2/9/22

Mets News and Breakfast Links 2/9/2022

 

Photo by Trevor Williams via twitter

Good Morning.  Baseball Lockout - Day 69. Happy Birthday to Mookie Wilson, Todd Pratt, and Danny Muno.  The Mets bring back Old Timer's Day, Ex-Met Gerald Williams passes away, Joel Sherman has a great idea to end the Lockout, and Pete Alonso thanks Pandemic Hospital workers.    

Section Links: Mets Links, MLB Links, and This Day in Mets History.

Mets Links: 

As we had yesterday on Mack's Mets, the Mets are bringing back Old Timer's Day, Saturday, August 27th at 5 PM.







NY Post: Mets’ lengthy Old-Timers’ Day roster might be missing Lenny Dykstra. 

NY Post: Dykstra responded to The Post’s story on Twitter via a reply that included a GIF of a smug and strutting “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan from his NWO days and the caption: “@Lenny Dykstra You should show up with Wally Backman like ….” Dykstra then offered the idea of a different type of get together with, him, Backman and fellow ’86 teammates Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Kevin Mitchell. “Could you imagine if me, Wally, Doc, Straw and Mitch all just said ‘f–k that’ and instead partied in the parking lot with fans?”






Metsmerized Online My Top 50 Mets Prospects: 50-46 Features Multiple Intriguing Arms:  Michael Mayer provides backgrounds on No. 50 Christian Scott, RHP; No. 49 Nick Meyer, C; No. 48 Willy Taveras, RHP; No. 47 Levi David, RHP; No. 46 Robert Colina, RHP;

Baseball America: Mets Shortstop Ronny Mauricio Reaches Next Level. "In September, the Mets finally elevated the 20-year-old to Double-A Binghamton, where he hit .323/.364/.452 in eight games. “He needed to go to the next level,” a major league talent evaluator said. “That kind of pushed him. He felt he was left behind when (Brett) Baty left and (Mark) Vientos (skipped the level) and he was stuck in Brooklyn. Once he changed gears, he started turning it up.”

FanGraphs: deGrom-Theoretical Optimality in Two-Strike Counts

SportSpyder Mets Links: 

MLB and SportSpyder NL East and MLB Links:

NY Post: MLB, union regroup with labor talks set to resume after owners’ meetings. "...the commissioner launched this three-day get-together by huddling with many of his industry’s owners regarding myriad matters...The players, meanwhile, are holding strategy sessions in Florida and Arizona...Negotiations are expected to resume, if not improve, after the conclusions of the meetings at the end of this week. It is the owners’ turn to make a counterproposal after the players declined their request to turn to a third-party mediator."

Joel Sherman NY Post: Rob Manfred must use his power to offer players an olive branch. "I would pick service time-manipulation. Why? Because the commissioner (and all the owners) should care as much about the best players being in the majors as the union. It is competitively and ethically the right thing to do. And with MLB (like all sports) doing a full hug of gambling, do you really want to open the can of not employing your best players? "








AP Sports: Prosecutors: Former Angels employee lied after Skaggs’ death. "Eric Prescott Kay’s lead defense attorney said his client didn’t give Skaggs drugs that night and there was no way to know whether the fentanyl Kay is accused of providing was the cause of Skaggs’ death in Texas....Defense attorney Reagan Wynn told jurors Kay entered Skaggs’ hotel room in a Dallas suburb on June 30, 2019, to find the pitcher sitting at a table with lines of powdery substances in front of him. Wynn said Skaggs told Kay a drug Kay didn’t recognize was something he had shared with Matt Harvey, who pitched for the Angels that season".

AP Sports: Ventura: ‘Natural reaction’ to suspect burly players of PEDs. “I think that would just be a natural reaction,” he said Tuesday. “I think even when there was testing, somebody showed up big, I think people still questioned that. So I don’t see any reason why that would change.”

MLB.com:

MLB Trade Rumors:

Yahoo Sports:

ESPN:

The All-Sandy Koufax Team: Players who dominated most during their peak years


SportsSpyder:


Today in Mets History Per Ultimatemets.com: 

Born on this date:

Transactions:

New York Mets signed free agent Clint Hurdle on February 9, 1987.

Anaheim Angels signed Jason Middlebrook of the New York Mets as a free agent on February 9, 2004.

