Author Archives: Ted Berg

Nick Evans killing it

Posted on by
12

As Mets fans, we lose perspective. We get so caught up in thinking about how Jerry Manuel’s job security affects us, we forget to consider how it impacts Nick Evans.

Evans, who was starting important games for Manuel and the Mets in 2008 before struggling in Triple-A then going mysteriously missing in 2009, is now banished to Double-A, buried below Ike Davis on the organizational depth chart.

Much has been made of Davis’ hot start to the season, but Evans — still only 24 — is destroying Double-A pitching. The righty corner bat went 3-for-5 on Friday to raise his average to .395 with a .455 on-base percentage and a .737 slugging.

It’s a tiny sample, of course, and Evans’ weird collapse in Triple-A in 2009 makes him a difficult player to project. But according to MinorLeagueSplits.com, his 2010 Double-A line as of Friday morning (before the three-hit night) equated to an .849 Major League OPS, which would be good for third best on the big-league Mets.

Granted, Nick Evans isn’t likely to keep hitting like the Rogers Hornsby of Double-A, so I’m hardly suggesting the Mets can just call him up to The Show and expect he’ll post an .849 OPS. Plus it’s unclear exactly where Evans could help the 2010 Mets. He’s blocked in left field, right field and at third base by better righty bats, and by Fernando Tatis as the righty bench bat/platoon first baseman.

I’m sure plenty of Mets fans are ready to cut bait on Tatis after his slow start to the year and fluky run of double plays in 2009, but Tatis has earned a longer look with two seasons of solid hitting. Plus the team certainly values his ability to play second and shortstop in a pinch.

So for the foreseeable future, Nick Evans will likely stay right where he is, mashing the crap out of Double-A pitching, cursing his fate, and, presumably, tracking the Mets’ managerial situation from Binghamton.

Patting myself on the back is usually more satisfying

Posted on by
13

If I were managing a ballclub, I’d want my best reliever in the game in the highest-leverage situation. If that happened to come in the sixth inning, after the starting pitcher grew tired and walked a couple of guys in a tie game, would I be smart to bring in one of the worst pitchers on my staff because I’m reserving a better one for the eighth inning, when he’ll come in with no one on base?

– Me, here, March 8.

Not trying to be snarky. Wait, yes I am. Seriously though, ugh.

To be fair to Jerry Manuel, Raul Valdes had been pretty dominant coming into Friday’s game. Still, he’s been used a ton of late, and he’s Raul Valdes.

And Manuel had stated before the game that Ryota Igarashi — on the strength of his recent performances — would be the “eighth-inning guy” Friday, implying that Manuel believed Igarashi to be the team’s second-best available reliever. If that was the case, Igarashi probably should have been in the game in the seventh, if not after Oliver Perez tired then certainly after Fernando Nieve loaded the bases.

Numbers sometimes mislead

Posted on by
15

NUMBERS DON’T LIE: If Manuel’s decision Wednesday night to use Fernando Tatis as a pinch-runner and Alex Cora as a pinch-hitter in the 10th inning seemed curious, statistics and history backed him up: Cora is simply a better pinch-hitter.

In 88 pinch-hit at-bats, Cora has 25 hits and one home run, for a .291 average. Tatis is 19-for-79 (.241), with two homers.

– Andy Martino, N.Y. Daily News.

Yeah, I know the whole “small-sample size” thing is bandied about a whole lot at this point of the season, but I’m going to to ahead and invoke that clause here. Tatis has a lifetime .788 OPS in 3417 plate appearances.

Cora has a lifetime .657 OPS in 3484 plate appearances.

Perhaps Tatis is every bit as unclutch as Mets fans seem to believe he is and he would have locked up in that spot, and maybe Cora can actually will himself to first base in pinch-hitting situations in way he somehow can’t in most other at-bats, but I refuse to accept that Cora is “simply a better pinch-hitter” than Tatis, who is simply a better hitter.

Talking Rangers-Yanks and a little Mejia

Posted on by
20

Chris M brought up a good point via e-mail the other day: The Rangers are using stud prospect Neftali Feliz as their closer.

It’s not exactly the same as the Mets’ situation with Jenrry Mejia for a couple of reasons: For one, Feliz dominated Major League hitters in relief last season, so he presents much more of a sure thing in late innings for the Rangers than Mejia does for the Mets.

Second, the Rangers appear much more likely than the Mets to compete in their division, and so have a better case for jeopardizing long-term interests in the name of short-term success.

Still, it’s easy to argue that the Rangers are making a mistake. Without having followed the team that closely this spring, I would, especially since Feliz might already be an upgrade in the Rangers’ rotation over journeyman Colby Lewis and converted reliever (and excellent Twitterer) C.J. Wilson.

Anyway, I asked Adam Morris of LoneStarBall.com about that, plus previewed the Yanks’ upcoming series with the Rangers for today’s episode of The Baseball Show:

Honestly, what is it about Philadelphia?

Posted on by
7

Could this happen in any other city? A grown-ass drunk man deliberately vomiting on a little girl. Despicable. Kind of hilarious, but despicable.

I want to believe that everything I think about Phillies fans is fallout from confirmation bias and the like, plus I know these are isolated incidents, but man, it doesn’t seem like even Yankee fans sell sex for World Series tickets or intentionally barf on children.

UPDATE, 11:13 a.m. I realize that terms like “despicable” sound rather sanctimonious, something I generally like to avoid. But let the record show I’m typing it while shaking my head more in disbelief than in actual fury. 

