roger_that

When the Mets score 19 runs in the last two innings, you will all eat your words.

SHIT!!!! Damned-Be Swanson!

OF course McNeil gets another hit!!!! Yeah, almost a third of the time.

Does it sound to you like Smoltz is talking in Chinese sometimes? He keeps describing the pitchers' motions and such and I can't visualize what he's saying. It sounds like gibberish to me: "His release point is from behind his left ear, almost as if he's tunneling his way out of a mountain of coffee grounds, but then he pulls his toes out and it really confuses the lefthanded batters..." sort of thing. Or maybe it's just that I don't speak Smoltz?

Does it sound to you like Smoltz is talking in Chinese sometimes? He keeps describing the pitchers' motions and such and I can't visualize what he's saying. It sounds like gibberish to me: "His release point is from behind his left ear, almost as if he's tunneling his way out of a mountain of coffee grounds, but then he pulls his toes out and it really confuses the lefthanded batters..." sort of thing. Or maybe it's just that I don't speak Smoltz?

So this is the future, starting tonight?

I forgot Doc in my list of absolutely killer dominators. I guess I missed something if that was just a so-so performance by Diaz's standards. Honestly, the Marlins didn't even look like they belonged up at the plate. They looked bewildered, frustrated, completely impotent, calling out "Mommy, make the bad man stop!"

Edgy MD wrote: Did you not get to see the ninth-inning comeback against the Phils early in the season? I get to see very few games on TV, so probably not. Don't remember it, which is a strong indicator. Did it seem to you guys that Diaz was on a whole nother level last night? He missed the plate (by a lot) on one pitch, but otherwise he seemed like a good college pitcher throwing to Little Leaguers. I can't remember seeing such domination ever, and I've seen Gibson, Koufax, Seaver, Guidry, Blue. It was almost too easy for him....

but last night's comeback victory was the most inspiring thing I've seen in a long time. Diaz seemed super-human to me, and Escobar--have I ever seen a performance as outstanding as that? Can't remember the last time. It sticks out because I was so disgusted with the Mets' weakass shit until the eighth inning, but they obviously kept their heads in the game, total pros. I'm prepared to call this whole season a success even if they blow the rest of their games and lose the first round of the playoffs decisively. That was an amazing game. Also, I've been mulling over Scherzer's quote from earlier in the week, "Pressure isn't a problem, it's a privilege," and it encapsulates the attitude of the professional athlete like I've never quite heard articulated before. It keeps sounding in my head, like a line from a great poem or something.

Frayed Knot wrote: Edgy MD wrote: By the by, I would have held Lindor if I had been coaching third. Balls-out send. Nah. It wasn't a no-brainer but it's a move Joey C. had to make. Even a really good throw would have been, at best, a 50/50 deal. Coach Edgy fired following Mets' loss! Film at 11.

Fish push across run #2, bottom 3rd. De La Cruz smoked it to CF.

Walker completely paralyzed Rojas with that last fastball.

Best line about Medich (who was traded for Dock Ellis): "Ellis is a better DOCTOR than this guy."

Some metrics, such as WAR, purport to measure value for MLB, now and historically, but when I look in places such as baseball-reference.com or fangraphs, I can find only separate lists for batters' WAR, pitcher's WAR, fielder's WAR, but no one chart listing all the players' total WAR rankings, which is what I'd like to see. Further complicating matters is that simply combining the various lists (say pitcher's pitching and their hitting) doesn't create a definitive total. Instead, there seem to be all sorts of corrections and codicals I need to follow to add the two numbers together to reach a definitive total. Does anyone know of a place where they compute every player's complete WAR for each season?

Edgy MD wrote: Well, you're the first person in a long time who wants me to write more, but which statement of mine would you like me to back up or clarify? Oh, you can start anywhere you choose. If you're going to denounce the Soto deal, then do so, but you can't denounce it while defending the generic 15-year deal for a 24 year old superstar, or vice versa. If you want to go that path, then I don't particularly care to discuss baseball, or anything else, with you. That's just too casuistic for my debating skills. As for me, I'll cite specific long term star signings that have blown up on the teams foolish enough to go for them: Albert Pujols, Jason Heyward, and then you've players like Adrian Gonzalex whose OPS+ nosedived 25 points as soon as the Dodgers signed him to his big payday. In previous generations, sure-thing young superstars like Tony Conigliaro and Tony Oliva and Orlando Cepeda missed seasons and huge chunks of their projected careers to injuries, and they certainly could have signed big long term contracts if such had been available to them. You've got to be rich, lucky, and smart to sign anyone to a ten-year deal at top dollar, and it won't work out as often as paying and promoting your own players will. Fans mourn when their team fails to sign a major deal but often enough for me the team that succeeds in signing one of these regrets having done so, sometimes sooner than later.

