Mets

[Amazin69]

Ah, but can Harper play shortstop? HA! (Ok, that's not much of a "HA", I grant you. I'd rather have Rosario back.)

And our farm system has produced throughout the years (Conforto, Nimmo, Rosario, Alonso, McNeil)…just not the past two seasons. Unless you want to count Megill, which is pushing it, IMO. Good job, Brodie! Are there any prospects you didn't trade?

And I forgot I had tonight's game in my DVR (still working through the college FB) and now I'm spoiled Not that the Mets losing is such a shocker, but…

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I assume you mean Baez. He also had a 2+ week spell in June (with the Cubbies) where he hit .111; which one is it going to be more often than the other?

I have thought for YEARS when I saw him flailing and flailing and flailing, oh, dear baseball gods, please don't put him on the Mets, please, no, don't, please, I'm begg- Mets trade for him.

And due to the time difference and the Cubs' being what they are, I saw the Cubs *a lot*. And I saw Baez flail *a lot*.

LOL, I totally meant Baez. derp.

I was curious how many players had a crappy 2-week stretch in 2021.

I used Stathead looking for guys with an average of .150 or lower over a 16 games stretch, minimum of 40 plate appearances and not a pitcher.

So there are 275 batters that have had a streak like that in 2021. There are 557 batters in 2021 who have played at least two weeks. What Baez did in that slump was basically what 49% of batters in the MLB have also done during the year.

His .OPS during that slump too topped out at .600, which put him in the top 7% most productive players during the slump. So Baez in a slump can be as good offensively as the Mets catching corps of McCann, Nido and Mazeika+ in 2021.

And despite the flailing, he's hitting for a higher batting average in 2021 than anyone on the Mets, including Alonzo. (.263 to Alonzo's .262.) And he has 31 home runs, which is second to Alonzo, despite being a middle infielder.

I'm not saying resign Baez for a billion dollars, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Baseball has changed in ways we don't like with all these strikeouts. Half the pitching staffs in the MLB are striking out 9.0+ per 9 innings this year (with the White Sox and Brewers at 10.3 and 10.2 respectively). Flailing isn't a Baez thing, it's a baseball thing.

[Westheim]

...and he's the best at it, leading the NL in strikeouts this year.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Westheim

...and he's the best at it, leading the NL in strikeouts this year.

Sure. Baez is a GREAT offensive player....amiright? I mean, he's leading the team in hitting. THE NEXT BABE RUTH!!!!

Classic salary drive. Never mind him leading the universe in strikeouts, with a LIFETIME OBP of .303.

Will the Mets be stupid enough to give him a Pujols contract???

According to baseball-reference.com, the player that Baez is MOST like, in MLB history, is Jonathan Schoop. THE Jonathan Schoop.

[Westheim]

Don't forget Scooter "Flash in the Pan" Gennett in 6th on that list.

[Amazin69]

So, with tonight's 14-inning "sweep" of the Fish, the Mets are now 10-15 in September. (Yeah, you thought it was worse. You forgot we had the winning streak to start the month, plus 2/3 from the Yanks, plus a few randoms, plus this.)

Thus, this is the first month since June wherein the Mets have reached double figures in wins. Yippee!

Mets by Month:

April, 10-11
May, 17-9 (despite all the injuries and the one lineup with that starting OF of Lee, Fargas and Maybin)
June, 15-15
July, 9-13 (despite the easy schedule)
August, 9-19
September, 10-15

Yes, the Mets were 42-35 on July 1, and 33-47 since. Can we fire Rojas now, please? It's not as if the new GM is going to keep him, anyhow.

With the Mets guaranteed to finish no better than 80-82, Gary Cohen tells us that the 103 days the team spent in 1st place is an all-time record for a club that ended the season below break-even.

Well done, team! Conglaturations!

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

With the Mets guaranteed to finish no better than 80-82, Gary Cohen tells us that the 103 days the team spent in 1st place is an all-time record for a club that ended the season below break-even.

