roger_that

Amazing he never poked a hole in his chest with that kind of a chokeup.

I'd like it if St. Louis fans keep booing him, and he keeps apologizing, and then they keep booing him more.

=DocTee post_id=135181 time=1692261890 user_id=85] After a red-hot start to the season the Pirates gave their manager a nice extension. I wonder how they feel about that decision now?

Edgy MD wrote: I'm not seeing any big offensive gets after Ohtani. An argument in favor of signing Alonso to a big long juicy contract, perhaps bigger and longer and juicier than seems sensible to any of us.

What was the question?

Frayed Knot wrote: Mets have the leadoff hitter on on 12 of the 20 innings so far in this series. Not a single one of them has scored. oe: Now 13 of 21 But several have reached third base. Doesn't that count for something?

Frayed Knot wrote: This could be the single worst OF in the history of MLB The Braves have 5 runs in 4 innings and have hit virtually nothing hard ... which is more or less what they did last night too. OTOH, the Mets are hitless through 4. As I type that, Vogie gets a scratch single.

Give the outfielders' arms a little credit there. If it's possible to take an extra base off an outfielder, a Brave will do it easily.

Edgy MD wrote: It would have opened up third for Gregg Jefferies Which would have made their choice to unload Wally Backman (for a bag o' bupkis) the previous winter seem rather foolish.

Rolen, Rolen, Rolen, Keep those doggies movin' Rawhide!

heroes who presumably got a share If you like, and at the risk of instigating another thread-shitting outburst of invective, I could ask my buddy Brian Ostrosser if he and other scrubbinies and brief callups did indeed get a share. If they did, I'd be surprised if he didn't remember the exact amount 50 years later.

Edgy MD wrote: Your Post-Season 1973 Mets [TABLE][TR][TH]Starters[/TH][TH]Relievers[/TH][TH]Catchers[/TH][TH]Infielders[/TH][TH]Outfielders[/TH][/TR][TR][TD]Jerry Koosman Jon Matlack Tom Seaver 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]Buzz Capra (dnp) Jim McAndrew (dnp) Tug McGraw Harry Parker Ray Sadecki George Stone 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]Duffy Dyer (dnp) Jerry Grote Ron Hodges 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]Jim Beauchamp Ken Boswell Wayne Garrett Bud Harrelson Ed Kranepool Ted Martinez Felix Millan John Milner 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]Don Hahn Cleon Jones Willie Mays Rusty Staub George Theodore 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][/TR][/TABLE] Italicized guys are sadly no longer among us. Others heroes who presumably got a share: [TABLE][TR][TD]Bob Apodaca, rp Lute Barnes, if Rich Chiles, of 　　　　　　　　　　　[TD]Jim Fregosi, if Jim Gosger, of Greg Harts, of 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]Phil Hennigan, rp Jerry May, c Bob (L.) Miller, rp 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]Tommy Moore, sp Brian Ostrosser, if Dave Schneck, of 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][TD]John Strohmayer, rp Craig Swan, sp Hank Webb, rp 　　　　　　　　　　　[/TD][/TR][/TABLE] The only italicized guy I see is Fregosi. Sadecki is polishized, and Apodaca is Spanishized, I think.

Didn't know they were buddies.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: listening to wean callers as excited as I was. Just pull the nipple out of their mouths. They cry for a while, but eventually it works.

Edgy MD wrote: Mets manager Davey Johnson said, “Juan Samuel is an impact player. Whenever I thought about the Phillies the last four or five years, I thought about Juan Samuel. He reminds me of Bobby Bonds. People don't realize what kind of impact player he is.” https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/19/sports/mets-get-samuel-for-mcdowell-dykstra.htmlDurso, Joseph. New York Times. June 19, 1989. Wow. That's one ugly bit of legacy.

He wrote more than one? Either, then. Any. Has he described or justified the Dykstra - Samuel deal anywhere?

Edgy MD wrote: No more name calling from any party, please. Data up above. Delicious, shiny data. Good job. Thanks. Seems reasonably consistent to me, the usual seasonal up-and-down flux and flow, nothing to get hornets in your drawers about. Has anyone read DJ's book?

