Fman99

themetfairy wrote: ="Fman99"]The third ROY was actually traded to the Mets and then traded away that same winter, without ever playing a game in a Mets uniform. David Justice? That is correct.

The third ROY was actually traded to the Mets and then traded away that same winter, without ever playing a game in a Mets uniform.

themetfairy wrote: Scared shitless I am not scared but I am definitely unsettled. Until he's got the hat on and the jersey over top of the suit coat and tie, I will not relax.

I've never been to a HOF game, though I've been to the HOF many times. It's about a two hour drive from my home... I think this year I'm going to take the day off to attend the game. My last chance to do so and all.

="AG/DC"]I say it has. As disappointing an off-season as this had seemingly been for the Mets, it's been worse for the Yankees. They'd called a press-conference with internal leaks reporting that it was to announce the re-signing of their Hall-of-Fame-bound manager, and he walked out on them. Suckers. They lost the best player in baseball for three weeks, and ended up spending tens of millions of dollars extra to re-sign him that they wouldn't have had to spend if they closed that same contract three weeks earlier. Saps. They had the blustery son of their blustery owner declare that he had given the Twins a deadline in dealing with the Mighty Yankees on Santana --- acting like actaul compettition was beneath him and his brand --- only to come crawling back into the bidding again and again after the deadline passed, and still lost out. Clowns. Pretenders. They had their last championship run tarnished by the revelation that their two best pitchers were using PEDs. FAKES! CHEATS! Derek Jeter, given a chance to come to his teammate's defense, was just a bit mealy-mouthed. Mealy-mouths! The highlight of their offseason was either signing Wilson Betemit or Johnny Damon winning the Joan Payson award. Betemit is a good player, but he may end up out of position at first base, and I'd personally rather have a Joan Payson award. I'd say that one of the 5 worst things you could have in your mouth, is mealy.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: Sweet! Expected Klapisch headline: "Omar waits too long, gives up too much" Expected Verducci headline: "Santana's good, but he's no Jeter" And the actual Klapisch headline today: Yanks draw assist in giving Johan to rival See, it's all about the Yankees. Not "Omar brilliantly plays Twins, gets ace and still holds on to top propsect." No, the Mets succeeded because the Yankees allowed them to. These people are so predictable. For the first time in months, given the enormity of the story, I thought I'd check the NY rags' sites to see what their take was on it. And of course, it's all about the MFYs. Just reinforces why I prefer to get my commentary from blogs these days.

This is my personal favorite from that thread... ]I have started drinking I suggest you all do the same.

The poll can be found here. Some interesting results: 1) If the proposed Johan Santana trade to the Mets goes through, which team would be getting the better end of the deal? 90.2% Mets (would receive Johan Santana) 9.8% Twins (would receive Carlos Gomez, Phil Humber, and two minor leaguers) 2) Would the acquisition of Johan Santana make the Mets the preseason favorites to win the 2008 World Series? 65.1% No 34.9% Yes 3) How will Santana perform in 2008 if he is traded to the National League? 54.6% 16-19 wins, 2.50-3.50 ERA 40.8% 20 or more wins, less than 2.50 ERA 4.5% 15 or fewer wins, greater than 3.50 ERA 4) Santana's strikeout and walk rates remained consistent in 2007, but his home run rate jumped significantly. What does this mean for his career going forward? 59.2% He's not untouchable, but still one of the best pitchers in baseball 36.8% Nothing; it's a one-year blip 4.0% Hitters have figured him out, and he'll have more trouble from now on 5) If Santana is traded to the Mets, would too much of baseball's elite talent be concentrated on the East Coast? 57.5% No 42.5% Yes 6) Is Santana worth a long-term (6- or 7-year) deal? 75.0% Yes 25.0% No 7) Will Santana make the Hall of Fame? 82.2% Yes 17.8% No 8) If Santana is traded, which high-profile Mets pitcher will end up with the better career? 54.6% Johan Santana 45.4% Pedro Martinez 9) If Santana is traded, who would be the best pitcher in the National League? 65.4% Johan Santana 14.1% Jake Peavy 5.5% Brandon Webb 3.0% Cole Hamels 2.3% Carlos Zambrano 2.1% Roy Oswalt 1.6% John Smoltz 1.2% Pedro Martinez 1.1% Dan Haren 1.1% Brad Penny 0.8% Ben Sheets 0.6% Matt Cain 0.5% Tim Hudson 0.5% Aaron Harang 0.4% Chris Young 10) If the trade goes through, would the Twins be contenders in the AL Central? 86.9% No 13.1% Yes

Fantastic.

