Ceetar

Swan Swan H wrote: -Bacon-wrapped hot dog with pulled pork, cole slaw and jalapeno slices. Doesn't have the pulled pork, but if you need a bacon-wrapped hot dog with cole slaw, chili and jalapenos in NY.. http://www.crifdogs.com

I'd probably still start him in the minors, if Kirk is ready to go for Opening Day, but I think he makes the team so.. I dunno. .270/.322/.430? And that's extremely optimistic. 300 PA. 12 HR, 2 Extremely hair-wrenching errors, 2 instagram photos that spark media-fed drama.

Edgy MD wrote: Why do all Card announcers ever sound like they better not get behind the wheel? It's part of the naming-rights contract with anheuser-busch.

I wonder if/how the ticketmaster deal influence the Yankees decision to try to take on Stubhub.

I dunno, does this guy look fooled?

From Baseball Prospectus 2013: Did you hear that the Mets finally threw a no-hitter? No! Well, they did. Santana tossed the gem on June 1, then missed about a month from July to August with an ankle sprain before finishing the year on the disabled list with back inflammation. Santana is not what he was, and he has almost no chance of being worth his $25.5 million salary in 2013. While he struck out batters at his best rate since leaving Minnesota, he also posted his worst walk rate since becoming a full-time starter. Even more alarmingly, after a career spent keeping his BABIP's at .285 or less (frequently much less), he finished worse than the league average in 2012. Were he simply a 33 year old former great, one might guess at bad luck or bad defense. As a 33 year old former great coming off a major shoulder injury and less able to find the strike zone than ever before, one suspects a more sinister and lasting cause. All of that said, Santana still has talent sufficient to be a number-three starter, and if the Mets are willing to eat his salary, a contending team might take him on that basis. Through the first 98 innings, it was .254 babip. Yes, his fastball velocity was down, but not as much as his slider and changeup velocity, meaning the differential actually got higher. Perhaps the .5/9 increase in walks was a result of being less willing to challenge a hitter with reduced velocity. He threw his slider twice as much in 2012, a pitch I would suspect is more often thrown out of the zone to induce swinging strikes? But if you do that more often, you're going to have guys smart enough to lay off more often too. I think the BABIP increase is a red herring.

Gwreck wrote: Ceetar wrote: tickets.com has been around a while, though the mets switched to them last year. Not that the Mets are innocent in this, but it's really tickets.com to blame for the ticket fees. And they're always worse for single tickets due to that stupid 'order fee'. Blaming "Tickets.com" for high ticket fees ignores the role the Mets play in it. Higher "ticket fees" unquestionably means "higher revenue for the Mets." As stated above, MLB Advanced Media owns Tickets.com. They have about half the MLB teams now selling their tickets, and it's been previously reported that they plan to eventually have all MLB teams once existing contracts (ie. the teams that have Ticketmaster) expire. Did MLB make the Mets switch, or did the Mets do it because they thought they could make more money that way rather than using an in-house licensed version of Paciolan software? Hard to say. Oh, the Mets aren't innocent in it, surely. (but no fees at the park still) They chose Tickets.com, but I'm sure they have very little control over setting the fees, beyond an agreement they signed at the beginning. I suspect that's how much say they have over beer/concession prices as well, probably ceding much of that to Aramark in the contract. Supposedly when they switched from Paciolan if that's what it was it was supposed to mean less fees, although they've seemed about the same to me just a little more spread out. The real reason they switched probably did involve MLB pressure, or a cut of the overall Tickets.com deal or something. And the Dynamic Pricing interface, which of course is designed to maximize revenue. (Perhaps ticketmaster pays the Yankees more to be used by them? I hate Ticketmaster, a lot, although the select a seat thing is real nice) but of course, these are all different departments that operate with different goals in mind. The ticket guys don't call up Sandy and ask him what they should price the tickets at or what he's doing, and Sandy doesn't drop them a line to say "trying to trade for Upton and sign Bourn, go ahead and raise prices". The Mets ticket people have access to all the numbers and projections and are going to price tickets to maximize revenue. I suspect they've done that, as much as it sucks.

Kong76 wrote: I was wondering who tickets.com really was when I saw the url on the printout up top. tickets.com has been around a while, though the mets switched to them last year. Not that the Mets are innocent in this, but it's really tickets.com to blame for the ticket fees. And they're always worse for single tickets due to that stupid 'order fee'. If you can get to Citi Field (where you buy from the Mets, not from tickets.com) you should do so. No fees that way. And if you can plan the next game you want to go to while you're at the park? even better. (And yes, there's a print at home fee or something. or a delivery fee? I don't remember. I can't keep track) StubHub switched this year to a WYSIWYG system where the price listed on the site is what you pay. Anyway, see you on Opening Day maybe. Great time. I believe I promised Metsfairy a marble Aero or something.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I like Reynolds, too... as a guy, and a guy explaining the mechanics of defense/hitting. When he's evaluating players and their abilities-- then he's woefully, willfully ill-informed. Maybe that's what rubs me the wrong way about him. I'm not as invested in the hitting/specifics of a player since it's not really my team so I wasn't paying as much attention to that. Just half-paying attention and hearing him say zany things. Way better than Verducci yesterday though, so much appreciated.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Mitch Williams says a lot of things. That said, Wright would have likely been up with the bases loaded there instead of Stanton. Not only would Wright have been up, but he would've been up against the pitcher he hit the walk-off hit against in the 2009 classic.

metirish wrote: Walk, great at bat by Mauer....bases loaded for Stanton. Reynolds by the way is great in the booth. sarcasm?

