Mets

[Amazin69]

Ded-arm Nuñez is a step behind Senga: he's throwing bullpen sessions, but no live batting practice yet.

Mendoza says they'll be excited to have him back, but they're not targeting Opening Day, specifically. "When he's ready, he's ready."

Translation: May? Maybe?

[Amazin69]

Ha-ha-ha! As if we couldn't see this coming!

Frankie Mount-ass will have to settle for mounting…ahem, as he won't mount a mound until at least Jackie Robinson Day, and won't be ready until "Mid-May, likely June." Shut down for 6-8 weeks with a lat strain, and will need the full Port St. Lucie experience after that.

It's not Spring Training without starters falling by the wayside, is it?

($17,000,000 per season for Frankie the Lesser, let's remember.)

*******************

On a happier note, look what I found! (Okay, it's been up for 2 years already, but still.)

Opening Day, 1986, Philadelphia at Cincinnati! Live and in color from Riverfront, courtesy of WLWT-TV, Channel 5!

Your traditional National League opener (should be MLB-wide, but Detroit tried to sneak in their game with Boston first), with Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall on the call (Nuxie does radio mostly, but he'll be here for the middle innings) and Steve Physioc on the field. No Mets in sight, but given how nicely the season ends for us, it's a pleasure to watch the opening chapter.

(Final Opening Day assignment for Steve Carlton, who will be a White Sock by season's end. Avoid flinching at the sight of Future Met Juan Samuel, and enjoy!)

[Amazin69]

Uncle Stevie talks with Howie about the meeting that led to Peeeeete staying in the Orange and Blue.

Peeeeeeete holds his first press conference of the spring.

Wanna see Clay Holmes pitching to his new teammates? Of course you do!

[Amazin69]

Ronny Mauricio is still alive! (Allegedly.) Won't play for most of Spring Training, but might take the field before everybody else leaves for points north.

Juan Soto gives Brett Baty a new SUV for switching numbers! Of course, it's a bit of a stretch to assume that Baty would get any number, but Soto has 765,000,000 reasons to be generous. Baty can drive that baby to Syracuse!

Take 17 to Binghamton and I-81 to Syracuse, I say. Quicker than the Thruway, IMO.

[Westheim]

Gary, Keith, and Rooooooon!!

[Westheim]

Juan "765" Soto arrives with a blast well over the South Florida Orthopaedics sign in his first sorta-competitive Mets at-bat, facing a 'Stros pitcher I have never heard from and won't ever hear from again.

[Westheim]

Lessons from today's 6-2 win over the short half of a Houston split squad:

- Keith has the successor to Haji already lined up, but has to wait actually getting him because his teenage dog is up to no good
- Keith's 95% after hip surgery
- The Mets have a surfeit of De los Santoses
- Gary was not one to yell "Let's Go Mets" in the ninth inning of an 8-0 loss as a youth, but was more known for his "pointed remarks"

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Juan "765" Soto arrives with a blast well over the South Florida Orthopaedics sign in his first sorta-competitive Mets at-bat, facing a 'Stros pitcher I have never heard from and won't ever hear from again.

What did that dinger cost Steve? Seriously though, what a nice welcome to the Mets.

[Amazin69]

Favorite GKR bit was from the middle innings, when Keith and Gary started complaining that two entire series (v. Los Angeles in May, v. Brotherly Love in June) had been abducted from SNY, in favor of an AppleTV (Friday), FOX (Saturday), ESPn (Sunday) schedule:

GARY (to the networks): Come on, guys! At least leave us ONE!
RONNIE: Geez! Stop crying, you two!
GARY: Easy for you to say; you've got other jobs! This is all we do.
KEITH (sarcastically): Really looking forward to those Apple games.

That last is a bit harsh, iMO, if old pal Wayne Randazzo still has the Apple gig.

I also perked up when Keith started dropping "we"s wrt the arrival of Hadji-replacement Sinbad, later in the year. I thought Keith was living the bachelor life, a man and his cat. Has he picked up a partner we hadn't heard of? Hmm.

Had to give it up for the kid who, in the 8th inning, was cheering on anonymous demi-Mets by name. "Let's go Hernandez, let's go!" That's dedication.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

What did that dinger cost Steve? Seriously though, what a nice welcome to the Mets.

$765,000,000 on a per-homer blast, at the moment.

The good news is that future Soto Solo Shots (and 2-run, 3-run, Grand Slams as well) will help amortize the cost-per-dinger. With some consistent performance, it might get under $10,000,000/HR by late 2026/early 2027.

"Yay?" —Xander Harris, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[Amazin69]

Mets v. Marlins, 1pm EST today, as Max Kranick makes his Mets debut for the season.

Seriously, Game 2 of the spring (or Game 4, counting the split-squads) and we're already down to Max "the Chronic" Kranick for starting duty? There's not enough "yeeesh" in the world.


