Edgy MD

As a passionate DH opponent, I may be missing something, but what does the DH do to ameliorate the effects of the COVID pandemic?

I don't think it's as true to describe the instances of when Snell "made it to the sixth," as it is to describe those as when "he was only allowed to make it to the sixth." His fifth inning ERA was fine. His sixth-inning numbers were bad, but again, we're looking at 11 plate appearances. The issue to me is a manager and organization getting so trapped in their own ideology that they work against their own interests, even as they know they are doing so.

I don't think they should do what they did last year, but I do think they should work from the assumption that nothing is going to get better any time soon, build a plan to operate under those conditions, and then build into it adjustments based on mileposts being hit. To me, that probably means locking team personnel and families in strict bubbles, closed spring training, and (very) limited and isolated seating in ballparks. I'd love to see them return to league play. That's tough, but they have time to figure it out. I think they were very interested before this in trying to regionalize the travel as much as possible, and they probably see this season as the precedent they wanted, for that at least.

I'm gonna come out and say I'm kind of delighted that the team that yanked their starter early ended up screwing themselves.

Turner has never struck me as the sharpest chunk of cheddar cheese.

Good opportunity to name our recidivist Met!

That's a sweet Kilome card.

Hey, for all we know, Cohen recommended him.

I'm wearing a celebratory mask.

They may not know who the owner or boss will be going forward, but the Mets recently made their first transaction of the offseason. Details aren't really known, because this one has been reported by leak rather than announcements, as teams tend to keep transactions of any sort on the down-low during the World Series. Mitchell Tolman comes to the Mets most recently from the Pittsburgh organization, where he was a mid-season COVID release in 2020. He has mostly excelled with the glove, and while there's some concern that his bat has stopped progressing, the talent is probably there. He is a product of the highly competitive program at the University of Oregon, where his teammates with the Ducks included Stephen Nogosek and David Peterson. His opponents included, among others, Michael Conforto over at Oregon State. He was progressing well enough through the Pirate system, before pulling a Mazzilli in 2018, absorbing a 50-day suspension for violating the baseball anti-drug policy. As there has been no announcement/release yet, it is unknown if Mitchell will be invited to Big Boy Camp, but his signing pretty much puts him at the top of the Mets minor league infield depth chart, despite having thus far appeared in only a dozen AAA camps, so we're likely to see him in the Spring Training, depending on whether we watch, and whether there is a Spring Training. Tolman makes one more lefthanded hitting infielder at the Mets' disposal, joining a ballooning group that includes Robinson Canó, Jeff McNeil, Dom Smith, Andrés Gimenez, Luis Guillorme, and Will Toffey. He hopes to occupy the prestigious-but-long-vacant Ty Wigginton Pug-Nosed Infielder Chair with the Mets. Transactions, 10/24/2020 [td90]Direction[/td90][td90]COMING[/td90][td90]Transaction[/td90][td90]Signed to Minor League Contract[/td90][th]Position Group[/th][th]=#BF80FF]Infielder[/th][td90][/td90][td90]http://www.milb.com/images/664051/generic/180x270/664051.jpg>[/td90][td90]Name[/td90][td90]Mitchell Tolman http://thecranepool.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/US-flag.png>[/td90][td90]DoB[/td90][td90]6/8/94[/td90][td90]B/T[/td90][td90]L/R[/td90][td90]High Level in '19[/td90][td90]=#F79646]AAA[/td90]

=d'Kong]=Edgy MD] Nieuwenhuis: 1.77 Monell: 1.63 Campbell: 1.27 Velasquez: 0.88 Reynolds: 0.85 Lagares: 0.71 Thornton: 0.64 Goeddel: 0.49 Flores: 0.49 Alvarez: 0.39 Morris: 0.39 Leathersich: 0.21 Tovar: 0.14 Castellanos: 0.07 Plawecki: 0.07

March 2015. Danny gets a little conservative and everybody goes a little crazy. Elton John hijacks the whole thing. Irish looks like a prophet in predicting that the next administration might be one inclined to invite Murphy to visit the White House to celebrate his views. http://archives.thecranepool.net/22300/f1_t22383.shtmlhttp://archives.thecranepool.net/22300/f1_t22383.shtml

I'd like Franciso Lindor better if he could catch or play center.

There's nothing I can add here. https://twitter.com/ArtShamsky/status/1320103743053070337https://twitter.com/ArtShamsky/status/1320103743053070337

OLHC E28 St Brooklyn That was my Dad's patrol area.

I'm lining up for the 2021 Dr. Pepper set.

He makes everyone around him a better player.

Yeah, betting against Clayton Kershaw seems to be a dangerous way to wager.

Who drew Mister M.?

I don't blame you. But I think using them interchangeably not only conflates our perceptions of them, but conflates the organization's and the staff's. Most pitchers are one or two adjustments away from succeeding in the bigs. For 10 seconds there, even deGrom was in a position that might have gotten him tagged as AAAA. But give a guy two to four weeks on a callup, you can form a meaningful opinion on whether you can work with him and get him to make those one or two adjustments and make them consistently stick. Give a guy three days and send him packing for two months, and you don't even know if you've seen all his pitches. Beyond that, a lot of pitchers get their first taste of relieving only after getting called up to the bigs, so they have a lot of adjustments to make, and swapping them in and out because you're terrified of arm injuries doesn't really help them or the organization.

Certainly, but the way teams rotate players in and out on the back end of the bullpen, what we call opportunities are becoming less and less fair. Guys come up, get two appearances, and if they are good or bad, they disappear for a month, and maybe come back and get zero appearances, before disappearing again. Such a system isn't conducive to transitioning talent into the big leagues.

I haven't at all. I think we see a guy get chances over three years, and it's easy to conclude that he has failed, when he has in fact got a paucity of chances, and his continued roster presence leads us to think he's been in regular rotation. Familiarity leads to contempt and yadda yadda. But Oswalt has appeared in six MLB games over the last two years. I totally haven't seen enough.

He was no Matt Reynolds. That guy turned HEADS.

Sewald is in a very similar position. Consistent minor league success. Dwindling opportunities at the big league level (despite the bloated rosters of 2020). Out of options.

I guess any surgery he performed could be called a Tommy John surgery.