It actually makes some sense. For whatever reason, shots to the groin are not common in football. I wore a cup for my first week of pee-wee football in 3rd grade, then never again in 10 years.
But this much I know is true: If you’re playing lacrosse, you should definitely, definitely wear a cup. And for most of my short lacrosse career, I always did. But in the winter between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, the head coach decided I should learn to play goalie. I used to show up to school at 6 a.m. so he could walk me through various goalie techniques in the school gym at part speed. Since they were never full contact and because I always had a full day of school ahead of me, I never wore a cup. It didn’t seem like I was in any danger.
Then one time, the coach decided I was ready to block some whip shots to show off what I had learned. He had the assistant coach come with a video camera so we could watch film of my form afterward. I was 15, and apparently too shy to admit I went to a lacrosse practice — even a before-school, slow-speed practice — without a cup. And it turns out lacrosse balls spinning on gym floors can bounce at unpredictable angles.
Long story short: Soul-shaking pain. And to make matters worse, it was all on tape, so all the coaches had a hearty laugh at me collapsed on the gym floor in pain. It’s probably still out there somewhere, circulating in the phys ed department of my high school, just waiting for someone who knows how to upload VHS tapes to YouTube. I think I’m ready to laugh about it now.
In case you missed it, this weekend featured more hot-stove action than the entire span of the Winter Meetings. And the two biggest weekend headlines at least vaguely pertain to the Mets.
First, the Dodgers signed Zack Greinke to a six-year, $147 million contract. Greinke’s a very nice pitcher, but outside of his outstanding 2009 campaign he has hardly pitched like an ace. He routinely posts great rate stats, but his 106 ERA+ over the last three seasons is barely above league average. At 29, he’s reasonably young by free agent standards, and now, thanks to the Dodgers’ absurd new spending habits, he’s extraordinarily rich by every standard.
Based on results alone, Greinke actually pitched a bit like Jon Niese in 2012. The pitchers finished with similar rates in ERA+, WHIP, ground-ball percentage, hits per nine, walks per nine and home runs per nine. Greinke struck out more batters and threw 22 more innings, both of which are important. And Greinke comes with a much stronger resume, since 2012 was by far Niese’s best season to date. But since Greinke will earn as much in 2014 alone as Niese will for the next four seasons, his payday makes the Mets’ contract for the young lefty look like even more of a steal.
Of course, the Dodgers now seem to be operating like the Yankees did in the latter half of the last decade, so it’s not necessarily reasonable to compare the money they’re willing to pay for players to the money other teams should be paying for players. With $115 million already on L.A.’s books for 2017 (!), Greinke’s massive salary looks only like a large drop in a inconceivably huge bucket.
Still, if it sets any sort of precedent for player value in the TV-contract era, it seems to bode well for the Mets in the short term. Assuming Greinke’s contract does not exist in a vacuum, it makes signing R.A. Dickey at even the most expensive rumored terms look like striking oil (presumably with a hard knuckleball that flummoxed a catcher and drilled itself into the ground somewhere). And it means Dickey at his current $5-million rate for 2013 may present even more value to a trade partner than we previously expected.
Speaking of: The second big baseball thing that happened this weekend was a trade between the Royals and Rays. The Rays sent pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis to Kansas City for prospects Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and Patrick Leonard.
Myers you presumably know about by now: He’s baseball’s top hitting prospect and was the Royals’ best trade chip in their hunt to upgrade their starting rotation. Shields and Davis should do that, to varying degrees. Shields is a very good pitcher who has thrown at least 200 innings in every full season he has pitched in the Majors, and comes to the Royals on a one-year deal worth $9 million with a $12 million option for 2014. Davis excelled out of the Rays’ bullpen in 2012, but pitched more or less like Mike Pelfrey as a starter in 2010 and 2011. He’s only 27 and he’s signed for the next two seasons for $7.6 million total, with escalating options on his contract that run through 2017.
Shields and Davis look to become the Royals’ best and fourth-best starters, respectively, and push from Kansas City’s rotation some of the dreck they started in 2012. If we can attribute any reason to the front office that gave Jeff Francoeur a three-year contract, it looks like the Royals have identified 2013 and 2014 as a window to contend and sacrificed some part of their future to do so.
