metsmarathon

the mets last year drew greater attendance than all but three teams in 1977. the mets last year drew greater attendance than the 1972 mets. the mets this year have already drawn greater attendance than the 1979 mets, for their entire season.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I would hope he's the height FK noted... because, well, 6'2"/165? Ye Gods. that's almost like me in high school, plus about 10-15 pounds.

i figured this would be as good a place as any for hte following discussion... i was listening to mlbradio this afternoon, and the topic of fixing/improving the all star balloting came up. well, i tuned in mid-topic, and tuned out before they were done. the crux of the topic was htat hte internet balloting where each ip address gets 25 votes (or more, if you're crafty), is boospit. taking hte voting out of hte fans hands altogether isn't desired, either. but how would you limit it to just one per person, or otherwise restrict ballot-stuffing? one hastily spitballed idea was to limit the balloting to season-ticket holders. another would be to allow each ticket holder to sign up for a vote, using their ssn or some such unique identifier. both of these were, or course, shot down. so... any competing ideas in cpf-world? mind you, this is a pressing topic for the commissioner to address, and will be useful in helping the committee identify the right person for the job. i can think of two solutions, one of which is overly complicated, and the other is not quite so much. the easier of the two solutions is to link all star voting to a credit card number. one vote per card. there's still the possibility of a person with multiple cards voting multiple times, and some voters would be scared away. but it could work. the other solution is to install voting kiosks in each stadium, and give out one vote per ticket (unique serial code on each ticket). step into the booth, scan your ticket, pick your players, and move on. but that's not fair, you say. some teams draw more fans than others. true. the actual voting would be limited to an extent by hte throughput of the kiosks. but if you wanted to design out (or assume out) that "feature" then you could put each team's votes on the same scale. the sum total of all votes cast at citi field carries the same weight as the sum total of all votes cast at fenway, at ysiii, or dodger stadium, at at&t, etc. the problem with this is, of course, that some teams may generate nearly uniform blocs of voters, where every cards fan votes for every card, and each of their players scores a 1.00 vote share. could that be trumped by the combined votes at other sites? would any teams stadium NOT do that? okay, probably mets fans wouldn't vote for all mets....but this is my more ridiculously complicated scheme. the first one might be better. another wrinkle might be to give the players a ballot, where tehir combined vote counts as much as one team's vote. and maybe even do the same for the media. unless you didn't care that the voting was scaled by attendance (the effect of giving each paid ticket an all star vote). in which case, you want more player from your team going to the game, get more of your friends to go to your team's games! i'm not entirely sure that scaling it by attendance is a bad thing. its better than letting a few good giant fan internet guys putting marco scutaro in again. not htat i think the fan voting as it currently stands is irrevocably fucked up. i think they usually get things more right than wrong, and even the "every team gets a player" thing doesn't screw things up too badly. i like that and don't think it should go away. well, those are my elaborate thoughts. what are yours? presuming you care to think about the all star game. but if you're the commish, you should. because it counts, natch!

how big are the cheapest hot dogs at these stadiums? are we perhaps getting a better dog for the extra dollars?

Edgy MD wrote: Apparently it's STS = { [ Abs ( MetsWAR + OtherTeamWAR ) ] / 2 } - [ Abs ( MetsWAR - OtherTeamWAR ) ] Or somesuch. you probably don't want the absolute value of the average of the two WARs, as a player with a negative average WAR would end up positive here. i really wish that bbref frivolity listed the players by WAR in addition to the games, hits, homers, and stolen bases. it would make this so much easier. the best diamondmet i can find is elmer dessens, at 1.2 STS. chris young has a chance of topping that, i suppose, but will need about 6 WAR in his metly career. i doubt that he does it this season...

the top philamet should be dykstra, no? dykstra had 16.5 WAR as a met, and 25.7 as a phil mcgraw had 12.8 WAR as a met, and 8.2 as a phil i assume the criteria we're looking for here is a high level of performance, evenly split between two teams, right? to that end, allow me to suggest a perfectly outrageous idea... pending any yet to be performed investigation, your expomet should be... not gary carter... but... ron hunt (?!) gary carter is not an expomet. he is an expo, who also played well as a met. his work was not close to evenly shard between the two team, much as we love him as our own. he tallied 55.6 WAR as an expo, compared to 11.3 as a met. ron hunt, on the other hand, had 8.2 WAR as a met and 12.7 as an expo. i thought long and hard about this. well, for a few minutes this morning at least. gary carters' average of WAR between mets and expos was 33.45, however, the delta between his met and expo totals was 44.3 WAR. subtract the delta from the average, and you get -10.85 as his shared-teamliness-score, or STS. i need a better acronym. ron hunt's STS is 5.95. for comparison, wayne garret is a -3.5 and rusty staub is a 0.95. i think this metric best captures what it is to be a player shared by two teams. willie mays (-74.9 STS) is not a metgiant. angel pagan (3.85 STS) is. but ron hunt (7.45 STS) (him again?!), is THE metgiant, with his 8.2 metly WAR and 9.7 giantly WAR. until i find somebody better, that is... i've yet to identify a metindian... kent is a -3.15 STS. nolan ryan may be an astroranger, or an astroangel, but nobody's going to share him with the mets.

