Vic Sage

When a guy goes from a .270-.280 hitter early in his career, and ends up hitting .220-.230 over a sustained period later in his career, its meaningful. He got 22 more hits this year in 30 more plate appearances (12 of them for extra bases), so yes, going from .230 to .260 was meaningful, and he's just as likely to turn back into a .230 pumpkin next year at age 35 as he is to sustain this hit rate...MORE likely, frankly, because that's what older players do in the post-steroid era.

And just for clarity, who is the (other) top 30 bat you think we have on our roster now? Granderson? Until this season, his last 3 years he hit .232, .229., and .227, and he'll be 35 next year. Yes, he had a terrific 2nd half this year, giving him a very solid year overall, and a great post-season. But please forgive me if i don't think he can carry the offense next year. In fact, he didn't carry it this year, with the team floating at .500 until the July trading deadline, despite his solid June-July. IF you don't think Cespedes didn't have a seismic effect on this offense (which stopped producing at the same rate as it had been, when he cooled off), then we aren't watching the same team. And if we go into next season without a similarly impactful bat in the middle, we'll have similar problems scoring runs.

Ceetar wrote: The Mets are already over the top. It's not a stretch to say figuring out how to maximize the health of Wright, d'Arnaud, Cuddyer, and Duda, all who had injury-related hits to their seasons, is more important than adding (another) top 30 hitter. Of all the ceetarted things you've ever written here, this... well, this is another one. The way you "maximize the health" of those guys is to play them less or not at all. 3 of them are over 30, with no expectation of either greater health or significantly greater production on the horizon. and the 4th is a catcher with a resume splattered with injuries. Yes, by all means, instead of getting an impact bat, lets hope EVERYBODY has a great year!

Well, that's ok then. The Wilpons are skilled at selling snake oil.

Babe Ruth Murphy came back to Earth in the WS. He's a .290/10-14HR bat, which is very good, but not great. He's versatile and aggressive, but a bit of a bonehead in the field and on the bases, and he'll be 31 at the beginning of next season. Plus, 2 of the better young players on the 40-man (Flores, Herrera) play 2b better than he does... in fact, Murphy's best defensive position is DH. QO, that's it.

yup. like i said, i always believed in Grandy!

Yes, it's easy to say "spend smart, not just for the sake of spending." The reality, however, is that sometimes, when you're thisclose, you have to take a chance and overpay a guy you think will be a difference maker. Because you're not going to get those guys at a discount, or even at a reasonable price, if the bidding gets intense. At that point, it should be a matter of "who", not "how much". And a big market team has the ability to take that chance because, if they're wrong, they have the resources to cut their losses and move on, and not get paralyzed by a bad contract. That is the advantage we're supposed to have over a KC, for example. So, I'll give the Wilpons the benefit of the doubt and say, perhaps, the marginal and mid-tier FAs we've accumulated in recent years were because we just weren't "ready" yet... we weren't "thisclose". But now we've proven we ae. And they have the extra $$ from an exciting season and a deep post-season run. So lets see who they go after. Should they go after Cespedes for 7/$140M? Maybe not. I think his 5 week run from mid-August to mid-September was an aberration, not something to pay for, and he's a hacker with no clue what the strike zone is. But he's still a pretty good player overall, even if we can't bank on that sort of run again. The question remains whether he is the RIGHT player. That's the question, not "is he worth $140m"... value is all relative. He's worth (1) what a team is willing to pay him, and (2) what a team thinks he can add to put them over the top. I think he's worth more to a team that's close than to a team that's still rebuilding. Cespedes' free swinging ways make me nervous, but I trust Sandy to make this call. The bottom line is, though, that if it's not Cespedes, then who? Not another "role player", that's who. An impact bat, even if the deal ends up bad down the road. Shit, ALL deals are bad down the road; players decline and break down. But we're here at the beginning of the road, with a pitching staff for the ages, and if the `Pons squander this opportunity because they won't take the risk to add an impact bat, CF and I will go down and set their limos on fire. No more excuses. If they don't have the resources, then they aren't prepared to own a team in NY. If they do, then they need to use them. Mets 2016 - Go big or go home, Fred.

what CF said... ditto. I should make that my avatar.

does this mean we finally get to finish the superhero matchup contest?

i missed the whole "veiled racism" thing. i guess i don't pay much attention to him.

