NY Mets

Beer and (self) loathing: Mets roundtable a unique experience

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If I had my guess, I'd say James K. is telling some sort of Bengie Molina joke right here. Also note that he appears to have lulled Sam to sleep
What do you get when you take a bunch of rabid, intelligent bloggers fixated on one maddening team, bring them together in a quaint New York City bar and turn them loose?

Sheer magic.

Okay, that may be a slight overstatement. But the first New York Mets Hot Stove Huddle – deftly promoted and staged by Amazin’ Avenue and my good friend Will Davidian of Blue and Orange, was undoubtedly a success in several ways, most notably in figuring out a way to give the team’s most passionate enthusiasts a group therapy session to work out their fears and concerns about their favorite team, and make some new friends in the process.

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Remembering how Piazza showed us all how to overcome

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A true hero

I write this sentence as I ride by the skyline in Weehawken, and even after eight years, I look at the void in lower Manhattan and still can’t believe it.

Eight years ago today was an unbelievable time for the New York area, though you don’t need me to tell you that. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. I was at home in New Jersey when my father called to tell me to put on CNN – and also to look outside, since we used to have a view of the Twin Towers from our back porch.

What I remember most about what went on around here was the way people came together. For an act that was designed to rip people apart, I find that it actually brought people together. The outpouring of goodwill from people in this area was remarkable. The atmosphere was such that everyone had to band together. For a time, we were all brothers.

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New helmet to protect players from pitches thrown at ‘ludicrous speed’

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Separated at birth...?

After taking a Matt Cain fastball to the head that put him on the disabled list for the first time in his career, David Wright returned to action against the Rockies on Tuesday with a new helmet that supposedly would protect his head better from fastballs.

And which made him look like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs.

I noticed it immediately, and then the Mets announcers echoed the observation a few innings later. This thing is enormous! Wright joked that everyone on both teams were laughing at him, but I mean, they were. Has David Wright’s helmet truly gone from suck to blow?

Listen, we’re all about safety here. A 97-mph fastball to the head could have killed Wright, and players need all the protection they can get.

But here’s the thing, to perform well in sports, you have to feel cool. And to feel cool, you have to look cool. Don’t believe me? Ask Redskins running back Clinton Portis, when he was fined by the NFL for wearing, of all things, red socks:

If you’re not looking sweet, you really can’t play too sweet.

Thank you, Clinton. So I would implore the good people at Rawlings to get their act together here. Surely you can make an effective helmet that doesn’t look like my dude is wearing a VW Bug on his head. I mean, this is going to be mandatory in the Minors next year. We can’t have all these prospects falling over because their heads are suddenly too big for their bodies.

Until then though, we need Wright to keep using this monstrosity. His head’s just too valuable to have goons like Cain scrambling his brains. In other words…

We can’t stop! It’s too dangerous!

 

Santana’s Final Destination demonstrates hard truth of pitching contracts

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Johan Santana's elbow issues in Spring Training proved to be a harbinger Other sources – like Baseball Prospectus – have started to pick up on our idea of the Mets’ season being like a horror movie. Being that we are horror movie historians of sorts, we’ve specified the movie Final Destination as a direct parallel. And following with that theme, whatever demonic force has targeted the Mets claimed Johan Santana’s valuable left elbow and Oliver Perez’s somewhat less valuable right knee this week.

Sidebar: If there’s anyone out there who thought 150-year-old malcontent Gary Sheffield would outlast Santana, much less Wright, Beltran and Reyes, he or she should promptly begin playing the horses.

Regardless, neither Santana and Perez will pitch again this season, bringing to an end a series of injuries that veered into the land of the occult.

However, these two most recent maladies, particularly that of Santana, brings to attention a couple of shortcomings of the Mets’ organizational strategy.

  1. Pitchers are too risky to make big-money investments in.
  2. There is great monetary value in a successful scouting department and farm system.

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Final Destination? Fate – with assist from WBC — has it in for the Mets

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(Clockwise from top right) Delgado, Maine, Perez, Wright, Putz, Niese, Beltran and Reyes have all fallen victim to various maladies

Never have I seen a team as cursed as this year’s Mets. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve brought it on themselves in certain ways, and GM Omar Minaya’s press conference where he called out a reporter will go down as one of the most notorious moments in New York sports history.

But it’s simply incredible to see a team completely decimated this way by injuries. It’s sad to see during the first season at a new stadium. They’re resembling the early-90’s version of this team in terms of the product they put on the field, but those teams weren’t ravaged by injuries as much as what we see here.

It’s almost like the movie Final Destination, where some sort of bad karma is picking off the Mets one by one. I’m not quite sure what they did to deserve this – Minaya’s conference came after the majority of these injuries – but God help me if I ever do the same.

To recap the grim details, here are the various appendages that have malfunctioned:

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Weekend roundup: Money in the Bank, UFC’s Forest of Fear, Incubus

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It was an eventful weekend for SportsAngle’s Esoteric and Epstein, who headed south down the GSP – not Georges St. Pierre, the Garden State Parkway – for a birthday celebration. (I won’t say how many years, but it’s rounder than I’d like) The highlight of the trip was a visit to Citizens Bank Park on Saturday night for the Phillies-Marlins game with Cole Hamels on the hill.

