Posted on

Jason Bay Toggles His Awesome Switch

Jason Bay hit the wall in Dodger Stadium hard and made a great catch.  A couple of days later he was done for the season, and when he returned this year it was like someone had switched him off.   He struggled, was dropped in the order, failed to have an extra base hit for weeks, and watched his average plummet.  Then he started to get some more hits, and the occasional home run.  He was drawing more walks.  Then he made another amazing catch and hit the wall in Dodger Stadium.

One of the first things they ask you when you call a tech repair shop for service on your computer is, “Is it switched on?”  No one thought to ask that of Jason Bay this season.   Then Bay hit the wall, and his switch went back on.  Guys back in the clubhouse hung their heads in shame and said to themselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?” and Jason Bay hit two home runs and drove in four runs in a 6-0 rout of the Dodgers.

It was also Jason Bay’s 155th game as a Met, which would probably be more than he would’ve played in his first season as a Met.  Perhaps he’s just safely past his ‘first year in NY’ slump, and back to being a good baseball player.

Posted on

Let’s Keep It Rolling Rolling Rolling..

Well that was fun wasn’t it?  After a ridiculous amount of games without a grand slam, the Mets hit two in one trip through the lineup last night.  Jose Reyes had ANOTHER 4-hit game, his second in as many days and he’s reached based nine of his last 10 appearances.  Bay had one of those grand slams, Dickey gave the team length and the Mets climbed above .500 baseball on the season.  They remain five games out of a playoff spot, but there is a lot of baseball yet to be played.  Jose Reyes has as many triples as 17 other major league clubs and still hasn’t gone two consecutive games without reaching base. 

What’s not to love about this team right now?  The Mets schedule is still tough in the immediate future, but they have a chance to put .500 behind them for good.  The way they’re playing, I believe they can do that no matter who’s in the other dugout.   Being able to add David Wright to this mix is going to be a nice bonus as well. 

Whereever this team is going, the ride sure is fun!

Posted on

Vote Reyes: Meet Reyes, and My Ballot

If you vote for Jose Reyes for the All-Star Game, and select the Mets as one of your favorite teams on the form (Why wouldn’t you?) you’ll be entered in the contest to win two tickets to a future Mets game and the chance to meet the National League leader in Hits, Runs Scored, Triples, and Average, Multi-Hit Games, and the hardest player in the league to strikeout.

 

You’ve got until Thursday and you can vote up to 25 times per email address so let’s get Jose Reyes that starting spot that he both wants and deserves.  While you’re at it, give Carlos Beltran your vote too.  For the American League I usually just look at the most recent standings and vote for the player that has the best chance to unseat a Yankee.

 

If you’re able to get to Citi Field on a weekday, the Mets annual summer blood is Thursday the 7th of July from 10 to 5.  Do a good deed AND get Mets tickets for it.  As a working resident of New Jersey I won’t be making this one, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!

 

So while you’re waiting for the game to start, hop over to Mets.com and #votereyes.

Posted on

Jose Reyes: An Easy Decision

This was originally a comment to a Mets Police post about ripping the Trade Reyes bandaid off, but I decided it deserved a post of it’s own. 

It’s really a simple decision.  Franchise players like Jose Reyes are very valuable, and it’d be especially silly to let him get away for anything but an absolute steal of a package, and even then I’d be reluctant.   This isn’t fantasy baseball; I, and other fans, develop emotional attachment to players and there is value and revenue in that.

Sign Reyes, and you keep a franchise player that the fanbase loves and will define and promote your franchise for, and this isn’t an exaggeration, 60+ years.  Keep one of the best players in the game at a premium position of which there is nothing close available on the market or in the minors. Finish the season at or above .500, regardless of if they can make a playoff push or not.   Have people believing 2012 will be better, that we’re already into year two of the ‘rebuilding’ process and things are good and people are buying season tickets.  The Mets (not the Wilpons) problem is not so much debt is it trying to get the revenue stream back above the level of what a competitive payroll is.  To do this they have to keep people interested in the Mets and coming to the park.  Who’s more interesting than Jose Reyes right now?

