Creative and new ideas and solutions often seem to come along as a result of limitations. Limitations are what forced Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta to architect ‘Moneyball’ in Oakland in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. After the rest of the league seemed to catch up with the A’s in the mid-2000’s, they came [...]
A few weeks ago, a Met blogger put forward a case for Met fans to vote Collin Cowgill for the 2013 All-Star Game because his name will be on the ballot for the duration of the voting period. This despite Cowgill being demoted to Triple A on May 3rd, after 19 games and a .157 [...]
Juan Lagares made an outstanding catch a few nights ago, saving at least an extra-base hit and perhaps a home run in a game that the Mets went on to win. He deserves all the credit in the world for making that play. However, that one play does not mean that every single thing he [...]
You know, I had a thought the other day about the Mets’ lineup. When you look up and down the order and go across the diamond, what Met players are solid no-brainer starters for almost each and every day? With the way Ike Davis is struggling, he is now teetering on the edge of becoming [...]
Yeah, yeah, yeah; another story about how amazing Matt Harvey is. Harvey is the best pitcher the Mets and their fans have seen on the hill in quite some time and things just keep getting better. The right-hander retired 27 of 28 hitters across nine shutout innings in his last start and looked pretty awesome [...]
While Ike Davis grabs all of the attention for duplicating his rough start from a season ago, almost no attention is being given to David Wright once again getting off to a terrific start. Unlike last year at this time, the Mets are under .500 and all of the buzz centers around Matt Harvey and [...]
Earlier, my friend Dan Stack made some great points regarding the promotion of pitching phenom Zack Wheeler sooner, rather than later. Your intrepid columnist can’t help but agree. Of course there’s no guarantee that Wheeler will match the near-perfect Matt Harvey in either technique or temperament – the way Harvey’s been dealing, it’s barely possible [...]
You almost have to feel bad for the Mets’ pitchers who have to follow Matt Harvey these days. With the legend of Harvey nearly growing to ‘perfect’ proportions, the rest of the staff (sans Jonathon Niese) have to be suffering from an inferiority complex. So far on the season, Shaun Marcum, Dillon Gee and Jeremy [...]
Jeremy Hefner’s overall numbers look poor this year (0-3, 4.34 ERA) but he’s pitched much better than his record indicates. He’s made five starts – and one horrid relief appearance – and three of them he’s pitched well enough to win. All three of those outings were Quality Starts and in them he threw 21 [...]
I’m not a huge proponent of invoking precedent because every situation is different… but Mets teams that wander through [May] gaining no traction have been known to Do Something. • When attendance fell through the floor in May 1983, the Mets called up Darryl Strawberry to sweeten a dour 6-15 proposition. • When masses failed [...]
We all know how the current Mets regime loves the lefty relievers. Five weeks into the season, four different lefties have come out of the pen for the Mets and the club still has Tim Byrdak and Pedro Feliciano as candidates for later in the season. The top brass has also talked glowingly about Jack [...]
Last Wednesday, Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting piece, suggesting that Lucas Duda be the Mets leadoff hitter. That, combined with Friday night’s decision to bat Justin Turner in the 5th slot in the lineup got me thinking. What would a sabermetrically optimized lineup look like on the 2013 Mets? So, [...]