Edgy MD

Mets introduce Carlos Beltran as manager: [FIMG=600]https://metsmerizedonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/carlos-beltran.jpeg[/FIMG] Mets introduce Dellin Betances as bullpenner: [FIMG=600]https://metsmerizedonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dellin-betances.png[/FIMG] I assume that the difference is the new year, but wtf? Is all of MLB going to be swooshed from this point onward and I'm just supposed to be OK with that? I'd be surprised if the shit in the stores wasn't all swooshed as well. It also looks like the lettering in the front shrunk as well, though that might be an illusion.

Should I be understanding that Larry Walker is at 84.6% and that 8.46% is a typo?

So, then, 29 teams without a Trout. And the one who does, the Angels, can't stop shooting themselves in the foot.

Blank checks don't exist. Thinking that being rich means you get to overspend on high-profile can't-miss assets is what got the president owned by Russia.

Also, any cover with Céspedes in a Western shirt gets an automatic bye into the semi-finals.

Tyson Ross is an interesting guy in that he's been around since 2010, has had a perfectly respectable (for the era) 4.04 ERA, and yet has never posted a winning record. In fact, his record is a stinkalicious 44-70. With starting pitcher workdays getting shorter, guys like Tyson are going to be more common — being good enough to hang on at the back end of rotations, but not so good that the manager won't give him the quickest of hooks, but good enough to keep getting his next turn. Decent pitchers are going to be retiring with worse and worse records going forward, and great ones (cough! deGrom) won't be that much above .500.

Got better, but it was mostly episodic until the tension picked up around the banquet.

"I can personally attest that Kyle Thousand is a real name of a respected baseball agent." — Bean Stringfellow

I'm watching this in pieces, and I'm not pulling much from it so far. My main takeaway is that, if you want to keep your job and even flourish at work, don't make your boss tell you all the evil shit he or she wants you to do. Just figure out how to interpret the non-verbal clues, offer a silent nod the next day, and allow the boss the plausible deniability and the sleep of the just. Someday, you'll get yours.

“trying to tame wild boar” I used to have a girlfriend who called it that. Of course, the next obvious question is, if it was so morally neutral as all that, why has that detail been embargoed for six months? [fimg=500]https://s2.dmcdn.net/v/Oik7n1RjOqqc_8nHd/x1080[/fimg]

Most recently a catching instructor for Miami, but has some minor league managing experience. Along with Beltran and Hefner, the Mets are really reaching back to the sunset of the black-wearing years.

Nineteen-seventy-nine was such a downmarket year for the Mets, by mid-season, some local papers were getting their road trip stories from wire reports or local stringers. Its probably going to be pretty hard to find photo evidence of Hassler's debut.

I think he was 44 until handing it off to Jeff Reardon the next year. I don't remember 50, but I think he debuted during a road trip (Houston?), and that often led to some goofy temporary numbers back in the seventies.

The last Will Harris on the Nats stole a couple of games from the Mets, and then he joined the Mets and stole a few more from the Mets.

Wow, sorry to hear that. Hassler was a decent lefty swingman for a team that pitched effectively but fielded a terrible offense in what had to have been the darkest year of the Grant's Tomb era. He pitched for five years after that, finishing his career pitching at the start of the 1985 season for Whitey Herzog's Cardinals, presumably getting some post-season money. He appeared in the first two games of the season against the Mets, both of which the Mets won. He was the St. Louis pitcher before Neil Allen, who would ultimately lose the game on Gary Carter's extra inning homer. If you were there, you won't have any trouble remembering how cold it was.

That's great. But now I want to see what Debbie Watson and Cloris Leachman were in. (OE: Looks like The Virginian.) [fimg=500]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZDUwNGUxYmEtNTc1OS00MmRlLWJhMDctZGQxN2ZkNThmODVlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODA0MjAyNDE@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1333,1000_AL_.jpg[/fimg]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I suspect that Brodie was the architect of the Cano trade, and if so, that's a serious mark against him, one that he hasn't yet made up for. (But who knows, maybe he has some genius moves in his future that will put him in the black, but he has some doing to do.) The Canó trade looked bad on its face, looks worse now, and strongly threatens to continue to tilt away from the Mets. I grossly dislike that trade, but I don't see it as a defining reason to give up on the GM or dismiss him as a not a baseball man. Good GMs make bad deals all the time. I think it's a far more nuanced net of factors that they are to be measured by.

