Ceetar

Edgy DC wrote: Yeah, you want to reward a guy for staying healthy, not force him to be an iron man, or to play through discomfort when it's not wise. That 700 number leaves almost no margin for error, and negotiators of good faith have to leave some. It wouldn't be hard to speculate, and Terry even did some of this, that the "iron man" attitude may have led to some of the hamstring issues. Also, perhaps playing every damn day at 110% may have contributed to a mental/physical wearing down in September of 07/08? This is reading WAY too much into it (isn't that what the offseason is about?) perhaps Reyes managing to play through a similar tightness in his hammy this September was both a sign that he can slow down when it's in his best interest (Of course, very easily could've been just a financial decision to avoid a third DL stint) AND can still contribute at a pretty high level even without his legs being 100%.

this thread needs more ! because it doesn't appear to be getting through to Sandy/Jose.

Tommy Tanous sounds like a mob name.

sharpie wrote: Prediction: The Mets will trade a prospect to the Padres who McDonald liked but nobody else does. okay. gimme Mat Latos.

sizemore: "He had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in early October, but he could still be ready for spring training next year. " Hey, bring him in on a minor league deal and let's see, but certainly don't pay him.

metirish wrote: Jesus, even Pagan's agent wouldn't sound that optimistic. you mean even Sizemore's agent wouldn't sound that optimistic.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Doncha think there's something to the notion that as long as we know what Pagan is likely to prove on the upside and down, it might be better to gamble with someone else's up & down? No. I'd rather the ups and downs we know. Don't buy into the grass is always greener on the other team argument. And I think Pagans upside, and the possibility of that upside, is much greater than say Sizemore's or whoever we could get.

I think Pagan's getting closer to 4 in arbitration, but my guess is the Mets and him agree to something before that anyway right around that much. Gomez could be interesting, but I'd like someone with a higher career OBP than .291.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'll be sorry if he goes, but having survived the loss of Seaver and Strawberry and others, I know I'll be able to move on. As I didn't, I may need some serious couch time.

Frayed Knot wrote: Rockin' Doc wrote: Has Fernando Martinez turned into the next Alex Escobar? Or does Baseball America consider him an actual Met rather than a minor league prospect? FM has had enough ABs/service time on the big club to where he no longer qualifies as a prospect under most definitions. We'll find out soon. This is his last chance. well, as far as option years and easy manueverability goes anyway.

metirish wrote: According to Rubin's survey of beat writers for opposing teams, there is no interest in Jose: http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/36355/opposing-views-on-reyes Let's hope so. one of the best players in the game and not wanted.......the mind boggles and yesterday there were supposedly like 18 teams rumored?

Edgy DC wrote: I hear you about McLooty, but I'm not thinking just about getting batter in center, but getting cheaper and maybe getting more value for less munnny and hoping to re-invest elsewhere. And I suspect that, maybe, once-good players coming off debilitating injuries are the new undervalued resources in the marketplace --- even as I understand an athletic position like center may not be the place to play that card. perhaps. Does 4 million mean we get a better bet SP? From the sounds of it Alderson has budgeted out what he wants to spend on each 'hole' but presumably an extra 4 million might help get a 'better' guy at one of the spots. If you could find a good defensive specialist type guy, or maybe someone with a high OBP that doesn't necessarily hit that much? Everytime I think about it I keep coming back to Pagan being the best all-around option.

Edgy DC wrote: I think Ross is good thinking, but I think is pretty comparable to Pagan. Never as good a defender as Pagan in 2010 but not as bad as Pagan was in 2011. (And I insist he was.). But I can't see him coming in for fewer $ or years. Ross doesn't rate real well as a CFer either. and it's not like Pagan was bad before 2010. the defensive numbers are heavily in his favor. I wouldn't be against a guy like Ross taking AB against lefties, but you'd have to pay him more than Pagan anyway so if you're going to play him as a regular, it's probably really an upgrade, and it's definitely not if Pagan even plays average defense. Platoon wise..Hairston's practically free and hits lefties just as well. who else is better than Pagan, appreciably, that is worth spending money on? Nate McLouth? nah.. Coco Crisp? Not great, but an upgrade defensively..made about ~5 million a year and had a bad 2011.. David DeJesus could be intriguing, down 2011 and injured 2010, but actually a pretty good player. Don't know if recent history keeps his price down, but he's type B.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I think they hafta let Pagan go and aim higher in CF. I think Pagan could be a fine bench player but prolly not for us anymore. unless you're swinging some huge trade, I'm not sure there is anyone within the Mets reach to aim at. The prospects may ultimately be destined for the corner, but let's not preemptively force them there by locking up CF. Pagan is actually reasonably cheap, probably provides the best defense/offense combo the Mets can reasonably hope for, and doesn't block any of the prospects. Actually, they haven't tried Murphy in CF yet..

The Mets have mentioned Nieuwenhuis. Specifically, D3PO implied we'd probably have seen him in September had he not gotten hurt. That suggests to me that if it's May 15th and Pagan ain't cutting it..

Edgy DC wrote: Nearest to ready? Most literally, it's Pridie followed by Fernando Perez. Nearest to ready with the talent you want to see is probably Nieuwenhuis followed by Matt Den Dekker. Nieuwenhuis had 50 games at AAA, but at least he hit. He could start if they're, you know, punting. He's playing football too? that seems like it'd be a violation of his contract.

