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Official 2011 New York Mets Thread


NJDevs4978

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Strong argument, kid.

Keep in mind that this scrub Reyes has played what, half the season? Lol

Coming into today for Reyes: 125 games .336/.383/.493/.875 .157 ISO .385 wOBA 147 wRC+ 6.2 WAR (just .1 behind Tulowitzki for 2nd best in MLB for SS)....how is he a scrub? He's had a helluva year, gotta give him credit.

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Coming into today for Reyes: 125 games .336/.383/.493/.875 .157 ISO .385 wOBA 147 wRC+ 6.2 WAR (just .1 behind Tulowitzki for 2nd best in MLB for SS)....how is he a scrub? He's had a helluva year, gotta give him credit.

No one can rightly call him a scrub. That's definitely over-the-top by a wide margin.

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Great article on this final day, batting title fiasco happening in the past....

Alas, it's happened before ...

1976 NL: Ken Griffey Sr. Griffey entered the final day hitting .338. Bill Madlock was hitting .333. But Madlock went 4-for-4 for the Cubs to raise his average to .339. Once word reached Cincinnati, Griffey entered in the seventh inning, but went 0-for-2.

1983 NL: Bill Madlock. Now with the Pirates, Madlock was hitting .323 entering the final game. He sat. Lonnie Smith went 2-for-5 to finish at .321. Jose Cruz Sr. went 0-for-4 to fall from .320 to .318. The title was Madlock's. Actually, we could do a whole blog on Madlock. He apparently tore a calf muscle on Sept. 5 and only had 19 plate appearances the rest of the season. He had played the five previous games, however -- although he had left the final four before the fifth inning. In fact, in all of his batting title seasons, Madlock missed time in September with injuries. How many of these were legit remains open to debate. In 1983, it's odd that he kept attempting to play only to leave games early. Bill James once wrote, "I never saw any other player who was as focused on batting championships as Bill Madlock ... if he was in the hunt for the title the guys in the press box used to run a poll to see who could pick the days that Madlock's hamstring would keep him out of the lineup."

1982 AL: Willie Wilson. Hitting .332, Wilson sat out game No. 162. Robin Yount was hitting .328 and went for 4-for-5 with two home runs (in a game the Brewers needed to win capture the AL East), but fell short at .331.

2003 AL: Bill Mueller. Entering the last day, Mueller was at .327, Derek Jeter was at .326, and Mueller's Boston teammate Manny Ramirez was at .325. Mueller and Ramirez didn't start for Boston. Jeter went 0-for-3 for the Yankees to drop to .324. Mueller pinch-hit in the eighth inning -- but only after Jeter was already 0-for-3. Mueller finished at .326 to win the title.

1991 NL: Terry Pendleton. Hitting .319, Pendleton didn't play the final game. Hal Morris went 3-for-4 for the Reds to raise his average from .314 to .318. Tony Gwynn finished third at .317, but he was injured and didn't play the final three weeks of the season.

1986 NL: Tim Raines. Raines had a strained chest muscle that had forced him to miss three games the final week, but he had played all 14 innings in the game before the season finale. Manager Bob Rodgers informed Raines that Steve Sax would have to go 4-for-4 to catch Raines if he sat. Raines said he hadn't swung the bat well the night before. He sat. "I think it would be unfair for anyone to criticize him for deciding to sit it out, because he's been such a good team player all year," Rodgers said. Sax got just one hit and Raines won the crown.

Those are just a few examples I came up with on short notice. The history of the sport is littered with controversial batting titles, most notoriously the 1910 race between Nap Lajoie and Ty Cobb (Lajoie recorded seven bunt hits in a doubleheader against the Browns on the final day of the season) and the 1976 AL race, when Hal McRae was battling Royals teammate George Brett (and Minnesota's Rod Carew). In the bottom of the ninth, Brett trailed McRae. He needed a hit (McRae was on deck). He blooped a ball that Twins left fielder Steve Brye misjudged. The ball bounced over his head and Brett circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. When McRae then grounded out (leaving Brett at .333, McRae at .332), he made two obscene gestures to the Minnesota bench, had to be restrained, and later alleged racism was involved (Brye was white, McRae black). (For more on the 1976 controversy, here's a good take.)

