http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2011/06/24/robs-case-for-trading-reyes/#comments
I want to buy this Rob guy a beer. I think the exact same things, but dang if he doesn't explain them a lot better.
And in response the eternal and totally-missing-the-point question of "who do you get to replace him?" let me once again say, "You don't, nor do you have to." It's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jose Reyes is not the key to winning championships.
24 June 2011
23 June 2011
A telling choice of words from MetsBlog
[NOTE: Apparently the "scheduled publish" feature is still not working properly. This was supposed to go up first thing in the morning yesterday.]
So sayeth Brian Erni:
Seriously, just chew on that a while. Swish it around, taste it. Ponder the fact that it's really been so long since the Mets were in honest contention for anything meaningful that a pivotal moment in the season now consists of the opportunity to split a home stand with the bottom half of the American League West.
I remember huge. Huge is a weekend series between the 1st and 2nd place teams with a half game between them. Huge is sweeping the team nipping at your heels as if to say, "Nice try, but this is our year, not yours." Huge is a playoff game in October. This--while I'm sure it will be a perfectly enjoyable afternoon game coinciding on a day off for me--is a lousy, laughable substitute for huge.
So sayeth Brian Erni:
Tomorrow’s matinee is a huge game for this team. A win would give the Mets the series win and a 3-3 home stand.So this is what we're down to, huh? "Huge" is now defined as not losing 2 out of 3 to a last place team that arrived at CitiField with a record of 33-40?
Seriously, just chew on that a while. Swish it around, taste it. Ponder the fact that it's really been so long since the Mets were in honest contention for anything meaningful that a pivotal moment in the season now consists of the opportunity to split a home stand with the bottom half of the American League West.
I remember huge. Huge is a weekend series between the 1st and 2nd place teams with a half game between them. Huge is sweeping the team nipping at your heels as if to say, "Nice try, but this is our year, not yours." Huge is a playoff game in October. This--while I'm sure it will be a perfectly enjoyable afternoon game coinciding on a day off for me--is a lousy, laughable substitute for huge.
18 June 2011
That was fun while it lasted.
Normally, I refrain from posting on weekends, but as you can see, it's been a while. I got hella busy with work and managed to get sick for all but a couple of days of a two-week stretch, so the blog here fell pretty low on the priority list. That said...
Here we are, with the Mets having played pretty well for the past couple of weeks, polishing up a 6-4 road trip and not one, but two series wins against a winning Braves' team, yet they are again: 2 games under .500, which appears to be the team's permanent home in 2011.
That's just the way it is with the Mets of this era. They have flashes of brilliance, but things always revert back to mediocrity. The last two days have been a microcosm. After digging out of the hole and sitting at .500 for a day, and on the verge of sweeping the Braves, they hand it right back. And they don't just lose--no, that'd be to boring for this era of Metsdom. They lose on the combination of an error and a balk. Then, the bad taste of that lingers through Friday and they drop the home opener against the Angels, who should have been at a disadvantage after flying from end of the continent to the other.
Like I assume most Mets fans are, I'm just enjoying the season for what it is one game at a time. Even that's tough, because as long as they hang around on the fringes of contention (4 1/2 out of the wild card as I type this), the higher the likelihood the franchise continues in this purgatorial holding pattern instead of making some big moves one way or the other. Contending is awesome. Rebuilding is at least interesting. This limbo situation is just "meh."
Yes, there's still plenty of season left. Yes, it may not take 90 wins to make the playoffs. But until this team can stay over .500 for more than 24 hours, I'm forced to believe they simply are what they are: usually pretty good at some things, usually pretty bad at others, and almost perfectly mediocre over the long haul.
Here we are, with the Mets having played pretty well for the past couple of weeks, polishing up a 6-4 road trip and not one, but two series wins against a winning Braves' team, yet they are again: 2 games under .500, which appears to be the team's permanent home in 2011.
That's just the way it is with the Mets of this era. They have flashes of brilliance, but things always revert back to mediocrity. The last two days have been a microcosm. After digging out of the hole and sitting at .500 for a day, and on the verge of sweeping the Braves, they hand it right back. And they don't just lose--no, that'd be to boring for this era of Metsdom. They lose on the combination of an error and a balk. Then, the bad taste of that lingers through Friday and they drop the home opener against the Angels, who should have been at a disadvantage after flying from end of the continent to the other.
Like I assume most Mets fans are, I'm just enjoying the season for what it is one game at a time. Even that's tough, because as long as they hang around on the fringes of contention (4 1/2 out of the wild card as I type this), the higher the likelihood the franchise continues in this purgatorial holding pattern instead of making some big moves one way or the other. Contending is awesome. Rebuilding is at least interesting. This limbo situation is just "meh."
Yes, there's still plenty of season left. Yes, it may not take 90 wins to make the playoffs. But until this team can stay over .500 for more than 24 hours, I'm forced to believe they simply are what they are: usually pretty good at some things, usually pretty bad at others, and almost perfectly mediocre over the long haul.
