Edgy MD

During my Thanksgiving NY visit, I've run in to two otherwise emotionally mature men expressing genuine distress over the passing report that the Mets weren't going to go all in on Phil Hughes. He's Phil Hughes!

I am trying to be encouraging. It's Thanksgiving. Have a good one.

A propoos of what? The Mets signed their greatest hitter ever (and perhaps their greatest sport) to an eight year contract. (Or seven, depending on how you look at it.) We're supposed to act like it's a tragedy? It's Thanksgiving. You just beat cancer. Show some heart.

Well, he ain't being paid for what he'll be in two yearsies. The Mets went into the offseason aiming at two outfielders. The idea that we got the hopefully lesser one first shouldn't be color the view of it.

Actually, I think you're confusing me with another. Deadspin the thing is a good. It's empowered a lot of douchecraft, but traditional sports journalism was a douchecraft elite. It's no accident that baseball has grown more scientific in the age of the internet. Democracy is ugly, but it's productive. Deadspin now publishes Dave McKenna, who I've made no secret of declaring to be my favorite sports scribe.

I don't know why that's particularly aimed at me, but you've got to realize, Steve, we've already been discussing the Deadspin thing, in this very thread, starting about 24 hours ago.

They want you to good naturedly acknowledge you're a sap, I guess. I kind of get the idea that the NFL's profile in our culture has passed it's deepest saturation point (unless they start expanding into minor leagues). I think one of those legacies is those sorts of patronizing statements have become kind of universally expected. And the receivers of it are supposed to accept it and openly feel sorry for themselves. I think the NFL has done particularly well at making just about every fan believe that he or she is bearing a particular burden, that his or her loyalty is a blessed thing, that God knows their suffering. It's a trick. And I don't buy it. If it was about suffering, I wouldn't be in it. Everybody suffers and it's silly to delude yourself that a winning or losing team makes you better or worse. It's about Timo Perez and his underwear, it's about fathers and sons. It's about apples and Mr. Met and horseshoes and Tommie Agee and we-don't-need-no-fucking-whoot-at-the-end-of-"Let's go, Mets." It's about daughters. And mothers. It's about Jane Jarvis and Karl Ehrhardt and Jeff Wilpon's breakfast cereal. It's about Danny Heep and Danny Hererra and Danny Boitano. It's about Ronald McDonald, Wilbur Huckle, and Blake McGinley. It's about building a culture.

Like I said, it is probably better to use FIP rather than ERA. Seems to me that it would be better to not measure the pitchers at all, as but rather to measure the batters that faced him. Maybe a more progressive effect can be detected on guys that faced him two, three, four times.

Armando is the big guy that self-loathing little guys love to beat up on. Matthews here is Curly taking shots at Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Can't get outraged? Maybe not and maybe you shouldn't. But Matthews and his like deserve to get called on their smallness. Every time.

I kinda wonder if giving up Cameron for Nady and half of Milledge for Church was just as big (and unpopular) of a commitment as giving up a chunk o' budget for Young. Both those trades turned out OK for the Mets though, even if both their Metly careers were cut short.

Regarding the DiMaggio tale, his final game was the last game of that season. So if he suddenly realized he had to honor America by withdrawing at exactly the moment he wasn't able to perform up to his gilded standard (why not quit smoking, you clown?), how remarkable the coincidence that this epiphany took place when his bags were already packed. And for the record, he was replaced at the top of the fourth inning, not mid-inning, by Archie Wilson. There was a single to center with two out in the top of the third, so one can imagine that this was the heartbreaking drive the great DiMaggio shamed the gods by failing to get to, but then he stayed in the game as Spec Shea fanned Clyde Vollmer. If he was so distressed by his mortalness, it didn't stop him from taking his turn at bat in the bottom of the third, walking, and scoring on a Berra single. Next inning. No DiMaggio. Oh, the horror. Attendance was 35,814. All of them heart-in-their-throats historians. A four-year-old Thomas Boswell was said to been led from the field in tears. A 17-year-old David Halberstam had to be hospitalized.

Frayed Knot wrote: 2) ... even though it's true that those players don't get any greater with an extra year of sitting on their ass, is ultimately harmless in the long run. I'd say it's largely harmless. Not completely.

Well, if the balloting wasn't public, they wouldn't be twisting in the wind, but I have no problem with the extended window. Even though a guy's legacy isn't changing over the time, our understanding of it is, as is our shifting perspective of context in which is legacy occurred. That's the way history works.