Edgy MD wrote: The platoon with Wilson worked out great for a few seasons, The DH woulda solved this entire problem. It's funny, how with the DH, four offensively productive outfielders, two of them (three, counting McReynolds) skilled CFers, is just about perfect. You probably don't need a whole lot of journalism to get a peek into Lenny's character. The only thing you need to find is if there's anyone out there who is going to write that Dykstra is anything other than a total jerk who has been a total jerk all along. No one needs clarification of Dykstra's character--he's a simple man, a simpleton, really, incapable of spelling IQ but ambitious and conceited to the core, but I'm not interested in his character, just in how a major league team assesses his ability, makes the best use of what a talented player with a deeply flawed character can do. Ideally, you want to try to trade toxic players but I've heard it said that you also need a few agitators, assholes, disruptors on your team as well, just to keep things lively. Don't know if I buy that theory myself--I prefer to have a team of Boy Scouts, stable, predictable, low-key if at all possible--but I'd hate to think the Mets traded Dykstra because Davey Johnson got fed up with his BS. Did DJ discuss Dykstra in his book? I never read it.

Maybe. But the Mets didn't have to comply, did they? And if they somehow did have to, they didn't need to comply by trading him for a fraction of his value, did they? I think there's more to the story, and I'd like to read it. I also think I'm an idiot for thinking I was being clever and original in my title, when there is another thread, "The Pete Alonso Conundrum," that I participated in a few days ago right here on page one, which made the same literary reference.

Who has written the most incisive analysis of the Lenny Dykstra conundrum? That is to say, has anyone analyzed Dykstra's career, and its central Metly moment of June 18th 1989, when he was traded for Juan Samuel? There is much Dykstra data, it seems to me, preceding that trade that made it come about, and much more following that trade that is worthy of analysis. But I'd like to start there, with what the team was thinking they could accomplish with a challenge trade, center fielder for center fielder, that in retrospect was so poorly thought out, and which presaged the collapse of the mid-80s Mets dynasty that never was. It may well be that the collapse was inevitable and that Strawberry and Gooden and the aging of Hernandez and Carter were more directly causal than the Dykstra trade but it is certainly true that the Mets stood in first place briefly for the last time in the 1980s a week after the trade, and would wander around in sub-.500 territory for most of the 1990s. At the time, I'm sure I had my theories, and my own analysis, but I don't really remember many details—retrospect has taken over my brain, and now I just think of it as a colossally misguided trade of a much-needed leadoff batter for a guy who could neither play centerfield nor get on base nearly as skillfully as Dykstra could. The only nugget that sticks with me is Lenny's personality—I think at the time he was regarded as a disaster waiting to happen. He went way beyond brashness, so maybe the Mets felt that they had to deal him off sooner rather than later, and Samuel was the best anyone would offer? Certainly, as bad a deal as it was, in that Dykstra had two monster seasons for the Phillies in the early 90s, his career did blow itself up in spectacular fashion, so if the Mets were hoping to avoid that inevitability, they did accomplish that. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear if anyone—book author, blogger, journalist, or someone on this site—has written about this trade, and/or about Dykstra more generally in a way that satisfied you.

Ron Darling, please believe me I'll never do you no harm Believe me when I tell you I'll never do you no harm Ron Darling, if you leave me I'll never make it alone Believe me when I beg you Don't ever leave me alone When you told me you didn't need me anymore Well, you know I nearly broke down and cried When you told me you didn't need me anymore Well, you know I nearly broke down and died Ron Darling, if you leave me I'll never make it alone Believe me when I tell you I'll never do you no harm Believe me, Darling When you told me, woo, you didn't need me anymore Well, you know I nearly broke down and cried When you told me you didn't need me anymore Well, you know I nearly fell down and died Ron Darling, please believe me I'll never let you down Oh, believe me, Darling Believe me when I tell you I'll never do you no harm

