Sunday Applesauce

by Eric Simon on Aug 3, 2008 12:21 PM EDT in Applesauce

In lieu of my customary recap I decided to switch things up last night, so I did a bunch of drinking instead. If you missed the game you can read the postmortem at Newsday, The Journal News, The Bergen Record, etc.

Dan Murphy and Nick Evans will platoon in left field for the time being, with Fernando Tatis shifting over to right, at least until Ryan Church returns. The plan once Church returns is unclear, but I'm excited to see what the kids can do. Enough Endy Chavez and Marlon Anderson (who is on the disabled list now); find out if either of Murphy or Evans is ready to help this team this year or next. A hundred at-bats doesn't tell you much, but I'd still rather see either of them than Chavez or Anderson at this point.

Val Pascucci hit three more homeruns yesterday, and now has 24 for the year to go along with his .980 OPS.

Mike Lupica thinks that Carlos Beltran is the biggest offensive disappointment in New York baseball. I didn't actually read the article because I already took my morning dump, but if any of you brave souls bother to can you please enlighten me as to how Beltran's 117 OPS+ is more disappointing than Derek Jeter's 98? Those are 2008 figures, mind you. Beltran has been solid but unspectacular at the plate this season, and has still managed to post an OPS 17% better than the league at the third-most important defensive position (after catcher and shortstop).

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I hate Lupica

The more I hear/read him, the less I think of him. He’s always the first person to criticize anyone involved in sports who has done something wrong. His constant preachiness annoys me to no end. (Although his book “Summer of ‘98 is now a great read because of its constant, hilarious assertions that McGwire and Sosa restored the integrity, excitement, and positive examples in baseball.)

"I don't need to wipe everyone out, Tom. Just my enemies." - Al Pacino as Michael Corleone

by Prince on Aug 3, 2008 1:45 PM EDT reply actions

Typical

Mr. Lupica, like so many other sportswriters, still talks about batting average and RBIs as though they are important statistics. Sure, Beltran’s power is down this year. He’s slugging .454 in 2008 compared to .525 last season. That said, his OBP is up, and he’s doing a great job taking pitches this year. Already Beltran has 65 walks compared to 69 last year. In 2007 Beltran struck out 111 times compared to only 69 times this season. So he’s taken his K:BB ratio from 1.6 to around 1.1. That’s good, but did it come at expense of his power? In 2006, Beltran had 95 walks and 99 Ks. He slugged .594 with 41 homers.

In short, the only thing disappointing about Beltran this season is a slight decline in slugging percentage. His approach at the plate remains as solid as ever.

by apy5000 on Aug 3, 2008 8:15 PM EDT reply actions

Pascucci

So we haven’t called him up why? We’re using babes in the woods to plug our hole in left, when there’s a 29-year-old who’s tearing up the PCL. Who do we have to take out to get this guy in Queens?

by BobbyV_Incognito on Aug 3, 2008 11:25 PM EDT reply actions

Beltran and Pascucci

I don’t think Beltran’s decline in SLG is “slight”, it’s pretty significant. That said, he hasn’t been nearly as “disappointing” (sportswriters love using subjective words like that because they can’t be wrong) as Jeter.

I wasn’t sold on him earlier on, but at this point I’m really not sure why Pascucci hasn’t gotten a call-up. What more does the guy have to do?

by JoshNY on Aug 4, 2008 1:47 PM EDT reply actions

by the way

Since Lupica brought up performance late in the season: While he didn’t tear it up like Wright did, it deserves pointing out that Beltran did not utterly suck last September like so many Mets did. His .882 OPS was about the same as what he did over the whole 2007 season, and he hit more HR in September than in any other month of last season. Plus he had a crazy awesome August with a 1.153 OPS. So if Lupica thinks late-season performance is more important (note: false. games in May count exactly the same as games in September) then he should take note of the fact that Beltran was quite good down the stretch last year.

by JoshNY on Aug 4, 2008 1:53 PM EDT up reply actions