Vic Sage

he's got maybe 8 or 9 starts left, and if he averages a little over 6IP/GS, he'll throw maybe 45-55 IP the rest of the season, which would put him in the 190-200 IP range for the year. For a guy like Niese, in his 3rd full major league season with 2 partial seasons before that, this should not be a burdensome workload or adequate reason to give a POS like Hefner any of his starts. there may be other reasons for a 6th SPer, but i don't like this one. You can baby a young arm (like Harvey) to protect it early in his career, but Niese is past that point.

When pendulums swing back, and trends revert to the mean, they don't stop at the balancing point. they blow right on by, then slink back. The fact was that we were BABIP-ing and "2-out RBI"-ing our way to more early wins than our overall production could justify or sustain. And now the trend has reversed. wow, shocker.

there's NO situation, Monk. It's just so much hogwash. Now if there's a possibility of a WILPON WATCH, sign me up! Lets get a Green Bay situation up in Willets Point, baby!

i don't have a problem with a 6-man rotation under certain circumstances. But i'm not sure about THESE circumstances. We don't have to artificially limit the innings of Dickey (a knuckleballer) or Niese (a 26-year old deep into his 3rd straight major league season), and Chris Young is a a broken down veteran on a cheap 1-year deal. Make him throw until he dies. So the issues are Harvey (a young rookie starter) and Santana (an injured veteran with big $ still owed). At this point, i'd just as soon DL Santana and see if he can't come back healthier next year, since he's really not helping this year, and there's no point to pushing him any further. Harvey? Yeah, he could skip a start here and there to keep his innings down. With his lack of control, its not like he's pitching more than 5.5 IP/GS anyway, but sure. skip a start. But a regular 6th SPer only makes sense to me here if you have a great prospect and you want to give him a taste of the majors before shutting him down for the year. Wheeler, Familia, some other prospect. Then maybe it's worth throwing off Dickey and Niese from their preparations, and limiting Harvey. But for Jeremy "AAAA-ball" Hefner? I'm not sure about that. maybe if we're showcasing him for a trade to some southern city where his homophobia can be used as a ticket promotion, then it makes sense. Is that it Sandy? Tell us. I can get behind that.

scapegoating the manager (and believe me, i have no love for TC) is naught but a silly distraction at this point. try scapegoating the OF, the bullpen, the catcher and 1bman. Better yet, try replacing them. Or as Ceetar would call turning over half the roster, lets make "adjustments".

i'd pay good money to find out.

while he's certainly better than any RHed C we currently have on the 40-man roster, and probably better than any others in the system too, i'm confused as to why you'd pick up a 32-year old part-time catcher like this in August of a lost season? He's the kind of player you pick up if your in a pennant race and have a need. Is he signed for next year, too? [on edit: no, he's not]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I'd cut Sandy a lot of slack on the bullpen he put together. I mean the Wilpons gave him what -- three dollars and eighty two cents and a half off coupon on 20 cans of cat food to assemble essentially an entire pen? my problem isn't with how little he had to spend (though that's a larger issue), or that he didn't get value for the money, it was the decision to spend what little resources he had on a bullpen, knowing that pens are so erratic and how many internal options we had (which were not substantially better or worse than what we could buy for $3.82 + cat food coupon). It's that decision that makes me start to question his judgment. But maybe we were locked in everywhere else and, for what he had to spend, figured the only place he could have an impact is the pen. which is fair enough. believe me, i'm happy to give Sandy the benefit of the doubt.

