Two hicks, one in a suit

Is it me, or did President Bush make the best joke of his life Wednesday afternoon?

As you may have seen on the SportsCenter, the Red Sox were at the White House to be honored for their 2007 thrashing of the Rockies in the World Series. Which could a problem from the get-go. Bush, like all good Evangelicals, couldn't have been happy to see a team filled with Christlove go down at the hands of a bunch of pagan, idol-worshiping, Irish dancing idiots. Much less a team from the wildly liberal enclave of Boston, the home of the famous Tax-a-chusetts Spend-o-crats. Talk about being fed to the lions.

But folks, on this day, the man was a uniter. Bush stood up there and threw the good people of New England some raw meat for their pre-season edification. He praised the hell out of Big Papi, looking dapper in a pinstriped suit and a hard-waxed hairdo, and did the whole Dice-K routine. ("We both have trouble answering questions in English." Very nice, Mr. President). He tipped his hat to the team's veterans and big-upped Jon Lester, cancer survivor, as an "inspiration" who moved "all of America, whether you're a Red Sox fan or not." Much appreciate, if not all that difficult to predict.

Then, after giving Ortiz the live, he whipped out the good stuff.

"I'm sorry his running mate, Manny Ramirez, isn't here. I guess his grandmother died again," Bush said to laughter. "Just kidding. Tell Manny I didn't mean it. But I do want to quote him. He said, 'When you don't feel good, and you still get hits, that's when you know you're a bad man.' I don't know what that means. But if bad man means good hitter, he's a really bad man, because he was clutch in the World Series and clutch in the playoffs."

Zing! Score one for the Republicans. I cracked up when I saw the video of that whole interaction. You could see all the Sox crack up behind the President. Ortiz looked like he was at a Chris Rock show. Even Varitek, who I imagine having less of a sense of humor than your average pinenut, was chuckling heartily in front of the cameras. It was just a really solid, funny, borderline nasty joke, the type that you never saw coming. Topical, etc. Credit where credit is due.

UPDATE: Rockies not that saintly after all!

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The other issue I want to get at is the almost-dustup between the Mets and the University of Michigan Wolverines from Wednesday. The Cislo Affair, if you will. In case you didn't hear, it went down like this -- in the fourth inning of an early Spring Training game, with a runner on second base and one down, Michigan centerfielder Kevin Cislo apparently tried to bunt for a base hit, only to see his attempt roll foul. Wagner stalked around on the mound for a while, shaking his head like an asshole, enough so that Cislo then swung away (and into a groundout).

After the game, Wagner offered this quote, presumably in between mounds of chaw:

"If he got that bunt down, I would have drilled the next guy," Wagner said. "Play to win against Villanova."

The quote is priceless, especially insofar as it gets on Villanova "Villanova, the armpit of baseball, according to Billy Wagner." Ain't much for the Big East, this we know. Still, I'm of two minds here. My first instinct is to tell Wagner to stop letting his skirt show quite so much. In fact, even considering I'm going to reverse my stance in two paragraphs' time, I just want it recorded here that I find the whole haughty, too-good-to-move-off-the-mound attitude really distasteful. Talk about big-leaguing a bunch of college guys. The right way to look at it is that bunting is either part of the game, or it's not. (Hint: it is). You might not want a guy to bunt at any given time, especially if you're old or creaky or over-laden with tobacco products of one kind or another, but guess what -- that's how it goes.

I understand that it's a preseason exhibition game, but we're not talking about an all-out, balls-to-the-wall strategy here. We're not talking about running a full-court press in a co-ed hoops game or sending an all-out blitz or running over Ramon Castro on a play at the plate. Bunting for a base hit is just a type of swing, one that makes the pitcher (or catcher) -- who are infielders just like you and me -- field the ball. Is Billy's point that he's too cool to field the ball? That he doesn't need any practice at fielding? Lord knows we can't have our sensitive closer making even one play he'd prefer not to make.

Whether it's a pickup game or the NBA, a fast guy gets to run the floor against a big guy. Fleet runners get to take the extra base when there's a noodle arm in center, whether it's Juan Pierre or Johhny Damon or a high school sophomore. NFL coaches call play-action passes in preseason games. What on Earth is the problem?

Well, we know what the problem is. Billy's implicit point is that his health and, by association, the Mets' season is far more important than the outcome of a game against Michigan, or even the integrity of a game against Michigan. Making him move to field the ball increases, by some amount, the risk that he'll pull a groin or a hammy or a pouch, and any amount of increased risk is unacceptable, based on whatever (his salary, the gap in public investment between the Mets' success and the integrity of the game, his "veteran" status, etc.).

I get this, kind of. But I consider it arrogant to a fault, not to mention really fucking pathetic. These are some fragile bodies and egos we're talking about here if taking three steps to one's right, turning and throwing a ball 80 feet is considered a major risk to one's health, much less a potential incitement to violence. I'm getting pissed just thinking about it. What a whiny, entitled thing to do. Don't play, dickhead. [Deep breaths might help.]

Cislo, as it happens, is a decent slap hitter, .364 with no power. In other words, the guy who needs the bunt single as part of his repertoire. Honestly, good for him and the Wolverines (who've got a Horace Mann grad on the roster) for the 4-4 tie, and bad on us.

And Willie should stop kissing up to Wagner.

Asked about Wagner's reaction, manager Willie Randolph laughed.

"He couldn't bring himself to drill the kid," Randolph said. " Nolan Ryan might have. Nolan or Roger [Clemens] may have done it, kid or not."

Yeah, he's a real hero. Ugh.

We Have Johan and You Don't

They said that getting Johan Santana would have the ancillary effect of taking everyone's mind off the collapse. I never really bought it.

The media is comprised mostly of bottom-feeding scum who prefer to focus on the negative and ignore the positive. The bad stories would still be there, we were assured, and the Mets wouldn't and couldn't escape them until they made the playoffs, and went far. Mets fans, likewise, would be haunted by the collapse all Spring Training and into the season.

The part about the media is true. Virtually every article about the Mets references the collapse, many players are discussed within the context of the collapse. Articles about Mets who were there, like David Wright, Jose Reyes and Billy Wagner, discuss the collapse at length.

