metsmarathon

Anybody know a good pitchfork sharpener? Or is it more fun if it’s rusty and dull?

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**** this news. make it go away. go sign pete. and, y'know, more relievers, too.

Love this if as a setup man. Less love if as the closer. Just pour some damned sugar on me already!

I’m also paywalled, but based on the snippets I e read, yeah, that’s what it smacks of. Basically it feels to me like this is a hit piece on the brown guy who the popular white guy they just traded away apparently had some beef about.

Brown guys bad. White guy good. Ugh, We still doin’ this narrative?

Not the strongest ballot. Really have to try hard to justify most of my votes. Beltran, jones, Felix, utley and wright are easy peasy votes. Pedroia and abreu also get gift nods, with an extra-gifty gift to hamels. Pettite and arid can eat a dick. Same with Ryan Braun. Sorry manny, you were ****ing amazing but dirty. Boo.

aw, man i really liked brandon nimmo. granted, he was not good in the outfield last year, and his on base hasn't been where it used to be... and the whispers going around are that he wasn't a fan of lindor... so... i dunno. i think the trade makes the mets a better defensive team, but not necessarily a better hitting-for-contact team... actually, semien's k rate was 17.4 to nimmo's 21.6, so.... hmm... that's actually an improvement. i'm still curious what this means for the bevy of young middle infielders the mets have.... i guess they're not super high on too many of them. or could another shoe be dropping?

Doesn’t the pitching coach factor into any of this…?

Of course the only two players I’ve ever owned a jersey of opt out of their contracts in the same off season. I’m significantly more invested in Diaz staying, despite Pete being one of my most favorite Mets players ever. Pay the man. There’s no Equal, I don’t want no Sweet’n’low, and don’t go bringing that Stevia horseshit around here.

Damn, this really spins my “centerfield is the tom seaver of the crane pool forum” in a harsh new light…

Centerfield, because if the king isn’t the franchise, then I don’t know who is… Who is the Tom Seaver of the 2025 Mets?

Judiciously using my brain I know that there’s a position adjustment In the score. Like, the difference between a shortstop and a firstbaseman is about 200 points. Between a DH and 1b is 14 points. So yeah, it’s amazing how often players who play the same position come up as similar to each other. And with that, I know all that I need to know about the remainder of this conversation. It’s about as useful as looking to the sim scores to predict Pete’s future career based on Nate Colbert.

a few years back, Pete’s most similar player was shohei. That shohei appeared on Pete’s list wasnt really my point. Rather it was an entry into my next point. Right now, if you look, shoheis most similar batter is ryan howard. Wait. Actually, his most similar overall is Pete. His most similar thru age 29 is Ryan Howard. And some other big lumbering sluggers are all over the list. In what way are shoei and Pete and Ryan Howard at all similar, other than that when you add up their homers and doubles and triples etc you get around the same numbers? What examples do you have of success using sim scores to predict player performance, other than as a reminder that aging curves exist?

Getting into WAR, Pete doesn't look good at all. Actually I was surprised by how little WAR he got in 2025 with his 38 HRs and league-leading 41 doubles: 3.4. That's pretty piddling, considering. Bret Baty came in at 3.1, in hundreds of fewer plate appearances. BTW, is the 3.4 you cite as the first prediction a prediction or a description of his 2025? Those other numbers look pretty sad. And I don't understand why you're clinging to McGwire as a good thing for Pete. Since he was juiced (and achieved some big numbers in his thirties), doesn't that suggest that Pete would require massive injections of steroids (which he will not be able to get) in order to match McGwire's performance in his thirties? Sorry. I keep thinking I’m being clear, when clearly I am not. 3.4 WAR was the zips projection at the end of 2024 for Pete’s fWAR in 2025. He actually had 3.6. Brett Naty had 2.3. Bbref has different numbers. 3.4 war for Pete, and 3.1 for Baty. They REaLLy like his fielding over there. But I tend to mostly use FanGraphs war. I don’t have the newly updated projections that account for Pete’s pretty good 2025, but expect them to tick slightly higher. Once they are created and released by the guy who makes them. I’m not hanging my hat on any Big Mac similarity. I’m rejecting similarity scores altogether. Unless you’re really going to tell me that shohei Ohtani is destined to age like Ryan Howard because when you add up the number of doubles and triples and homers and other stuff you get kinda the same number. Similarity scores are a somewhat fun way to look at what kind of player a guy WAS. They have very limited value in looking at what kind of player a guy WILL BE.

