Elster88

As a sidenote, I heard an interesting reasoning on the Mets' move for LoDuca. I always hate it when a player/agent announces each offer he gets, and then runs to another team...they trump it...the original team goes a little higher...the new team adds another year....and you end up with a bloated contract (see: Rodriguez, Alex). The Mets completely avoided that with their catcher situation. They offered reasonable deals that were basically ignored for a week. It was pretty obvious that both Molina and Hernandez were hoping someone else would make an offer and then the "free-spending" Omar would go even higher. (Strangely enough, when owners do something similar to keep contracts low, it's illegal and called collusion.) But they didn't count on what Omar did. He basically said, "All right, fuck you guys. If you're not going to respond one way or the other, I'll go trade for this guy." He avoided the escalating offers dilemma. I am really liking that. And then idiot-Molina turns around after the LoDuca deal and says he was counting on coming to the Mets, conveniently ignoring the fact that there was an offer on the table for a week and a half.

Valadius wrote: I wouldn't want a "me me me" player like that on my team. mi mi mi do re mi fa so... Anyway. I don't give a flying fuck about "me me me" or whatever. Give me a guy who plays the game well. Our 1986 roster was filled with guys that you wouldn't want on your team, Val.

From the cut scenes for RotJ something was confirmed that I thought I remembered reading in the novelization: Owen Lars was originally Obi-Wan's brother.

LOL. Beautiful.

That's great news! To get rid of Benson to only fill his spot in the rotation with the more expensive Vazquez would've been the height of stupidity.

]i miss the days of clubbing Ms. Met like a baby seal... WTF? Who clubs baby seals?!? Do you stomp on kittens for a change of pace?

I don't know why I enjoy reading old forum threads when I wasn't even a participant. You should pop those into the archives, Bret.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="Elster88"]="Nymr83"]everyone was saying it at the time, Who are you referring to? If you're talking about WFAN callers, then what I said still stands: Anyone who had a clue didn't say this. Elster, there are amnesiacs here who'll deny it, I expect, but Rey had dozens of vociferous defenders on the old MOFO. I probably have a few Rey/anti-Rey threads saved on my hard drive, but take my word for it, some of these nutjobs made Rey into one of the Mets' most indispensible players, maintained that his hitting was eminently acceptable in the context of his great glove work, that Rey was underappreciated, that he was a much better hitter most people thought, etc. I was challenging Nymr's contention that "everyone" was calling Mike Bordick a savior. I doubt anyone was foolish enough to put the words "savior" and "Bordick" in the same sentence. Not saying anything about Rey here or what people thought about Rey.

Nymr83 wrote: everyone was saying it at the time, Who are you referring to? If you're talking about WFAN callers, then what I said still stands: Anyone who had a clue didn't say this.

]everyone is all like "wow this guy is great, he's the savior, he can hit" I don't think anyone who had a clue was "like" this.

I hate Kevin Elster. I think this topic is stoopid*. But I'm stoopid too. *This should in no way be construed as saying that the poster who posted this topic or those who responded it are stoopid. This is also not a message that this is not or should not be interesting to others. I respect your rights to discuss this topic and do not think less of you for doing so. I don't want to be abusive or single any one out for unfair treatment because I disagree with their opinion.

Andrea Graves = hot.

Does anyone else think that this picture looks like someone drew in his mustache with the pencil in Microsoft Paint?

I have been assured of a monster season out of Fielder. They just had to cut some dead weight first.

Aw come on. You could've gotten more mileage out of that one. "Hates Reds." leads to "What's his problem with Cincinnati?" etc.

Enjoy!

