Edgy MD

Not so sure I wouldn't prefer Reynolds to Satin. (Remembering when Dave Kingman's 140-strikeout seasons were scandalous, and now I'm advocating for a guy who has routinely struck out over 200 times per season. What is wrong with me?)

Bram Tchaikovsky's career as rally music purveyor dies an early death.

Tough call, Ike. I don't want you chasing breaking shit low, but two strikes, you gotta protect.

Oh, let's not make this one of those innings where we hit everything on the screws but nothing drops in.

OK, let's grab this win. [youtube:54hv8p64]wfND9P7q4fo[/youtube:54hv8p64]

Groundout RBIs --- the kind of torrid offense that's going to bring home the pennant.

Big Wilmer spot.

Now tying run at thoid.

Probably right thing to change the mind, there, Teuf, but get it right the first time.

Hello, tying runs on base with no outs. GO

Laggy Laggy I raise a flaggy But you're thrown out by Diamondbaggy

No, we haven't been through enough. Our team taking a lead is nice, though.

Now they're making sport of Mets fans. "Haven't they been through enough?"

D-Backs announcers making sport of Josh Satin's eyebrows.

Enjoy: http://archives.cranepoolforum.net/12700/f1_t12765.shtml

And if presidents pro temopore count, I give you Marlon Byrd. And his brother Paul.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Yes, but why does that approach so frequently fail? I can't think of many specific examples right now, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the same thing happen with other teams. This year's Blue Jays, perhaps. Why is it that adding three or four all-stars doesn't make your team better? My best guess is that it's because generally these star players you add are past their 30th birthday, and by then there's a greater chance that they're in decline. But Vince Coleman was only 30 in 1992. Bret Saberhagen was 28. Bobby Bonilla was 29. Eddie Murray was 36 and Willie Randolph was 37. In 2003, Tom Glavine was 37, Roberto Alomar was 35, Mo Vaughn was 35, and Cliff Floyd was 30. I would say that it wasn't unreasonable to think that the 1992/93 group should have improved the team. Obviously, it didn't. Stakes are much higher when veteran players on long-term deals fail. You can't or don't swap them out of the lineup as readily. They're not versaitile enough to try in new places. An injury to them might mean a huge chunk of your payroll doing nothing. Plus, if they fail, their potential replacements have often been dealt off or neglected. Niuewenhuis fails, and you try Lagares. Or fuck it, you try them both. Coleman fails... and you put all your professional and emotional energy into getting Coleman right, because you've got. to redeem. that contract. When you load up like that, there's often only one road-map to success. You've frequently burned the alternatives. Good plans and good organizations need to be NIMBLE!

No offense, but I"m not sure I buy that chemistry malarkey. If it's true of one, it's true of another. Randolph got hurt because he got hurt, not because of bad chemo. Tony Fernandez slumped because he slumped. HoJo's back going out had nothing to do with lockering next to Eddie Murray instead of Keith Hernandez. He went from a league-leading 38 homers in 1991 to seven each of the next two seasons. Similarly Roberto Alomar fell off the table and never said, "It's these damn TEAMMATES driving me CRAZY!" Mo Vaughn was enormous and his inablity to be an All-Star again after a season off should have been surprising to nobody. The dumbness of losing Mike Hampton to Colorado and going out and paying top dollar to Kevin Appier was a dumb move, but more doomed than losing Darryl Strawberry and opening the bank for Vince Coleman? I don't think so. Many people blamed chemistry for the failure of the early-aughts Mets. Rey Sanchez giving haircuts during the game. Cedeno pissing off Alomar by displaying his rookie card. Franco and Leiter (and then Glavine, of all fucking people) being too close to management and influencing personnel decisions. Howe was seen as ineffectual in the same way Harrelson and Cubbage were. Chemistry, shmemistry. Both times, their talent had seemingly peaked, they panicked, and tried to Frankenstein a team together. Both times.

metsmarathon wrote: the common thread is surely spending money on the wrong players, but the reasons those players were wrong is, i think, very different. How do you mean?

SteveJRogers wrote: Well, aspiring to that level of mediocrity pretty much has led to a lot of the Mets rather quagmire-esque seasons of false hopes and cock teases. The road to Heaven goes through Purgatory, although there might be some "Hell"-ish draft positions to contend with.

I like the likening to the middle of the first round to "hell." That's a massive perspective rupture right there.

The re-arming of 1992-993 was very similar 2002-2003 in motivation, execution, and results. I'm very gratified that they didn't (indeed, couldn't) make the same play in 2012-2013, and that Sandy seems to have teflon skin in the face of the same sort of fan criticism that helped drive those two turnovers.

The opening paragraph kinda tells me where I'm going to be going.

It's three teams vying for two playoff spots. They catch and pass Washington, and then they become the best of the irrelevant teams. It's a long road back to relevancy, but that's something, and I'll celebrate every step they take down that road, though late it may be. They've climbed through Rocky territory, now they need to muddle through Washingtonian bureaucracy. Still hard to muster true confidence on Hef Day, though. I can do it!

The Yankees are in St. Louis?