Edgy MD

Niekro was indeed a funny guy in a subtle way, and a deserved legend. I remember him not only screwing Mets players into the ground (25–14, 3.02, lifetime), but left their batters all screwed up for two or three days after that. A heck of a competitor that was still well liked. Almost brought back women's baseball, too. [FIMG=700]https://www.coloradosilverbullets.org/images/96Roster.gif[/FIMG]

Yeah, he plays third, including 55 games there in 2020.

Kim supposedly has "at least six" teams sniffing, according to Bai Ji Haeon of Navar News. One of those teams supposedly is the Mets. Man, signing this guy would really put the merry-go-round in motion as to what positions the players should consider themselves assigned to.

Hard to be worse. Also hard to make a case that they're equal quantities, however. A Boy Name Sugano is also a year and a half older and has thrown a lot of innings for an NPB pitcher. And yeah, this slider looks sweet, but it also looks like it would be somewhere between the third and fifth best slider on the Mets, depending in part on whether you count Syndergaard. https://twitter.com/tom_mussa/status/1330080258532519936https://twitter.com/tom_mussa/status/1330080258532519936 Lot of busy-ness in those mechanics, too.

He sure looks like he's been drinking from the same stream as his step-brother. [fimg=440]https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4AU3CvMfeqCuFFT4cVu91of0TDY=/1400x1400/filters:format(jpeg)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22190953/38382.jpg[/fimg] The follow-through looks familiar, too. And frankly, so do the glutes. [FIMG=440]https://metsmerizedonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/yoelkis-cespedes-granma-sub23-e1486042882495.jpg[/FIMG]

=G-Fafif post_id=52696 time=1608746118 user_id=55] New York belonged to Donnie Baseball. Pos, who grew up in an American League town in the Midwest, stumbled here. Otherwise his advocacy is appreciated.

Jerry Koosman and Willie Randolph strike me as two guys who should be in the Hot 100 but don't belong in any Top 20. Rusty Staub, too, and maybe Tug McGraw.

The law of consonant conservation suggests it would be hard to retain them both simultaneously.

The Chicago White Sox look like they are going to bring in the first big member of the also-big 2021 international free agent class, signing young Cuban emigree and Hermano de la Poténcia Yoelqui Céspedes.

No, No, Nannette was adapted from an earlier, non-musical, Frazee production, My Lady Friends which opened in December 1919. That one likely did have Ruth $$ in it, though the trade didn't become finalized until January 5, 2020. So the tale is likely not true, but not entirely untrue, but somewhat distorted.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: It's cheater-vs-cheater! It's also two HoF candidacies taking deadly blows.

Raise your hand if you saw Chris Flexen coming back from Korea and finding a multi-year big-league contract waiting for him.

Transactions, 12/21/2020 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]COMING[/td90][td90]COMING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90][PTEXT=7]Signed Away From BOS To Minor League Contract And Invited To Camp, Projected for Syracuse[/PTEXT][/td90][td90][PTEXT=7]Signed Away From MIN To Minor League Contract And Invited To Camp, Projected for Syracuse[/PTEXT][/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#FF4A00]Relief Pitcher[/th][th]=#BF80FF] Infielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]http://www.milb.com/images/592874/generic/180x270/592874.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90][fimg=90]https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-photos/image/upload/w_213,q_100/v1/people/541600/headshot/67/current[/fimg][/td90][td90]Name[/td90][td90]Tom Windle http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/US-flag.png>[/td90][td90]Wilfredo Tovar http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/venezuelan-flag-small.jpg>[/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]3/10/92[/td90][td90]8/11/91[/td90][td90]B/T[/td90][td90]L/L[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]High Level[/td90][td90][PTEXT=8]AAA (2019)[/PTEXT][/td90][td90][PTEXT=8]MLB (2019)[/PTEXT][/td90] Windle, despite his lack of any MLB experience slots right in behind Jerry Blevins (himself a non-roster player) in the team's lefty reliever depth chart. I'd like to write that this is a tribute to his impressive minor league record, it speaks more of the team's portside thin-ness in the pen. Feel free to call him Turk. Tovar, too, has a really remarkable amount of mileage for a player who is still under 30 (though he looked 40 when he was 24). He has now played nine consecutive winters (and counting) in the Venezuelan Winter League, which probably isn't a record but it sure feels like it should be. It might have been 10 years but he went to the Arizona Fall League instead back in 2011.

