Vic Sage

ditto, for as long as it lasts. I didn't see this level of sustained solid production coming from him. Of course, now that we commented on it, it will stop.

Captain Steve Rogers? Seriously, he's Captain fuckin' America. David doesn't have superstar tools. He hits 20-25 HRs/yr not 30+; he hits .290 -.300, not .320+; he steals 25-30 bases a year (without great speed), not 50+; his powerful arm is counterbalanced by historical wildness and his range is good, not great. Hojo had more power and more speed, and a stronger arm, but David was the better baseball player, and its not that close. He does everything well -- very well. And you know he's working to be better. He's all baseball, all the time. Then you take a guy like that and add a persona that screams all-american boy, oozing with Tom Hanks-type decency, a guy who left money on the table to stay a Met for life, a guy who'll end up owning just about every Mets hitting record there is, and that blowhard Seaver better move his fat ass over... the crown has been passed. Captain America, we salute you. Where you lead, the Mets will follow.

Some absolutely stupid moments: The entire opening sequence. Lots of WTF, but the most obvious one was, have they lost remote control technology? We could send a drone into the volcano today. What exactly was the plan that Starfleet had to attack Khan? He's on the Klingon home world. Did he think they'd never notice a bomb going off? And who they'd immediately blame. Why send all 72 of the bombs when they only needed one? If the point was to get Khan to rescue his compatriots, why not make him come to them? How did Khan know they send those particular weapons after him? Did that ship have any sort of security at all? Scotty just lands at their base and is given full access. No one notices him? Did Starfleet know anything about security? Setting up a meeting room with glass windows (and not bulletproof glass) instead of in an underground bunker? Khan clearly read the script beforehand. His actions made little sense unless he knew exactly what was going to happen. That said, the movie had enough in the tank to make it a decent adventure flick, if you didn't think about things. That was true of the last one by Abrams, as well. His shit makes no sense. I never wanted to watch LOST, and this is why. Still, the performances by good actors in younger versions of characters we love, even retrofitting ST:II story points, makes it all more fun than it has any right to be.

a what?

I'm sorry, but wasn't Andy Martino one of the flock hyping the Zackster in the first place?

Seaver and Gooden? yeah, but not only. koosman Matlack swan Darling Fernandez David Cone Leiter ok, some of these are less than a decade but all were significant contributors over an extended number of years at the front of a Mets rotation, none are HOFers, and all are reasonable expectations for Wheeler (and Harvey, for that matter). If he ends up as Bobby Jones, that would be mildly disappointing. If he ends up as a Pelfrey, that would be profoundly disappointing. If he ends up Tim Leary or Paul Wilson, that's a disaster, even if not entirely unexpected, given the nature of pitching.

from Mr. Flood: This is, of course, ignoring all other objective and subjective information about Ruben Tejada. So it�s kind of a silly exercise.

what exactly has Tejada ever done, minors or majors, to earn the right for the manager to hold his position open for him? In the majors, over 1336 plate appearances (not a small sample size), he's put up a .326/.321 ops/slg line, with an 81 OPS+ to date. His punchless, speedless offense is matched by his sparkless, disinterested defense, which was further marred this season by numerous episodes of baseball stupidity. In the minors, his numbers were slightly better, as you'd expect, but not much. Over 1900 plate appearances, his line went all the way up to .337 / .351. Now he's still young of course, but all that indicates is that one day, if he works hard and stays in shape, he has the opportunity to be older. I don't see an abundance of raw talent here that screams "long-term answer at SS" such that i'd play him over the adequate backup who is making all the plays on defense and is currently having a better season offensively, putting up numbers that, as underwhelming as they are, are still better than Tejada's career numbers to date. If he gets hot and Omar falls off a cliff, then fine. But like Terry said, Ruben has got to earn it. He's done nothing to do that so far in his career.

it's still the big leagues, and you still have to play until your asses fall literally off "Literally"? Their asses have to fall "literally" off? Well, that's a game I'll happily miss, Harvey or no.

i LOVE that book!

oh, wait, so the only options for Wheeler's future are Mike Pelfrey or Tom Seaver? No middle ground there, slugger? I'm saying that if a prospect of Wheeler's magnitude doesn't exceed the average production of Mike "I completely suck" Pelfrey, somebody needs to get fired. Wheeler certainly doesn't need to develop into a 1st ballot HOFer (though i wouldn't mind that), but he does need to give us a decade or so as a front-of-the-rotation starter, or he will fall short of expectations. How far short? Well, a "Pelfrey" level career would be so woefully short as to be stomach turning. But achieving a "Ron Darling" level would be just fine.

if he can provide at least the averagish starts of Pelfrey, it's still something. yeah, it would be something alright... a huge disappointment, is what that would be.

OK, Sandy, this is more like it. Not that Kyle Johnson will necessarily make it to the majors, much less have an impact there, but he's 23 with a measurable skill (speed) and at least has a statistical chance to do something for us down the road. Cowgill, already 27, is now with his 4th team in 3 years. He got at least some ABs in his first 3 stops and hadn't shown anything, indicating he's a AAAA-type player. He wasn't going to be part of our future, so turning him into a piece that at least has a chance to be was the way to go. Now Sandy just has to do the same with Byrd, Buck, Hawkins, Lyon, and Marcum, before the July deadline.

