metsmarathon

i'd like to see the list of hitters who, when locked in such a tight race, and leading, [u:25vq8da8]did [/u:25vq8da8]take the field on the final day.

the biggest regret i have of this season is that i never quite got a chance to bring minimm out to citi. i'd hoped to do it in september, but as the month approached, it fairly well conspired against me. next year. definitely next year.

i miss baseball already.

pulling reyes to help him get the title i don't mind so much. its nice for reyes to get, and its nice for mets fans as a whole to have their guy, who we all want back, to get the thing. it just sucks hard for all those people who went out to the game, many of whom may have missed the one sole appearance. and it sucks for the folks at home who have to suffer through fat mike without even the hope of another jose josejosejose jose jose at bat. personally, i don't want braun to win it. i want reyes to get the title. and if not him, i want matt kemp to go 8 for 8 or whatever he has to do, and hit a few homers along the way, to get a triple crown. if my guy ain't winning hte batting title, i want him to lose to a guy who just won the fucking triple crown. i also want to see another MVP award go to a guy on a losing team, to further whittle down that silly little notion, and kemp getting the triple would help that mightily, i would think.

can't this fucking team do anything fucking right?

there's a minor league ballpark just minutes from my house that's going completely unused... not that i'd want the yankees to invade my precious sussex county, necessarily, but it would be nice ot have cheap baseball back in town. i'd much much prefer the mets or some non-yankees team to take up residence. long ago it was the cardinals' franchise. then it was independent. now it sit empty and forlorn. dare i say i would mind less the phillies moving in than the yankees. if only by a slim degree.

not yet. i'm still wary of a momentus collapse - those things seem to running around these days. i don't think there's all that much room for movement with one game left (would a 1-game playoff count for the league? hmm... ) but i'm still keeping the bottles corked for now. i'm also still not really all that sure how i've managed to win, as my draft wasn't terribly good, and injuries and trades hurt me a bit throughout hte year. i guess i just picked up the right guys at the right time, and my potentially foolish investment in pitching in the draft paid off. and i'm thoroughly clueless as to how my team became such an offensive powerhouse. batting average aside, for each of the other categories, i was worst or second worst in the league in april and/or may.

Reyes 3.8 Igarashi 1.6 Thole 1.4 Stinson 1.1 Byrdak 1.1 Tejada 1.0

holy fuck. its endings like this that almost make me glad the season is coming to a close.

it hit his foot didn't it? oh, i guess the guys in teh booth just noticed.

the 9-11 first responder cap fiasco was a gut punch. at least, i thought at the time it would be.

he needs 7 innings of 0-run ball, or 10 innings of 1-run ball to best jordan zimmerman's 3.18 ERA, and make it into the top ten, assuming no other movement among the leaders.

bbref doesn't apprear to indicate any player transactions with oakland that offseason.

not that it matters all that much at this point, but coming into a game with the bases loaded and no outs and with your team up by a run, and not only getting out of the inning unscathed but also retiring the first batter in the next inning before getting pulled for a situational matchup that didn't work out terribly well has got to be worth more than 1 schaefer vote, especially when there aren't all that many other players tapping the keg. fwiw, using my proprietary spreadsheet, i have this as the biggest relief performance in a 9-inning game, bested only by a pair of extra inning efforts by pedro beato. my little mechanical buddy also sees this as the top relief outing in a 9-inning game, bested only by pedro beato's may day extra inning affair. granted i've given out way more beer to relievers than the 3.0 votes iggy gets from me today, as those things are scaled. but he's my top performer in the 26 september game. it's hard to get more or better from your middle relief pitcher.

Igarashi 3.0 Reyes 2.2 Evans 1.2 Wright 1.1 Stinson 0.9 Thayer 0.8 Parnell 0.8

i think its a problem throughout baseball that when managers try harder to win, they try harder to lose the game. sac bunting is one of those examples. that's a thing managers do when they think they're helping, but really all they it does is hurt. but it's what the book says to do... the cards game last night, otoh, is how you use bunting to win. both strategically and tactically. shitty metly bunting loses that game.

Pridie 3.2 Thayer 1.9 Baxter 1.8 Paulino 1.3 Beato 0.9 Stinson 0.9

Gee 4.2 Thole 2.0 Parnell 1.5 Acosta 0.9 Pridie 0.8 Evans 0.6

Dickey 4.5 Pascucci 1.3 Acosta 1.2 Parnell 1.1 Wright 1.0 Tejada 0.9

anyone notice that matt kemp is incredibly close to the triple crown this year? he basically just needs to have two hits more than jose and ryan in the same number of at bats to get the average, and is one homer shy of the lead there. oh, and he's also got the best WAR in the league according to both fangraphs and bbref, which has him at a silly 2 wins better than the next guy (teammate clayton kershaw).

damned wild card, robbing us of exciting divisional races.

i love my audi...

if i average the two metrics together, then third base ties for worst. but it does not [crossout:p0aze9zc]lead[/crossout:p0aze9zc] trail either metric.

first base is the mets' best defensive position. per total zone, murphy, davis, and evans all saved 2 runs, with duda costing -1 runs. per 1200 innings or 135 games, murphy saves 5 runs, davis 7, and evans 8, with duda at -4. per baseball info solutions, muprhy saved 6 runs, davis 2, evans 4, and duda -1. per 1200 innings or 135 games, murphy saves a whopping 16, davis 8, evans bests murphy with 17, and duda trails at -4. total zone would rate our first base defense as 6th in the NL. baseball info solutions has it 1st. defensively, it would seem that murphy takes away much more than he giveth, eh? still waiting for the worst. the shocking, appalling truth.

using the total zone defensive metric*, bbref has our defense as costing our pitching staff 80 runs over hte course of the year so far. the second-worst defense, colorado, cost their pitching staff 38 runs. bbref has our pitching staff as worth 13.7 WAR for the season, 10th in the league. the average pitching staff in the NL is worth 14.3 WAR. at only one defensive position were the mets above average. can you guess which? the answer might surprise you. also, can you guess which has been our worst defensive position? the answer there might also be surprising, but less so. *note - the baseball info solutions defensive runs saved shows very different numbers, but the overall story is much the same. our best defensive positon stays where we probably wouldn't expect it, and our worst defensive postion moves to where we might never suspect, while a few positions move more towards average. overall, they have us at -41 runs, second in the league behind the cubs at -59. subtracting 80 runs from our pitching staff's 718 runs allowed gives us 638, for a R/G of 4.09. subtracting 41 runs gives us a 4.33 R/G. league average is R/G is 4.16. were it not for our poor defense, we might have an average pitching staff.