Edgy MD

And I wasn't able to fix the oven door today. I think I'm going to start a GoFundMe campaign to get a Whirlpool repairman in here.

I think the numbers at the top of the stadium should be the answer. Obviously, there is disagreement on the worthiness of some of the numbers, but I think retiring the number is literally the establishment of the iconography of the team. The most literal definition of icon isn't the person with the status, but the visual representation of the person, symbolically or representationally, with the status bestowed upon them.

Tommy Tanous, scouting executive who has been with the team since the 2010-2011 offseason, has joined the Colorado Rockies. Tommy's most recent title — "Vice President & Special Advisor to the President of Baseball Operations, Player Evaluation" — was long enough to take up two calling cards. He was scouting director from 2011 to 2016, and I think had oversight over his two successors in that role — Marc Traumauta (2017–2022) and Drew Toussaint (2023–current). His fingerprints are all over this team. He wasn't necessarily David Stearns' number two, but he was certainly at the round table of four or so guys in the primary braintrust, and certainly had more institutional equity than any of those others. With the Roxx, he will have the similar title of assistant general manager of scouting and player development. [FIMG=550]https://metsmerizedonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/tommy-tanous-2013.jpg[/FIMG] Guys move on, of course, but the timing is less than ideal.

Defensive versatility often is a way of preparing for the ambiguity of what will follow.

I am cool with finishing third on every free agent. I am not cool with finishing third on every Mets free agent, while successfully landing free agents from other teams. That is suspending rationality in an alternating pattern that resembles self-loathing. Beyond both rationality and irrationality is superrationality. I prefer that be the guide.

I think the important thing is that the hinge arrives for my oven door. I think once I get that fixed, everything will start to become clearer.

I do not conclude that two non-moves (the trade too) in the past few days are the sum total of how they are acting, have acted, or will act. I do not know if they will succeed or it will blow up, but no, I do not think their ambitions are 85 to 88 wins. I do not support these decisions, but I am sure they are part of a larger strategy I can try to glean, but I am certainly not privy to. Beyond that, I do not know who you are quoting. Or characterizing. But obviously the story goes on, and there are plenty of chapters that have not been written.

I too, feel pretty strongly that the team's goal is not to win 85-88 games. I may well disagree with almost everything about their approach, but I am most certain that their goals are more ambitious. I am not angry. I am disappointed, but I tend to expect this sort of garbage, and I think it is simply part of a broken, broken system of arcane rules created to paste over a woefully unjust baseball economy, and an organization willing to go along to get along in that world. I do not have kids, and I imagine I might feel very different if I watched my kids (indeed, encouraged my kids) to grow up rooting for these players. It stinks to high Heaven.

I think the boring and/or ever-evolving team I see the Mets being transformed into is The Yankees.

I would not only make that deal 100 times out of 100, but I would cherish the years at the back end, as the player perhaps finished his career as a bench player. But the system is wrongly built to penalize such contracts several times over.

Yeah, representing Mister on a whiskey bender is foul play.

It was some sort of thought expressed in gothic Roman numerals or the like, but on TV, as he pitched, he seemed to have a necklace of nails tattooed around his neck. [FIMG=650]https://staticg.sportskeeda.com/editor/2025/12/008df-17653453691997-1920.jpg[/FIMG] Even though it was ink, and not actual hardware, I had an anxiety that one of those nails would get twisted around and puncture his throat.

That's great. All of it. That's the way it's supposed to be.

This space reserved for memories that may occur later.

There was always a stress between him being a one-dimensional thumper and a well-rounded transformational figure. Guys in the booth would describe him as a "future captain" (Gary) and "not a good power hitter, but a good hitter" (Keith), and it wasn't that they were wrong, but you sort of had to squint to see it. Obviously, the 2024 homer in Milwaukee — that redeemed a meh season, turned around the series the Mets were about to be eliminated in, and broke poor Bob Uecker's heart — stands out as an individual memory, but more generally what I recall was the way he kind of arrogantly but kind of goofily pushed his way into Mets culture and asserted himself in ways he wasn't supposed to, like a teenager in a comic book or stupid movie having the high school administration wrapped around his finger. He was the one who somehow successfully lobbied to bring back black uniforms. He was the one who turned walkoff wins into strip shows. He was the one who invented a fake coach. He was the one who dangerously insinuated an F into LGM. He was the who (seemingly) first embraced Jose Iglesias' silly record to help make it transcendent. (He was probably more accurately the first English-first guy to embrace it and therefore helped it cross over.) The ironically amazing part of taking that role is that the fictional teenager who pulls that off (think Archie Andrews or Zach Morris or Ferris Bueller) always has a charisma completely embodied by a confident fashion sense and a great haircut, and Alonso (far more Moose than Archie) could never figure out anything to do with his hair that wasn't a complete (or near complete) disaster. I feel you, Pete. [fimg=625]https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/BASEBALL-MLB-MIA-NYM_-3.jpg?w=1024[/fimg]

The stunning 2024 meltdown comes first, when Diaz utterly blew up against the Diamondbacks. Diaz was http://brought in a four-out save and was magnificently ineffective in a performance that ended with a grand slam, leaving the Mets deep in the hole in a crowded playoff race, with a lot of playoff rivals coming up in their schedule and closer lost in a fog. He was brought back the next day, threw nothing but fastballs, and was untouchable, and the team was off to the post-season. I didn't know if he was the genius or Jeremy Hefner was. But they are both gone now, along with Pete Alonso and Jose Iglesias and other heroes of that day. Looked terrific in the road greys. [FIMG=625]https://image-cdn.essentiallysports.com/wp-content/uploads/edwin-diaz-fi.jpg?width=900[/FIMG]

I am not sure what qualifies as a "thing," but Brandon Nimmo was offloaded before either of them got signed.

I don't think Dave Parker ever forgave Stearns.

I heard TJ was very unsettled by his being taken by the Rockies[MetsOrange].[/MetsOrange] A TJ, a Dylan, and a Trey are very much a solid cross-sample of boys' names from their generation. They just need a Bryce and they will be a complete set. More seriously, TJ is coming off a real solid season at the highest levels. Tebrake has been hurt most of the last two seasons.

Seaver. Strawberry. deGrom. Wheeler. Reyes. Diaz. Alonso. Stearns and Cohen have badly underestimated what losing a franchise icon means. I will never forgive David Stearns. I'm not sure that Wheeler was a franchise icon, but yeah, I get the larger point. You'd think having two longtime Mets fans running the team that they'd be more conscious of this. They say they are, but recent evidence suggests otherwise. Plenty of longtime Mets fans would (and regularly and loudly announce as such) that they would dump most of those guys and more, certain that they are that they could intelligently move forward otherwise. I am not such a fan, but I encounter them oft enough. Me — I'm still fighting a lost fight for Jose Iglesias in 2024 while they are throwing Nimmo over in 2025.

I encourage you to save your passwords by clicking that "Remember Me" toggle, so it is a single click or two to log in. I will, in the meantime, tweak the back end to see what adjustments I can make. Fifty percent chance that I break more than I fix, but what are you gonna do?

Damn, that's some frigid ****.

Rookie move.

Be honest, though. Trading Alonso to get Lunchbucket back is a pretty sweet deal.

I think, to the likes of David Stearns, they are all rebuild years.