Friday Applesauce

by Eric Simon on Sep 12, 2008 10:35 AM EDT in Applesauce

Over at MetsGeek, Alex Nelson looks at the pitchers the Mets will face in Atlanta this weekend.

Billy Wagner is recovering from successful Tommy John surgery, and has accepted the fact that he has probably pitched his last game as a Met. There is an outside shot he could recover in time to pitch next September, and the Mets do have an $8 million option for 2010, though that would be an awful lot of money to spend on a reclamation project. I could see them bringing him back at that time on a make-good deal, though Wagner may be more interested in a closer's job anywhere.

Wallace Matthews thinks the Mets should extend Jerry Manuel beyond this year. Actually, he thinks they should have already done so by now. Just as other managers are judged by the on-field success of their respective teams, so will Manuel be given a lot of the credit for the Mets' turnaround since Willie Randolph's ouster. Surely Manuel deserves some credit, and if the Mets hold on and make the postseason this year I have a hard time believing the Mets will go in a different direction for 2009.

At The Sun, Tim Marchman breaks down Francisco Rodriguez's season, correctly asserting that his soon-to-be saves record is almost entirely an achievement of context and not of actual performance. Not that K-Rod has been bad, mind you, it's just that, well, who cares about the saves record? The Estate of Bobby Thigpen? Do you know who held the saves record before Thigpen broke it in 1990? Dave Righetti.

Also at The Sun, Steven Goldman looks at the terrific seasons of Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran, all of which have been overshadowed by Carlos Delgado's second half. This note struck me in particular:

But more importantly, Beltran has played at this high level while simply being there. He's been playing every day as the Mets outfield has disintegrated around him. There have been days this season when the Mets started an outfield of Brady Clark, Beltran, and Angel Pagan; Marlon Anderson, Beltran, and Endy Chavez; Damion Easley, Beltran, and Chavez; Anderson, Beltran, and Trot Nixon.

Gah! Marlon Anderson and Trot Nixon? We've come a long way.

The Mets are considering buying an MLS franchise to play in a separate venue from Citi Field.

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Beltran

There are some days where it felt like he was covering center-field, and half of both right and left field, just because he had to. His defense is so underappreciated because he makes it look so damn easy every day. We’ll miss the hell out of that someday, for sure.

And not to beat a dead horse here, but a quick thought on the MVP thingy after reading David Lennon in Newsday. Delgado’s 2008 numbers are eerily similar to his 2006 campaign, when the Mets made the play-offs and and Delgado finished only 12th in MVP voting to play-off missing Ryan Howard:

2006 (144 games): 89 R/139 H/30 2B/2 3B/114 RBI/74 BB/120 K/.265/.361/.548/131 OPS+

2008 (142 games): 84 R/140 H/26 2B/1 3B/104 RBI/65 BB/108 K/.264/.349/.515/127 OPS+

'Catsmeat!' he cried. 'I see it all. It was that chump, Catsmeat.'

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Sep 12, 2008 11:50 AM EDT reply actions

Beltran in center often reminds me of

by Reg Dunlop on Sep 12, 2008 12:43 PM EDT up reply actions

yeah, he fields fly balls like a site that won't allow deep linking

Preventing home runs like a .htaccess rewrite rule stops bandwidth thieves.

by anonymous on Sep 12, 2008 1:21 PM EDT up reply actions

Couldn't have said it better myself.

'Catsmeat!' he cried. 'I see it all. It was that chump, Catsmeat.'

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Sep 12, 2008 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions

that joke was way over my head

but i appreciated it none the less.

cough NERDS! cough

by kendynamo on Sep 12, 2008 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions

MANUEL

Are the Wilpons and/or Minaya considering any other manager? If not…SIGN JERRY!

If these players really chose NOT to play for WILLIE (for whatever reason(s)) and they HAVE decided to give it their all for MANUEL, why wouldn’t the front office provide MANUEL with an extension or brand new contract altogether?

Standing by for someone’s stats…

" I'm not always right. But I'm never wrong. "

by LOUtheMETandNATSfan on Sep 12, 2008 12:07 PM EDT reply actions

Evaluating the manager

I don’t know that you can really quantify the managers performance with stats. Manuel does a number of things that have me scratching my head. But since I don’t watch too many other managers on a regular basis, it’s hard to say who would make better decisions.

The players seem to play for him. He handles the media well. And, he seems to do a good job managing egos. He is not my ideal choice but I’ve come to the conclusion that there aren’t any really good managers in baseball. For the most part they are pretty useless. If the players are happy and his decisions are not completely brain dead, I guess he can stay.

At the very least he is entertaining when he argues with the umps.

by Reg Dunlop on Sep 12, 2008 2:33 PM EDT up reply actions