Lookout Landing compiles All-Austen team

Posted on by
1

C: Taylor Hill Teagarden
1B: Joshua S. Whitesell
2B: Brent Stuart Lillibridge
SS: Clifton Randolph Pennington
3B: James Gordon Beckham III
LF: Aaron R. Cunningham
CF: Jonathan Eugene Van Every
RF: Joshua David Willingham
DH: Thomas James Everidge

– Jeff Sullivan, Lookout Landing.

It goes on from there, and it’s an impressive and well-compiled list to be sure. I’ve never considered an All-Jane Austen team, perhaps because of my general distaste for Jane Austen.

Brent Lillibridge, though, would likely also crack the middle infield of my All-Dickens team, which would probably look somewhat similar to the All-Jane Austen team, except the names would be a bit less WASP-y and a bit more, ahh, whimsical I guess?

Candidates for the squad: Lillibridge, Lastings Milledge, Chone Figgins, Norris Hopper, Calvin Pickering (who’s no longer playing but clearly needs to be included), Ty Wigginton, Grady Sizemore, Nolan Reimold, Willie Bloomquist, Taylor Teagarden, Blake Hawksworth, Burke Badenhop.

Tony Tarasco: Some sort of stoned, expletive-laced New York-baseball answer to Forrest Gump

Posted on by
3

It’s probably the most talked about Yankee at-bat song since 1999, when outfielder Tony Tarasco made news by striding to the plate as the Stadium sound system blasted a profanity-laced version of “Tommy’s Theme” by The Lox. Tarasco later claimed he had requested an edited version of the tune, but the part-time scoreboard operator deemed responsible was fired almost immediately.

– N.Y. Daily News.

Wow, I do not remember that happening. Actually, looking over the dates of Tarasco’s brief stint with the Yankees in 1999, I realize there’s a solid chance this went down during the two-week vacation to Spain my friends and I somehow convinced our high school to let us count for a senior project.

I have to figure I would have heard about it if I wasn’t 3000 miles away, given my interest in at-bat music and profanity.

Anyway, it strikes me that Tony Tarasco, despite playing only one season as a Major League regular and amassing barely 1000 at-bats, has been at or near the center of at least three notable New York baseball incidents.

Recall that in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS, Tarasco was the Orioles’ right-fielder who didn’t catch the ball that 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier, perhaps the world’s least-deserving owner of a Wikipedia page, pulled into the bleachers for an improperly ruled home run.

Tony Tarasco also played an integral role in the Mets’ 2002 Up in Smoke tour, as the driver when rookie reliever Mark Corey fell victim to what just might be the only recorded marijuana-induced seizure in medical history.

To boot, Tarasco’s own Wikipedia page claims he played with TedQuarters hero Tsuyoshi Shinjo in Japan in 2000, and is the cousin of Jimmy Rollins.

Some kind of Superman

Posted on by
4

The E-League playoffs start May 1.

What’s the E-League? It’s a Santa Monica-based celebrity basketball league. Though its Web site is hardly basketball-reference.com, the league does provide box scores for every game.

The records contain a hilarious roster of exactly the type of celebrities you’d expect would have time for such a thing, and attendance is spotty among the ones I’ve heard of. The kid who played McLovin’ almost never shows up.

The best player in the league, by far, appears to be Brian McKnight’s son, Brian Jr., who’s not really a celebrity. Bill Bellamy is pretty good when he plays, which I imagine must be completely intolerable for everyone else on the court.

Wood Harris, the actor who played Avon Barksdale in The Wire, might not be a suit-wearing businessman, but he’s more than just a gangster, I suppose: He has a fine scoring touch.

But one celebrity baller deserves credit not for his play, but for an attendance record that stands head and shoulders above those of all other celebrities who have ever graced the pages of any glossy magazines:

I’m talking about Dean Cain.

While the more current and relevant stars like the Jamies Foxx and Kennedy get pulled away from the league by their duties performing in Oscar-bait like Ray and Malibu’s Most Wanted, Dean Cain apparently had nothing better to do than show up for six of the Boston team’s seven games for which the E-League’s site has box scores posted.

And though the man who once played Clark Kent is hardly a Superman on the hardwood, his teammates can count on him for a handful of points and workmanlike efforts on the boards weekly, even as their squad is mired near the basement of the E-League’s Eastern Conference.

Maybe Taye Diggs steals the spotlights and the ladies’ hearts on the rare occasion he does show up for Cain’s Boston team, and maybe someone named Jarod Paige is a more potent offensive weapon, but Boston fans can count on Cain cleaning up the glass weekly, sweat glistening from his once-chiseled jawline.

Where is teammate Joel McHale, listed on Boston’s roster but almost never in attendance? Who knows? Probably off filming Community. Cain is not Joel McHale’s keeper. (Sorry.)

The E-League playoffs include every team in the league, so Cain’s Boston club has a longshot chance at the league championship, scheduled for May 8. Given the squad’s performance, though, it would take a miracle for the Boston squad to advance that far. Something only a real Superman could accomplish, or at the very least the promise that Cash Warren could pull himself away from sitting around wondering how he got so lucky in life to finally suit up for his E-League unit.

Still, at least one E-League enthusiast and analyst — this one, who’d never heard of the league until about an hour ago — will call shenanigans on the whole affair if Dean Cain is not named to the Eastern Conference’s All-Star team that weekend.

Because though Cain’s contributions to Boston may not present themselves in the box score, he has reliably presented himself in the gym, week in and week out. That sort of leadership cannot be measured, and though it’s hardly superhuman, it’s damn-near heroic.

Talking pitching with Bobby O

Posted on by
Reply

Talking about pitching with actual former Major Leaguers = easily the best part of this job. My only regret is that we don’t tape the way-longer conversations we have to prepare for these bits, which are a bit saltier.