Darren from The7Line posted this excellent time lapse youtube video of him entering Citi Field before the game, circling the concourse, settling into his seat and then flashes through the game and departure. It captures visiting the ballpark from a fan’s perspective very well, I only wish he’d picked a winning game or at least spliced in some of the Mets Win! scoreboard graphics.
Hope For Next Year and Ticket Contest Winner
Congratulations to Amanda for winning the final pair of Mets tickets this season. Thanks to Seatcrew, the no-fee ticket marketplace, for providing them.
Let’s break down some of the optimistic submissions on what in 2012 we should be thankful for looking forward, starting with Amanda’s (and many others) response.
DAVID WRIGHT!!! :)
Yes, he hasn’t had a great second half, but David Wright is worthy of at least one smilie face this year. He’s having one of his best season ever, is playing great defense, and is about to become the franchise leader in hits. Don’t go anywhere David. Ever.
Todd writes:
It’s a toss up between Matt Harvey and Ike Davis. I really feel that Matt Harvey is going to be the future ace of the team, with a little more grooming he and Dickey can be on of the best 1-2s in the bigs
I already mentioned Ike Davis. Matt Harvey has definitely looked good though. It’s a pretty limited sample size, but it’s hard not to dream on what this power pitcher can do for us next year. A couple of people mentioned the rotation. It’s definitely looking like a strength for the 2013 Mets right now.
Those were the big responses. As much as that highlights some optimism, it also accents the places the Mets need to improve: bullpen and outfield.
Can We Talk About Chris Capuano?
Chris Capuano was a Met last year, as you may remember. He wasn’t a particularly good pitcher, although he had his moments. After 66 innings in 2010, Capuano came to the Mets healthy for the first time in a while and had a pretty good first half before tailing off in the second. The Mets correctly assumed that Capuano would get too much money for a near replacement level starter and didn’t retain him, but what he has become this year has been anything but average, although he does again appear to be tailing off in the second half again.
Perhaps this ‘change’ is simply him being comfortable with his body one year removed from surgery, but he’s got basically the same K/BB as last year. He’s got a career low ERA even after a sub-par second half so far. He’s throwing much more pitches in the zone, but actually getting less contact on them, and much less contact outside of the zone. It certainly seems like he’s setting up hitters better and keeping them more off balance. He’s allowed less hits overall, and less home runs.
I guess you could attribute some of that to defense, although the Dodgers defense doesn’t seem particularly awesome, just better than the Mets. Seems a big jump to attribute just to that. His FIP is better, but his xFIP is worse. (Although it’s hard to trust a stat that says fielding independent and yet gets better when fielders make plays) Is this an indictment on Dan Warthen and the Mets staff? Was there an adjustment to be made that he was unable to figure out with the Mets? I know Ron Darling mentioned on the broadcast one day that he worked with Capuano a little last year on some things, and while it’s cool that he’s helping out, it seems like a bad sign that the broadcaster is helping out the pitchers on the side. This wouldn’t be the first pitcher that struggled here and succeeded elsewhere, although maybe that’s true of every team and it just seems like it’s more with the Mets.
This is just piece of evidence against Dan Warthen’s tenure as pitching coach continuing. With all the young pitchers the Mets are going with, I’d really love to have a brilliant coach that can really nurture these guys and get the best out of them. I don’t believe Dan Warthen is that guy.
Ike Davis Charity Event, Help Fight Kids’ Cancer
Join Mets’ First Baseman Ike Davis and teammates for an exclusive benefit music concert withBillboard #1 Country Artist Lee Brice at City Winery. All proceeds will benefit Solving Kids’ Cancer and the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative.
Looks like lots of Mets players are going to attend, as well as WFAN’s Evan Roberts…and there will be booze, and guest bartenders and giveaways.
Click here to buy tickets. Looks like it’ll be a fun time.
