The anti-Reyes sentiment is driving me nuts. I don’t want this pirate in my pants anymore.

Posts like these are why I finally decided to get an account and start commenting here. By far the best (only?) place for intelligent Mets talk.

on the length of Cory Sullivan’s swing?

the one that bothers me the most aside from MVP is the Gold Gloves which have become tainted to the point where they’re meaningless. So many of them are just handed to the status quo or the big market guy instead of looking at who really deserves them (see jimmy rollins 2007, david wright 2007, and the infamous Palmeiro incident to name a few).

People in NY seem to think they are some flawless team that never makes mistakes. I live in Philly so I seem them play a lot. They make their fair share to be sure. They are still better defenders than the Mets, but that is a seperate issue. Most notably everyone’s poster boy for grission and “playing the game right” Victorino makes Reyes’ fundamentals and baseball IQ look flawless.

NY writers need to stop kissing the Phillies asses all the time.

Sidenote: on Philly sports radio they were saying how they would trade Utley long before they would consider trading Howard … thought that was really funny yesterday.

His ability and the sheer joy that is Jose Reyes playing baseball would, in any sane world, be celebrated.

It’s hard to determine what motivates the strange contempt. Is it an anti-New York thing – why not Jeter, then? Is it reflective of a general discontent about the team coming up short – why not David? Is it the racist resentment of Latin players – he exemplifies Latin exuberance – that dismisses their “unearned,” i.e. natural talent? I can’t think of a counterpoint here. Pedro is celebrated now, but has absorbed a lot of hate in his career.

I don’t know. But it seems clear that when people look at Jose, they’re not just seeing a guy who plays baseball really, really well, and entertainingly, to boot.

People want to him to put a season together where he hits .325, gets on base at about .385, and where maybe he even slugs .500, because he is good enough to do all those things, it just hasn’t happened yet. What he’s done is outsanding so far, people are just not satisfied. The next 4-5 years of his career (age 27 to 31) should be his best, it really depends how his legs hold up. But, what he loses in his legs, he could still gain power and become a more disciplined hitter. You can’t trade a guy like this, a SS who’s entering his prime. Remember the type of year Jimmy Rollins put together at age 30? Reyes is not done by a long shot.

preaching to the choir here buddy

Page 2 of ESPN wrote an alternate story in the offseason if Beltran hit that curve ball in 2006 (Lukas, I think?) instead of looking at it, where they go on to have a three peat (2006-08). When I find it, I’ll post it.

a) he doesnt always run out grounders, which drives me crazy when any player does it, but he seems a bit more prone to this sort of lapse.

b) sometimes it looks like he’s becoming a bit too enamored of the long ball, and his swing gets a bit uppercut-y . He plays his best when he hits line drives, but it seems like after he hits a line drive HR he tends to hit a lot more fly outs for a while after. I’m never one to complain about a home run (even though they’re rally killers) but its not really his game. He needs to stick to the level swing that he does so well. Then again this is all observational, and the numbers may not bear out my argument, but this is what it seems like to me.

These things being said trading reyes would be an excruciatingly stupid move unless we got something ridiculous in return for him. He’s an excellent player, and assuming all goes well with his recovery id like to see him as a met for as long as we can hold onto him (although i’ll continue to complain when he has a mental lapse)

is that I cannot understand for the life of me why Country Time™ seemed to skate by without much criticism. He was less than dynamite down the stretch the past several seasons with his “dead arm” periods and bouts of ineffective pitching. Reyes never got a day off down the stretch for “dead legs” even though he was clearly fatigued. And you know it’s not like the NY press didn’t have ready-made templates for “collapsing closer” stories ready to print from the Benitez years.

That’s the thing about unfair criticism I suppose. It’s not just that people who don’t deserve all of it get more than their fair share, while others who deserve at least some get none of it or very little.

For the record, I’m not saying that Wags wasn’t a dynamite reliever. He was absolutely. He was simply no less fallible than Beltran, Reyes, or Wright. It’s also clear that the scribes around town were soft on him by comparison because he was good for a quote.

Clearly, what has been with the Mets has not worked. We haven’t seen a championship. Now, I don’t think anyone is advocating giving Reyes away. But they should consider trading him for a pitcher like Matt Cain, if only to change it up. Baseball is entertainment. This Mets team isn’t entertaining. The status quo isn’t working, and Stark’s article made a good point: the tradeable players are players the Mets don’t want to trade, but the players the Mets want to trade are untradeable. So if they don’t trade Reyes (because Wright and Beltran aren’t going anywhere), then it’s going to be the same shit next year. Change it up.

but of course Sullivan and Santos in the lineup tonight

I absolutely agree with you about how these season awards have basically become meaningless to a lot of the fans, and that the fact that they come up when people talk about the Hall of Fame is a terrible injustice to the players. The Gold Gloves are basically a joke, yet people will say “Gold Glove first/second basemen” etc and act like that players defense is better than everyone else’s in the league. This is especially important Hall of Fame wise, because by the time players get voted into the Hall of Fame, a lot of the defensive plays/defensive consistency will be forgotten or not recorded very well etc. and so people just fall back on these stupid awards.

I think that Blogs, (this blog or others generally), should come up with various awards (or even just rankings) or some other way of valuing players in a flashy manner. It would be nice if we could rely on the BWAA having some clue about what is going on, but that is a dream at best. It is ridiculous that they determine who goes in the Hall of Fame or not.

Sorry for the rant ;)

Even if you think we can’t improve because of all the bad contracts and the only way to improve is by trading one of the big names, as long as the same idiots who run the team are running it they’re more than likely going to find a way to screw up with whatever new pieces we add.

You’d absolutely have to get back an above avg. shortstop, and how many are out there that teams are willing to part with? Maybe Texas would offer up Andrus, but most likely there’s no way that shortstop void would get filled.

 I’d argue that even with his salary, Beltran would be the better guy to trade. A team like the Yanks, Sox or Cubs could handle his salary and provide the prospects or pitching in return. Not advocating they trade him, just saying. Plus, his stock is also low now, so it wouldn’t make sense. The Core has to come back next year (minus Delgado).

“They need to think character, and bring in high-character players,” said one baseball man we surveyed. “The single greatest difference between the Phillies and the Mets is that the Phillies have guys in their clubhouse who care about each other and they’re all about winning. The Mets don’t have nearly enough guys like that.”

Was that “baseball Man” Steve Phillips?

1) Nick Evans’ lefty splits are kind of a fluke. I guess I see your point it’s probably better to play him than Cory Sullivan, but we’re in big trouble if Evans is anywhere near the starting lineup next year, even in a platoon role. His numbers vs. lefties will come back to earth, and ridiculously-small-sample-size UZR numbers aside, he’s not a very good outfielder. I can see him as a 5th OF / backup 1B type at best. I’m consistently puzzled at all the Nick Evans love on this site.

2) I’ve decided not to care about postseason awards. It’s not worth the energy to get upset about them.

3) Jose Reyes is both awesome and fun to watch.

4) The logic from the Stark piece is ridiculous and terrible. It goes “If the Mets don’t trade anybody, they are screwed. The Mets can’t trade anybody other than Jose Reyes. Therefore, the Mets must trade Jose Reyes.” This is wrong for 2 reasons. First, they aren’t necessarily screwed if they don’t make a big trade (well, maybe they are but I’ll be optimistic because…), second, they are even more screwed if they trade Reyes, because there’s no way they are going to get fair value for him in the trade market. If anything, the team’s performance without Reyes this year should show how much they need him.