We’ve reached the halfway point of the 2011 New York Metropolitans’ baseball season, chronologically, if not statistically. The Mets sent two players to the game, one of which will play – a commendable showing for a team which had been predicted to act as the spittoon of the NL East and began the year five [...]
“Walk right side? Safe. Walk left side? Safe. Walk down middle? Squish, like grape.” – Mr. Miyagi to Daniel-san in the original KARATE KID So they’ve hit a season’s high in terms of winning percentage, climbing the dizzying heights of three games over .500. So they’ve taken a second step on the way to what [...]
Last night (7/4) was one of those games that felt really bad, then suddenly euphoric. Not in the same sense that Sunday’s ambush of the TGMR (The Great Mariano Rivera) was, the 5-2 win over the Dodgers (I will refrain from any snarky nicknames referring to their bankruptcy filing: there but for the grace of [...]
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" A four-run lead headed to the bottom of the eighth is supposed to be safe. To paraphrase Howie Rose, I was putting this one in the books before the eighth was over. But we know the narrative these past two weeks, don’t we? This bullpen stinks [...]
Note: The following exchange took place during Tuesday's game against the Rockies, starting with David Wright's strikeout in the top of the third inning and going on into the bottom of the third. Hernandez: "Fastball away, he can’t reach it. David has a hard time covering that outside corner. Ralph (Kiner, who was in the [...]
Sunday in the seventh inning Jason Bay came to bat with the bases loaded and he struck out to end the inning. No big deal, it happens, right? Actually, it is a big deal because it happens to the Mets more than most teams. After 34 games, the Mets rank 15th in the 16-team National [...]
How do you feel about David Wright and his start to the 2011 season? Are you happy because he has a .325/.378/.550 line and is on pace for his best season since 2007? Or are you worried because he’s doing this with a .407 BABIP and has a career-worst 8.9 BB% along with a career-high [...]
My first go round at Opening Day predictions at Mets360 did not go so well. So, I could go one of several ways: A. Try to make “easy” predictions to make me look good in hindsight. B. Make off the wall assertions and when one of them came true, trumpet the fact that I picked [...]
Remember when David Wright opened Grapefruit League play with an 0-for-13 mark? Well, after Tuesday’s two-hit performance, Wright now has a .347/.382/.633 line in 49 ABs this Spring. I think it’s safe to say that he’s ready for the regular season. In his last 36 ABs, Wright has 17 hits, for a .472 average After [...]
Former Mets pitcher Mike Hampton announced his retirement Saturday. Hampton played only one season in New York but it was a memorable one, as he won 15 games and helped lead the Mets to the World Series. His shining moment(s) with the club came in the League Championship Series, when he hurled 16 shutout innings [...]
If we polled 100 Mets fans and asked them to name their favorite player, the top two responses would undoubtedly be Jose Reyes and David Wright. Those two players came up through the Mets farm system and are dynamic players capable of doing a bunch of different things on the baseball field. The perception is [...]
Fans tend to be either overly optimistic or pessimistic. That is why it is important to look at unbiased, systematic approaches to projections. One of the best sets available are the ZiPS projections from ESPN Insider and Baseball Think Factory Editor-in-Chief Dan Szymborski. Recently Szymborski, an Orioles fan, agreed to a Q&A about his projections [...]