“The imperfect man pitched a perfect game yesterday.” https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/larsen-plays-perfect-game-world-series-1956-article-1.2382988https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/larsen-plays-perfect-game-world-series-1956-article-1.2382988 And the story behind that lede... Joe Trimble, Dick Young's colleague at the Daily News, is sitting at his typewriter in the press box at Yankee Stadium, staring at a blank piece of paper. An hour ago Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series and now the press room downtown is freaking out—where's Joe Trimble's story? "I'm blank," Joe Trimble says to Dick Young in a cold-sweat panic. "I can't write a word." Dick Young calmly rolls a piece of paper in his own typewriter, types out a sentence, takes out the paper and hands it to Joe Trimble. "The imperfect man pitched a perfect game." Forty-five minutes later, Joe Trimble's story is finished, it's the best story of his career, he wins awards for that story—and Dick Young never says a word. https://thestacks.deadspin.com/dick-youngs-america-the-reactionary-who-changed-spo-862557756https://thestacks.deadspin.com/dick-youngs-america-the-reactionary-who-changed-spo-862557756 The story of Dick Young never fails to fascinate.

Do you really think it's already established that Brodie Van Wagenen isn't smart? Or that his mandate isn't success?

I wonder if Bradley Wilpon is feeling he's being screwed out of his chance at the family business or he's seeing it as a dodged bullet, and he'd rather get a share in the huge pile of Cohen money to play with.

And, lest it be overlooked, the All-Wantingest Mets Team of the Decade: [th]POS[/th][th]Name[/th][th]Seas.[/th][th]G[/th][th]PA[/th][th]AB[/th][th]R[/th][th]H[/th][th]2B[/th][th]3B[/th][th]HR[/th][th]RBI[/th][th]SB[/th][th]CS[/th][th]AVG[/th][th]OBP[/th][th]SLG[/th][th]OPS[/th][th]BB[/th][th]SO[/th][th]HBP[/th][th]SF[/th][th]SH[/th][th]GDP[/th][th]WPA[/th][th]WAR[/th]cAnthony Recker31404323894174170155122.190.256.350.606341482434-0.49-1.31bJames Loney1100366343309116193400.265.307.397.703163751111-0.81-0.32bChin-lung Hu122232021000110.050.091.050.1411110110-0.41-0.53bEric Campbell3196505438539718074493.221.312.311.6225311676118-1.72-0.2ssAlex Cora16218716914356302041.207.265.278.54310164224-0.60-0.5lfAlejandro De Aza113026723431489062543.205.297.321.61826675115-1.01-0.4cfKeon Broxton134534957100241.143.208.163.3714220001-0.69-0.5rfWillie Harris1126283240365911022354.246.351.317.66836624216-0.42-0.6

Well, Cecchini isn't in retirement, but he is the second Met minor league free agent this offseason to flee the Australian Legue after Jeremy Vasquez took off from Aukland following the sudden death of teammate (roommate?) Ryan Costello.

And two RoYs. Fun fact: Since 2012, the Mets have placed a pitcher in the Cy Young voting in seven of eight years. And that one season without a showing was 2014 — deGrom's RoY campaign.

They got off two big schneids in the 2010s — getting their first-ever batting-average title and first no-hitter.

Worth noting that Hisanori Tak's numbers reflect his work only as a reliever in 2010. He was meaningfully less effective (5.01 ERA in 64 2/3 innings) as a starter. That doesn't explain quite why he got a release at the end of his only Metly season, but the raise he was due as an NPB veteran was probably part of the equation. This was back in the austerity times.