Zvon wrote: How and why does it jump from 3-5 days to opening day and the DL (in the same statement)? We have enough doom and gloom to contend with without people using their imagination. because the Mets and doctors are dirty filthy liars. didn't you know that?

metsmarathon wrote: it's all that pesky breathing that he does... it's probably more the weight lifting. This is what Murphy is still recovering from, although Wright's is reportedly more minor.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/42779420/STYLE POINTS Jose Reyes, among others on the D.R. team, has been getting flak for this sort of thing for years and years, and yet it's those very qualities that have made him such a pleasure to watch. Said Dickey of Reyes on Wednesday, "I can't think of a better teammate that I've ever had. He's that good. In the clubhouse he's always smiling, and it's not fake, it's not manufactured. That's just an overflow of who he is, and it's fun." Mets fans will back Dickey up there, and after this season, it's likely Toronto fans will too.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: Didn't he also say that he's been playing all along with this stiffness? It kind of sounds like something I had with my back a few years ago. It would be stiff and achy if I was inactive; I'd feel it if I had been sitting too long and I'd have trouble standing upright after getting out of a chair. But as I'd move around I would feel perfectly fine and I wouldn't even remember that I was injured. It eventually resolved itself. I think it took a couple of weeks. Hopefully this is something similar, and rest or applied heat or something will make it go away. Reading it's pain in the ribs now, not the back. Either way, D-dub going back to NY to get em checked out. that makes it sounds like more generic soreness/stiffness and not "oh hey, turns out my back is broken" type pain.

Ceetar wrote: Recker's all but assured. It'll be Hicks on the infield. Seems like Cowgill will get one of the non Nieuwenhuis/Duda/Baxter spots. I think those three are pretty set. Byrd probably gets one of the others, though I'd like to see Brown. I think I'm leaning towards Bixler instead of Hicks.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Didn't someone else have this problem? Let's see if an auction for Jason Bay fixes things... Think Russell Martin caused the problem. I dumped him (and it dumped both) and re-added him which seemed to work.

they'll sell out. did the same thing last year, sold out. record crowd.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'd hope that they'd cut him some slack. After all, he's 68 years old. Still got more range than Derek Jeter though.

Fman99 wrote: This is the first WBC that I remember actively paying attention to, enjoying, or looking forward to the games. The US squad and some of these Latin American teams are filled with respectable mixes of starts and still-active big leaguers. It's nice to watch a March game where the fans and players actually care who wins, also. It helps that Capt. USA is out there knocking balls around (no offense, Jordy). I enjoyed last time, for much the same reasons.(and because I went to one. Always better in person right?) the Twitter chatter helps I think, as does the Captain America bit. Spring Training is so long and meaningless, it's nice to see something that's competitive baseball, even if it's not perfect.

metirish wrote: Seriously though wRC � This is total runs created based of wOBA. It is calculated as (((wOBA � lgwOBA) / wOBAScale) + (lgR/PA)) * PA WTF? I like stats and all but again WTF is that? It's scaled like OPS+ in that 100 is average and you go by percentages off of that. It's basically multiplying how much more you get on base than league average by the average runs scored per PA by the league. So last year players scored .114 runs per plate appearance for example. wOBA for the league was .315 (.304 for Ruben, so not great) so if you had a .315 you'd be at 100 if I'm reading that correctly. There are park/league adjustments as well in wRC+.

If I'm reading this right, the NL OPS+ in 2012 for SS was 90. So he's not really far off. The Mets were 8th in the league in SS OPS. Third in OBP and only one point behind the second place Nationals (first place is Marlins/Reyes) 5th in wRC. He's not Jose Reyes, but that's basically the biggest problem with him.

Edgy MD wrote: .304 / .381 / .422 / .794. By the skin of Buddy Harrelson's glove, we should all have a batting average so empty as Ruben's. what's the fourth number?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I expect nothing. He'll pitch like he did last year, post no- hitter. That is, he'll suck. Then he'll get injured again. Is he a Hall of Famer? He's certainly got the peak. But has he done enough career-wise? I'll take the 3.6 ERA and an average of 6 IP over the 5 other starts in June(Post no-hitter, pre Reed Johnson) prorated to this year.

24 starts, 150IP, 8.5 K/9, 3.5 ERA. Finishes the season healthy, and with the Mets.