Vic Sage

i hate to break it to you, mm, but 1) you don't happen to be in 1st place today (I am), but even if you were... 2) i will be on you like a cheap suit all season long! No retreat and, baby, no surrender.

smg58 wrote: ="Centerfield"]Delgado really killed us last year. I can't believe we have to put up with another year of that. He wouldn't be the first player to bounce back off a bad year. Remember the year Mike Lowell had in 2005? Or Jim Thome for that matter? Granted Delgado will be 36, but that's not so old for a first baseman that he couldn't regain his form. He's not somebody I'd consider dead weight yet, although if somebody else wants to the roll the dice on him enough to give us somebody useful (remember the Phillies got Rowand in the Thome deal), I'd have to listen. Lowell's upturn is due, in large part, to Fenway. He was a pretty mediocre player last year on the road. Thome had 1 injury-plagued year and has been healthy the last 2, putting up similarly solid numbers The problem with Delgado is not just age. He showed slippage in 06, hitting .265, with sub-career numbers across the board, after hitting .300 the year before (and .280 lifetime). This year continued the trend, hitting in the same subpar range, with even less power. I think he's losing bat speed, and you don't bounce back from that.

its not quite that black and white. I think Pelfrey does have value, but perhaps not for the 08 Mets. A team thats looking for "futures" might be interested, in conjunction with other prospects, too, and return a proven arm of more use to us this year. Of course, with young arms like Hughes, Bucholz and A.Miller getting bandied about, Pelfrey looks mighty pale.

Except that trading Maine just creates another hole in the rotation that will have to be filled by either Pelfrey, Humber, Mulvey, Vargas, etc.. So the upgrade to the rotation would be more limited than getting a front of the rotation guy that pushes everybody back a notch (knocking our "prospects" back to AAA, where they belong)

i just looked at the Fish's potential 25-man roster, and i'm not terrified. 1) Ramirez (ss) 2) Uggla (3b) 3) Hermida (rf) 4) Willingham (lf) 5) Jacobs (1b) 6) Maybin / Ross (cf) 7) Amazeaga (2b) 8) Olivo © Bench: -Treanor © -Ross (of) -De Aza (of) -Andino (if) -____ (LH PH /CI) SP: 1) Olsen 2) A.Miller 3) Mitre 4) Nolasco* 5) Vandenhurk* * DL - Sanchez, J.Johnson (out for `08) Bullpen: -Gregg -Lindstrom -J.Miller -Tankersley -Gardner -Pinto -Barone* * DL - H.Owens Sure, the lineup and the rotation have alot of potential, but thats alot of 23-25 year olds to be counting on. The bullpen does look good. As for payroll, there were only 2 guys that made over $400K last season: - Olivo ($2m) - Gregg ($575k) So, unless they make some other moves, they could end up spending a total of $15M-$20M on payroll this season. Which is absurd.

other (s)crappy Mets that come to mind: Besides good players, like Backman, Dykstra and Hunt, i would include: Stearns Harrelson Wigginton Foli Youngblood And in addition to the utilitity guys like Billy Almon, Joe McEwing and Bobby Valentine, there were other guys, like: Bob Bailor Jason Hardtke Steve Bieser john Cangelosi Dave Gallagher Bill Pecota Fernando Vina

(s)crappy = feisty, little guys who can't play but run and slide hard, hustle and are very "competitive". Were backman and dykstra too good to be scrappy? Then Ron Hunt was probably too good to be scrappy, too. so, lets see... who was that utility player from St.Louis we carried for a few seasons? He was definitely scrappy. I seem to recall a certain amount of scrappiness attached to Tim Bogar and Marco Scutaro. Bobby Valentine was a scrappy player. So was Billy Almond, as i recall. Who else?

I don't believe for a moment that any of Heilman, Humber or Gomez will ever approach the performance level of Bedard, and I would do that deal in a heartbeat.

i was at that concert. Before the Clash came on, the first opening act was David Johansen. I was sitting in the upper deck in Right Field. The sound was like mush, and we were so far away that we barely noticed that there was a concert going on. I hate stadium shows, but they are 10x better now than they were then, thanks to improvements in a-v technology.

There are maybe 5-6 catchers in baseball who hit well enough that there offense matters. At this point in their various careers, there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Schneider, Torrealba, LoDuca or Estrada (or Castro, for that matter). So, if you don't have one of the dirty half-dozen, you might as well go with the best glove you can get. That being said, you don't give up a player at Milledge's age, with his talent and record of minor-league production, to go from Estrada to Schneider. Church is, at his age, what he is... which isn't bad, but which isn't great, and is not a signficant upgrade over Milledge, even at this early point in Milledge's career. There has to be something else going on here, in terms of off-the-field problems with Millzy, but even so, if this was the best we could do, we shouldn't have done it. Omar is less and less impressive to me every day. And i wasn't all that impressed with him in the first place.

