Edgy MD

One thing I credit Tony Larussa for: When one of his players would hit a batter up high, nobody had to charge the mound, and nobody had to warn the benches, because Tony would go out on the mound and scream at his player.

Fredbird picking a fight with a Mets fan behind home plate.

Edgy MD wrote: McCann may be off the interstate by the end of this series. Interstate exited.

Terrific job by Bassit, but he sure seemed to be working on fumes that inning.

And Cahna is flashing some really smoove defense.

Bassitt is throwing some really slow curves all of a sudden.

Gary made the same reference when he started warming up, possibly in observance of Naughton's Boston roots.

I don't like 'em. I don't like them on behalf of the defense. The extra inch or two extending from your fingertips can get you to the base faster when sliding in headfirst. And while the umps are likely under instruction not to count that extra inch or two and not to consider the batter safe until the spot where his fingertips presumably begin, there's all sorts of ambiguity that invites into the call, and it's probably ambiguity that favors the runner. I don't like them on behalf of the offense. You need to be able to slow your slide by closing your fingers and grabbing at the base, or even at the dirt, and that certainly seems to be impaired by the mitt. If you need to protect your hand, You should wear traditional sliding gloves, but with plastic armor around the outside of the fingers, like with a knight's gauntlet. Also, why protect one hand and not the other? I don't like them sartorially. These dashing, strapping athletes look like newborn babies in the maternity ward, forced to wear blue mittens to keep from scratching themselves with their little baby fingernails. Or a goofy kid forced by his mother to wear mittens in not-so-cold temperatures, who has somehow lost one on the way to school.

McCann may be off the interstate by the end of this series. Todd says his McCannics look stronger, too. I agree.

"Edman" sounds like a real D-lister of a superhero.

All McNeil needed was to hit at the bottom of the order.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Fuckin McNeil. I'd basically given up on him being this good again He's playing, like, ... aggressively good. There seems to be some chip-on-the-shoulder in his game.

Just as I'm thinking, "All these crossups make Knizner look like he's never caught before," Todd Zeile says, "All these crossups make Knizner look like he's never caught before."

And hey, Malcolm Gladwell is no dummy, but a world of data crunched together still suggests the intentional walk gave the Mets a marginally better chance of winning, without considering the batters. I could talk about the plusses and minuses of the walk in that situation all night. And I was up late last night thinking about. It was part of the reason I launched this thread, and I'm delighted that Grimm noticed that Arrenado's walk was listed as a disadvantage to his team. But staying up all night talking about it is one thing. The manager only has a few moments to make the call.

No indictment of Todd, but I like three-man booths.

That's mostly all there, but I would disagree that the end result is the same as an intentional walk. For one, the pitcher is spending his bullets — and perhaps some of his best bullets — on a batter he's 70% (in your model) likely to walk anyhow. For two, pitching around a guy can lead to wild pitches and passed balls, and with the go-ahead run on third, that's some powerful poison you're messing with. Those aren't really factored into the data, but I'm sure feed into the thinking of most managers facing the decision. While I'm on Team Intentional Walk here, the downside is that a pitcher loses a lot of his margin for error. A walk or hit-by pitch plates the runner on third. I go for the walk based on: 1. it setting up the double play, 2. it setting up the force at home (or third, to a lesser extent), 3. having one less high quality hitter to face. I respect Buck's reasoning, and in fairness, May ended up coming pretty close to getting Arrenado.

It does, but RBI does the same, and ERA credits the pitcher for quality defense that has little to do with him. Dom is also getting credit for Gallego being slow to get off the mound, and he's losing credit because Goldschmidt makes a terrific stop, neither of which have much to do with him. It's a team sport and statistically extracting the performance of one guy from the team's outcome is always going to be a challenge. But we're moving in the right direction.

When you're good, you're good. And ... here's Mike Trout tripling on a checked swing. [media=youtube]wDpglD2Ht80[/media]

No, I speak of the fan engaging Hernandez after the game.

