The Fightins, the only Phillies blog as dedicated as I am to Embarrassing Photos of Cole Hamels, posted a rather revealing shot of Mr. Hamels last night. Be warned: It’s a little unsafe-for-work. I mean it’s something we all have and it’s not X-rated, it’s more like R-rated, and… oh, it’s his ass. Go check out Cole Hamels’ naked ass. I’ve updated the archive with a link.
I mean, holy crap. Even if sacrifice bunting were guaranteed to be successful, you’d still be giving away an out, an offense’s most precious commodity. And it’s not guaranteed to be successful. Hell, with this particular Mets club, it actually seems to be a freaking longshot.
And let’s forget for now that Jose Reyes is one of the best basestealers in baseball, that he already had two steals in tonight’s game and that he was 8-for-8 stealing bases on the season when Terry Collins called for Josh Thole to bunt him to second. Say for the sake of argument that Reyes couldn’t have stolen a base there because, I don’t know, he couldn’t get a great read on Brandon Lyon or something. Why are you playing for one run anyway? The leadoff hitter was on with the middle of the order coming up, including a red-hot Carlos Beltran. Why not aim for a crooked number and a walk-off win?
So you can tie the game and put more innings in the hands of your powder keg of a bullpen, the same one that’s blown basically every lead for two weeks? Is that the plan? Tie it up and turn it over to Tim Byrdak?
C’mon. Just… c’mon.
This goose strongly objects to being called dumb:
Last one:
There were a few questions about the Doritos Loco Taco, which is, of course, the Taco Bell taco made with a Nacho-Cheese Doritos shell. I haven’t had one yet. I have heard rumors that they’re available at the Taco Bell on 14th and 5th here in Manhattan, but no one has confirmed this for me. Can anyone? Anyone live down there want to walk over and check it out? I don’t want to waste a subway ride if they don’t have ’em. Can you, like, call a Taco Bell and ask for the menu? Do Taco Bells even have phones?
As for the @TacoBell Twitter account’s staunch refusal to acknowledge me, I’m at a loss. I mean, I get that they’re not likely to say anything when I call out the Worst Taco Bell in the World — on Route 9A in Elmsford, N.Y. — for being the worst Taco Bell in the world. But you can’t hook a brother up with knowledge of test markets? I guess they like to keep that stuff under wraps so I don’t, I don’t know, impact their market research or something. But still!
According to the website-about-a-website WeFollow.com, I am the second most influential Taco Bell Twitterer on the Twitter, behind the @TacoBellCanada account. You’ll note that the official @TacoBell account, despite over 120K followers, does not even make the list. Now it could simply be that the team of marketing interns at Taco Bell running the account never thought to submit it to the relatively useless WeFollow.com, or — or! — it could be that by WeFollow.com’s complicated system it has determined that I am just a significantly more influential Taco Bell-themed Twitter user than Taco Bell’s corporate account.
So maybe they’re jealous, is what I’m saying.
I agree wholeheartedly. If Bloomberg doesn’t ride the new roller coasters, it says: “I am a resident of the five boroughs that is not interested in checking out all my local roller-coaster options, so I am sort of lame.” And, without delving too deeply into politics, that’s just not a message I think I’d want to send if I were ever mayor.
Coney Island is sweet. One of the many things I miss about living in Brooklyn is the ability to ride my bike down to the Coney Island boardwalk to check out its weird mix of awesome things to do and macabre urban-carnival decay, much of which, I understand, isn’t there anymore. But I suppose now there’s new stuff to do there that will itself in time become forlorn and creepy. So that’s exciting.
Over.
There were a couple of trade-deadline questions; I’m going with this one. First off, I would be shocked if David Wright gets traded. I don’t think anyone should ever be considered “untouchable” by any means, but it seems like you’re going to need to get a hell of a lot back for Wright, considering he’s a) awesome and b) under contract for 2012 with a reasonable team option for 2013. He’s a big enough piece that it’s going to require a lot back, and deals that big are difficult to hammer out in ways that appear to benefit both sides.