Dying-days-of-WCW tag champs KroniK. (From left, Brian Adams [previously Demolition Crush] and Bryan Clark [formerly Adam Bomb].)

I'd say KroniK might be a better choice for starting duty than Max Kranick…but Adams is in fact dead these days, and thus might struggle holding up his end.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

$765,000,000 on a per-homer blast, at the moment.

The good news is that future Soto Solo Shots (and 2-run, 3-run, Grand Slams as well) will help amortize the cost-per-dinger. With some consistent performance, it might get under $10,000,000/HR by late 2026/early 2027.

Spring homers should only count half. So Uncle Steve's currently down $1.53B per homer.

[Amazin69]

Daniel Juarez comes in the game, even though he had a 5.09 ERA at AA last season and walked more than 5 men per 9 innings.

It's good to be a lefty, isn't it?

[Amazin69]

Gotta give it up to Max Kranick; even though he's from Archbald PA (up past Scranton), he grew up as a Mets fan and his dad would drive him 2:20 to see games at Big Beautiful Shea. Had to get on I-80 near Hazleton and drive clean across New Jersey. That's devotion!

[Amazin69]

TWO games in, and already the Mets are Met-ting…

Manaea down at least two weeks with oblique strain (and will need camp after that). "If all goes well", look for him by late-April.

Great. Between him and Frankie Mount-ass, that's $42mn (60% of a Soto!) mounted on the IL, for now.

Not to panic, but I think I may have to start doing regular "rotation charts" as I did in 2021:

1. Kodai Ghost-Fork, veteran of 5-count 'em-5 IP last year, which is why Mendoza wants a 6-man rotation.
2. Clay Holmes, 13 blown saves last year, which is why he's trying starting now.
3. David Peterson, still…David Peterson
4. Tylor Megill, apparently not using that last ticket to Syracuse yet.
5. Paul Blackburn, back by no demand
6. Griffin Canning, a perfect Angel. (Not a compliment.)

Also, José Butto, butt-o the Mets would rather keep him in the bullpen than use him as the ass-end of the rotation.

Oh, and prized off-season infield reserve Nick Madrigal dislocated his shoulder fielding a ball in the split-squad game with the Gnats. This is the same shoulder he dislocated with the White Sux in 2020 and an MRI revealed a fracture, so Madrigal will be out "for a long time".

The Mets wanted to get Acuña a full season at AAA, Mauricio still isn't really ready, and Baty can't really play shortstop. So the options now look to be Donovan Walton or Luis de los Santos (not the 1B or the pitcher of the same name).

Hope David Stearns still has Candelita's number!

(Personally, I'd be dialling Quintana, who turned down a one-year deal with Pittsburgh. But allegedly, the Mets don't like that he has such low velocity [fastball averages 90.7 mph] and even with the Manaea news, would rather just sit back and ride things out with the current cast. Er…we'll see.)

[Westheim]

Starting for the Metsies today is Brandon Waddell, who you haven't heard of either. 30 years old, 11 MLB appearances for four different teams, and most recently active in Korea.

This feels more and more like 70-92 is coming for real this time.

[Amazin69]

Nah, no need to panic yet. The Soto upgrade should at least partially compensate for any holes in the starting staff (and a possible backstep in CF). 85-77, perhaps?

(With an option on 77-85 if things go sideways, such as Soto stepping on a sprinkler-head or whatever.)

And hey, if Stearns does stare down San Diego into parting with Dylan Cease for a reasonable haul…

[Amazin69]

Mets acquire ex-prospect Alexander Canario, 25, from the Scrubs for cash (five rolls of quarters and $20 CDN, methinks) to replace Madrigal.

Canario was once a key part of what Chicago got for trading Kris Bryant to San Francisco, but he proved to most resemble Bryant in that he struck out a LOT. He's also battled wrist and knee injuries, which makes him the perfect choice to fill a hole created by injury, right?

Welcome to New York! It's been waiting for you…

[Amazin69]

The Miami Marlins are such a joke of a team (thanks, Jeets!) that they're in danger of being sued by the players' union and losing their revenue-sharing if they don't add some payroll.

Rumor hath it that the Mets are casually mentioning that they've got $20.75 mn worth of payments scheduled to The Decaying Corpse of Starling Marte, if the Stinky Fish feel so inclined…

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

So they show the video of G. Thomas Seaver winning #300, in White Sox uniform at Yankee Stadium, and I really do need to watch the full telecast at some point. Because when they show that shot of Nancy Seaver being embraced by her daughter, Sara, I'm like over there <---------. one aisle out the frame, in the front row. I may be visible at some point; I've literally never checked.

