SB Nation User Blog: JoshNY

Online Auction of Shea Stadium Memorabilia

JoshNY — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:19:57 -0000

Online Auction of Shea Stadium Memorabilia

I'm disappointed that the auction listings don't properly refer to the flags from the top of the stadium as "Mookie flags".

Dominican Police Seeking Ambiorix Burgos

JoshNY — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:01:13 -0000

Dominican Police Seeking Ambiorix Burgos

New York Mets reliever Ambiorix Burgos was driving an SUV when it slammed into two women who later died of their injuries, according to police in the Dominican Republic.

Police still were searching for Burgos.

Police Col. Eulogio Taveras said Josefina Minaya Martinez, 38, and Angely Fana, 29, were struck Tuesday by a new Hummer registered to Burgos, 24.

The women died at a hospital in Nagua, a town 112 miles north of the capital, Santo Domingo.

"The investigation indicates that Burgos was the driver of the (vehicle) that hit the women," Taveras said, adding several witnesses identified Burgos as the driver.

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Uhh, that isn't good.

Santana Voted NL Pitcher of the Month

JoshNY — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:48:20 -0000

Santana Voted NL Pitcher of the Month

Early Word on Rebuilding

JoshNY — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:46:31 -0000

Early Word on Rebuilding

This only cites unnamed people "familiar with the Mets' thinking" so take it for what it's worth. Copying and pasting the interesting part...

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• Pedro Martinez is unlikely to return

• No steps will be taken toward finding a more suitable -- read productive and reliable -- second baseman until the club has a sense it can deal expensive quasi-incumbent Luis Castillo. Also, Damion Easley, despite the production he provided at second base, is not likely to return.

• Despite his strong showing this season and the plan to have him play second base in the Arizona Fall League, Daniel Murphy is most likely to be a platoon left fielder.

• The club is quite aware the contract demands of Scott Boras client Oliver Perez are likely to be exorbitant. The Mets are interested in re-signing the potential free agent, but they already are asking, "At what price?"

• The Mets still need at least one more starting pitcher -- and two if Perez bolts. And one will have to be a 200-innings guy.

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One year in and the Luis Castillo contract is already an albatross. Great.

Beltran's Pretty Decent Year

JoshNY — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:32:05 -0000

Beltran's Pretty Decent Year

Yesterday evening, Joe Posnanski took note of the fact that only four times in history has a player put up a season line including 25 HR, 40 2B, 25 SB, 110 R and 110 RBI.

Two of them were in the pre-humidor Coors Field days, Larry Walker in 1997 and Ellis Burks (I forgot that he stole bases) in 1996. (Of course, Coors Field played an absurd 30% above average for hitters in 1996, though only 13% above average for hitters in 1997.) Walker might've done the same in 1996 as well, I suppose, but he played only 83 games that year, due to injury if I recall correctly. Dante Bichette, in fact, was one double shy of doing the same in Coors in 1996.

The third was Barry Bonds in 1998, a phenomenal season by anyone's standards though before the power explosion that was to come. Like Joe, I find it a bit surprising that this was the only season Bonds had 40 doubles. (He was two doubles shy of another such season his first year in San Francisco, with 46 HR, 129 R, 123 RBI and 29 SB; I wonder how much the steroid cloud over 2001-04 will overshadow how phenomenal Barry was before then, including in his back-to-back MVP seasons of 1992 and 1993, featuring almost-identical OPS+ of 205 and 204.)

The fourth, as you might have guessed, was our own Hebrew Hammer, Carlos Beltran. Now, I'm not a big believer in uncommon combinations of counting statistics being all that important in the scheme of things. (Jimmy Rollins' 20-20-20-20 performance last year was a pretty stupid rationale to give him the MVP, if you ask me.) Still, it's a pretty nice achievement for Voltron.

Giants.com Adds New History Section

JoshNY — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:47:43 -0000

Giants.com Adds New History Section

Looks like there's a ton of good information here, though for some reason the "New York Giants In the 21st Century" page doesn't yet have content for 2007. Did anything interesting happen in 2007?

Patriots Giving Out Rings Too

JoshNY — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:51:50 -0000

Patriots Giving Out Rings Too

"There was the journey toward a 16-0 regular season and the AFC championship, then the bitter ending of a crushing defeat in Super Bowl XLII. When top Patriots officials gathered this offseason, they pondered the best way to celebrate a season that had such exhilarating highs and one crushing low.

In the end, after declaring the season the fourth-greatest achievement in team history, they elected to have a private ceremony to commemorate it last Monday at Gillette Stadium.

Owner Robert Kraft and team president Jonathan Kraft presented the players with rings. On one side of the ring, it reads '16-0 -- perfect season.' On the other, it reads '18-1, AFC Championship.'"

Am I the only one who thinks this is incredibly tacky?

JoshNY's Bullpen Plan

JoshNY — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:24:44 -0000

We are running a FanPost Swag Contest, which calls on you to submit your ideas for how best to fix the Mets' bullpen, which I'm told has been inadequate of late though that may just be anecdotal evidence. The contest runs through Friday, and here is one of the better entries so far. --Eric

I'm going to make one further assumption beyond those specified by Eric, which is that I'm free to make changes as I see fit without having to answer to asinine broadcasters and WFAN callers. This assumption is important because one of the central elements of my plan is unconventional.

