Frayed Knot

Elster88 wrote: Lefty Specialist wrote: Holy shit, ground rule robbery. One run, maybe two. Fuckin ivy. This is why God doesn't let the Cubs win the World Series. I bet the ivy wasn't there back when they won one. It wasn't. Of course neither was the stadium.

Fuck! That was an easy triple and lots of guys not named Flores would have gotten four bags out of that one.

Oh man, that suxxx. Do you now PH for deG?

deGrom is still a wee bit on the high side with his pitch count (approx 83 thru 5) but he made up much of the deficit from that 1st inning.

I'm groundin' out to end the inning here! [fimg=250]http://03258d8.netsolhost.com/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/midnight-cowboy.jpg[/fimg]

Cubs batters are looking for walks to a surprising degree so far.

PiggiesTomatoes wrote: Another sketchy strike zone. Does the league still use QuesTec to rate these fucks? Not Questec specifically (Questec was a specific brand of equipment which got replaced by something else) but yes.

I thought Cespedes's shot was going to have more legs than Murph's, but no.

You can't stop Daniel Murphy, you can only hope to contain him. But you can't contain him either.

Are Maddon and the Wrigley faithful going to bitch about every strike call that doesn't go their way, or only most of them?

Barry Zito announced yesterday that he is joining his one-time running mate Tim Hudson into retirement (Mark Mulder beat them to it years ago although flirted with a comeback earlier this year). That Zito had pitched in only three games since 2013 (and in very few good ones since about '08) probably made some think that he already had retired, but no. Claims now that he's going to put his energies into music. Also previously announced (although still possible to rescind I guess) are AJ Burnett & Aramis Ramirez - both of whose seasons ended via the WC play-in loss to the Cubs. Those are four very substantial careers that will disappear from the baseball landscape this winter. Zito Hudson Burnett Ramirez

So what's up with this Hendricks guy? (other than him not being a left-handed guitarist from Seattle) - 25 y/o RHP in his 2nd ML season -- 13 starts in 2014 [7-2, 2.46, 7th in ROY] and a full season this year: 8-7 (not many decisions for 32 starts), 3.95, 1 CG, 180 IP - Two lifetime appearances vs the Mets: a win on June 30 of this year: 6 shutout innings on 3 hits, 1 BB. Also won a game last season: 7 IP, 1 R, 3 H - originally an 8th round draft pick by Texas out of Dartmouth. Dealt to Cubs July 31 of 2012 for Ryan Dempster. - 6' 3" / 190 from Mission Viejo, CA (Keith, tell us about his high school) - doesn't walk many (2.2/g) or give up the long ball (< 1.0/g) very often. - Tougher on RHBs but doesn't have extreme splits. ERA rose somewhat in the 2nd half. - Started Game 2 of the series vs StL. Had a 6-1 lead heading into the 5th but, when he served up back to back HRs w/2 outs, Maddon yanked him one out short of qualifying for the 'W'. Cubs won the game, he didn't.

soupcan wrote: When Beltran struck out in 2006 my then 9 year-old ran upstairs to bed crying. So did I, and I was in my mid-40s at the time.

Yeah, who's on the mound makes a whole lot more difference than does where the game is being played. HFA barely exists in baseball (usually around 53-54%)

I just go with Jerry Family. If nothing else it confirms the reputation of Americans as clueless and xenophobic gringos.

Yeah, that was the 'warm' game (76 degrees at first pitch acc to BB-Ref) even though it was a week after the Bobby Jones one-hitter when it was cold as shit (52 claims the same source but you & I were up high for that one and were taking the full brunt of the wind on the backs of our necks the whole time).

Edgy MD wrote: And yet, and yet, now that the Jays have arrived at the brink, they still got less fWAR out of Dickey than the Mets got out of Syndergaard alone. Of course they were hoping to arrive on that brink two years ago on account of the trade. As the article points out, it took a second round of 'Win Now!!!!' trades (for Price & Tulo) to get there although Encaracion and Bautista are still 'just' 32 & 34 and who knows how long past 40 R.A. will still be able to sling knuckleballs. Oddly, the one guy who 'aged out' of their plans in the interim was the 32 y/o Jose Reyes. Buehrle too (36) although he's still on the roster but hasn't been active in the post-season.

