duan

I honestly wish I had the time to dig around and try and find the answer (because I'm sure someone has done the donkey work) but I'd be very surprised if the optimum catcher workload isn't far closer to 100 starts then 162 and if that is the case, having a 2 headed tandem is a very worthwhile thing to do if you can afford it - it also means if there is a 15 day dl trip you don't go to using . There's a big difference between a healthy D'arnaud then having Henry Blanco there for 2 weeks. (do you remember the 50 games he played in 2010?)

Colour me somewhat pleased by this. It'll be interesting to see if D'arnaud really is pencilled in to be the backup. I definitely think if you had the two of them sharing a job you definitely will get some good bang for not too many bucks!

100% I'm just thinking of what a weird experience it must be.

Not that it's any of my business, and obviously the way they spend chunks of time on the road makes it somewhat less of an issue they aren't there anyway so what difference does it make - and the 'everyday grind' also makes it different, but I always find it weird that 'most of the time' baseball players seem to live somewhere other then the city they play in. I can easily imagine that if my partner/wife was 8 months pregnant and she was a 4 hour flight away I'd find it fairly unsettling and that I might play at a sub-optimal level. It'd be like a footballer playing for Man City and his wife living in Istanbul. Definitely in football one of the big things that clubs try and make happen after a transfer is 'getting the player out of a hotel and into a home'.

a fair few online bits - the timing was against any dailies picking it up. Might see some tomorrow. We tried to find a way to talk to him in the off-season for the magazine we do for the Dublin - Belfast train but I think we hit dead end or two and didn't really have the motivation to follow it up - must see did we actually talk to anyone or if it was just a editorial meeting chat.

right back atya JWS

Can we trade Jason Vargas to the reds between the innings?

If we have two pitchers who are capable of starting and who aren't getting starts I'd have thought the best plan would be for them to use the depth to do what the dodgers did last year https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/sports/baseball/dodgers-pitching.html "they managed to give their starter more than four days’ rest in 115 of 162 regular-season games. They shuffled pitchers in every way possible: on and off the 10-day disabled list, up and down from the minors, in and out of the bullpen. Minimized effort led to maximum performance"

The video challenge thing drives me bonkers, the 'hover' while we all wait for a replay is very irritating. In cricket they have 15 seconds to decide. It's never a manager in the stands but the men on the field. They get pretty good at judging themselves when it's worth a crack. They know really bad ones. You might allow a first/third base coach to signal as well, only because there can often only be one batter (in cricket there's always two).

There's not a lot to dislike here! Strange how that's the first immediate instinct isn't it - to check what's wrong. He's by no means one of the best players in baseball, but as a piece to improve the offense he's a decent one without any long term fears.

I feel strongly compelled to defined Robles. He's been good in large stretches with a few bumps in the road. That's not that unusual Who's No 1 in his Sim Score on BREF - Joe Smith.. another mets reliever who had some wobbles on the way to a very good Major league career.

Caught a good bit of this. Have to say I though Montero did really well to not let the 2nd inning destroy him, he then got his shit back together and pitched very well. The annoying thing about the second inning was that there was about 4 or 5 moments that could have left him being less damaged. Tis a pity the bullpen is so woeful past Reed, Blevins, Sewald and Edgin.

If you look at this http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/road-traffic-accidents/by-country/ I think its pretty clear there's fairly consistent co-relation between economic development and/or societal stability in relation to the volume of car deaths. There are of course outliers (the maldives for example as a series of islands don't have a huge capacity for traffic deaths), and similarly there are also cultural differences which impact - for example members of Islamic faith can often use the accepted tenet of predestination as an excuse for reckless behaviour - i.e.: Allah will call for you when it is your time & therefore you don't necessarily control the fact that driving at 100mph makes you more likely to have a crash In Ireland we had a huge cultural issue with drink driving, for a long time, in Rural ireland it was 'ok to have a few' and to drive home - there was a sense that there was no other way home and people 'knew the road well' and so on. It has taken a LONG time for that to be unwound, to the point where it isn't socially acceptable any more. As a result of that and improved safety in general we had seen a continued downward movement in road fatalities, even though Ireland's population continued to rise and more specifically we have a very young population which could give rise to more of the "young & male" behaviour cited above. Unfortunately that downward movement seems to have ended with recent years all finishing higher then 2012's low mark of 161 (that's the lowest since statistics became available in the the early 1960s). However one of most saddening items that i've seen recently was this "RSA reports rise in road deaths with 20% of victims not wearing a seatbelt" http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/rsa-reports-rise-in-road-deaths-with-20-of-victims-not-wearing-a-seatbelt-767481.html So of the 187 people who've died in 2016 around 35 of them weren't wearing a seat belt ... the mind boggles ...