That plan: use Pedro as a relief ace. I haven't been able to find a great definition for those unfamiliar with the concept, but to sum up, a relief ace is a pitcher who's used out of the bullpen in high leverage situations (close games, great hitters up, runners on base) as early as the seventh inning; it's been advocated by Bill James as the optimal role for the best pitcher out of your bullpen. Realistically, though Wagner is that guy (i.e., the best relief pitcher on the team) once he's healthy, he seems to pitch less effectively in non-save situations, so I'm going to keep him in the traditional closer role.

As for why I'd like to use Pedro in such a role, as much time as he's missed, and at his age, I don't think he's got the longevity to be a starter this season. Maybe he'll be able to do so in the future, but the Mets are in a tight race and don't have the luxury of letting Pedro work himself into shape. Lack of longevity from our starters has led to the bullpen being overworked, and Pedro is part of that problem. Instead, he's going to be part of the solution. Looking at this quantitatively: In innings 1-3, hitters are OPSing .756 against Pedro. That's pretty good. In innings 4-6, they're OPSing .998. That's pretty bad. So to conclude: use Pedro in situations that play to his strengths as they've been this year.

To fill the empty spot in the rotation, call up Jon Niese. He was very good in Binghamton, and his first three starts in AAA were strong. (19 IP, 5 BB, 14 K, 2.37 ERA, 1.00 WHIP) Let's see what he's got. Until Maine is ready, your rotation is Santana - Perez - Pelfrey - Stokes (he was good enough to get another start) - Niese. Once Maine is back, he replaces whichever of Stokes and Niese has been less effective.

Niese takes Carlos Muniz' spot on the roster. He's overmatched at this level. Until Wagner is back, the remainder of the bullpen is Heilman, Sanchez, Feliciano, Schoeneweis, Smith, Kunz. This is obviously the same collection of garbage we've had in the recent past, but hopefully with a younger rotation they get a little less work, and Pedro takes many high-pressure situations off their hands. By lightening the load in this manner (which should hopefully help the performance all around), I'm going to use Feliciano and Smith for lefty-righty matchups in the 9th inning. I'm as disappointed as the rest of you that Feliciano hasn't been effective against righties like he was last year, but he's still pretty good against lefties, and Smith is the flip side of that. Once Wagner is healthy, DFA whoever has been performing the worst.

Summing up:

Now:
Santana - Perez - Pelfrey - Stokes - Niese
Pedro (Ace) - Smith (RHCL) - Feliciano (LHCL) - Kunz - Heilman - Schoeneweis - Sanchez

Everyone healthy:
Santana - Perez - Pelfrey - Maine - Stokes/Niese
Pedro (Ace) - Wagner (CL) - five of (Smith, Feliciano, Kunz, Heilman, Schoeneweis, Sanchez)

Postscript: This plan hasn't included any players obtained from other teams, not because I wouldn't pursue such angles, but simply because I'm not really sure what's out there. If I could pick up a reliever from a team that's out of contention without giving up too much, I'd do so. If we wanted another lefty, I'd look at Tim Byrdak from Houston or Brian Tallet from Baltimore; from the right, Cincinnati is dumping and David Weathers is having a good year, and would probably be available as a rental.

Out of the Zone: Jet-Lagged Baseball Teams Suffer Disadvantage

JoshNY — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:08:56 -0000

Out of the Zone: Jet-Lagged Baseball Teams Suffer Disadvantage

"Betting on your favorite Major League Baseball team? You might want to reconsider if it has to cross three time zones to play. A new study shows that MLB teams that travel such distances to play a game could have up to a 60 percent chance of losing."

I found this intriguing because since the beginning of May, the Mets have played:

3 games in the Mountain time zone
3 games in the Pacific time zone
14 games in the Eastern time zone
3 games in the Mountain time zone
7 games in the Eastern time zone
7 games in the Pacific time zone
6 games in the Eastern time zone
3 games in the Pacific time zone (now)
3 games in the Mountain time zone
and then back to the Eastern time zone, where they'll stay for a while. They've also made four shifts of two or three time zones without an off day and will make a fifth this coming Sunday night.

I don't know whether this is abnormal or whether it's a frequent occurrence since the MLB switched from a human-generated schedule to a computer-generated one. To me, though, it seems like frequent cross-country trips (especially combined with the long stretch without an off day between 5/20 and 6/8) could be a factor in the Mets' inability to find any kind of a rhythm or get any momentum built up in recent weeks.

Mets Ticket Rainchecks

JoshNY — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:26:51 -0000

Has anyone ever had to use the Mets' ticket rainchecks? My folks had tickets for the Saturday game against Texas that was rained out, and need to exchange them. I received an email (I bought the tickets for them) saying that they should use the exchange policy shown on this page, but while it describes the policy about what the tickets can be exchanged for, it doesn't actually say HOW to go about doing so. So... how does one go about doing so?

Thanks!