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/16808/jose-reyes-leaves-game-to-protect-title

You can say it's not really right, but it's happened before, plenty of times. To single out Reyes is moronic and troll-ish, which has been my point the whole time.

Edited by nmigliore
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Ok yea I shouldn't have called him a scrub. But yo it doesnt matter, I didn't single him out. Ill say it was shady back then and it is now.. I would no at all say that what they did today was completely the right way to get the title

Edited by Onddeck
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I was at the game, and we were all busy cheering the hit (there was a ton of Reyes-love going on, it was obviously the only draw to this meaningless midday game). Then I suddenly notice Turner is going to first and Reyes is almost in the dugout already. There wasn't enough time (or maybe everyone was too surprised) to give him a standing ovation, though some tried. So the guy everyone came to see, they barely got to see. People were cheering and chanting his name after the game ended, I guess hoping to see him come out and do something, but that was never going to happen.

Pics

Nice ceremony for the groundskeeper

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Ehhh still have a sour taste in my mouth for him asking to be taken out. Where's the competitive fire? Go 4-4 if you wanted to lock it up. I hate people that play to not lose, rather than go out and win.

Yeah, agree on this point...he's not the only one to have done something like this (some guys don't even play in the final game to "clinch" their batting titles), but I don't like it and never will.

nmig, that beast missed 191 games the last three seasons, and is coming off a year where he put up numbers that were a quantum leap over his career figures. I know you're a big-time Reyes fanboy, but you gotta take the blinders off on this one. We both know the Mets aren't going to be spending much money in the forseeable future...Reyes' injuries this year probably took him out of Carl Crawford money, but he's still going to get a big offer...one a team with limited flexibility like the Mets shouldn't make or match. Who knows...maybe this is the beginning of Reyes putting it all together more consistently, maybe he'll find a way to stay healthy like he did from 2005-08, but the Mets aren't in the position to take that risk.

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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The fact that Carl Crawford had the year he did probably takes Reyes out of Carl Crawford money :P

Could he have been any worse this year? A .289 OB%?! (His career BATTING average is .293) I know he had a dreadful April that pulls his numbers down, but still...

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For all the hate Wright gets, you'd think he's awful. His 131 wRC+ this season ranks tied for 2nd best among 3B this season with A-Rod. Michael Young leads the pack. But that's better than Kevin Youkilis, Aramis Ramirez, Evan Longoria, Chipper Jones, Evan Longoria, Ryan Zimmerman.... I could go on, but its useless. All the stats that people on this board care about are the garbage ones that hold little meaning.

All Longoria did was turn in his best month when his team needed it most, punctuated by that game-winning, wild-card clinching HR. In September: a .289 BA, .454 OB%, .589 SLG, 1.043 OB+SLG, 7 HR, 22 RBI, 27 BB, 16 K. This is why sabermetrics are not the be-all end-all way to measure ballplayers. Wright pretty much stunk the last two months of the season.

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:lol:

It's all good. I'll repeat that I'm finished with that topic; I've said my piece. :)

I just hope this thread doesn't turn in the Weekly Update On David Wright thread in 2012 (if hes still here, that is).

All eyes are going to be on him if (when, really) Reyes departs...especially since he's supposed to be one of the Mets' big guns, and is coming off his worst year in the majors (maybe the sabes can somehow twist a mediocre-at-best year into a good one for Wright, but one thing that can't be disputed is that this was his worst season by far). If he has an April like this September, and the Mets get off to a bad start, he's going to be hearing about it left and right, and he's going to be a major topic of conversation.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Adam Rubin has a bunch of notes (via Twitter) about the Mets officially announcing the Citi Field changes:

Citi Field dimensions (l to r): 335-358-385-408-398-375-330

100 new seats in left-center between old and new walls. 40-50 new seats where Mo's Zone was.

Two new rows of seats in left-center

Fence is a uniform eight feet. Playing surface over is 2 percent less. Playing surface beyond 300 feet is 5 percent less.

Mets would have hit about 81 more homers over three years with these dimensions. Opponents 70. According to Sandy Alderson.

In extreme left field corner, the old 16-foot wall will be in play with line at 8 feet. Mets say unconcerned about umpires determining HR.

He also said they are changing the outfield walls to blue, which is awesome. I never understood why they were black in the first place.