As per this tweet, you can also make a donation directly:
“Make a $10 donation to the Ike Davis Foundation by texting “IKE” to 32020 proceeds help @SolveKidsCancer @TeamSarcoma”
Mets Ticket Giveaway via Seatcrew
It’s time for the final (from here) Mets Ticket giveaway from Seatcrew.com, The free social marketplace where fans buy and sell tickets without surcharges.
This week we’re talking about two tickets to see the Mets play the Phillies on Monday September 17th to start out the final homestand of the year.
To be eligible you have to have a seatcrew.com account as well as follow Ceetar on Twitter.
Instead of the normal prediction contest, let’s do something different.
Tell me what event or player from the 2012 Mets gives you the most hope for the 2013 season?
Send your answers to
contest@ceetar.com with the subject line ‘Optimistic Mets Fan Giveaway. My choice is going to be Ike Davis. He started so slow, but the adjustments he made and the power he contributes looks to be invaluable for the Mets going forward. You’re welcome to reuse my answer if you like. I’ll pull a random name from the hat on this Monday morning, so you have until Midnight on Sunday the 9th to get your answer in.
I’ll announce the winner and then give you my thoughts on the submissions and the future.
You can follow Seatcrew on Twitter, or like them on Facebook here.
A Thought On Mets Payroll
Look, no one has any idea what the payroll is going to be. Sandy Alderson has clearly stated they haven’t finalized numbers yet, and that he’s prepared for a number of different options.
It’s Sandy Alderson’s third year, and he’s going to start feeling some pressure to not just point this team in the right direction, but actually get them to take a step or two. The Wilpons have always seemed willing to invest in a plan that makes the Mets better. They haven’t exactly shied away from spending money in the past, and the recent drop was in part due to plummeting revenues as well as financial messes. These last couple of years are obvious exceptions to the willingness to spend money, but they DID invest more money by buying minority shares. This was always the plan, and it stands to reason that if needed the Wilpons could manage at least a slightly higher payroll if need be. Maybe that’s not the case, but it’s really impossible to say as we’re not privy to that information.
Combine those two and I suspect Sandy Alderson will pitch a plan with a slightly higher payroll, depending on if he can acquire the pieces he’s targeting, and that the Wilpons will approve that. Alderson will be selling it as a probable way to make the Mets better, which will also increase revenue if it works out. This isn’t to say the Mets payroll definitely increases; If the players Alderson wants that would increase payroll are not available, for any number of reasons, he’s not obligated to raise the payroll just because he has the green light. Which is part of the reason he’s not going to tell us what the target numbers are. (Another part being it hurts his negotiating position with free agents if they know exactly how much money he has to spend)
It actually makes sense to spend a little in 2013. Barring Johan Santana returning to Cy Young form, or Jason Bay making a run at the MVP, both players come off the books after next seasons freeing up a lot of money. It’s probably reckless to spend it all at once, and there’s no guarantee that there will be enough quality players the Mets need to acquire available to spend it. Spend a little bit above budget in 2013 with the expectation that it’ll come down again in 2014 with all the money coming off the payroll. While the Mets have a lot of money owed next year, they’ve got virtually none of it committed to future years. Spending a little this off season is not going to create a logjam of contracts or leave the Mets unable to get out from under a pile of unproductive players.
The Mets need to get better, and Sandy Alderson has suggested that the roster won’t look the same regardless of what the budget is. It’s probably more set than it seems. The infield and starting pitching look pretty good, and the bench is certainly passable with guys like Hairston and Baxter and even Turner and Cedeno. Whatever does happen with the budget, we can probably count on Sandy Alderson doing everything he can to make this team much better next year.
Ike Davis Has Been Really Good
Ike Davis had barely a full seasons worth of games under his belt before he missed almost all of last season with an ankle injury. For someone that inexperienced maybe it’s not surprising he got off to such a poor start. His second half has been amazin’ though, so it definitely gives you hope for next year.
