Edgy MD

If plate discipline were a person, it would be Bonds, but in the Hasn't-Been-Popped-for-Steroids Category, Soto beats most other comers, including Henderson, or Trout, or Votto, or Frank Thomas. And that's a skill that trends suggest improve with maturity. One point Law is inadvertantly making is that, with the advent of automated ball-strike calling, he's probably only going to get better, at least in that department.

I certainly have no problem with targeting Soto. The reality is that 29 teams could use him and there's only one, and there's a point at which you don't want to go higher on anybody, so I temper my desires to get Juan Soto off of somebody else's team and hope that the team is always scouting, recruiting, and developing the next Soto. If they can sign this one, great.

Bunk is mad. Yankees lose World Series at home. Yankee fan has his night ruined, not by the Dodgers, but by other Yankee fans. "Worst experience ever" — strong words from a guy who was in one of the Twilight sequels.

Edgy MD wrote: I can list just as many top contracts that ended up being an exercise in burning money. And just as many that were neither one nor the other. Nothing guarantees anything. Obviously, a team in a position to hand them out is often in a position to do a lot of things, and in the current environment, any team that makes the playoffs is a real contender for a championship. That list certainly shows how few of the largest contracts are going to pitchers of late. You can't. Because these are literally the top ten. You can list the next ten, or twenty. But these are the top contracts. Indeed, but that just means the most recent, because "biggest ever" is a thing that ever trends upward.

Let alone, jump up out of bed and get him the day after The World Series.

MOTO and IT'S A MISERABLE vied passionately for my third vote. I think I went for MOTO. Vive le dumb!

I can list just as many top contracts that ended up being an exercise in burning money. And just as many that were neither one nor the other. Nothing guarantees anything. Obviously, a team in a position to hand them out is often in a position to do a lot of things, and in the current environment, any team that makes the playoffs is a real contender for a championship. That list certainly shows how few of the largest contracts are going to pitchers of late.

Fun fact I left out is that https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=covey-000chaDylan's Dad was drafted out of junior college as a thirdbaseman by the Mets — way back in 1968 — but didn't sign. The prize of the draft for the Mets that year was probably John Milner, more than #1 pick Tim Foli. They chose Burt Hooton in the fifth round, but he didn't sign either. Seventh-rounder Charlie Williams was turned into Willie Mays, so that's something.

=MFS62 post_id=177993 time=1730421949 user_id=60] Major league contract. They must see something outside his numbers. Later

Not only is righthanded reliever Dylan Covey the first free agent signed by the Mets this offseason, he's the first free agent signed by anybody. A well-traveled hired gun, Dylan was developed by the Athletics, before getting gobbled up the White Sox in the Rule V Draft, laboring with them, before subsequently moving on to Boston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, with an in-between stint with the world-famous Chatuken Monkeys of the CPBL. Dilly was home-schooled until high-school, wasn't diagnosed as a Type I diabetic until after he was drafted out of high school and underwent an exam by the Brewers. That, plus his big shrubby beard may make him seem kind of Trumpy, but I think Glendale doesn't skew that way, and hey, he pitched in China, for whatever that's worth. He's got an eye-raising 6.18 career ERA but he had his best year in 2024 with the Phils, putting up a 3.69 mark in 39 innings. [fimg=550]https://img.mlbstatic.com/mlb-images/image/upload/t_2x1/t_w1536/mlb/v635ircbknhemsxemqgw.jpg[/fIMG]

I take nothing away from Mark Vientos, but I tend to think The Players Tribune is a great platform for agents to hook their clients up with a publicist who will work with the player to craft essays (styled after tabloid sports columns) that advance their brand, letting the world know they have the heart of a fan, putting the screws to the owners to open their purses. I didn't know his Dad was a Dominican immigrant.

It's still not particularly clear to me what damage has been done that is so irreparable. The Metrodome had its cloth roof ripped apart, like, five or six times, with multiple lesser ruptures along the way. It reads like both the team and the insurer feeling like they don't want to put even a modest renovation payout toward a building that is going to be abandoned within a few years anyhow.

=kcmets post_id=177787 time=1730230210 user_id=53] Creepy fingers, all eight of 'em. Sexy neck and shoulders though...

I have little doubt that money was edible for virtually any team, as pretty much all those guys were in the last years of the their contracts anyhow. But when they moved on, it was the right time and in favor of the right players. They had the foresight to trade for Torrens when he was a neglected asset in somebody else's system, not when the need was acute. While he initially presaged the release of Omar Narváez, he played alongside Tomás Nido side by side for a few weeks. Not only did Nido not really play himself off the team, but any difference in the output of the two of them wasn't particularly stark. The answer wasn't really obvious in the numbers, and the Mets had to trust their evaluators and their evaluations — three times — first when they traded a hot-blooded player for him instead of just calling up the next guy from Syracuse or grabbing the next catcher off the wire, next by releasing Narváez in favor of him, and lastly when releasing Nido in favor of him. That's good judgment.

