roger_that

You blew the chance to maximize one of my more frequent typos, "singing" and "signing."

Specifically, who is the Met with the best (Metly or non-Metly) career whose time with the Mets you barely remember? It might be because you weren't born yet, of course, but it might also be because it occurred when you weren't following the team as closely as in other seasons, or just because the team was really bad and you're glad to draw a blank, or for some other idiosyncratic reason. For me, it's Eddie Murray. I remember the Mets getting him, and the hype surrounding him, but basically he was gone before I got to see him play. Or maybe I did, and it didn't register on me. He's a HoFer, and he put up some decent Murray-like numbers, but as far as I'm concerned he was never a Met.

I just like hearing Steinbrenner's kid announce in a very longwinded circular way, "My dad was an obnoxious, overbearing dick and we're finally going to abandon one of his guiding principles that cost us many good players and much goodwill over the past five decades."

Betty is the second-most hateful wife in TV history. (Skyler in Breaking Bad is the champ.) Like Breaking Bad, you root for the guy who is doing all sorts of evil and selfish deeds in every episode. That's the fun of it.

The privilege of watching Seaver pitch (and for me, personally, Koosman was more exciting) and Matlack and McGraw, and watching Cleon and Rusty and Grote will never be equaled. 1969 inspired me to root no matter how poorly they were playing at the moment. Almost every day, I thought "There's a good chance I'll see a shutout today," which is very rare in my experience, to have that heightened level of extreme optimism. I was being unrealistic, but 1969 virtually demanded that we abandon being realistic and root for the impossible.

If Alvarez hits like Bench or Piazza in '25, then yeah, he's 100% correct.

No one else thinks maybe 1969-1976 (Seaver's prime) was the Mets' Golden Age? They lacked the gaudy W/L records of the late 1980s, but the Hodges/Berra Mets were pretty glittery to me. Even including 1968 in there, Hodges' first (9th place) team, was exciting.

Rules are too lax. To be really fun, a dark horse should be someone the Mets haven't even signed to a contract yet.

Rogers Hornsby?

Hell, I'd pay him $80 myself to stay.

=MFS62 post_id=184182 time=1738330991 user_id=60] Kudos on the thread title. Later

Well, isn't it true that each voter can vote for no more than ten players? If someone is a big-Hall advocate (I'm not), isn't it perfectly legitimate to assume that certain players will get their 75%, so why not neglect those players in order to include another player who you think is deserving of an HoF vote, if only to keep him on the ballot for another year? This is a justification for gaming the system (another thing I'm not a big fan of) but it's certainly an arguable way to approach a flawed system.

He's about to release a new book, called something like "Stories I tell only to Mets fans" or "Mets Stories I tell only to Friends" or something like that. I would have thought that he'd already told his best Mets stories, but obviously what I would have thought is immaterial where Shamsky is concerned. (See title, above.)

He took me seriously at first, said "No, it was Willie Mays who they retired 24 for..." and then got it that I was joking, and said that it was sort of an honor to be classified in any way with Mays and told an anecdote about dressing up in his uniform for an Old-Timers event and being kidded that the uni # was retired so he couldn't wear it anymore... Very nice guy. Still skinny as hell. I bought a copy of his book about the 69 Mets, which is excellent, full of details and insights, especially his visit to Seaver about 6 months before he died.

Oh, you're right, KC. I divided by 300, not 303. Still, it seems strange to me. If he was batting exactly .300 (90 for 300) and then he went 1-for-3, you'd imagine he would get a 1 point bump at least, but apparently no. This curiosity came about, 55 years after the fact, when I copped a Shamsky autograph last weekend, and asked him a wiseass question in the Q-and-A. Nice guy, very modest, speaking to a bunch of old fogies (about 200 of us), mostly reminiscing about 1969 and saying mild disparagements of the current game. No big surprise, exactly what you'd expect, running down the obsession with HR hitters, stats, strikeouts etc, but approving of the pitch clock. My wiseass question (for those of you who care) was how he felt when the Mets retired his uniform number.

He's credited in the record books with an even .300 BA in 1969 https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/shamsar01.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/shamsar01.shtml But he's also credited with 91 hits and 303 ABs, which I get working out to a .303 BA. What am I not getting?

And needless to add (to the 5-year offer with a player opt-out after 2), heavily frontload the deal, so you're overpaying for those first two years, making them more attractive to Pete while offering the remainder (10 Mil per year?) as a motivation for him to walk if Year Two shows some serious decline. If some team wants to gamble that the declining Year Two was an aberration, then let them, and call 2025 and 2026 a necessary expense.

