Here’s today’s Baseball Show, chatting up the guys who operate the soundboard and Home Run Apple at Citi Field:
For a later show — I think Monday’s — I talk to Rod Barajas and Ike Davis about their choices.
OK, so I chew stuff sometimes. Usually it’s a pen or a straw, but any small plastic object will do. It’s hardly a chronic habit, but I’d say about once a day I stumble upon something that appears chewable, and next thing I know I’m chomping away for about a half hour.
I realize it’s kind of gross, and Freud might have a field day with it. But I maintain that it’s not the jamming things in my mouth that I enjoy so much as the sensation of chewing itself. For some reason, I enjoy the feeling of working my jaw muscles.
For about 20 years, nearly every woman in my life has nagged me to quit the habit, insisting I’ll someday choke. My mom, my sister, various teachers, and now my wife.
Last night, while walking home from the train station, I started chewing the cap of a Poland Spring bottle. No idea why; it wasn’t something I did consciously. It rarely is. Next thing I knew — and this has never happened before — I swallowed the thing.
I didn’t choke, thankfully. I had chewed the cap into something akin to a football shape, and I guess that ergonomically tailored it to slide right down my throat. But though I could breathe and I wasn’t in any pain, I had a bottle cap inside me, so my wife convinced me I should probably go to the hospital.
I spent most of my next 10 waking hours being shuffled around the emergency room. By my count, all the consulting and poking and attempts at extracting the thing required eight nurses and five doctors. And every single one reminded me how stupid it is to stick plastic objects in my mouth, and told me that my mouth should only be for edible things.
Thanks. Because, you know, I thought I was supposed to swallow bottle caps, and I’m not humiliated enough without your help. It was the medical equivalent of booing David Wright after he slams his helmet down in frustration; they were just reinforcing an emotion I already came to on my own.
Anyway, apparently they would normally just let something like that pass through the system, but because I’m special for a variety of reasons, they gave me an endoscopy this morning to try to fish that sucker out. They couldn’t, and so now I have to hope it leaves my body via, ahh, more traditional means. Sorry for the imagery.
The best and most ridiculous part of the whole thing was the aftercare print-out from the hospital. Turns out the standard form for “swallowed foreign objects” is addressed to the parents of an infant or small child, and describes how it’s somewhat normal for children under the age of 5 to swallow parts of toys and small household items. Nothing in there about 29-year-olds doing the same thing.
I called my parents and read it to them. They had a good laugh, but they were unwilling to follow the suggested procedure for monitoring when it exits.
My mom, doing her mom thing, used the incident to argue that I should stop chewing on plastic stuff. I recognize she’s probably right, but from a statistical standpoint, she doesn’t have a very strong argument. I’ve probably chewed some 10,000 small plastic objects in my life, and never swallowed one before. What’re the odds it happens again?
I guess it only takes one time when I’m not as lucky, though. I should probably invest in some gum.
A young woman in her 20s, driving a silver SUV got more than burritos when she went through the drive through at the Taco Bell on Brown Street, near the University of Dayton campus and Miami Valley Hospital.
Instead of a bag containing her order, she got a bag containing the restaurant’s morning bank deposit — about $2,000.
Police were called to the restaurant around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, May 11. An employee said she was working the drive-through window and mistakenly gave the customer the bank deposit. The restaurant manager explained it was store policy to put the bank bag containing the deposit in a Taco Bell bag. The manager would then drive up to the drive-through window, and an employee would hand him the bag.
– Doug Page, Dayton Daily News.
Congratulations, young SUV-driving woman. You’ve won the Taco Bell lottery. Except you kind of lost because you don’t get any delicious Taco Bell, and if you want to keep that cash and use it on some Taco Bell, you’ll have to drive the 2.8 miles to the Taco Bell on South Smithville Road in Belmont. And for all we know that’s not nearly as good a Taco Bell, and now you’re doomed to get a Volcano Taco in a regular yellow shell, like always happens to me at the crappy Taco Bell near my house.
Also, if the Dayton Police are serious about recovering that money, a good strategy might be simply waiting at area Taco Bells for an SUV to pull up to the drive through and order $2,000 worth of Taco Bell. Glorious Taco Bell.
Furthermore: 10:30 a.m.? That must mean Dayton, Ohio is a test market for Taco Bell breakfast, and the closest one to New York I’ve heard of so far. Who’s down for a road trip?