24 May 2011
Fred Wilpon sounds a lot like me
I'm a whole day behind on this, which may as well be an eon in internet time, but there's no way I can NOT address Fred Wilpon's quotes in the New Yorker which lit the Metsiverse on fire yesterday:
I'll let everyone else gasp and wring their hands over those words and the disastrous effect they'll have on the team (as if it's not in a train-wreck state of a affairs as it is), but let me offer you a fresh perspective: the owner, much like myself, has simply had it with this bunch.
It's important to keep in mind the context in which Mr. Wilpon said what he said. His team was in last place (a position they're still only a game and a half ahead of as I type this this evening), losing to another last-place team, and in the midst of a horrendous start to a season which followed two other horrendous seasons which in turn followed two horrendous endings to otherwise respectable seasons.
Should the owner of a team be saying unflattering things about his players, knowing they could be made public and set off a media circus? No, of course not. Did Fred Wilpon honestly give a rat's behind about that at the time he uttered them? I honestly don't think so. He sounded like a guy who'd crossed the threshold, a man who'd resigned himself to the fact that his team is broken and is far beyond being fixed with a minor tweak or three.
Not that he gives two whits what I think, but while I don't condone Wilpon's lack of discretion, I respect his honesty about the situation. He may be a fan, but he's not some doofus on a message board pretending a team with a below-average rotation and sitting 2 games under .500 at the end of May is somehow going to find itself in a playoff race just because its leadoff hitter is a fantasy baseball god and has a big smile. And since Wilpon's the guy in the best position to do something about it (well, for now, anyway...), that's a good thing.
The vibe I get from that part of the New Yorker story is that Wilpon has similar feelings toward his baseball team as I do toward my lawn. I water it. I mow it. I pay about $40 a month every few weeks for someone to come treat it with various fertilizers, insecticides and whatnot. I do everything I'm supposed to from March through May, but by the middle of June, there are nonetheless bare spots and thin spots, and it's overrun by that damned torpedo grass anyway. It's frustrating. Wilpon? He's spent the money, hired execs who were supposed to be brilliant, built his team a snazzy new home, and given them a TV network. Yet, he ends up with this, this, this, this and this.
Every Fall, I invariably accept that my only hope of my grass ever looking as good as I want it to is going to be to eventually kill it off, re-sod it, and start over.
It sounds like Fred's reaching for the RoundUp, and I can't say I blame him.
“We’re snakebitten, baby.”
"He won't get it." [in reference to Jose Reyes getting "Carl Craword money" as a free agent]
"Not a superstar." [in reference to David Wright]and my personal favorite:
"Shitty team"
I'll let everyone else gasp and wring their hands over those words and the disastrous effect they'll have on the team (as if it's not in a train-wreck state of a affairs as it is), but let me offer you a fresh perspective: the owner, much like myself, has simply had it with this bunch.
It's important to keep in mind the context in which Mr. Wilpon said what he said. His team was in last place (a position they're still only a game and a half ahead of as I type this this evening), losing to another last-place team, and in the midst of a horrendous start to a season which followed two other horrendous seasons which in turn followed two horrendous endings to otherwise respectable seasons.
Should the owner of a team be saying unflattering things about his players, knowing they could be made public and set off a media circus? No, of course not. Did Fred Wilpon honestly give a rat's behind about that at the time he uttered them? I honestly don't think so. He sounded like a guy who'd crossed the threshold, a man who'd resigned himself to the fact that his team is broken and is far beyond being fixed with a minor tweak or three.
Not that he gives two whits what I think, but while I don't condone Wilpon's lack of discretion, I respect his honesty about the situation. He may be a fan, but he's not some doofus on a message board pretending a team with a below-average rotation and sitting 2 games under .500 at the end of May is somehow going to find itself in a playoff race just because its leadoff hitter is a fantasy baseball god and has a big smile. And since Wilpon's the guy in the best position to do something about it (well, for now, anyway...), that's a good thing.
The vibe I get from that part of the New Yorker story is that Wilpon has similar feelings toward his baseball team as I do toward my lawn. I water it. I mow it. I pay about $40 a month every few weeks for someone to come treat it with various fertilizers, insecticides and whatnot. I do everything I'm supposed to from March through May, but by the middle of June, there are nonetheless bare spots and thin spots, and it's overrun by that damned torpedo grass anyway. It's frustrating. Wilpon? He's spent the money, hired execs who were supposed to be brilliant, built his team a snazzy new home, and given them a TV network. Yet, he ends up with this, this, this, this and this.
Every Fall, I invariably accept that my only hope of my grass ever looking as good as I want it to is going to be to eventually kill it off, re-sod it, and start over.
It sounds like Fred's reaching for the RoundUp, and I can't say I blame him.
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