On the line in the starting position No turning back ’cause I’ve made a decision I got no time to waste; I’m moving I’ll get you any way that I can.
(Chorus:) I’m coming through like a freight train rolling I’m piercing through like a jet in the sky I’m busting through like the sun in the morning I’m gonna take you; just look into my eyes.
I’m in your face and I’m revving my engine I got the blade, gonna make the incision I got no time to waste; I’m moving I’ll get you any way that I can.
Chorus (x2)
I got no time to waste; I’m moving I’ll get you any way that I can.
Chorus (x2)
I’m coming through like a… JET! I’m piercing through like a… JET! I’m busting through like a… JET! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
I’d LOL about this some from the Mets-fan perspective, but I know Angels fans LOL’d pretty hard when the Mets hired Terry Collins. And though the Mets have not won much under Collins, his stewardship hardly seems to be anything close to their biggest problem. Plus, let us not forget, there was a time — the halcyon days of August, 2008 — when a lot of us were pretty excited about the way the Mets seemed to improve immediately after Manuel took over. If teams only hired managers that had never failed before, Davey Johnson would be pretty much the only veteran manager with a job.
The New York Mets today announced outfielder Lucas Duda underwent surgery yesterday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan to repair a fracture in his right wrist. The procedure was performed by Dr. Andrew Weiland, the Mets’ hand specialist. The fracture occurred while Duda was moving furniture last month at his apartment in Southern California. Duda will be discharged from HSS today and is expected to be ready for Spring Training in February.
– Mets press release.
LOLMets?
I, for one, would like more details about the furniture. What style of interior design does a man like Lucas Duda favor? WHY ARE THE METS NOT BEING MORE FORTHCOMING ABOUT LUCAS DUDA’S DECOR?
Here’s hoping the Dude is good to go come springtime.
I like to think that relative sanity from all sides has helped sports fans (particularly web-savvy sports fans) understand and embrace math to a solid degree. Like I said, there’s some grousing. There are plenty of “watch the game!” comments. But it’s nothing like on the political stage. The abuse Nate Silver has received this election cycle for having the temerity to average polls based on a previously successful regression model is astounding. This is pretty straightforward math. It’s actually quite similar to Hollinger’s Power Rankings. Hollinger takes efficiency differential (which is a more precise indication of team win-loss record) and adjusts for schedule strength (including home-road split) and emphasizes recent play. Silver’s Five Thirty Eight model averages the polls, adjusting for house effects and timing. Like I said, basic math.
Hollinger hears it from math-denying fans, but no columnists, analysts or talking heads rip him openly. Silver is getting challenged by one of the highest-rated political commentators on television. And many others. It’s all a bit crazy, especially when Silver plainly says his work produces probabilities of outcomes, not certainties. Are the anti-Silver commentators really that … for lack of a better word, dumb? (Note: this isn’t to say anything of those who seek to discredit the mechanics of Silver’s model, with the arguments that he overemphasizes state polls or that his house effects adjustments are off. This is about the math deniers that have popped up as the math has told a story that doesn’t agree with their partisan sensibilities.)
Good reading from Ziller on the bizarre turn the political punditry has taken against Nate Silver’s probabilities this election cycle.
I avoid politics here, as you’ve likely realized. But if you’ve somehow missed all the backlash to Silver’s analysis this month, it’s worth investigating. Lots of silliness.
Tom Brady took a break from his usual hobbies of bedding models atop piles of money and being frustratingly awesome at football to take in an Aerosmith concert in Boston on Monday afternoon with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, among others. Brady braved Boston’s November chill in a belted black peacoat with a half-popped collar and, alarmingly, no evidence of a shirt underneath:
It’s strange, but I’m not sure it even cracks the Top 10 most embarrassing photos of Tom Brady. Hell, for all we know, Brady was just paying tribute to Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, who, as a point of fact, does not even own a shirt.
Also, because I found it while Google Imaging “Joe Perry shirtless” (I really hope my web activity here at the office is being screened by someone), here’s a photo of Joe Perry and Roger Clemens. Via Matador Records:
I’m trying to imagine how a conversation between Joe Perry and Roger Clemens might go, but I can’t get past two exchanges in my mind before they just start yelling, “No, I’m the worst!” and going back and forth like that ad infinitum.