Terry Collins tied for 18th longest tenured manager. nearly the into the upper half!

i might read it.

metsmarathon wrote: i think that every stat in baseball, and sports in general, measures, and is dominated by, luck-based results. But we've gotten a lot better, particularly with hitting, at figuring out what's luck and what's not. Also, we don't even know what % of the game fielding really is. Reyes for instance had already created more runs above average batting in April than he and Turner supposedly cost in defense all year.

metsmarathon wrote: Ceetar wrote: But one of the problems with defensive sabermetrics has always been that they generally represent a pretty small sample size to really judge anything by. Most plays, the routine fly balls, the grounders to second, even I could make. A bad week could ruin the year. A guy could play with a sore calf and play poorly on defense for a week or two because he can't pivot around the bag and he's penalized for it, but does that mean he's a bad fielder? isn't that true of any stat that accumulates over the course of an entire season? a bad outing can blow up an ERA something fierce, or drain a batting average. plus, and i think this is key for most statistics, they measure performance, not talent. and past performance is not always indicative of future results. Certainly, but if the stat isn't predicting future results at all, is it really measuring what we think it's measuring? UZR is one of those, that drastically swings year to year sometimes for any number of reasons both known and unknown. We all watched Pagan look worse defensively, but sometimes the defender looks roughly the same and there is still a swing. Pagan will be a very interesting case next year. It is true of any stat, but fielding is the least difficult to actually do and probably affected by the most random of effects. wind speed, ambient light, crowd noise (and color! one patch of white-shirted fans in the upper deck at just the right angle and..) , how wet the grass is, positioning, quality of the other fielders (did Pagan go less aggressively towards right field due to some subconscious confidence that Beltran would get everything cause Beltran is awesome and his idol?) How do you measure any of that? How do you know you're measuring actual talent versus merely luck-driven results?

There's division. That's what makes the start of this thread remarkable. The Mets sucked by all measures. I suppose that's in part due to the greater playing surface. The pitcher gets blamed for a 390-foot homer. The fielder gets statisically hung some for the same 390-foot drive that bounces for a double. But still! There's plenty of division... Can you show this to me? Because the data I've seen concurs that the Mets were the worst fielding team in the majors by each of the three leading measures. Concurrence. Corroboration. was agreeing with you in re: fielding metrics. I then was trying to say that three wrongs don't make a right.

Edgy DC wrote: There's division. That's what makes the start of this thread remarkable. The Mets sucked by all measures. I suppose that's in part due to the greater playing surface. The pitcher gets blamed for a 390-foot homer. The fielder gets statisically hung some for the same 390-foot drive that bounces for a double. But still! There's plenty of division, but I'm skeptical of _all_ of it. It only takes one small misconception or oversight to totally skew what a stat is saying. Not to say the Mets defense was particularly good. But one of the problems with defensive sabermetrics has always been that they generally represent a pretty small sample size to really judge anything by. Most plays, the routine fly balls, the grounders to second, even I could make. A bad week could ruin the year. A guy could play with a sore calf and play poorly on defense for a week or two because he can't pivot around the bag and he's penalized for it, but does that mean he's a bad fielder? I'm extremely confused about what some of these defensive metrics are trying to tell me. There was a great article out there recently about the Brewers, who were really bad in 2010 and not so much last year, despite much of the same cast. Defensive positioning.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: So now we're ddiscussing items: one - reconciling RF and ZR; and two - what does have to do with your idea that in 2011, Reyes was a top, GG caliber fielding shortstop? How does your criticism or skepticism of ZR and RF support your argument for Reyes? This is a complicated question. For one, my eyes suggest that that Reyes was a top SS. I think he's been underrated defensively in the past as well, but for now, 2011. I'm not trying to argue that position, I'm trying to find arguments that support it. I'm aware my perception could be off. That's one of the things about sabermetrics, trying to mathematically analyze things beyond the things your eyes can lie to you about. Still, if you watch most of the games, the stats should roughly support what you already suspect. You're not going to watch baseball all season and then find someone sabermetric argument for why Josh Hamilton sucks or Alex Cora is awesome. But how do we truly measure fielding? Bill James seems to think Reyes+Turner cost the Mets like a run a week and was the worst such combo in the majors. That seems wrong. I don't see how ZR and RF could disagree so much. Tulo made like no errors. Did he really make spectacular plays and then just flat out not touch a ball hit two feet to his left? Perhaps the difference is in what defines a zone. Jeter made most of the plays hit in his zone, but there are a lot less of these. Tulo ranges outside his zone, to get A and PO on plays that normal SS don't get a chance on. But that's a sloppy way to measure it. Perharps Rockies pitchers just allow a lot more balls in play. perhaps his zone rating is lower because Rockies pitchers allow a lot of hard hit balls that he just can't get to, even though they're technically in his zone, while Jeter gobbles up soft grounders taht C.C. Sabathia makes guys hit into.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Ceetar wrote: that list basically flips upside down for Zone Rating. which is part of the problem. And how's that? (Though I did notice that Jeter is tops in ZR. Explain that one) Well, that's just it. Is Jeter a top SS because of that zone factor? which means more? Jeter apparently fields all the balls in his defined zone. But he doesn't get a lot of Assists or Put Outs after fielding them? I don't watch every Yankees games, but this would seem to suggest to me that he fields a lot of balls but has no play? Or is it a factor of strikeout/flyball pitchers that he just doesn't have a lot to do? After all, RF in this case is simply A+PO/9. This seems like a lot to do with the pitcher. in fact, a lot of fielding statistics seem to have a lot to do with the pitching staff the guy playing behind.

that list basically flips upside down for Zone Rating. which is part of the problem.