Friday Q&A, pt. 1: Baseball stuff

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Via email, Nick writes:

Ted, what about Matt Diaz?

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.

https://twitter.com/HedCheez/status/277073189471928320

83-79. I think they’ll start moving in the right direction.

https://twitter.com/JoeBacci/status/277072609911394304

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.

https://twitter.com/Rob_Zloto/status/277073305339572224

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.

https://twitter.com/__christhompson/status/277087159847108609

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.

https://twitter.com/jabrickman914/status/277073923823251456

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.

Photos of Jordany Valdespin that Jordany Valdespin has tweeted

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Here are some pictures of Jordany Valdespin that Jordany Valdespin has tweeted.

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.

Mike Olt!

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Word is the Rangers are willing to deal Mike Olt to get R.A. Dickey if they lose out in the Zack Greinke sweepstakes.

oltOlt has a great reputation. He ranked No. 43 on Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list coming into the 2012 season, was No. 13 on John Sickels’ preliminary Top 50 ranking of position player prospects and sits No. 16 on Jonathan Mayo’s Top 100 prospects list.

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.

You used to laugh about everybody that was hangin’ out

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If you’ve only got time to look at one set of pretty and mystifying pictures today, I recommend this article, about the rolling stones of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California.

Though no one has ever seen it happen, the stones — many of them upwards of 25 pounds — sometimes move on their own in the night, leaving behind them trails in the sand as long as 1,500 feet. The article’s got a bunch of pictures and some possible explanations.

Via a few people, first Rob V.

Ahh, this

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Via Big League Stew, via dee-nee.com:

Here's what the Nolan Ryan-Robin Ventura fight would look like on RBI Baseball.

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!”

From the Wikipedia: Pop Goes the Weasel

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I have no idea why.

Here's what a weasel looks like. I was really tempted to use a picture of Pauly Shore but I thought that might be too obscure. From the Wikipedia: Pop Goes the Weasel.

“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.

Furthermore, the lone South America type of mulberry tree — morus insignis — mostly appears to exist near the Pacific coast, whereas South American weasels typically live inland.

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.

Mets get some guy. UPDATE: Some guy traded. BRING BACK SOME GUY!

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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:

Here's what Kyle Lobstein looks like.

UPDATE, 10:30 a.m.: But then there’s this:

https://twitter.com/AdamRubinESPN/status/276709862908497920

Lobstein, we hardly knew ye.

And there it is:

https://twitter.com/AdamRubinESPN/status/276716662030495746

Goodnight, sweet prince.

New favorite Tweet?

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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.