i don't like it just for the reason that whatever comes out is sure to be painted as a problem ingrained into the mets, and not representative of the entire culture of baseball, partiuclarly in the cocaine and steroid eras. i'd hope that in laying waste to flushing, he also finds the time and ink to sprinkle in anecdotes he's heard of shady goings-ons in other locker rooms. but by all means, bring it on. too much athlete culture stays behind closed doors. it fosters ugliness.

sorry, i've been swampish at work, and can't even find the time to turn a damned skate key.

if i were commissioner, travis d'arnaud would never have to worry about having an upside down P to start his last name. because everything would be lowercase. i cast my lot with m.e.t.b.o.t.

lego minifigs do not have knees and elbows. the legs hinge at the hip, the arms pivot at the shoulder, and the hands rotate at the wrist. and they don't generally have printed noses. the body shape is different, as lego minifigs don't have butts, for instance. more importantly, lego typically have a greater build quality, tighter tolerances, and use a higher quality plastic than their competitors. this means they last longer, hold together better, and hurt more when you step on them. for comparison... Lego baseball by giovanazzi.andrea, on Flickr

i really wish they were real lego...

metsmarathon wrote: i have 3 pitchers and 1 position player on my payroll (either salaried or as a cap-hit) who have undergone tommy john surgery this year: patrick corbin (60-day DL) josh johnson (cut) bruce rondon (cut) and miguel sano stupid ligaments... add matt weiters to the "needs tjs" bandwagon. and poorly-performing reliever sergio santos just hit the dl with forearm tightness. will he give me a cool half dozen?

yeah, i'd read that pretty much just before making my comment. also, the other day, minimm had stated that only boys are allowed to play star wars. after i told him that girls could play, too, if they wanted, offering up princess leia as a person they could be (and also stating that a girl could play as luke skywalker, or yoda, or darth vader, if she wanted), minimm countered that a girl could also be luke's mom. mind you, he hasn't seen the prequels, so doesn't really know that padme amidala is a viable character. i think he was referring to either aunt beru, or possibly just the theoretical mom that luke must surely have. meaning, there are no roles for women in the original star wars universe, especially as presented in the first two movies (IV and V), beyond either princess leia or a generic female. it was then that i realized i'm glad i only have boys.

that galaxy far, far away sure is a sausage fest, isn't it?

i'm a true new jerseyan and am therefore ineligible to sign the letter.

Niese 5.0 Tejada 1.9 Murphy 1.4 Cyoung 0.9 Matsuzaka 0.4 Valverde 0.4

d'arnaud is more preferable than darnaud? dang. sorry about that there.

it is never too late to correct that oversight, though. i mean, damn. do you even own an iron?

i love these uniforms so much, i feel sad when they wear the other home uniforms. and i love the pinstripes and the snow whites. the camo uni... um.. no. not at all.

i both liked it, and i didn't care for it, all at the same time. i felt frequently like i had no idea who the actual protagonist of hte film was, and also who the antagonist was. it seemed more a story wherein a bunch of stuff happens, and there are people there too, some of whom influence and direct the outcome, but their roles are muddled. i supose that in a more sophisticated film, that migt be a good thing. but in this one, it just felt unfocused. maybe i'm just not that good at watching movies...? the troll-rocks, though they played an integral role in the whole mythology of the film, only seemed to detract from it. also, they scared minimm in the theater. and i did hand-wring at the time that the whole pivotal let it go song was kinda saying, "move past your doubts and insecurities - you too can be sexed up, bitchy bad girl if that's what you really want" but that all said, it's not bad, or mind-numbing, or stupid, or unclever. nor is it awash in (most of) the typical princess tropes. the only one that stands is that princesses must be dead sexy. i loved olaf. and liked the dude with the reindeer whose name i forget. (them and the trolls were clear concessions to boys, who may have come to the movie thinking it more about snowmen and reindeer than two bratty girls) anna is a good role model, for what limited use you may find movie role models to be, but the focus of the key song that all the girls are singing is elsa being an anti-role model - again, hand-wringing - and elsa never seems to have a reckoning where she truly and deeply apologizes for the trouble she caused.. its like, gee, you froze the whole damned kingdom, built a giant ice castle of isolationism, had your snow monsters nearly kill me, and, because of all this shit you started some jackass with a broadsword would have cut me to pieces if only i didn't turn to ice as a result of your magical snow-powers, but since i saved your life by attempting to sacrifice my own, we're cool now. was there any remorse, like, ever? and, after rewatching the movie in pre-K, minimm had a few nights of nightmares about being frozen by elsa. so i guess, my final verdict is, kinda good, not bad, with warts, and it scared my kid a little.

i love that he had a knockoff breitling watch.

well... um... at least they're trying... ... right?

my pitching is doing remarkably well considering $57 clayton kershaw has given me one start in australia, and may not pitch until mid may. hopefully it holds up...

i have 3 pitchers and 1 position player on my payroll (either salaried or as a cap-hit) who have undergone tommy john surgery this year: patrick corbin (60-day DL) josh johnson (cut) bruce rondon (cut) and miguel sano stupid ligaments...

eventually, my offense should heat up... right?