Keith Hernandez, SNY reach an agreement
A person familiar with the situation said on Monday that Hernandez and SNY, the Mets' cable station, have agreed in principle on a contract that will extend the color commentator's relationship with the club and the network through at least 2011.
Attention all women: get out of the dugout and into the kitchen; Uncle Keith is coming back!
The best news to come out of this is that we can keep up the Gary, Keith, and Ron Drinking Game. Hoo-ah!
Where's the outrage?
So many sportswriters got their panties in a bunch over Keith Law leaving Carpenter off his ballot, what about Ben Zobrist on the MVP ballot? I'm glad Joe Mauer won and would have voted for him, but Zobrist was clearly the second best position player in baseball this year, yet he was left off 17 ballots and his highest vote was 6th. The top three in AL MVP should have been Mauer, Zack Greinke the Zobrist. At least the right guy won.
about 9 hours ago
Evan_S
36 comments
0 recs
Amazin' Avenue Caption Contest: Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, and Marc Anthony?
by Eric Simon on Nov 23, 2009 2:22 PM EST
41 comments
Caption the picture above. No cursing, please (if you can say it on network teevee, you can say it here). The best caption (as chosen by us) will win a copy of the Bill James Handbook 2010, courtesy of ACTA Sports. You can read our review of the BJH here. Contest ends at high noon tomorrow (11/24).
41 comments | 0 recs |
Free Agent Reliever Valuation
by Eric Simon on Nov 23, 2009 1:21 PM EST
44 comments
Wins Above Replacement is a little iffy for relief pitchers, but nevertheless here is a rudimentary WAR valuation of some of the more attractive free agent relievers. The '5-3-1 WAR' is a weighted average of the past three seasons.
| Player | 2010 Age | WAR 2009 | WAR 2008 | WAR 2007 | 5-3-1 WAR | WAR $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rafael Betancourt (A) | 35 | 1.4 | 0.2 | 3.2 | 1.2 | 5.4 |
| Rafael Soriano (A) | 30 | 2 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 5.4 |
| Trevor Hoffman (A) | 42 | 1.5 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 4.6 |
| Kiko Calero | 35 | 1.4 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.8 | 3.8 |
| Jose Valverde (A) | 32 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 3.7 |
| Brandon Lyon | 30 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 1.5 | 0.8 | 3.6 |
| Mike Gonzalez (A) | 32 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 2.6 |
| Russ Springer | 41 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 1.2 | 0.5 | 2.4 |
| J.J. Putz | 33 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 2.3 | 0.5 | 2.3 |
| Chan Ho Park | 37 | 0.7 | 0.3 | -0.1 | 0.5 | 2.2 |
It's hard to justify giving up a high second-round pick (somewhere around #45-50 overall) to sign any relief pitcher, let alone a setup man, so while Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez may be two of the better relievers available, their price tags combined with the compensatory draft pick penalty renders them far less appealing than they might otherwise be. Of course, if the Mets sign another Type-A free agent -- Matt Holliday, e.g. -- then they'd be forfeiting a third-round pick instead.
Brandon Lyon, Kiko Calero, and, yes, even Chan Ho Park, are reasonable alternatives to the Type-As on the board. Lyon in particular is intriguing for his effectiveness against lefties (career .766 OPS against righties; .765 against lefties). He's not a great pitcher, but he's pretty good against everyone. Calero has more dramatic lefty/righty splits, but has far better strikeout rates (albeit with worse walk rates) than Lyon.
Park was very effective coming out of the bullpen for the Phillies last season, posting a 3.25 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 38 appearances, allowing just nine extra-base hits -- all doubles -- along the way. The zero homeruns were probably an aberration for Park, who has been an extreme flyball pitcher throughout his career.
Any of these three -- Lyon, Calero, Park -- could be a reasonable addition to the 2010 bullpen on a 1-2 year deal at $2-3 million per, give or take.
44 comments | 0 recs |
AAOP Update
by Eric Simon on Nov 23, 2009 12:00 PM EST
0 comments
We're still working our way through all of the Amazin' Avenue Offseason Plan FanPost submissions. Quite honestly, we weren't expecting this kind of response. We had 45 total entries (plus eight that have come in since the deadline) which, frankly, is a lot to read. I suspect we won't have the finalists (five or ten) until after the Thanksgiving break, but once we've whittled the list down to a manageable size we will post our favorites and put them to a vote.
Thanks for your patience and for the outstanding contributions. Some were good, some not so much, but it's clear that (almost) everyone put a lot of time and thought into their plans so we want to make sure we return the favor.
0 comments | 0 recs
Long Overdue Applesauce - Mets may play in Puerto Rico, Sheets and Guillen rumors, Marlins may trade Johnson
by Joe Budd on Nov 23, 2009 10:45 AM EST
in Link Dump
9 comments
9 comments | 0 recs |
The Bill James Handbook 2010
by Eric Simon on Nov 23, 2009 6:15 AM EST
17 comments
Each season, just as the World Series draws to a close the baseball annual season gets cranking, and each November 1st we get the new Bill James Handbook, an offseason tradition that stretches back for the better part of a decade now. This year, with the World Baseball Classic pushing back the start of the season -- and, as a result, the playoffs and World Series -- the 2010 Bill James Handbook (BJH) actually began shipping before the World Series was even over. I've had it on my desk for a couple of weeks -- a variety of events have conspired to keep me from thumbing through it until now -- so let's dispense with the formalities and dive right in.
If there's one word to sum up the focus of the BJH it's this: statistics. I doubt if a score of its 514 pages are primarily commentary. In this way it differentiates itself from the rest of the baseball annuals, none of which contain even half the stats of the BJH. If you're interested in more article-driven content you'll probably want to head for The Hardball Times Baseball Annual instead (review of that one forthcoming).
Here's a stat for you: 53%, which is the portion of the BJH consumed by the Career Register, which features career big league -- and select minor league -- stats for every major leaguer who was active in 2009. This section is my one major quibble with the BJH: why devote so much space to data which is readily available for free on countless websites (Baseball-Reference.com, FanGraphs, and ESPN.com to name a few)? There's really nothing beyond the 'back of a baseball card' rudimentary stats here, either. I suppose if your internet goes out and you're just dying find out how many strikeouts David Weathers had in 2003 (it was 75) it might be of marginal utility, but otherwise this section will prove useful, for me at least, approximately zero times ever. Mind you, this isn't a reason not to buy the book; you can easily disregard this section as I do and still thoroughly enjoy the rest of the book.
17 comments | 0 recs |
The Mets would love to sign John Lackey, the No. 1 starter on the free-agent market. But if they don't, they want to add from a group that includes Joel Pineiro, Randy Wolf, Ben Sheets and Jason Marquis, according to two sources with knowledge of their plans.
-snip-
The Mets aren't pursuing free agent Rich Harden, one of the sources said.
1 day ago
Sam Page
40 comments
0 recs
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NL East Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Philadelphia
|
93 | 69 | .574 | 0 | Lost 1 |
|
Florida
|
87 | 75 | .537 | 6 | Lost 1 |
|
Atlanta
|
86 | 76 | .530 | 7 | Lost 6 |
|
New York
|
70 | 92 | .432 | 23 | Won 3 |
|
Washington
|
59 | 103 | .364 | 34 | Won 7 |
(updated 11.23.2009 at 6:51 PM EST)
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Certain photos copyright © 2009 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
