Archive for Uncategorized

Feeling a Draft

June 6, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

The MLB Draft begins tonight at 6 p.m., and thanks to Brian Cashman’s fetish for abused lefthanders, the Mets have the 44th pick as well as the 13th (the first one they earned on merit). I don’t pretend to have any idea who the Mets will wind up with — the so-called “experts” appear not to either — but purely for rooting purposes there’s a UConn outfielder named George Springer I have my eye on. I’m just as excited to see who the 44th pick will be: Such so-called “compensation” selections have netted the Mets guys including Bobby Jones (No. 36 overall in 1991, compensation for Darryl Strawberry) and David Wright (38th pick 2001 draft, compensation for Mike Hampton).

My friend Alex G., who previously blogged about the Mets at Bleeding Orange and Blue, is now looking at this kinda stuff at a new site, Legends of Tomorrow. Check it out!

Enjoyed a cool early-summer night at Big Shea Sunday, watching almost too comfortably through the middle innings until Manny Acosta and his new No. 46 jersey made things uncomfortable. Mets bloggers at the Daily Stache are destined for a similarly dicey negotiation when their Best-Mets-By-Uniform-Number countup reaches its 46th inning. When Oliver Perez is the right answer, it’s time to reevaluate the questions.

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Thayer He Goes Again

May 27, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

46The Mets today recalled a guy I never heard of, Dale Thayer, from Class AAA Buffalo and designated Pat Misch for assigmnent. Thayer is a 30-year-old righthanded journeyman reliever (is there any other kind?) who appeared briefly with Tampa Bay in 2009 and 2010. He signed as a minor league free agent with the Mets in February and was doing a pretty nice job with the Bisons (25 Ks in 26 innings, 4 saves and a 2-0 record). The Mets have assigned him the dreaded No. 46, last occupied by our friend Oliver Perez.

Also tonight, the Mets welcome back Angel Pagan, and hopefully, his bat too. His return means Fernando Martinez heads back to Buffalo.

Phillies for three. Ready or not!

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A Tough Loss

May 26, 2011 Uncategorized 2 comments

Well this was a crazy week even by Mets standards, one that began on a promising note when R.A. Dickey shook off his own poor start, and pitched a scrappy overachieving team to a respectable .500 mark and an upset of the Yankees, and ended seven days later with the Mets just as embarrassing as ever, with Dickey on the way to the disabled list and the overachievers badly exposed.

In the middle of it all was Fred Wilpon, whose show of pathetic self-pity and delusion in the pages of The New Yorker seemingly sapped whatever energy the Mets had exhibited on their long journey back to .500. Poor Fred: Doesn’t matter who gets dragged through the mud in his rush to clear his name and prove his own ignorance, while at the same time he’s got his hand out for new investors so that he won’t be hurt by his money-losing Mets. Fred doesn’t appear to understand that he’s in the image business, or that players and fans will get along just fine were he not around, but we can hope that’s something David Einhorn will teach him the hard way.

Einhorn was a name Met fans had barely known before this morning though by the time this afternoon’s loss to the Cubs began most of us already knew the story of how the tiny Dave Kingman fan grew up to become one of the hottest and most feared sluggers in the hedge fund game. I’d be awfully suprised if he doesn’t wind up going Barbarians-at-the-Gate on his new partners before long. Wouldn’t you?

Sadly, this week also included the sudden death of Dana Brand, an intelligent, sentimental and friendly Mets fan who wrote about fandom with passion and insight in books and on-line and who was at work organizing a scholarly symposium to coincide with the team’s 50th anniversary next year. I’d spoken last to Dana only a few months back at the SABR meeting in New York, where the two of us shared a mutual anticipation that the Wilpons would go Chapter 11 at some point this year. Dana was a guy who clung hard to his fandom in such challenging times, who understood he could love the team in spite of its seeming indifference to fans, and it’s sad to lose him.

Please see Matt Silverman, Greg Prince and Steve Keane for their memories of Dana.

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Do the Freddie

May 23, 2011 Uncategorized No comments

You gotta give it up for the New Yorker and its stunning article this week capturing Fred Wilpon as the loving-but-clueless father of Everything That’s Wrong With The Mets, from its lukewarm support of its own players, to the dumb stadium, to the spoiled son playing with private jets, to the mismanaged finances, to ownership’s overinflated confidence in its own baseball smarts, to the tin ear for fans and good media, to the stupid patriotic hats.