I've always thought, and still think, that Thole could be the backup catcher on a good team. We've seen enough of him to know what to expect. agreed; problem being he's our starter, and our backup shouldn't be on a major league roster. Are there any answers in the pipeline? i don't know. Murphy is still a bit of a puzzle. His .299/.342/.423 line this season is almost identical to his career line (.295/.344/.437). He's a known commodity with the bat, and those numbers would be rock solid if his glove at second was at least average. He's lugging a -8 in runs saved from the Fielding Bible at second, but on the bright side it's not really a worse number than what it was in May. I don't think the Mets necessarily need to improve on him; I certainly wouldn't move him for less than a starting player, and the team has bigger issues. Like the outfield, for example... Murphy's not a puzzle; when we ask ourselves what he is, we know... we just don't like the answer. He's punchless and speedless but he's a solid contact hitter who could be useful in the 2 slot in a lineup with sufficient power and speed elsewhere. But his best defensive position is probably 3B, and that makes him less useful to us since our best player plays there. So he's been played mostly out of position (1B, OF, 2b) with the Mets and hasn't completely embarrassed himself but would have to improve greatly to be average. He might be of more value to a team willing to live with his lack of HR/RBI power at 3b or 1b or DH, and they should see what he's worth, but i wouldn't move him just to move him. I'd prefer to use him as a super-utility guy and find a better 2bman. Bay has been horrible this year, and while injuries have factored in, he still hasn't given the Mets more than mediocrity for their $65 million. Torres' one good year with the bat is getting further and further away. His glove keeps him from being awful, but he's hardly inspiring and I wouldn't give him a raise to come back. Duda, quite frankly, needs a .900 OPS to make his outfield defense tolerable, and that ain't happening. He's dealable to a team looking for a first baseman or DH, but he won't boost his value playing out the string in Buffalo. Nieuwenhuis hit as well as a guy with a very high K rate in the minors and little AAA experience could be expected to hit. He has talent, but it's raw. I think he'll improve next season, but how much is an open question. Agreed; it's too soon to write off Nieuwenhuis, and Valdespin may end up pretty good too. Baxter, too, has been consistently productive in a backup role. But i've never had much confidence in Duda, or much use for Torres. Bay? oy. I think the glass is half full with the pitching. A rotation of RA, Johan, Harvey, Niese, and Gee is actually pretty decent, especially with Wheeler getting closer to a call-up. Familia and Mejia might be in a position to help out in either the rotation or the pen -- but they should decide before training camp whether they want Mejia to pitch as a starter or reliever and then stick with it. i think the glass is half empty. RA will likely to continue being productive until he starts breaking down physically (he is 37), but Johan has already broken down, and despite his no-hitter this year, i have no reason to believe he'll be a reliable SP going forward. Harvey shows flashes, but his control is erratic, and Niese is inconsistent too. Gee is pretty consistently shit, with a career 92 ERA+ to support that view. Maybe Wheeler is close, maybe he's not. Neither Familia nor Mejia have performed well at higher levels of minors so far, and there seems to be all kinds of doubts and confusion as to what their best roles would be. The best thing you can say about the pen is that it can't get any worse. I'd bet on Ramirez bouncing back, but that second year they gave to Francisco is going to hurt. Parnell is what his numbers say he is, which is really not bad but nod good enough to be the closer. Alderson needs to find one or two diamonds in the rough to make the pen competitive, but that's not impossible. the one area where Sandy decided to be active in the FA market and spend some money and it totally imploded. I like Sandy and his approach, but this fact does not instill me with confidence.

themetfairy wrote: I believe. I believe. It's silly, but I believe.... A MIRACLE ON ROOSEVELT AVE?

style and syntax aside, what did he say that you feel was untrue?

Dickey - 5.00 Torres - 3.00 Thole - 1.00 Wright - 0.75 Baxter - 0.25

yeah, that didn't help. i still have no idea what youse guys are talking about. maybe its time for my medication.

Centerfield wrote: It's great to see the effect this has had on Wright. Maybe next year they can move in the fences another 100 feet and revive the career of Jason Bay. the only thing that could revive Bay's career is to move the fence so that he's on the other side of it.

Right, so Wright's turnaround this season, from a guy who BB/K rate at Shea was around 90/115, then went to 70/150 at CitiField, back to a pace of around 90/115 again this season, is purely coincidence? Really? That's your story? whatever, dudes. I wasn't expecting an explosion in HRs by changing the dimensions the way they did. They didn't make it a bandbox; they changed it from ridiculous to neutral. They made it a fairer park, which has helped our best hitter return to an approach at the plate that has made him the productive MVP candidate he was before he played his home games in yellowstone. why his .330/20HR pace, and the team's increased offense which hasn't been a big enough increase (despite losing Beltran and Reyes), has people clucking "i told you so" i have no idea. personally, i want my park to have as little impact on games as possible and wish all parks, no matter how quirky and interesting and individualized their design, to have a similarly neutral effect. let the games get decided by players, not architects, and lets build teams to win everywhere, not just at home.

