Quick quiz: what do Dean Anna, Brennan Boesch, and Jose Martinez have in common? Answer: Before T.J. Rivera who did it this year these were the players who won the Pacific Coast League’s batting title in 2013, 2014, and 2015 respectively. SeasonPlayerTeamAVG 2013AnnaTucson.331 2014BoeschSalt Lake City.332 2015MartinezOmaha.384 2016RiveraLas Vegas.353 2016Brandon NimmoLas Vegas.352 And since none [...]
J.B. These could be the initials that live forever in Mets’ infamy. For the last few years a Mets fan would associate the initials with Jason Bay, a free agent bust that played for the team in 2010 through 2012. This year’s trade deadline acquisition is also a J.B., Jay Bruce. We Met fans may [...]
James Loney, simply put, is a below average baseball player. He started a promising major league career in 2006 (albeit in just 102 at bats) and followed it up with an even more impressive season in 2007 as a 23 year old. He showed offensive skills well better than most first basemen in the game [...]
It’s hard to believe but a good many Americans find the game of baseball slow and boring. We aficionados of the game disagree with that assessment, at least for public consumption. In our more reflective moments we realize that games have a whole lot of routine ground outs to third (OK, admittedly they are never [...]
“Not part of the plan.” Avid viewers of the TV classic “Cheers” immediately recognize that phrase. To me it’s my third favorite line from that show. My second favorite is when Sam asked plaintively, “There’s a movie?” after he went crazy reading “War and Peace” for Diane. My favorite Cheers line is one that makes [...]
When one has watched major league baseball players compete for over six decades one has seen thousands of players plying their trade. And while no two of them are identical there are so many similarities that it is easy to spot a rookie and immediately feel that he compares favorably to someone you’ve seen before. [...]
The non-waiver trade deadline was at 4 p.m. Eastern on Monday, August 1st. Since I was not working that day I had the opportunity to follow the last couple of hours viewing MLB Network and ESPN and, with tablet in lap, monitoring the Twitterverse. It was tedious sticking with MLB Network since one of their [...]
Many of the Mets360 readers participate in Fantasy Baseball Leagues. Others like yours truly are active in Strat-O-Matic. And then there’s Sandy Alderson and his subordinates who are running the New York Mets. What we all have in common in building our respective teams is the knowledge that a team has its strengths and its [...]
Bet you never expected to read an article with that title, right? In the past week and a half we have seen both major parties roll out their selections for Vice President of the United States. Donald Trump and the Republicans have tabbed Governor Mike Pence of Indiana. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats will go [...]
Hundreds, if not thousands, of books and articles have been written in the realm of speculative history, also known as “what if” history. The idea is to figure out which way things would have turned out if events did not go as they actually did. Some examples: What if - the British sniper who had [...]
My wife maintains that my columns were unduly harsh to “poor” (her adjective not mine, but it fits) Eric Campbell when he was on the Mets’ active roster. My explanation was that he was not a strong enough player to be on a major league roster, let alone one that had pennant and playoff aspirations. [...]
It has become painfully obvious that all major league teams know they can take the extra base on Mets right fielder Curtis Granderson any time they wish to. It’s become as easy to go first to third on Granderson as it is to steal second (then third) on Noah Syndergaard. Granderson is a fine player [...]