Billy Wagner. I think he's a considerable tier above the likes of Lee Smith and to my mind was there or there abouts the best reliever in the game for an extended period. Everything about his performance was elite and while I actually didn't really like him playing for the Mets I'm choosing not to hold that against him. He was better then Hoffman, and as I voted for Hoffman too, I felt I had to vote for Wagner.

And we don't have to feel unlucky, because KC still had better record in 2015.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: ESPN.com wrote: "The league that wins the All-Star Game no longer will get home-field advantage in the World Series, which instead will go to the pennant winner with the better regular-season record" HOORAY! That is SO MUCH FUCKING BETTER.

best KTE ever. I want to go to Detroit tomorrow!

I don't see them DFA'ing Campbell, but I could be wrong. I'd think that Jeff Walters could well be your man - a 28 year old reliever with a 9+ era in AAA (even Las Vegas) isn't going to have THAT many people grabbing him.

The fact that 100 metre sprinters are fairly regularly found guilty of performance enhancing drug use should mean that we know it goes for 'speed' guys too. Tyson Gay's in the 160-170lb zone and tested positive at one point too. I'll say this for them MLB hasn't shown fear or favour in their testing regime. It's very impressive.

well the good news is that if they have a Bosox Yankee style 4 hour marathon I'll catch Familia going for the save!

Can I ask is the Koehler dislike something to do with him going to Stoneybrook? And if so why?

Can I just say, this is a brilliant feature.

you'd have to think Eric Young Jr, Carlyle, Mejia & Johnny Monell can't be long for the 40 man ...

gah - for all you lot complaining about being tired ye can go somewhere else. the good news is that this week has me only 4 hours ahead of ye (our clocks changed last week) the bad news is the games start at 8pm eastern rather the 7pm. If they started at 7 i'd be able to cope a bit better. So having stayed awake by working the game came on at about ten minutes past midnight. Joe Buck and the gang are horrendous. Stayed up till the 7th inning. You can only imagine how taxing delays like the fox one are at 2 am. Watched 8th and 9th in bed. Turned it off after end of 9th, I kinda knew we were done for and fell asleep with the radio in the 10th/11th. So that was probably 3.45 am ish. Smaller of the children was up at 6.50 am, everyone in the house up by 7.15. I can't do this tonight, so I'm planning on sleeping before the f'ing thing starts and waking up to speed watch it from about 6 - 7.45 Anyway, sorta had a bad feeling about Familia, it's a pity that the quick pitch was what got him as it's been a good weapon so far. Crazy shit that went on with poor Edson Volquez and his father. Not sure how the hell in the world you'd cope with coming off the field to be told that. For what it's worth, I'm definitely on board with starting Lagares and DH'ing Conforto/Cespedes (only Cespedes if you're worried about the shoulder) Juan's been hitting well since August and I just don't see Cuddyer/Johnson bringing as much to the party.

Jon Niese is due to get paid 9 million next year and the mets have two options at 10 and then 11. However, the buyouts of those options are only $500k - so you've essentially got UPTO 3 years of Niese for a MAXIMUM of 30 million. When you look at the guys who got around 1 year $10 million as SP's last year (Brandon Morrow, Justin Masterson, Brett Anderson) =I think it's fair to put some trade value on Niese, if we think we've got enough arms for the rotation, rather then making him one of the best paid relievers in the league. I think we'll hold him anyway and that he'll be slated as the No 5 next year, until Wheeler makes him the 6th man and that we'll continue to do some extra rest/spot start style stuff for Syndegaard, Matz & Wheeler from there on anyway. We can probably talk about this A LOT more over the winter though!!!