But on paper, the cost looks huge. In addition to Myers, the Royals sent the Rays two of their best-regarded and nearest to ready pitching prospects in Odorizzi and Montgomery. Odorizzi entered 2012 as Baseball America’s No. 68 prospect and pitched well in Double- and Triple-A. Montgomery, a lefty, entered 2012 as BA’s No. 23 prospect but struggled throughout the year. Both will be 23 on Opening Day, and both will join the Rays’ consistently obscene arsenal of highly regarded starting-pitching prospects, the strength that allowed them to deal Shields.
It’s hard to figure how the Royals value Shields vis a vis R.A. Dickey. Shields is younger and nearly as good with a longer history of big-league success and an extra year of team control, but will be more expensive in the near term. But, again, the huge cost in prospects the Royals were willing to part with for Shields seems to speak well of what the Mets’ could seek in return for Dickey, should they decide to trade the knuckleballer.
Ted, I just ate a sandwich where the bread was too hard and all the softer stuff inside the sandwich squeezed out to the sides every time I took a bite. It kinda ruined the sandwich for me. Do you know of any ways to stop this from happening so an otherwise good sandwich doesn’t lose its sandwichy goodness?
I’d have to see the bread to know if this will work, but you can try “scooping it out,” the common carb-cutting technique. If the crust is strong enough to hold up, pulling out some of the bready middle should create open spaces to contain the sandwich stuff, allowing it to essentially replace the part of the roll you’ve removed rather than trying to crush it between two sides of a roll.
Also, I don’t know what you’ve got inside the sandwich, but maybe try piling all the ingredients on one half, topping it with cheese, and toasting it in a toaster oven for a minute to let the cheese melt and act to bind the rest of the sandwich stuff.
What about pheasant stuffed with squab stuffed with quail? Squab is a massively underrated meat, for what it’s worth. Really good stuff.
Alternately, what about pork stuffed with lamb stuffed with beef? Obviously the cow is the biggest of these animals, but I figure you’re not going to want the beef on the outside because you’d have to dry it out to get the pork cooked. But pork on the outside means maybe you can cook the lamb and beef to medium rare, with the added benefit of the delicious pork fat seeping into the interior meats. Actually, I can’t believe I’ve never considered this before. Somebody get John Madden on the phone. We’re past due for the Porlambeef.
The Jets in a baseball game against the Mets, definitely. Who’s your offensive line, if you’re the Mets? Just based on size alone, and picking from the Mets’ whole 40-man roster, you’d probably have to go with Lucas Duda and Robert Carson at the tackles, Jeurys Familia and Anthony Recker at guards and Frank Francisco at center. Those guys would get trounced by the Jets’ defensive line. No matter how good Kirk Nieuwenhuis is in the backfield, the Mets aren’t getting a single play off against the Jets’ D. Also, the Jets have way more dudes, and for the Mets to field a full football team with everyone playing only one way, they’re going to have to field some guys who will be absolutely torn apart by NFL players.
The Jets’ ace in the hole, also, is that Jeremy Kerley can supposedly throw fastballs in the mid 90s. And every guy in their receiving corps and defensive backfield is probably fast enough and coordinated enough to lay down an occasional bunt hit then steal some bases, and cover a lot of territory defensively. The Mets would obviously still kick the crap out of them in baseball, but I think it’d be a closer game.
@OGTedBerg No sandwich of the week this week? Or is it going to be a weekend thing?
Not this week, sorry. I was kind of hoping no one would notice. On average, I wind up eating probably three or four sandwiches for every one that gets reviewed, and I’m planning a vacation for January and trying to be healthy and save money until then. I’m not intentionally avoiding sandwiches or anything, I just haven’t been eating sandwiches with the frequency I typically need to find a sandwich worthy of review. If I happen upon one, I’ll write it up here. More on the vacation certainly to follow, but I expect it will provide much fodder for food porn here.
It’s cool that there’s going to be some sort of professional sport on Hempstead Turnpike once the Islanders leave, but unless the Cosmos bring back Pele they’re not going to recapture the magic of having Pele on your soccer team.
I’m for it. Heartily. One of the best perks at my last job was that the soda machines had cans of Yoo-hoo for 50 cents. This office has free soda, but no Yoo-hoo. It’s good because it’s both a beverage and a dessert.