Articles about Mets who weren't there like, Johan and Duaner Sanchez, talk about how they will or will not pull the Mets from the depths of the collapse. Articles about non-players, like Willie, Omar and the Wilpons, are about the collapse more than their supposed subjects. To the media, the collapse is the story.

But to me, and I suspect many fans, the collapse is yesterday's news. I am over it and I wouldn't be over it without Johan Santana.

Without Johan, Jimmy Rollins and Brett Myers', swipes at the Mets would anger me, and the anger would come from a place of inferiority and insecurity. Now, I find it exciting. I love that they're talking and we're talking back, because I'm not afraid. I want them to talk, because I'm confident we have the better team.

Without Johan, I might be worried about what's shaping up to be a very formidable rotation in Atlanta, and a very strong lineup. I might be worried that they were a sleeping giant, and I might even be worried that Tom Glavine would win another NL East with the Braves, really putting an exclamation point on his screw you to Mets fans. But I'm not. I'm just excited to see them go down again, cementing their newfound place as NL East also-rans.

The Diamondbacks would worry me, having added a Cy Young-caliber starter in Y2K fave Dan Haren. The Cubs would worry me, having added the only free agent who's signing was met with applause by baseball people in Fukudome. The Rockies might worry me, having kept their NL Championship team intact.

But instead nothing is worrying me. The Mets have the best pitcher in the league to go along with the guy who had the best season in the league last year, David Wright.

Is it possible that the bullpen collapses? That Reyes doesn't bounce back? That Delgado continues to be a sinkhole in the middle of the lineup? That Maine and Perez go 10-15 instead of 15-10? I guess.

I don't think any of it's going to happen. And even if it does, we can weather it now. Johan Santana has erased my bad thoughts.

- KFC

Turn the Page

Real nice moment for the Glass Man on the subway this morning. Bought me a Daily News before heading down in to the train, and when I flipped it over, there they were. The keys to the 2008 season. The aces. Johan and Petey.

It really was a beautiful picture, capturing both the hopefulness of spring that is attendant upon all teams equally, and the optimism for the year ahead that is unique to teams such as the Mets, the ones with legitimate hopes of a title.

It was an image I needed to see. You see, the night before my blood had truly been boiling. I'd been reading about the Phillies, and my god does that get my heart rate up. I've found recently that any time I read about the Phillies it gets me worked in to quite a rage.

It's a funny thing really. As long-time readers are aware, my attention to baseball seriously waned in the second half of 2007, right around July 16, the day I shifted in to a new job at my firm.

And so it was that I didn't experience the collapse the way a lot of you did. I suppose I should be grateful that I didn't watch the team's demise unfold game by game; for me it was more like weekend by weekend. I was there when the end came, and when it did, the first person I spoke to, outside of family and Sip, was Lister.

I remember us talking then. I remember saying then that ownership had to do something, they had to express to fans that what happened in 2007 was unacceptable.

At the time we talked about two options: one was firing Willie Randolph, the other was an all-out push for Johan Santana.

At the time neither seemed right; Randolph wasn't the problem, even if he did deserve some share of the blame. And as for Santana, the price was sure to be something completely unacceptable. Jose Reyes. Oliver Perez. Fernando Martinez. Surely one of them would be the cornerstone.

In the end none of them were, and so it was that ownership was able to renew the fanbase's faith. And as I looked at that backpage this morning the rage that remained from the night before -- really, from the season before -- subsided, replaced as it was by a more hopeful thought: my god, this really might be a year to remember.

February 25, everybody. It's fun to dream.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Plagiarism? We're talking about plagiarism?

Alright, Jimmy, that's enough. We've had some fun, and done some congratualting in circumstances where we might have otherwise been strident, and that's fine. You and the Phils had a great 2007, and deserve plenty of credit for being positively demolished by the Rockies. More power, etc.

But now you're stepping into some places you don't want to go. You heard about Carlos Beltran's riposte and assertion of the Mets' status as the team to beat, and I suppose a response was inevitable. And your first point was well-taken -- being more vocal would in fact help Beltran become more of a leader. Some might interpret that as a criticism of Carlos' more laid-back approach, but I see it coming from Rollins -- obviously something of a talker himself -- as an obvious compliment. No problems there.

No, the problem is with the joke that followed.

To that I have two things to say. One: There are four other teams in this division that want to make sure that doesn’t happen. And, two: Has anyone ever heard of plagiarism?

Ha ha ha! Sure have! I mean, we're bloggers -- plagiarism is kind of a way of life around these parts. Do you know how many sons bite off Y2K on the daily? We can't even get space to breathe. Everybody wants to write about hanging with E from "Entourage" or pretend they're down with the White Stripes or rip off Cheddar Ben's whiskey-fueled ramblings. It's just something we have to life with. On top of that, as a graduate of journalism school, I've been exposed to plenty of professional, big-resume plagiarism. High-roller plagiarism, if you will. And I will.

Do you get my drift, Jimmy? I've forgotten more about plagiarism than you'll ever know. I have the plagiarism strength of ten men. And I've got to tell you, even as a joke, I'm not that impressed with your dropping of the P-Bomb.

For one thing -- and this is kind of important -- it's not plagiarism if you didn't come up with the fucking thing in the first place.

"No, I've heard the Mycenaeans are real strong this year, and the Carthaginians are always tough, but we did a lot of work over the winter, and considering how many people we killed last year, I'd have to say we're the team to beat."

- Gladiator Marcus Phillipus, captain of the West Appian Raiders, 104 A.D.

No?

"Surely you jest. Those ghastly English wouldn't know a hot-air balloon if it struck them directly in the crotch. It is beyond contention that Frenchmen make the finest aeronauts. Our technology is superior. Our training is superb. Did we not rout the field in the Viceroy's Occidental Challenge last autumn? The idea of Whiteside or one of his men making it to the Trans-Syrian Waypoint before us is positively laughable. We, sir, are the team to beat."

- Jules Verne, 1893

See where I'm going with this?

"Our naval capabilities grow by leaps and bounds, our Panzer divisions multiply daily, but the true strength of the Wehrmacht is located all around us, gentlemen. It is in the planes you see before you, the great beasts of flight, the engines of the Luftwaffe and of our people's destiny. Can any other nation boast of such a supreme instrument beating at its heart? It cannot, and that, gentlemen, clearly makes us the team to beat."

