Tom Brennan - PHILL KILLS - Phillies Mets Killers, and MLB's Lockout Sales Pitch

 

The Despicable My. Utley

The Mets could have had a great multi-season stretch.  

They finally shook off the pesky Braves, had a great team in 2006, cut short by Adam Wainright, and in a few years thereafter, they were sitting with big leads late in those seasons - until the Phillies' Mets Killers strangled them.  

The Mets lost the Division to the Phils by a single game in 2007.  And 3 games in 2008.

Three very potent offensive forces bedeviled the Mets:

Jimmy Rollins, 2007 MVP, killed them over 18 games: .346/.391./667, 15 runs, 15 RBIs.  Ouch.  He had a quieter 2008, hitting .278 against the Mets, but he killed them in 2007.

He was always a tough opponent against the Mets.

Chase Utley?  Well we all know that Ruben Tejada won't be naming any of his children Chase.

Dirty Utley had 14 RBIs in 17 games in 2007.  That really hurt.  Then he racked up 5 HRs against them in 2008, but he killed them more indirectly that season with 78 extra base hits, 104 RBIs, and 113 runs scored in a huge season.

Ryan Howard was also a killer opponent against the Mets; in 2007 and 2008, he totaled 95 HRs and 282 RBIs.  Lou Gehrig power numbers.  Of course, he was slipping in those seasons compared to 2006, when he slugged 58 and drove in 149.  Ruthian.

The Mets contained him to 4 HRs and 10 RBIs in 2007, but it took 16 walks to do it.  They held him to just .219 in 2008, but he managed 6 HRs and 15 RBIs.

In 661 career at bats against the Mets, he was a major Mets headache, with 48 HRs and 136 RBIs.  Killer.

Other guys who were highly dangerous in those 2 seasons were Pat Burrell (who had 63 HRs and 183 RBIs spanning those 2 years) and Jayson Werth.

Further back, Hall of Fame 3B Mike Schmidt got to face Seaver, Koosman and Matlack a lot, and somehow still managed to destroy the Mets to the tune of 49 HRs and 162 RBIs in 910 at bats in his career.  Many a time, I found myself watching one of his at bats and yelling, "Oh, Schmidt!"  Having Greg Luzinski as a teammate against the Mets (25 HRs, 96 RBIs) was often more than the Mets could take.

And a little earlier than that, slugger Phillies Dick Allen pounded the Amazin's.  Playing for the Phils and a few other teams, he had 33 HRs, 94 RBIs, and hit .294 in 517 at bats, with a .587 slugging %.  

My most-remembered Allen blasts were the rocket he hit well past the light stanchions in Shea, and the ones he ripped one game in the Phils' old 1960s park where he smashed two flyouts to the 447 mark in dead center and then cleared the 447 mark (and roughly 20 foot fence) his next time up (in a game I believe took place in 1968).  STRONG.

One (mostly) Phillies hurler whom the Mets handled well in his career was HOF Steve Carlton, who had an amazing 66 decisions against the Mets, but going just 30-36.  Against the rest of baseball, he was a much better 299-208.  The Mets (and Ron Swoboda) often had his number.

Lastly, there was HOF Roy Halladay.  He spent most of his career excelling with Toronto, but then went to the Phillies.  Against the Mets, he went 9-3 overall.  In 2010 and 2011, he won 39 games and lost far fewer for the Phillies, a big reason they won the division and left the Mets, who looked so dominant in 2006 and most of 2007 and 2008, in the dust.

The Mets had their way against the Phils in many seasons since 1969, but that stretch of several years, starting with the 2 collapse seasons of 2007 and 2008, was a real killer to me and many other Mets fans, administered by Phill Killers.

Those Phils made me Phorcefully and Phragrantly Phart. 

P.S.

Commissioner Manfred's letter to fans: what do you all think?

To Our Fans:

I had hoped against hope that I would not have to be in the position of canceling games. We worked hard to avoid an outcome that is bad for our fans, bad for our players and bad for our clubs.

I want to assure our fans that our failure to reach an agreement was not due to a lack of effort on the part of either party. The Players came here for nine days, worked hard and tried to make a deal. I appreciate their effort.

Our committee of Club representatives committed to the process, offered compromise after compromise, and hung in past the deadline to exhaust all efforts to reach an agreement.

So far, we have failed to achieve our mutual goal of a fair deal. The unfortunate thing is that the agreement we have offered has huge benefits for fans and players.

We have listened to the Players Association throughout this process. A primary goal of the Players Association has been to increase pay for younger players. As I have said previously, we agree and share that goal. We offered to raise the minimum salary to $700,000, an increase of $130,000 from 2021. We offered to create an annual bonus pool of $30 million for the very best young players. In total, we are offering a 33% raise to nearly two-thirds of Major League players and adding more than $100 million annually in additional compensation for younger players.

The proposal also addressed player and fan concerns about issues like service time and competitive issues. Baseball would for the first time have a draft lottery -- the most aggressive in professional sports. Also, for the first time ever, we agreed to an incentive system to encourage clubs to promote top prospects to their Opening Day rosters. We also proposed that the first and second-place finishers in the Rookie of the Year voting in each league would receive a full year of service.

The MLBPA asked to make free agency more robust. For the first time ever, we agreed to eliminate direct draft pick compensation, a change the MLBPA has sought for decades. On the Competitive Balance Tax, we offered a significantly larger first-year increase than in the last two agreements, bearing in mind that the Competitive Balance Tax is the only mechanism in the agreement that protects some semblance of a level playing field among clubs.

The International Draft would have more fairly allocated talent among the clubs and reduced abuses in some international markets.

We also listened to our fans. The expanded playoffs would bring the excitement of meaningful September baseball and postseason baseball to fans in more of our markets. While we preferred a 14-team format, when the format became a significant obstacle, we listened to the players’ concerns, and offered to compromise by accepting their 12-team format.

Finally, we offered a procedural agreement that would allow for the timely implementation of sorely needed rules like the pitch timer and elimination of shifts to improve the entertainment value of the game on the field. And we agreed to the universal DH.

So, what is next? The calendar dictates that we are not going to be able to play the first two series of regular season games and those games are officially canceled. We are prepared to continue negotiations. We have been informed that the MLBPA is headed back to New York meaning that no agreement is possible until at least Thursday. Currently, camps could not meaningfully operate until at least March 8th, leaving only 23 days before scheduled Opening Day.

We played without an agreement in 1994 and the players went on strike in August, forcing the cancellation of the World Series. It was a painful chapter in our game’s history. We cannot risk such an outcome again for our fans and our sport.

The Clubs and our owners fully understand just how important it is to our millions of fans that we get the game on the field as soon as possible. To that end, we want to bargain and we want a deal with the Players Association as quickly as possible.

Do you buy their case?

(Me? I like Steve Cohen...

But I am fans of PLAYERS, not OWNERS.)  

Or do ya think the players' positions have far more merit?