Your take might differ but I’ve come to the conclusion there was no way the Wilpons could have been aware enough to have realized their friend Bernard Madoff was a fraud, and no way the team today could lose any of Wright, Beltran or Reyes and not look they were invited to walk by the owner himself. Another brilliant Mets PR disaster and hopefully another reason for these well-meaning but incompetant owners to move on to something less challenging.

All we can do is dance.

 

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Terry Collins vs. History

May 20, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

Hello again from sole possession of 4th place. These banged-up replace-Mets are impressing me with their drive, even while disaster forever lurks nearby.

Longtime MBTN contributor Shorty in New Jerseydelivered the following awesomeness to the mailbox the other day. Check it out.

After his first seven games as the Mets’ manager, TERRY COLLINS’ record was 3 wins and 4 losses to show for it.  That matched exactly the entire Major League managerial career of MIKE CUBBAGE, who managed the Mets for seven games and went 3-4 in 1991.

After eleven games, Collins’ record was 4 wins and 7 losses.  This matched exactly the entire Mets managerial career of SALTY PARKER, who managed the Mets for eleven games and went 4-7 in 1967.  (He entire Major League managerial career record was 5-7 after he went 1-0 as the Astros’ manager in 1972.)

Next on the list would be ROY McMILLAN, who managed the Mets for 53 games in 1975 and had a record of 26-27.  Believe it or not, if the Mets go 5-5 over their next 10 games, Collins will match McMillan’s record exactly!

I don’t know about you, but given the 2011 Mets so far, 5-5 in their next 10 sounds like a pretty good bet, after which Collins will aim for and hopefully miss badly the managerial career of Frank Howard, who in 116 games managing the Mets won only 52 of them. For Terry’s crew to match that record, they’d need to stink up the joint to a record of 31-42 over their next 73.

I can’t think of a better way to prevent .425 baseball this summer than to see R.A. Dickey turn things around, and soon. Whether it’s his book deal and erudite interviews, his control of the knuckler, or what, he’s got to be better than the guy he’s pitching against for these Mets to win his games — the offense just isn’t there to take back all the leads than he’s surrendered. Tonight’s game at MFY Stadium is a big moment then for all of us, so Let’s Go Mets.

Meantime, I got another message from a reader named Josh, who’s looking for information on uni numbers for the Tidewater Tides, particularly in the Todd Hundley Era (early 1990s). If you can help Josh, feel free to write him at swishagency (at) gmail (dot) (com). Thanks in advance for the help!

I swiped the accompanying image from Mets Gazette, I think it lends an appropriate gravity to all that’s going on these days.

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My Spine is the Baseline

May 17, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

Always a bummer when one of your key guys breaks his back, but what’s Jason Bay’s excuse? His failure to put the ball in play last night loomed large in a revolting 2-1 extra inning home loss to the Marlins last night that was followed by the announcement that two additional culprits — noodle-batted reserve infielder Chin-lung Hu, and hopeless relief hack Ryota Igarashi — would be headed to Class AAA Buffalo. I know it’s impossible and counterproductive, but I’d send Bay there with them just to punish him. In a bus.

Recalled to take the places of Hu and Igarshi are Ruben Tejada and Pedro Beato, respectively. Tejada was with the Mets last season assigned No. 11; Beato will retake the No. 27 he wore earlier this year.

As for David Wright, he has a broken back requiring at least a few weeks of rest. Met officials say it’s likely he’ll hit the disabled list today and be replaced on the roster by  perpetual tourist Nick Evans and his trusty No. 6 jersey.

Bonus for the first commenter to recognize the obscure headline reference!

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Who Are You

May 10, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

Hello, got the following the other day from longtime MBTN contributor Gordon:

When the Mets came into the clubhouse after Saturday night’s victory over the Dodgers, WPIX had a camera set up showing the high 5’s.  Greeting the victors was uniform number 60 with the name Castro.  I can’t find him on any of the Mets major league or minor league rosters.  Any idea?

Actually, Gordon, I don’t, and the photo you provided (posted above) only makes things more mysterious. A google search for “Castro 60” reveals that the man pictured should be Lilliano Castro, who was photographed along with the rest of the Mets at spring training. But that’s the only clue to his identity, the google trail goes cold after several pages noting this photograph. I’d guess Mr. Castro is an organizational instructor of some kind, probably a catching instructor. But if there was a press release noting such, I missed it. A look back at our spring training rosters shows No. 60 as “vacant.”