Edited by nmigliore
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Adam Rubin has a bunch of notes (via Twitter) about the Mets officially announcing the Citi Field changes:

He also said they are changing the outfield walls to blue, which is awesome. I never understood why they were black in the first place.

Impossible not to be a fan of these changes. Maybe that brings David Wright and - GASP! - even Jason Bay back to life.

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Joel Sherman brought up an interesting trade potential between the Mets and the Angels:

“We will listen on Wright for sure,” a Mets official told me during the week. “We know we are not going to win it all in 2012. We have to hope the Phillies get old and we are in position to take advantage of that in 2013-14, and we have to figure out ways to speed the process to get there.”

In other words, if the Mets could find the young, defensive-oriented center fielder they crave plus an arm or two in exchange for Wright, they will seriously consider it.

The team the Mets are focusing upon the most is the Angels, who they know have had interest in Wright previously and, in Mike Trout and Peter Bourjos, have two young center fielders. The Angels will not move Trout, who made his major league debut at 19 last year and is seen as a five-tool cornerstone to their future.

But Bourjos is a possibility. Two different talent evaluators told me they thought Bourjos was one of the three best defensive center fielders in the majors last year. Bourjos, who turns 25 in March, also hit .271 with 12 homers and 22 steals. If the Mets are able to get Bourjos and one or two arms from a group that includes Tyler Chatwood, Garrett Richards and John Hellweg, it could be enticing because there also would be a significant amount of saved money for 2012 — take your pick if that ends up in ownerships’ pockets or reinvested in payroll.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/source_mets_open_to_wright_deal_UJ6FhfhAW6PtCnXHrS3CXJ#ixzz1cwwguUID

I would make that deal. I'm a Bourjos fan. His plate approach bothers me a little -- he doesn't walk much and he strikes out a bit too much as well -- but he has the speed to make him an elite defensive centerfielder, an asset on the bases, and probably a higher-than-average BABIP hitter (it was .338 this year). He even has a little power. That total package this season was good enough for a 4.3 WAR, which ranked in the top 10 of centerfielders, and if he can be that type of talent while making dirt-cheap pre-arb money, that would be huge surplus value to the team.

As for the other guys mentioned, I like Chatwood's stuff. His numbers in the Majors this year weren't very good but the Angels were very aggressive with promoting him; they pretty much leapfrogged him over AAA and he only had 68 innings at AA as a 20 year old. I definitely think there is some upside here and I wouldn't mind seeing him get some seasoning in AAA. He's still only 21.

Garrett Richards would be great too; John Sickels of Minor League Ball wrote this about him in early August:

A 6-3, 215 pound, 23 year-old right-hander, Richards works with a 91-94 MPH sinking fastball, topping out at 95-96. His secondary pitches are a slider, curveball, and changeup. All three show promise, but all three were very erratic in college and have gradually improved in pro ball. Texas League reports confirm this steady improvement, but the fastball remains his bread-and-butter. His control is generally quite good, and his command has improved: keep in mind that control (throwing general strikes) and command (hitting your spots within the strike zone) are not the same thing.

...

I'm optimistic about Richards and I think he can be a solid inning-eating starter. We should see him sometime in 2012.

The Mets would have to make any deal that is centered around Bourjos. I think he's already more valuable than Wright, even if you expect some offensive regression. Add in the fact he's younger, very cheap, and under control through 2016 and it's almost a no-brainer. Throw in a couple of intriguing starting pitcher arms and it's icing on the cake. This would also free up a lot of money to resign Jose Reyes, who is the more valuable player right now and the player I'd expect to be more valuable over the next five years anyway. Murphy would slot in at 3B, his natural position, and probably be able to come close to matching Wright's total production.

Edited by nmigliore
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  • 2 weeks later...

New jersey rotation for 2012... no more black drop shadow:

Mets-2012-jerseys.jpg

Cream-colored jerseys: http://yfrog.com/nt1ntoj

These looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL, especially the pure-white home and the road grays. The 50th Anniversary patch looks nice too.

I was never so vehemently against the black drop shadow...but these look better. In my eyes...best in baseball

and unlike the citi field inaugural patch disaster, they got it right with the 50th anniversary

Edited by '7'
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