But what if there are more than four, and pretty much close to ten, you feel are not only clearly past the post, but clearly above the HOF mean.

Nobody says it, but since it's likely the easiest position on the diamond, a team likes to get as complete and profound and productive a hitter as possible there. You put Wade Boggs at first base and you effectively cut 40 to 50 points off of his OPS. And the last righthanded batter to have a career like Boggs was.... I dunno... Jimmy "The Pony" Ryan? Boggs is just too ambitious to think of, I think. A great, if still ambitious, comparable might be Julio Franco, maybe, but Franco was able to pass muster as a secondbaseman. Maybe Gregg Jefferies, but without the switch-hitting skills --- a minor league shortstop who can't pass muster at that position, gravitating toward first and DH way too early in this big league career, despite hitting productivity that's... darn good... for a shortstop. But again, Jefferies at least had that lefthanded bat to go after righthanded pitchers. What's the more grave view? Manny Alexander? An unhappy thought, but probably a likelier outcome than Wade Boggs.

Ceetar wrote: I think it's absurd to keep Bonds (and Clemens) out, but if you want to go that route, even without the actual 'failed test' stuff, I can at least understand the logic and reasoning. If you can understand the logic and reasoning, then it's definitively not absurd. It's just something you disagree with. Ceetar wrote: And sure, Sosa, McGuire (and none of this 'oh, he admitted it so I'll forgive him' nonsense either. You disagreeing with it doesn't make it nonsense, either. Listen, I disagree with their lack of selections last year too. It was lazy and riddled with guilt by association. But guilt does exist, and people have a serious challenge sorting that out, and we ought to at least respect that it's hard. Just effectively saying "I can't figure this out so everyone should be considered absolved" is just as intellectually lazy as saying "I can't figure this out so everyone should be considered guilty."

Yeah, but justice delayed = justice denied, and all, and while this isn't a matter of justice, it is meaningful to be rewarding some of these guys in a timely matter. Marvin Miller died unrewarded simply because nobody could agree on the rules. See, here's the thing, FK: when you limit the voting body to "working beat writers," you limit the electors to a group of people who likely watch LESS baseball-- and certainly less out-of-market baseball-- than your average analyst/blogger/involved fan, who can watch 5-10 games a night, and follow the relevant game-to-game stats as they happen, all while the beat writer watches his one game a night. These days, access begets less actual access, and-- apparently-- far less circumspection. except the vote's not limited to 'working beat writers' but 'guys who at have at least at one point in the near or distant past been working beat writers' meaning there are golf writers voting on the HoF and guys that have admittedly not watched much baseball. You can argue some based on what you think the Hall is for I guess, but to me it's an extension of the sport and a way to continue to celebrate the greatest players. Sure, some people might not make the cut for greatest in some eyes, but they're still certainly very good players that shouldn't be forgotten. To misconstrue very good players as great once in a while is a minor sin compared to giving us nothing to celebrate at all in a given year for BS reasons like proclaiming yourself the moral authority and ultimate judge of guilt. You mostly have me until here, Ceet. I have no problem with the body proclaiming themselves the ultimate judge of guilt. They are, after all, asked to be the ultimate judge on everything about these careers. What I have a problem with is the lazy way they exercised their judgment, lumping in with admitted users the likes of Piazza and Bagwell and Biggio and Raines, which to me represents a pretty steep slide downwards in the realm of incriminating evidence. Raines is a perfect example of a player who may miss out entirely based largely on this deliberate logjam. This is, what, his seventh ballot?

Also Metting up that staff is nu pitching coach Rick Waits and continuing bullpen catcher Jason Phillips.

Seems to be about five genuine candidates in that pool. Can there be enough suitors to bid them up? On the face of it, that looks like a buyer's market. Although every AL team could always use an extra firstbaseman to park at DH.

Sour on him, no, but it's just good business having a seasoned backup who can lend him some experience, lessen his workload, and provide an alternative should d'Arnaud need a trip to the DL/more seasoning in Vegas/singing lessons.

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Kind of. Depending on how cheapo. They're already betting on Young to bounce back, and it's hard to see anything in Morse that you aren't getting in Davis. If they're dipping in the free-agent pool, I'd guess it would be for a stabilizing candidate, not a(nother) mercurial one.

Ugh. Thought he was just on leave of absence or something.

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What it sounds like to me is a merry-prankster attention grab/performance art piece. Whatever goes down, they'll get to take a bow at the end.