roger_that

I’ve been unimpressed with Siri overall, but it’s only been 36 plate appearances, and he’s shown elite speed and plays good defense. Seems hasty to determine that he needs to go. The word is "strunz", pronounced schtroonz in Sicil' dialect.

MLB enters the early 20th century. Way overdue. The obnoxious bullies who've been calling strikes balls and vice versa for the past 150 years are finally being restricted in making terrible wrong calls.

The part I find fault with is if Hefner (or any pitching coach on any team) gives pitchers permission to nibble with a lead. As far as I was instructed, throwing balls (or even borderline strikes) with a six-run lead is dumb baseball, certainly timid baseball. And we've seen that philosophy time and time this year, usually to disastrous results, getting behind hitters, walking them, going to 3-ball counts on all of them, stressing your bullpen, driving up your pitch count--and for what? You've got fielders behind you, you've got stuff that can get batters out--and you're choosing to walk them and get back in the game? Why? Why? Why? Etc. This is one I'd lay squarely on the pitching coach for giving permission to something antithetical to sound baseball. A guy goes into a game with a six-run lead, and I would instruct him, "Zero walks. Throw strikes. If you even go to 3 balls on several batters, you're out of the game. Got it? Good."

This seems more like a Stevie Cohen problem than a Jeremy Hefner one, and since Cohen is unfireable, a David Stearns problem. All Hefner can do is use the guys Stearns gives Mendoza. Do you really think Hefner's the driving force in deciding which pitchers to sign and which ones not?

Can you be more specific? I have my own thoughts about the Hefner philosophy. But curious to hear yours. This is a vote for distinguishing Hefner policies, from Mendoza ones, from Stearns' ones, from Cohen ones. All are interconnected, of course, but when we're talking about the need to fire one of them, and not others, I think it's useful to know precisely why you think he thinks in a certain way that others don't. Is there a part of Hefner's thinking, for example, that you believe Mendoza's going along with unenthusiastically?

Yes, "statistical fluke" = run of horrendous luck. The good news is that you don't fix it. It fixes itself. After you've fired the wrong scapegoats, of course.

As stated elsewhere, I want to focus on fixing pressing problems, preferably with a big positive solution. CF is obviously a giant gaping hole. Pick up the best CFer available in the of season. Preferably by free agency. But if you can package some players who are underperforming and land a good CFer so be it. Otherwise, though, I wouldn't number Vientos among the Mets problem areas. If Pete leaves, Vientos could be among the more attractive options they have on the roster for 1B. He is capable of being an above average full time DH if Pete comes back. Priorities for me in the off season is signing three or four good pitchers and one good CFer, not losing anyone now the on the roster. They mostly performed well. The team didn't win as much as they should have, but that's not on the majority of the offensive players.

Agreed the most visible point is CF, a must-replace if there ever was one. And the pitching staff, mainly the bullpen. Not sure about the rotation. If the kids are going to take up two spots, let's day, McLean and Tong, and we've got a few contracts for 2026 with some veterans, then we need only to sign one or two more starting pitchers in the off-season. The other 8 positions are pretty solid. Lf and RF had terrific years, we've got too many good young infielders, I'm not giving up Alvy yet, I'm thinking they'll probably re-sign Pete ( though I don't think they should) so why replace something you're ok with ? No. It's CF and the pitching staff that need prioritizing. Big time.

And Tong has been all over the place. First game great, next game ok, third game terrible. What is he, like 22 years old or something? Get it together, man!

Well, you gotta figure one of the chief attractions to the Mets for Pete is it gives him a good shot at a championship, and a great shot at making the playoffs. Now? "Screw that, I'm SO out of here!"

Betting Mets fans in Mid-June that they'd end up out of the playoffs? How much? Please remember to show your work.

They're gonna have the guts to show their faces in 2026?

Perfect example of his hard luck is running Mauricio the other night, neither fast nor smart, when he had Siri coming off the IL the next day (and he'd already used Acuna). If he coulda put in Siri, maybe that run would have tied up the 1-0 game, but Siri wouldn't be activated for another few hours.

OK, that explains from this June going forward. Now try last June going backward. Completely different set of problems, requiring a whole different set of rational excuses.

Luck comes in streaks sometimes? This is consistent as an explanation. They are very lucky and very unlucky. Makes more sense to me than "They're good at playing baseball then they forget how to play baseball."

From June to June, specifically from last June 13th through this June 12th, the Mets had a won- lost record of 104 wins and 60 losses. How is it possible for one team to be so dominant over what is more than a complete season and be so utterly inept in the remaining games?? Same team, same manager, same approach. Are they just ****ing with our heads? Mine is about ready to essplode

Waste of my ****ing time. Just once, I'd like the interviewer to respond to " We're better than this" with "No, you ****ing suck."

