Vic Sage

Barbara Eden and Diana Rigg -- a double whammy.

In a more compassionate world, he would just be put down.

Many things he didn't mention go on constantly: players wear their flags or their religious symbols on jewelry and tattoos. They come to bat with "Proud to be a American with Bad Taste" (or hymns, in the case of Julio Franco and the like) blasting from the speakers. They cross themselves when coming to the plate. They point to the sky in the midst of success in thanks for their God-given gifts. thanks, edgy. yeah, lets get that stuff out of here. No hymns, dammit! this is the church of baseball! and they should only be able to wear as much overtly religious or political jewelry as they can reasonably swallow. and the only lord they can look up to thank are the lords of baseball in their luxury suites. please, Ceetar, we of the AAB (Apolitical Atheists for Baseball) need you on this.

Keep politics and gods out of my baseball game. Really? Well, I'm with you on this, so lets get started. In addition to baseball-only caps, we have to get rid of the pre-game "star spangled banner" and color guard, the politician throwing out a 1st pitch, the 7th inning "god bless america", as well as the flags flown around the stadium. While we're at it, lets get that "42" out of the lobby and off the walls of every park, since its a celebration of a political act (integration). and no visit to the white house for the champions, either! and make sure there are no special celebrations in any park that honors veterans, or for any charitable (i.e., political) purpose. And those cultural celebration games... nope. multi-culturalism is an inherently political issue. And all teams that use a red, white & blue color scheme in their uniforms or stadia must be altered. And make sure teams don't accept or pay anybody with money that says "in god we trust". Let me know when we can start the revolution! Secular baseball in a bubble, untouched by the world! I'm so there... oh, wait. you mean just the cap thing? that's like being one of those pro-death penalty right-to-lifers. I say in for a penny, in for a pound, idealogically speaking.

a lifetime OB% over .400 in that many plate appearances should get you into the HOF all by itself. Add 600 HRs and one wonders what goes on in the mind of guys like Craig "i don't think of Thome as a HOFer" Carton. What exactly do they think makes a player great? Batting average? really? still? are we still having to deal with that kind of stupidity? apparently, yes.

i remember that, years ago (feels like a century), both I and FKnot did some research (independent of each other) on 1st round draft picks and what % of them made it (1) for a cup of coffee, (2) as short-career starters or career reserves, (3) as starters with solid careers, (4) as all-stars, or (5) not at all. i wish i remembered our conclusions, but i think there was a surprisingly small % of types 3 and 4, which bolstered my position as president of TiTTS. all these years later, i still think Batmags' overall point, albeit overstated, is sound in that getting excited about particular draft picks in baseball isn't a particularly useful expenditure of time and energy for fans, seeing how few of them ultimately make a significant impact on your team. Its a hard lesson to learn sometimes. i call it the "Leary Lesson".

... play Thole everyday to see if he can hit lefties enough to be an everyday catcher, ... your turn.

i don't get the point of arbitrarily saying we're .500, or above .500, since a particular moment 7 years after the franchise began. Yes, the Mets have been ok, since they've been ok. But the first 7 years happened. In fact, much of the franchise's history and culture (for good and ill) are tied up in those early years. I'm not interested in overly romanticizing those "lovable losers", but they are a part of the story. it's double-plus-ungood to pretend otherwise.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Another way to look at it is that the Mets can get to .500 by winning an average of 96 games per year for the next eleven years. basically, another decade like the 80s... but more so. I'll take it!

I'm all for O over D, but folks sitting behind 1B would be scattering like cockroaches on every groundball to the left side... I don't think Wright has either the range or consistent arm to play major league SS; if he did, they would have made that move in the minors. As for him being an everyday SS, even Davey only played Hojo & Kevin Mitchell at SS for limited stretches. And to even contemplate taking such a risk with the defense, you'd also have to believe that (1) Muffy's performance over the last 2+ months is his expected level of production hereafter, and (2) he can't play 2b or OF. As for (1), i don't think it is, and (2) we don't know that yet.

did you like it?

and you'll be there to hoist me aloft and carry me to glory, i'm sure.

well, they ARE half bad... and half good. Hence, a .500 team.

There have only been 2 years in the 28-year history of the award where it went to a guy whose team didn't either (1) win 90+ games, or (2) make it to the playoffs. (Bowa with 2001 Phillies, and Girardi with 2006 Marlins). Assuming the Mets maintain their .500 record and 3rd place finish, i don't see Collins winning anything, in a season where Roenicke, a 1st time manager, is steering the Brewers to their first division title in 30 years. Kirk Gibson has a better shot, too, especially if the DBacks slip past SF in the West. Even among .500 non-playoff teams, Hurdle has the edge, due to the perception and payrolls of the Pirates as compared with the Mets. If this is a discussion of SHOULD rather than LIKELIHOOD, then i have no opinion, since i've never understood the criteria for making that determination, beyond the entirely subjective question of a team's talent vs its production.

i couldn't go that day; i had a reading of my play at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum... a tiny basement space with no air conditioning!

