Edgy MD

Former Giant, too. Jeff Francis' name also bouncing around. Guess they have a little cash on hand after all.

One guy comes up with Barry Bonds' 73rd homerun ball. Another guy says that it was taken from him illegally in the scrum. In come the lawyers. Humanity weeps for it's own soul.

ESPN's Jerry Crasnick says the Mets are making a run at signing Cody Ross. Seems kind of redundant with Hairston to me. If somebody else is about to be traded, maybe, but you don't want your fourth and fifth outfielder to be the same type of guy. Who's your lefthanded batter off the bench when Murphy's playing (and I assume he'll be playing a lot).

The range of possibilities for his potential net contributions to the team has a higher ceiling and a lower floor.

Mike Bordick: also from Ohio.

Rockies supposedly remain "strongly interested" in Turner. It would be trading for more versatility but more volatility as well.

For his effort, Slowey gets shipped by the Roxx to Cleveland for a young power arm in Zach Putnam.

Welcomec jwmann! (Have we met?)

If cities want big league franchises, start a new big league. Stop letting the cartels strong-arm you. Why is Bill Shea the last player who realized this?

In A Clockwork Orange, aside from the sexual brutality, there's a consensual sex scene where they speed up the camera and make it look like a silent-era physical comedy. I was young. I had no idea sex could be unappealing until I met Stanley Kubrick.

I have a banner forever reminding me that it's our team. And it's our time.

Bases loaded and two outs, anyway. Promptly walked sad-sack eighth-place hitter Joseph Thurston to tie the game.

Oops. The perils of not giving threads specific titles.

I almost kinda sorta take it back, as this isn't truly the end of the tenure extending from his 2009 appearances. He was set free and signed and released by both the Yankees and Cubs in 2010, before rejoining the Mets organization in 2011. But he didn't get a going-away thread the first time, at least not one that I can find. So we continue. Born in Phillie territory in Cherry Hill, NJ, but went to high school in Texas. Nicknamed "The Blade."

Donnie Tabb was author of all of 13 RBI in 44 games with the Gulf Coasters in 2010 and 2011, and not having a GCL team to send him back to for a third year, he's sent packing. Donnie, if you career continues, maybe work on the smile at the next stop: And thus ends the dream of being the first Met with plugs in his earlobes. Or Angel. Or Red. Or whatever.

Baseball America reports that the Mets have released Casey Fossum and Donnie Tabb. If you're like me, you had no idea Fossum was still theirs to release and that Tabb existed at all. But he was and he did. What's more, Casey Fossum played three games for Jerry Manuel's Mets back in 2009, which means there must be memories out there. Your job is to summon them. Somehow. Here's Casey Fossum and his winssum wife.

You know, you could really get caught up in a racket, building a stadium and tearing it down every ten years --- getting folks to pay for part of the new one, getting them to pay for pieces of the old one. You could definitely get a Producers-like scheme rolling. Even better, slap some new fa�ade pieces on one year, auction them off the next, replace them regularly, but the structure still stands. Ka-ching!

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Twitter is a stoopit forum for this kinda thing. Can't see the answers and questions at the same time. Yeah, I had to click on the folks profile to find their questions. And some of them were twitter addicts, so the question was buried 10 tweets down. And, of course, the Twitter character limit turns into a limit on meaning and nuance, which is exactly what you hope to suss out in interviews. But Twitter is dominant and that's what we get. I mean: The closer the Francisco. Thanks for that. I guess the big scoop I got was that the STI he was most into getting a look at was Matt Harvey. Clearly some of their starting pitching prospects are expected to be getting some big league starts.

Ceetar wrote: Ceetar wrote: Left field also looks up for grabs.I don't think I'd be surprised if any of those five came out on top. Well a little if it's Bay maybe. WOW! a bit of reality in Ceetar! (though just a little :-P) It's not reality either way if it hasn't happened yet. If you really think about it, it's sort of insane to have spirited arguments about future events. Are we all Miss Cleo's around here? Bullshit. It's awesome.

I just set beautiful free at my end.

Ah, c'mon. If not money, bet a baseball card. Bet a beer. Bet a humiliating day in a Speedo.

That's a big assertion. But I think the WAR projections can be pretty volatile, as they don't come directly from James, I think, but from fan projections informed by James' projections. They're informed fans, but the biases probably don't cancel each other out.

Only spots in the division profiling as below 2.0 WAR is the Mets in left (1.9) and the Nats at first (1.3). They really should take a second look at their Prince Fielder Fund. Either of the The Phils backups at first could do better than that. The Mets, of course, more or less have firstbasemen at catcher, second, and right.