- Hermann Goering, 1938

The point being, Rollins, that you're full of shit. Maybe ol' Carlos didn't come up with the most original comeback ever (it was kind of an "Oh yeah? Well ..." moment), but that doesn't mean he stole your rinky-dink phrase. It says here you have absolutely no claim on a hissy fit here. Get over yourself, chum.

Which isn't to say that Carlos couldn't potentially be guilty of plagiarism. Look, New York is a pressure-packed media town. There's a lot of incentive to sound good in front of the SNY cameras and the WFAN microphones. Beltran doesn't speak in public all that often, much less extemporaneously, and it would have to be tempting for such a guy to go back to the well of previously successful quotes, just so as to guarantee a good reception. I'm not saying it would be acceptable, and the last thing the Mets need is another plagiarism scandal after Keith Hernandez got caught swiping those battle scenes for his latest World War 2 book. But I would understand where Carlos was coming from. There would have to be a give and take. For example:

Beltran: "Oh yeah, Jimmy? Well, the jerk store called, and they're running out of you!"

Verdict: Clearly plagiarism. But probably worth it.

Beltran: "Hey, I'll tell you what I'm gonna give you, Rollins. I'm gonna give you to the count of ten to get your lying, yellow, no-good keister off my property before I pump your guts full of lead! 1, 2 ... 10!" [Makes machine gun noises with mouth as Marty Noble scribbles down every word]

Verdict: Not plagiarism, as previously plagiarized from other sources. Lord knows his Chicago gangster accent would be awful.

Beltran: Steals quotes from Jose Reyes, Fernando Martinez and Mike Carp, and to deflect attention from investigation into quote theft, hangs noose in Mets locker room and accuses Jeff Wilpon of out-and-out racism

Verdict: Big-time plagiarism.

Beltran: "I think so. If we're not the team to beat, I'd like to know who is."

Verdict: Whoops, that was the Red Sox' Jonathan Papelbon last week. Damn it, Paps, you've got to cut that out. Don't you know Jimmy Rollins trademarked the phrase over the winter? It was either that or spend the trademark fee on another diamond ring the size of a watermelon, and you can only wear so many of those at once.

Speaking of which, did anyone see this report about Ambiorix Burgos having $270,000 worth of jewelry stolen out of his hotel room in Port St. Lucie? What the hey? That's the most insane thing I've seen since the Memphis men's basketball team got their mink coats jacked a couple of years back. The questions roll off the mind. Has Ambiorix Burgos really made enough money that he can be throwing around a quarter mil on bling? More importantly, does he really have to report with his entire bank vault to pitchers and catchers? This is clearly the type of guy that Brian Schneider is an expert at reaching and molding.

Beltran: Jimmy, I served with the team to beat. I knew the team to beat. The team to beat was a friend of mine. Jimmy, you're no team to beat."

Verdict: A tough one, but it's been reused plenty over the years. Not plagiarism.

Beltran: "Yeah, 'cause you're a retard, you don't know shit about fuckin' baseball. You're filling in for somebody. You're not even a beat writer."

Verdict: Plagiarism, direct from the source

The Perspective Lecture

Nearly every sports fan has heard the Perspective Lecture. You know the one – “how can you care so much about the Mets/Giants/NASCAR/women’s lacrosse when we have a $3 trillion national debt, nobody has health care, and there are starving children in Kenya?” And nearly every sports fan hates the Perspective Lecture.

I even remember the last time I received it. It was the Yadier F’n Molina night, and I was pacing around the office before going out to Shea. When one of the partners asked me why I was pacing, I explained that I had never been to a Game 7, and I had World Series tickets, and I had never been to one of those games before, and Braden Looper didn’t belong in a World Series, and so forth.

And then it began – “Don’t be so nervous about that. Nervous is watching your loved ones lie in a hospital bed with inoperable cancer. This is just a baseball game.”

Right. Just a baseball game. You’re just annoyed because your Yanks lost before the Series yet again. Pshaw.

And none of that cheered me up after Beltran got caught looking. As most readers of this blog were, I was reasonably useless and angry for days thereafter. Listening to Braden Looper mock the "Jose Jose Jose" chant, I became marginally homicidal. Towards Looper and nobody else, but the point remains.

Flash forward to the Super Bowl a few weeks back. Moss scores to put the Pats ahead, and it’s sad, but it’s okay. Manning and Tyree make the greatest play in Super Bowl history, and it’s awesome, but in that way that you know you just witnessed something unlikely to be duplicated. Plaxico is wide open, and the Giants win, and the fist pump is there, but it’s just a fist pump. And then my wife and I went to a bar – I had never seen any team I root for win the title while I was actually in the City – and I got a beer, and she got a Sprite.

I’m going to be a father in August, and nobody buries the lede quite like I do. But when Virginia loses 22 conference games in a row after wasting a double-digit lead, I just bury my head deeper in “What To Expect When You’re Expecting”. When the Mets signed Johan Santana, I just smiled and noted that I’d be able to watch a bunch of his biggest starts while on paternity leave in the late summer. And when Roger Clemens testified on Capitol Hill, I, well, seriously, who the hell cares about Roger Clemens any more? Did we really need a congressional freaking hearing? (Note: that has nothing to do with any baby).

In the end, I figured out why the Perspective Lecture never works and just breeds irritation. Nobody needs the Perspective Lecture. Instead, one just needs something, anything that really gives Perspective. And when that happens, sports sure become a whole heckuva lot easier to deal with on a daily basis. Especially when your favorite team comes off blowing a 7-game lead with 17 to play to The Team To Beat.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s back to convincing the wife that Eli has a nice ring to it.

--Cousin Dan

Beltran on Fire

(Alternate Title: 'Beltran to Phillies: Suck It')

The award for the most unexpected appearance by James Carville in a major motion picture? Carville's turn as Governor Crittenden in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Did not see that one coming.

And the award for the most unexpected preseason boast by a member of the New York Mets? Well, this envelope's already been unsealed, hasn't it?