Hard to believe in this day and age of media saturation and web sites obsessively chronicling the mundane that stories like Castro’s escape our attention but I guess some always will. Anyone know who this guy is? There’s probably a good story here.

To keep updated on the roster situation, it appears No. 55, Chris Young, has thrown his last pitch as a Met and lefty Pat Misch, No. 48, is up again.

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Put it in this Book

May 4, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

Sorry about the infrequent updates. Became convinced my enthusiasm at the tail end of the winning streak killed it and was scared to further mess it up. Now it seems hardly to matter. Tuesday’s gutwrenching loss almost assured a humiliation on Wednesday and the loss to injury of Pedro Beato didn’t help. The Mets real trouble however is the offense, with too little coming from the end of the lineup and less than that from the bench so far. It sure hasn’t helped that Jason Bay’s missed more time than we could afford to lose already (and it’s still early). His latest absence for paternity leave forced the recall of Lucas Duda, in whom Terry Collins (and Lucas Duda for that matter) has no faith.
50Taking Beato’s place is lefty Mike O’Connor. I tried to look up some information on him and came across the image accompanying this post which seemed only too appropriate for the mess this franchise has become. It’s not just the gut-punchy losses. It’s the lifeless, charmless, two-thirds empty park they play in and the sense of doom around the finances of the owners, who’d be in financial trouble even without the looming lawsuit. It’s a fragile team prone to hangovers — and until Mike Pelfrey and RA Dickey turn it around — unable to generate a lot of momentum of their own. Maybe things improve upon the return of Bay and Angel Pagan this weekend. Maybe not.

O’Connor: Taking over the No. 50 most recently belonging to Sean Green. His next appearance will be his first in the majors since 2008 with the Nationals, the team that drafted him out of George Washington U in 2008.

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Put it in the Books!

April 27, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

Just a note to say thanks for keeping me up-to-date while I was away, the roster changes have been noted and they sure seem to be working. At the risk of getting in the way of this little roll we’ve got going on here tonight’s game was about as inspiring a win as I can remember for the Mets in a few years at least and even though it’s very early, it’s great to see they have this in them.

For the record I’ve got Justin Turner in No. 2; and the Jasons: Pridie in 20 and Bay in 44: not to mention Isringhausen in 45. Brad Emaus who looked for a moment like he might have been Dan Uggla but instead played like Dan Ugly, gives up No. 4, while Angel Pagan and Bobby Parnell look to heal physically.

Dan Murphy?! My god.

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It Came from the Bullpen

April 15, 2011 Uncategorized 3 comments

42I was going to make a post today noting the significance of DJ Carrasco becoming not only the first starting pitcher in Mets history to take the mound wearing No. 77, but the pitcher with the highest uniform number ever to start a game for the Mets. Then I was reminded that tonight is Chuck Taylor Night, when ballplayers across the Majors gather to honor the contributions of the obscure Met hurler of 1972 by wearing his number 42.

Chuck Taylor? Not the guy the sneaker was named after but the righthander acquired from the Cardinals following the 1971 season in the Art Shamsky trade. Taylor came along with Jim Beauchamp, Harry Parker and minor league infielder Chip Coulter in exchange for Shamsky and Met minor leaguers Jim Bibby, Charlie Hudson and Rich Folkers. It was a typically terrible trade for the Mets, who within weeks would trade Nolan Ryan and a few more prospects to the Angels for Jim Fregosi. The New York Times described Taylor as the key player in the deal, noting that manager Gil Hodges was “impressed” with the 29-year-old who went 3-1 with a 3.55 ERA for St. Louis in 1971. “He will help us as a long and middle inning relief man,” Hodges told the Daily News.

Other than making an impression on me as a 6-year-old — for whatever reason, I clearly recall watching Chuck Taylor laboring on televison in a game the Mets were trailing by six runs, it’s probably the earliest memory I have as a fan — Taylor provided little help for the Mets, putting up an ugly 5.52 ERA with no decisions and two saves in 20 games before getting claimed by the Brewers on waivers that September. He’d later resurface as an effective late-inning reliever with Montreal. Bibby in the meantime had 13 years and 111 major league wins ahead of him, including a no-hitter.

So perhaps its fitting that Carrasco — like Taylor a veteran right-handed middle reliever whose acquisition is so far curious — takes the mound wearing 42 tonight. And Kenny Rogers’ record is safe.

You might recall we celebrated Ron Hodges Day at this time last year.

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