I don’t know. Wikipedia says it doesn’t even necessarily have meat in it anymore, which is about the most flagrant type of false-advertising. You can’t name a food item for another, more established type of food item when it has no relationship to that thing.
“Hey have you tried lingonbacon?”
“No, but it sounds amazing.”
“Sorry, it’s a vegetable, and it sucks.”
I assume he means what about Matt Diaz as an option for the Mets, not just what about Matt Diaz in general. Diaz, you probably remember, was one of the preeminent Major League lefty-mashers in the latter part of the last decade, one of the few players who manage to hang around the league as the right-handed side of an outfield platoon.
But Diaz is hardly the player now that he was in 2009, when he rocked an 1.103 OPS against southpaws. He’ll be 35 by Opening Day, he hasn’t hit lefties all that well since 2010, he’s now utterly useless against righties, and he’s not much in the field. I’d rather take my chances with Andrew Brown or an Andrew Brown type, or just play Mike Baxter everyday.
Via email, Chris writes:
Ted, how do you think the 2013 Mets will be? Will they contend for the second playoff spot or will it be a year to punt and wait for 2014.
I don’t think “punt” is the right word, because I don’t think teams should ever entirely give up on seasons before they even get started. If there are ways to improve the team around the margins with relatively inexpensive short-term deals and such, they’re worth doing because almost anything can happen in a baseball season and there’s no sense not entering the year with the best team you can put together.
But there are years when teams should go all in and jeopardize their future payroll or roster to compete in the present, and this is not that type of year for the Mets. The Nats look too strong, and there’s too much uncertainty up and down the lineup for them to target 2013 as a year for contending and act accordingly. Again: That doesn’t rule out contending, so it’s not punting the season. It just means you don’t sign older free agents to big contracts or trade away prospects for established players.
Wait, they don’t allow tailgating at baseball games? I definitely tailgated at several Mets games this year. Saw some pretty impressive spreads, too. You just need to pour your definitely-not-beer into a cup.
Totally depends on what it’d take to extend Dickey’s contract, and I’m not sure which reports I believe on that one. If Dickey’s actually available for as little as two years and $26 million on top of his $5 million 2013 option, then it’s Dickey. If it’s significantly more than that, it’s Niese. And though I’ve been discussing trades quite a bit in this space, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with keeping both of them if there’s no worthy package on the table. There are a bunch of ways to win baseball games, and having a deep starting rotation is certainly one of them.
I don’t think the Rangers hate Michael Young nearly as much as the Internet hates Michael Young, and the Internet hates Michael Young because he has been bad at pretty much every position according to defensive metrics, his offensive numbers are a bit inflated by the park in which he plays, and, like many high batting-average guys, he earns a ton of praise from those who limit themselves to the stats on the back of baseball cards. Plus, though his leadership is frequently trumpeted, he complained when the Rangers signed Adrian Beltre and moved Young off third base. But despite all that, I suspect the Rangers are looking to part ways with him mostly because they’ve got so many position players who merit playing time. And I’d bet Young enjoys something of a bounceback season on offense.
I think I am still biased by my faith in him and his administration, and I suspect if Omar Minaya made some of the same moves Alderson has I’d be killing him for them. But I do think Alderson’s still working towards the appropriate goal, creating a sustainable winner with young players developed from within. Whether or not he’s going about that the right way is yet to be determined. Next offseason, when all the payroll money frees up, should be a pretty good test for him.
I’ve read a bunch of people kill Alderson for the Mets’ 2011 and 2012 drafts, and I think that’s extraordinarily silly for a variety of reasons. Mostly because it’s way, way too early to judge the outcome of the 2011 and 2012 drafts.
In this photo it appears Valdespin is in front of a collage of Jordany Valdespin highlights:
In this photo, he’s wearing a Marlins hat. Some Mets fans seem mad about this but I could hardly care less what hat Jordany Valdespin wears in the offseason. He’s presumably wearing it for style, not because he’s a Marlins fan. It is sort of odd though:
In this photo, Jordany Valdespin shows off his introspective side:
Apparently one of Valdespin’s hobbies is posing for photos in and around his apartment. It takes all kinds, I suppose. There are actually a few more. Every photo that Jordany Valdespin has ever tweeted has been a photo of Jordany Valdespin.