When they lose the interview goes like this: gotta execute better, gotta wait for our pitch, gotta get more quality swings. And when they win, it's : we're executing, not swinging at bad pitches, getting some quality swings.... . Why do they bother giving interviews if all they're gonna say is this canned B S?

CF for Mets' manager TODAY!!!

Someone on FB posted a chart of the Mets' footspeed, with this comment: The chart had Acuna at 29.6 feet/second, Jared Young 27.8, Mauricio 25.8, and Pete Alonso 25.4. Does Mendoza not know his personnel? That would be inexcusable. Even racist? "Mauricio's young, skinny, and black--must be much faster than an older chunkier white dude."

Yeah, those guys are haters and dumb haters (though there sure are a lot of them--I just quoted a very small sample) but I don't think Mauricio got a good read or a good jump, so that gives them material to hate on. CF--excellent point about wasting Acuna. I'd sure like to see the 9th inning with Acuna running for Pete.

Yes, although we don't actually see him hesitating, or how long that took, or even whether the hesitation was reasonable. A more astute baserunner might have decided it simply wasn't catchable (from the way Castellanos was running to fetch it?) and he (esp. Acuna) might have been more than halfway home by the time Stott first touched the ball. No way of knowing, really. You seem to be giving Mauricio credit for some smarts, I'm definitely giving him less credit, but did you read some of the comments on the FB clip I posted? You should. Some of those folks are claiming that Mauricio (or even Pete if they'd left him in) could have made home plate easily. You read that and you'd think he should have been shot at sunrise for dereliction of duty. Here's a small sample: Mike Long Jr. Did Mendoza pinch run Mauricio for Alonso? Lol did anyone notice how slow he looked running the bases? Alonso would’ve had a better chance to score. 1d Reply Patrick de Courcey Mike Long Jr. I agree with you Mike he should have scored 😔 with his speed but to me 😕 he looked like he was in slow motion 😭 1d Reply Edwin Haddock Mike Long Jr. He would have had acuna if he didn't constantly put him in late oh and lost another at bat for baty..... 1d Reply Cheng Tsai Mike Long Jr. Should of also hold Young to pinch hit for Alvarez..... 1d Reply David Goldman Mike Long Jr. he even held up to see if ball would drop. What a mistake 1d Reply Jay Hillegass Mike Long Jr.Yeah why not put acuna in he would have def scored with veintos hit but whatever they seem to like to make it harder than it need to be to get into post season. 1d Reply Sean Gerard Mike Long Jr. Another questionable move by Mendoza 21h Reply Keith Dempster Mike Long Jr. Mauricio didn't look good running the bases, but he's still faster than Alonso on the bases, and you don't have to wonder if Mauricio will fall down while running. 1d Reply Steve Schubert Mike Long Jr. Totally agreed, I was like wtf? 1d Reply Angelo Fiouris Mike Long Jr. Yeah he looked slow but Pete wasn't scoring from first on that 1d Reply Michael Fernandez Mike Long Jr. did not hustle , every other team in same situation would have scored 1d Reply Timo Brew Only for Alvarez to swing at 3 a foot or more off the plate with eyes closed to end it ... 💩 1d Reply Jeremy Mozak Thanks for getting my hopes up for nothing. Chokers. 1d Reply Ben Caldas How Mauricio didn’t score on this ball has me scratching my head. 1d Reply Jimmy Alexander -Nola w/ a 6.78 ERA threw 6 scoreless -Mullins struck out w/ 1st and 3rd, 2 outs and popped up a bunt w/ the leadoff man on 1st -Mauricio misread Vientos double and doesn’t score as a PR… See more 6 of 363

Oh, Frayed Knot, the relay guy was Stott, per the clip above.

Here's Vientos' double. 230K views · 2.2K reactions | Mark Vientos rips a double the other... WWW.FACEBOOK.COM Mark Vientos rips a double the other way! The exciting moment for me came when Castellanos had a bit of trouble finding the ball bouncing off the RF fence. I couldn't see where Mauricio was, but I thought maybe he's busting it (he was looking to see if it dropped in apparently) and he seemed not to be running full speed when the camera caught up with him. If you read the "comments" on the FB link, I wasn't the only one who thought Mauricio did a poor job on the bases. For a fast runner to take home from first base on a long shot to the RF corner is not completely unheard of. Some of those comments are blistering.... ...and none of them are mine.

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