Finally, what kind of shady operation is this Taco Bell franchise running? They put the cash in a Taco Bell bag and the manager drives through the drive-thru to pick it up? That sounds more like a drug deal than a bank deposit. Also, it sure seems like if you’re regularly loading cash into Taco Bell bags and leaving them right near where the other, regular Taco Bell bags are distributed, you’re bound to lose one eventually.
In a related story, now I really want $2,000 worth of Taco Bell. I’ll take 300 Baja Beef Gorditas, 400 Crunchy Tacos, 500 MexiMelts with no tomatoes and an order of Volcano Nachos to go, please.
Somebody maybe ought to check the Mets if they did that. Their [bleeping] home record is out of this world and they’re losing on the road. Sometimes that’s a good indicator of getting signs and [crap]. I see somebody setting there at (14-7) at home and (4-8) on the road, I’d get concerned about that. That kind of crosses my mind.
I’m not accusing them, but you look at that and – damn. We’re about the same home and road. I’m just saying their record is much better at home and they hit better.
– Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, as told to CSNPhilly.com.
OK, a lot of stuff here: First of all, who put “[bleeping]” in to replace the expletive there? I mean, I carefully dance around including curses on this blog as best I can, and I realize it probably looks stupid sometimes. But “[bleeping]”? Why not “[freaking]” or just straight up “[expletive]”?
Second, while it’s true that the Mets have a better home record than road record, a) that’s often true for lots of teams, b) it’s almost entirely fueled by the Mets’ 9-1 homestand against the then-struggling Cubs, Braves and Dodgers, and c) it’s just way, way too early in the season to suggest the Mets are playing to any sort of massive home-field advantage, especially since they’ve played so few games on the road.
Also, a pretty great way to accuse someone of something is to just flat-out deny that you’re doing so. Now, make no mistake: I’m not accusing Charlie Manuel of subterfuge or of haphazardly lashing out at the Mets because he’s defensive about his team getting caught stealing signs. That’s just something that crosses my mind.
For all I know, the Mets are breaking the rules to steal signs, and the Phillies were too. My stance on the matter is the same it has always been: It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.
Ask Leo Durocher. Baseball players are hard-wired to compete, and stealing signs is a way to gain a competitive advantage. This is why the game has written rules: It’s not the players’ or coaches’ responsibility to police themselves. That falls on opposing teams and, in cases like the Phillies’, the league.
If the story’s true, the Phillies thought they could get away with the binoculars-in-the-bullpen scheme. They didn’t, so the league made them stop. The system worked. There are plenty of things to fault the Phillies for without assuming some sort of moral high ground against sign-stealing.
To quote Manuel: “I’m sure if teams could steal signs they would, and if we can we will, too, if we can get them legally…. If you’re dumb enough to let us get them, it’s your fault. It’s been going on in the game a long time. If you’re dumb enough to let us get them, that’s your problem.”
This data suggests that Wright does not actually directly struggle with the slider on the lower/outside corner as previously speculated. It seems more likely this pitch is priming Wright to not swing at the four-seam fastball on the outer corner of the plate. On the plus side, he is not flailing wildly at fastballs outside the strike zone. Furthermore, Wright almost never swings at curveballs on the inner half of the plate, except for curves which are well below the strike zone which he seems to swing at frequently whether they are inside or outside. Finally Wright almost always swings at changeups in the middle of the zone, but also frequently swings at changes in the dirt. He also tends to swing and miss on the changeup more often than any other pitch….
To Wright’s credit, he has adapted to his difficulty recognizing these pitch types by taking a lot more pitches. He waits for a pitch to drive and if he doesn’t see what he’s looking for he’ll accumulate balls and strikes until he is forced to protect the plate. He can still hit a ball in the zone a ton when he swings at it, but he is swinging less than he has in any other season to date (42.1%) and swinging at fewer pitches in the zone (64.0%, lowest of career) while swinging at more outside of the zone (25.4% highest of career).
– KeithsMoustache, FanPost to Amazin’ Avenue.
KeithsMoustache does a tremendous job here interpreting a whole slew of pitchFX data. It’s a lot to read and sort through, but I heartily recommend it.
It just so happens I was discussing Wright’s 2010 approach with Matt Cerrone this morning and poring over Wright’s FanGraphs page. To KeithsMoustache’s last point — about Wright swinging less than he ever has before but swinging at more pitches outside the zone — I’ll add this: Wright is seeing well fewer pitches inside the strike zone than he ever has before (43.5 percent as compared to 48.8 percent last season and 50.9 percent for his career).
