Ceetar

Ike Davis to Daniel Murphy wrote: Let's go dominate!

pretty sure it's going to be disappointing to 4 of them.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Letterman's joke was shorter. I'm not so sure about the other thing. So like Daniel Herrera?

metsmarathon wrote: looks like it could be an interesting thing to try. i'm certain there'll be a significant benefit to anyone whose ever played a auction draft before, and an even more significant benefit to anyone who won't have a munchkin nipping at their heels all night long. the draft will be like herding cats, i'm sure. but what the heck. i have a title to defend. Never have. It'll be interesting though, since it's a continuous league, the balance between signing prospects and guys that'll actually contribute.

G-Fafif wrote: Cashman's an unfaithful douche (aside from his MFYness). Why is it necessary to expose him, so to speak? Except for learning the GM didn't care for Posada -- not a surprise -- I didn't see any point to any of that. Was he using city funds to get the girlfriend those seats? He sat her in the FAMILY section! Oh the horror!

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Oops, Cashman pulls a Phillips. heh. He's a "lightweight" as a drinker and they watched the Hangover2! OMG!

May 27th before a 1pm game against the Padres

TransMonk wrote: But the real question is: Will the MLB Network televise Daniel Herrea getting his hair cut off? Not until he leaves the Mets.

#NW top 10 centerfielders right now on @mlbnetwork gonna have to get on this list soon.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I agree. I suspect he's been hanging out with LeBron James. Well, his hair was never the reason I missed him to begin with. *sigh* But then, I don't have a problem with LeBron James either.

We could try Otto Neu if anyone's interested. Keeper style, 40 man rosters, etc. $10 though. http://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/userdashboard

Edgy DC wrote: Well, that's a worthwhile comment. His position that it's a waste of time (I'm not so sure it is, or should be, at least) should be heard by those of us wasting our time. was more referring to his 'complete disinterest' which didn't extend to reading this thread apparently. I don't think anything that's a celebration of baseball can ever be a waste of time. (leaving aside that it 'counts') I imagine it's gone downhill (I don't know, this is how it's always been to me) but I think a lot of that's due to the ESPNification of it. I mean, don't we all enjoy talking about the great players in the game? Watching them do their thing? Watching majestic home runs fly off bats?

batmagadanleadoff wrote: smg58 wrote: It's too early to assess the wins and losses from this offseason. I agree. I'd even extend Alderson's wait and see beyond this offseason. It's tough for Sandy to impress so soon when his mission impossible is to replace five million dollar players with bargain bin cutouts. If Sandy succeeds, it'll likely be through the players that went through the Mets minor leagues on his watch. Why judge a turkey based on how it tastes after just 15 minutes in the oven? Because that was plenty of time to taste the appetizers and get a sense for the cooks ability.

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Ceetar wrote: would the Mets fans pessimism outweight the desire to have Mets at the All-Star Game? Actually, my complete disinterest in the waste-of-time that the All-Star Game has become makes me indifferent to the Mets hosting one. And yet you're commenting in a thread about one.

would the Mets fans pessimism outweight the desire to have Mets at the All-Star Game? We're a long way away, but if Duda and Wright and Davis and maybe even someone like Nieuwenhuis are having okay years, there are a LOT of Mets fans to stuff a ballot box if they're into it. And I just thought of something... Gotta root hard for the Red Sox this year so that we can get Bobby Valentine managing a game at Citi Field in 2013 right?

Looks to be the type of loss that rips your heart out and leaves you bleeding to death: Loss of Jose Reyes There may be plenty of blame to go around the organization for not being able to retain Reyes, but I don't assign any of it to Alderson. It's tough to know for sure, but I don't think one can automatically absolve Alderson completely. I've maintained that the time to re-sign Reyes was Winter 2010, not Winter 2011. Alderson was on record saying he wanted to see how Reyes played. If he's covering for the organization because his hands were tied, then I can't pin this on him. But if that was his call, he fucked that royally. Not that I'm trying to take blame off the Wilpons. Fuck the Wilpons. A little of both I imagine. And he's looking to make the same mistake with David Wright. The Mets projected payroll steadily dropped from the time Alderson picked up the option but didn't extend him, and when he got the offer from that other team. At the time he was basically suggested a payroll in the 120-130 range, which would've added Reyes to this team, and hey, probably an Oswalt or something too.

I think Bud's lack of a contract for 2013 until last Monday officially played into that. It's long been almost confirmed to be here, I can't imagine it wouldn't be.

I could nitpick some of it I guess. I think guys like Boyer and drafting Emaus were more modest losses. Capuano too. Barely cost anything. Jason Isringhausen wasn't really that good. That's more of a modest win in my eye. On the same token, letting Perez and Maine walk to me falls to modest win just based on how bad the pitching was. It's not like we got Dickey-like innings by not pitching them..we got Carrasco-like innings which we've already put in the 'big loss' column. As Herrera is still on the roster (and the other guy) I'd probably transition K-Rod to the modest win dept as we've got some reliever depth now. (On the other hand, he's much better than Rauch and ended up signing a somewhat reasonable one year contract. It may have been impossible for the Mets to work around the option and negotiate with him the way the Brewers did though) I'd tentatively put losing Fernando Martinez in the modest loss column too, as it's guys like Armando Rodriguez and Carrasco that get to stay as a result.