Anyone know a lively Twins fan forum? I'd be curious to read quotes from their fans on this deal, assuming it goes through.

Fman99 wrote: Our pal Buster has an update, of sorts, on this situation, saying that the Mets offer is Gomez, Humber and two others. I suspect that'd be Guerra and Mulvey. Any deal where the Mets keep Pelfrey, Church and F-Mart is a good one IMHO. I called it!

WOO HOO! That is a GREAT deal for the Mets!

Our pal Buster has an update, of sorts, on this situation, saying that the Mets offer is Gomez, Humber and two others. I suspect that'd be Guerra and Mulvey. Any deal where the Mets keep Pelfrey, Church and F-Mart is a good one IMHO.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Here's the key paragraph from that article by Ken Davidoff: The Mets are willing to give up multiple prospects for Santana, who wants a six-year, $150-million extension in return for waiving his no-trade clause. To date, however, the Mets have not relented on giving up minor-league outfielder Fernando Martinez in addition to outfielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Deolis Guerra, Phil Humber and Kevin Mulvey. Those are pretty much the same names we heard a few weeks ago. What Davidoff doesn't make clear is which side is expected to bend in the next ten days. Do the Mets include Martinez, or will the Twins withdraw their insistence that he be included? I'm not crazy about losing Guerra and Mulvey at once, but I probably would have said the same thing a dozen years ago about Isringhausen and Pulsipher. At least they'd be keeping Pelfrey, Maine, and Perez, so the Mets wouldn't be short on young pitching. But if Gomez and Martinez follow Milledge out of town, the Mets are short on young outfielders. Is Endy the fourth outfielder in 2008, and Pagan the fifth? Are there any free-agent replacements for Alou who will be available next winter? And does that leave them deep enough for this season? I'm hoping they can avoid a situation where this year's version of Michael Tucker or Ben Johnson is getting a lot of outfield starts in 2008. Seriously. Someone get "Ice" Williams on the phone, just in case.

Mendoza Line wrote: I saw it two weeks ago - it was my "It's Christmas and I'm Jewish and there's nothing else to do" movie. Cute. Sweet. Heartwarming. Well written and well acted. A little unrealistic, but still fun to watch. Ah that takes me back to seeing Godfather III in high school. Unfortunately I was unable to buy into the premise that Andy Garcia could bed Bridget Fonda 15 minutes into the movie but would ultimately fall in love with his ugly cousin instead. Drat.

I thought it was great, though Jack phoned in his performance. I liked "Gangs of New York" better.

Gwreck wrote: ="AG/DC"]Need a party planned for a five-year-old's birthday that --- if all goes accordingly --- is going to be the talk of the Kindergarter dropoff line for the next six months. Which Met will you call? I'd think that Melvin Mora is probably pretty good at dealing with large groups of kids. You've got a trip to Vegas planned with three of your best buddies. First-class the whole way -- nice rooms at the Bellagio, first-class plane tickets, dinner reservations, etc. One of them backs out. Who you gonna call to take his place so that you still have as good a time? Well if it's 1987 I'm calling Straw. He'd be down for whatever, I would think. From the current roster it's Petey. The guy just knows how to have fun. OK -- you're in a bind and you've got a situation where you need to have someone 'snuffed out.' Who do you call that you think is most 'connected' and can put you in touch with 'a guy?'