Yes, when Carlos Beltran launched the latest salvo in the budding Mets-Phillies rivalry on Saturday, it had a certain resonance that hardly any other member of the team could have mustered.

Beltran is a legitimate superstar, but he's shyer than a young and hungry A.F.O.M.G. was at a 6th grade dance. It's possible that his proclamation the other day was more words than we'd heard from him, well, ever.

Certainly, it's the most memorable line he's delivered as a Met since that legenedary January 2005 press conference where he dubbed our favorite team the "New Mets" and instantly launched the parlance of this web site for the first two years of its existence.

More than anything else, Beltran's gauntlet throwing represents a sea change in the team's attitude from 2007, a change we should all welcome.

For my money, the most telling quote about the 2007 season came from Billy Wagner. I can't remember the exact words, but he basically said that what differentiated the feeling in spring training 2007 from the year before was a general lack of excitement following an offseason of inactivity.

I remember Robin Ventura talking about the 2001 season. The Mets were fresh off a World Series appearance, and everyone from Flushing to Fresno expected the Mets to sign Alex Rodriguez. He was the missing piece; his addition would surely turn the Mets in to a championship-caliber club.

But you know what happened there. No A-Rod, no big moves at all really (assuming you don't count the signing of free agent Kevin "The Ape" Appier, which I don't). And so, Robin said, the Mets entered 2001 feeling strangely inadequate. If you're told often enough that you need something more in order to be successful, eventually you're bound to believe it.

I imagine a similar feeling pervaded last year when the Mets unsuccessfully pursued the then-missing piece, Barry Zito. We pinned our hopes on Zito signing with the Mets, but it never happened. And so we entered spring training last year without any zing, and what we saw over the next six months was a team without a spark.

Zoom forward to the present. With sweet Johan in the fold, this Mets team has a spark.

I'll bet you everyone in that clubhouse, to a man, believes this team has the pieces it needs in order to be successful. It's a different feeling from last year where a long, fruitless offseason made the Mets seem somehow deficient. There was no Zito, no Pedro.

This year's there's Pedro and Johan Santana. It's a different team. And so far, it sounds like a team with an edge. It sounds like a team with something to prove. It's a team with a spark.

And it's that spark that compelled the mild-mannered Beltran to issue his declaration. Chastened by bad memories, Mets fans tend to shy away from boasts such as these.

But they shouldn't. This Mets team is loaded.

And more important than anything, it seems they've got that hunger back. More than anything else, I think the Phillies capitalized on a team-wise malaise among the Mets last year.

This year is about righting everything that was so offensive and wrong with the 2007 club. It's about eliminating any trace of the entitlement that seemed so prevalent among the Mets last year.

It's the Season on Fire. It's about playing with intensity and with something to prove. I think Beltran's got that feeling. And I think that feeling will serve us well.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Friday Notes

Shorter Roger Clemens' lawyers: "Did Brian McNamee ever kill a brother of yours, or the like? Son, I'm asking you if what happened in that saloon was vengeance for the death of a family member. Possibly a brother in Abilene, or the like?"

* * * * * * * * * *

The non-Knicks world of basketball remains utterly fascinating, especially with all of the trading action going on out West. The contenders are stocking up for what should be one of the best postseasons of all time -- Pau to the Lakers, Shaq to Phoenix, J-Kidd back to Dallas should Devean George's demand for satisfaction ever be accepted.

Cheddar Ben saw most of an utterly amazing game between Sip's Warriors and those same Phoenix Suns Wednesday night, one that eventually broke for Golden State (only after Barbosa had a game-winning 3-point attempt rim out). Just a beautiful exhibition of up-and-down play, offensive style and garbage defense.

It was so moving, in fact, that the SF Chronicle's Scott Ostler lost his head, or at least his grasp of the common parlance.

And with Webber, the Warriors wouldn't have scored 29 points off the fast break, or forced 19 turnovers. Like sharks, this team must move or die.

The only problem is that the Warriors probably can't keep up this pace another half season, because how can Davis keep playing 45 minutes a night without eventually blowing a tire or a tranny?

I'll just say this -- if Baron Davis ends up blowing a tranny, that story will be slightly bigger than Golden State's playing time distribution.

* * * * * * * * * *

Projections are out, PECOTA and ZIPS and so forth, and here's how the NL East shortstop situation stacks up.

Las Vegas Bail Bondsmen -- Hanley Ramirez
2007 line: .332/.386/.562 (led NL in Power/Speed No.)
2007 PMR: 99.36
2007 FRAA: -8
2008 season age: 24
ZIPS projection: .306/.369/.516, 125 runs, 46 SB, 25 HR
PECOTA projection: .306/.371/.501, 113 runs, 38 SB, 21 HR

Discussion: Both projection systems see his hitting falling off a bit, but only to levels that still make him one of the best and most valuable hitters in the league. Both fielding metrics (Probabilistic Model of Range, from David Pinto's Baseball Musings, and Baseball Prospectus' Fielding Runs Above Average) agree with the scouts, which is to say they agree that ol' Hanley is one of the worst defensive shortstops in the game. In Florida, he's blocked from going to 2B by his power-hitting colleague Dan Uggla, but 3B is obviously fairly open. Odds are, though, that they leave him to screw over their young pitching staff for another year, at which point they'll probably deal him to a team needing a 2B or 3B.

The Team to Beat -- Jimmy Rollins
2007 line: .296/.344/.531 (named NL MVP)
2007 PMR: 103.20
2007 FRAA: 8
2008 season age: 29
ZIPS projection: .282/.336/.485, 128 runs, 33 SB, 25 HR
PECOTA projection: .291/.346/.472, 102 runs, 29 SB, 20 HR

The drop in slugging percentage is attributable to the fact that hitting 20 triples takes a whole lot of luck. Otherwise, Jimmy basically looks like the same player -- real good defense, real good power, mediocre on-base skills and excellent speed. Big mouth.