We kind of know what Taylor and Siri will do. I'm more than curious to learn if Acuna can hit like a superstar. Probably not, but I'd like to find out. Nothing stops the Mets from moving him from an opening day starter back into a role-player if September turns out to be a flash in the pan.

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=175326 time=1728610007 user_id=68] =roger_that post_id=175323 time=1728608994 user_id=128]Which combo first, second, and third? Start a lefty consistently? I'd probably go for a righty opener, and then bring in the lefty guns for the middle innings, and then righties out of the pen.

I like the wacky option of a L/R 3-man rotation. Immediately, it removes 99% of pressure on the bullpen, which in turn means you can keep both McNeil and Acuna on the roster and drop some reliever (Ottavino?) who may not see action anyway. But the L/R thing really screws up the opposition's lineup, and you don't even have to pull the opening starter early if he's doing ok and feels good. You might pull him after 2 innings, but maybe you let him go for 4 or 5, depending. What would such a rotation look like, do you suppose? Which combo first, second, and third? Start a lefty consistently? I'd probably go for a righty opener, and then bring in the lefty guns for the middle innings, and then righties out of the pen.

1) Always patience with the rich and mighty. They didn't get where they are through impulse nor thoughtlessness. 2) Never give in to greed. Be grateful for what you have already achieved, and pursue further gains with modesty and humility. 3) Treat wins and losses as equals, Never too high from one, nor too low from the other. Both have already happened. 4) Enjoy the moment. That is all you have, besides the frauds memory and aspiration. 5) Stop yelling at the TV set.

This seems better sourced:

Edgy MD wrote: I don't care about the Yankees. Nor do I think the Mets "relied" on the Yankees in any meaningful way when they hired Buck Showalter, for instance. It's a factual question, and not particularly concerned with how much you care or don't care about it. I find it very odd, damned peculiar in fact, that the Mets have hired so many former Yankees managers, coaches, players to manage their team over the decades, especially considering the animosity that has consistently existed between the teams' fans. It's almost an admission of the Mets' inferiority to the Yankees, a confession that they would, to paraphrase Willie Randolph, like to export the Yankees' winning ways to their sad losing franchise. Just as a matter of policy, I'd rather they had far fewer ex-Yankees managing the Mets rather than far more than you might expect. Have the Yankees ever hired a former Mets' manager, coach, or player to manage their team? Probably once or twice, which would merely be what the odds would dictate, given the number of major league teams. I'd prefer a policy that promotes former Mets, and former ex-other MLB teams, before hiring so extensively managers with a Yankee pedigree. Maybe that's just me. Dallas Green (player), TECHNICALLY (as in place of previous coaching and managerial employment) Yogi Berra, Joe Torre (both player and manager), TECHNICALLY (as in place of previous coaching and managerial employment) Mel Stottlemyre, Don Zimmer (player, also an ex-Red Sox skipper), Lee Mazzilli… That's good. Thanks for the work. Yogi kinda cancels himself out, since he's on both lists, as does Green, as both managed the Yankees first, though Clueless Joe is the most prominent counter-example. Green and Zimmer were the briefest of Mets, and Zimmer never managed the Yankees. Mazzilli never managed the Yankees. So you've got Joe as your only Yankee manager who had previously played (fairly briefly) for the Mets and had also managed them before managing the Yankees. On the other side, you've got Stengel, perhaps the most famous Yankee manager of all, Yogi (who kinda cancels himself out, as stated, but I think is far more famous as a longterm Yankee player, coach and manager than as a Met, but okay), and Green (also cancels himself out, a brief Mets player and a Yankee manager before taking the Mets' job), Randolph, Showalter, and now Mendoza. By my count that's six ex-Yankees who became Mets' managers (counting Yogi and Green), and three ex-Mets (counting Yogi and Green) who became Yankee managers. Or four and one, not counting Yogi and Green. Of the five Mets' managers who've gotten us to the World Series, only one (Yogi) has any Yankee taint to him--Gil, Davey, Bobby V., and Terry C. never wore a single pinstripe in their lives. And of the two who've won a Series, neither has a whiff of the Bronx. We do very well hiring from outside the Steinbrenner training camp.

Mark Healey claims it's an inaccurate report.

Dunno how accurate this report is , but I really dislike framing ANYTHING, even positive stuff, in terms of a Yankee perspective.