5/13/20

John From Albany – Mets Breakfast Links 5/13/2020



Good Morning, Happy Birthday Bobby ValentineJeff McNeil responds to yesterday’s NY Post article, and MLB and the Players start negotiations.


Joel Sherman NY Post: MLB doesn’t make economic proposal in lengthy union meeting. ?The sides met for 90 minutes, broke, then continued for another hour, with MLB focusing heavily on the protocols for how it believes it could keep the players and support staff safe and healthy should they return to a second spring training in about a month.”

NY Post: MLB-union reopening talks: Seven key questions answered.  “Q: Wait, let’s go back to that mention of government officials and their safety/health mandates. Could these heated, high-stakes discussions turn out to be moot? Could this wind up being the baseball equivalent of a high school debate club? A: You’d better believe it, sister.”

Mets Links:


Yesterday I linked to Mike Puma’s article in NY Post: which said that Jeff McNeil could get in the way of his own Mets stardom which included how “He really punishes himself when he struggles and he doesn’t even try to hide it.” 

Jeff McNeil tweeted his reply: “I’ve been hard on myself ever since I started playing baseball. What athlete isn’t hard on themselves when they fail? I’m not ok with failure but it drives me to do better. My frustration is definitely not getting in the way of my future success, it makes me the player that I am.”

Pete Alonso also chimed in with this tweet: “You’re an all-star your first full year in the league. You will also compete to win a batting title every year. How you approach the game clearly works and will continue to work for you. It doesn’t matter what other people think. If it ain’t broke.....”

Gotham Sports Network: The ripple-effects of a possible shortened season for the New York Mets.  Writer Jordan Zides notes how the Mets are impacted by the loss of a year of Jacob deGrom at his peak, losing a year of eligibility for Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz and the pending free agency of Marcus Stroman. 

Mike Puma NY Post: Mets catcher Tomas Nido being held back by hitting woes.  “He will probably be a guy that plays 10 or 11 years in the big leagues just because he can catch and throw,” a National League executive said. “He just hasn’t made any offensive adjustments, and it’s swing first and then deal with everything later.” Mike did not mention how Nido hired Lorenzo Gardmendia and his team Gradum Baseball — based in Florida — to help him rework his swing and increase his plate production.

John Fox Mets 360.com: The 1962 Mets were bad, but were not the worst ever.  John argues that as the best players were fighting WWII, the 46-108, 1945 Philadelphia Phillies were a worse team.

WFAN.com: 7 National League Teams That Could Benefit Most From a Universal DH. “This is the lineup that, in my opinion, would benefit most from the implementation of this rule. Pete Alonso and J.D. Davis are phenomenal hitters..While Davis is one piece that could occupy that position, aging veterans like Yoenis Cespedes and Robinson Cano are much easier guys to envision in that space…Another player who is likely praying for the inclusion of the DH is Dominic Smith.


NY Post: This is where the postseason legend of Daniel Murphy exploded.  Writer Dan Martin looks back of Game 5 of the 2015 NLDS vs. the Dodgers.

Rising Apple: Mets Trade History: Getting burned by the Expos in the David Segui deal. Writer Tim Boyle feels that “Segui was an accomplished hitter the Mets seemed to let go of a little too early.”

Rising Apple: Yoenis Cespedes is the biggest winner if the NL gets the DH.

Mets.com: Mets' Top 5 right fielders: DiComo's take. 1. Darryl Strawberry, 1983-90; 2. Michael Conforto, 2015-present; 3. Rusty Staub, 1972-75, 1981-85; 4. Ron Swoboda, 1965-70; 5. Curtis Granderson, 2014-17.

Empire Sports Media: Why Does Brandon Nimmo Get Used as Trade Bait?


Metsmerized Online: Metsmerizing Moves: Asdrubal Cabrera Provided Offensive Boost. “In 2016…The switch-hitter slashed .280/.336/.474 in 141 games. His 23 home runs were tied for third on the team and his 62 RBI’s were second only to Cespedes.”

Amazin' Avenue: Memorable Mets Game: 2015 NLDS, Game 3. Granderson 3 run double and Cespedes 3 run homer lead Mets to 13-7 win.

Faith and Fear in Flushing’s Jason Fry looks at Todd Hundley’s 1996 season in “Our First Baseball Husband.”









MLB LINKS:








SNY.TV: After an ugly day for baseball, some MLB agents want a softer tone. Not every agent agrees with Scott Boras' interpretation of the prior agreement. "He does not speak for all of us," one prominent agent said of Boras' aggressive public stance.





