Edgy MD

And to continue, it seems to me that, when a number retirement is such an afterthought of a gesture that you have to remove it from somebody else's back in order to retire it, it is more of a performative pantomime of an honor than a solemn one. It would be more convincing if any official number retirement was preceded by a period of unofficial retirement. But back to 26,

In one of the more curious head-scratchers among the long history of head-scratching moves that the Mets have long made when trying to define their identity, they announced on September 24, 2019, of all days, with the team trying to mount a late-season run that would prove to be too late to overcome a long mid-season slump (with locker-room melodrama!), that they would be retiring #36 in honor of Jerry Koosman, 40 years after the enigmatic lefthander had last played for the team. The expected and unexpected repercussions of this move would be many, but perhaps the first was that manager Mickey Callaway was forced to shed his digits and spend the last week of the season — and what would prove to be the last week of his Mets managerial career — with a new numerical identifier. He chose #26 for his rebrand — and while that may only technically qualify him for this poll — he went 5-1 while donning his shiny new integers, both opening and closing the run with walkoff victories (the latter being the remarkable back-from-the-dead Dominic Smith moment). Hey maybe he does deserve a vote or two. Maybe Mickey 36 was Mickey-of-the-Darkness, while Mickey 26 was Mickey-of-the-Light.

Mongo no go to New York City. Mongo lack funds. Stupid Mets no hire Mongo.

The only way to square it to sign the right players on the right terms and walk away from those whose terms are not worth it. Be nimble, trust that you bring something to the table too, and realize that there are always other otters in the stream. It is a lot like love, actually.

Does Jay have chapter about the butt-dialing?

A three-year deal with two opt-outs is something of a double trap, though. The worse he does, the longer you keep him. The better he does, the shorter you keep him. During the Alonso negotiations from last year, David Stearns declared himself to be leery of the lack of reciprocity in such deals.

According to the wonderful and still active Mets by the Numbers, Bruce's initial late season 1974 tenure, from September 11 to October 3, was as a 26. He returned to the minors in 1975 before re-emerging in 1976 as a glorious 4 — the Mets apparently being in some sort of rush to put the Rusty Staub legacy behind them. So if you are blessed to meet Bruce Boisclair, perhaps the most illuminating question you can ask would be: was he by nature a 4, forced to take 26 in 1974 due to the far more juicy presence of Staub? Or was he, alternatively, a 26 by nature and sensibility, but forced to go with 4 from 1976 onward, due to the far more juicy presence of Kingman? A doorway in Mets history hangs on the squeaky hinge of his answer.

One of the least-credible candidacies may have been the first — Eddie Alvarez, the already-hard-to-remember utility infielder from 2024 who, to his credit, somehow managed to post a positive bWAR despite going 0-for-9 with a walk at the plate. This statistical oddity may or may not be due to him entering as a pinch-runner in his first game as a Met, scoring the go ahead — and what would ultimately prove to be the winning — run on a passed ball. Sadly, baseball-reference gives him no measurable positive bWAR for his single inning of one-hit shutout ball on the mound. Anyhow, with King Kong in the lead as the new year passes, here is wishing a happy 20Kingman to all. May The Year of David Arthur be blessed one.

Mazzilli is disco. Kingman is, like, Foghat.

A Kingman endorsement speaks for itself!

Please don't take a dubious position, just to distinguish yourself. You're all about Ralph Milliard and always have been? Please be prepared to back that up! We need hard data here!

It doesn't mean I ain't, but I thought he deserved a front-page feature for the time being.

Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong, as collectively named by G-FAFIF in his new year/birthday column. Putting aside any superstitious qualms you or you or you or I might feel about giving a generational nickname to a group of young pitchers, no one can deny that it is ... well, sublime. And being a generational label, it leaves plenty of room for a Christian Scott or a Dylan Ross to find their own room under the banner. Christian Scott can even come hard and claim the S for himself, in part or in whole. [fimg=500]https://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_0005-768x596.jpeg[/fimg]

He's a 19-year-old outfielder coming off a .433 on-base-percentage season in Florida Complex League. So far, he hasn't displayed a whole lot of other skills. Little power, low steal percentage ... but that OBP figure is a combination of a solid batting average, a hit-by-pitch every three games, and a batting eye that does not like **** off the plate. You may think that adds up to a righthanded young Brandon Nimmo (as if that's a bad thing!), but the guy also makes a crazy amount of contact, striking out only 66 times in his first 383 trips to the plate. All this will be hard to maintain while climbing the ladder, but it is foundational. FOUNDATIONAL! Plus, he has a great name! [FIMG=300]https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/w74AAOSwCdVkI8Kw/s-l1600.jpg[/FIMG]

So would Mike Cameron. But you can't stop Shinjo.

ALL-TIME TOP TEN CENTERFIELDERS IN MLB HISTORY Willie MaysCarlos Beltran Duke Snider Richie Ashburn Tommie Agee Mookie Wlson Brandon Nimmo Len Dykstra Juan Lagares Tsuyoshi Shinjo Crack that list and we'll talk, Andruw.

Also, thank you for bringing data here, while I just brought an impression. I won't say I stand corrected, because it is hard to call any 2007-era defensive data unimpeachable, but I certainly stand without foundational support, so I'm gonna have to cede that argument on the sustained level of his defense. Therefore, even if my support for Charleston and Hamilton knock him out of the top 10 at his position in my view, he appears almost certainly in any reasonable top 15 and arguably in a lot of reasonable top dozens, so unless somebody finds some good PED evidence, the case for him is stronger than I offered.

Obviously the statistical record is wanting, but I would call Oscar Charleston a no-doubter of the first degree. More than a few reviews of Ty Cobb's game back in his own time praised him as "The White Oscar Charleston." That is just a rep implied by somebody else's handle, but it's a heck of a starting point. Bill James, in the second edition of his Historical Baseball Abstract, had him as top-ten all-time players. (OE: There's obviously a lot more obscured the further back one goes, but with a gun to my head, I would probably take Slidin' Billy Hamilton's career over The Duke of Flatbush's.)

Well, if the season opens tomorrow, we might be more likely to see Mark Vientos at first, and Polanco in left. That is the way Mets Roster Central has it laid out, anyhow. I don't think we're asked to be sold on any particular lineup, yet.

So much petering. I tend to think that, like many who preceded him, his Gold Glove era should not have lasted as long as it did, and he earned several such awards based on reputation, rather than performance. I think his increasing power performance through his young prime was largely offset by his less impressive on-base numbers. I think he gained a belly full of weight suspiciously early in his career, and while that (along with his dramatic power surge) isn't much to go on to throw steroid shade at the guy, it definitely contributed in my view to the (going back to the earlier point) declining defensive performance I saw in his late twenties. (Mets fans were blessed and cursed in seeing a lot of Braves games.) A still-young man can maintain a lot of his innate speed while carrying extra weight, but his maneuverability declines, and Jones' certainly did in my eyes. I imagine the more sophisticated defensive metrics might have well agreed, but I don't know how sophisticated even they were from 2002-2007.

Just one reason he fails to secure the all-important Edgyvote, the lack of which has undercut so many other celebrated candidacies.

I disagree that December is the most frustrating time of the year. The Mets signed the most sought-after free agent in recent memory last December. The frustrating part came to pass from the second half of July through the end of the season.

An ongoing series begins today with Steve Barber, 15-year veteran most known for the first half of his career as a Baltimore Oriole. Steve, a mainstay in the Baltimore rotation during the Kennedy and Johnson years, checked in at 6'0" before realizing you can reach 6'5" if you wear an undersized cap and balance it up top just so.

My experience suggests old-timey/traditional guys publish theirs plenty, if not more often than most latter-day writers. It's a good way to fill a column out in the middle of winter with little baseball action to otherwise write about. More than one column, if you are clever enough. It's older-timey/retired/moved-on-to-a-totally-different beat guys who report less.