Johnny Dickshot wrote: That was a cool play if you recall, and it turned out to be one of the shark-jumping, pennant fever innoculating series of 2005. We'd just beaten Milwaukee in 11 innings the night before (Zambrano knocked out of the box early, we rally, they go ahead, Cameron goes deep of Turnbow in bottom 9th, then singles off Hall's glove in the 11th -- Piazza later walks with the bases loaded to win it). This night, Pedro starts, we go ahead, Minky makes a nice diving catch/DP to save him, but WWSB can't trust anyone but Looper and Hernandez for the millionth game in a row and they each cough up runs. In the 9th Mientkiewicz singles (3rd hit of the game) and is on first when Anderson grounds to second. Minky does a barrell roll in the basepath to knock out Weeks and spoil the DP, but the rally falls short. The day after THAT, Benson gets rocked but we score 9 runs anyway. WWSB goes to Hernandez -- again! -- and he coughs up half a dozen runs in the 9th. Ugh. Ugh indeed. Painful memories, this post brings back. I think I remember referencing these two games for like a month pointing out what a difference they would've been as we hung close to the Astros and Phillies in the WC race.

Jacque Jones to turn down arbitration

Rotblatt wrote: I'm all for idiot-proofing our bullpen & rotation as much as possible--no former closers unless they're as good as Heilman was last year. You mean "Willie-proofing"? [/cheap shot at Willie]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: You attribute the Sox success to two things: Luck (which is a weak perennial explanation for success that I've already mocked sufficiently above) and payroll. Since you admit that the Mets have the same payroll available but the Sox have (through dumb luck?) spent it far more efficiently, Do I think it's all dumb luck? No. Is it a lot of dumb luck? Yes! Just look at my last couple of posts to understand why. Bret Sabermetric wrote: I don't really get what you're claiming other than what I'm claiming: the Sox are much better at sniffing out clues than the Mets have been. I quibble on the word "much". Bret Sabermetric wrote: A few more posts like your last, in fact, and I can just refer all Sox discussions to you, in the confidence that you'll make my point far more convincingly than I. You really have no idea how pathetic your defense of the Mets's wisdom sounds to an objective ear. I'm not sure what this means. Is my "defense" really a defense? Not really. What I'm saying is that all teams make boneheaded moves, the Red Sox just lucked out on what worked out for them. Bret Sabermetric wrote: Now, if you'd like to discuss whether switching loyalty is really "a horrible thing to do," I'll have that discussion, but why don't we go over the Red Light sub-forum, so I can continue my baseball-related posts here undisturbed? I don't see why this has to go to the red light. It's still talking baseball. Bret Sabermetric wrote: I don't mind talking this stuff over, if you really want to talk, and not heap your abuse on me. I'm not sure what you're seeing as abuse. I went over the top describing your "TOXIC" thread as retarded, but I really believed it was just a ploy for attention. That's a stupid thread header. Why not just say what's in the thread? People can still judge whether or not to open it if the content is in the header instead of "TOXIC DO NOT OPEN." I'm sure you believe, as I do, that an all-caps thread title like "TOXIC" is MUCH more likely to get read. If it wasn't a ploy for attention, then I guess what I said can be construed as abusive. Where's the other abuse? I was called out by rpackrat just last week for being a prick, so I'm trying modify my behavior. That should also be a clue that I'm not showing my asshole-side just to you. In fact, I thought I treated you as well or better than most around here do. As I said, an opposing point of view keeps things interesting. [Hmmm maybe this paragraph and the ones below belong in the Red Light. Mods, let me know.] Bret Sabermetric wrote: The charge of repetitiveness is also a weak one. I could defend myself by pointing out the great variety of subjects in which I've expressed interest over the years, but that isn't very persuasive, for some reason, and I don't know if "repetitiveness" doesn't simply mean that I have an unpopular opinion that I maintain with some consistency. It's not your opinion that makes me say you are repetitive, I tend to get on everyone's case for being overly repetitive. I'll concede it's more likely that you get complaints because your Met-related opinions are not generally shared, but I don't think you are unfairly singled out. Bret Sabermetric wrote: I don't think the Mets are a well-run organization, and that belief is bound to come through in any number of posts. I read the charge of repetition as pressure to succumb to a more acceptable belief Not at all, at least not from me. I'm not trying to get you to think the Mets are a perfectly run organization. I don't believe that myself, as you obviously inferred from my posts. I just have a natural response to look down on people who switch loyalties casually. (A personal flaw) And I tend to find that not a lot of people switch their loyaties, um, un-casually. Those people that do switch are usually the ones who don't really give a crap about baseball, only root for a winner, and only see games live when they go to World Series games because they are starring in a major motion picture or because Daddy gave them his corporate seats so they can brag to their friends. This obviously doesn't apply to you, which makes your switch more puzzling to me. Again, I don't really care all that much that you jumped ships. I just will argue to my death that the Red Sox are not such a competent organization as to put the Mets to shame and to cause the switching of bandwagons. Nor are the Mets so horrible as to inspire the above.