I had started in the upper deck, sat through the Rizzuto Day ceremonies and the first two innings in the heat, then spotted open seats in that box, and went for it. (Steinbrenner may have revised the framework of the House that Ruth Built, but the guts were the same, and it was easy-peasy to get to the field level, which [unlike Shea and Dodger Stadia] was not gated off; all you had to do was buy some food and act as though you were returning to your seat.) I first sat in like the 5th row or so, but when it was clear there were front-row seats available, I went for it, and saw the last 4 or 5 innings from the very front.

Don Baylor's fly ball ended the game, but on Baylor's previous AB, he sent a little squib to the backstop, right in front of me. I leaned over…and fumbled the ball away, and the guy next to me got it. Haunted me for years.

(I didn't get a foul until the 2016 game when Curtis Granderson switch-hit the HRs in extra-innings; one to tie the game after Buxton's blast gave the Twins the lead, the next to win it, an inning later. Having spent the previous game up top, I splurged for the "Shea Club" or whatever it's called seats (only $100 or so) and unlike all the actually rich people, I was in my seat at the start. Brian Dozier took two balls to start the game, then fouled the third pitch over the screen [which nowadays goes all the way back to the face of the loge seats] and directly at me. Showing I had developed exactly ZERO skills in the intervening 31 years, I lost it on the way down…but it lodged right in my seat and I grabbed it before scavengers descended from the next section over.

So I did, finally, get a foul ball, and a fairly significant one at that. But nothing like the Seaver 300th would have been.)

Well, well, well, well, well. Time for a few revisions to my misty, misbegotten memories. Lookie what I found:

WPIX-11 Yankees telecast.

I had only previously had the ChiSox version, which is somewhat edited, as the Rizzuto ceremony and the game combine to run for almost 4 hours. But this is complete, so I went hunting for my 40-years-younger self.

And it turns out that I was wrong about Baylor being the batter, as Don was pinch-hitting (for Bobby Meacham) when he made the final out, and he swung at the first pitch. He never hit a foul ball all game.

So apparently I conflated Baylor's making the last out with whoever did hit that little squib, which was always more likely to be a LHB, such as Dan Pasqua or Mike Pagliarulo than the RH Baylor, since I was at the 3B side of the home-plate netting. (I like to think I would have properly remembered Ken Griffey Sr or Don Mattingly, so it's more likely to be one of the Future Sox buried lower in the lineup.). And I scoured the Yanks' last few innings, and I can't find that play.

BUT…turn your eyes to 2:49:40 and you'll see in the top of the 8th, Ozzie Guillen attempting a bunt, only to pop it foul. Yanks catcher Ron Hassey hurries after it, but can't catch it, and it one-hops into the seats. A man in a white shirt tries to snag it with his right hand, but fails, while the fat kid in the blue tee to the right of him swipes futilely with his left paw but misses.

And that blue whale…was me. You can see that the tee has a #14 on the back, because that's my intramural softball tee from high school, where I asked for #41 (for Tom, of course) but they screwed up the order and gave me #14 instead, and I was like "wth, Gil Hodges, good enough". So the reason that the tee seems a bit worn and hugs my blubber so nicely is because it was several years old and I hadn't stopped eating while I was at college. But it was Tom's 300th win, so of course I was going to dig that baby out.

(Wow, I had forgotten all about that.)

You'll also notice that when the camera cuts to the CF shot (to see Hassey trudging back behind the plate), you can see me turning back and I have a pair of black binoculars in my right hand. Now the binocs wouldn't make much sense from the front row (although I doubtless watched some close-ups of the action with them), but as noted in the quote, I spent the first two innings in the top deck, scouring for open seats down below. (Presumably that's part of the reason I brought the binoculars in the first place.)

So what must have happened is that I had my shot at the foul grounder somewhere in the earlier game (3rd-5th innings, back before the front row got so crowded) and I misremembered it as being in the 8th because I mixed it up with Ozzie's bouncer, which I completely forgot was a separate near miss because I never got a hand on this one. (And besides, it was a Bob Shirley-pitched ball, not one that Seaver threw.)

Geez, I wonder if I muffed the grounder the Yanks hit to me because I had to move my binoculars to my left hand? (I'm a righty.)

So, although I haven't found my main screw-up, at least I do have proof I was at the game. Woo!

(Also in attendance, former President Nixon, who was in Steinbrenner's box. Which is generous of George, seeing as it was his illegal campaign contribution to Nixon's 1972 campaign that got George suspended for the 1975 season.)

And I also forgot (since this was before we had a VCR and I never saw the telecast before today) that the Yanks had Lindsey Nelson there to call the final out, which was quite classy, I admit.

(I also had no idea that Lindsey finished his MLB career doing cable telecasts for the Reds in 1982. [Wikipedia has this wrong, thinks Nelson was helping Marty and Nuxie on the radio.]. Huh. So he called Seaver's games for three different teams…the Mets, the Reds [Tom sucked in '82, alas] and this last out here. Cool.)