Edgy MD wrote: let me represent my own positions. I wish you would.

Edgy MD wrote: I disagree that signing players to expensive longterm deals has no chance of working out, or practically none. Well, all I need do to show you my point is to exaggerate the length of a long-term contract. If I sign 24 year old Juan Soto to a top-dollar deal through age 40, that makes sense to you. How about if it's through age 41, though? Still good? 42? 45? After some point (and I'll suggest that may that point is more like early 30s than 40s) it becomes a disaster, just speaking logically. After that point you're willing, I think, to concede that, yeah, there is very little value in the contract for you. We're just disagreeing about where that cutoff point is, and I'll remind you that the owner may be saying , "It's ok, I can afford it," and the GM is saying "I'm going to be long gone by the time this deal blows up," but the team is going to be taking it in the nuts. It's a little different if the team were willing to reduce the player to a role player when his talents diminish, but most teams are going to insist that the star salary warrants star playing time for at least three years of that player's often sharp decline.

Edgy MD wrote: Risk aversion is natural. But risk cannot be avoided, only managed. Some degree must be accepted. It's all in the game. Agreed. But some risks that people take are foolish. They have no chance of working out, or practically none, and people take them anyway. Signing players to expensive longterm deals is one of those. They're foolish deals for teams, if relatively safe for the men to make those deals, GMs. GMs understand that when such deals turn sour, as most will, they're going to be GMing another team by then, or selling cars, or retired or dead, so for them it's a relatively safe prospect, signing a healthy 25-year star player to a 15-year contract for a bazillion bucks of someone else's money. But for the teams, for the fans, for the organizations it's a formula for categorical disaster.

We need to be sparing in signing long-term deals. You get burned on most of them, and burned badly on some. Pitchers especially, but I'm very leery about them in general. Of course the Mets walked away from Soto, when they dropped out of the bidding. I soured on the deal when it was apparent that most of the top prospects would be going to Washington, and then the matter of his contract needs would have to be addressed sooner rather than later. The smart thing might have been to trade the prospects, let him walk when he hit free agency, and hope you got a championship or two out of it, but signing him to a 15 year contract was always going to be a big mistake.

This only reinforces my position against signing long term contracts with anyone, no matter how young and stellar. if you're going to get burned on a deal, better to get burned on a Scherzer style deal, a ton of money with no long term commitment, and preferably for a pitcher rather than a position player. I was prepared to walk away from Soto and a lifetime contract, and now I think the Mets did a smart thing in doing so.

And last night's was that one winnable loss.

the thing about any number of losses, no matter how many or few they turn out to be, is that there's always gonna be one or two that were SO winnable....but that one where a crucial error, or wild pitch, or ball hit to the warning cost you a victory just eats you up.

Lefty Specialist wrote: 11-9 I remember well the pride I took when, once upon a time, a Mets' pitcher was able, for the first time in recorded history, to post a record of 11-9. In 1966, Dennis Ribant finished up the year with an 11-9 record, the first time ever that a Met had won in double figures but lost only in single figures. I remember being so impressed with Ribant's magnificent skill levels, and then being so depressed when the team promptly swapped him out to Pittsburgh.

The really tough positions to speculate on, down to the #4-7 slots, are SS and C, both of which take special skills to do even semi-competently. For emergency purposes you need to be three-deep there, and that seems to be exactly where the Mets are, three-deep but not four. In a sense pitching is the most specialized skill of all, except you always have twelve qualified backups, and another twelve thinking "Yeah, me! Put me out there, Buck! I'd be a great pitcher."

There's something a bit wild about the low expectations. I mean, overall we've been over .650, we're hot as hell, we're healthy for the first time all year, we've got our two aces back pitching lights out, but we're steeling ourselves against a mild collapse for the most part. I get the reasoning, but it still seems odd to me.