Edgy MD

I have no data, but I get the idea that, as famously safe as commercial aviation is, private aviation is another ballgame.

Wow. That's a shame. Halladay's story is really impressive. The guy got sent down from the majors all the way to A-Ball. He and his wife took some books out of the public library, worked together on his mindset and his mechanics, and they remade his career together. His mindset was such that on game day, he isolated himself completely, refusing to talk to or acknowledge anybody except his manager and pitching coach, and after a while, they tended to realize it was best to leave him be and not disrupt his zone at all.

bb-r lists Murphy with 46.2 career WAR and 41.0 7yr-peak WAR. I imagine we'd all be pretty hard-pressed to find more than a handful of non-pitchers with such a concentration in a long career.

I think Dale Murphy's failing wasn't that he was worse than he looked, but that he didn't put together those seven years of mediocre production as a supporting player at the end of his career that Winfield, Dawson, or Eddie Murray did. Those years don't help the team that much, but they help the player hit round-figure milestones that decorate his HoF résumé. I'm not looking at the numbers, but I think he was as good in his prime as those players. Also, the eighties were simply played closer to the mean. Nobody was hitting 50 homers, and nobody was striking out 300 batters, but it was a good decade with a lot of good and unique players, some of which were overlooked as their careers were judged in the 90s and later as distorted numbers were being thrown up.

Good throwback. "Street Spanish" has to go on any collection of Omar's greatest hits.

The name of the Pennsylvania state lieutenant who didn't show with his forces? Mike Moustakas!

Should I share some spoilers about the season?

Please leave the provocative nicknames to the president.

No, they're not. But rich Venezuelans who were poor ones not too long ago are. I'd like to see a little more solidarity.

They wouldn't lose international spending money, so much as lose the license to spend their own money. In other words, let's screw some Venezuelan kid and his family in the name of competitive balance when it's all about the league restraining labor costs.

I like how The Daily News gets better color saturation than Newsday out deHEAT IS ON, using the same photo.

Zach Cozart stock just went through the roof.

Funny how so many of the puns are based on cultural references from the 80s. Clearly the back page is aimed at that all-important 45-55 demographic.

There are lots of Moussaka threads, though, over in the Eastern Mediterranean Cooking sub-forum.

Hard pass on Himmler.

HARD PASS I'm picturing Sylvester Stallone. A county sheriff. Pennsylvania. Intercepting a convoy of about 50 bikers shipping drugs from Phillie into Harrisburg. He was supposed to meet up with 10 units from the state police, but they never showed, because they're ON THE TAKE! Sly has to stop the convoy with just three deputies at his disposal, along with a tractor trailer, and 10 sticks of dynamite. It's a fool's errand, but he's making his stand at HARD PASS for his daughter, a promising young lawyer in Harrisburg, who OD'd on this gang's drugs. [fimg=450]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/hard-pass.jpg[/fimg]

I'm still saying no on the closer. That money is better funnelled toward the Darvish fund.

According to baseball-reference, they not only can do it, but they have done it (been among the top 10 payrolls) each of the last two seasons.

Well, since 1988, if that's really where we're measuring from, the Mets have typically had a top-ten payroll. I know that's cold comfort.

Also unrecorded previously: Transactions, 11/4 DirectionNEUTRALNEUTRALTransactionOption Picked UpOption Picked UpPosition Group=#FF8000]Relief Pitcher=#8000FF] Infielder[fimg=90]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/blevins-jerry-2017-39.jpg[/fimg][fimg=90]https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/cabrera-asdrubal-2017-13.jpg[/fimg]NameJerry BlevinsAsdrubal CabreraDoB6/6/8311/13/85 At least one of these is likely to go bad, but the price is right. And certainly if they let Blevvy walk, they'd be looking for somebody just like him.

So much Moustakas.

Not covering coachie free agents above, but Dan Warthen has signed on with the Rangers as assistant pitching coach. Don Wakamatsu also joins Texas manager Jeff Bannister's staff as bench coach, a position he held for them a decade earlier.

I don't really understand your meaning. Hickory stick? Is "fucking him" good or bad? Which people did this? I gave an opinion about the media. It was aimed at no one here. When you quoted it and moved it to another thread, I didn't think we were so far apart. But when you accused me of holding back about the real issue and ignoring him somehow, I diarrhea'd out every dumb opinion I could possibly have about the guy to clarify that I am not. I assure you I meant no disrespect. Nor did I presume to school anybody.

Word games? Fucked him? I'm not sure what's going on here, but I'm not playing any games. He's a player. He comes from a non-traditional background, acquisition-wise, and he's got a brand that makes him more of gate attraction. I think both are great, in and of themselves. Obviously the latter has diminishing returns, especially if he doesn't perform. So far, he hasn't been good, but hasn't been particularly bad, but just by being meh, I'd guess he's upped his chances of someday appearing in a big league game from 5-10% to 35-40%. That's interesting. If they can find ballplayers from non-traditional backgrounds like failed football players, I'm all for it. Even if he sees big league time, it's still highly unilkely that he'll ever be more than marginal, but I'd still look on the experiment as a success. I'm certainly jealous that the Pirates got the first African-born big-league player, but maybe the Mets can get the first Filipino-born one. He would also be the third Highsman winner to play in the bigs. Too late to be first there, too. As a Christian, he'd be about the millonth. So I think covering him from that angle (or mainly from that angle) misses a better story. But he's thought about less and less — the novelty wearing off — so there really isn't that much of a story at all anymore. And so he's becoming in the media what he really is: a late-to-the-table ballplayer playing barely mediocre ball trying to move up from high A to AA. I've seen a lot of footage in him, and I realize why appraisers didn't see much in him. He's got great strength and coordination. But the speed that made him a great asset in an NCAA backfield hasn't translated as much as it can to baseball. In the outfield, he runs with a low center of gravity, violently, like he's watching for opposing tacklers and needs to be ready to make cuts or throw a shoulder into somebody, rather than committing to the route and taking long, upright, confident strides toward the ball like decent outfielders do. The coordination makes him a surprisingly good contact hitter, for a guy who has been away from the game for over a decade, but the lack of snap in the wrists that kept his throwing at sub-NFL level is also evident in a lack of bat speed. He just doesn't whip through the zone like you want a power guy to do, so his hitting has been largely opposite field, and his power has been mostly in his muscle, and there's only so much you're going to be able to get out of that. His strike zone judgment has been a surprise. I imagine running more like a ballplayer will improve, and I think it has somewhat. The lack of snap is probably just a thing that isn't there, though. It doesn't mean he can't improve as a hitter, but it puts longer odds against him. But I think he's already done better than many would have guessed. And he doesn't appear to be a total dick. So yay?

You think I'm ignoring him? I have thought about him since the summer. A bloody lot!