Groucho brows

yeah, first you start with talent, then build from there. there's no guarantees... as they said in "The Natural", talent isn't enough. But he can throw high 90s with a whip arm motion, so that's a pretty good place to start. Harvey came already finished.

looks like sanchez falling into Moore's ass.

i have no criticism of Mr. Neyer's article, except that the phrase isn't "a fish stinks from the head", its "a fish rots from the head down". I'm sure that, ultimately, a fish stinks from everywhere. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-head-down.html

[u:13r4pbk4]Stuff I liked:[/u:13r4pbk4] * This is the first guy to play superman who actually looks like a super man. When he holds up the girders on the oil rig, he reminds us of Hercules or Atlas, a figure out of myth. plus he's a pretty good actor to boot; * Lois Lane is an investigative journalist -- question: why on earth would she find superman unrecognizable because he's not wearing Clark's glasses? Answer: she wouldn't. So this story happily dispenses with that hoary old subplot; * Michael Shannon is a brilliant actor and his Zod is not a cardboard villain but a patriot, demanding Kal choose a side... is he human or kryptonian? * Russell Crowe has displaced Brando as the definitive voice of Jor-El; his performance is moving and regal; * Kevin Costner, and to a lesser extent Diane Lane, make an emotional impact in small roles as Pa and Ma Kent (particularly the moment when a young Clark, having learned of his extraterrestrial origin, looks up at his father and says "I just want to be your son again", and his father hugs him and says "you ARE my son", with just a hint of a catch in his throat); * The extensive background about Krypton, and the alternative explanations for both "fortress of solitude" and even the "S", were all a geeky joy; * Clark wanders the Earth to find himself, with Lois in pursuit of a story about a super samaritan... I've never seen this before. Usually, Kal just sits in the Fortress of Solitude until he's 30. This is better, and contributes to the basic theme of this version of the story, which is: Is Superman someone who wears a costume to disguise his humanity, or an alien who pretends to be a bumbling mortal to disguise his superiority? Both interpretations are valid and both have been used in comics and movies and tv. For a character who is essentially immortal and all-powerful (Kryptonite aside), it is the one real irreconcilable conflict in his life, and the one that makes him a compelling hero. And it is a conflict for many who are adopted, or who've emigrated, or have, in one way or another, had to move on in their lives and start over. While of alien origin and DNA, Clark/Kal was raised as a mid-western farm by with all-American values (the good ones, anyway), so Zod's question resonates... is he with them or is he with us? But KalClark has made no attempt to disguise himself or his mission, and his Clark is no different than his Kal-El. He has clearly adopted his surrogate home and family, and doesn't seem particularly tempted by Zod's choice, though he sees the value in his native world and yearns to know more about it. But his Kyrptonian father sent him, his only son, here, to Earth, to redeem our sins and make us better, to be an example so that one day we may "join him in the sun." And he takes that legacy seriously. [u:13r4pbk4] Stuff I didn't like:[/u:13r4pbk4] * The action: the last hour is a lot of punching each other through buildings. It's sound and fury, signifying a dearth of intelligence and creativity. Good action sequences are marked by little narratives within each scene to show objectives met or frustrated and, in the process, allowing action to reveal character (e.g., films of John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, and Whedon's AVENGERS). There is little of that here, although the final conflict between Kal and Zod, where Zod is about to kill some innocent bystanders forcing Kal into an unthinkable act, does reveal quite a bit about them both, and we learn that Superman is not Batman. And what does that choice do to Superman in the future? There is also some little bit of effort to develop a secondary conflict between the soldier (played by Detective Stabler) and Zod's hot chick/warrior sidekick, but it doesn't add up to much. Mostly its about gunfire, explosions, and punching through buildings. For about an hour. And there is no way Superman conducts a mega-punch-out in the heart of Metropolis; he would lead them out to the desert or into space so they could punch each other without collateral damage. * The costume: i liked it (i don't need strong primary colors; that was a function of color printing in the 30s and 40s, not some aesthetic judgment), but I don't remember where it comes from in the movie. It sort of just shows up on that "fortress of solitude" scout ship -- what was it doing there for 20,000 years? Maybe they explained this, but i missed it. * The plot: it was a confused and garbled mess about some kind of matrix that would restore Kryptonian race at the expense of humanity. I didn't get it, and i didn't want to. Overall, I'd say i liked it much more than it didn't. And I particularly liked the tone, which treats the material like the iconic myth it is instead of a comic farce about a guy in colorful spandex. But I liked SUPERMAN RETURNS, too, so what do I know.

It'll be interesting to see how Cecchini does this year. Our toolsy 1st round SS needs to progress pretty quickly and he didn't show much last year.

Edgy MD wrote: He certainly coughed it back up. I just think the real issues remain on the offensive. Yes, if we could only score 7 runs a game, he'd be a real gem. He sux BHMC

smg58 wrote: Being merely "awful" makes him good enough to start in center for us and lead off. Young has had some good stretches, though, and his minor league numbers say he can do better at this level than he's shown to this point. He was a very prolific walker in the minors, which hasn't translated to this level yet. He had a bad leg injury at the end of last year and only now seems to be getting the feel for stealing bases again. There's more upside with him than McHugh, I think. I've got no problem with this. This. EY's numbers = .260/90r/50sb line. That's what he's accumulated as a leadoff hitter in his career to date, over the course of 155 games/600+PAs. you know who the mets currently have who could generate such a line? nobody, that's who. And we got him for McHugh? i do that deal every day, and twice on Sunday.

WIN!

lets just hope Parnell makes the point irrelevant.

metirish wrote: Terry didn't load the bases , just to be full and frank on that issue. No, Terry just made the decision to send out the guy who did, after the game situation had arisen where it was clearly time to pinch hit for him and Terry chose not to. Totally unforseeable, right?

I still believe this is all due to Terry trotting out Harvey for the eighth. Harvey went from having an excellent line through 7IPs to having 3 ERs through 7+IP. Doh! Terry not only sent Harvey back out after he already had accumulated 100+ pitches, he allowed Harvey to hit with 2 on and 2 out the inning before, just so he could make that questionable move, thus making it even less justifiable.