I tend to think of Tovar as a mystery member or the Alou-Rojas family. [FIMG=178]https://www.milb.com/images/541600/t505/180x270/541600.jpg[/FIMG] [FIMG=400]https://img.bleacherreport.net/img/images/photos/003/848/657/hi-res-c32887f135b06f57c7f24193efd258bc_crop_north.jpg?1579715847&w=3072&h=2048[/FIMG]

The indirect-but-interesting way the Mets and the Yankees are competing there is that the Blue Jays are reported to be the Mets' main competition for Springboard and the Yankees' main competition for D.J. If one New York is able to land their player first, the Blue Jays will be motivated to redouble their pursuit of the other.

It strikes me that the Mets are the only team that plays their home games on an island with their back to the sea. Militarily, this would place them at an offensive disadvantage, and if you think about fan affiliation as something that spreads virally (which is and isn't true), it's a marketing disadvantage also. The closest analogy I can think of is the Padres, who have their base contained by the Dodgers and Angels to the north, the ocean to the west, the Mexican border to the south, and the desert to the east. Of course, that disadvantage is certainly offset from their position in the nation's densest city, but it still is notable to me that the Yankees' position in the Bronx, looked at from the perspective of land warfare, allows them a chokepoint from which to defend against Mets intrusions. Now, marketing ain't warfare so the analogy has some limits, but COVID permitting, it seems that this can be a really key moment in Mets history. 1) The Mets have a wealthy new owner, and even if he isn't a profligately going to sink his equity into payroll every year, he sure seems to be interested in making an initial splash. 2) Bad money is coming off the Mets' payroll. 3) Core talent under contract is looking strong for the Mets at the moment. 4) Here we return to the land warfare metaphor. The Mets have elevated their Brooklyn franchise to High-A, while the Yankees have abandoned their Staten Island franchise. This is nothing less than the Mets, as Washington, reversing the fortunes of the Battle of New York. They have held Brooklyn and kept the Redcoats from setting up an outpost in lower New York. Placing their new high A franchise in The Hudson Valley is analagous to a fallback and retrenching at their northern choke point. This leaves lower Manhattan and Staten Island unprotected and New Jersey available as an escape point off of the island and into the mainland United States. I don't know what the actual numbers are, but my sense of New Jersey baseball fanciers is that they've traditionally been about 40% Yankee aficionados, 30% pro-Phillies, 20% pro-Mets, and 10% Orioles/other. The Mets have a wide-open field there now and can turn that paradigm around. 5) Having two-high level minor league teams placed in upstate New York, the Mets can keep the Yankees busy with rear guard actions, making incursions on territories long restricted to Red Sox and Yankee hegemony, forcing the Yankees to play defense from central New York to the capital region, drawing weekending New Yorkers upstate to join with a base of newly fanaticized young Mets fans from across sourthern New York and upper New Jersey colleging in upstate New York and expressing their fandom in Syracuse, Binghamton, across the Finger Lakes and straight on into Cooperstown. None of that will come easy, but forcing the Yankees to deploy resources there, again, leaves lower Manhattan and New Jersey open for invasion. 6) The Yankees seem to be having an identity crisis. Seeing them dickering over D.J. LeMaihieu is stunning. What happened to the Yankees and their if-we-wanted-him-he'd-be-ours sexy-lady attitude? He was your offensive leader in 2020. What's the problem? Is the Judge/Stanton/Volt wall of DH's going to come crumbling down? Is the president of the Marlins still their most marketable player? The Mets have a lot to accomplish and many questions to answer. Plus COVID. But there is an opportunity here for an orange wave. [fimg=500]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/NY-NJ-retreat-1776.svg/1200px-NY-NJ-retreat-1776.svg.png[/fimg]

It seems Alvarez' season down unda is also ending before it begins. Having been unable to get home to Venezuela in 2020 due to COVID restrictions, the Mets were able to get him a visa to see his family for the holidays. Whatever wisdom such a move does or doesn't have, that keeps him ineligible to visit Australia for a long enough duration that the Blue Sox have announced he wont be playing for them after all. Still want to follow some Met prospect action in the Southern Hemisphere? You can still follow the Blue Sox who are deploying Carlos Cortes, a secondbaseman who is about the 15th-ranked prospect; and Manny Rodriguez, a shortstop most recently in St. Loo, among others.