As for Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez: Who knows? If the Mets are out of it and Beltran is healthy they’ll undoubtedly try to move him, since he has a clause in his contract that prevents the club from collecting compensatory draft picks. But it’s tough to move players with contracts his size (or ridiculous vesting options, for that matter). I’ve long held that approaching the deadline as a “buyer” or “seller” is a bad way to do it; teams should merely look to exploit inefficiencies to best benefit the club, however that may be.
Anyway, to answer the question: I wouldn’t be too concerned about that. As long as there are physical places on Minor League (or Major League) fields to put them, there’s never any issue with a logjam of prospects. I had a brief Twitter exchange the other day with a reader who wondered why the Mets ever kept Brad Emaus around in the first place, since Reese Havens is the second baseman of the future.
How often do prospects actually work out? Very rarely. And it’s really, really difficult to predict which will become stars, which will become average Major League contributors, and which will become total scrubs.
Consider this: Before 2001, Baseball America ranked Albert Pujols the No. 42 prospect in baseball. Now granted, Pujols only had one year of Minor League experience at that point and most of it was in A-ball. But pretty much as soon as the 2001 season started, Pujols got about establishing himself as the best player in baseball. This is not to fault the magazine, only to serve as an example of how difficult it is to predict these things: Baseball America thought there were 41 prospects more likely to be stars than Albert Pujols when Pujols was already ready to start being Albert Pujols. Alex Escobar was ranked 18th that year.
Point is, there’s no sure way of knowing which of your prospects turn into Albert Pujols and which turn into Alex Escobar. You can scout and measure and speculate, but it’s never smart to put all your eggs in one basket — especially when, in Havens’ case, the basket so frequently needs mending. The best way to ensure that some of your prospects turn into stars is to collect as many promising young players as you can and give them opportunities to prove themselves.
If you wind up with two guys who look like great Major Leaguers at the same position, that’s a good problem to have. You cross your fingers and trade one to upgrade at some other position.
It’s funny to me to read Mets fans saying Mike Pelfrey never made good on the hype. Yeah, Pelfrey was a top pick and we all hoped he’d be an ace. But a league-average innings eater is nothing to sneeze at, considering how many high picks fall apart and never contribute anything to their Major League clubs.
Meeting time. More Q&A to follow.
Did I not say yesterday that the first-pitch robot would get booed today? Well, it did.
Here we go:
Cold. I know people have strong opinions on this, but for a lobster roll I prefer lobster salad — the mayonnaisey kind. I think I’m not the best judge of lobster, though, because I am scarred in all sorts of ways from working a couple of summers in a wholesale/retail lobster market. Part of that job entailed dumping crates of lobsters into huge vats of boiling water, maybe 200 at a time, and I think hot lobster evokes more of the odd guilt that arises when I consider how many crustaceans I’ve massacred.
Also, I may have shared this before but I can’t remember: Working at a giant lobster market seems like a fun and funny summer job, but it is harder than you could even imagine to get the smell off you. I used to come home and shower with four different soaps and really scrub myself down. I remember one night I was going to the movies with a girl I liked, so I did absolutely everything I could to eradicate the stench of hot lobster and fish from my body. I’m talking showering for like a half hour, deodorant, a little cologne, everything. And then, putting popcorn into my mouth, I smelled it on my hands. Awful. I reeked all summer.
So my relationship with lobster is kind of complicated, I guess.
Too many to count. I think people assume that because I tend to be patient and perhaps a bit reflective on this blog that I’m the same way in real life, and it’s really not the case. I get fired up pretty easily, and when the Mets are losing most of my workdays begin with a several-minute-long profanity-laced rant to anyone who will even pretend to listen about things the Mets did the previous night. If someone comes and interrupts me I usually challenge him to a fight. It’s really only once I get that all out that I can take a breath, think things over and write mild-mannered posts about how there’s no way the Mets really suck this much.