PHILADELPHIA – Though I’ve long heard its virtues extolled, I didn’t want to like Citizens Bank – mainly because I don’t like the Phillies – but at the end of my first trip to the park, I couldn’t help but admit that it’s a great place to take in a ballgame.

A big reason the park is such a success is that the atmosphere is fantastic. It makes an enormous difference that the Phillies won the World Series last year and look to be a strong contender again this year – fans gravitate to winners. The guest services booth told me the game was a sellout, as most games have been since May, and it creates a special environment when the seats are completely filled.

Mets fans probably won’t like to hear this, but though Citi Field was an attempt to mimic the vibe of Citizens Bank, the Mets’ lack of success and inability to develop stars have left them far behind their neighbors to the south. Even when Reyes, Delgado and Beltran are healthy, they simply don’t generate the trust that Utley, Howard, Rollins, Victorino, Werth and Ibanez do.

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Victor Zambrano Deadline Award goes to White Sox for Peavy deal

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Jake Peavy, meet Mr. Victor Zambrano

Say the name Victor Zambrano to a Mets fan, and it’s like bringing up Catwoman to Halle Berry. It’s like the Battlefield Earth of blockbuster trades.

Dial back the calendar to the day before the Trade Deadline in 2005, and the Mets made two horrendous deals. They traded for incredibly soft right-hander Kris Benson, but far worse than that, they traded future All-Star and AL strikeout leader Scott Kazmir for wild veteran Victor Zambrano, known for walking the universe and putting up decidedly mediocre numbers when he actually did find the plate.

It was the rare occasion when the moment a trade had been consummated, you already knew it was terrible. A top prospect being traded for someone not even as good – even at that time. It was like the Mavs trading Devin Harris to the Nets for Jason Kidd, except, I mean, at least they got Jason Kidd, albeit an older, slower version.

Zambrano made three starts – one admittedly great, the other two lousy – before being shut down. He went 7-12 in 2005 before his elbow almost literally exploded in his fifth start in 2006. Meanwhile, Kazmir’s debut for the Rays less than a month after the trade resulted in five shutout innings. Pitching for mostly bad teams, Kazmir is 52-43 with a 3.87 ERA and 845 strikeouts in 804 innings.

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The baseball LeBron? He’s already in the Majors

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Nobody is ever content to just enjoy what they have in sports. It’s always about finding what’s “next.” ESPN has a whole magazine devoted to this every year. Everyone searched for the “Next Jordan” for years and years, until LeBron James came along. Then it almost immediately became about finding the “Next LeBron.”

Of course, other sports had to have LeBrons of their own.  So this year we have Stephen Strasburg, the San Diego State and Team USA mound phenom who was the first pick in this year’s baseball draft. Never mind that Scott Boras is extorting the Nationals for $50 million (!), the team apparently hasn’t even communicated with Strasburg, and no young pitcher is ever even close to a sure bet.

Then we get Sports Illustrated’s cover story on Bryce Harper, some 16-year-old catcher out in Vegas who apparently is like a baseball version of Paul Bunyan. He hits 600-foot homers, throws 96 on the gun, does volunteer work and gets good grades. He sounds like me in high school, except for, well, pretty much all that stuff. We’ll see how it goes.
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Citi of dreams? Depends what you’re looking for

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After my third time at Citi Field (two games and a public workout) on Wednesday, it has become apparent that the first-year ball yard is perfect for the Mets of current vintage. By that I mean, the star of the show is most certainly not the team on the field, which is currently rather unremarkable, but rather the field itself. It’s like PNC Park in Pittsburgh, except it’s not nearly as dire a situation for the Mets.
Toney Douglas and Jordan Hill, potential Mets
At least so far. When you see the picture at right and wonder if new Knicks draft picks Toney Douglas and Jordan Hill feel like having a summer job, you know things are not going well. I mean, that pitch Hill is throwing probably had a better chance of finding the plate than many that Oliver Perez (seven walks) offered up on Wednesday.

There is zero question that at least at this point, the on-field product takes a back seat to the park experience. And to be certain, it’s great for fans. It’s a perfect place to simply hang with friends, drink a beer and sort-of watch a game.

If you’re a baseball traditionalist who scores a game by hand — probably while wearing a derby hat and smoking a cigar — this park was not designed for you. What they had in mind was a place where you can wait on a line for a “Shake Shack” hamburger while watching the game on a screen on the back of the scoreboard. A place where you can get sushi, if you’re so inclined. (I usually am, but not at a ballgame) A place where you can frequent a center-field beer garden — which, despite the flowery name, is indistinguishable from any other beer vendor.

If you simply want to sit and pay close attention to a baseball game, well, nobody’s stopping you. It’s just that in the back of your mind, you know they didn’t make the park for you. Continue Reading →