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I think both Pagan and Pridie are placeholders until something better comes along. They're not killing us. There are bigger problems. You can carry either of them there if your left fielder doesn't suck and your slugging first and second basemen aren't on the DL. You don't build around either of these guys, and you jettison them when you can finally upgrade. this.

i wasn't high on Pagan in the first place (i had some exchanges to that effect with Ceetar, if i recall), and my opinion obviously hasn't changed much. he started his career with a few thousand minor league plate appearances that generated a .700+ OPS, then 3 crappy partial seasons for Cubs and Mets, and then had a great HALF season with NY in `09, which earned him his first full-time gig last year, in which he was good, not great. There were those who saw the `09 half season as his likely future level of production, but he's a very inconsistent ballplayer... streaky, without great instincts, doesn't hit much against LHPs, fast but error-prone baserunner, 2:1 K/BB rate keeping down his OB% and not quite enough pop to justify it. I just never saw him as a great everyday ballplayer... sure, useful as a 4th OFer / platoon guy, but expecting more didn't seem wise to me. And he's played hurt this year (not the first time for that either), so he's probably somewhere between this and last year. Basically a 100 OPS+ guy. Nice, useful, good depth... but a starting CFer on a playoff-bound team? No, i don't think so, and at age 30, i don't see him changing his stripes radically going forward.

It looked true enough before the season... I'm not sure about that; he was coming off his 2nd consecutive injury shortened season, having played only 4 full seasons out of 8 in his career to that point (now 4 out of 9). And by "full", i mean showing up for 150+ games. Of the 4 full seasons he played, his OPS+ on 2 of the 4 were 101 and 102. So, until this season, i wouldn't say that it looked true enough that he was going to get a $100m guaranteed deal based on 2 great seasons, 2 good ones, and 4 mediocre-to-good partial seasons. Of course, this year he has put up 2/3rds of an MVP season, far and away the best of his career, so that definitely changed the calculations. until his 2nd hammy of the 2nd half. Now, if he goes on the DL again and misses 2-3 weeks, and comes back as comparatively weakly as he did after the 1st DL stint, is it still true enough that he's a 6yr/$120m player? And should the Mets sign him at that price anyway, if competition drives the price up to that level? Sure, in a universe of infinite resources, like the Bronx, where you just swallow your mistakes and don't let them inhibit you from making future moves, well then of course, bring back the prodigal son at whatever price. But if you want the franchise to be run from a perspective of rationality within a universe of finite resources, which is what some of us celebrated in Alderson's hiring, does this kind of high risk / high reward player make sense (given that the rewards were primarily seen in 2006, 2008 and 2/3rd of 2011)? i'm not saying not to try and re-sign him (i'm on record in this thread advocating against trading him and for re-signing him), but i would understand if Alderson chose to offer some kind of qualified deal (with a high payoff potential) rather than lock him in for 6-7yrs@$120-$140m, and if another owner wanted to give him that, then we lose him. I'd be sad, but i'd understand it.

i don't know who might have or might not have been injured on a similar play. I didn't see the play, and don't boast expertise over such matters even if i had seen it. What i do know is that (1) Murphy's flaws as a middle infielder, as they have been reported, are not arm strength or range; he's just shown bad footwork, poor positioning and awkward movement around the ball and around the bag, and (2) he blew out the other knee while playing 2b in the minors on what i think was a similar play. These are facts. draw your own conclusions. But i think a fluid, graceful 2bman is less likely (not immune, just less likely) to get taken out at 2b than an inexperienced, awkward one. I don't really think it's a controversial point, nor did i intend it to be. And while such a result may be purely bad luck, two such similar events may indicate a symptom. I wish him nothing but a speedy and full recovery. Perhaps, since he's run out of knees to blow out, he may then be safe to return to middle of the diamond.

As long as he's going to keep this up, how about a deal like this: 4 years / $15m guaranteed, plus $2.5m/yr in makeable incentives (GGs, SSs, MVP votes, all-star appearances, post-season, ws); PLUS, if he reaches 700+ plate appearances in a season (a threshold he exceeded from 2005 to 2008), he gets (1) an additional $2.5m, plus (2) it extends the deal for an additional season at $17.5m (plus the $2.5m in incentives), for up to 4 additional option years. If the PA threshold isn't met to vest any of the option years, the balance of contract can be bought out for $10m after last guaranteed year. So, the deal would provide no less than 4yr/$70m, but could go up to 8 year/$160m, based on health and production.

but he might quite literally die.

Smart boy, that Murph... blowing out a knee before his production reverted to the mean. But a great 1/2 season, Muffy!

now that Murphy's ripped up both knees while playing 2b, do you think that his "klueless kamikaze" style of play renders him a DH in the wrong league?

C'mon boys, Joe Nathan wants company!

There aren't any unicorns in this one, right? hardly any.