Edgy MD

I think a whole lotta NHL coaches think they kinda sorta have a Hernandez thing going, but don't quite pull it off. Like the late Pat Burns: Like Paul McLean: Guy Boucher, cut it out!

A Keith Hernandez Lookalike Contest would be a fun ballpark fundraiser.

A crew without experienced sailors, without carpenters, without even any experienced fisherman. But they had no shortage of semi-crackpot wannabe anthropologists, and that ain't nothin'. What Hyerdahl's crew did have in common is that most of them (if I remember well) were in the vanguard of the Nazi resistance in occupied Scandanavia, and so were morally gutsy and able to improvise under survival-situation pressure.

Check out his jowly alter-ego Jesse Stone rocking the Just for Men in his stache: Total Keith wannabe action there.

Highly complex models of dubious scientific quality are projecting lefthanded reliever and current B-Met Adam Kolarek to get the all-time honor of Millenium Met. Adam is a native of Baltimore and an alum of the University of Maryland-College Park. He went 3-3 with a single save this year, but did his duty to the tune of a 1.71 ERA over 63 innings in 44 games, suggesting that he's something more than a LOOGy, at least for the time being. He struck out 63 batters (exactly one per inning) and walked 22, while holding opponents to a .204 average. (None of those stats count his brief and ineffective visit to Las Vegas (four games, 11.25 ERA).) Adam sports a meaty, cocky, slack smile suggestive of Matt Harvey's little brother: He's a hit with the ladies: He loves his country: While he currently weights in at a beefy 6'3"/215, he's clearly bulked up since his amateur days: He's... my God, what's he doing to his neck during his delivery?! GAH! Too many hernias as it is, Mets pitching coaches! Pick up a kenesiology book! The human neck is not supposed to do that! The change-up is his meat, and the slider is his potatoes, and that's the sort of stuff a LOOGy throws. Adam Kolarek, YOUR projected Millenium Met.

Big Chill-era Tom Berenger. (Helton is going to be hard to top.)

What the... Nice.

Dictatorial General Secretary Josef Stalin. You know, if you squint hard enough.

And few of the previous 964 debuted in uglier games.

I don't even need the extra game to be free. Single admission, with a premium tacked on for the second game, would be fine. But I imagine they lose plenty o' revenues. [list:93vti1aw][*:93vti1aw]There's only so much premium tack on someone will pay. Would you go double for parking?[/*:m:93vti1aw] [*:93vti1aw]Would you eat twice as much food?[/*:m:93vti1aw] [*:93vti1aw]Would you drink twice as much beer?[/*:m:93vti1aw] [*:93vti1aw]If you did, would you drink a whole lot of it in game one and become a nuisance?[/*:m:93vti1aw] [*:93vti1aw]Would you buy twice as many hats and thundersticks for your kids?[/*:m:93vti1aw][/list:u:93vti1aw] I loved scheduled doubleheaders. I loved planning a whole damn day around sitting in one place. I loved publicly (and, I imagine, disgustingly for everybody else) making out for six hours at one during a Sunday in 1985. I loved the events in between them. I hate that so many events never seem to work out without them, like Sebastian Bach singing "ts in between them. I hate that so many events never seem to work out without them, like Sebastian Bach singing "We Are the Chapions" to 15% capacity on Autism Awareness Day, or 6,300 people in their seats during the pre-game ceremony inducting Jerry Koosman into the Mets Hall of Fame --- and often the broadcasts don't even include these things, and we only get a blip during the seventh inning stretch. But as attendance leaguewide boomed during the last thirty years, I'm sure plenty of research was done, and they saw just how much money their largesse was costing them.

A close examination of Harvey's elbow has revealed that Parnell needs neck surgery. Wait, what? I blame Fman.

I was expecting Met Hunter to be the one to swoop in with the necrological fact clarifyin'.

Ashie62 wrote: Edgy MD wrote: Chance of these guys being in the opening day lineup next year. Young, Jr. - LF 37% Murphy - 2B 61% Brown - RF 19% Duda - 1B 40% Turner - SS 16% Lagares - CF 63% Flores - 3B 49% d'Arnaud - C 79% Torres - P 1% Young Jr. 28% Murphy 50% Brown 2% Duda 25% Turner 2% Lagares 80% Flores 35% D'Arnaud 85% Torres .00001 % If my percentages were more accurate before the game, Ashie's were afterward.

