Lefty Specialist

Braves are going to be not-terrible this year. They're going to cause trouble.

Matt Wieters still available. Even though he's a Boras client, he could probably be had on a one-year deal at this point. Hmm.

One less commercial per half inning, and you've cut games by 9 minutes. (I know, unlikely.) Broadcasting companies don't really care when games end. They want to start their shows in prime time and they sell more commercials in the pre-game shows, so that leads to 8:37 start times. They've paid their bills on the commercials and relentless network promos they sell in the first four innings or so. After that it's gravy. They know as much as anybody that viewership falls off after 10 PM Eastern. And they're not selling Viagra to the 8-year-olds that are fast asleep by then (and which baseball needs to build a loyal fan base). The problem is that Bud Selig let these guys dictate terms to him in exchange for a huge pot of money. The most egregious example is the 'Let the home field advantage for the World Series be dictated by an exhibition game'. Fox ratings were slumping for the game so the tie was a convenient excuse to 'jazz it up' and 'make it count'. The players weren't any more motivated, and the managers were put in an impossible position trying to win a game that should be meaningless. Shortening the game in this way doesn't help things. It just makes sure that commercials are a larger percentage of the air time.

Bravo. The President is pleased.

4th/5th outfielder. Rather have him than DeAza. Nice smile, though.

Well, Wheeler had a track record as a starter before the injury. I don't think they'll bury him in the bullpen; I think the intent is to get him stretched out gradually. With this staff and the injuries/innings limitations, I'd expect he'll get his chances.

Anyone still hanging around at this point could be had for fairly cheap, I would think.

Well, my sig is Noah's tweet, so if anything I owe HIM royalties. If he wants me to come over and pay him and hang out for a bit, I'm good with that.

out of my sig. [youtube:ja8kgsnx]lASeb-yrdik[/youtube:ja8kgsnx]

Edgy MD wrote: The Yankees, back in the bidness of stockpiling DHs, have signed National League homerun champeen (and big time whiffer) Chris Carter. He went for one year and $3 million, which is Fernando Salas munny, which tells you ... something. He'll hit 60 HR's in that bandbox and still bat .210.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Because he hammers lefties? Well played.

So how does someone like that hook up with a struggling reliever shuttling between the majors and AAA?

Sandy gettin' the band back together. Short of a Bruce deal in Spring Training when some other team's RF trips over his shoelaces and breaks a leg, this is pretty much it. This team rises or falls on health more than any other team I can remember.

Hope he remembers to breathe through his eyelids.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think that there would be rioting in Sweden. I'd better stock up on meatballs, fish and Ikea furniture, then.

G-Fafif wrote: Rosenthal reports Fernando Salas is returning on a 1 year deal. Good stuff. He stabilized things down the stretch. Sign Blevins and you're done.

Can they both win?

Well, that's ridiculous. You don't wait until the last minute to suspend him (or not). The Mets have to plan their season. If they're missing Familia for a month, other people get tried out in different roles in Spring Training. If they're not, they go about things normally. What this means is that their investigation has reached a dead end, and they're probably putting some pressure on the Mets to put pressure in turn on Familia & friends to cooperate.

June 6, 1998- Mets 1, Red Sox 0 at Fenway. The only run scores on a balk by Tim Wakefield. Bobby Jones throws 8 shutout innings and John Franco gets the save. Special post-game bonuses- we were staying at the Mets hotel so we got to see Bob Murphy knocking back scotches at the bar, and when the players came back Franco saw my son with a Winnie The Pooh doll and came over to him, got down on his knees and started talking to him about how his little boy loved Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and Piglet, too. My son held up his end of the conversation about as well as a 3-year-old could. A very surreal moment.

Favorite memory inside was the Todd Pratt homer against the D-Backs in 1999 to win the division series. An entire stadium held its breath for a split-second and then exploded. Incredible. The only people that didn't hold their breath for a split-second that day were those of us in the waydafuckupthere seats in the RF corner upper deck because that angle gave you a knife-edge view along the entire length of the RCF wall thus allowing those sections to immediately see the ball bouncing around underneath the scoreboard. So rather than having to wait for Finley to check his glove then do the shoulder-slump thing, we knew Finley didn't catch the ball before Finley knew that Finley didn't catch it. We also has a several second jump on Pratt knowing (he was still standing and staring after I celebrated then turned towards the IF) and, upon listening to the radio replay on the way home, it was obvious that we knew before Gary as well. The cheers definitely moved around the stadium day, best wave ever. I remember cheering (uppers behind home somewhere) before I could tell Finley didn't catch it. I remember remarking "I guess he didn't catch it". We were the farthest people from it after all. Was the best game I'd been to in my life to that point, though that only lasted about a week. The Gary Cohen play-by-play on this is awesome: 'Finley back to the warning track...to the wall...jumping....AAAAAAND.....it's outta here! That AAAAAAND is when everybody held their breath.

My wife was at Game 6 in 1986, and she said it all happened so fast she almost couldn't process it. So I married into that memory.

Favorite memory inside was the Todd Pratt homer against the D-Backs in 1999 to win the division series. An entire stadium held its breath for a split-second and then exploded. Incredible.

My uncle took me to my first Mets game when I was little. I asked him why there were police on the field; they were the umpires. A bright sunny day that lives on in memory. Everything was fresh and clean and exciting, and there was more grass than I'd ever seen in my entire life. That was 1968, and I was hooked. The next year they won it all, and being seven, just assumed it would continue forever. Foolish boy I was. Hung in through the late 70's/early 80's where they would rope off the upper deck because there were no paying customers. Celebrated 1986 with my girlfriend (now my wife). Survived bleach and cherrybombs in the early 90's. Took my son to Opening Day 1996 as a 7-month old, and he grew to worship Mike Piazza as only little kids can do. Made it through 2003, barely. Died as Beltran left the bat on his shoulder. Skyped with my son at college as we watched the Mets sweep the Cubs together, 200 miles apart. And right now desperately pine for any scrap of baseball news as pitchers and catchers draw closer, but not close enough. It's easy being a Yankee fan. Takes more work to be a Met fan. You've got to really want it, because about once a decade they squeeze your testicles in a drill press. But when it's good, it's really really good. Two of the best memories ever, the Grand Slam Single and Endy's catch, were in series that they ultimately lost. That's something Yankee fans can never, ever relate to.

MFS62 wrote: TheOldMole wrote: How can you hit for a lofty average without having plate discipline? You hit line drives off "bad" pitches that fall in for hits? Ask Ichiro. Later Aaah, fuck Ichiro.

Wish them health. I don't care about luck. I'm happy there are as few Mets as possible.