This was an ESPN Insider article that I found interesting... Jim Kaat was in baseball as a player, coach and broadcaster for 50 years, and recently, he read a column by former commissioner Fay Vincent in the aftermath of the Mitchell report that closed with the kicker, "Now we see that we have to value those who win while playing fairly." What follows is Jim's response to that: ] The players have been tagged as the most culpable, and I would suggest that they are not culpable at all. Baseball, on the major league level, has been never a "great game of honor," like golf is reputed to be. My job as a pitcher was to do all I could to help my team win, and from a selfish standpoint, to perform well enough to earn as much money as I could during a limited number of years to earn it. In 25 seasons in the major leagues, I averaged about $80,000 a year and thought, for many of those years, that I was overpaid. I cringe when I hear or see a former player speak out about erasing records set during this era. Here is my own example of a "performance-enhancing method." Pitching outdoors in Minnesota, a pitcher needed something to help him grip the ball without having it slip out of his hand. Games were played in temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s, and the ball was slick like a frozen snowball. I used pine tar and later a solution my pitching coach, Johnny Sain, concocted by boiling resin and adding a little turpentine and a few other ingredients. It was against the rules. "No foreign substance is to be applied to the ball." No punishment was ever noted. Veteran umpire Jim Honochick, known later for his role in the Miller Lite commercials with Boog Powell, approached me on the mound from his position at second base one day and said, "Lefty, you're putting a foreign substance on the ball. That's illegal." I quickly replied, "Jim, that's not a foreign substance. It's made in North Carolina." He chuckled and went back to his position. My point is that there were plenty of "tricks" to help you enhance your performance. Baseball never had a set punishment in place. Hall of Fame pitchers have written in books about scuffing the ball with a filed ring worn like a wedding ring that had a sharp edge. Players put Vaseline on the balls. Sandpaper rings were used that you could quickly flip off if an umpire came out to question the unusual movement of the pitch. One well-known pitcher who has been very outspoken about the records achieved with the use of performance-enhancing drugs used to file a sharp edge on his belt buckle to scuff the ball -- which helps a pitcher to get it to sink and dive different ways. Infielders had sharp objects hidden in their gloves and as the ball was tossed around the infield after an out, they could scuff it up. Hitters corked their bats. Owners, general managers, umpires, and the commissioner and his staff knew these things went on and did very little about it. Occasionally, a pitcher might be warned about "doctoring" the ball or a hitter might be caught corking a bat. The Graig Nettles incident has been well-documented: "Puff," Graig's nickname, hit a ball off the end of his bat, and the hollowed-out end came loose and a golf ball, two superballs and a dowel of cork went rolling down the third-base line. It was looked upon as a funny incident. "Corking" is meant to increase the "coefficient of restitution" -- the speed with which the ball bounces back off the bat. Pretty heady terminology for a former left-handed pitcher! As a pitcher who gave up a lot of home runs, I could recognize when a ball carried an unusual distance, particularly to the opposite field. I was always the curious type and one night, when I saw a ball fly into the upper deck to the opposite field off the bat of a hitter known for his batting titles and not his home runs, I investigated. Over the years, I became friendly with most of the clubhouse attendants; you see more of them during the season than you do your teammates or family. I would stop in to visit them well before games on occasion, and have, as we used to say, a cup of "big league coffee." (Just an expression, not a special brew.) I would notice the bags that held the bats and see where the ends had been hollowed out on some and a noticeable circle where cork or some other objects had been inserted. It confirmed what I thought about the bat of the hitter who hit the opposite-field home run. Because I was visiting a friend in the visiting clubhouse, I would never report anything like that and jeopardize my friendship with the clubhouse guys. My reason for pointing out these examples of "performance enhancements" or cheating is that it has been going on as long as the game itself. Steroids that help you perform better are no different except they can affect your health. I didn't suffer any illness or debilitating condition from using pine tar. Athletes have died from using anabolic steroids. The non-uniformed personnel are all hiding behind the doors and going nameless while players' reputations are tarnished forever. The blame should be shared by the administration and the union. Since baseball took a public-interest hit after the 1994 strike and home runs began flying out of parks in record numbers, they turned their back on what they knew to be the reason for it. Being in clubhouses and around players with their torsos exposed, you don't have to be exceptionally intelligent to see body changes that would be impossible to achieve with normal weight and strength training. I did the normal training to make my career last as long as possible. It lasted until I was 45 years old. Regular, normal training wouldn't help achieve the "spike" in players' performances that we have witnessed in recent years from hitters and pitchers. Anyone have an answer to this question: Why hasn't any player hit 60 or more home runs since drug testing began? I have a simple solution (and I have made this known to the current commissioner during a telecast of a game I was doing on YES). When the administration and the union realized what was going on -- and they knew ever since the Canseco era, which was about 1990 to a few years ago when testing began -- two things should have been presented to the players, privately, in meetings with each individual team � A spokesman from the commissioner's office and the Players Association could have made it clear that they knew what was going on and that the players could: 1. Take anything and everything available to them to help their performance, and as a result, their team's performance, while understanding that there are potential health issues and legal issues if they are obtained without prescription. 2. Enter into an agreement between the union and Major League Baseball whereby any player caught in the authorized testing program using illegal performance-enhancing drugs (listed in clubhouses and training rooms) will be banned for life. In other words, a level field for everyone. If a lifetime ban was the punishment for using pine tar, do you think I would have taken a chance and used it? I would hope not. I grew up studying baseball history. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed commissioner in the early part of last century to rid the game of players involved in fixing games by cooperating with gamblers. We will never have a dictatorial commissioner like him again. However, we need some leadership that will protect the integrity of the game, and it should come from the administration and union leaders. They should have been more interested in serious issues like this instead of record-setting revenues and benefits for players. Unfortunately, that's all they have ever been interested in, and they probably always will be. It's too late to repair what damage has been done in the past, but an agreement with some teeth in it could be crafted immediately. You may have lost whatever respect you had for players who were your heroes, but don't blame them for the current problem.