That gave me some major depression...

[BMW]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

So, with tonight's 14-inning "sweep" of the Fish, the Mets are now 10-15 in September. (Yeah, you thought it was worse. You forgot we had the winning streak to start the month, plus 2/3 from the Yanks, plus a few randoms, plus this.)

Thus, this is the first month since June wherein the Mets have reached double figures in wins. Yippee!

Mets by Month:

April, 10-11
May, 17-9 (despite all the injuries and the one lineup with that starting OF of Lee, Fargas and Maybin)
June, 15-15
July, 9-13 (despite the easy schedule)
August, 9-19
September, 10-15

Yes, the Mets were 42-35 on July 1, and 33-47 since. Can we fire Rojas now, please? It's not as if the new GM is going to keep him, anyhow.

With the Mets guaranteed to finish no better than 80-82, Gary Cohen tells us that the 103 days the team spent in 1st place is an all-time record for a club that ended the season below break-even.

Well done, team! Conglaturations!

Mets are great for setting these records.

[BBGiovanni]

How did they win 10 games in September? I guess the WSH/MIA games pile up.

[Amazin69]

5 wins v. MIA
3 wins v. WAS
2 wins v. NYY (thanks, Gary Sanchez!)
+1 win v PHI

= our best month since June. Don't you feel blessed?

And th-th-that's all for me, folks. As mentioned, I'm "local" for the Braves, so no GKR this weekend, and I don't need to watch Chip Caray gloat.

And I doubt I'll follow the post-season if I'm done with the sport after this season. Why should I care who wins when I'm not coming back for the Metsies, ever again?

Ah, well, we'll always have video archiving.

(If Rojas isn't fired on Monday, at the latest, I'll lose all respect for Alderson. Just saying. Ooh, he keeps the clubhouse happy? So would a friendly rent-boi from an outcall service. A team needs a manager who's willing to kick ass, not just lick ass. Get lost, loser.)

[Westheim]

I wouldn't take a bullet for Rojas, but I don't see how the injury-ravaged season is his fault. The question is how the entire team stopped hitting for like six weeks straight to fall 15 games compared to the Barves.

Unrelated, I loved Keith being savage about Hansel Robles right at the end of the Friday game. "Just don't point to the sky." ... "It's a biiird ...!" - "No, it's a homer!"

[Amazin69]

We covered the injuries before. The teams with the most days lost were, IIRC, the Yankees, Rays, Mets, Dodgers, and Padres. That's three playoff teams and a Pad Squad that gave it a much better run than we did. Everybody has injuries; it's how you deal with them.

Remember, our best Month was May, when we had pretty much everybody hurt.

And IMO, Rojas has to own the hitting failures, too. JD, Conforto, Lindor, McNeil, Dom. That's FIVE guys who went from All-Star calibre to "lose your job" levels. (Dom and JD actually did, McNeil and Conforto were on the edge of getting pushed out if anyone else had been hiting, and Lindor was only saved by his anchor, er, contract.) Blame Chili or QuattleBUM or whomever; at the end of the day, Rojas's job is to get the most out of his players. That happened for exactly two guys…Jake, who missed half the season, and Villar, who was better in Milwaukee a couple years ago, and finished in a tailspin. Oh, and Loup…seven pitches at a pop. Yippee.

He has no idea how to make out a lineup (resting Dom against a LEFTY, when Dom is hitting 117 points HIGHER against them; sitting JD against Scherzer, whom he kills), he babies the arms ridiculously (why are the bullpen guys tired? Probably because you won't let the starters even go six innings) and he STILL had a pile of pitchers on the DL.

He brings nothing to the table except (allegedly) keeping the clubhouse happy. Fire him and I'll make some classic rock mixtapes; we'll save money and do better.

