Tom Brennan - KINGSPORT METS START PLAYOFFS TONIGHT
Ahh, Mets playoff baseball...
Even if it is in Kingsport and not Queens Port in Flushing.
Let's not quibble, OK? Mets fans take anything we can get.
The Kingsport Mets will square up vs. the Elizabethton Twins in a best-of-three series starting this evening.
The series winner will move on to the Appalachian League Championship Series next week.
The K Mets outscored the Twins squad by over a run per game this season, but the Twins allowed a run per game fewer than the K Hurlers, so it should be an evenly matched series.
Jarred Kelenic will get some valuable post-season experience. Kelenic was named Appalachian League Co-Player of the Week for August 20-26, batting .579 over six games (11-for-19). He recorded multi-hit games in each game and was on 8 game hitting and 7 game RBI streaks.
Fellow superior K Mets hitter Luis Santana (.348, with a .471 OBP) is on the DL, however. But Mark Vientos (after a great regular season, with 11 HRs and 52 RBIs in 60 games) will also get a chance to shine in this series.
Good luck, gentlemen. let's win this thing.
5 comments:
Kingsport lost the series 2 games to 1. Very talented and entertaining hitting squad.
Mack:
What's your take on this 2019 bullpen idea of mine?
I listened to Seth Lugo in an interview the other night. He got me thinking some about a new approach to relief pitching. What I came up with was to use two teams A & B, each with their own preset unit relievers.
Each unit would have a mid-reliever, a set-up, and a closer. Two teams A & B (six total players) and then one alternate reliever (7th) who could be the all purpose reliever and pitch all roles (mid, set-up, and closer) if case need be.
The purpose of these two units for relief is to allow a "unit of three" to pitch one game, rest the next, and then come back and pitch the third game.
To me right now (and this is obviously just a hypothetical example and not by any means cast in any granite) I like these relievers the most: Seth Lugo, Robert Gsellman, Eric Hanhold, Tyler Bashlor, and Daniel Zamora. That makes five relievers, all ones that we have seen up on the Mets in 2018. The MiLB Mets relievers that have caught my eye thus far are: Dave Roseboom and Joshua Torres.
Now, if you break this all down into two units: I am suggesting something like...Unit A - Zamora mid-relief, Gsellman set-up, Lugo closer. Unit B - Hanhold mid-relief, Dave Roseboom set-up, and then Tyler Bashlor closer. Remember here that this is only a tentative example to illustrate what I am referring to. In this example, Joshua Torres would be the alternate because when fully developed he probably could easily be. I'd like to have included Gerson Bautista too in this example, but he may need a little more developing.
I'd like to propose this idea to see what you (Mack) think. It would disallow certain NY Mets managers using like five or six relievers in one game, and then too sometimes for one pitch. This always seemed defeating and unnecessary to me, and if I were a relief pitcher I would not have liked that.
Anyway, in this format I am proposing, everyone has a distinct role and purpose, and the chance for arm injury may also be greatly reduced over the course of an entire season.
Just an idea.
What's 2019 NY Mets Land mean to me?
Another chance to hope that the NY Mets ownership and the new GM can build a really good NY Mets team heading into 2019 and quickly. This 2018 preseason, a few key sportswriters and sports talking heads predicted that this could easily be the Mets season to make a big surge into the 2018 Playoffs.
So what happened?
I say this because the NY Mets (second half) are playing similarly to their first fourteen games of 2018, and I find this quite impressive overall. Overall, the only games where the Mets have lost, was mainly when their bullpen wasn't very good. The bullpen here still has not been adequately remedied, although it is getting better.
The higher level competition in the NL really isn't all that great. Low level parity is preciseley where most of the NL and AL teams resided in 2018.
I really only see the Cubs and the Dodgers vying in the NL for the crown this season, with just one month from the Playoffs commencing. In the AL, I really only see Houston and Boston realistically having a true shot. I think that the Yankees could struggle to just get past the Athletics, although it could be a very close series I do admit.
But this could have been the NY Mets season to remember, a surge towards a playoff round and 2019.
The "thorny stem" may have been the excellent fourteen game beginning to this season, and then the second half since the All Star game. Thorny, because what the heck really happened in between these two parts of this season?
Was it just the usual "injury bug thing" here again? Or was it just that a decent bullpen could not be constructed? Maybe both of these two things? Or how about the possibility that some players here (all or most of this 2018 season) just never could attain a true playing consistency game to game? Hmm, makes one wonder.
Still, I stay positive and look forward to solutions heading into 2019.
In today's Red Sox/Braves game, the Red Sox scored eight runs in the last two innings to win this game.
What do the Braves lack?
A: To some extent, they need one more HR batter in their lineup (although they recently obtained Lucas Duda) and one more top-end starter. The Red Sox just got ERod back starting and looking amazing again, just off the injury list. Chris Sale is trying to get mended at current and taking things carefully slow. And David Price is pitching a lot better of recent as well.
The Red Sox bullpen ranks superior to most all, and they have the big bats, and guys like recently returned Brandon Phillips hitting a blast this game. The role players on this Red Sox team are way above most other teams in MLB.
Only Houston stands in their way to "the Big Dance."
Q: What MLB team would I advise the NY Mets management to consider as its model this off season? A: Absolutely the Oakland Athletics. If done correctly, the 2019 NY Mets could be the 2018 Oakland Athletics. Can quote me here.
Like Wheels tonight. Close game, but hopefully the Mets take it!
Where did all the talking sports heads go who nastily bashing the Mets' Zach Wheeler and hoping for the team to trade him by the All Star Break's end trade deadline?
They were all incredible idiots! (Who were you going to replace Wheeler with? He's the second best starter here right now.)
This Off Season...
Get a trade for Miami's JT Realmuto. This is a young team, JT is young. Put a trade together that could do this.
Get a trade for another top-end lefty starter (forget Snell because he ain't going nowhere but back to Tampa Bay)
Then make Seth Lugo the team's closer.
Bring Dave Roseboom up, for a look soon so he can be gauged. Will need him for a possible set-up role in 2019.
Keep an eye on Yoenis' for a 2019 return.
Send McNeil, Roseboom, G. Bautista, E. Hanhold, J. Torres, A. Gimenez, P. Alonso, and Drew Smith all to Winter Ball.
(Shake and stir)
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