Lets go Knicks! Oh, are we still playing baseball? cool.

Edgy MD wrote: I hope Dykstra realizes that, while he may think he's just shooting the shit with the worst person in sports broadcasting, he's actually confessing to a pretty serious crime. Why is Colin Cowpie the worst person in sports broadcasting? I don't like him either, and i don't necessarily disagree with you, but I'm just wondering what in particular makes you say that.

Familia does his best Benitez impression and now we're in a hole. If i see cuddyer again, i hope i'm not armed. And get your head out of yo anus, yoanis! okay, now i'm done. It's time for DeGrominator!

Conforto, with Lagares in CF, for the rest of the series. Enough of this shit.

has to be Cuddyer, because CF and I said he sucks.

I think it is fairly clear that both Vic and I are joking on the Cuddyer "absolutely no chance to do well" stuff. i guess it was only clear to us. lets go mets.

somehow, that rotation doesn't strike fear in my heart.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Strong association with one of America's most fascinating and reviled companies, Wal_Mart Stores. Royals owner David Glass was the second CEO in company history, taking over for founder Sam Walton. He's a big union-buster and symbol of remorseless corporate bullying who supported replacement players in the 1995 strike; opposed any labor deal without a salary cap; revoked press credentials of reporters who asked tough questions of Royals management; slashed KC payroll in half upon his appointment. At Walmart he helped to spearhead the insane expansion of the "supercenter" concept, and made sure stores switched to "case ready" meat packaged at the factory five minutes after butchers in a single store won union representation. Walmart/Glass was influential in the Royals' Class AA team moving from Wichita to NW Arkansas, near company HQ. They play in a stadium named for the Walton family's bank, Arvest. dude, you had me at "Walmart".

i'm with CF... as long as he and i consistently declare that "Cuddyer Sucks" as often as we did Granderson, we're bound to get something useful out of him.

i could say because they traded McReynolds back to us, but they did take him off our hands in the first place, and then took Vince Coleman to give him back, so they were helpful overall. And they were the team that inspired Bill James, and they beat the hated Cards in `95, so it's going to be hard to work up much of a hate for them. Until the first pitch... then i will be able to achieve a perfect, zen-like state of perfect hatred.

i think it'll be K.J. primarily, maybe Nieuwenheis. Cuddyer may be limited to PHing against Danny Duffy and Franklin Morales. Or Collins could go for D and start Lagares in CF, and DH Conforto.

Absolutely. I didn't know about his brother's suicide (or maybe i knew and forgot), and so "why go on" would certainly seem a pertinent question for Ridley to answer, or at least to raise. But there were a million things the movie could have been about, as evidenced by the many stories about a man's survival -- with its attendant isolation, abandonment, introspection, desperation, revelation, transcendence and redemption -- that have tackled the themes that this obvious metaphor offers. And there is always some new perspective or insight to be had, or some new way to pose the fundamental questions. "Why go on?" is certainly one of them, and how do you maintain hope in the face of such a hopeless situation?, and how does such prolonged isolation impact our fundamental humanity? But this movie really offers nothing thematically; it's just a one-foot-in-front-of-another procedural. Which is a surprise to me because, whatever else one can say about Ridley's work (and i've said a lot), it has never been short on themes and big ideas...often short on story, and character too, but never themes. Here, all we get are banalities like "keep your chin up", and "a smile will see you through", and "yea, teamwork!", and "what a great species we are", and "it's better to survive than not". He toys with "science v religion" (i.e., Man vs God) with the early scene of Damon cutting up the cross to use for kindling, but it is never developed beyond that, and so is an idea that's as abandoned as our heroic astronaut. But there is more than just a lack of theme here. There is a lack of dramatic conflict. There are 3 basic forms of dramatic conflict: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature (or God), and Man vs Himself. The best stories have aspects of all of these. While MARTIAN has "Man v Nature" in abundance, there are virtually no other conflicts going on, so in order to work, such a story has to be executed perfectly, and keep us guessing, and then actually have something to say about the conflict. But this movie, while executed well for the most part, doesn't go anywhere you didn't already expect it to, and just didn't have anything whatsoever to say... which is a missed opportunity, given the subject matter, the artists involved and the budget. But according to Rotten Tomatoes, i'm in a miniscule minority with this view, so the mileage of others clearly varies.