thank you; i fixed my vote. yes to SINGIN IN THE RAIN. That's what put me in mind of Gene Kelly. But while i can see some of the story elements from SUNSET BOULEVARD, that movie's hilarious cynicism about Hollywood is sadly absent. And if your going to lift from SUNSET BOULEVARD, taking plot points over its nasty humor seems to be missing the point. As a great director once said (and i'm paraphrasing), if you're going to steal, steal from the best. Knowing what to take is an art in and of itself, and this movie just lifts the most banal elements from better films. which doesn't show particularly good judgment. actors comprise the largest block of Oscar voters so i don't think your wife is wrong about this movie's oscar success. However all Oscar voters are attracted to films that get great reviews (and this did) and that take commercial risk (as this did). so its hard to put a direct cause-and-effect calculus on it.

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So, there i was, reading a compendium of essays about the various works of Joss Whedon, and i came face-to-face with the chapter on DOLLHOUSE... the hole in my own personal Whedonverse. Oh, sure, i own the FIREFLY series and SERENITY dvd, having watched them both with and without "commentary", and the spin-off comics derived from it; I've also got the soundtrack to the musical BUFFY episode ("once more, with feeling") in regular rotation on my iphone, and i've even watched all of ANGEL (for which i deserve a medal). And i've shown DR. HORRIBLE to my son, who enjoyed it with me. But DOLLHOUSE? nada, nyet, bupkis, nothing. When it first aired on FOX, the promos made it look like a cheesy show about programmed prostitutes. When i realized Whedon had created it, and for FOX yet! (the network that totally fucked up the broadcast of FIREFLY), it seemed like Joss had sold out for commercial success, giving Satan's network the kind of high concept sex thriller it craved. So i avoided it the first time around. But here i was, book in hand, reading these interesting essays about the show... declaring it to have the same kind of intelligence and craft as all his other work, with many similar tropes... individual stories that develop a large-scale apocalyptic mythology, focused on an increasingly empowered female superhero defending humanity against malicious (often corporate) powers-that-be. What the hell? That's what live-streaming on Netflix is for. So i watched the series, start to finish. There are only 2 seasons worth so it wasn't very time consuming. It was hard slogging at first. The first 5 episodes are one-offs in which Echo (Elisha Dushku) is one of a houseful of "dolls", aka "actives" (people who have volunteered for various reasons to have their memories wiped and get implanted with new ones for specific "engagements" for a 5-year term, after which they get their original memories back and a big payout). Echo is given a personality/memory, and hired to do a specific job, and a rogue FBI agent, determined to discover if the Dollhouse really exists, seeks to find her and save her, and the other "dolls", who he reasonably views as high-priced sex slaves (which they often but not exclusively are). But starting around episode 6, MAN ON THE STREET, Whedon starts developing the back story and supporting characters, and starts crafting a serious Whedonverse for his characters to inhabit. The series starts to become about self-determination, and identity, and about victimization by corporate culture that wants to keep us compliant consumers. Season 1 ends with "Epitaph", which jumps ahead 10 years to a frightening dystopian future, where the mind control technology has caused civil war and social breakdown. I guess whedon thought they'd be cancelled and wanted to firmly anchor his mythology and wrap things up in a way he couldn't with FIREFLY, until he made SERENITY. But the show got a reprieve and, Epitaph went unaired in the US, and season 2 picked up where season 1 left off, showing how things go terribly awry and how Echo and her collaborators (there is always a "scooby gang" supporting the hero in a Whedon show) try to save the world. No more police procedural/1-off "engagement" episodes; its all myth making in season 2, until if finally gets cancelled, but not before airing "Epitaph 2", which wraps things up in that future dystopia, giving Whedon the chance to present a satisfying finale for the series in a way he'd only done for BUFFY. I don't want to get into the details of episodes, or present any "spoilers" (i don't think i have; i hope not). I just wanted to note that for those who overlooked this series originally, it's well worth the effort, if you can get thru the first 5 episodes or so. And for those Browncoats out there who were put off originally by the sleazy and apparently sexist and exploitive material (as i was), rest assured its none of those things... it resides in a valued corner of the Whedonverse and shouldn't be overlooked.