Olt’s not quite Wil Myers, not by reputation or performance to date. The biggest difference is in their ages; Olt is more than two years older than Myers, so he can’t quite be expected to improve the way Myers can — though every prospect is his own unique snowflake and either could develop into an awesome or awful hitter. Also, though experts seem bullish on Olt’s ability to transition to the outfield, he hasn’t really done it yet. A third baseman by trade, Olt has played five professional games in right field.
If the Mets were to acquire Olt, he’d probably need to start the season in Triple-A to get reps in the outfield and at the plate before advancing to the Majors. Though Olt spent time with the Rangers late in 2012, he didn’t hit much in his big-league tenure, and he’s yet to play at Triple-A. Myers appears ready for prime time, at least based on his dominance of Pacific Coast League pitching in 2012.
Of course, since the Royals do not appear willing to trade Myers for Dickey, the comparison doesn’t matter. Neither Myers nor Olt fits the Mets’ needs quite the way Giancarlo Stanton would, but if it’s not happening it’s not really worth talking about.
The good news about Olt is that he does a bunch of the things the Mets need: He hits right-handed and with a lot of power. At Double-A Frisco in 2012, he hit 28 home runs in only 354 at-bats. It’s worth noting, though, that Frisco’s park is rather amenable to the longball.
Olt’s also a local kid, for what it’s worth. He grew up in Connecticut and played college ball at UConn. And, most importantly, we’d be able to reference Arrested Development and yell “MIKE OLT!” every time he did anything.
The Rangers have a couple other players that could interest the Mets in a trade, to boot. If they do miss out on Greinke but re-sign Josh Hamilton, they could have something of a logjam on their hands. Obviously there are a lot of moving parts and I have no idea what the Rangers’ plans hold, but it seems like they have a bunch of outfielders the Mets could use, plus, a bit further away, Double-A second baseman Leury Garcia blocked by the young duo of Andrus and Jurickson Profar in the middle infield (plus Ian Kinsler, who looks likely to be displaced).
So it seems like there’s a deal to work out in there somewhere, if the Mets opt to trade Dickey at all. The Mets would seem to be best served working out a package deal — perhaps including more than just Dickey — to net an outfielder ready for Opening Day in addition to Olt.
For what it’s worth, I was standing around in the visitors’ clubhouse at Citi Field at some point this season while the MLB Network was showing a special on the Ryan-Ventura fight. The Braves were in town, and several Braves were sitting on the clubhouse couch watching with the same amount of enthusiasm me and my friends probably would if we were watching the same thing. Dan Uggla in particular seemed massively entertained; when they showed the clip he was all, “don’t do it, man! Don’t charge the mound… don’t charge the mound! OHHHH NO YOU CHARGED THE MOUND!”
“Pop Goes the Weasel” is a common children’s song, numbered 5249 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The lyrics of the version I grew up with are as follows:
All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought it was all in fun
Pop! goes the weasel.
Those lyrics defy explanation. For one thing, there are not many areas of the world where monkeys, weasels and mulberry bushes coexist, and in none of them do people traditionally speak English. Mulberry trees grow all over the place: Europe, southern Asia, Central and South America, eastern North America and southern Africa, but there are no monkeys in eastern North America, unfortunately, and no weasels in southern Africa. The only non-human primates native to Europe are the Barbary apes.
Basically, the only places where a monkey could feasibly chase a weasel around a mulberry bush without human intervention are Mexico, parts of Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru in the Western Hemisphere and China, Laos and Vietnam in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Moreover, though weasels do communicate vocally, they either gurgle or squeal or screech or purr, depending on the type of weasel and the situation, but never pop. And though a playful monkey might chase a weasel “in good fun,” it’s unlikely that monkeys ever eat weasels. In fact, tayras — a cousin to the weasel sometimes included in the larger weasel umbrella — are known to attack monkeys, so it may be more common for weasels to chase monkeys than the other way around. I know: I’m blowing your mind right now.
So the song makes no sense. But as it turns out, and somewhat predictably, the lyrics to “Pop Goes the Weasel” commonly sung in the United States are not the original ones. Our version is the remix.