Man, you’re asking the wrong guy. I’ve been to a Peoria Chiefs game in 105-degree heat, I’ve driven 200-plus miles to go see games at RFK Stadium, I went to Olympic Stadium in its last miserable days. The only justification I’ve ever needed to buy a ticket for a baseball game is that there’s a baseball game. Baseball is the thing I save up money for.
Of course, I realize I’m something of an outlier, and it’s easy for me to say now that I have a press pass that gets me in free. Obviously Mets fans have plenty of good reasons for not showing up lately: The economy stinks, just about every aspect of going to a game is pretty expensive, the weather has been bad. But mostly, I suspect, it’s the team.
The Mets are coming off two losing seasons and two miserable finishes before that. It’s a huge market and there are plenty of people, I suspect, who would shoulder the financial lode and pony up cash for tickets if they thought the team had a better-than-even-money chance of winning. It’s going to take time and a lot of wins for them to convince the masses that they do.
Here are some things that are happening in baseball:
Carlos Lee is tied for the National League lead in triples.
Macier Izturis, who came into the season with a career 92 OPS+, has a 183 OPS+.
Brian Roberts, the Orioles’ leadoff hitter, is on pace for more than 140 RBIs despite an on-base percentage below .300.
Jeff Francoeur has a .352 on-base percentage and a .508 slugging, exactly the same marks he had after 16 games last season.
Albert Pujols, who has a .424 career on-base percentage, has a .288 on-base percentage.
A.J. Pierzynski has struck out only once in 56 plate appearances.
Juan Pierre, a lifetime 75% basestealer, has been caught stealing more times than he has stolen a base.
Indians pitchers have yielded a collective 1.125 WHIP, a better rate than Greg Maddux posted in his career.
Mets pitchers have yielded a collective 1.616 WHIP, a worse rate than Oliver Perez posted in his time with the team.
Oakland starter Gio Gonzalez has allowed 12 walks in 19 innings, but only allowed one run so far — on a solo home run by Ryan Langerhans.
CC Sabathia hasn’t won a game yet. AJ Burnett hasn’t lost a game yet. Burnett has thrown twice as many wild pitches as anyone else in baseball.
A WILD otter attacked a farmer in a rampage across a village yesterday.
The furry beast pounced on farmer Joe Burke and bit his hand before he managed to trap him in a canvas sack.
But the creature then chewed through the bag and started munching on Joe’s VAN.
Probably worth clicking through to the article for the pictures. Via Tommy Bennett.
Apparently Bobby Parnell is struggling with numbness in the middle finger of his throwing hand, which probably explains his struggles this season better than the old “not cut out for New York” argument that has somehow reared its head.
Terry Collins didn’t say what the Mets would do, but with Jason Bay going 4-for-4 with two home runs in his rehab start tonight, it seems like a safe bet the outfielder is ready to go. And since the Mets should be about as desperate for Jason Bay as any team ever has been, it wouldn’t be surprising if Parnell is placed on the DL and Bay activated before tomorrow’s game. Bay was initially supposed to be back Thursday.
The other thing: A bunch of Mets fans seem really eager to show Scott Hairston the door, and I certainly hear that. He has looked awful at the plate and underwhelming in the field. The last time I said a guy needed more time he got cut (specifically: today), but I have to figure the Mets will have a longer leash with Hairston. Unlike Brad Emaus, Hairston has years of experience to show he can be a capable if unspectacular part-time outfielder. Cutting him because of 28 miserable plate appearances (again) seems a bit rash.
Terry Collins suggested Hairston is trying too hard to hit home runs with the Mets struggling like this, and Hairston agreed that was probably the case. The first step is admitting you have a problem, so maybe he’ll snap out of it. Of course, he struggled for almost all of 2010 too. So there is that.
Tedquarters 