The Hometown Nine -- Jose Reyes
2007 line: .280/.354/.421 (led ML with 78 SB)
2007 PMR: 97.66
2007 FRAA: 4
2008 season age: 25
ZIPS projection: .285/.345/.444, 122 runs, 71 SB, 15 HR
PECOTA projection: .290/.350/.438, 110 runs, 60 SB, 11 HR

Nate Silver had a piece in BP this week that assessed Jose's chance of breaking Rickey Henderson's all-time stolen base record. Now, Jose would have to steal 60 bases a year until he was 45 to do it, so I don't think there's a chance in hell it happens, but all the same, the fact is he's set himself up for that type of comparison. A couple months ago, I would have said the projections were underestimating Jose's ability to break out into a more complete hitter, but the end of last year planted some doubt on that score. Anyway, PMR doesn't like his defense very much, whereas the FRAA system sees him as slightly above average. Should really only get better at this point.

Hotlanta -- Yunel Escobar
2007 line: .326/.385/.451
2007 PMR: 102.69
2007 FRAA: -6
2008 season age: 25
ZIPS projection: .297/.361/.404, 67 runs, 8 SB, 6 HR
PECOTA projection: .287.,348/.402, 63 runs, 9 SB, 7 HR

The opposite of Reyes, in that PMR thinks he's one of the better shortstops in the game, and FRAA sees him as crappy. The Braves have another SS coming behind him (white boy named Brent something-or-other) who allegedly has more flash with the glove and potentially more with the bat. Which wouldn't matter if anyone thought Yuni was a good bet to keep up his pace from last year, but really, nobody does. I dig him, though.

Southeast D.C. -- Felipe Lopez
2007 line: .245/.308/.352
2007 PMR: 95.03
2007 FRAA: -6
2008 season age: 28
ZIPS projection: .264/.344/.383, 82 runs, 19 SB, 12 HR
PECOTA projection: .271/.344/.396, 87 runs, 23 SB, 11 HR

- OR -

Cristian Guzman
2007 line: .328/.380/.466 (?)
2007 PMR: 89.34 (dead last)
2007 FRAA: -5
2008 season age: 30
ZIPS projection: .254/.301/.340, 36 runs, 4 SB, 2 HR
PECOTA projection: .257/.310/.345, 26 runs, 4 SB, 2 HR

Guzman makes other bad free agent signings look like the purchase of Manhattan. Lopez may have fallen apart after a promising, speed-power based start to his career. He should still get the PT, though.

* * * * * * * * * *

Shorter Andy Pettitte: "Don't worry. I'll be RIGHT BEHIND YOU."

* * * * * * * * * *

Shorter Ryan Dempster: "Please strike me with lightning."

* * * * * * * * * *

I'm sure if George Steinbrenner was still conscious, he'd really appreciate this. Normally, I'd be more peeved about it, and to be sure, it's fairly retarded. But it's not replacing anything of substance -- "Legends Field" sounds like the sort of thing Kevin Costner would come up with after a two-day ecstasy binge -- and as far as I'm concerned, the city of Tampa is welcome to the old coot.

Poppin' Wise

After the initial chantings, oh-my-gods, and man-hugfests, one of the thousands of thoughts that was racing through my mind on the flight back from Glendale was my impending Y2K post.

My knee-jerk reaction was that of a drivel-fest about how sweet it is that I was rooting for the underdog and they won. How after the Mets meltdown I deserved this. Then I would undoubtedly segue into some thinly accurate comparison between the Mets being the Eli to the Yankees' Peyton.

The framework was all there, it practically writes itself. Then I remembered how much I hate cliché slinging sports blogs.

Another overriding concept I pondered delving into was how, as sports fans, this should teach us to not be so reactionary. Because the same fans that were celebrating Manning and Coughlin were the ones pointing out at every opportunity how they are the bane of the Giants' existence, myself included. So obviously, I should take this as a lesson, and put some faith in the management of my teams (Knicks excluded. Knicks always excluded.)

But the fact of the matter is this, I won't, and I don't feel bad about it. I thoroughly enjoy calling Eli a pussy who doesn't care when he shows no emotion in a loss, and a stoic, pressure cooker when he wins.

I love gloating about how I predicted the Indians would win the division, and at the same time no one needs to know that I also picked the Padres and A's. I don't mention how I predicted a 4-12 Giants season and the seven seasons in a row I predicted a Chiefs-Vikings Super Bowl.

The obligatory Rounders quote: "In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, 'Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career.'

I think being a sports fan you subscribe to the exact opposite maxim. We love to shit on sports commentators when they are routinely wrong, and have very short memories when it comes to ourselves.

And that is just fine by me. As long as we embrace our hypocrisy, because that is our right as a fan.

- Cousin Evan

A Night in the City

It's been an introspective week for the Glass Man. A week ago yesterday, for the first time in my life, a team I rooted for won it all. Where the '94 Knicks and '99, '00, and '06 Mets had failed, at last the '07 Giants succeeded.

It was an odd kind of feeling. I rooted for these Giants pretty intensely beginning, say, with Week 5, after the '07 Mets had confirmed all my worst fears about them. I sat riveted through the ups and downs of the playoffs, but when the Giants won it all, I almost didn't know how to feel.

I knew I should be happy, and I was, but in all the excitement of the moment, my thoughts couldn't help but drift to the Mets.

After it was over I began hearing cheers from outside my fourth floor window, where normally only passing sirens and the fog horn interrupt the silence. I had to get out of my apartment. I had to see what it was like.

So me and a few friends ambled down Henry and popped in to Floyd, my favorite bar in the new neighborhood. As time passed the place got more and more crowded. Giants fans, New Yorkers really, gathered there to share stories about David Tyree's catch, or the D-Line, or sweet Eli Manning.

New York hadn't been this happy since the Yankees brought it all home in 2000 (salt).

Amid the euphoria and the Giants jerseys, I saw here and there a hint of blue and orange, Mets hats and t-shirts worn by the faithful. Johan Santana was signed, sealed, delivered, and somehow, that Sunday night after the Giants won the Super Bowl, it was as if all the gloom attendant upon the collapse (lower case please, thank you) that had been festering since last September was lifted.

As important as it was to be out with the city that night, and as tremendous and immediate as the feeling was, for me, and for a lot of Mets fans I bet, the Giants' win was less about the joy of the present or the heartache of the past 25 years (if you turned 25 in December, chances are you don't remember any aspect of '86). In some strange, unexpected way, it was about the next 6 months of Mets baseball. And it was about one salient thought: If the Giants can do it, why can't the Mets?

