Jerry Krause and the New York Mets connection

Over the past four weeks, The Last Dance documentary chronicling the life and career of Michael Jordan has captured the minds and viewership of millions of Americans. Over the course of the documentary, fans both young and old either rekindled fond memories of Jordan, or developed a new found admiration for the former Chicago Bull [...]

Opinions on hot temperatures, hotspots and the start of the 2020 MLB season

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” The world rewards confident people, especially confident men. It would be nice if a neutral party kept score on people’s outsized confidence and then they had to wear it, like a W-L record. [...]

Wednesday catch-all thread

The owners are looking to use the pandemic to force players to accept a proposal that they've always rejected previously. MLB wants salaries to be a percentage of revenue. The players have rejected this in the past because it's a de facto salary cap. But the luxury tax threshold acts in the same way. Should [...]

The 1962 Mets were bad, but were not the worst ever

The very first Mets season, 1962, was a dreadful one. That team, which lost 120 games, is sometimes cited as the worst team ever in modern baseball history. But there is a case to be made for a different team to be the worst, specifically the 1945 Philadelphia NL franchise, which actually used the nickname [...]

Michael Conforto and the non-pejorative nature of his disappointment

In 2015, Bryce Harper put up a 9.3 fWAR. He was already a heralded player and this pushed him into a different stratosphere. Starting in 2016, Harper has put up the following fWARs: 2.9, 4.8, 3.4 and 4.6 in his first year in Philadelphia. Now, a 4.6 fWAR is a really strong mark, one that [...]

NY Mets ’til I die

In the absence of baseball, survival strategies for managing the pandemic reign supreme. As a scientist, it is hard to imagine the pathway for getting teams in isolation enough to play anytime soon. Rather than making another rear-looking assessment of past incarnations of Mets or thinking about some pathway to a 2020 season, here is [...]

The life and astounding historical trove of baseball’s GOAT statistician

Bill Weiss lived for baseball. You might be tempted to say he forgot more about baseball than anyone else knows, except he never forgot a thing. He didn't like or use computers but had an incredible ability to recall details. And he was willing to talk to anyone. For six decades, from 1945 to 2005, [...]

The 1962 Mets: What George Weiss should have done

In 1958, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants made their debuts in California, leaving behind a gaping hole in the hearts and mind of baseball fans in New York City. This massive wound that was left in their perspective fanbases lead to a new baseball franchise coming into existence in 1962, the [...]