Frayed Knot wrote: "I think [Opening Day is] more than a reach ... If [Ryan Howard] is back by sometime in May, I'll be happy." -- Ruben Amaro Jr. Sounds like what Omar was saying about Beltran in 2010.

Dealt with anemia and visa issues well into the start of the season and ultimately just wasn't very good.

metirish wrote: Is Steve Traschel running this or what?.... kidding , really I am What happens first, this Parody contest finishes or the Mets throw a no-hitter?

The John Henry scene where he discusses the fate of teams that fail to embrace the changing ideas hurt a lot considering that was the very same moment we were ditching Valentine for Howe, and still three years from the start of the Omar Era. Discouraging that it took nearly a decade from that moment to begin to look forward, and that was only because their lenders forced them to. One of my worries about the Mets finding financial footing again is that they'll waste no time ousting Alderson afterward, and probably make John Franco the new GM. Well, as we learned Saturday, they did start looking forward with the hiring of Baumer. I loved the movie. Spoiler here, but the only bit I wasn't into was all the attention paid to the 20-game win streak. Plus you did have the the "Last Second Victory Against Improbable Odds" when Hatteburg smacks the dramatic homer in the 20th game. It felt kinda like movie pandering to the lowest common denominator baseball fan and it didn't seem all that relevant to the point of the story. But then the next scene is Pitt saying it doesn't mean shit if you don't win the last game of the series, and it only serves to sell some tickets and hot dogs in the meantime, and he really could've been talking about the team or the movie at that point and I loved it. It was like they put that scene in the movie to try and let you think it was important and then took it back and said, 'No it's not. At all.' This was a big part in the book too. And I think it's also a part many "stat-heads" miss sometimes when they trumpet Moneyball as this transcendent moment in baseball. How invested Beane is emotionally, which was the reason he failed as a player. They talk about it near the end when he's talking about romanticizing baseball. I enjoyed the movie, but I guess slightly disappointed probably from the "Never as good as the book" standpoint. I didn't really like the ending. It made it seem like Beane made the wrong choice. The last two little epilogue points: "The Red Sox won the World Series two years later using Beane's philosophy" and then "Beane is still in Oakland trying to win the last game of the series". Hardly true. Even just the offer to Beane is an example of the difference. money. Just look at Damon, who was used as an example of a player not worth what he was being paid. '' On the other hand it's now 2012 and the A's absolutely suck, traded away roughly everyone and haven't been good since they lost their last 'big three' pitcher. They're headed for a 4th place finish and only because the Astros don't show up until next year. I couldn't watch the movie and not wonder how Beane is handling it these days.

I was disappointed with the memorabilia guy. A '62 yearbook and scorecard aren't exactly so uncommon to a room of baseball people. Batmags, if you would like to give a presentation one year of some of your more unusual items that would be great. I really enjoyed Vescey, although it was so warm I felt like closing my eyes and just listening. Nice to see ya Lunchgrabber, and to meet you Ceetar. Forgot to ask what Ceetar meant haha. Actually answered that in response to a Mostly Mets Podcast inquiry to the same question: http://www.ceetar.com/optimisticmetsfan/2011/12/19/ceetars-origins-mostly-mets-podcast-and-the-mazzillis/ So here it is: I was looking to name a character in an online MUD, which is basically a text-based pre-World of Warcraft style game played over telnet. (This was like 1997) I came up with Ceetar. My character ultimately became a demon-worshipping evil priest type character wielding dark magic and a spear to kill monsters and good guys. It became my online identity and as I began signing up for accounts and emails and websites, I started using it as my user name. So that�s the pretty nerdy origins of the name. Baumer spoke too little in my opinion too. It almost felt like he was expecting a more intricate question and answer period and not speaking as long. Which also would've been nice. The other guy didn't even provide much more than "Yeah, I sorta work with Baumer here". This was probably just ignorance on my part, but I pictured him as an older guy more like DePodesta. Instead he's my age and basically got the job with the Mets at the same time I had just graduated from college and was looking for jobs. I'd like to hear more from him. The thought that 'stats' in 2003 was basically huge binders full of printouts is certainly a scary one. Buddy did sorta ramble on at time, but in a good way. Maybe it's just that I tolerate ramblings from baseball players a little more than scouts talking about how they interacted with other scouts and cross-checkers while guessing about teenagers. There were definitely moments where he seemed to stray a bit. He's getting older I guess. He joked about Little League dinner appearances, and I do remember he was a guest at one I was at back around 1990 or so. I really enjoyed Vescey, although it was so warm I felt like closing my eyes and just listening. ditto. I haven't read much, if anything, by him but his part was pretty good (and hey, Ernie Accorsi apparently is willing to show up to hear him speak) and I'm tempted to check out that Mets book of his. Wasn't a bad first exposure to SABR all in all.

Ran into a Braves fan waiting for the train headed to the event. Bad sign? Heh

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Yes, but try to be prompt as Met stuff is first up. Well surely I'm not gonna be late! (pending NJT). Looks like 9:33, so I have 27 minutes to mosey on over.