...BUT HE HAD A GOOD BASEBALL NAME

Right now, here's how we rank in the NL by OPS, based on last season's production, at each position: C = Schneider 14/16 (.661) [LoDuca = 11/16 .689] 1b = Delgado 14/16 (.781) 2b = Castillo 12/16 (.742) 36 = Wright 4/16 (.963) SS = Reyes 8/16 (.775) LF = Alou 4/16 (.916) [Chavez = 15/16 .705] CF = Beltran 3/16 (.878) RF = Church 6/16 (.813) [Green = 11/16 .782][Milledge = .787] We're now giving up on offense from catcher, we've got a seriously declining 1b, oft-injured players at 2b and LF, and a platoon player in RF. Unless other moves are in the offing, it will once again be Reyes, Beltran and Wright, and then say "goodnight". I think we're in trouble, without even discussing the pitching woes.

the Kuhn family.

i went to a few conferences at that hotel, in my bachelor days. Good times, good times... Many rooms have terraces that overlook an indoor atrium. Nice gourmet restaurant, too. Had Bananas Foster. mmmmmmmm My nephew is there, right now. He goes to school at UConn and wants to get into sports administration/management. He did an internship last summer with an independent league team in CT. He's at the meetings because they run a job fair there for college kids. He's a Yankee fan, but i can't hold it against him. Its his poor upbringing, largely the fault of my idiot brother. It would cool, on so many levels, if he got a job with the Mets.

iramets wrote: Kazmir. Bannister. Keppinger. I'm starting to think that maybe they're not the most astute judges of young talent, I really am. lets not forget last year's deals with SD, giving up Ring and bell for Adkins and Johnson.

Schneider is a significant defensive upgrade over Estrada, and, frankly, there's little to distinguish them offensively (Schneider's career OPS+ = 82; Estrada = 86) -- they both suck. As a LHed hitter, he's probably a better option to platoon with Castro than Estrada. As for Church, he's a surprisingly productive LHed hitter, when given the chance. But do you give up Milledge's potential to get a slight upgrade in one of your platoon catchers? I don't think so. And whatever Milledge's clubhouse issues are (and they must be profound to have plummeted to this point), Church is no "choir boy" either... or maybe he is, in this case. If we couldn't do more than this with Milledge, we should have just let him play, and lived with Estrada. Now that's one less chip with which to pursue Haren or Bedard.

Wasn't he the lead in RAGTIME?

Diaz is available too.

i think that's true. But it doesn't change my point about roles or my assessment of Mr. Wagner as a dickhead.

Billy, you want to have defined roles for the bullpen? OK, here it is: "hey youse guys... prepare everyday like your going to pitch that day. And if you're brought into a game, pitch to every hitter like he's the only hitter you're going to face, and if you don't get him out, he'll go to your house and shoot your dog. And keep facing each hitter like that, until we win, we lose, or Willie takes you out of the game." Is that clear enough, you dickhead?

And Valadius, by dropping the level of HOF qualifications to the level you suggest, it would soon become a Hall of Good Players, and the ineffable definition of greatness (whatever it is, in any given time and place), would be so watered down as to become relatively meaningless. I'd be curious to know what percentage of the total players ever eligible for HOF enshrinement are actually in. 10%? less? I don't think its that much (though of course i could be wrong), but i think if your expanding that proportion, you've gone too far. There will always be arguments over the borderline cases. Standards are, by their very nature, arbitrary. But if you keep them somewhat consistently applied, and (to the extent possible) based on some form of objective analysis, no one should have too much to be upset about. The problem has been that cronyism, and fluky voting, and down-right stupid botes based on no objective analysis whatsoever, has resulted in some really bad decisions over the years. And, rather than leaving those as anomalies, they become the lowest standard by which prospective members are judged ("well, if Phil Rizzuto is in, then Dave Concepcion should be in"). The HOF Monitor is not a metric that assesses who SHOULD be in; its just about who is likely to get in based on certain accomplishments that voters in the past have taken into consideration. What would be nice is to see a metric that COULD be used to establish a baseline comparison between an eligible player and those in the HOF, as well as a basis to compare him to other elgible players. What happens now is we decide who we think whould go in based on our subjective assessment, and we then go and cherrypick those stats that support our argument. Say what you want about Jack Morris and Chuck Finley (and i dont' think either of them warrant HOF membership), but the HOF monitor indicates that they are really not comparablle in terms of the career accomplishments that voters look at (for better or worse). Morris will continue to be a borderline candidate for the duration of his 15-year eligiblity, and Finley will likely fall off the ballot in short order. I think that the vote should be taken away from reporters (who are the most ignorant bunch of sports fans i know) and current HOFers (who have a vested interest in keeping the Hall as exclusive as possible) and given over to a panel including scholars, sabrmetricians, scouts and former GMs whose jobs it was to evaluate players. Until then, "wins" will be more highly valued than ERA+ in comparing pitchers, and "RBIs" will matter more than OPS+, or WS or VORP or any other more valid criteria. And until that happens, relying on reporters to have a sudden epiphany and recognize the real value of Rock Raines' career is more wishful thinking than a realistic assessment of his likelihood of induction. But i hope i'm wrong about that.

