As MLB teams take this time to finalize their strategies for free agency, they look at and reflect holes that need to be plugged on their roster. For the Mets, some holes are glaring, like the need for a consistent DH and starting pitching depth. Other roster problems can feel like an existential crisis, such [...]
Following the success of Kodai Senga transitioning from NPB to MLB, Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been every team’s favorite offseason item. He’s surpassed Shohei Ohtani as the player atop of my Mets’ wish list. While there’s some concern about signing Yamamoto necessitating the Mets having to use a 5.5-man rotation, the Mets likely have the depth [...]
1991 NOBODY BEATS THE WIZ BOB W. JOHNSON Card of the Week: Return of the Revenge of the Beyond the Valley of the Escape from the Card of the Week: Episode 1: Bob Johnson Well, it’s been over seven years since I’ve written one of these thingamabobs, so forgive the rust… In the intervening years [...]
Back in 2022, with teams forced to trim their active rosters down from 28 to 26, the Mets decided to move on from Robinson Cano despite owing him $37.5 million on his 10-year, $240 million contract, which was originally signed with the Seattle Mariners. Cano, who was 39 at the time, had only played in [...]
Please use this thread all week to discuss any Mets-specific topic you wish. Please use this space instead of going off topic on the most-recent thread.
A lot can change in a year, especially when things don’t go according to plan. Coming off a 101-win season in 2022, the Mets went all-out in spending money to compete for a World Series title. But injuries and poor performances by multiple players sank that plan and the Mets decided to pivot, trading older [...]
Biography: Last year the first thing I mentioned about Jett Williams was his height. He hasn’t suddenly had a late life growth spurt or started wearing lifts to pad his measurements but perhaps, we are overselling how short 5’8” actually is. Jett Williams cannot be compared to Eddie Gaedel, the shortest player of all time [...]
Your intrepid columnist is reading a wildly entertaining book at the moment, with the unlikely title So Many Ways to Lose. It’s a perverse history of the New York Mets, as told by a diehard fan, Devin Gordon, a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, and ESPN the Magazine, among others. Mr. [...]
2007 TOPPS WILLIE RANDOLPH With the Mets hiring a coach from the Yankees with no previous MLB managerial experience, my thoughts turned to Willie Randolph. The Mets hired Randolph following the 2004 season, in which he served as Joe Torre’s bench coach. The previous 10 years, Randolph was the team’s third base coach. And in [...]
Dan Szymborski self-describes as “Senior Writer for FanGraphs, ESPN contributor, data provider for teams/agents, ZiPSetician, gamer, exasperating, possibly the worst. BBWAA, Digital Dandy.” Dan and I have been friends for about 27 years, discussing and arguing baseball on USENET discussion boards. He developed ZiPS, the premier projection system for 20+ years, and I developed RED, [...]