Maybe it's just me. As I've said many times, there's no team I'm as close to as the Mets. There's no other team whose offseason moves I obsess over like the Mets, there's no team whose players I feel so much attachment to. For me there's the Mets and there's everyone else.

So when the Giants won I was happy, yes, and I was aware that I was watching something I'd never seen before -- a team I rooted for had just won it all, and it was fun and it was exciting and it was great feeling that electricity all around you.

But someday it'll be the Mets. And no moment I've yet experienced, including that Sunday when the Giants won the Super Bowl, has prepared me for the emotions I expect to feel when that day finally comes.

* * * * *

Let me tell you about the future of tonic water. Q Tonic.

My god that bottle's sexy.

Just, think about it like this. A gin and tonic consists of, say, 30% gin and 70% tonic. So it's only natural that you'd want to put in a high quality tonic water, isn't it? I mean, you agonize over what type of gin to buy, then you throw in some low quality tonic water.

For years you had no choice, but that all changed a year or two ago when Q dropped. It's available in cities across the US and bars / stores around New York City. Check it out.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Please ... Proceed

The kids skipped school. Not all of them, obviously, but it sure seemed like it to me, stuck on the R train into Manhattan with a pack of chanting truants. "Let's go, Gi-ants, clap clap clap clap clap," over and over again. "E-li Mann-ing, clap clap clap clap clap." And, naturally, a lot of noise about "18-1." A subway car full of acne, Plaxico Burress jerseys and adolescent smugness. No commute could be more irritating.

On Broadway, hours before the scheduled start of the victory parade, the sidewalks teemed with blue shirts, white shirts, face paint and championship hats. Separated by metal barriers, fans threw rolls of toilet paper back and forth across the street, hooting at lobs that fell short. Sons sat atop fathers' shoulders, daughters stood on their toes for a better view of the crowd, NYPD vehicles and city buses careened down the open road. Spontaneous cheers erupted every few minutes. I quietly prayed for the "Cloverfield" monster to appear.

Presumably riding on recycled Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade floats, the victors eventually rolled right by my building, throwing off enough noise to distract much of the 45th floor. Secretaries had decorated the office with posters, and radios blared out live coverage from WFAN. When the traveling party ground to a halt at City Hall, Eli and company hopped off and gave a set of characteristically bland speeches. Like Doc Gooden in 1986, but hopefull for different reasons, Plaxico didn't make it out for the celebration.

I take no great satisfaction from my bold and wildly accurate prediction of a New York victory in Super Bowl XLII (I'm sure you all read it in the pages of the North Adams Transcript last Saturday. No? Well, you'll have to take my word for it. Trust me, it was there).

Okay, that's a lie. I was absolutely thrilled to see the Patriots' perfect season snuffed out in the desert breeze, even if it had to be at the hands of the loathsome Giants. No reward could be more fitting for a franchise equal parts insufferable and classless, a franchise possessed of the inclination to cheat and, as we will undoubtedly soon learn, the wherewithal to cover it up. I don't normally put a lot of stock in karma, but if anything could convince me of its worth, it was the sight of the most dominant team in the league blowing apart like a broken tumbleweed. The Pats sowed strife and overconfidence, and reapt the wind.

As I foresaw, Belichick put together an unnecessarily conservative game plan. Not, as I had thought, by an overreliance on Lawrence Maroney, who only carried the ball 14 times during a game in which both teams had equal amounts of possession. By design, the Pats threw underneath and into the flats early, not looking downfield until well into the second half. When Tom Brady did look for Randy Moss later in the game, pressure from the Giants' front four prevented strong throws, leading to the unusual sight of the MVP's passes fluttering to the ground aimlessly. An average gain of 4.3 yards per pass was easily the team's lowest of the year, well below its 8-yard average during the regular season.

As for the final drive and Eli's famous play, I have no earthly idea why Rodney Harrison -- the hardest hitter since Ronnie Lott -- went for the ball rather than the small of David Tyree's back. He didn't have a running start, to be sure, but Tyree was so far off the ground that Harrison would have been able to pull off a suplex or drop the receiver over his knee. Instead, he tried and failed to outleap a guy 10 years his junior, then mucked around on the ground afterwards, pathetically attempting to pry the ball loose after the play was over. Par for the course. I've never disliked a player quite so much.

The Giants have won three Super Bowls, but Tuesday marked the first-ever parade through the Canyon of Heroes where both baseball teams, the Rangers and the Knicks had marched. In 1987, Mayor Koch bizarrely retaliated against the decade-old move to New Jersey, calling the Giants a "foreign team" and denying them a parade permit. The franchise countered by throwing a victory party in the Meadowlands parking lot, kind of like holing up in the extra room in the garage after you've been kicked out of the house. We've all been there. Then, after the Wide Right game in 1991, it was considered inappropriate to celebrate with the nation so recently at war.

I suppose I'm pleased for Manning and Tyree and Ahmad Bradshaw and the Scottish kicker and the New York linemen not named Strahan or Umenyiora. That said, the sight and stench of Giants fans rejoicing is something no decent person should have to stomach. New England's defeat means the 1972 Dolphins will keep on laughing it up for the next 25 years; their humiliation means the rest of the league can expect to encounter more angry rampaging next fall.

Prez from "The Wire" put it succinctly. "No one wins -- one side just loses more slowly." You're damn right. Such is life as a Buffalo Bills fan.

Victory From Half Way Around the World

When Endy made the catch in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS we all knew it had to be.

The Mets would go to the World Series and win it all. It was fate. It was magic. It was destiny.

And then, every bit as quickly as it was fate and magic and destiny, it was heartbreak.

When Eli Manning avoided a sure sack, planted his feet chucked the ball some 30 yards down the field on the final drive of the Super Bowl, it happened again. David Tyree reincarnated Endy Chavez.

It was "the catch" that Giants fans will remember for the rest of their lives. They will know where they were when they saw it and forever know of its significance. They will remember the exact feeling they had when David Tyree leaped up and made what is the biggest play in the history of the New York Giants.

Sip was at Cheers, in Sydney, Australia. It was 1:00 p.m. on Monday afternoon. The day couldn't have been more surreal. After all, I was watching the Super Bowl on Super Bowl...Monday?