Or you can trade him or let him walk away, and finish below .500.  Show people that this is year one of the demolition process before rebuilding starts. Watch no one pay any attention to the Mets all offseason, and no one buy season tickets, or renew season tickets.  2.5million fans this year becomes 1.5million fans next year, and in 2013, and in 2014.. prices come down because no one’s going, revenue drops as a result, less demand on advertising space drops revenue there as well.  SNY becomes the Food Network; sure you’ll flip it on once in a while and see what’s cookin’, but it’s not worth DVRing.  In an age when it’s so very very easy to watch any team in the league, and with the Mets unwatchable, many fans start half-following the Giants or wherever Reyes ends up playing.  If MLB.TV existed when the Mets traded Seaver, how many Mets fans do you think would’ve purchased it to watch him pitch?  In 2013 the Mets sell out the Giants series at Citi with the stands awash of really faded Black Mets 7 shirts. The next series against the Phillies is empty, no one wants to see two bad teams play.  Citi Field feels empty without #7.

Posted on

Gary Cohen’s Interleague Joke

Gary Cohen is not a big fan of interleague play.  During one of the broadcasts this week SNY showed the out of town scoreboard and Gary noted that SEA WAS looked more like an address than a rivalry.

 

Certainly true.  He did miss another one though.

 

Another one not from this weekend would be TB FLA.

Posted on

Going to the Game to Make the Mets Win

Headed out to the game tonight alone.  Which means I’ll be roaming around the park aimlessly watching the game from all over the place.

I’m thinking of hanging around the outfield tonight.  Checking out the pitchers warming up, watching the game from the Shea Bridge, and maybe climb up to the Pepsi Porch for an inning or two. 

The Mets really need to win tonight.  They’ve had one bad week every month that keeps them from getting above .500.   In May they got to .500 and then lost six of seven.  They got back to .500 again last week in Atlanta, lost a crushing game and have now lost four of their last five.   If they can minimize that damage and start the climb again now, they’ll hopefully be able to climb above .500 and keep going.   Maybe Bay is going to start being Jason Bay again after a big game last night, and maybe Wright and Davis get good news this week and make their way back to the team.  Otherwise this Mets season feels a lot like Sisyphus.

Posted on

Move Along, Nothing to See Here

I was going to rant and rave and vent and fume, but it looks like Jason Fry basically covered all the angles over there at Faith and Fear in Flushing so I’ll just throw in a little pointer here to there.

 

Ugh. After which we never, ever spoke of it again.

 

So let’s remind these American League teams that are coming to Citi Field why National League baseball is the way to go.  Let’s laugh at their pitchers trying to hit, and laugh at the managers that may botch a double-switch.  Let’s read all the Moneyball references made while the A’s are in town and watch the Mets play, and win, some baseball games at home.  It’s been a long road trip, and a successful one, so let’s go out to the park and watch Jose Reyes be Amazin’.

Posted on

Optimistic Stuff Going On

It often feels like the mainstream media has a story they want to write, and look for the facts to fit the story rather than watching the game and writing a story that matches the facts.  They can get hung up on narratives they like and beat them to death.  Part of the reason I named this blog what I did was to counter the idea that the Mets are cursed, never spend, are inept, or Latin-biased, etc etc.

 

One of the common stories this year was that the Mets are broke and can’t afford Reyes, so they will trade him.   They stuck to this; it seemed like every day there was another story about how they’d have to trade him, or who would be a good suitor.  As the season went on some of these writers had the occasion to glance down at the field, and happened to notice how unbelievably awesome Jose Reyes is, and how much he is adored by Mets fans.  Slowly but surely more articles came out suggesting, as many bloggers have been writing all along, that the Mets should and could keep Reyes.   It’s so refreshing to watch a player that’s just that awesome, that leads the league in so many categories, and is having a blast doing it.   That his great season has caused writers to use the delete button more than usual is just a bonus.

 

Speaking of which, here’s a post from Ed Ryan at Mets Fever that wonders if maybe the Mets should be thinking about adding, not subtracting, players at the trading deadline.  Personally I think the Mets will add someone.  Alderson has been known in the past to like to wheel and deal, and I suspect this year will be no different.  He’s claimed to this point to have the financial ability to do so.  This doesn’t mean no one will get traded though, it just means it doesn’t have to be a fire sale.   Sandy Alderson won’t need to trade major league pieces for guys that may or may not help the team at some future time.  He’s got the options of trading major league talent for equal major league talent, maybe shuffling off an extra bat for an extra relief pitcher, or trading prospects for a good player that’s still got a couple of years left on his contract to help the team out both this year and next.

 

Winning or losing, it’s never too early to start bringing in talented players.  Even if you don’t believe the Mets are one or two players away from making the playoffs, if you make them one better right now, that’s less work needed to do in the offseason.  I expect a lot of activity in July, and some of it will probably be pretty exciting.