Not much on the Taco Bell newswire this week, but a couple items of note.
Strange doings in Eugene: A vague sign inside a Starbucks in Eugene, Ore. has University of Oregon students excited. Here’s what the sign looks like:
And who could blame them for being amped about that? I mean, a 24-hour Taco Bell lounge! How sophisticated! They’re finally opening Club Chalupa.
The only problem is there’s no real evidence beyond the sign that it’s happening. An area Taco Bell representative said the chain has no plans to expand into the location and the town’s Planning and Development Department says there are no active permits at the location and no open applications.
Is this some sort of copycat stunt modeled after the hoax in Bethel, Alaska? A rogue Starbucks employee making idle threats to undercut the coffee shop’s business from the inside? A forthcoming, bell-themed 24-hour lounge unaffiliated with Taco Bell that will soon be sued for copyright infringement?
Needless to say, I will stay on this story as long as it keeps appearing in my Google News returns. My college’s campus featured a Taco Bell Express for my freshman year, but it later switched to a knock-off fast-food taco shop. I nearly transferred, but it turned out the new place served food suspiciously similar to Taco Bell’s.
Obama is trying to take your tacos!: This one comes via the OC Weekly’s ever-vigilant Taco Bell Crime of the Week series. Police in Dover, Ohio received a call about a man in a Barack Obama mask trying to steal bags of food from customers at the Taco Bell drive thru. This is either really lame political commentary or more incredibly cliched use of Presidential masks while committing crimes. We’ve all seen Point Break, bro, Why not rob Taco Bells dressed as Hellboy or Shrek or Kanye West?
Real-life friend Scott has an awesome Hamburglar getup that he’ll probably show you if you ask. Obviously that’s the right costume for showing up at drive-thrus and attempting to steal food. It might be especially funny to dress up like the Hamburglar and steal food at Taco Bell, because then people’d be all, “WTF?”
Manny Ramirez is headed for the Dominican Republic to restart a baseball career that could continue in Japan, The Post has learned.
According to a person with knowledge of the situation, three Japanese teams want to see the 40-year-old Ramirez play in games for Las Aguilas in order to gauge if he is worth signing.
Ramirez is slated to leave Florida tomorrow and travel to his native Dominican where the winter league is under way.
In case you’ve forgotten, Manny Ramirez: a) bats right-handed, b) was an excellent hitter as recently as 2010, c) is sometimes willing to stand in an outfield corner while his team is on defense and d) is Manny Ramirez. I think you see where I’m going with this.
I’m mostly kidding. But I’m definitely rooting for the Mets to acquire Manny Ramirez just for the sheer spectacle of it all, from the day they sign him until the day it inevitably ends poorly.
Here is Manny Ramirez getting whacked in the face by his own dreads during Spring Training:
Before and after exercising Dickey’s $5 million option for 2013 last week, it was natural for club brass to discuss how to maximize his value: Is he worth more to the Mets as a pitcher, or as a trade chip? The team is in desperate need of outfielders and catchers, have an abundance of young pitching, and believe they should deal from depth.
I’ve discussed potential Dickey deals in this space, prompting a few people to ask why I want the Mets to trade the Dickster. To be clear: I don’t. What I want is for the Mets to have the wherewithal to sign Dickey to an extension and add a free agent or two and aim to contend in 2013.
But since I try my best to operate in reality where appropriate and because it doesn’t seem like the Mets will be throwing around big bucks this offseason, I have become progressively more open to the idea of them trading Dickey in a deal for a young position player.
The Mets can approach Dickey in any of three ways this winter. They can sign him to an extension, they can do nothing and enjoy one more year of his services at a discount rate, or they can try to trade him for young players.
Opting to sign him to an extension — rumored to be somewhere in the three-year, $45 million neighborhood — will mean paying a premium for a premium pitcher. Dickey was probably worth more than $15 million to the Mets in 2012, and he’s a knuckleballer who hasn’t yet suffered the effects of his advancing age. So there’s some chance Dickey could pitch well enough over the course of an extension to provide the club surplus value on top of what he’s earning.
