Rene Rivera
is back! More on that in a minute.
Congratulations to Derek Jeter
and Larry
Walker on being elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame. They will join Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons
in the induction ceremony in Cooperstown this July.
Per
MLB.com here are other notable voting totals for players that received less
than the needed 75%: Curt
Schilling 70%; Roger
Clemens 61%; Barry Bonds
60.7%; Omar
Vizquel 52.6%; Scott Rolen
35.3%; Billy
Wagner 31.7%; Gary
Sheffield 30.5%; Todd Helton
29.2%; Andruw
Jones 19.4%. J.J. Putz
got a vote! Heath Bell
– no votes. Here
are the complete Hall of Fame Election results.
Ken
Davidoff of the NY Post says the “Derek Jeter voting debacle is peak Hall of
Fame stupidity.” Derek received 396 of 397 votes. “So who is Voter 397? For now, he or she
remains private, under no obligation to disclose…And look, should this person
declare, there will be some uncivil discourse, and that won’t be right. The low
stakes don’t merit such fury… The Griffey result felt like the last call for
such silliness, writers deciding that no one was worthy of a first-time
election or acting on some personal feud with the player or, a more recent
wrinkle, opting for “strategic voting,” the principle that Player A will easily
surpass the required 75 percent threshold without my backing, so let me go
ahead and vote for Player B because he needs it more.”
MLB.com had
the Top 10 Third Base prospects for 2020.
#6. Brett
Baty. With a “Keep An Eye On”: Mark
Vientos.
SNY.TV
says that Mets narrow managerial search to Luis Rojas, Hensley Meulens, and
Tony DeFrancesco.
The
one and only Metstradamus weighs in on Robinson Cano being involved in picking
the next Mets manager: “The inmates are truly running this asylum. Brodie
trades for his CAA client, gives away a top prospect in the process, and rather
than have his role reduced because he’s getting older he’s being allowed to
pick the manager like he’s LeBron. Well his first choice lasted three months,
let’s see if his next choice lasts to Opening Day.”
Speaking of that top prospect, MLB.com
had video of Jarred Kelenic with “the baseball equivalent of skeet shooting, in
which he hits a ball off a tee and tries to knock an airborne Frisbee to the
ground.”
Faith
and Fear in Flushing weighed in on the sign stealing controversy. Greg Prince
includes this piece of history: “The first time I remember a specific mention
of stealing signs was sometime after August of 1984, the month the Mets went
into Wrigley Field and were swept four games, basically settling the National
League East for the year. Sometime later I read an assertion by a Met that the
Cubs had stolen the Mets’ signs, something that fell in the darkest gray area
of baseball’s do’s and don’ts.”
Brian Joura of Mets
360 looks at the 2020 projection of Robinson
Cano. Here is his prediction: “440 PA; .265/.320/.440; 19 HR; 70 RBIs.” I’ll take it.
Rising
Apple said that the Mets need to put the manager search on hold and talk Nolan
Arenado trade.
Mets
sign Rene Rivera to a minor league contract. “The well-traveled 36-year-old…smacked
25 home runs in 396 plate appearances” for the Syracuse Mets last year.
The
SF Giants Sign catcher Rob Brantly To Minor League Deal. “Last
season, Brantly threw out 35 percent of runners who attempted to steal against
him in the minors — up from his career mark of 32 percent. He has a lifetime 27
percent caught-stealing rate in the Majors”.
Last night in the Dominican
Republic, the Final Series got underway with Phil Regan’s Toros
Del Este beating the Tigres
del Licey 6-3 in 11 innings (box).
Jordany
Valdespin played right field and went 0 for 4 with 2 walks and 2 Ks.
Tim
Peterson got the win going one scoreless inning with one strikeout.
Ramon E.
Ramirez got the save going one inning giving up a hit and a walk without
allowing a run.
No Games last night in Puerto Rico.
Mack’s
Blast From the Past comes from January 2013: Mack looked at “The Quiet and
Beauty of “Pitchers and Catchers” Reporting”. Great stuff.
