Archive for SHaMs

Observing A Lot Just By Watching

October 1, 2014 SHaMs, Uncategorized 2 comments

70So I was away in Europe the last week of the season and so completely missed the surprise re-emergence of good old No. 70, Wilfredo Tovar. I also missed the decisive sweep of the Braves that helped us to not only spoil whatever playoff hopes they had left to but catch them in the standings, and Lucas Duda’s heroic capture of the 30-home run mark, and Bobby Abreu’s feel-good retirement, and Sandy Alderson’s new contract. On the positive side, I missed all the incessant Jeter hype.

I further forgot to investigate the suggestion below that at least while David Wright remained active the Mets were running Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 out there on a regular basis, maybe for the first time ever. I didn’t note that the best career ERA ever recorded by a No. 48 now belongs to Jacob deGrom, a deserving Rookie of the Year candidate.

I guess the message of this season might be, It Wasn’t All Bad If You Were Actually Paying Attention. Sure the next step will require a club that makes a lot fewer execution errors than this one did, while scoring a bunch more runs, but its not unrealistic to expect a few good decisions this winter and the continued evolution of the emerging core could accomplish that.

28Nobody asked me, but my guess is that we’ve seen the last of both Dillon Gee and Daniel Murphy. Gee, who had a poor year and a lengthy injury this season, probably doesn’t have enough talent to fit into the staff next season. Everyone loves Murphy, but given his rising price and the fact that we’ve got some Flores and then Herrera waiting, it only makes sense to move on. Perhaps he goes in that big trade for that  outfielder and/or shortstop and/or leadoff hitter this club needs. Stay tuned.

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Let the Mike Baxter Era Begin

August 8, 2011 SHaMs No comments

23How great is this lousy team? A day after losing Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy, the banged-up Mets go out and turn a 4-1 lead into an 8-4 deficit, then score 2 in the 8th and 3 in the 9th to walk off a win over Heath Bell and Padres? One star in the comeback was some guy named Mike Baxter, who was recalled from Buffalo today when Reyes was disabled and doubled home a run in his first turn at bat. Baxter it turns out is a Queens native who grew up a Met fan and was acquired from San Diego on a minor-league waiver deal earlier this year. He’s wearing No. 23, the same digits worn a lifetime ago most recently by washout reliever Blaine Boyer and previously by useful reserve types such as Ted Martinez, Tim Bogar and Julio Franco.

Ruben Tejada was back up in Murphy’s slot, still wearing 11 and having a nice game. Other recent moves we failed to mention: Mike Nickeas was back briefly after Carlos Beltran was traded, but he was returned to AAA when Nick Evans (who naturally, cleared waivers again and accepted another assignment with the Bison), was recalled on Saturday.

It’s a shame it’s got to end for Murphy, a real piece of work who probably cost this team three or four games with boneheaded plays alone, but hit and hit and hit and hit, and for that, I forgive. Along with Beltran (and to a lesser degree, Reyes) he made a complete mockery of my pessimism this year. Though even with the team scoring runs beyond my wildest expecatations, the trouble they’d encountered keeping teams like Washington and Florida off the scoreboard early and/or late tells me the Mets probably didn’t have the pitching depth to make a run anyhow. But it’s been a fun season anyway, and even when you think its over, it’s not. Let’s Go Mets!

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Not Half Bad

July 11, 2011 SHaMs One comment

So here we are at the All-Star Break and I think we’d all agree that getting here with a prayer of contending for the playoffs without Ike Davis, David Wright, Johan Santana, and with Jason Bay having the kind of year he’s having is a kind of small miracle and for that Terry Collins has our gratitude and this team has my admiration. But let’s not kid ourselves: Only a very hot start to the second half is going to make a difference if and when the calvary returns. Sandy Alderson would be a fool not to at least entertain offers for our guys big and small in the meantime and pull the trigger if the returns blow him away. Why not? At any rate, I’m finding it difficult to imagine that the cheap, useful guys (Capuano, Isringhausen, Hairston, Paulino) stick around and I hope we can get out from under the Frankie Rodriguez deal at some point.

In the meantime you haven’t heard a whole lot from me in part because June was an especially light month on the transaction wire for the Mets. How light? Well, according to my roster expert Jason, there were no Met debuts in the month of June at all. Excluding Octobers and the strike-shortened August 1994, it’s only the third month since August of 1993 there have been no Met debuts and the first time since June of 2007 that no new Met arrived.

We are checking in to note the recent return of Nick Evans and salute the poor kid both for his home run the other night and his roachlike ability to remain an option — but never the first one — for the Mets for four straight years now. In each of the last four seasons Evans had at least two separate stints with the team which has got to be approaching a record, thanks in part to twice escaping a claim by other clubs when exposed to waivers this year and subsequently electing to remain with the organization as opposed to trying his luck elsewhere. If he’s not a perfect Met No. 6 nobody is. Cheers, Nick!

