Good morning.
Bruce, who will be 31 in April, is coming off a season split
between the Mets and the Indians, whom he joined via a waiver trade in early
August.
Straddling the AL and the NL, he posted a 115 OPS+ and hit 36 home runs
in 2017, a new career high (although one that loses some impact given that
virtually every player set a personal best in that mark last year thanks to the
juiced ball). Power from the left side is Bruce’s game—he’s bopped fewer than
25 home runs in a season just once in the last seven years—but it’s just about
the only thing keeping his offense afloat. His 2017 on-base percentage of .324
was in the bottom 20 of all qualified outfielders, and yet that still
represented his best showing in that stat in four seasons. His 22.5% strikeout
rate, meanwhile, was also among the league’s worst.
The Mets are not the Dodgers. They don’t have a
trillion dollars in their special checking account with the permission to spend
all of it.
Some people say the Mets diminish their
defense. That’s not true, since it was Bruce that played there last season. In
this case, they broke even.
What this gets the Mets is three solid starters
out there and two quality reserves, through 2020. Three seasons in baseball is
like three thousand seasons.
It’s a good deal.
In a study of 252 baseball professionals, researchers found
players with higher scores on a series of vision and motor tasks completed on
large touch-screen machines called Nike Sensory Stations, had better on-base
percentages, more walks, and fewer strikeouts—collectively referred to as plate
discipline—compared to their peers.
“There has been a data revolution in the game of baseball
over the past decade with the introduction of technologies that track the speed
and movement of every pitch, the location of players in the field, and other
tools that can quantify player performance like never before,” says lead author
Kyle Burris, a statistician and PhD candidate at Duke University.
Jeff Ballard has had it all. He earned a degree in geophysics from
Stanford University. He was an outstanding college pitcher who was later
inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Upon graduation, the star
athlete turned pro, notching 41 career wins for the Pirates and Orioles. In
1989, his best year, he won 18 games. Despite injuries that cut his career
short at age 30, in 2004 Orioles fans voted him one of the 50 most popular
Orioles of all time.
“That happens to be one mile from a major airport, which is
LaGuardia Airport in New York,” Dedrone VP of marketing Pablo Estrada noted on a webinar last month. “And actually (the
Mets’) challenge is aerial security of the stadium not only during baseball
events, but they have high-profile events there such as music concerts and
similar events. And they deployed the Dedrone solution not only with RF
sensors, but also video cameras. And they do cooperate very closely with their
local police department. And thus, each drone intrusion is recorded and handed
off to the local police department for further investigation — or at least ones
that they deem that are worthy for follow-up. They’ve actually been running the
solution for some time now and have had pretty good success protecting their
airspace at Citi Field.”
Be kind now with the comments about ‘Mets drones’…
Former MLB All-Star says he stepped
away from baseball to take care of ailing wife
-
Although the obvious answer would be that the 33-year-old
Navarro decided to hang up his cleats, the actual one is that he stepped away
from the game to take care of his ailing wife Sherley, whom he married when
both were teenagers.
11 comments:
Jay Bruce article grossly exaggerated at least one point: he was only 41st in strikeouts in the majors. I would gladly take that from him the next 3 seasons. Wouldn't any of us? Judge fanned 70 more times than Bruce.
Read this today - first I heard Peterson had a bad toe. Hopefully that is a non-issue in 2018:
“We’re going to continue to have a lot of confidence in our staff and what we need to do is get some of our minor league players healthy,” Alderson said. “We’ve got guys like Anthony Kay, who was a supplemental pick who hasn’t pitched, who is going to start pitching this season; David Peterson from last year pitching like one or two innings because of a bad toe."
Well if you take Sandy’s comments from last nights season ticket holders Q&A at face value it looks as Jose Reyes might be the most likely option at 2b ....
I could live with Jose, especially with his value to Amed's development.
Is there any transcript available of Sandy's full comments? He's scheduled to appear on Mets Hot Stove tonight at 10:00 on SNY. I wonder what he'll say there.
Tom -
I had never heard anything about Peterson's tow being a reason they basically shut him down coming out of school. The Mets don't like to pitch college starters because of all the innings/pitchers they have thrown in their last college season, especially if their team went deep into the playoffs.
Ed/Bill -
I think you are witnessing one of two things with that statement.
1. a hint of things to come
2. another wise ass comment at a dinner
Can they afford the dinner? :)
Regarding the vision, that goes hand in hand with recognizing the spin and also tracking the ball better since the eyes see it so match better.
Yesterday I commented on how Tony Gwynn, in an interview that included Ted Williams sitting next to him, said that he could see exactly how far from the seam he hit the ball; Williams agreed that he could also. They could say something like "quarter inch away" or " right next to it" or "on the seam", and when checked the guys were right. That is a tremendous gift and certainly helped them be successful.
The Dioner Navarro story is interesting because even at major league minimum of $500K, he could have financed a lot of medical bills, yet he felt it was more important to be there for her. She was in a coma after a stroke for 3 months and he was caring for her at home. Baseball needs more good people in it.
Texas Gus -
And... we spend so little time, if any, that the first thing to go is NOT your legs, but is your eye site.
Don't good people finish last?
Mack/Gus--
OK, I'll admit it. Eyesight was the second thing to go. :-(
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