Ceetar

so racism them? that's the only "off the field" issue with Stroman. wouldn't surprise me, given that they're already pretty misogynistic, why not add racism?

The problem is you can't replace deGrom, he's too good. Any budgeting means giving innings to lesser guys. That's poor budgeting. Overpay at the top, and budget in the middle.

In a sense, having a POBO is a good thing, because _they_ have all the knowledge and inside info about stuff to evaluate a GM. Of course, who evaluates that guy? Owner's are all just rich assholes, so it's not like they're good at..well, anything. Which is why I hope the Mets hire someone soon, the farther Cohen is removed from stuff, the better.

Frayed Knot wrote: Please spare me anything resembling NBA/NHL style playoff systems. What's wrong with them? Each series is seemingly treated with import, it's 7 games so it gives a little back and forth. The intensity increases with each level, and it's all the same format throughout so you're not manipulating rosters to maximize 3 games series, and 5 game series.. plus it's basically regular playing time so there's a little more consistency to it. I'd love to see sports flex those later series earlier as needed, so like if both NLCS and ALCS end in 5 games, the World Series starts 2-3 days earlier, but I know there's too much advertising/marketing/tv involved for that.

The interesting part isn't who's outgoing, it's who's incoming. So we shall see.

that wouldn't work. for one, most of the decisions are made by others, often years before. (Of course, doing things like promoting an injured prospect to play in the middle of a super high leverage division-decided series can be judged pretty easily) Budgets are different. It's impossible to know if teams made similar offers and the player just opted for elsewhere. One big thing to look at, imo, is loyalty to their own guys. How often does a GM give a struggling reliever a second shot because he's the one that signed him, vs. a legacy guy? How fast does a GM cut bait with a failing acquisition that didn't work? I want to see growth, and the ability to recognize a mistake and move on, not throw "good money after bad" so to speak

Just do the NHL/NBA style. two leagues, two divisions each. 16 playoff teams (add 16 expansions too) then 8, then 4, then 2. Four 7-game series. If you have to adjust the schedule, I don't think there's anyone attached to those last 8 games or whatever. Or explore a neutral/warm World Series. Lots of options. There's no perfect solution, but this seems to hit most of the important points.

I like that better than the random wild card series/games but I'm not sure it solves any "problems". Also as important as each game is, I don't think the first couple of games are going to feel as critical. I like that the thing shifts to _POSTSEASON_ and each game feels do or die. Reducing that to a mini-season where you're still scoreboard watching and pacing other teams isn't as intense. And you're gonna get to the end and it'll be like, the Mets are playing the Braves each with 9 wins, the Dodgers have 10 and are playing the Phillies with 4. How hard are the Philles trying here? Do the Mets chances have anything to do with how well they play the final 3? Maybe not!

=smg58 post_id=111489 time=1666097846 user_id=62] Wheeler has had his three best seasons since walking. He wasn't close to this good as a Met, which makes me wonder if there was a problem with how we handled him.

=Gwreck post_id=111464 time=1666038777 user_id=56] I'd open with a bid of…$135M for 3 years with an opt-out after 2.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Yes, but is it worth $40 million per year? I wouldn't bet on it. 150%, absolutely zero doubt about it. A team with deGrom on it is better than a team without deGrom on. I don't care if he pitches 10 innings. Bit whoop, sign the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th best backup guys too. If they balk at maybe being the 6th guy in a rotation, tell every one they're third behind deGrom and Scherzer, don't worry about it. And then pay them like a third starter. Anything else means there's a budget and then we've got big problems with this offseason.

Marte was absolutely compromised and the Mets chose to play him anyway. It was a desperate gamble, so much so that they put him 6th in case he exploded in the field in the top of the inning and they had to replace him. They were really sloppy with injuries, when they told us who was injured, all season. The same with the garbage way they handled Álvarez. They seemed to call up Vientos based on twitter pressure. It's a concerning process, and it makes me question their decision making. It definitely appeared losing Marte was the difference between the Mets being really good and not, but that's a fine line to walk. Players get injured. It seemed like when the Mets clicked, everything was fine, but when anything went wrong they could struggle. They didn't have enough power to overcomes games when the hits weren't stringing together, because like Marte was out, so when Alonso was on a cold streak and no one else was bopping, they were losing games. And it's not like Marte's injury was out of nowhere. getting hit by pitches is part of his game!

Nimmo's been hurt too, so it's not like you're trading health either. Judge has 121 more games, they both debuted in 2016. OBP is pretty close, Judge has a 163 vs 134 wRC+ edge (the over the fence thing, mainly) 36.5 fWAR to 17.9, just above twice, though a bunch of that's defense. Fangraphs dings Nimmo a little and credits judge, but he's mostly been RF versus Nimmo in Center. Nimmo's been really good, we shouldn't lose track of that, though Nimmo's offensive year this year was his 4th best by wRC+, mostly because he didn't hit as many out as usual, and walked less. He/the Mets prioritized contact, and I'm not sure that was good. But we can save that for a Nimmo thread. But if you expect an average career Judge, and you're replacing an average career Nimmo, you're not getting 11 more wins. You're getting a few. And you wouldn't want Judge in CF long term really, though again you make that work of course. (could say the same about Nimmo in CF), and the margin of error is less. 2018 they were very comparable, and 2020 (if you make anything of that garbage year) Nimmo was better. I still think you should try to retain Nimmo really, and you've also got Marte and Canha. So you have to work in a DH if they're all healthy. That's fine though. you make that work, that's all I meant. It's really pitching where the Mets have both a lot of volatility and a lot of age.