I have the sudden urge to pound some Beers.

AG/DC wrote: Hey, let's not cross pony metaphors within the thread. I said pony first. My meaning stands. I suppose the 'baloney pony' will have to remain in the barn on this one then.

Ugh, I hate winter. This does not give me my baseball fix. In fact I'm bored stupid by this Santana business. I predict that blogs and newspapers will beat this story to death like the proverbial dead pony and that come Opening Day, Santana is taking the hill for the Twins and Petey for the Mets.

The New York Future Stars web site lists Owen as one of their "5 Mets Prospects Under the Radar to Watch." #2) Dylan Owen: Another selection from this past year's draft, Dylan Owen was the Division II pitcher of the year, as well as the Ace of the Brooklyn Cyclones' staff this year. His numbers at Low-A were excellent: 9-1, 1.49; 51 hits, 12 walks, and 69 K's in 72.1 IP [this after pitching 102 IP prior to the draft]. Of course, pitcher-friendly Brooklyn is a long ways away from Shea, but Owen has a deep repertoire of pitches which figure to improve as he contines his ascension in the system. His fastball is generally low 90's [although one chatter at BA said it was high-80s], and his slider is his most advanced pitch with good break and control. Additionally, Baseball America lists Owen as having the best control of any pitcher on the farm. He needs several years in the minors according to Scout.com, to gain better command of his fastball, and to dial his changeup back as he throws it too fast to successfully disrupt timing. But, Owen's promising debut and arsenal puts his ceiling as a better-than-average major leaguer starter, in the low 2/high 3 spectrum of a rotation.

I would be A-Fucking-OK with the Mets AAA team coming up my way, believe you me. I agree -- they have to dance around this point during 2008 so that people in Nawlins continue to come out for games. Otherwise you get the whole "Isotopes moving to Albequerque" scenario a la the Simpsons.

="John Cougar Lunchbucket"]You'll never be a guest on Internet talkradio with that attitude mister. Being a guest on Internet talk radio is akin to being a guest on the Merv Griffin show... but only in the Seinfeld episode where Kramer harvested the set pieces out of the garbage and recreated it in his house.