Ceetar

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Ceetar wrote: I'm going to the game tonight because my non-baseball watching friend might have Malaria. (Really, she's just been to India and they rejected her donated blood but gave her tickets anyway) Left Field Landing row 6. I'm curious to see what the view is like from out there. row 6 might not be overly obstructed. I found it a little detached from the action when we sat there (LWYP's first game earlier this year). Lemme know what you think. It's a little detached, mainly because the bulk of the fans are closer to the plate, so crowd noise and what not plays in. (not that there was a crowd last night) In a more important game where the #1 focus is living and dying on each out because its' a big deal, I'd rather be by the plate, but for a game with less importance, I enjoy the different vantage point. It's a fun place to razz the CFer from too. (not that I do that sort of thing) But I enjoyed it. It's important to be in the front half-dozen or so rows for visibility's sake (and full scoreboard viewing), but I was in row 4 and there was plenty of room to move around last night. Maybe outfield seats are still a bit of a novelty to me given Shea's layout, but I had fun out there. It's a different perspective, I moved over to the CF camera at one point and enjoyed that too. mimicked watching it on TV in a way. Way better judge of outfield flies, and the outfielders in general. Could see right into the Mets bullpen house (and bathroom). As of right now I have no more plans for games the rest of the year. I'm sure I'll go to one or two more, but I've got a pretty busy schedule this year. If they start rattling off 9/10 routinely though, and somehow get back in it, i'll be there.

Edgy DC wrote: Salary floors and salary ceilings are counterproductive. The revenue sharing agreement focused aroudn a luxury tax just rewards and punishes the wrong behavior. A better revenue-sharing system would be to give visiting teams a share of the home team's broadcast revenues as well as the stadium revenues. A better incentive-based system would be a promotion/relegaton system. In fact, I imagine instutituing the former would lead the owners toward the latter. I'm in support of a floor/ceiling. But mainly because I feel it's better than it is right now. What exactly do you mean by a promotion/relegation system?

Pagan 3 Beltran 2 Castillo 1 Wright 1 Takahashi .5 Parnell .5 Davis .25 Thole .25

metirish wrote: This was mentioned at the start of the game last night, I thought it was just an odd thing to say. Neither Francoeur or Carter are the answer there for the future and Carter seems more suited to coming from the bench, or maybe that's becasue he rarely starts and that's why I think that. Anyway I won't get all worked up over it...fuck em all. Jesus seems a decent bat on ball contact type hitter that might be more helpful than Jeff. Or we could bring up someone else..theoretically that's a possibility. Fernando _actually_ injured or just a day to day thing?

�We�ve seen some long at-bats, deep in the counts and those type of things,� Manuel said. �He�s hit some line drives in there. But he�s a guy that, when he�s right, we usually win, because he seems to be able to get that big hit for us.� http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2010/08/jeff_francoeur_remains_in_star.html I love that Francoeur's bar for success is 'long AB' Then again, this is the guy that gives away outs via bunt, constantly. I guess it makes sense.

As for lineup construction.. I've really been thinking the Mets should explore having someone that gets on base batting in front of Reyes, whether that's 9th or 1st. He's been the best hitter for a while now, and he has two automatic outs in front of him. Wouldn't Castillo 9th score some more runs?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I'm saying he makes an interesting caretaker candidate for a last month that's essentially a development/training camp, if Manuel keeps at it with the Frenchy crap. (Plus, you either find out that-- surprise, surprise-- he's amazing at the job, or-- more likely-- that he's not fit, and you shut up those clamoring for his permanent hire. Too innovative for the Mets I think. You'd have to be clear with Wally that he won't bet getting the job, but merely continuing the work he was doing in Brooklyn with some of the rookies. But is there really that much value in that 3-4 weeks? I'd rather they actually go through the interviewing process now, and give the 2011 guy those 3 weeks. So he can learn David Wright's favorite slump busting technique, and just in general notice some bad habits or good habits and such things that he can think about in the offseason.

7 Jose Reyes SS 16 Angel Pagan LF 15 Carlos Beltran CF 5 David Wright 3B 29 Ike Davis 1B 12 Jeff Francoeur RF 30 Josh Thole C 11 Ruben Tejada 2B 43 R.A. Dickey RHP

Gwreck wrote: I still don't understand why people think Wally Backman is qualified to manage the New York Mets. Was it the DUI arrest and subsequent guilty plea? The violation of his probation following his DUI conviction? The domestic violence arrest where he broke down the door to his house, threatened to kill his wife, and assaulted a bystander with a baseball bat? (and subsequent guilty plea to a lesser charge)? This is the same Mets team that wants Francisco Rodriguez gone. How could we possibly justify having this person as manager? (I'm not saying he should be, merely that I'm not against it if the Mets do a proper evaluation of all candidates) I want the Mets to choose the manager that will do the best job with the 2011 team. If that guy has off the field baggage in his past, I don't care. I'd prefer he didn't, but "best guy to manage the team" first. I'm not sure what those things have to do with his ability to manage a group of guys to play good baseball. I also don't want Rodriguez gone.

A virtually unreadable (because I'm not an insider) Matt Meyers rebuttal: http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story?columnist=meyers_matt&id=5492065&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&action=login&appRedirect=http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story%3fcolumnist%3dmeyers_matt%26id%3d5492065%26utm_source%3dtwitterfeed%26utm_medium%3dtwitter http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story?columnist=meyers_matt&id=5492065&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&action=login&appRedirect=http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story%3fcolumnist%3dmeyers_matt%26id%3d5492065%26utm_source%3dtwitterfeed%26utm_medium%3dtwitter

speaking of which, I appear to have an extra (free) ticket to tonight's game if someone's interested..

I'm going to the game tonight because my non-baseball watching friend might have Malaria. (Really, she's just been to India and they rejected her donated blood but gave her tickets anyway) Left Field Landing row 6. I'm curious to see what the view is like from out there. row 6 might not be overly obstructed.

metirish wrote: LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Burned some bridges, did he? It would certainly be an interesting come back, it could be inspired. The Red Sox need help though right? The media is certainly drooling at the storylines. It's interesting that he negotiated a no trade clause though. can we really see him waiving it?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: No need to continue mangling the point: For the Mets to have a "good" offense this year they would need for guys like Francouer, Barajas and whoever played first base to be better than average when their history suggested they wouldn't be (and they haven't been). And Castillo even at his best is a limited value kinda guy and he's not at his best this year. Is that such a hard point to grant? They've had a good offense for years, even with some spotty players. Bay has really been the big blow imo. And playing Tejada over Castillo, but they'd given up at that point. I still say they shouldn't be performing this badly, and it's on HoJo and Manuel on why an offense that's been marginalized by Bay's concussion and Ike's rookie slump is failing. The step up to next year having a powerful offense again is not a big one. The situation is certainly "fixable" regardless of what Rubin decides to argue in his campaign for GM. Unfortunately the Mets are in a situation where it's very possible "doing nothing" would return their offense to glory, but they can't afford to take that risk given the recent issues. I'm semi-curious to see what Rubin suggests, but I'm not expecting anything innovative.

Gwreck wrote: Ceetar wrote: Barajas was a black hole after a while, but hardly worse than Schneider/Santos last year. Actually, Barajas was worse than Santos. Not by a ton, but he wasn't an upgrade. But Blanco was better. I meant the overall catching situation. I don't know what the statistic breakdown is precisely, and I imagine with Thole being here it's even better, but simply that it's certainly not the downgrade from the catching situation last year to this that's causing the offensive woes.