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We’ve Been Having Fun All Summer Long

October 3, 2009 SHaMs One comment

Oh, you SHaMs, you. Way back at the All-Star Break when we naiively dreamed you had a run in you, we speculated it would take at least 45 victories out of the final 75 games for a realistic shot at the postseason, and a sizzling 50 wins to be safe.

To my horror, my anger, and eventually my acceptance, the Second Half Mets went and lost 47 of their next 75. Only a freak 3-game sweep against the mailed-it-in Astros this weekend stemmed the bleeding at 92 losses, and assured the SHaMs wouldn’t reach the magical 50-loss post-all-star-break plateau.

Still, it’s a pathetic showing thoughout, and tragic to have missed such a great opportunity to be the kind of up-against-it underdog the fans could get behind. The question shouldn’t be, “Has any team ever lost so many players to injury?” It ought to be “Has any team ever lost so many players to injury and failed to replace even one of them adequately?” Right? We got Jerry’s passive skippering, a parade of nondescript clockpunchers and a team that until the end preferred to playSchneider over Thole, and anybody over Evans, while even the regulars loafed about, made ridiculously costly errors, threw ball four eight times a night, whiffed with runners on third, bunted in every situation except those that might drive in a run, and indifferently flew out to medium right while while gift-wrapping signature moments for nearly every team they played down the stretch.

Hey, Mets: BOOOOOOO!

Yeah, take that.

It’s obvious that Jerry ought to be fired. He hasn’t gotten though to the players, the team barely had a single good run all year, and his passive managing style (“Hey. let’s go out there and try not to lose!”) drives me crazy and doesn’t work. Omar should have been whacked last season for sitting on his hands while the Mets shanked a second gimmee putt, and the strenuous, reactive fiasco of acquiring not one but two faltering closers last offseason only to see the SS Met spring a few hundred other leaks, many of them completely foreseeable and potentially preventable (starting pitching, Brian Schneider, right field) should be answered for as well.

They won’t be. Instead the Mets are making a show of blaming a development staff for failing to make major-league ready replacements of the 16-year-olds they signed in 2005. That and promising to try and do better. Hey, good luck, Mets!

I’m going to go ahead and name Luis Castillo the MBTN Player of the Year for 2009. He atoned for a bad season in 2008, he committed the signature screwup in a season jammed with them, but most of all, he really loved to bunt. May his example of improvement through desperation revisit the Mets in 2010.

There were 52 53 Mets in 2009, including 26 first-time players. The Number of the Year is 29: Issued to three of those 26 newbies, and one repeater who I’ve   already forgotten was a 2009 Met: Emil Brown, Andy Green, Robinson Cancel and Tobi Stoner.

We’ll be back to keep current with the hot stove and other stuff too! For now, go Jets!

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Let’s Go SHaMs!

July 15, 2009 SHaMs One comment

If Marlon Anderson were alive today, he might be distributing his teammates worksheets with the number 45 written on it. Maybe even 50. Those look to be the minimum of the remaining 75 games the Mets are going to have to win if they hope to have any shot at postseason baseball.

Forty-five wins is an even .600 winning percentage and would get the Mets only to 87 wins for the season; 50 wins would make for a sizzling .667 clip and 92 wins. Ninety-two was the magic figure that Marlon Anderson suggested the Mets shoot for when they were floundering at 30-32 and had 100 games left to play last season: a .620 winning percentage. Then as now, the Mets were in fourth place leading only Washington in NL East. They of course fell short of that goal but it took an extraordinary collapse to do it. The advantage this season? 6.5 games out of first place, instead of 7.5 games back last season.

Tall order? For the Mets, you said it. But in the spirit of giving us all some hope, I’m not putting it past the SHaMs: The Second Half Mets.

Hey, why not? The incremental improvements have already begun: Angel Berroa was last seen hitting .136 and wearing No. 14 for the Yankees. But for the Mets, the 2003 rookie of the year and former teammate of Carlos Beltran, represents a clear improvement over the again-demoted Argenis Reyes and will allow Alex Cora to take the days off he so obviously needs. Anything that gets the Mets back to Jose Reyes better than they’ve scuffled without him so far is real improvement.

Berroa’s promotion hasn’t been officially announced just yet: Easy enough to predict however he’ll be wearing No. 4, which he wore in his glory year with the Royals and is available. (EDIT: Dispatches from Atlanta say Berroa is with the team and is wearing No. 4. Go me…)

From here, we can look forward to additions right through deadline season: Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, Maine. Wagner. A streak or two you know this team might find in it. Let’s Go SHaMs: Fifty to go.

Don’t forget to join me, Greg Prince, Paul Lukas, Matthew Silverman and a barful of hungry Mets fans as Two Boots Tavern presents AMAZIN’ TUESDAY, next Tuesday, July 21 at 7pm. Present a Mets baseball card for your first drink free! Pizza and Rheingold specials, Mets-Nats game on the big screens, memorabilia, giveaways and presentations!

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