Across the first third of the season Ike Davis was playing very badly. He’d had a hot streak to end April and a couple of good games in a row to end May, but they didn’t last long. On June 8th he finished the day batting .158. This would represent the low point for Ike Davis on the season, and perhaps in his entire career. If you recall this was during the time period that more and more of the fans and media were calling for Davis to be sent down to the minors. The Mets had given him a vote of confidence to stave off the endless questions about demoting him, but even that was starting to wear off.
Then he had a nine game hitting streak including six RBI against the Rays, two home runs, and seven walks. He did not have another multi-strikeout game again, something he’d been doing frequently, until a June 25th game against the Cubs in which he was fanned twice. However, he also homered in that game for the Mets only run.
Since the start of that streak on June 9th (through September first when I’m writing this), Ike Davis has been awesome. Specifically he’s been smashing the baseball as hard as anyone in the game. He’s hitting .270/.336/.573 in those 71 games. If he’d put up that slugging percentage for the entire year, he’d be 6th in all of baseball. Granted this is picking and choosing endpoints, but 71 games is nearly half a season and represents a sizable chunk of Davis’ major league career. He’s hit 20 home runs in those games, something that equates to 46 home runs over a full 162. You’d like to see him walk a bit more, especially since as teams catch on that he’s hitting the ball as well as any slugger in the game the pitchers are going to make further adjustments to avoid giving him hittable pitches. If he can lay off these pitches he’ll end up with more walks. Hopefully it doesn’t take him two months to re-adjust next time.
The Mets Won! Notes from the game.
I ended a Citi Field drought Saturday by making it out to the park for Mike Piazza bobblehead day. You can check him out in my new header image.
I was finally able to have the Steak Sandwich from Pat LaFrieda. It was delicious, as confirmed by a billion other people at this point. Also confirmed by others, but worth posting here for completeness’ sake, the beer selection. No new beers available, despite rumors/hopes that other Sixpoint nano-kegs would be present, but you do get Sixpoint Sweet Action, Brooklyn 16oz cans, and three pints of the mass produced variety.
The Mets won, which was nice to see. They even scored three runs! The crowd, understandably, was dead. There was no Lets Go Mets chant until the 9th inning, and the scoreboard barely prompted us to cheer. There was an annoying bunch beyond us that wanted to scream for long periods of times when Dickey struck someone out..mercifully R.A. Dickey only struck out two.
Realizing my chances were running low, I got a Carvel Sunday in an ice cream helmet, so I could add the 50th anniversary helmet cap to my collection. The ice cream hit the spot too.
Finally met Andrew Vazzano of The Ropolitans at the Read the Apple tailgate. I’m slowly working my way through most of the more well known bloggers. Who’s next?
Tejada made a really neat jump and fake on a throw to third from Scott Hairston. It kept Greene from taking an extra base on the throw, and although it’s a play that should probably be made on most chances, it’s still nice to see the Mets putting in the right effort and execution on the fundamentals.
Blog Notes:
There will be one more Seatcrew.com ticket giveaway in early September.
I’ll be out of the country for the second half of September. Likely without much internet or time. I’m probably going to schedule a bunch of baseball and beer related posts, so keep an eye out for that.
Gif: Ike Davis Spins
Ike Davis executed an excellent spin jump into the pile after his walk-off home run. Here it is in animated .gif format.
Give Me Factual Arguments, Not Boasts About Being Right
With over a month left of baseball it feels like a lot of people have already made up their minds about what the Mets should do. Not only with the rest of the season and who gets playing time, but what they should do in the offseason and who should be the front runners for spots in 2013. There is a lot of time to worry about the offseason, and the remaining games will still tell a lot about the Mets. If we’re going to get a real sense of what’s going on this offseason, it’s important to pay attention to these next 39 games in addition to the ones we’ve already seen.