Edgy DC wrote: ="Vic Sage"]You don't get the "deserving" tier, yet you're perplexed by the immediate disappearance of Lou Whitaker? Pick a confusion and stick with it. I'm not perplexed by his immediate disappearance. I'm uncertain how a voter* should respond to it. Should one accept that standard of his colleagues and then say, "Then neither shall Trammell get support"? Or should one revolt and vote for Trammell, correcting the standard in a small way. *Theorietical voter that considers their candidacies about equal. In answer to your objections to my designation of a deserving tier: I wasn't saying who i would vote for. I was trying to present a list of who i felt deserved and didnt' deserve votes for enshrinement from those who DO vote, based on their past voting history (i.e., the HOF Monitor metric). It is a quantitative analysis. In the aggregate, i think those in the "deserving" category will get just enough votes to stick on the ballot for a few years, but aren't really (or shouldn't be) even borderline candidates. Those in the borderline category could go either way. Some I'd personally vote for, others not. I think this is the year for Rice, Blyleven and Gossage to finally get the recognition that the stats (and my personal observations) deem appropriate. I like Raines, but his sub 100 HOFM ranking indicates that his cumulative career accomplishments are not of a level generally voted in to the HOF, and certainly not voted in on their 1st ballot. My own view is that he's a borderline HOFer, but i wouldn't be unhappy if he were enshrined eventually. In fact, i might even smile and say "You rock, Roc!"

Nymr83 wrote: rather then drawing the "in/out" line, would anyone like to rank the eligible players (all the holdovers and first-timers) in terms of how deserving you feel they are (even if you feel all or none are deserving)? I think i already did that, using Bill James' 2 HOF metrics, plus some adjustments based on my own observations.

Edgy DC wrote: I don't necessarily get the "deserving of votes" tier. If you think they deserve votes, give them your votes.. ]I can be talked into Trammell (which also sounds dirty), but I'm really having trouble figuring out how to respond to Lou Whitaker's immediate disappearance from consideration You don't get the "deserving" tier, yet you're perplexed by the immediate disappearance of Lou Whitaker? Pick a confusion and stick with it.

Yes: Mark McGwire (2nd year on ballot)-HOFM**= 169 / HOFCS**= 42 Jim Rice (14th) - 146 / 43 Rich Gossage (9th) - 126 / 19 Bert Blyleven (11th) - 120 / 50 Borderline: Lee Smith (6th) - 135 / 13 Don Mattingly (8th) - 133 / 34 Dave Parker (12th) - 125 / 41 Jack Morris (9th) - 122 / 39 Andre Dawson (7th) - 118 / 43 Alan Trammell (7th) - 118 / 36 Dale Murphy (10th) - 115 / 34 Tommy John (14th) - 111 / 44 Dave Concepcion (15th*) - 106 / 25.9 Tim Raines (1st) - 90 / 46 No, but deserving of another year on the ballot: Robb Nen (1st) - 92 / 15 Harold Baines (2nd) - 66.5 / 43 Chuck Knoblauch (1st) - 66.5 / 33.8 Chuck Finley (1st) - 53.5 /27 David Justice (1st) - 43.5 / 28.7 1 & Done: Rod Beck - 63 / 13 Brady Anderson - 38 / 26 Travis Fryman - 36 / 26.4 Jose Rijo - 28 / 20 Todd Stottlemyre - 15 / 13 Shawon Dunston - 14 / 16.9 * last year on ballot ** HOF monitor [100+ = HOF credentials] ** HOF Career Standards [50+ = average HOFer