UltimateMets has the date
in Mets History:
Born on this date:
- Wayne Kirby (1964)
- Corey
Gaconi
(1997)
- Reyson
Santos
(1999)
Died
on this date:
- Tommie Agee (2001)
Transactions:
New York Mets traded Mark Carreon and Tony Castillo to the Detroit Tigers for Paul Gibson and Randy Marshall on January 22, 1992.
New York Mets traded Mark Carreon and Tony Castillo to the Detroit Tigers for Paul Gibson and Randy Marshall on January 22, 1992.
New
York Mets traded Yudith Ozario, Erik Hiljus and Eric Ludwick to the St. Louis
Cardinals for Bernard
Gilkey on January 22, 1996.
New
York Mets signed free agent Alex
Cora of the Boston Red Sox on
January 22, 2009.
New
York Mets traded Brian
Stokes to the Los Angeles
Angels for Gary
Matthews on January 22, 2010.
New
York Mets signed free agent Antonio
Bastardo of the Pittsburgh
Pirates on January 22, 2016.
Want more?
Check out https://sportspyder.com/mlb/new-york-mets/news.
Good morning John.
ReplyDeleteR.I.P. Tommie Agee. My favorite Met when I first became a fan in 1971.
Same here. Thanks for checking in.
ReplyDeleteStrategic voting in the HOF balloting, where for the past few years and for the forseeable future there are more worthy candidates than slots available on the ballot, is an intelligent solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.
ReplyDeleteIt shouldn't exist because there are clowns among the electorate who vote for three guys when there are 14 or so that one can make a solid case for induction. And they'll say something like, "I'm a small Hall guy." And then turn around and vote for someone who's not even close to the top 7 or 8 eligible. Or they'll turn in a ballot with their hero and no one else.
The writers are morons but the real problem in the HOF itself. When this problem became predictable a decade or so ago, they could have moved decisively. They made a rule that anyone on MLB's ineligible list was not eligible for the Hall. They made that rule - which is not what I would have done but at least it was decisive and fixed the problem - for one person.
Now we have all of the guys caught up in the steroids thing and the HOF needed to make a similarly decisive move. But they did nothing. They could have said that no one who failed a drug test is eligible but otherwise no steroid penalty should be evoked. Anything that would have given clarity to the issue. Instead they've let a bunch of morons become retroactive judge and jury. If they didn't want to wade into that hornet's nest, they could have expanded the ballot to help deal with the backload of candidates. They didn't do that, either.
But the bottom line is that the HOF doesn't really care who gets in and who gets screwed. All they want is the publicity of the vote. And if there's controversy and people continue to talk about it - all the much better for the HOF.
Jeter is a deserving member of the HOF. That it wasn't unanimous doesn't mean a hill of beans. It's manufactured controversy so don't fall for it. Lou Whitaker falling off the ballot is a million times more important than the fact that one clown didn't vote for Jeter.
And if a writer strategically voted so that same Whitaker fate didn't happen to another player, I'll give a tip of my proverbial hat to that guy.
Tremendous Brian. Well said. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBrian, agreed - excellent thoughts.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, Billy Wagner?
16 years, 853 games, 2.31 ERA, 1196 Ks in 903 IP, a career WHIP under 1.00. Absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame. They're idiots.
Larry Walker on the other hand hit .334 in his 10 years in hitter paradise Colorado, and just .282 in his other 8 seasons. He hit .348 at home and just .278 away over his career. He hit a ridiculous .381 in Coors Field over 597 games, and just .282 everywhere else!
Given Walker's Colorado stats inflation, I think Wagner deserves to be in the Hall as much, or more, than Walker.
Jeter had a negative fielding stat in terms of runs allowed of nearly -200 in his career. Still think he should have been unanimous - he beat the Mets so many times.
The Rne Rivera signing is good insurance.
ReplyDeleteSanchez will not be ready on opening day to rise to the parent club. Rivera can fight out Nido in camp and the loser joins Ali in Syracuse.
Good move.