There are risks and there are needless risks. As I mentioned over in the other thread, "risks" may not mean the same to Steve Cohen as they do to you and me and about 29 other owners, so we may be overstating the case for delaying signing Alonso to a long-term contract until after the 2023 season, and yes, we may underappreciating the value of having a DH, but the DH doesn't mitigate a total collapse either on Alonso's part. See Pujols, A., for a handy illustration of the danger of having a gazillion-dollar DH tethered to your team for eleventy more years. Of course, Cohen might just feel "So what? We can sign another long-term DH if Alonso goes south on us and overpay Pete to pinch-hit 75 times a season, or swap him out for a $200M total loss that's just the cost of doing business." So maybe the Mets do sign him up sooner than is absolutely necessary. But "absolutely necessary" comes next November, not this past November. You get a few months of serious negotiations to work things out with his agent exclusively, and you also get all of 2023 up to November for Pete to have a horrible year, or to mangle his body in a career-ending way, or to get arrested for some felony, or anything else that changes the tenor of negotiating in ten months' time. There's very little point in negotiating a baseball season earlier--Pete's going to be mad at you for waiting until November? Maybe, but he doesn't seem the petulant type, and if he is, do you want a petulant superstar? You could sign him now but if he has the greatest year of his career in 2023, you'll be paying more for him? Yeah, but you'll be getting more so that's only fair. The only factor that makes him unsignable is what he wants in terms of contract length. Both sides probably agree roughly on the probable length of his superstardom, and the going annual rate for a superstar--the question is, how much the team is willing to pay superstar rates beyond that probable length. Say there's rough agreement that he's got five years past 2023 that he's worth top dollar. Is Cohen willing to pay him a sixth year at top dollar in order to get him signed? Sure. A seventh year? Why not? But when you get into a tenth year or a fourteenth year, well, there's got to be a limit to the value of resigning him.

Edgy MD wrote: I don't need to understand hyperbole better. If nothing matters, because Cohen's super-rich, and bad moves are good moves, because he's rich, then there's little point in discussing anything here. We all understand the owner is fabulously wealthy. Didn't say you need to understand it better. I said you need to deal with it better, and to stop pretending its literal meaning needs to be addressed. It's merely annoying, not half as clever as you seem to think. The point to be understood here (and elsewhere) is what Cohen's fabulous wealth does to change some of our assumptions, long entrenched for good reasons, about what the Mets can and cannot, should and shouldn't, do. It may be that what you've become accustomed to thinking of as a smart policy may not be so smart anymore, but I have no idea which specific policies those are at this point, just that some re-thinking is very likely in order for us all. Under the Wilpons' regime, I got used to thinking that signing a superstar like Alonso years before the absolute last minute was desirable but I also knew that it would happen much more rarely than I do under Cohen's leadership. The question is: How much does Cohen's wealth affect the equation? Do you want to sign all decent players to long-term contracts? How long is long-term now? How much is the salary ceiling? IS there a ceiling, or does Cohen want to establish a new, higher ceiling? These are interesting questions to me. Maybe to you, not so much.

Edgy MD wrote: we don't have to redefine money, or redefine risk. You need to learn how to deal with hyperbole better, my man. It's a useful trope, often amusing, when you don't waste people's time and attention taking it hyper-literally. We don't understand fully how Cohen's vast wealth influences what we think of as "wise" or "prudent" or "excessive" or "foolish" or many, many other terms (NOT literally half the English language, of course--again, I was exaggerating for comical effect) we apply to the Mets' strategy. I don't even think we understand how Cohen thinks of his investment overall in the Mets. For all I know, he intends to lose money in the year-to-year baseball operations, and is focused purely on the long-term value of the franchise: if the team itself is worth twice what he paid for it in X years' time, does it matter (to him) that he paid a few measly hundred million in salary every year more than he "should have" while he was holding the investment? I don't mean that he is deliberately wasting money, mind you, merely that what seems an imprudent risk to you or me is manageable for Steve Cohen. He's evidently not going to extend McNeil and Alonso and every other Met who had a good, healthy season with untold wealth far into the future just because he can literally afford to, but he might be (probably is) willing to take risks that other owners won't take. I argued above that a year from now seems like a sensible, prudent time to extend Alonso for a generous if limited number of years, but I also argued that money doesn't mean anything to Cohen (again--hyperbole. Please forgive.) We don't know (I certainly don't) how Cohen balances risk and reward, so we need to adjust our discussion of what's risky and what's acceptable in terms of long-term contracts. Cohen's willing to blow the doors off our expectations of team-budgeting (see Correa signing) and he has limits to the extent he's willing to blow doors off (also see Correa signing). It will take a while, maybe a long while, before we understand his thinking well enough to know what's "risky" for the Mets.

Edgy MD wrote: I don't think anything needs to be re-defined. There's an upside to locking up players before free agency whether you are the wealthiest or the least wealthy owner Sure, and a downside too. The difference is the downside (paying a fortune for someone who suffers a career-ending injury) affects the least wealthy owner's plans sharply, and the wealthiest owner hardly at all. However much the Mets screw up, Cohen gets to go "Man! What rotten luck! OK, let's move on with the program from here" and never gets to bitch that he's spent his limit because he doesn't have a limit.