It’s so easy to jump the gun in today’s society of instant-reaction. We’re in such a rush to be first to a topic, or to be correct in analysis, that we often run roughshod over facts and data to shout to the world that we told it so. The Mets record sinks, or rises, to what we thought it would be and we’re quick to point out that it’s what we expected. We’re silent two weeks ago when Andres Torres was hitting the ball and had a league average OPS+, but now riding a pretty bad slump we’re quick to call for Sandy Alderson to non-tender him in the offseason, despite the possibility that he could hit .350 the rest of the season and have very respectable numbers.
This week’s storyline is that the Mets have quit playing hard, even though there are still 39 games left. They could go a rather pedestrian 21-18 and still finish better than last year. The Mets fundamentals have been sloppy all season. They’ve failed to advance on the bases, they’ve made bad throwing decisions, taken bad at-bats, and let balls fall in front of them that they got a bad jump on. Simply put, they’re not real good in the field. Them continuing to do these things is not indicative of effort but of talent. On top of that, the other teams have learned that the Mets won’t throw them out at home. That know they can expect the balls to drop in and be ready to take the extra base. The scouting reports suggest that Josh Thole is not going to nab them at second if they get a good jump. In the second half of the season teams take advantages of the weaknesses they saw in other teams in the first half while trying to patch their own. The Mets failure to do this was a reflection of the talent level, roster depth, and injury, not one of how much they respect their manager. Despite being four games over .500 on July 29th last year, the Mets fell to eight games under on August 23rd in less than a month and still played .500 baseball from that point forward.
The problem here is that the current state of the Mets is how they’re going to be perceived until the 2013 season starts. Excepting the true die-hards most fans (and the media that’s going to be writing season recaps stories and season preview stories next year) will be refocusing some or all of their attention to other things. There are plenty of pennant races going on elsewhere, the traditional television schedule starts up soon with new shows, the NFL starts it’s schedule pretty soon and kids go back to school and life moves on, leaving the Mets to play out the string with very little true analysis of what’s going on. Even if the Mets win 22 of their last 39 games, they’ll be remembered as having gone into a tailspin in the second half. Ike Davis, who’s had a good second half, could get his on base percentage over .300 and that’ll be quite an accomplishment, but his season will be remembered for the horrible start and when people look at his overall stat line, it won’t reflect the hard work he’s put in. When everyone else around him was struggling to make second half adjustments, Davis did and the results are there if you look for them.
There is no prize for predicting how events were going to turn out in sports or how individual players would perform. More important is thinking about why things turned out that way, what could have been done to fix it, and what are some of the ideas to make sure it doesn’t happen again. “I told you Jason Bay sucked” is not analysis, and following it up with “Andres Torres sucks too, non-tender him” does not carry more weight because you were right about Jason Bay.
Here’s a piece of advice going forward: Try making a coherent argument against what you believe. If you think Ruben Tejada is a solid contributor for 2013, look up his baseball-reference page and try to come up with an argument for why the Mets should look elsewhere for a shortstop. Then read your argument and see if it sounds believable. If it doesn’t you probably aren’t making a thorough enough argument, because in baseball it’s pretty easy to make a case for the success or failure of most players. It’s a game of percentages and probabilities. Even perennial All-Stars have negative things to look at and pitfalls to worry about, but the chances that the things in the positive column happen are way more likely than the negative. With other players the chances are smaller. Ruben Tejada’s batting average on balls in play is pretty high, he’s walking less than less year and striking out more. Those are all notable things and the chances are high that that some of his hits he’s been getting will stop finding holes and become outs. That argument is, probably, out-weighed by the high line drive percentage and the increase in doubles. It’s easy to look at both pieces of information and conclude that you think the chances are better that he’ll continue seeing the ball well and hit it hard for more doubles, but without the context of the batting average on balls in play and walk rate, it’s hard to guess what will happen the next time Tejada has a little slump.
With so much information and so many stats out there, it can be pretty easy to find something that supports your preconceived notion of what you think of a certain player or team. It’s important to stop worrying about trying to prove what you think and try to get a truer sense of what’s actually going on. Because nothing’s more believable than a well-reasoned factual argument.