Edgy MD

Hi, I'm Tim Byrdak. I like to horse around --- jumping about and pretending I'm Hulk Hogan, and drawing a little attention to myself and my small shadow of a public profile. But if there's one thing I'm serious about, it's holding on to the last fibers of my big league career for dear life. That's why I spent the first five months of the season rehabbing, all the while secretly sabotaging the health of my fellow rehabbing LOOGy Pedro Felciiano. The guy's my hero and all, but I just felt I had get on the field before he did. Don't tell him, OK? Best days? Emotionally, sure, getting on the field finally. I lived to get back, and crossing that magic tenure line to get my hands on the golden ticket --- the lifetime pass to MLB baseball games... sweet! But here's the deal --- I really wasn't helping much. I mean, a guy returns for the last month, and only appears in eight games, and in those eight games totals 4 2/3 innings pitched --- he's not exactly carrying the team. But wait, there's more! A 7.71 ERA! A .357 batting average against! Three homers!! All for a guy who has his spots handpicked for him!! Did you know that in the eight games I appeared in, my team was 0-8? It's true! Not exactly what the Mets were hoping for in exchange for a million smackeroos. Good days? Those suckers have been hard to come by. The best day --- best of an admittedly mostly sorry lot --- I'll have to say, was my last one. September 26. We had the Brewers, and I came on to throw the seventh in relief of Dillon Gee with the team down 4-1. I pitched in some real slopfests in my brief season of 2013, but this one was still in doubt. I face Halton, Aoki, and Gennet, and while I frankly am unsure of who at least two of those guys are, I retired the disappointed Beer Barons in order. The Mets' likelhood of winning improved from 9% to 16%. That was something to take with me as I walked off the field, frankly for the last time, I suspect. The next guy's happy story can't possibly be a sad as mine, can it? Let's see who's up next... Burke, Byrd, Byrdak... Carson. Oh, dear.

That was a good choice from a festival of good choices.

Frayed Knot wrote: The main difference here is that the movies were made a quarter century apart and therefore the protagonists are considerably older and their pasts further into the rear view. Redford seems to get confused about how old he is. In The Natural, he was supposed to be at the end of a typical baseball life --- 35-37 or so. He would have been about 47 at the time of filming. In Legal Eagles, he was a big comer as the youngest DA in his city's history, when he actually would have been about 49. He's developing now an adaption of A Walk in the Woods, a book Bill Bryson wrote about walking the Appalachian Trail in 1997, at the age of 46. Redford is 77. He originally wanted to cast Paul Newman as Katz, Bryson's contemporary, school chum, and walking companion. Newman, of course, is 88 and dead at the present time.

He seemed to have trouble finishing a lot of thoughts.

It also explains a lot of the benefit to setting up at the bottom of the strikezone in the Pena style.

Marlon Byrd has more to draw from than that...

Remember when Hernandez, who had avoided the DL his whole career, went down like a ton of bricks between second and third, clutching his hammy in agony? He was cruising toward a 3,000 hit career and then KABLAMM! --- the whole trajectory of his career changed. He would never really be good again. Tim McCarver said it looked like he had been shot. Wilpon.

I meant no offense.

You're not going to win the argument that way, Steve. We've been down this road 1,000 times, but disliking or discrediting the Mitchell trade isn't the same as establishing Fred Wilpon's manipulations behind it. I don't think the latter question is a better question. Defending the trade, while allowing for the nonsense that Wilpon engineered it and every bad thing from 1980-2001, is foolish.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Both articles stress that the Mets are able to keep losses low only by slashing costs (i.e., payroll) rather than by increasing revenues. The first doesn't really say that. The second implies that, but it's certainly not true.

His distinction is gross vs. net. They made 80 million gross (before accounting for expenses). They lost 10 million net (after accounting for expenses. But of course, that 80 million figure is rather goofy. They made far more. And they spent far more than the team's payroll.

Yeah, those are always fun. It's always about Kevin Mitchell. Knight and Mitchell are the Yin and Yang of goofy racial fantasies, and the root of all retro-Pon-hating.

Jose indeed. Very impressed that folks have taken steps toward measuring this.

I still think Ed Yarnell's gonna pan out.

Yeah, I try and get across that much of it may be pie in the sky, but it's five wins, not five WAR, as they're not comparing him to a theoretical replacement, but to John Buck himself.

A selfie taken while driving in an undershirt as a profile pic? Cliff Floyd is way ahead of you.

It's generally accepted, and probably even true in part. But it's also likely overstated.

Kevin Costner films tend to be filled thematically with sorting out the meaning of our radical youth --- Field of Dreams speaking specifically about Baby Boomer radicalism, but also Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Dances with Wolfies..

Braves file roster for Division Series. No Uggla.

Amazin' Avenue looks at Lord Buck vs. Vicomte D'Arnaud exclusively with regard to the nebulous but real virtue of pitch-framing, does a great job clearing up the ambiguity, and suggests (perhaps over-zealously) that we may gain as many as five wins on pitch-framing alone.

They actually don't try and make it end particularly happily, as a big theme of the story is that his MLB redemption (and I guess going from convict to big leaguer is almost a literal redemption) is all about keeping his kid brother from making the same street-life mistakes he did, and his brother ends up dying. Strange that Jordi had enough gravity (or menace) to become a star playing a defiant slave refusing to yield to his identity as he takes his whipping, but not enough to play a stickup artist turned centerfielder. I guess Hollywood softened him pretty fast. It's got many of the flaws that made-for-TV films tend to have, but I thought it was remarkable to see so many Tiger legends playing themselves. And as I said, Martin seems strangely OK. I remember him working the broadcast booth for the Yankees, doing the pre-game during one of his enforced vacations from managing the team, and he looked absolutely desperate in front of the camera.

I don't think Lagares has a complete lack of offense. I also don't think Abreu is a must-anything. None of us have seen the guy, nor know how to translate Cuban numbers to MLB. He had one of the greatest seasons in Cuban baseball history, but he also: 1) has the Red Sox fawning over him, 2) carries a lot of weight. 3) missed a piece of the season with a bursitis condition, which can be chronic. 4) plays first and has nowhere to go from there. I would have the Mets take a long, close look at him, but if they pass on him, life goes on.

Larry Stahl, wow. I was at least expecting Trevi�o, or somebody. Even if you show Seaver the money ahead of time, he ain't marching in no also-ran parade.

Well, jump on board, because I don't think Atchy has shared yet.

On a cold and wet October morn Another little young believer's born In the Metto... (in the Metto...)