CBS Sports: 2010 MLB Redraft: Bryce Harper, Manny Machado still top-three picks, but neither goes No. 1.  Mike Axisa suggests the Mets take Yasmani Grandal instead of their actual pick at #7, Matt Harvey.


MLB.com: Let's break MLB stars up into 'Survivor' tribes. For the Mets they suggest Mets – “Pete Alonso (physical strength): An engaging personality who set the rookie record last season with 53 homers and is nicknamed “Polar Bear?” Easy choice.”



Minor League Links:

NJ.com: Staten Island Yankees fighting for survival? Crowd trends very telling. The Staten Island Yanks not only drew among the fewest fans in the league in each of the last four seasons, but attendance at Richmond County Bank Ballpark has dropped a whopping 68.69 percent over the last decade, declining from 5,903 per game in 2009 to 1,848 in 2019.

Auburn Pub.com: Pandemic could change landscape of minor league sports, including Auburn Doubledays. “Syracuse University sports analytics professor Rodney Paul is worried about the status of others as the crisis goes on…Some of those areas that can't afford that level of team because of either population change or income change in the area or something like that changes to a different area. But my guess gets to be that the longer this goes out, the fewer of those minor league teams in total we'll have."

Asian Baseball:




Yonhap News: American left-hander pitches gem for 1st win of KBO season. Kiwoom Heroes' starter Eric Jokisch held the Samsung Lions to a run -- unearned -- over six strong innings Tuesday, helping the Heroes to a 3-2 win at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.

NC Dinos 7 KT Wiz 6 in 10 innings Aaron Altherr played center and went 1 for 5 (Box score).

Today’s game is just underweigh with Altherr back in CF (Box score).






Mack’s Blast From The Past May 13, 2014: Mets 12, Yankees 7. Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched 3 2/3 innings relief allowing just 1 run to get the win.



Born on this date:
Transactions:

New York Mets released Rickey Henderson on May 13, 2000.

New York Mets signed free agent Rick Ankiel on May 13, 2013.

1970
With two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning at Wrigley Field, Gary Gentry gives up his only hit, a short fly hit by Ernie Banks that outfielder Dave Marshall gets a glove on, but he cannot hold on to the ball. The 23 year-old Mets right-hander settles for a one-hit complete game 4-0 victory over Chicago but could have been the first hurler in franchise history to throw a no-hit game if official scorer Jim Enright had ruled differently on the blooper to left field.
2000
A day after failing to hustle, turning a likely double into a single, a disgruntled Rickey Henderson is let go by the Mets. The 41 year-old stolen base leader is batting .219 with no homers and two RBIs at the time of his release.


1972 - Buzz Capra is the winning pitcher in a 1 - 0 Mets victory over the San Francisco Giants. Capra's first major league RBI - a 2nd-inning single scoring Cleon Jones - is the only run of the game.

1980 - Ray Knight of the Cincinnati Reds hits two home runs in the 5th inning - including a grand slam - to lead the Reds to a 15 - 4 rout of the New York Mets.

2012: Another Mother's Day hero is the Marlins' Giancarlo Stanton, swinging a pink bat in support of breast cancer research, who belts a walk-off grand slam off Manny Acosta of the Mets, capping a 6-run 9th-inning rally as Miami wins, 8 - 4. And he is not the only player to accomplish the feat, as the Reds' Joey Votto also ends his team's game with a slam, completing a three-homer.


Want something else tracked here each day?  Please leave a comment below.

4 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

McNeil and Alonso nicely put Mike Puma in his place.

I read some of your posts on baseball negotiations and considerations, and decided to do a quick article on baseball restarting at 11 AM.

John From Albany said...

Great Tom. Look forward to it.

Mack Ade said...

John

Regarding Puma, he's one of those Rand Paul type reporters... nothing is ever good.

We do however have to remember that the reporters are running out of things to write about and sour articles like this are written when there are no games to report on.

I've told this story many times before.

The Mets had a table in the clubhouse where all the city sports sections would be displayed every morning to the players.

I would watch these guys kiss up to a player, ask them powder puff questions and the next morning, the player would find some vicious attack on them by said reporter in their rag.

They have earned the disrespect of the players.

John From Albany said...

Mack - The Puma piece was not that bad but the headline writer made it worse. One of the Mack's Blast from the Past I recently came across dealt with a negative story that Puma wrote about Bartolo Colon and how the players refused to talk to any reporters until Puma left the locker room.