Frayed Knot

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Fick yeah. Washington is done. Shit, you'd have to think they are mentally even if not yet mathematically.

Thank you Matt Williams !!!! I thought it was a shitty idea to begin with, but then to keep it on at 2-1 and 3-1 ... just wow!

Sac bunting w/Rendon?!?! -- Wow!

Too many two-strike hits allowed in this series.

And the O's just nipped the Yanx 2-1 so lots of things are looking up right about now.

Clipart gets the bottom of the order Familia, presumably, will face the big boys.

Lawdy lawdy lawdy Miss Clawdy

Would be real nice to win this against Papeldung - who ya gotta assume the Nats are prepared to use for two innings.

'nother nice job by Reed - Yunel Escobar's 900th seeing-eye single of the season notwithstanding. 3-4-5-6 including 2 LHBs and he deals two Ks & 2 grounders

Nats currently warming up their third lefty of the inning - and he's probably coming in if Storen can't get d'Arnaud.

Oh my my, oh hell yes Duda gotta drive in that Cespedes

"Come in" she said "I'll give ya, Shelter from the storm".

Fman99 wrote: CESPEDES! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?! This had been his first shitty game maybe since he got here ... and now it's not.

And this just got interesting in a hurry (well, not in a hurry as this half-inning has taken about a half-hour - but yaknowwhatImean)

Ashie62 wrote: Mets might be better without Harvey for awhile. Harv has not not looked well of late. Yeah, that 0.33 ERA in August and the .160 BA-against was enough to make me want to put him on the shelf.

Lefty Specialist wrote: RealityChuck wrote: I figured this would happen. Cespedis loses nothing by waiving the clause. And gains another potential suitor for a bidding war. No down side for Cespedes. That's what I'm thinking too as I doubt the Mets had to 'pay' much if anything at all to get him to give it up. And remember that the original purpose to this is the thing that several of the older Asian & Cuban pros have had inserted into their first ML deals, the ability to declare themselves as FAs prior to the six year wait that younger players have to go through. This clause was just a sort of round-about way of getting there, it forces his original team (not knowing he'd be on his fourth club before ever reaching that point) to either cough up a huge deal or essentially cede the right to sign him at all.

He and Keith were buds from their StL days. Should be a good story or two from him on the topic.

I object to Granderson leadoff, as I have all year. Leadoff home runs feel like they're wasting guys on base. Tejada, the prime candidate to leadoff given high OBP low SLG, isn't playing, but Murphy and Wright both are, right now, candidates. I realize it's nit-picking and a marginal run-scoring adjustment isn't really a big deal to the Mets offense right now, but hey, I'd rather nit-pick lineups than murky quotes about what doctors have said about ligaments. Yes, the not-everyday-ness of Tejada helps to keep him out of leadoff consideration as I think that's the one spot that Terry -- and pretty much every manager -- would like to keep consistent. Also I suspect his OBP wouldn't be as high as it is if he were moved from the lower spots in the lineup (fewer IWs and pitch-arounds) and stats do bear that out even if in limited samples and questionable correlation [.395 batting 7th, vs .330 or less everywhere else]. Meanwhile, Murphy is never going to be a great OBP guy (36 points behind Granderson now and even more since CF shamed Grandy into not sucking). And while Grandy may have more power than a healthy Wright in stadiums not named YSIII, given the choice I'd opt for the more walks up top with the more hits guy trying to drive him in rather than the other way around. Bottom line: ideally Grandy probably should bat somewhere else. Except that we don't have a real leadoff guy; he's OPB-ing nearly .390 since the ASB; you only lead off once per game anyway; and on Terry's pitcher hitting 8th days he often winds up batting after Tejada anyway once past the 1st inning.

I think so, yes. But of course if they're even considering a long term deal then there's essentially no risk to doing so. They'd take Cespedes on a one-year deal at maybe the QO x 1.5

IIRC the new rules dictate that you can't make a QO and receive future draft picks for players picked up in mid-season - so this was never a case with Cespedes with or without his now defunct 5-day clause.

We can mock Terry for over-doing the righty/lefty thing (and for the record I agree that he does overdo it at times) but this sort of alternating lineup forced Matt Williams into a bunch of moves on Monday which, even if they had worked, would have left him with a short pen in a tie game. And with statistical analysis arguing against the notion that there's some sort of synergistic alchemy to any specific lineup or that the notion of direct "protection" is likely a lark, the marching army set-up [Left - Right - Left - Right ...] is as good an idea to hang your hat on as any.

Jose Fernandez expected to return to the Marlins rotation on Saturday, which means: A) the Nats get him as they'll be in Miami for the weekend we won't as our series with them follows right after C) they might get him AGAIN in his very next start (Sept 17) I think we've missed him every time this year (hell, he's only made 7 starts). In fact we've gotten lucky on a bunch of occasions this season in missing aces.

Damn, I was so focused on this series I forgot about the last one with the Nats. I mean I knew that we HAD one more series with them, I had just somehow forgotten that it was the final three days. That it is the final weekend makes things both better and worse. Better in that it's easier to put the title out of reach before ever reaching that point, if for no other reason than they can't have a say in it beyond tomorrow. But if the race is within three games then it's essentially like having three extra post-season games tacked on.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: With today's update from Baseball Prospectus, the Mets odds for the NL East are now at 90.3%, and 0.1% for the wild card. They're at 9.4% to win the World Series. I saw something from ESPN that had the NL East at more like 85%/15% ... but various mileage may vary in its variations.

CTorres - 0.5 Alvarez - 0.3 Goeddel - 0.5 Robels - 1.0 Familia - 0.5 Johnson - 1.0 Conforto - 1.0 Cespedes - 1.8 Wright - 0.6 Granderson - 1.3 Tejada - 0.5 Flores - 1.0