I got about 3 hours of sleep the night before, anxious, nervous, but mostly just over-caffeinated. I got off a bus into town early because I was convinced there was a bomb on it (you can take the Sip out of New York but you can't take the New York out of the Sip).

But finally I made it to Cheers, the bar where nobody knew my name -- my last name that is -- to watch the greatest game of my lifetime in a room full of strangers. That's not completely true. I was with 5 Americans who I had met in the previous days.

But this wasn't New York and this wasn't my living room. I wasn't sure if this was how I wanted it to be. But then the game came on and I was home again. All season this team had been written off. Their journey to the Super Bowl almost didn't make sense. And against the Roman Empire that was the New England Patriots, the Giants didn't stand a chance.

As the game went on I waited for the Giants to implode. Down 7-3 at halftime in a game that the Giants had thoroughly dominated, I called some friends back home seeking wisdom.

We all saw the same thing. The offense moving the ball, the defense putting the clamps on Brady and Co. One pass interference is all it took to put the Giants down at half.

We needed to stop the Patriots on their opening drive of the 2nd half. We couldn't go down 14-3. Not to the Patriots. Yet the Giants did everything they could to allow the Patriots to get in the end zone. The 12 men on the field penalty almost gave me a heart attack. The 3rd and 13rd conversion they allowed on that little dump off to Kevin Faulk almost broke me.

But the Giants persevered. There the Pats were, 3rd and 7 from the Giants' 25 yard line. Tom Brady stepped back in the pocket but there wasn't enough time. Michael Strahan, our captain and leader, got to Brady for a 6-yard sack and perhaps the game's biggest defensive play of the day.

The Pats were forced to kick and the Giants remained in the game. Still, it couldn't be. I remember thinking throughout the game of all the reasons why the Giants would lose. Which play would it be that would allow the Patriots to become the Patriots? But it never happened.

The Giants took the lead midway through the 4th quarter and all of a sudden there was real reason for hope. Could the Giants actually win this game? I didn't think so, I remembered.

When Randy Moss caught that touchdown my stomach dropped. We allowed the Patriots to stay in the game too long. A game that the Giants dominated on both sides of the ball for 58 minutes would be a game where we all saw the Patriots complete their run at history.

But then it happened.

David Tyree became Endy Chavez. The entire bar stood in complete shock. I placed my hands gently on my on my head like Eli had done so many times before. I could not believe what I just saw. The Giants would go on to take the lead when Eli connected with Plax in the left corner of the end zone.

Still I couldn't accept victory. I had seen Yadier Molina before. I remember Carlos Beltran's bat on his shoulders. There was time on the clock and this was Tom Brady, the man who does no wrong. But it never happened. The disappointment never came. Maybe it was that I was in the opposite hemisphere or maybe it's just that everything in Australia seems to be backwards.

Whatever it is, it didn't matter. A team that I root for came out on top. The New York Giants won the Super Bowl.

The Patriots fans quickly cleared out of the bar and the next six hours became the massive celebration that I had basically waited my entire life for. I took quick breaks to call people back home and revel in the history that we had all just witnessed.

But then I would return to the bar where another Giants fan from another part of the world that I had never seen until three hours before would greet me with a different spirit.

This was the beauty of sports on overdrive. Complete strangers becoming best friends because of a team they loved. We took pictures, shots and deep breaths to soak in the Giants' victory.

We're talking maybe 50 people on the other side of the world in a city where no one else cared. But we were having the time of our lives.

By day's end I was completely wiped. Still, I wasn't about to let the moment go. Me and some fellow Americans decided that it'd be a good idea to take a victory dip in the Pacific Ocean in the midst of a giant rain storm.

It wasn't the Upper West Side but I wasn't exactly complaining.

Time was I wouldn't allow myself to go to Game 7 of the NLCS in 2006, convinced that I was bad luck. The next time the Mets make it to the World Series, I will not allow myself to remain in the Northern hemisphere.

Vaya Con Dios,

Sip

You got the kind of lovin' that could be so smooth

In honor of Santana rolling into town, the top 10 pitching seasons in Mets history.

Honorable mention

EDIT - Forgot about this, somehow: Dwight Gooden, 1984 (218 IP, 17-9, 2.60 ERA, 276 K), Jerry Koosman, 1968 (263.2 IP, 19-12, 2.08 ERA, 178 K), Tom Seaver, 1968 (277.2 IP, 16-12, 2.20 ERA, 205 K), Frank Viola, 1990 (249.2 IP, 20-12, 2.67 ERA, 182 K), Rick Reed, 1997 (208.1 IP, 13-9, 2.389 ERA, 113 K), Bob Ojeda, 1988 (190.1 IP, 10-13, 2.88 ERA, 133 K)

No. 10 -- Bret Saberhagen, 1994

177.1 IP, 2.74 ERA, 13 BB, 143K, 14-4 record

The two best pitchers selected in the 1982 draft: Doc Gooden, by the Mets, and Saberhagen by the Royals. He was the youngest pitcher to ever win the Cy Young Award, at age 21 in 1985, when he went 20-6 with a 2.85 ERA and won Game 7 of the World Series for Kansas City. Not half bad.

The Mets got him after the 1991 season for Kevin McReynolds and Gregg Jefferies, and in '94, he had the best even-yeared season of his career, finishing the campaign with more wins than walks. The last guy to do it? Slim Sallee in a great year for baseball, 1919. Carlos Silva tried this again in 2005 with the Twins, but he only had nine wins to go against his nine walks. Tougher than it looks, and it looks pretty tough. Anyway, this season would be ranked higher except the Saberhagen pitched many fewer innings than the guys ahead of him on the list.

No. 9 – Jon Matlack, 1974

265.2 IP, 2.41 ERA, 195K, 13-15 record, 149 ERA+

What a beautiful name – Jonathan Trumpbour Matlack. You don't hear the name "Trumpbour" enough. Not even sure how you pronounce it, really. Anyway, I've included this season for two reasons. First, because the Mets were really crappy and disappointing in '74. A year after making it to the World Series, they went 71-91 and scored only 572 runs, let in basically all batting categories by Cleon Jones, whose line of .282/.343/.421 would be fine for the seventh-best hitter on a team, not the best. They stunk. And Matlack was nasty all the same.

