Frayed Knot

dinosaur jesus wrote: I believe that's Hughie Jennings at 1:00, coaching third for the Tigers and enjoying the hell out of it. That was my first guess too. The recent Cobb book, which was part of a discussion here in a couple of threads recently, talks about manager Jennings (mgrs often coached 3rd in those days) and his penchant for odd dance moves and various vocal calls while out there designed to either fire up his team or unnerve the other side. Or maybe it was just in response to the voices in his head, the jury seemed to be still out on that one.

Don't be confused by the sight of Cubs in World Series video, this is not fiction. [youtube:tmx76hdm]fZord0btVkc[/youtube:tmx76hdm]

Or at least the ones in categories anyone cares about ... BEST PICTURE The Big Short Bridge of Spies Brooklyn Mad Max: Fury Road The Martian The Revanant Room Spotlight BEST ACTOR Bryan Cranston, Trumbo Matt Damon, The Martian Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl BEST ACTRESS Cate Blanchett, Carol Brie Larson, Room Jennifer Lawrence, Joy Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Christian Bale, The Big Short Tom Hardy, The Revenant Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies Sylvester Stallone, Creed BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight Rooney Mara, Carol Rachel McAdams, Spotlight Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs DIRECTING The Big Short Mad Max: Fury Road The Revenant Room Spotlight ADAPTED SCREENPLAY The Big Short Brooklyn Carol The Martian Room ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Bridge of Spies Ex Machina Inside Out Spotlight Straight Outta Compton

[fimg=550:2whvev10]https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/powell2.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&w=664&h=441&crop=1[/fimg:2whvev10]

Centerfield wrote: I wonder if the raves that Dominic Smith is getting are cooling the Mets drive to ink Duda long term. Doubt it. Smith is still at least two years away and far from a sure thing. The main issues are that Lucas turns 30 in a few weeks so is already under team control without a long-term deal until birthday #32 and that he plays the position where a replacement bat is most easily findable. That was the mistake the Phillies made with Ryan Howard, extending him when they didn't have to to their eventual regret. Actually, Philly's problem wasn't giving him his first L-T deal -- a 3 year deal when he was about a year younger and with one year less service time compared to Duda right now -- especially seeing as how Howard already had a RoY, and MVP, and two other Top-5 MVPs at that point; their problem was handing him an extension on top of that extension the very next year which they'll still be paying off through the end of this season plus $10 mil more to buy them out of 2017. If they do cut a deal with Lucas I suspect it'll be a short one, like say for 2 years and more to lock in cost certainty than it would be to make a long-lasting marriage, but I think that would be the case with or without Smith.

Centerfield wrote: Do cricket skills translate to baseball that easily? I don't know much about cricket, but it didn't seem all that similar to me. In the article it mentions the need for him to adjust his current swing in order to keep the bat in the hitting zone longer which is apparently less critical in cricket than it would be in baseball. But I think the idea is that he already has the hand-eye coordination, general swing mechanics, and all-around athleticism (they mentioned CF-like skills*) to make the move at least plausible. * meaning that he has skills to play centerfield, not that he'd stumble around out there like you would if given the chance

Lucas Duda - FA in 2018 (after '17 season) Josh Edgin - 2019 Jeurys Familia - 2019 Matt Harvey - 2019 Jenrry Mejia - 2019 Addison Reed - 2018 Ruben Tejada - 2018 Carlos Torres - 2019 Neil Walker - 2017 Not that there's a lot of drama in this process -- it's merely a question of what each gets paid, not if -- unless it's a situation where the team is tempted to talk long-term deals with any of them in order to avoid a year (or two or three) of arb. Supposedly there were talks about doing this with Duda last year but that died out rather quickly and his age and position doesn't set him up as the most likely target. The most obviously candidates from a team standpoint seem to be Harvey & Familia. But Harvey (and agent) aren't likely to concur which leaves the closer as the one to watch here.

OK, I confess that I have no idea what 'Overs' are, but I know it's a cricket term of some sort (did anyone around here ever take 'Second Spitter's' class?) and so it was the only phrase I could think of to work into a bad pun. Cricket star Powell works out for Mets -- Top player showcasing skills in hopes of transitioning to baseball Apparently this 25 y/o "West Indian" player (the article doesn't say from where specifically) recently "shocked the cricket world" by leaving the sport over contractual reasons and wants to give baseball a try. He worked out for the Mets and even got to meet Sugarpants. Will work out for other teams as well. He was "The world's 76th-ranked batsman according to the International Cricket Council's website". No, really, someone actually wrote that sentence.