Great CF, like I didn't have enough ways to waste time from 9 to 5. Seriously, though great link. Lucas tries to claim that he had the storylines to the prequels written before the first movie was ever made. I think this scene pretty much blows that theory to shreds. Interesting. I guess it's possible that Anakin met some of the military in that time between II and III, I haven't read or seen any of that stuff, and maybe that was what Lucas had in mind here. (As in, when he wrote this scene he was thinking, Luke's pop was cruising around with the military in the past before he became Vader.) In fact, this line makes it seem like he wasn't even sold on making Darth Vader his father. Unless the knowledge that Anakin became Vader wasn't generally known in the rest of StarWarsLand. Maybe everyone thinks that Anakin was killed by Vader the way Ben told Luke in IV.

I'm not following your logic, Irish. This: metirish wrote: That [4.94] ERA was in 33 games, in 04 in 79 games he had a 2.57 ERA, of course in 03 pitching in 60 games he had a 5.83 ERA does not seem to go with this: metirish wrote: I think he'd be a good addition.

Angry? No. Schanuzer? No, I think the dog I am most like is a Husky. ]I'll be glad to discuss the Red Sox with you, but why don't we take it to a Red Sox board, huh? Nah, I didn't want to discuss the Red Sox so much as point out that every team makes mistakes. In the case of the Red Sox, they tried to make mistakes like bringing over Vazquez, ARod, and Loaiza, like trying to get rid of Manny, and like trying to sign Garciaparra to 4yr/$16millionper contract that would have been an incredibly bad deal for them. And they did all this immediately prior to their first WS ring in 86 years. It's hard to look at moves like that and conclude that they are a vastly superior franchise. The real, not so hidden, reason that they have had their recent run is their payroll. Sure, they've spent it better than teams like, say, the Mets, but with the moves they lucked out on plus their budget I am not convinced that their "genius" is the reason behind their success. ]In general , however, wouldn't you agree that all teams make plenty of mistakes, but the good organizations have decent backup plans, budget for errors, tend to assess their errors quickly, etc? Yes. I could argue that the Red Sox are not much better in any of these areas then the Mets. Better, yes. Much better, no. But you're right, that's for the SoSH board, and you do have the W-L record as the trump argument. ]it may well please you to think that I believe the reason the Mets have been unsuccessful lately is that they alone make mistakes. Does it please me to think this way? Not particularly. I don't care much one way or the other. I don't spend as much time thinking about your motives as you seem to believe. Do I actually think this? Yes. Your main (and only?) message on this board of late is that the Mets are clueless. If they actually are clueless, which I am not willing to concede, they are not much more clueless than any other team that is out there. If you truly don't think that they alone make mistakes, why go to the extreme of switching fan-loyalty (a horrible thing to do) because they are such a horrible franchise? The point that I was trying to get across is that other teams make mistakes, too, including the Red Sox. And to become a Red Sox fan because they supposedly are vastly superior in baseball intelligence and at pleasing their fans smells bad. It smells of someone jumping bandwagons to the team that just won the World Series. On a side note, with that track record, it's hard to read your repetitive posts objectively. Especially when they have attention-craving, "look-at-me", retarded subject headers like "TOXIC DONT READ BLAH BLAH BLAH". But you don't seem to be doing anymore, and are back to posts about baseball with only the occasional barb against the Mets, which are very nice and fun to read (SC = zero). Believe it or not, it's more fun when there is someone with such an anti-Met POV to argue with. I like responding to the post directly above this one. The one three posts above this one, not so much.

]How will the Mets commemorate the 1986 championship's 20th anniversary. How about with a 2006 WS trophy?

Whatever. I figured that would be your response, but I was holding out hope that a point could be gotten across. Way to, per usual, ignore everything I was trying to say and just continue with your same old line. Really not a big surprise.