But an extension also comes with significant risk: He is, after all, 38, and the Mets would be paying him at a rate he established with a career year in 2012. If he falters, he could prove a fine pitcher worth slightly less than the $15 million a year, or, worse, if he gets hurt he could be worth way less than $15 million a year. Either way, the salary would count against the Mets’ finite payroll, and represents money that could be spent elsewhere — for better or worse.
Doing nothing seems like the worst idea of the three, given the Mets’ current situation. Due to the new collective bargaining agreement, an acquiring team would not receive compensatory draft picks for Dickey if it traded for him during the season, which seems likely to diminish his value at the trade deadline. Holding on to him now in the hopes of a #YOLOrioles-style postseason run in 2013 could help fill seats in the early part of the season, but if it doesn’t pay off and/or Dickey does not repeat his 2012 performance, the Mets will have missed their opportunity to cash in on him when his value is highest.
The thought of him pitching elsewhere on Opening Day 2013 is tough to stomach, I know. But trading him — as Martino’s article suggests — might represent the best way to maximize the value of the commodities on the Mets’ roster. The deal needs to be right, of course. But think about it this way: Which is likely to provide more value to the Mets moving forward, Dickey signed to a three-year extension at the market rate (or near the market rate), or a package of young, cost-controlled players they could receive in a deal for a pitcher coming off a Cy Young-caliber season?
And think about the replacements in question. Without Dickey, the Mets’ rotation is not nearly as good as it is with Dickey. But it’s still reasonably deep, with Johan Santana, Jon Niese, Matt Harvey, Dillon Gee, a host of young guys with live arms and a group of solid Triple-A dudes deemed “Dillon Gee types.” Without bringing in outfielders, the Mets have only outfielder under contract — Mike Baxter — who posted an OPS above .730 at a level above Double-A in 2012.
In the first half of 2012, something seemed to change for McDonald. He threw 110 innings before the All-Star Break and yielded a stellar 2.37 ERA, earning some of the credit for the Pirates’ early success. Analysts chalked up the difference to increased confidence in and effectiveness from his slider. Finally, some said, James McDonald became a pitcher, not a thrower*.
In the second half of 2012, McDonald pitched 61 innings with a 7.52 ERA. Notably — tragically, hilariously — in his last outing of the year, McDonald allowed three earned runs without retiring a batter. With that, he kept his season innings total to 171 and lifted his ERA to 4.21 to finish off his 2012 with the exact same totals in both stats as he posted in 2011.
McDonald’s peripheral stats improved slightly, so it’s unfair to say he endured an identical season. But looking at the largest sample available for James McDonald’s 2012 shows a pitcher indisputably remarkably similar to the James McDonald of 2011.
I think sometimes baseball nerds like me get so excited about regressions to the mean that we’re too quick to dismiss fluctuations in performance and the narratives that come with them. Baseball players can tinker and adjust and change, and they exist at the whims of so many outside factors. Maybe there’s something better than pure randomness to explain why Jeff Francoeur seems to start hitting every time he joins a new club, and why he reverts to being Jeff Francoeur shortly thereafter. Maybe McDonald did turn the proverbial corner in the first half of 2012, only to then turn three more corners and wind up right back at the intersection of Thrower Boulevard and League-Average Innings-Eater Avenue like so many players before him.
Or maybe McDonald’s first half and the stories that came with it provide only more examples of baseball’s wild sample-size caprices deluding us once again. And that might be depressing or it might be redeeming, depending on your angle.
*- This is among my very least favorite baseball expressions. I don’t think it’s entirely meaningless, it’s just used way too frequently, and too often as a stand-in for “is throwing more offspeed pitches” or “is walking fewer batters.” Also, it suggests the “throwers” in question don’t have any idea what they’re doing and are just chucking it, which is ridiculous. There are plenty of people who can throw in the 90s who will never sniff a Major League mound.
But since I try my best to operate in reality where appropriate and because it doesn’t seem like the Mets will be throwing around big bucks this offseason, I have become progressively more open to the idea of them trading Dickey in a deal for a young position player.
Here’s Pirates righty James McDonald’s 2011: 171 innings pitched, 4.21 ERA.
Tedquarters 