metsmarathon

Yancy Street Gang wrote: The thing though is that fans don't make the trades, GM's do. well, exactly. if this were a GM forum, then i could see sal's incredulity. its a fan forum. fans like to keep their favorite players, win-based rationality be damned, often.

when did the mets become your team again? enjoy the yankees, dude, cos you'll find sentimentaility amongst the ranks of fans of every other fucking team on the planet.

pitchers not being on greenies tiring out before the hitters, and thereby tossing fatter meatier pitches destined for the cheap seats?

y'know... this whole trade speculation thread is somewhat interesting, if i take a step beyond all the shenanigans going on within it. among the primary objections to the trade are: A) for the good of the game, the trade should not go through, as the weak get weaker and the strong get stronger. i feel we'd have a better chance of signing "our guy" to a long term deal than someone brought in from the outside. C) i hate that every time it seems we have another superstar in the wings, we trade him away, and i don't want to see that happen gain, this time. (i apologize for mischaracterizing or oversimplifying anyone's position.) i think that each one of those objections is entriely reasonable and legitimate. the rich getting richer, poor getting poorer is certainly a legit concern, and this trade would only exacerbate such a climate. and depending on how strong you view the game, you may more woefully consider the outcome of this move. surely, the concentration of power in the northeast does not benefit baseball as a whole. and maybe that's more of a macro view than the trade proposition was looking for. granted, i would suggest that it is better for baseball, if only marginally so, for these two players to land in flushing than in the bronx. and so long as teh current framework of baseball exists, wherin power can be concentrated in the northeast, the teams in the northeast should do well to take advantage of it lest their other northeasterly competitors beat them to the punch. as far as the baility of a team to re-sign a player who grew up with them, well, that's something that could probably be reserached, and conclusions drawn up in response. i would guess that teams are somewhat better able to retain players that gew up through their own farm systems than those who did not, but that it is not nearly so much of an advantage as fans like to think it is. i'm sure it would be possible to chart the probability or resigning a player in his initial free agency foray based on length of ML service with his current team. surely the benefit lies in the fact that the current team would have greater opportunity based upon a period of exclusive rights. but does that benefit exist only for players who are brough up through a given teams farm system, or does it also extend to those players brought in via trade, prior to the ripening of tehir free agency? i'm not sure how much benefit there is, and if it would outweigh the addition of two "stars" in excahnge for one. the final point is perhaps the most difficult to address. gone are the cal ripkens and tony gwynns of the world, for the most part. teams rarely have the opportunity to develop a superstar, and have him grow up and then old with teh same team. and fans dearly want it to happen. as a fan, you develop an emotional attachment to players on your team, you become invested in teh players - their potential is your hope for the future. you long to see one of "your guys" grow up into a superstar, and reap benefits for your team. you hate to see him go elsewhere as a hired gun. you root for your team, and you want to root for your players, too. you want to root for more than just the clothes on their back, and the grass under their feet, and the owner above tehm all in his skybox. you want to root for players. for people. for a kid you want to see mature. not for some hired gun - you root for them, too, when they wear your uniform, tread your grass, and draw your owner's payroll - but you want players of your own. you want your team to win more games, score more runs, sell more tickets, but at the same time you want to have players to root for. and sometimes those two desires contradict each other. because you have to get rid of the players you root for, sometimes, to win more games, score more runs, and selll more tickets. and then you have to choose. do you want to root for the team, or root for the result? this is not a position entirely unique to Mets fans. it is not some blue-and-orange bespectacled affliction. it is a condition of fans of all teams, save perhaps some of those who've bought into the presumed birthright of the pinstripes. fans of every team want to see their team bring up their playerrs, and have those players blossom on their field in front of their eyes trying to win games for their benefit. your guys are worth more to you than other players because they are "your guys" and it goes beyond wins and losses. you're an idiot if you think there's something wrong with met fans, and that it is something peculiar only to met fans, for thinking this way, about their guy, particularly about the one of their guys whose star shines brightest, perhaps brighter than any met position player ever before, whose promising future beckons the loudest, who's touted as one of the most promising young stars in the league, who playes the game the right way, who already is emerging as a leader on this team of veterans. Can you blame them for not wanting to jettison him, no matter what the return catch? Met fans would rather win 90 games with David Wright, than 95 games without him, because he is a Met. He's one of ours. I can't fault them for that. shame on you if you can. and check your logbooks. this tirade is from someone who would, ultimately, make the trade. (but not before i made damned sure that every single scout, coach, and trainer on my staff assured me that my concerns over dontrelle's long-term viability are unfounded, cos i'm just not a big believer in the kid, despite his considerable past results...)