I'm not Christian and don't know the 'new testament' from a hole in the wall so maybe i'm missing something - is there something particularly offensive about that quote? like is that one of the ones used to justify hating gay people? if not, wtf is your issue? Incredible. See if you can guess which is which. (Nobody help him.) [FIMG=300]https://www.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/styles/content-885x432/public/news/news/codexz.jpg?itok=VVF-iB5q[/FIMG] [fimg=195]https://www.do-it-yourself-help.com/images/small-wall-hole.jpg[/fimg]

Edgy MD wrote: Deeply mixed feelings as I read that my alma mater has landed top-flight lacrosse recruit Jaziel Rivera, and then realize that he's the son of Mariano Rivera. My lacrosse engagement is such that I think I can maintain my equilibrium. I couldnt name one person to have played for my alma mater's lacrosse team, ever. or the soccer, softball, volleyball, swimming or anything else that isn't Football, Baseball, or Men's Basketball. Do you actually follow these things or was this solely in some news somewhere specifically because he is Rivera's kid? I may be most shocked to learn that they play lacrosse in Panama or anywhere else really. I follow my alma mater online, and while they might not announce every lacrosse recruit, apparently this one counted. Our campus had a modest urban footprint, with indoor track our most successful sport. They didn't even have lacrosse when I was there, or anything remotely resembling the facilities for it. But we were only about 20 minutes from Yankee Stadium II.

Jessica Cox McCann joins husband James along with twin terrors Christian and Kane. [fimg=400]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKf9nTvU0AAzrEZ?format=jpg&name=large[/fimg]

Alvarez has not appeared in the first two games between Sydney and Melbourne, and it looks like the third game (and more?) are going to be scrapped due to COVID-19 concerns. Additionally, the Blue Sox have announced that Manny Ramirez will not be appearing for the team after all, due to un-named medical concerns, which are not deemed to be life-threatening and are not COVID-related.

Transactions, 12/18/2020 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]GOING[/td90][td90]=#008410]COMING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90][PTEXT=7] Sent To TEX As PTBNL In Todd Frazier Trade[/PTEXT][/td90][td90][PTEXT=7]Signed Away From Evansville (Frontier League), Projected For St. Lucie[/PTEXT][/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#FF4A00]Relief Pitcher[/th][th]=#FF4A00]Relief Pitcher[/th][td90][/td90][td90][fimg=90]http://www.milb.com/images/656924/generic/180x270/656924.jpg[/fimg][/td90][td90][fimg=90]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/opp-cam-2021.png[/fimg][/td90][td90]Name[/td90][td90]Ryder Ryan http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/US-flag.png>[/td90][td90]Cam Opp http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/US-flag.png>[/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]5/11/95[/td90][td90]11/4/95[/td90][td90]B/T[/td90][td90]R/R[/td90][td90]L/L[/td90][td90]High Level[/td90][td90][PTEXT=8]AA (2019)[/PTEXT][/td90][td90][PTEXT=7]Frontier (2019)[/PTEXT][/td90] Cam Opp (full name: Camera Opportunity) hopes to become only the third major leaguer to come out of West Point. His most recent experience was in the Frontier League with Evansville, who play at 23 Mattingly Way. Literally dozens of fans are sorry to see Ryder Ryan go, if only because he had the porniest name in the Mets' system. He had come into the fold from Cleveland back in 2017 when the Mets landed him for Jay Bruce.

Deeply mixed feelings as I read that my alma mater has landed top-flight lacrosse recruit Jaziel Rivera, and then realize that he's the son of Mariano Rivera. My lacrosse engagement is such that I think I can maintain my equilibrium.

His baseball-reference profile appears to be overstating his British-ness, claiming he was both born in the UK and graduated high school there, while that Baseball News feature pegs him as Colorado-born and graduating from school in North Carolina.

Not only that, but we got a https://yolatengo.com/july-29-2012/shout-out from Ira Kaplan on the Yo La Tengo home page.