TransMonk wrote: Not only ex-Mets, but members of the same 2012 rotation. It's 'Back to the Future'!! And speaking of Dickey, Joel Sherman looks back at the trade which, not quite three years after it happened, is currently playing a big role for two of the remaining four teams. Then, like now, [the Jays] did not want to waste prime years of Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion when both were on team-friendly contracts, and generally believed they had a window with a win-now core. By the time d�Arnaud and Syndergaard would emerge, we would be beyond that window,� Toronto general manager Alex Anthopoulos recalled. �So we had to decide do we trade guys like Bautista and Encarnacion and take a step back with kids or do we try to capitalize in the here and now?� Toronto talked to the Rays about Shields, but felt Tampa Bay was not going to trade him within the division. The Jays only liked one high-end free-agent starter, Anibal Sanchez, but their organizational policy not to go beyond five years with a free agent and Sanchez�s desire to stay in Detroit doomed those chances. Thus, for the Blue Jays, it was Dickey or no one. That was one advantage the Mets had in making this deal.

Some in the Yanx front office used to refer to their penchant for overspending on large contracts with onerous back ends as 'Ma�ana Economics', the idea that, whatever the drawbacks, for now it allows them to stick with their supposed budgets and they'll deal with any fallout from it 'Ma�ana'.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Important News from Canada: * Canadians elect Justin Trudeau new PM, son of longtime PM Pierre Trudeau. Out is alleged tea partier Stephen Harper, while left-most New Democrats also take a beating. What I remember most about the elder Trudeau -- born as Joseph Phillip Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau -- was his 30 years younger wife Margaret. A bit of a flower child, she was just 22 y/o when she married the 52 y/o "swinging bachelor" in 1971 -- Pierre had previously dated Barbra Streisand (like who didn't in those days?) -- three years into his first term as Prime Minister. The marriage produced 3 sons in the first five years but by 1977 they had separated. The marriage was officially over by 1984 but, during the interim, 'Maggie', as she was known in the tabloids, was regularly getting her sometimes scantily clad self photographed while partying at 'Studio 54' with the likes of Mick & Keith and claims in a later book to have had an affair with Ted Kennedy (like who didn't in those days?). Still very much alive at age 67 (Pierre died in 2000 at the age of 80) though out of the public eye most of the time. Justin is the eldest of their three sons (one of whom was killed 15 years ago in a mountain climbing accident). She later had two more children via a second marriage.

Game 4 this afternoon in Canada (where Geddy Lee can often be found situated in a seat behind home plate) will feature two ex-Mets as R. A. Dickey goes up against long, tall Chris Young for KC. Quite a contrast between them and the current NYM rotation as neither guy today is likely to get much above 80 on the radar gun.

Dickey is slated for Game 4 tomorrow (Tuesday) for Toronto. Stroman was tonight and just left in the 7th with a 10-4 lead. Cueto, though he had a good outing last time vs Houston, continued his mostly bad outings since being dealt to KC and got bludgeoned by Blue Jay bats tonight. 10-4 end of 7

d'Kong76 wrote: I had no idea some player's pool got that sweet a gate %. It's merely the formula for determining how large the pool money is for the post-season participants. The more money the games take in the bigger a pile they get to divvy up. Note that the players' portion is determined from the take in the early games in each series rather than the later ones. That's from an old idea to prevent the players from each team getting together and "arranging" for the series to run to the maximum so as to increase their shares. This way a longer series benefits the league and owners but not the players directly.

Yeah, Knight was a full three years older in '86 than Murph is now so they shouldn't be treated as equal situations and the rules governing things are different now as well. On the flip side Ray also wasn't going to be able to command a multi-year contract they way Muffy will. I think most if not all of us would keep Murph on a one or two year deal. Knight was offered a one year deal but insisted on two (although he's since denied that) which is what caused his exit. And although it became popular to point to his absence as a reason for never repeating I never bought it, especially as how Knight went on to have two very mediocre seasons for some very bad teams and then was out of the game. As far as Murph goes -- keeping in mind that this is from someone who's been predicting -- not hoping for, but predicting -- his departure from Queens for about two years now, I'd be quite surprised to see him back. There'll be some push back on this especially given how this October has gone so far but, like Cespedes's August, the front office can't use the very short term on which to base decisions about the long term. Kind of funny though how the QO seems like a right move now when I know it was being dismissed out of hand both in many places as well as this forum.

dgwphotography wrote: Actually, Cohen was on Joe and Evan. The clip is on this page from last Wednesday: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/audio/joe-benigno-and-evan-roberts/ Not that I disagree with Cohen's overall assessment on the (well known) drawbacks of Murphy or the prospects of signing him, but I was surprised by his use of the term "net negative" to describe him. He was much more negative to Murph than I expected or even thought warranted.