Via Amazin’ Avenue comes this 2008 Hardball Times piece about Daniel Ray Herrera’s screwball, a rarity in contemporary baseball. I just tried throwing it as described with a Wiffle ball in my office, and now my shoulder hurts.
Position-player candidates to be called up: first baseman Valentino Pascucci and outfielder Mike Baxter. The 32-year-old Pascucci, named Triple-A Buffalo’s MVP, last appeared in the majors in 2004 with the Montreal Expos.
– Adam Rubin, ESPNNewYork.com.
Do the Mets stand to gain much by calling up Val Pascucci? Not really. He’s 32, defensively limited, and probably not a big part of the team’s future.
Should they? Hell yes they should. Make this happen.
I joined the gang from KinersKorner.com on their podcast last night to discuss the Mets and embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels. Check it out.
As I’ve mentioned about a dozen times: Last year the Mets gave 1633 plate appearances to position players that finished with on-base percentages below .300, by far the most in their division.
So far this year: 88, by far the least in their division.
Last year’s Mets offense ranked 26th in the Majors with an 89 OPS+. This year’s Mets offense ranks 7th with a 103 mark. Last year’s team finished 25th in on-base percentage with a .314 rate. This year’s team is fourth, with .335.
The New York Mets today announced the team acquired lefthanded pitcher Daniel Herrera and righthanded pitcher Adrian Rosario from the Milwaukee Brewers to complete the trade that sent righthanded pitcher Francisco Rodriguez and cash considerations to the Brewers on July 12.
– Mets press release.
So who are these guys?
Herrera’s a short, 26-year-old left-hander with 93 innings’ worth of Major League experience. In those innings, he posted a 106 ERA+ with a high 1.537 WHIP, but proved effective against left-handed batters. He held lefties to a .218/.278/.306 line, meaning he’d make a pretty decent lefty specialist if nothing else. Major League righties crushed him, though.
In 42 2/3 innings in the Triple-A (and hitter friendly) Pacific Coast League this year, Herrera held lefties to a .173 batting average and a .196 on-base percentage.
Rosario, a 21-year-old righty in Single A, hasn’t had a ton of success in the low Minors. One interesting note, though: In every stop in which teams used Rosario exclusively out of the bullpen, his strikeout rate spiked. Of course, it’s a bunch of small samples and he’s still in Single A, so it’s hard to get too excited. Toby Hyde has more.
Patrick Flood had a great post about bullpen construction yesterday that you should probably check out and which, I believe, endorses acquisitions like these ones. Herrera appears to be a guy the Mets could use next year in place of Tim Byrdak without having to shell out Scott Schoeneweis money on the free-agent market. Plus he appears to have good hair.
As of right now, 56 percent of TedQuarters readers polled say “Meh” to the news that the Mets’ sale of part of the team to David Einhorn fell through. 43 percent say “Boo,” and 1 percent — possibly the troll lobby — say “Hurrah.” Of course, this site’s readership likely does not reflect an accurate cross-section of the Mets’ fanbase.
I suppose as an SNY employee I should feel more passionately about the news, but I voted for “Meh.”
By now, I’ve become so jaded to negative and/or confusing news about the team’s ownership situation that I find it difficult to muster up much emotion even upon the event of real, meaningful news. And based on what little I learned about the Wilpons’ legal and financial woes when they last came to the fore, I know better than to trust most media outlets to report on this stuff in any appropriately nuanced fashion.
But thinking about it more now, and seeing some of the fallout online, I probably should have voted “Boo.”
For one thing, Einhorn seems like a smart dude, the type I’d like having some say in the way my favorite baseball team is run. For another, the way I understood it when the team went up for partial sale in the first place, the Mets were looking for a partner to ensure they’d be able to continue operating like the huge-market team that they are. Whether they will without Einhorn remains to be seen, but fans now lack the confidence that would have come with a rich man unencumbered by lawsuits contributing cash to the club.
Mostly, though, I say “boo” because the news means more incessant, mostly uninformed discussion of broad business proceedings that fail to interest me.
I like baseball. Sorry if that sounds willfully ignorant, but it’s the case. I’d like to know that the baseball team I root for is operating optimally and unburdened by its owners’ murky financial situation, then fret over the players the team’s front office chooses to put on the field without worrying about the way the club’s liquidity affects those choices. And I know that it’s all part of the same big picture, and that all teams are in so many ways impacted by the realities of a rich-people world distinct from my own. I get that.
But when the– Hey, the Mets got two guys!
The Mets’ deal with David Einhorn fell through. How does this make you feel?
[poll id=”33″]
It turns out there’s a good blog about commuting on the Metro-North: Trainjotting. Its author, Mike, is a Mets fan, and he interviewed me about my job, the Mets and my daily commute. It contains a story about fart noises. Check it out.
Baseball in general is subject to luck. There are so many variables that go with putting up numbers. With batting average, a lot of it depends on who is hitting behind you, and where you hit the ball.
– David Wright.
In March this year the municipality hosted a press conference about the newly to be built stadium and the ambition to open it ceremonially in 2014 with the first official MLB games in Europe. MLB delegate in Europe Clive Russell came from his office in London to the Netherlands, in order to describe the plans in cooperation between Amsterdam and Hoofddorp as “pole position for the Netherlands”….
On Tuesday morning Mister Baseball spoke on the phone with Technical Director Robert Eenhoorn of Dutch federation KNBSB. He confirmed that to the purpose of this bidbook presentation, he will fly to New York on Tuesday next week. He will accompany the delegation from the two cities Amsterdam and Hoofddorp, headed by their sports eldermen Eric van der Burg, respectively Michel Bezuijen.
– Pim van Nes, mister-baseball.com.
That sounds like a pretty awesome idea. And like Craig Calcaterra points out, for an East Coast team a flight to Europe isn’t much further than one to the West Coast.
One question, posed to me by Ted Burke: If the Dutch call baseball “honkbal,” do they also call a walk a “honk on bals”? I sure as hell hope so.
Tedquarters 