Yeah, a lot of things Goldschmidt could have done there would have been more damaging than drawing a walk, including a modestly deep groundout or a modestly deep flyout. That's why the intentional walk was on the table, and it's certainly what I would have done. Buck opted not to go in that direction, as per his post-game comments, because he respects Tyler O'Neill's batting skillz and he thinks O'Neill is a particularly difficult guy to double up, neither of which would be particularly intuited by the win expectancy measurement. I still would have intentionally walked him, but O'Neill's base hit supports Buck's position to a meaningful extent.

With an infield hit in his lone plate appearance, Dom Smith may well earn your PotG vote despite the terrific start by Scherzer. He gets mine!

Win probability by event, from the bottom of the eighth inning, NYN@STL, 4/25/2022. Bottom of Eighth Inning, Cardinals at Bat 　Score is tied, 0-0. 　　　Trevor May pitching for Mets. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 41.4% 　　　Yadier Molina singles to left. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 33.8% 　　　Harrison Bader singles to left. Yadier Molina advances to second. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 24.4% 　　　Brendan Donovan pinch-runs for Yadier Molina. 　　　Tommy Edman grounds out, pitcher to secondbaseman to firstbaseman covering first. Brendan 　　　Donovan advances to third. Harrison Bader advances to second. One out. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 22.4% 　　　Paul Goldschmidt walks. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 22.6% 　　　Tyler O'Neill singles to left. Brendan Donovan scores. Harrison Bader scores. Paul Goldschmidt advances to second. 　Cardinals Lead, 2-0. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 4.3% 　　　Nolan Arrenado strikes out swinging. Two out. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 5.2% 　　　Corey Dickerson flies out to right. Three out. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 6.1% =#002D72]Top of Ninth Inning, Mets at Bat 　Cardinals Lead, 2-0. 　　　Giovanny Gallegos pitching for Cardinals. 　　　Pete Alonso flies out to center. One out. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 2.8% 　　　Eduardo Escobar singles to center. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 7.3% 　　　Robinson Canó flies out to left. Two out. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 3.0% 　　　Eduardo Escobar advances to second on defensive indifference. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 3.3% 　　　Mark Canha singles to third. (Others might well have scored this an error.) Eduardo Escobar scores on throwing error by Nolan Arrenado. 　Cardinals Lead, 2-1. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 7.1% 　　　Travis Jankowski pinch-runs for Mark Canha. 　　　Jeff McNeil doubles to right. Travis Jankowski advances to third. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 19.2% 　　　Dominic Smith singles to first. Travis Jankowski scores. Jeff McNeil scores. 　=#002D72]Mets Lead, 3-2. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 84.3% 　　　Brandon Nimmo homers to right field. Dominic Smith scores. Brandon Nimmo scores. 　=#002D72]Mets Lead, 5-2. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 97.0% 　　　Starling Marte strikes out looking. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 96.9% Bottom of Ninth Inning, Cardinals at Bat 　=#002D72]Mets Lead, 5-2. 　　　Edwin Díaz pitching. 　　　Dylan Carlson pops out to third. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 98.7% 　　　Edmundo Sosa strikes out swinging. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 99.7% 　　　Andrew Knizner walks. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 98.8% 　　　Andrew Knizner advances to second on defensive indifference. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 98.7% 　　　Harrison Bader strikes out swinging. 　　Mets Win Expectancy: 100.0% 　=#002D72]Mets Win, 5-2. https://metsrostercentral.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/screen-shot-2022-04-26-at-11.28.03-am.png>

"Rules" can be weird.

It's almost like he's choosing his words so as to be able to unload without getting kicked out of the game.

I'm guessing the training room makes the decision for them in the next five days. I guess I kind of expected Canny to get traded for somebody else's money pit of a contract, and the Mets get a pitcher who was terrific in 2016, signed a big one, and is now playing out the string, putting in the starts, being a pro, but a ghost of his former self. The Mets take that guy on and give him Peterson's starts until further notice.