Moreover, this was a comeback of sorts. Matlack was the Rookie of the Year in 1972, 15-10 with a scorching 2.32 ERA, but in May of 1973, he has his skull fractured by a line drive off the bat of Atlanta's Marty Perez. This kept him out of the rotation for a whopping 11 days, and he went on to post another good, if slightly less impressive, campaign. Even more damagingly, though, the "Ya Gotta Believe!" movement then ended with Matlack knocked out early in the Game 7 loss to Oakland. Basically, in '74, Matlack was up against it, and he played like a champion.

No. 8 – Pedro Martinez, 2005

217 IP, 2.82 ERA, 208K, 0.949 WHIP, 15-8 record

No need to go much into this one. Petey opened his New York career with a devastating 7-6 loss in Cincy and came back to post the second-best WHIP in Mets history. The Mets went from 71-91 in 2004 to 83-79. Good times.

No. 7 – Jerry Koosman, 1969

241 IP, 2.28 ERA, 180 K, 17-9 record, 160 ERA+

Briefly, why would this season make the list when, only a year before, Koosman won two more games, pitched 22 more innings, and had an ERA 20 points below this one? Tom Seaver's 1968 (277 IP, 2.20 ERA, 205 K, 16-12 record) also looks better, or at least comparable to this one. I just couldn't stand to include either of the 1968 seasons on the list; the year was just too weird.

Remember, the league average ERA in 1968 was 2.99. That's nutso. This was the year Bob Gibson won the Cy Young and the MVP Award with a scandalous 1.12 ERA. All sorts of schlubs had great '68s: the Reds' Gary Nolan, all of 20 years old, had a 2.40 ERA in 150 innings; the Phillies' 37-year-old Larry Jackson closed out his career with a 2.77 ERA (it's called going out strong); a guy named Bobby Bolin, almost exactly a league-average pitcher over a 14-year career, had an ERA of 1.99 in 177 innings for the Giants. This was not remotely close to normal.

Plus, you kind of need to get the two Miracle Mets efforts onto the list. Koosman might have just got all kinds of shat on by FJM, but his '69 was truly great. He took the L on September 1 to Jim Bunning, then of the Dodgers, and didn't lose again all year, outdueling the Cubs' Bill Hands (a 300 IP ace that year) a week late to pull the Mets to within a game of the divisional lead. He then went the distance in his final four starts, winning all of them, and throwing complete-game shutouts in three. You're damn right it was a miracle.

No. 6 – Tom Seaver, 1969

273.2 IP, 2.21 ERA, 208K, 25-7 records, 1.04 WHIP

The most wins of Tom Terrific's career, his first Cy, second in the MVP voting (behind a deserving Willie McCovey). He wasn't yet the strikeout machine he would eventually be, but with these results, he didn't need to be.

No. 5 – David Cone, 1988

231.2 IP, 2.22 ERA, 213 K, 20-3 record

The first full season of Coney's career, and it was a doozy. The Mets had swiped him off the Royals the previous March for the beloved Ed Hearn (owner Ewing Kaufmann later called it "The worst trade in Royals history"), and Coney pulled off a year arguably superior to the one that won him a Cy in '94 during his second go-round in Kansas City. Second in the league in Ks and ERA, he didn't have the dominating WHIP even of teammate Sid Fernandez, but for this year, the results were too spectacular to ignore.

No. 4 – Al Leiter, 1998

193 IP, 2.47 ERA, 174K, 17-6 records, 1.15 WHIP

This is probably too high, but with all the other crap going on and into players' bodies in 1998, Al Leiter put up a ludicrous year, the best of his career. Now, the league-average ERA wasn't as high as it had been during the outlandish 1994 and 1995 seasons (4.81 and 4.72, respectively), and was not yet as high as it would be in 1999 and 2000 (4.43 and 4.45, respectively); still, against the backdrop of Roidy McGwire and Sammy eating Big Macs and slamming cycles of whatever, Senator Al just absolutely dominated. His ERA+ of 170 was the Mets' best since Doctor K had taken the hill and remains the best since. There's strong cases to be made for the seasons ranked below it, but I like the idea that in the midst of the Steroids Era, some guys were still at their best.

No. 3 – Tom Seaver, 1973

290 IP, 2.08 ERA, 251 K, 19-10 record, 0.98 WHIP

Cy Young Award numero dos on the "Ya Gotta Believe" team, which had a collective OBP of .314. No wonder they were only 82-79. Interestingly enough, Tug McGraw was at best the second-best reliever on that team, behind the immortal Ray Sadecki (117 IP, 3.39 ERA) and possibly Harry Parker (97 IP, 3.35 ERA). Hello, strong media skills.

Anyway, Tom Terrific had got hosed for the Cy two years back for the season directly below this one, and he deserved everything he got in '73, completing 18 of his 36 starts and leading the league in WHIP, Ks and K/BB ratio. A superstar year.

No. 2 – Tom Seaver, 1971

286.1 IP, 1.76 ERA, 289 K, 20-10 record, 0.95 WHIP

Ludicrous. Seaver has the best WHIP in the NL by a wide margin, more than 10 percent better than that of Chicago's Fergie Jenkins (1.049). He leads the league in K/9, also by a wide margin (not to mention strikeouts, but he does), and his ERA is 1.76 against a league average of 3.40; that's an ERA+ of 193, the fourth-best mark since the end of World War II and a Top-50 mark all-time (that's including a lot of bullshit 19^th century seasons).

So, who wins the Cy Young Award? Jenkins, who went 24-13 with a 2.77 ERA for a highly mediocre 83-79 Cubs team that actually scored fewer runs than it allowed. That's that bullshit.

No. 1 – Dwight Gooden, 1985

276.2 IP, 1.53 ERA, 268 K, 24-4 record, 0.96 WHIP

You know the drill. Sandy Koufax would have traded his past for Doc's future, etc. Note: Doc's ERA+ of 228 was absurd; only one guy posted a better mark between Armstice Day and Greg Maddux, and that was Gibson in '68. Gooden, of course, couldn't yet legally drink.

Anyway, I tend to think this list will look differently at the close of 2008.