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Was the oldest living Negro League Player, not sure who that passes on to now. Pretty soon the answer to that question is going to be 'No one' The Negro National League last played in 1948 with a total of just six teams. Even a 22 y/o who played in that final season would be turning 90 this year.

LHP Wei-Yin Chen inks a five year deal with the Marlins - although the deal contains an opt-out after season two and then an option for a sixth season if he's still around at that point. The 30 y/o native of Taiwan went 46-32, 3.72 ERA, 1.25 WHiP over four seasons with Baltimore.

THE CARDINALS WAY: How One Team Embraced Tradition and Moneyball (and the illegal hacking of opponents' proprietary information) at the Same time

My original guess was 6,480 but then for some reason talked myself down from that. I started by figuring that 200/year for a team was a 'good' year so I estimated 60% of that: 200 x 54 seasons = 10,800 x .6 = 6,480

5,555

My strategy -- which I pondered on for a lengthy amount of time (like maybe 30 seconds) -- was to figure that: -- 60% of the 1,000 career Mets are/were position players = 600 -- 1/4 of those were call-ups, short-timers, or otherwise shitty hitters who never HR'd = 450 -- and then threw in 20 for the estimated number of hurlers who managed to hurl one or more over the fence at some point = 470 Upon further review (like 60 seconds later) I realized that the 60% guesstimate was likely too high - although I probably still wouldn't have shaved it as low as 401

NEKKID MODEL WIFE MAY OR MAY NOT BE A "BEARD"

470

In an effort to replace Denard Span, the Nats deal off reliever Drew Storen for the closest thing they could find to Denard Span: Ben Revere Indeed I often conflated Revere and Span as both are low-power/good-speed, LH-hitting CFs who were former 1st round picks of the Twins Revere, who was dealt away to Toronto during the Philly phire sale last summer, gives away about 80 points of career OPS to Span although is also 4 years younger, a bit of a better base-stealer, and presumably healthier. He'll be under team control for the 2016 & '17 seasons. Storen, himself #10 overall draft pick, had a good nearly six year run with the Natinals but had a few too many high-profile meltdowns over the past couple of seasons which constantly left him stuck between eh closer's role and that of set-up man. You wonder if this means that Washington will hang onto nominal closer Jonathan Papelbon, who had several of his own "choking" moments (both literally & figuratively) late last season, or if they'll clean house entirely regarding their bullpen.

Playing the waiting game with the bullpen ... the Mets are reluctant to go beyond one season for [bastardo], according to an industry source. [Tyler] Clippard, who came to the Mets at last year’s trade deadline, still could be an option if he’s willing to accept a one-year contract. As it stands, the Mets have no real top target ... History suggests Alderson could wait until spring training begins before adding another reliever or could decide to gamble on his current crop.

Mariners announced that they will retire Griffey's #24 after it was announced that Seattle was to be his HoF plaque insignia. His will be the first Mariner cap in the HoF as Randy Johnson's bears that of the D'Backs. This seems like an easy call as they were his draft team, he had his best years in Seattle, and he easily logged the most time there (almost 2x as much time as Cin & CHW combined) which makes him more a Mariner than Piazza is a Met. The only drawback is that he kind of whined his way out of town when forcing the trade that took him to the Reds, but I guess enough time has passed and any bad feelings are in the past. Looks like the team kept that number in mothballs since the time of his departure, breaking it out only for him again during his late career return so it's been 'unsullied' all the time during the interim.

What I remember about that act was that it came not just during a rain delay (obviously) but one against the Yanx. And that while some of the Yanx later admitted to seeing & enjoying Robin's act, they did so only quietly and reluctantly for fear of being seen as frivolous from above and quite emphatically added that there was no way any of them would be allowed to pull off anything like that given the atmosphere of their team.

Worth noting that it's Ricco with the title of Assistant General Manager and it's him, rather than DePodesta or Ricciardi, who's been put in charge during Sandy's absences. All of which makes one assume that if there's a plan to promote from within that he'd be the anointed one and not either of the two with prior GM-ing experience.