With a $480,000 minimum salary, all payroll math begins at $12,000,000, and that's assuming that every single player aside from those you're lusting after just to prove a point is getting the actually major league minimum. But outfitting the team with 100% died-in-the-wool rookies is, of course, unprecedented and a really really hard way to dig your professional grave (sorry, Harvey... GONE!) Even avoiding free-agency eligible veterans, you're going likely outfit your roster with a fare share of guys with two-six years of experience earning... $2-6 million dollars. Assuming a $2.8 million dollar average among the guys who aren't Wright and/or Niese, that puts them at $89.4 million. Alderson's paring has them in a position to have it be less than that with a lot of second-year types around, but that's a lot more realistic starting point. For a guy whining about what year the buyouts count against, that's a lot of basic logic he's forsaking.

And the only answer to that temptation is to give in to it. [youtube:3r0vw8c7]8PHxnuoEpIo[/youtube:3r0vw8c7]

Now I want to hear a "Pop the cork, fingers snappin'" Foxwoods spot.

Even more bearish.

Best radio commercial: "Baseball's getting into the swing again here in Boston. And you know what that means --- stocking up on your favorite Little Debbie snack cakes!" "Getting into the swing"? It's September. My son's been critical of the untimeliness of that commercial since about June. You know the radio guys are all, "Let's not suggest that they update the spot, lest it start a bigger conversation." Keep those checks coming, guys.

Chance of these guys being in the opening day lineup next year. Young, Jr. - LF 37% Murphy - 2B 61% Brown - RF 19% Duda - 1B 40% Turner - SS 16% Lagares - CF 63% Flores - 3B 49% d'Arnaud - C 79% Torres - P 1%

Number two speaks of a spring training complexion. It gets my vote.

Well. The Mets currently have $25 million total, on the books for next year: David Wright�s $20 million, Jon Niese�s $5 million. That�s if you don�t count Johan Santana�s buyout or Jason Bay�s deferral, and you shouldn�t, since the Mets assured us the reason they couldn�t add salary in 2013 is because they were fully accounting for both Bay and Santana in 2013�s budget. What kind of goofy math is this?

I'm the first guy to point out that dollars laid out don't have to be on the market for MLB free agents, but possibly instead to Cuban and Japanese League vets, but the go-ahead-and-prove-something-to-me-by-doing-it-now act isn't helpful. Firstly, due diligence includes scouting these guys meaningfully before making a commitment. Secondly, the agents for these guys have motivation to wait until the offseason when all teams are in the marketplace and space on their rosters and the budgets presented. Lastly, and most obviously, it's not about you, Howard.

Well, it's generally hypocritical of me, because I generally think baseball would be well-served by smaller rosters, which would discourage specialization, expose players to perform in roles at times for which they are not ideally suited, and humanize them, but also accentuate the greatness of the truly great athlete who is not exposed when positioned outside his field of specialty. That's what I believe. I also believe short bursts of performances from specialists like Hamilton can be fun. But there should be a downside to carrying them on the roster if they can't do anything else, and there really isn't in September. The game should belong to generalists, and not specialists. And so I will silence myself until I resolve my feelings on the matter.

Yes, it's different, but not radically so. Changing the roster limit is a merely a matter of degrees. Regarding the footnoted point, the issue, as always, isn't that richer teams have and advantage over poorer teams (not shocking) but the system that ensures the wealth of some teams and the poverty of others. The league-owned Expos, of course, was a special case.

I don't know that the rules are radically different, though, and every team in beisbol knows that the expanded roster is coming, just like it cometh every year. So there's no particular advantage or disadvantage to any team, except maybe the team who doesn't want to remove a call-up-able guy from a minor-league team in the playoffs, but that's their prerogative. The greatest September callup, to my memory --- even better than Jefferies --- was Marty Bystrom. Bystrom went 5-0 in September of 1980, but there was no way he was allowed on the post-season roster unless somebody was hurt. Dallas Green had to sit Nno Espinosa down and explain to him --- just like Michael Caine to Kevin O'Callaghan in Victory (1981) --- that while Nino may feel perfectly healthy, he's actually very badly hurt. So sorry.