(James McCann's biggest sin? Coming to the plate to the "music" of Imagine Jingles, the worst band of the decade. Just saw an annoying YT ad featuring Dan Reynolds's Plastic Brigade. Blecch.)

[BMW]

If I had a playoff win for every season the Mets were ravaged by injuries, the Mets would have two more World Series titles.

I didn't see anything particularly positive with Rojas. With an untested rookie manager like him, you really need to try them out, see if they have a certain spark to them and cut bait with them if they don't.

I think we've seen enough of him to know that he isn't going to inspire the team to play above their potentials. At least not any more than any random person you'd pull out of AAA or the free agent market. There's nothing about him that makes me think that with just a little more time we'll have a manager that brings us a title. And if he does have that talent, it's going to be for another team in another city with a different set of circumstances.

[BMW]

Rojas will not manage Mets in 2022

Now the Mets face the monumental challenge of hiring a manager that won't need to be fired in the same week.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by BMW

Rojas will not manage Mets in 2022

Now the Mets face the monumental challenge of hiring a manager that won't need to be fired in the same week.

They will have more time for a search this time. Don't forget that he was thrown into the breach after the Beltran debacle. The Mets will go for experience this time, I bet. They need to resolve the GM situation first, however.

[rudel.dietrich]

I am demented. But this thread brings me endless joy reading about the misery of others.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

They will have more time for a search this time. Don't forget that he was thrown into the breach after the Beltran debacle. The Mets will go for experience this time, I bet.

So they'll go for Beltran again?

He has experience!

With debacles.

What else do you need in Flushing?

[Westheim]

I'll file my CV for the opening. I am horrible with people, but I would never give in to the stupidity of hitting Pete second. Also, the Raccoons have five championships, which, last time I counted, was more than what the Mets have.

[BMW]

I stumbled on ex-Met Joe Smith and I wanted to see where landed on the best middle relievers of all time (less than 5% games started and less than 5% of games saved).

I found that of the top 4 middle relievers of all time (https://stathead.com/sharing/1juDw), three of them have dubious Mets connections.

The top guy is Steve Reed. The Mets got him (and Jason Middlebrook) for 24 games. Admittedly a good 24 games. What this they give up for him? Well, not many people know this, but the Mets had Jason Bay twice. They got a steal of a deal trading Lou Collier for Bay while he was an Expos minor leaguer. But instead of keeping him, the Mets sent him away at the trade deadline for that rarest of commodities, right-handed middle relief. The Mets were in the wild card hunt and then proceeded to go 20-35 after acquiring Reed, who then left that winter as a free agent.

Bay would then go in to win a ROY and hit 139 home runs for the Pirates. The Mets would of course get Bay back, paying him $42 million for his debacle (while he produced three all-star seasons over 7 years for $20 million prior to that.)

Of course the Padres "gave up" on Bay too. But instead of 1/3 a season of Steve Reed, they got 7 pretty decent seasons of Brian Giles in return (17+ WAR).

The second guy on the list is Darren O'Day. The Mets pulled off a steal getting O'Day from the Dodgers in the Rule 5 draft. But just a few days into the season, they needed to get Nelson Figueroa on the roster to fill in for Mike Pelfrey for one start, and O'Day was put on waivers. 12 years and a 2.37 ERA over those 12 seasons, O'Day is still pitching.

The third guy on the list is Jeff Nelson. There is a very slight Mets connection here. When the Yankees brought Nelson back for the end of his career, they dealt away Armando Benitez to get him. This was just after they had acquired Benitez from the Mets for three right handed middle relief "prospects."

The fourth guy on the list is Joe Smith. After two good seasons with the Mets, the Mets included him with Endy Chavez, Jason Vargas and Aaron Heilman for... Right handed middle relievers JJ Putz and Sean Green (and OF Jeremy Reed who hit like Rey Ordonez while playing a crappy LF). Smith is still pitching.

[Westheim]

I was pretty sure Jason Bay got $66M over four years. Was there a buyout I have forgotten about?