So it stands to reason that he’d be swinging at a higher percent of pitches outside of the zone while swinging at fewer pitches in general. He’s not seeing as many strikes. I’m not certain the data reflects an adaptation on Wright’s part so much as on the part of opposing pitchers, although I guess there’s a chicken-and-egg aspect to that.
Regardless, all of this is across only a fraction of the season, and the important thing to remember is that Wright — lots of strikeouts or not — has still been awesome.
Check it out: In 2007, Wright’s best full season, he slashed .325/.416/.546. This year, he’s got a .291/.417/.552 line. Nearly identical, except for the slight decrease in hits and increase in walks, which can probably be explained by him getting fewer pitches to hit.
As for Wright’s perceived struggles in the clutch? He hasn’t had a reasonable sample of at-bats in any particular situation, but his numbers with runners in scoring position are very similar to his season line: .281/.390/.563.
Will any of it continue? I have no idea. It seems unlikely that Wright can maintain a .397 batting average on balls in play, but he posted a .394 mark last season.
And it seems crazy to expect him to keep whiffing at this pace, but as frustrating as they can be to fans, the strikeouts are not enough to make him anything besides one of the best players in baseball. Still.
Plus he’s got a pretty sweet beard going, which is cool.
Now look: One clutch double from Chris Carter means very little in the grand scheme of things. It was totally awesome, though, and perhaps enough to quiet the skeptics that say a Triple-A lifer like Carter might not be able to hit (or that he can hit but not pinch-hit) in the Major Leagues.
First impressions massively impact perception, so Carter’s double could be enough to win over dubious Mets fans and media for the time being — at least until he amasses an adequate number of at-bats for anyone to make a reasonable evaluation of his talents.
If Carter struck out in that spot, it wouldn’t mean he never should have been called up or that Frank Catalanotto could do better. It wouldn’t make him more or less likely to hit a go-ahead double his next time up. Dae Sung Koo once doubled off Randy Johnson. One at-bat means almost nothing.
But Carter succeeded and the Mets won. The latter part is most important, but it’s certainly nice that Carter took a big step toward earning labels like “clutch” and “gamer” and “deserving Major Leaguer” that will make the work of all of us long advocating his promotion much easier.
From the @NewYorkMets twitter, via Talking About Baseball. Only Mr. Met looks like he’s having fun:
What’s your take on all this noise about how Joe McKnight, he of the recent draft and ZERO plays in the NFL, suddenly appears to be the biggest bust in the draft? It seems like New York sportswriters like Rich Cimini can’t get enough of talking about his issues with mental toughness and immaturity. Yet all we’ve seen of him is a brief rookie camp and a bunch of college highlights that suggest he can absolutely break a game open with his speed and quick changes in direction.
Is McKnight a victim of the gasoline fire that is the New York media? Should I really be worried about him? None of this is really adding up -– I have faith in Rex and Mike T., I don’t think they would have picked some kid who they thought would be any sort of liability (or would fail to make the team out the gate for character issues). Why are we picking on McKnight so much? Do those writers just need a story?
– NeverSeenThemWinOne, comments section.
I missed a lot of noise surrounding McKnight while on vacation, but I imagine NeverSeenThemWinOne is referring to blog posts like this one, among others.
I would say any firestorm is at least partly due to writers needing a story, as suggested. People eat up NFL offseason news — look at all the coverage around the draft and schedule announcement. So probably every paper in town assigned a writer to cover the Jets’ rookie minicamp, and McKnight — given his upside and backstory — makes for the easiest copy.
That said, he’s a fourth-round pick, so if he’s a bust it’s not like he’s Vernon Gholston. It’s entirely possible that Rex Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum drafted McKnight for his physical tools and took a calculated gamble on the character issues. It’s not like they’ve shied away from character issues this offseason, and maybe Ryan — with all his bravado — thinks he can take a talented but perhaps unmotivated kid and turn him into a superstar. The downside is he can’t, in which case the Jets wasted a fourth-round pick. Not great, but hardly a crushing blow.
As for the character issues themselves? I’ve got nothing. I know he barfed at minicamp, and that’s probably a bad sign. But minicamp doesn’t count for anything. A 22-year-old should have plenty of time to work himself into decent playing shape by the start of the actual season, and so I’ll reserve judgment on his motivation until he’s puking or otherwise unprepared when the games count.
