFA is probably THE most over-rated sports issue of the 21st century. There, I said it.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: MLB had to "make it count" after the Milwaukee fiasco, in part because starting players were begging out early to catch flights to the ESPYs. And because MLB/FOX were worried that ASG ratings weren't the monster they once were. In fact I think this was the bigger reason and that the tie-game kerfuffle just gave them one more reason for the added gimmick.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: My understanding is that MLB can't award WS home field advantage based on head-to-head or best overall record because, for planning purposes, it needs to know which league will have that home field advantage months before the WS. That was always Selig's argument - that they needed to know in advance if they were going to need late October hotel rooms in say Boston/Cleveland on Tuesday-thru-Thursday and in San Fran/St.Louis on the two surrounding weekends, or the other way around. So, yeah, while you wouldn't always know specifically what city until the last minute, they'd be in a state of pre-reserved if/when you did. The NFL and their neutral site doesn't have this problem and hoops/hockey (at least according to Sir Bud of Wisonsonia) aren't nearly as large a traveling circus.

Edgy MD wrote: ... May be the whitest ballpark crowd since integration. Especially so considering that it's at a ballpark smack in the middle of Chicago's south side. Looking at those pics - we were a much skinnier nation back then. Even taking into consideration that those on film are almost entirely in the 18-30 demo, a similar set of shots today would reveal very differently shaped people.

#31 pick Anthony Kay has signed says the Daily Snooze The deadline for this stuff has got to be coming up soon. They've cut the signing period way down in recent years. oe: July 15 is deadline day for 2016 draftees

* AGAINST ALL ODDS: The Mike Piazza Story -- MLBN tonight at 10PM, 60 minutes Obviously intended to stoke interest in advance of his HoF induction later this month * DOC & DARRYL -- ESPN 9PM Thursday, 90 minutes Directed by Judd Apatow as part of the four-letter network's '30 for 30' series (and one of the rare ones NOT about football or basketball), it's apparently a mixture of older footage but centered around a recent interview with the two together. WARNING: The start time is 9:00 but it also follows their insipid 'ESPY Awards' show so if you're planning on recording it tack on some extra time in case the lead-up runs long which it could well do even though it'll be shown on a one-day delay.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Do we know the cat's name yet? Jack, it's right there in her tweet. I was thinking that that picture could be the first in a new thread 'Pussy Watch' where we track each player's favorite cat ... then I thought better of it.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: I'm embarrassed that I've never heard of this Padre pitcher TC just threw in here. And he did a nice job! He one-hit the Mets (over 5 innings) just two months ago -- http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=8732

Centerfield wrote: I don't understand why advocating for a move that would have helped the team win the last two games qualifies as "over-reaction" or "misplaced blame". Well for starters you're so tied up in your declaration of De Aza as the problem and about mgmt compounding that problem by not jumping through hoops to make player movements to make sure he not infect the lineup in either game regardless of whatever downside it might cause now or after the break, that the fact that he turned out to not be the problem (getting on base 4 times in 8 PA - more than any other player on the team) seems to have totally flown over your head.