Ronny Mauricio performed worse than expected/missed significant time also. For some of those, of course, it depends on who "we" are, but you're probably pretty close to the cross-section of expectations for most of those guys I think any team that makes it as far as the Mets did must've enjoyed some luck, but props to organization for the meaningful parts of it that weren't luck, and for believing in the process and not quitting on the team by the end of May. Props to the team for not quitting too.

The Dodgers are better at the Yankees own game. They're not better because of a well-balanced roster and a well-executed performance. They're the best team in the league in exactly the same big, brutal, ugly way the Yankees have always tried to be the best team in the league — by assembling a block of three MVPs that they didn't develop but instead chose to overpay for in the second halves of their careers, still close enough to their primes that stacking them in a row is overwhelming. Even if you just stock the rest of your roster with decent, modest contributors, there's a good chance that the opposition is focused enough on the monsters in the lineup, and worn down by them, that they won't be ready when one of your other guys breaks through.

Last night, the Yankees kind of looked like the Mets did against the Dodgers, falling behind early, but continually getting runners on through the middle innings and into the late ones, but despairing for the big hit. The Mets wouldn't have sent Stanton, though.

And just recently going up is this video by Some Guy on the Internet (SGotI) saying this exact thing (or possibly programming a computer voice to say the same thing). He even uses the same caveats I do, but the example clips he includes are damning, even if (a) there are none from the two Yankee/Met series this year, and (2) he repeats several. [media=youtube]kDU74Td3iRk[/media]

I realize that everything somebody does is amplified and distorted when they are on the highest-profile team, playing in the post-season, but ... is this guy the laziest player in Major League Baseball? I used to have some small amount of bitterness, because he came up in parallel to Amed Rosario, and he blossomed in a way that Rosario didn't. But during those four games the Mets were playing against the Yankees, he was making me feel downright confident. In close games and blowouts, on the basepaths and on defense, it just always looked like he could barely be bothered to put one leg in front of the other, and everything I've seen in this post-season has reinforced that. He looks like a kid being forced to do a chore while his friends are playing. I realize that all Major Leaguers must be, in some context, hard workers, and so he must be, but in the between-the-lines context, it's not showing up. I don't know how he is still with his team. He knows people are watching these games, right?

I can't speak to that. I don't really know much about the culture of the team or its fans, or really much about the Tampa/St. Pete area at all. I do know how I'd feel if it was my team, or a team I cared about.

I imagine that they can, but it's probably not the best fit relative to the organization's preferences and priorities.

It looks like the Blue Jays Spring Training complex in nearby Dunedin is currently the leading candidate to be a temporary home for the Rays. Like The Trop, it's on the St. Pete side of the bay, as is the Phillies' Clearwater park. The Yankees train on the Tampa side, plus, they're the Yankees. Still, it'd be kind of embarrassing to play all or part of the season as a guest of a division rival.

Those aren't really activations as such. Its just the way MLB.com codes it when the 26-man roster period ends.

Lawyers for good causes are the worst.

The Arizona Fall League is experimenting this season with technology that takes the ruling on check swings away from the umpires. As what is or isn't offering at the ball has always been undefined and subject to umperial discretion, for the purposed of this motion-detection system, they are defining the rule as any swing in which the bat reaches a 45-degree extension from home plate counts as an offer. I'd've figured that, when we are working with the naked eye, we'd think that 25 or 30 degrees beyond the plane of the plate is an offer, but watching in slo-mo, reality suggests that many swings that seem to have only extended that far, but briefly extend 10 degrees or more limply beyond that, and are ruled as no swing. 　　　　　 ⌒ 　 　 　 ⟋　⟋ 　 　 ⟋　⟋ 　 ⟋　⟋ ⟋　⟋ 　 __________ 　|　　　　　　　| 　|　　　　　　　| 　|　　　　　　　| 　|　　　　　　　| 　 ⟍　　　　 　 ⟋ 　 　 ⟍　　　⟋ 　 　 　 ⟍⟋ I think the system in place doesn't automatically turn the call over to the eye in the sky, but allows the catcher or batter to appeal the home plate umpie's call. Obviously, most bunt offerings don't extend that far out, so I don't know how the implementation will affect judgments on bunts, but our reporters are on the ground, looking for answers.