A stylish but overrated bore. It takes the plot of A STAR IS BORN, adds a cute dog and cuts out dialogue. And the dog was the best actor in it. If the lead actor was actually a brilliant physical comedian, this movie would make sense. But he's just your standard French charmer, a Gaullic Gene Kelley type. But the only reason to make a silent film is to do what they did best... COMEDY. Silent comedies transcended language (and, therefore, sound) and formed the basis of American humor for decades after the silent era ended, affecting animation, vaudeville, tv and much of what followed. The kind of romantic melodramas of the silent era that this is movie pays homage to are often best forgotten, and are certainly not unique to silent films. There is some humor here, of course, and some song-and-dance moments, too, but at its core its romantic melodrama, and its one we've seen MANY times before. The only twist here is to make it a silent film about the silent film era, but that clever conceit doesn't wear well over 2 hours. Plus the dog. the dog is cute. That being said, its made about as well as one could expect, given the limitations of the subject. I voted wrong... meant to give it **1/2

we went thru an exercise here where we listed our top 10s, but i opined that such a thing fluctuated daily for me, so i kept posting a different top 10 every day for like a week. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4124

one man's meat is another man's boring piece of shit. but really i have not seen the Ozu film and make no comment on it; i was bored by another one of his films, and the subject matter of this one doesn't entice me in the least. and "boring" can also be a matter of context. When i first saw "2001", i think it was a theatrical re-release when i was a teenager and it totally blew me away. It was so startlingly new and original and (seemingly) profound that it's "slowness" seemed like an essential element of its artfulness. I bought it on DVD but now the movie just bores the crap out of me. I don't know how i would feel about ERASERHEAD if i saw it again now, but i saw it often in my teens and 20s and never grew tired of its funny, perverse, sad kind of strangeness. maybe it would just bore me now, too, but that might speak more about me than the film. i don't know.

7 games determines the world series every year, for the last 100 years or so (except for the years it was 9 games) But i agree with Swan. I have 0 tolerance for the mass-market regorgitation of skin-deep nationalism called "the olympics" and to see it taint baseball in the middle of the summer has 0 interest for me.

1. "Vertigo" - it's arguable, but worthwhile 2. "Citizen Kane" - always felt it was somewhat overrated, but not by much 3. "Tokyo Story" - never saw it, but i've seen other of Ozu films ("Floating Weeds" for one) and they're slow soap operas, like watching paint dry 4. "La Regle du jeu" - love love love this movie; totally one of the top 10 5. "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" - never saw it, but i've seen other Murnau films. This one seemed more like melodrama than his others ("Nosferatu", for example), but its supposed to have had some technical innovations and its always been on my "to see" list. 6. "2001: A Space Odyssey" - As slow as an on Ozu film, but at least it has primates at war, and a killer computer, and a trippy finale leading to a space baby. 7. "The Searchers" - one of my favorite westerns; top 10? Ok. 8. "Man with a Movie Camera" - never saw this doc, but its post-modern structure and themes would seem to have kept it from dating and i'd still like to see it 9. "The Passion of Joan of Arc" - saw "Vampyr" but not this prior Dreyer work; i'm sure the lighting and angles are gorgeous, but i've no interest. 10. "8 1/2" - Of all the great fellini films, this isn't one. Its silly, self-indulgent and has dated badly, like La Dolce Vita. "Nights of Cabiria", "Amarcord", "La Strada" are all better than this.

ya see? that whole "distortion and misrepresentation" thing ain't so hard after all, is it? don't sell yourself short.

But you miss the basic thingie here, and that's that I'm not suggesting that keeping Hairston is some pre-eminent value that eclipses any other, only answering Gwreck in asserting that there is a value there to be weighed against others. Most of the factors I noted were clearly small, but real. i didn't miss that thingie; i totally concede it. I just think the actual weighing was really only between what you described in your points (5) and (6), the revenues for the balance of this season against what we might get in return. The rest is window dressing and some of which was your own personal mishaagas. as for the factual misstatements in that last post, they were from lack of research, and i apologize, but my point is the same. low draft picks (and even undrafted FAs) in a system can sometimes, over time, develop into good major league players. and a guy who is ranked 50th in one team's system might be another team's 20th best prospect, so that whole "nobody offered us a top 30 prospect" line is just a way of shading the truth by Sandy, even if accurate (which i don't doubt it was). Perhaps we were offered a 40th prospect from a great system, who has high upside. Would that be sufficient to move Scott Hairston? Maybe not to you, but maybe to me, and maybe it would've been enough for Sandy in a vacuum, but not as an employee of the Wilpons. Just a hypothetical, you understand.