Tad Iguchi, not So Taguchi. Very nice, impressive throw! woulda sucked if he'd clipped his army on the ground there...

hey, like i said in the thread, i'deventually makew teh trade. i'd just need a bit more than a second's sorth of soul-searching before i pulled the trigger that sent away the latest face of the franchise. i mean, at some point a team's gotta keep tehir own players, right?

what a bad trade that would be! we have no place to put him in the field, and lose a pitcher out of our already thin rotation.

not to start arguing for crazy uncle sal, but i'm pretty sure willis and cabrera don't get their free agency rights until after next season.

do we even know if cabrera and willis can handle new york?

can you imagine how those yankee fans would always say they'd never want to trade jeter for arod?

i voted no. yeah, in the thread i said i would probably make the move. i realize that. but if you come up to me with this deal, and tell me i have exactly one second (or require some similar instantaneaous response) then i tell you to fuck off.

cabrera has all of 72 games under his belt at third, but in those 72 games, he seems to be a slightly about an average fielder. wright has 238 games at third and also seems to be an average fielder, if not statistically slightly behind cabrera, based on baseball prospectus' estimation. going off more traditional fielding stats, cabrera has an 0.892 f% and an 0.803 ZR, compared to wright's 0.948 f% and 0.767 ZR. i'm surprised wright's range is so relatively small. i would have expected better based on having watched him (tho i've not really watched much cabrera against which to make a comparison) so in a pure numbers sense, it appears that wright straight up for cabrera would be a slight upgrade. ... does cabrera have as good a reputation as a leader and potential future MVP as wright? i feel as if i've heard such things as intangibles mentioned, too? i dunno. also don't know if such a thing means all that much, or would even be based in as much reality, if it is just a function of a better PR machine... and so, trading wright for a slight upgrade in cabrera, and getting a cy young candidate in willis, would seem to be a no brainer. except that both teams would be trading the faces of their franchises, and fan favorites as well. the trade would likely be disastrous for the fish, and i'm sure there'd be some backlash from mets fans who'd like to see one of their own develop into an MVP, particularly for us, instead of bringing one in. met fans are emotionally invested in wright, and i think rightfully so. for that reason, i could understand reluctance to trade him away, regardless the returns. and i'm sure that met fans will view wright as more re-signable than willis/cabrera, wether or not that's really true, which will of course lead to complaints of trading away 15 years of the future for not more than three years of the present. i would not want to be the met gm who is forced to make a deicison if faced with this trade proposal. in the end, i'd likely ultimately pull the trigger, and hate myself in the morning.

the bestthing for julio would likely be to keep him as far away from the field at shea as possible. there's just no way he's ever going to find a modicum of confidence pithing in front of mets fans. maybe, if he's going to be kept up, he can pitch on the road... but it would be far better to send him down to get "fixed"

]My nipples explode with delight! um.... yeah... mine too.

why do i not think "great-looking clothes" when i think "joe torre"?

oh, i know. i'm refering to statements such as "[group] plays like this", etc., be they domincans, cubans, japanese, or canadians. kids in different countries grow up playing the game in different ways, developing unique variations on skills, and prefering some combinations of such skills over others, resulting in certain similarities in style of play across large groups relative to other large groups. i have a problem when people think that such things are tantamount to racism, or are otherwise offended. if mex has gotten in trouble for such statements, i wonder if it was because somebody actually complained, or if some "proactive" suit wanted to cut the lawyers and whiners off at the pass...

the casual listener should consider that such comments regarding "stereotypical latino ballplayers" would generally refer to baseball skills and styles that are the result of social and cultural ideosyncracies, and not biological or genealogical. but people are idiots, and offend too easily.

if bonds were white, i would feel the same way about the asshole. ditto if ruth were black. its a damned shame the rest of the world doesn't feel the same exact way.

very nice logo. awful lettering, imo. it is very tempting to up and buy a t-shirt... i'll have to give it some thought

Beltran 2 Wright 2 Delgado 2 Floyd 2 Woodward 2

Martinez 5 Beltran 1 Wright 1 Delgado 1 Heilman 1 Wagner 1

Bannister 5 Beltran 2 Loduca 2 Reyes 1

i have such a lot of catching up to do...

i'm sorry, and maybe its a failure of my own imagination, but i cannot conceive of a way for shea herself to be renovated in such a fashion as to cost-effectively bring her in line with modern stadia, in terms of seating, amenities, etc. i also, not that this should really have any bearing on it, cannot fathom how such a maneiver would NOT get derided as the move of a lousy cheapass organization.

wright 3 glavine 3 sanchez 2 wagner 1 beltran 1