The Firefly panel was fun... Oh yes it was! Later that afternoon, I was on the exhibit hall floor and i saw a tall, dark, curly haired woman coming my way and i remember thinking: "damn, she looks like Gina Torres... wait, that IS Gina Torres!" I told her how much i enjoyed the FIREFLY panel and she said... now get this... "thank you." I had a moment with Gina Torres! There was an obvious and immediate connection, i could tell. If it wasn't for that restraining order, we'd be dating right now. My wife is ok with this: Gina is on my "celebrity sex exemption" list. Apparently i'm not on Gina's "geeky fan sex exemption" list, but i'll wear her down with my psychotic level of attention to her every movement. Mark my words, she'll be mine one day. Gina, surrender now, you magnificent warrior queen.

dgwphotography wrote: I'm a little Marvelled out - I haven't seen Ant-Man yet, and I felt 3 of the previous 4 movies were underwhelming (Guardians of the Galaxy being the lone exception). I'm more excited about the Jessica Jones series on Netflix next month. We were shown the first episode at ComicCon this weekend, and it was very good. i was at Comic-Con, too! JJONES does look good. I'm loving the whole Netflix/Marvel tv universe, and look forward to Luke Cage and Iron fist joining in soon, too. As for the Marvel Movie-verse, the only one i haven't seen is F4, but i'll catch up with it on cable. I enjoyed Ant-Man... it wasn't great, but it was fun.

Excellent performance by Damon, lovely visuals (as usual for Scott), but so utterly devoid of character development, or even the development of significant themes (beyond "its better to survive than not"), that it left me cold. Matt Damon's Astronaut Watney is a very likeable figure, using humor to get him through his struggle for survival. The movie has a lighter more optimistic tone than most Crusoe-style adventures and is engaging enough, for the most part. But there is no drama in this story... "drama", in the sense of a character that starts low and ends high (comedy) or starts high and ends low (tragedy). The abandoned astronaut, with his good natured can-do spirit, "sciences the shit out of" his situation, and lives happily ever after, ultimately teaching other potential astronauts how to do likewise. Nothing happens that you couldn't guess from watching the trailer or reading a 1-line summary. Unlike Hanks in CASTAWAY or Bullock in GRAVITY, or even McConaughy in INTERSTELLAR, Damon's character has no arc and ends up no different than he started, except older and thinner, but apparently unchanged by his ordeal. Meanwhile, i guess we're supposed to care about the crew's guilt in abandoning him, but why? we don't even know their names and their characters consist of 1 idea each: the captain likes disco, there's a Russian guy, the Mara girl is cute and has a thing for one of the other scientist guys about whom virtually nothing is known. And their backstories are positively Shakespearean compared to the NASA ground crew. And when they take a vote about going back for their abandoned comrade, there really isn't any doubt what they will do. THE MARTIAN is just a plot-driven, mechanical story about what obstacle will arise next before the utterly inevitable conclusion finally shows up after 2.5 hours. Now sometimes a "procedural" can be just fine, and APOLLO-13 wasn't much more than that. But in that film, the real-time immediacy of their disastrous situation and their efforts to survive heightened the tension and, even though we already knew how it would end (it being a true story), the storytelling and pacing was such that you couldn't help but get caught up in the high stakes adventure of it. And whatever minimal character development was presented, the film takes time to establish characters on Earth before shooting them into space. THE MARTIAN, however, never establishes anybody and so becomes entirely reliant on plot (as opposed to theme and character), so it needed a high level of energy and pacing to keep our attention. Watney's rescue, however, is virtually in slow motion, playing out over 18 months, with all communication on a delay, so the story is necessarily attenuated and meanders at its own deliberate pace as we just sit and wait for the next thing to go wrong and watch how the problem is solved. The overall cheeriness and NASA-"rah rah" flag waving tone of it all tells us exactly where the story is leading long before it gets there. Everyone in this universe is noble, competent and selfless -- from the astronauts, to NASA, to the Chinese scientists -- so i guess that makes this more of a fantasy than it is science fiction. In any event, it makes it devoid of real human conflict or drama. Even the visuals, which are quite good, do not provide any breathtaking moments, which is the least I expect from a Ridley Scott film. The red buttes and valleys of Mars do recall John Ford's "monument valley" westerns, but to what purpose? THE MARTIAN is OK i guess, and champions science and all good things, but as drama it's nothing to write home about... particularly if home is 40 million miles away.