New York Mets signed free agent Chan Ho Park on February 9, 2007.

New York Mets signed free agent Frank Catalanotto of the Milwaukee Brewers on February 9, 2010.

New York Mets claimed Jason Pridie on waivers from the Minnesota Twins on February 9, 2010.

Centerfield Maz:  Mookie Wilson: Mets Team Hall of Famer & 1986 World Series Hero (1980-1989) Coach (1996-2011). 

Centerfield Maz: Mookie Wilson & Bill Buckner: From the 1986 World Series Game Six to A Friendship. 

Centerfield Maz: Todd Pratt: 2000 N.L. Champion Mets Back Up Catcher (1997-2001). 

Centerfield Maz: Remembering Mets History (1999): NLDS Game #4: Todd Pratts Dramatic Walk Off HR Clinches Series.

Want more?  Check out https://sportspyder.com/mlb/new-york-mets/news. 

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5 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Funny that the article on Top 10 prospects in 2023 has Alvarez at # 2 and, of course, a Yankee (Volpe) at # 1.

Sad about Gerald Williams.

Great about Murphy and Piazza, and if they want to play in the actual Mets game on Old Timers Day, fine by me. Very weird that they weren't born (Murphy not even close) when Frank Thomas as a veteran hit 34 for the Mets in 1962.

Is Harvey in legal trouble? Geesh!

I did not read the article on Megill and Peterson starting out in the minors this year. Uhh, no.

Day 69? Time to release the hostages and send them to minor league camps for processing.

February 9, 2022 at 7:40 AM
John From Albany said...

Thanks Tom. Love the Joel Sherman piece. If only Manfred would do what he suggests.

February 9, 2022 at 7:46 AM
Tom Brennan said...

John, Sherman's point was a good one. Imagine if Alonso had been held back to have him hit free agency a year later? While it might be perceived as shrewd business, it takes most guys long enough to get to free agency anyway. Add a year to Pete and he wouldn't get to free agency until age 31. SO many players are on the verge of decline at age 31, and that would be reflected in most guy's next deal at that age.

Pete should be a free agent at age 29, which means no artificial holdback in 2019, which thankfully didn't happen, AND a year sooner than that. I think though that if you allowed an Alonso to become a FA at age 29 rather than 30 under a new CBA, the maximum next contract should be 5 years.

I also very much like my idea of adding a player's WAR X $200,000 to current second and third year. Based on Alonso's rookie year, he would have made $1.7 million in year 2 rather than the $600,000 he did make. Reward the friggin' top performers!!!!!! Why should Alonso and Luis Guillorme make essentially the same amount per game in their first 3 seasons? Insane.

February 9, 2022 at 8:50 AM
TexasGusCC said...

Tom, the creators of the WAR stat might sue MLB. They are on record as saying that they don’t want the pressure of their stat being a cause for payment, it’s not fair to them as WAR is a stat that is kind of evolving. I can’t blame them for this.

February 9, 2022 at 10:01 AM
Tom Brennan said...

Gus, I was not aware of that, and it makes sense. But then MLB can come up with its own calculation of something akin to WAR that owners and players can agree upon.

A simple alternative could be to come up with some sort of MLB player ranking (for all MLB players in a given year) after year end, and for those first two years, assign a value to where a guy falls on the list. I'd think that Pete had to be top 20 after the first year. Maybe a top 20 showing would add $1 million to a guy's minimum, but only for first and second year guys for their 2nd and 3rd years' contracts.

A guy who is ranked 21-50 gets $750,000 more than minimum, 51-100 gets $500,000 more and 101-150 gets $250,000 more.

In this model, a second year guy who is somehow valued as the 120th top major leaguer, which averages out to being the 4th best player on his team, he gets $250 added to his 3rd year contract. Well deserved added $$.

The alternative, doing nothing so Pete hits 53 and drives in 120 in year one, but really gets almost no raise off of a very low (relative) salary base to me is completely unacceptable. I would like to work in some sort of reward for excellence. People work for companies, many get bonuses early on if they hit the ground running and are highly productive.

Of course, younger players cannot then start bitching that their teams are not playing them enough to get high up on these lists for "bonus" purposes. Teams need to run their line ups the way they see fit..

February 9, 2022 at 10:50 AM

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