And that recruiting stuff, and the nonsense with McKnight driving an SUV in college? Whatever. This is something I should probably tackle in an entirely different post when I have a lot more time to hash it out, but a) I’m certain that type of stuff happens way, way more often than we realize at many major NCAA programs and b) I cannot fault McKnight for driving a car he probably felt he deserved for contributing to the football team at a school with a huge and presumably hugely profitable program.
None of that stuff should really fall on McKnight anyway. Recruiting and rules violations are the school’s problem, and I can’t imagine anyone would expect a 21-year-old to police himself when offered the keys to a Land Rover.
Frankly, if anything I’m more concerned about his injury history than anything. He could turn out to be Gandhi in the locker room, but it won’t matter much if he blows out his knee.
I’m at Citi Field shooting some video stuff for SNY.tv today, and a few minutes ago I was in the stadium’s in-game production booth talking with the guys that cue up at-bat and bullpen music.
I convinced them to let me crank a song throughout the stadium. Obviously I cued up “RB 1” on their board, signifying the song Rod Barajas uses for his first at-bat.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Jeff Francoeur was filming a Pepsi commercial in a faraway corner of Citi Field.
Apparently, soon after the camera started rolling, in the middle of Frenchy’s first line, the free-swinging right fielder was interrupted by the sweet sounds of “California Love” pumping through Citi Field’s countless speakers.
A Mets employee came running over to squash my fun, and I’m sure Francoeur nailed it the next time through. After all, he’s not a guy who will stand for too many takes (Ed. note: HEYOOO!).
I’m not certain what he was instructed to say in the commercial, but if anyone asks me for input — which they won’t — I’ll suggest the greatest line in commercial history: “I’m jonesin’ for something different.”
Fast forward through the first 13 seconds of dead air from when our intern couldn’t figure out how to convert a VHS tape to a digital format. Also, uploading stuff like this is exactly the type of industry-relevant, career-forwarding activity SNY.tv interns sign up for:
The news came down last night after the Mets lost to the Nationals, not long after Gary Matthews Jr. whiffed in his pinch-“hitting” appearance in the seventh and Frank Catalanotto grounded out in his in the ninth: Chris Carter is joining the Mets today, replacing Smithtown’s Finest on the roster and, presumably, as the team’s primary left-handed bench bat. The Animal is out of his cage.
You set yourself up for criticism and snark when you fret about the margins of a team’s roster. In comments sections sometimes, the great Val Pascucci campaign from 2008 is derided with all sorts of snark, even if the Mets fell short of the playoffs by a single game that season while entrusting most of their pinch-hit at-bats to a bunch of dudes who couldn’t hit even a little.
And in truth, no one ever seriously deemed Pascucci a savior, just like no one is now saying Chris Carter will come up and teach Ollie Perez how to throw strikes or Luis Castillo how to cover more ground in the infield.
Carter’s promotion merely represents better roster optimization. Not a cure-all, just an upgrade. Since Catalanotto and Carter both bat left-handed and play the same set of positions and Carter appears to be the better hitter, there was no good reason to keep Catalanotto around any longer.
It seems pretty simple, but it’s something the Mets have struggled with under Omar Minaya.
So maybe Carter’s promotion represents a new mindset or indicates that someone with access to Omar’s ear is paying closer attention than whoever was in that role a couple years ago, in the days of the Abraham Nunez Axiom. Maybe Minaya himself is learning from past mistakes, or maybe Minaya and Jerry Manuel recognize they don’t have time to be patient with struggling veterans with the much-rumored specter of unemployment looming.
Whatever the case, this is a good thing. Carter likely will not soon get an adequate sample of at-bats to show whether he’s Major League worthy, but he will probably inspire a heck of a lot more confidence in late-game pinch-hitting situations than Catalanotto did.
And Carter has traditionally mashed right-handers, so the Mets would be wise to try him out spelling Jeff Francoeur against tougher righties. Whether Francoeur is currently just struggling or simply returning to being Jeff Francoeur, he has a lifetime .710 OPS against right-handed pitching. Carter will not provide what Frenchy does defensively, but it’s a good bet his bat will be an upgrade in certain spots.
This is a good thing. Now we sit back and hope Carter makes good.
Tedquarters 