duan

minor's getting a very generous strikezone

and if I'm K-Rod I'm suing my former agent for the difference between what I get next year & 17.5 million.

not sure where to put this, but to me the ph by willie harris was a disaster and tbh you look at the numbers (2 for 25 or something) I blame Collins. It'd almost have been better to let Carasco bunt so at least we'd get lead runner to 3rd and keep him in the game. There's no doubt that if Reyes' fly had been with a man on 3rd he'd have scored - & Tejeda would probably have advanced too. Or else bring in the guy you think has the best bet to actually do damage (which i'd have thought would be Hairston). 2 men on with nobody out - that's your chance to make the game get closer and willie harris isn't the man I'd give that responsibility to.

any update on the weather - i can stay awake for a while working or not.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Every guy who comes to the plate I mentally scan for his potential to have been or be a Met killer. Kotsay? I can see it, but somehow more concerned that Craig Counsell's on deck. Mark Kotsay and Craig Counsell are two guys who I don't know which is which.

i'm all for a bit of style and substance and celebration. Always have felt you've got to understand a bit of joy in the scoring. However, he's clearly a cock.

what's the weather like now?

The shitstorm that has befallen the Mets this week won't end with Fred's New Yorker comments. Sports Illustrated's next issue will include a feature on the Mets in which Wilpon remarks that the Mets are "bleeding money" and are poised to lose another $70M this season. Report: Mets 'bleeding cash' New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon said the team is "bleeding cash" and could lose $70 million this season in an interview with Sports Illustrated that was obtained before release by the New York Daily News. Wilpon also said that he fears he could lose the Mets if the trustee for victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme wins a $1 billion lawsuit against the team and the owner's other interests. Wilpon said he is willing to settle based on the $295 million in fictitious profits he earned, but will not settle based on $700 million in principle he and partners invested with Madoff. Is SNY bleeding cash? Until someone unwinds the contracts and assesses where they stand in relation to their value proposition I will not believe that the mets are par se losing money.

oops. i thought it was two outs.

because you're hoping he gets the out and then you're expecting to replace him to lead off. And if he gets that out the Polonco, Rollins, Howard run is a lot tougher? there's not a lot of double switch candidates about is there? that's a problem.

this'll be over before chelsea vs spurs is finished!

good catch by Bay there and made a big difference!

the big problem here is the "SNY is off limits" if SNY is making profits it is doing though primarily on the basis of it getting the Mets broadcasts at a 'discounted' rate. , the rate may still be higher then what the mets WERE getting but it doesn't actually matter, SNY needs the Mets games to continue to earn profits. Now, that didn't really matter a huge amount when SNY was owned by the people who owned the mets and some other key strategic partners, but if you imagine that you're going to buy into the METS but not get a proportional portion of SNY then it's clear to see that your investment in the loss making Mets is effectively subsidising the profits of the people you bought your chunk of the mets off. SNY will become part of the deal. It'll have to be.

Brandon Wood vs Chin Lung Hu ?

for what it's worth he looked horrible defensively in the bits I've seen. The double clutch on the throw to third, the botched DP play and could well have cost two games with his glove (sure other things went wrong but football always has me tracing things back to the first mistake so it's sort of how I work things mentally) On other notes, Brandon Wood got DFA'd last night and strikes me as EXACTLY the kind of guy that a team with fuck all hope of competing could take a look see at.

the basic premise comes down to this. is there any reason why you should pay nearly as much as you would a top tier starter to a top tier reliever. if you agree with this what you're saying is you're valuing the leverage of the innings that a closer pitches at roughly 3 times the amount that you do a starter. Now, that's fine, but if it's the case you damn sure better be sure those innings mean something and you have a better chance of that happening if you've got a rotation rather then a relief corps. Dominant relievers are what a very good team need to put them over the top, not what a okay team needs to be good & therein the problem of the brittleness of the latter end of the Omar era mets, they needed everyone to be healthy to be good and whatever black cat he ran over sure as hell came back to bite his ass on that.

Gwreck wrote: In this context duan was probably thinking of Rafael Soriano, however. indeed i was. sorry about that.

The Second Spitter wrote: I started an exchange of emails with a friend at SABR in the hope of obtaining the article I mentioned earlier in this thread. In the course of this, he revealed to me the Mets strategy with respect to Frankie: 1. Minimize his GFs between now and June (duh). 2. Start shopping him to teams in June: His tradability (he used the expression "fungibility") will be greatly enhanced if the team that trades for him determines whether the option vests. 3. If that team falls out of the playoff contention they can exercise the same caution the Mets have so far. 4. Otherwise the option will vest with the new team, something they'll care less about if they're in a playoff race. 5a. Specific MFY scenario: if his option vests while on the MFY, I'm sure he can swallow a year of being Mo's set-up man for $17.5M OR 5b.The MFY may work-out an extension in lieu of the option making him their future closer with the final year(s) being backloaded, in effect deferring the high premium of the 2012 option. the specific motherfucking yankee scenario is unlikely even for them, as essentially that's what they did with Rafael Santana. Overpay a guy so that he'll be closer after 'mo' finishes.

how'd murph do at 2nd?

obviously i don't believe that ... but SO much of Pelfrey seems to depend on his first few batters.........

I absolutely guarantee you that every baseball operations office watches the waiver wire closer then they watch ESPN. Each office will have a list of the guys from other organisations who are likely to be on the bubble and whom they see as potential fits for their needs. They'll have scouting reports and stats databases to back it up.

"baseball official who was not authorized to speak publicly because the process is secretive. " actually they use that kind of language all the time in these reports and while it does kind of bug me (hey if you're not supposed to talk about it don't talk about it!) it's nothing particular to the mets/espn in this context.

the dutch are a hilariously pragmatic (I reckon it comes from depending on dikes to keep yourselves out of water) and invariably well educated bunch. They're virtually without fail multi-lingual and EVERYONE in holland cycles. When everywhere's flat it's a pretty easy thing to do.

of course you could do it spread betting style and get a 'unit' for every win over 78.5 (or lose a unit for every win under - they don't tell you about that so quick!)

I don't know, I just object to the basic accusatory tone of it and that someone might not want to reply to something in a couple of hundred characters. By all means try and make contact that way, but if someone doesn't respond don't act like its the same as a politician refusing to comment at a press conference. It's not necessarily Rubin's fault, but more driven by the constant lust for instant comment etc that twitter has forced the media into.