The song dates back to at least the 1850s in England, but none of the known versions from that era contain references to mulberry bushes and only one verse mentions a monkey. The first time it included a monkey chasing anything, at least by the Wikipedia’s research, came in a version printed in Boston in 1858, when the monkey was chasing the people around the cobbler’s house.
It’s worth noting that the Wikipedia deems the song’s popularity on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1850s as a “dance craze.” No joke. Some 160 years ago, “Pop Goes the Weasel” was the hottest new jam at all the clubs. Newspapers called it “the latest English dance” and (inaccurately) credited it to Queen Victoria herself, and apparently started using the phrase “pop goes the weasel” as an expression outside the context of the song, like how people once claimed to be too legit to quit or, presumably, said, “c’mon, baby, do the loco-motion” to compel their friends into action at various times in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
It makes “Gangnam Style” seem palatable, really.
As it turns out, there are a variety of theories as to what “Pop Goes the Weasel” actually means, but it seems most likely it comes from Cockney rhyming slang — itself the subject of a reasonably fascinating Wikipedia page. For whatever reason, people in the East End of London have habit of “replacing a common word with a rhyming phrase of two or three words and then, in almost all cases, omitting the secondary rhyming word (which is thereafter implied), in a process called hemiteleia.” For example, the phrase “to blow a raspberry” to mean making a flatulent sound with your mouth and lips actually comes from the cockney rhyming slang for fart, “raspberry tart,” shortened to raspberry.
The Wikipedia suggests that “popping” is a cockney slang term for pawning, and weasel — from “weasel and stoat,” whatever that means — is cockney rhyming slang for “coat.” So it seems possible that “Pop Goes the Weasel” actually means to pawn your coat, which makes a lot a sense in the context of this verse, noted as early as 1856:
Up and down the City Road
In and out the Eagle
That’s the way the money goes
Pop! goes the weasel.
The Eagle was the name of a pub on City Road. So it seems eminently likely that the song we all sung as children is based on one about pawning your coat for booze. Better that than the black plague, I suppose.
The Mets selected left-handed pitcher Kyle Lobstein from the Rays in the Rule 5 draft this morning, despite talk they wouldn’t take anybody due to a crunch for space on the 40-man roster. By my count, Lobstein becomes the 38th man on the 40-man, so if the Mets add three more players via trade or free agency, he could get sent back to the Rays and this will all be meaningless.
But Lobstein seems like an interesting candidate for the Mets’ 2013 bullpen, even if he’s made only one professional appearance as reliever. He’s left-handed, first and foremost, so at the very least he becomes Spring Training competition for Robert Carson in the Mets’ seemingly perpetual quest to find a viable second lefty in the bullpen.
Though Lobstein’s stats as a starter have been underwhelming, he’s been very strong against Minor League lefties for at least the past two seasons. Across High A and Double-A in 2011 and 2012, Lobstein has struck out 27.3 percent of the left-handed hitters he’s faced and held them to a .238/.307/.357. And pitchers can usually throw a touch harder when used in shorter bursts, so it’s reasonable to expect Lobstein could become marginally more effective in a bullpen role.
Based on some Google returns, Lobstein seemed to throw fastballs in the high 80s and low 90s while working as a starter, so perhaps that ticks up to a consistent low-90s average as a reliever. He showed good control in the low Minors, but walked a few too many guys in Double-A in 2012.
That’s about all I’ve got. At the very least, Lobstein is a pretty funny name for a pitcher. Here’s what he looks like:
The double entendre here almost has to be intentional, right?
Either way, good for “Big Pelf.” Make sure to give him a high-five or a hearty bro-hug the next time you see him. I mean… twins!
Pretty sure he’s married, though.
In all seriousness: Good for Pelfrey. I’ve maintained here that Pelfrey got a short shrift from Mets fans, in large part because he was brave enough to admit he went to a sports psychologist — the same one that treated noted headcases Greg Maddux and Roy Halladay. Pelfrey’s issues on the mound, I remain convinced, had way more to do with his inability to develop a consistent secondary pitch than his mental health.
It doesn’t seem like it makes sense for Pelfrey or the Mets (as currently constituted) to return the big righty to Flushing, but I’m hard-pressed to come up with an ex-Met I’ll be pulling for more (non-Beltran division). The guy used “Lake of Fire” as his warmup music, after all, and once spent several minutes of his time chatting with me about sandwiches.
Tedquarters 