I need another day still. I was getting excited about at least a week or so of playoff energy, and all the wind came out of the sails over the last two week so fast that I'm still reeling a little. As much as I'm glad they went to a three game series over a wild card game, the suddenly dire aspect of the series when you lose game 1 is intense. You dial it up from 0-100, especially given that most teams have clinched now well before the last day, and then suddenly you're back is against the wall and they're coming for you. jarring.

yes, and they should move on from McCann too, not doing so in August is part of the reason they're done. I'm just saying Judge is more likely to be a 5win player over 130 games than an 10-11 win one over 155. And that's just 2023, not 2026. Still, I'd be thrilled if they got Judge, I'm not sure he's the best fit for the remaining roster, but you make it work. They're not coming to a team that won 101 games ,they're coming to the 2023 Mets. It's a fallacy to expect the same talent level to carry through year to year, never mind all the people leaving. I'm not assuming so much as saying, THERE IS A LOT OF WORK TO DO, and you can just say "we won a lot of games, we only need like one big acquisition" Maybe the better analogy is the Johan Santana trade. Great trade, great upgrade to a key spot, but maybe they didn't address the depth as much as they needed to.

because he's a large human being going into his age 31 season? because injury hasn't been uncommon for him? Because regression is almost baked in? Because it's baseball and one player is rarely the difference? Because it might be Judge instead of Brandon Nimmo who's really good? I'm not saying he's going to be bad, I'm saying making him the major acquisition without addressing all the other issues is not enough to be confident at first place next year.

I only mention Judge because I feel like this admin has had a certain attraction to the big name, the trendy guy, and he's certainly that. And i'm talking about next year, not this one.

you're misreading me. I'm not saying the Mets need "better than reasonable hope" from their prospects. I'm saying Atlanta has a more complete talented player dev system, and a more consistent plan of promotion. Yes, they ended up doing even better than that, even faster. But they put them in positions to succeed, and the Mets promotions seemed like reactions to twitter pressure, desperate ,and could be argued put them in a position to fail. I'm not saying Cohen is unwilling to expand the budget, i'm saying he's unwilling to expand it to compensate for the MANY players that are now free agents. He's said stuff about the budget not being unlimited ,which means it exists, which means decisions have to be made. And they've botched some of these decisions in the past, from draft to trade deadline to offseason. There is no indication that this team is up to the task. I hope so, but I don't think any of them have the track record to say "I trust Billy Eppler implicitly to put the best options in place" Obviously Judge would help. If he's healthy, if the Mets have secondary options if he's not, if the entire roster is filled out beyond him and they're not just like "well, if he gets hurt we'll hope Vientos is fine". There's a lot of moving pieces that are subtracting from the season, never mind season to season variability. Just adding Judge would unlikely be enough as the only significant move this offseason. sure, saying this was _miserably_ is hyperbole (but it's not for last year). maybe _repeatedly_ is a better adjective. There were multiple things they botched this season. Essentially they won 101 but they distributed them about as poorly as you could. They won 101 but were 10-12 against the teams that decided their fate. They did a lot of things wrong, and I would like to see them correct those things, I just don't have the confidence in this team that they are up to it.

oh, the reporters are trash too, but that's not the point.

The Mets were tremendous this year. They won 101 games -- and with deGrom and Scherzer combined, missing close to an entire season -- and getting the kid glove hothouse flower treatment for a good chunk of their active stretches. That's how you measure a team -- by the 162 game regular season. Playoffs are just a spectacle. The regular season is William Shakespeare and the playoffs are Archie comics. It's a gimmick. The Mets were favored to win this year. that's in part because projections systems underrate the Braves, particularly their rookies, because there's no major league data on them. So when they preform better than even reasonable hope, it makes the Braves better than projected. But that's a nod to the Braves system and a knock to the Mets one, who couldn't get Vientos, Baty or Álvarez up here to contribute even when they needed offense at those positions. This is a failure both of the dev system, and of the leadership that makes these decisions. They also didn't truly address their holes at the deadline, making marginal bet around the edges, which mostly felt like shoring up a deep playoff roster...except the Mets didn't have a deep playoff roster, so their "this is a really good platoon guy, and gives us flexibility!" additions get overused, and they struggled. So favored, again, and they lost the division, again. The goal of the regular season is to win the division. They failed, miserably. Having multiple chances to do it, even going back to May 4th, when they got drummed in the final of 4 with Atlanta to split that series. They were 6 back instead of 8 after that win. Those early wins matter too. If they'd won the regular season and lost in 3 to the Dodgers, you'd be pissed, but it would've been a successful season. This year? this was a failure. And now there are a lot of moving parts for next year, and there's been no indication that this team has the personnel or willingness to expand the budget to piece this together. Not only do you need to spend a ton of money, you need to spend it in the right places. You can't just give Aaron Judge a billion dollars and pretend that fixes the offense.

I mean, they mismanaged the roster to this point so I probably wouldn't randomly put him behind the plate, but Álvarez should be catching and if he had been, we wouldn't be playing this game.

I have to say though, Alonso could've done a bat flip or something. was a little lacking.

I don't think _Max_ is hiding anything from the Mets. Them all hiding it from us? Probably. The Mets have been pretty mum about injuries, and pretty poor about managing them, this year, recently, in general. Obliques are one of those things that linger, and it's possible the Mets rushed him back. I mean, they rushed James McCann back, and it's freaking James McCann. Friday was probably an aberration though. wind blowing out (and who knows what MLB did to the balls). Maybe he's not at peak Scherzer, but I'm still confident the next time he pitches. I think Scherzer takes his Toradol/shots and toughs it out. If they win tonight, bring him back on short rest so he can pitch twice.

I think he thinks "This is probably my last meaningful paycheck and Steve Cohen wouldn't even notice if my market value disappeared from his wallet"

I think all Mets relievers should zip line in from the Shea Bridge to the mound.