Sandy -- “[DePodesta] was instrumental in what we’ve been able to do here over the last five years, some more public than others,” but at the same time we have a pretty strong organization, and I think we’ll be able to pick up the slack and Paul did a lot of different things, so [u:a3lg8s34]I don’t expect one person to take up the void[/u:a3lg8s34] that he creates. We will allocate his responsibilities in ways that in two people who are strong in various aspects. I am comfortable with where we are.”

I look at it this way: - If the theoretical big FA upgrade was either Upton or Cespedes then one of Conforto or Granderson has to go. Upton never was a CF and it's apparent that neither NYM mgmt (nor many of the fans for that matter) sees Cespedes as anything other than a short-term solution there and, as a FA, you don't have the short-term option that they had with the deadline trade. - if it was Heyward then Lagares has to go. Juan's value is as a CF and you don't bring in the most expensive position FA of the year to platoon. I could make an argument that the ideal move would have been Heyward to RF where his glove, range and arm would be an upgrade over Granderson even though the offense would be more or less a wash (46 HRs over the last two season drops to 24). But even that means you need to deal Grandy (tough to do particularly since it would be known that he's excess weight once Heyward is on board) or move him to CF where you give back a lot of defense you just gained and then either admit that you're giving up on a 26 y/o gold glove CF you believed in enough a year ago to sign through his arbitration years (and try to sell him low) or reduce him to a PH/defensive replacement with no hope of winning a full, or really even a partial, role for at least the next two seasons. Would they have pursued Heyward if Granderson's deal were up this winter? The answer to that, I suppose, depends on the actual budget constraints at which point we're back to guessing again. Ideally Cespedes could play RF too but when traded to Boston he balked at even the thought of it. Which then leaves him only LF and then wither Conforto? The other option, and obviously the one they chose, is to get Juan a LH caddy in the hope that plus better health means that his 2016 season is more '14 than '15, figure that your offensive OF upgrade comes both via that and in the form of Conforto over Cuddyer, and instead spend your money on infield upgrades.

Next year's first-timers: - Manny Ramirez: a HoF career by the numbers but not only is linked to PEDs but is proven to have used them several times after the implementation of testing when, theoretically at least, not 'everyone was doing them' - Ivan Rodriguez: only link to PEDs (as far as I remember) is via Canseco's book (which may or may not be accurate) although that's a helluva lot more than what kept Piazza and Bagwell out for years. - Vlad Guerrero - Magglio Ordonez - Jorge Posada - Edgar Renteria btw, can you tell that the 'Latinization' of MLB is in full swing here? The top six new candidates are from Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, DR, Venezuela, PR, and Columbia also Derrick Lee, Jason Varitek, Orlando Cabrera, Freddy Sanchez, Tim Wakefield, Carlos Guillen, Arthur Rhodes, Javier Vazquez, Aaron Rowand, J.D. Drew, Pat Burrell, Melvin Mora, Danys Baez, Mike Cameron, Julio Lugo

Centerfield wrote: FK called this way back. I didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to believe that a big market team is handcuffed by a $24 million contract spread out over 5 years. But I guess it is what it is. Well it wasn't just the Lagares contract I was talking about. My point was that we ended the season with 3 OFs under contract for 2016 (4 prior to Cuddyer's retirement) whom they intend to play full-time (Granderson), mostly full-time (Conforto), and at least half-time (Lagares). So when the early off-season lists to the great baseball Santa were asking for top-shelf OFs (Hayward, Upton, Cespedes) I was merely shooting down the idea that any of those guys were going to come here as platoon players whether it was as a L/R platoon or as a positional platoon (this spot one day, that spot the other). I said that importing someone like that would need to be instead of one of the incumbents rather than in addition to. I was fine if someone wanted to work out a FA import in conjunction with a trade but those if/then deals get more complicated and less likely, particularly since you'd be importing someone but losing your best 2015 offensive player in Grandy (which would negate much of the benefit); or trading Conforto (not happening); or selling low on Lagares which would, yes, bring his contract into the equation, but then also make the import have to be a CF, something that would eliminate Upton and, from what we heard, also Cespedes. And, yes, all this assumes that such moves were even monetarily possible in the first place.