Why would you look at similar batters through age 29? Pete's turning 31 in a few weeks. As to McGwire, are you under the assumption that Pete's getting away with taking steroids? I'm convinced he's not. Your table has data comparing what Pete had done through his age 29 season, to what other players had done in their entire careers. Mine was at least comparing apples to apples. As to McGwire, I’m just saying clean Pete is most similar to dirty Mac, based on that chart. And if that’s a problem, hey, I’m not the one using similarity scores to try to make a point.

Oh. Actually FanGraphs has done the job for us. There’s a projection for his next five years, per Zips. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/looking-ahead-at-this-offseasons-opt-out-candidates/ With a table and everything. It predicts the following war totals: 3.4, 2.7, 1.8, 1.2, 0.7 The bottom line is that yes, there’s concern about how a bat-first righty 1b will age, but he’ll do better in free agency this year than last, and could get into the low 100M contract strata.

Also, it’s clear that you’re using data that’s already a year old. (We both are) it doesn’t include his age 30 season, which was pretty good, and likely changes some of the similarities. Expect Colbert to drop off, probably. If you want to look at freely available projections go over to FanGraphs and peep their zips projections. Also a year out of date, but much more predictive value. And they really underestimated Pete’s age 30 season. 26 doubles, 32 homers, 242/335/466 slashes. Even with that, Zips, last year, projected Pete to net 2.2 and 1.6 war in his ages 31 and 32 seasons, with 30 and 26 homers respectively. I’d expect those numbers to go up when they re-run it. A decline ahead, sure, but not quite so disastrously. Yes it could all go wrong and age could catch him in a hurry. It gets us all if we’re lucky. But you’re using the wrong tools in the wrong way to asses how risky bringing Pete back truly is.

Hold up. Wait. You’re looking at the similar batters table, and NOT the similar batters through age 29 table?! (I guess bbref doesn’t update the charts until the offseason) Mark McGwire (966.0) Matt Olson (958.3) Chris Davis (948.2) Cecil Fielder (942.8) Richie Sexson (936.2) Glenn Davis (914.9) Tony Clark (904.7) Ryan Howard (904.0) Tino Martinez (902.4) Nate Colbert (902.2) Sure, many of the same names show up, but damn if that ain’t a rosier picture! McGwire went on to do some things (asterisk) and Olson is doing pretty well. But look. I’m gonna throw a whole lot of cold water all over this exercise. A name popped up that intrigued me, looking at these sim scores. I hope this name causes you yourself to question this approach as well. At age 26, Pete’s lost similar batters table was shohei ****ing Ohtani. Would you think them to be remotely similar players, pitching aside - of course. Sho’s current list of similar hitter includes the following names: Ryan Howard (921.5) Fred McGriff (912.4) * David Ortiz (910.3) * Carlos Delgado (905.0) Willie McCovey (903.0) * Matt Olson (902.5) Richie Sexson (901.2) Mo Vaughn (900.8) Pete Alonso (888.7) Albert Belle (878.5) Now. You’re telling me that the same tool you’re using to say, woah, Pete’s destined to break down just like these guys, is also telling you that shoei is going to turn into an overweight black guy with really bad knees. There ain’t no similarity between sho-time and David ortiz, Ryan Howard, Albert belle, or mo Vaughn, other than that if you add up all their cumulative stats you end up with about the same numbers. It’s a curiosity at best, that can maybe be useful in seeing what other guys had similar production through their careers. Here’s the explanation of how they get it: There’s nothing predictive in ANY of that. But, yeesh. Sorry about Ohtani. Looks like we dodged a bullet there.

I would surmise that similarity scores on bbref have very little predictability value.

This is really the first time the pitching plan collapsed so spectacularly. Is it bad luck or bad design, at least as far as hefners influence matters? I think the biggest problem is and has often been a ack of a situational hitting approach. Too often players swinging for the downs (and missing) when contact will do. That would tend to explain much of our performance in close and late games. Fix that, and you fix a lot.

You know what they say… expect the Mets.

But I do think that a lot of the answer is, “you’re better than this” Because the offense looks like it’s trying too hard, and the pitching staff too. So if I were Mendoza I’d say to the guys, “who are you when you’re at your best? Be that guy. Don’t try to hit the ball outta the damn park each time - just be a good hitter who’s aggressive on his pitches, and we’ll start string hits and runs together, instead of getting our own selves out. And pitchers, throw the ball like you mean it, instead of tying to be cute. Be the big leaguers you are. Relax, have fun, and go win some ****ing games.”

What’s your message to this team? What do you tell them? How do you break them out of this funk? Obviously, “stop sucking” but more specifically, what do you think the team needs to hear? It’s all up to you!

Let me see that tong