A dispute over the viability of the Met offense came up in the outfield thread. I had actually done some wrestling with this question. Giving guys five points for being the class of the division at his position and one point for hauling up the rear, the Phils seem to have the best O. The Mets came in fourth, but it's really the Phils and everybody else. (I don't think the lineups have changed much.) A couple of points: Most of these projections come from the Bill James projection system. Where I couldn't find projections from him for an athlete or two, I tried to draw from some other authoritative system offered by Baseball Ingestus or Fartgaphs. We're arguing about runs in the outfield thread, but here we're measuring the everyday lineups in their totality, offense and defense included. Obviously, the final tallies don't account for the degree of difference between two players. The top guy earns his team five points and the next guy earns four whether there are 2.0 or 0.2 WAR between them. You hope most of that comes out in the wash, but I didn't count that. (Maybe somebody would like to add the raw WAR up.) Clearly, Washington could sign Fielder tomorrow and invalidate this whole thing. I tried to arbitrarily tweek the numbers up or down a few decimal points based on the quality of the available backups, especially if the guy is only projected to play 120 or so games. The Mets actually look better than a lot of teams healthwise, being younger and with a chronic guy like Murphy never having been operated on. But who knows if Wright and Davis come back whole. And so much of these health factors go out the window once the shooting starts (to mix a metaphor). I nonetheless feel like the Phils are kinda maybe getting shorted at first, with Howard out for at least the first month, but having Jim Thome and Ty Wigginton to bail him out. Strange in general to see such low projections at first. The Mets win by virtue of having far and away the best fielder, I think. So much depends on thinks breaking well healthwise for the Phils. They may project the highest, but they are easily older and have they're firstbaseman beginning the season broken and rightfield and leftfield recovering from herniae. Sucks that Duda is so outclassed by the competition in right, but his defense drops him out of the running right out of the gate. I guess right is the opposite of first. In both cases, the glove separates the Mets from the field, but in different directions. Bay, on the other hand, is barely on the map in left. Outfield doesn't look to be our strong suit. (Wasn't in 2000, either.) I think the Braves are going with Pastornicky at short, but they've signed two experienced shortstops, so they may open with one of them. I kinda hope that they do. Basing the projections on what players in similar stages of their careers have done in the past, they kind of account for psychological variables, but I wonder how much. Do Heyward's number reflect just how miserable it must be to be about to rocket to stardom and have an awful sophomore year? Moreover, there are broader context psychological factors at play: The Braves' utter collapse; The Mets' financial disarray; The Marlins' financial rebirth; The Nats' ramping up the pitching; The Mets' new walls. Who knows? [*]While I tried to factor in the backups, where most relevant, I haven't bothered ranking benches. That's beyond my pay grade. I'll just add that some teams have invested in them more than others. [*]Ryan Zimmerman is the best player in the division? Really? Anyhow, here's your National League East. TeamCatcherAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaMcCann.276.360.484.8445.31MiamiBuck.239.309.409.7182.05New YorkThole/Nickeas.278/.214.353/.286.369/.304.722/.5902.54PhiladelphiaRuiz.271.360.400.7602.83WashingtonRamos/Flores.270/.209.326/.305.419/.314.745/.6193.32TeamFirst BaseAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaFreeman.286.350.459.8092.44MiamiSanchez.276.360.452.8122.92New YorkDavis.288.377.504.8814.11PhiladelphiaHoward.266.360.525.8852.53WashingtonLaroche/Marrero.255/.280.333/.339.445/.400.778/.7391.35TeamSecond BaseAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaUggla.251.334.473.8073.64MiamiInfante.291.335.401.7363.05New YorkMurphy/Turner.302/.271.355./.335.456/.369.811/.7043.82PhiladelphiaUltley.280.375.475.8505.31WashingtonEspinosa.248.329.445.7743.82TeamThird BaseAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaJones.278.378.461.8393.64MiamiRamirez.298.379.489.8685.13New YorkWright.286.375.487.8625.32PhiladelphiaPolanco.284.337.370.7072.75WashingtonZimmerman.291.363.486.8497.01TeamShortstopAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaPastornicky.294.329.374.7033.03MiamiReyes.303.358.447.8054.81New YorkTejada.256.330.323.6532.64PhiladelphiaRollins.262.328.417.7453.72WashingtonDesmond.268.317.394.7112.05TeamLeft FieldAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaPrado.289.339.423.7622.73MiamiMorrison.265.363.475.8383.22New YorkBay.257.355.436.7911.95PhiladelphiaMayberry/Brown.275/.275.313/.355.439/.455.752/.8103.51WashingtonMorse.291.347.505.8522.54TeamCenter FieldAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaBourn.273.339.353.6924.12MiamiBonifacio.276.338.354.6923.44New YorkTorres.255.332.405.7373.53PhiladelphiaVictorino.277.344.441.7855.01WashingtonBernadina.261.327.399.7262.55TeamRight FieldAVGOBPSLGOpSWARRankAtlantaHeyward.269.374.457.8315.02MiamiStanton.273.366.568.9345.51New YorkDuda.279.364.488.8523.05PhiladelphiaPence.292.349.486.8354.93WashingtonWerth.259.360.451.8114.54TeamTotalPhiladelphia29Atlanta25Miami25New York22Washington20

Omir Santos, Topps Rookie Star. You can't take that away from me.