Edgy MD

This broadcast, from Harold and Joe to Erin, is atrocious. I feel like Harold Reynolds is on a mission to make me stupider about baseball pitch by pitch. Tom Verducci, who I used to like or at least respect as a writer, brings zero to the table. Buck is by far the best of the 3-man booth and that says a lot because normally I can't stand him. And Erin, oh Erin. Sending it down to her for a "report" that tells us, hey, first row seats are being scalped for a lot of money! just illustrates why it is so unnecessary to have "sideline" guys (or gals) at a baseball game. The FX pregame is a clusterbomb as well. They did Burkhart no favors putting him up on set with the douchetastic crew of Kapler, Swisher, Ortiz and Thomas. Lose Kapler and Swisher and it might be watchable. What makes all this seem all the worse is that TBS' coverage was generally excellent. (Pedro, in particular, is fantastic, and fantastically entertaining-- he's like Baseball Barkley with a perm.) Let's give some credit here: if being a baseball Barkley means never finding a topic to be too sensitive to dive into head first, Keith has been bringing the Barkley for years.

I'd appreciate seeing that report, but I'd be happy if it turns out that way.

Taveras made an appearance in a Mets/Cards spring training game --- an appearance so surprising he had the TV crew stumped.

10/27. You know what that means. Twenty-eight years. Happy birthday, Jon Niese.

He cant hit or run...bust on the horizon...baseball version of Billy Beane...

Frayed Knot wrote: Not much to get all in a twist about in other words. At the same time, it's also not enough to think it's going to have a positive effect on Wright & Grandy, the supposed reason for the move in the first place. I think the Mets have a lot of belief that, if not the difference-maker going forward, it would have made a lot of difference for Granderson in 2014. I tried superimposing the spray charts over the Citifield surface, but it didn't quite work (one of them isn't a perfectly perpendicular view), but you can see a line of demarcation that seems to represent the maximum distance Granderson's topspin shots reach, and the management likely hopes t bring the wall within that distance.

How did your 2014 first base plans work out?

But you're innocent of the sin of Amor de Pe�a. That's got to be worth something.

I've got to think starting games five and seven is much much harder than starting four and seven. Apart from the two days rest, I've got to imagine the adrenaline is telling you "No problem, piece of cake," but you've got a wall coming at you. Heck, you're probably still riding a little on the adrenaline of three days ago.

Mets and Yankees providing exact replicas of items stolen in break-in at Yogi Berra Museum/Second Home of Steve J. Rogers.

He may have certainly been a star, but history has retroactively remembered Cole as perhaps more of a sure thing than the prognosticators ever projected him as while he was alive. Taveras, on the other hand, was at the top of all the lists.

They also could have some Gary Carter fun at first, and play d'Arnaud there once a month, giving Duda a day off against lefties and keeping d' in the lineup without crouching.

I'd be very surprised if they seriously considered trading him. Starting over at first would be really hard at this point. I do think they'd seriously do well to find a big league outfielder who doubles as a first baseman, so they have another right-handed alternative to Campbell. Cuddyer fits that costume to me, but I have little idea where he's gonna fall, salary-wise.

Yeah, that was my understanding. Still struck me dramatically.

Golly.

One of those annual articles about how the Mets need to copy the model of the World Series teams, who both play in expansive parks. Now, like most of such articles, their data is highly selective --- what of the friendly dimensions of the home park of the (no longer) defending champion Red Sox? --- but it's certainly an argument for deep dimensions, citing one large and one small market.

And, um, that National Anthem. Is this going to be MLB's Janet Jackson moment, where they stop being taken for fools and start putting some thought into this?

You've got to think they want him at least available for relief duty in a potential Game Seven.

Bumgarner vs. Mets: 3-0, 1.24, 29 IP, 33 SO, 8 BB. Fifteen hits, and no homers.

Eveland straight up. Be willing to throw in Satin if Boston balks. But only if they're willing to eat some $$.

I think there's nothing to that. So far, it seems like there's 29 teams not jumping at Maddon. Thirty. It's a perfectly reasonable perspective that any suspected marginal benefit from changing managers is undermined by the instability and bad faith of switching managers weeks after announcing that you've announced your incumbent has returned and you've assembled a staff around him. As far as I'm concerned, Maddon is a suspect not to be trusted.

A lot of BS out there that the Mets not dumping their manager and landing Maddon proves they're not serious.

Carlos Delgado: big scary slugger. Carlos Beltran: big scary slugger. Mike Piazza: big scary slugger. This guy at 27 and 28 has produced a tick below the level Eddie Murray did as a Met when he was a decade older.

seawolf17 wrote: BUT he's only 26. Frayed Knot wrote: Turned 29 just last week according to BB-Ref -- DOB 10/18/95 -- plus, being Cuban, there's always the chance that he's a shade older than that even. That's a dramatic birthday. A little over-the-top on the partying. Frayed Knot wrote: So the guess would be that he is what he is at this point. And while his career is obviously a smaller sample than most 29 y/o ballplayers, it's that 1st year line of .292/.356/.505 which is looking more like the outlier than the norm now that he followed it up with two near identical seasons of essentially .250/.300/.450 (.251/.298/.446 to be exact). That's not a bad ballplayer, especially when the arm and GG nomination are mixed in, but it hardly suggests a great one, particularly for a corner OFer, or one that would jive with Sandy's OBP-loving philosophy. That would be a disappointing season from Cuddyer. When a ripped-right-down-to-the-ankles man arrives from a world outside the MLB testing universe, makes a big initial splash, and then falls back to earth in the following seasons, I tend to feel... cautious.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: It's pretty pathetic that I can root for the National League franchise from the greatest city in the world -- a team that hasn't had a top manager in more than ten years and yet just the same, believe that the odds of Maddon coming to manage the Mets are zero. You can get 10 baseball people in a room, show them 10 managers, take away wins and losses, and get 10 opinions on what a top manager looks like.