Yasiel Puig and the MLB All Star Game

I normally don't care about the MLB All Star Game.  Sure, as a baseball fan, I'll peek to see who made the team when it's announced but that doesn't mean I'm going to watch it.  The one interesting debate regarding this year's All Star Game is on the candidacy of the Dodgers' Yasiel Puig.

Puig has played in only 27 of the Dodgers 82 games thus far (roughly 33%) but since his call up, he has had arguably the best 27 game start to a major league career.  He's hitting .443 with 8 home runs and 21 runs scored and his tear is still going strong.

So based on only 27 games, does Yasiel Puig deserve to be on the National League All Star team?  Is it fair to another player who might be deserving and has played the whole year?  For me, my answer is yes.

Now if a similar situation happened in 2002, my answer is different.  Once Bud Selig (stupidly) made the All-Star game determine home field advantage for the World Series, roster fairness became a little less important.  I understand that Puig doesn't have the sample size where you're confident he'll keep this up in the second half (and he definitely won't), but the National League is trying to win this game now.  So what if after the All-Star game Puig hits .150 with no home runs and never plays in the majors again? So what if 2013 is a year we look back on and laugh when we see Puig's name on the All-Star team.  The All-Star game is, first and foremost, a game for the fans.  Yasiel Puig has captured the imagination of baseball fans in first his 106 at bats.  Couple that with the fact that there is something at stake in the All-Star game, why not capitalize right now on using MLB's hottest player? It seems to me that his inclusion on the roster should be a no-brainer.

Some 2013 New York Mets Predictions

It's another year where the Mets are not going to the postseason.  Before the season officially starts, I'm going to offer up some predictions:

-I was all prepared to like Collin Cowgill.  He comes across to me as a gamer.  I guy who I'd like having around as a 4th outfield.  I'm not sure he is an everyday player and I'm afraid I'll turn on him at some point this season.

-Jon Niese will win 14-15 games and pitch well causing people to say things like, "he could have won 18 games on a contender."

-Ike Davis will again hit around 32 homeruns and drive in 90 runs.  But his batting average will get back to the .260 range.

-Marlon Byrd does not finish 2013 as a member of the New York Mets.

-Shawn Marcum has a 3.50 ERA...but only has 11 starts.

-Brandon Lyon has double digit saves.

-Lucas Duda will hit 25 home runs.

-Daniel Murphy will miss an extended period of time and will never regain the second base job from Jordany Valdespin.

-Once again the Mets will be surprisingly around the .500 mark around the All-Star Break before the wheels come off and the cream starts rising to the top.

-The Mets will finish over their Vegas win total of 74.5.

Happy Opening Day!

Some thoughts on today's Baseball Hall of Fame Voting

Some thoughts on the Hall of Fame vote today:

-Are the Baseball Writers' Association of America the most self-important people you can think of or what?  5 guys turned in a blank ballot?  Oooooh.  Message received.  Turn in a goddamn ballot and leave the steroid guys off if that's your choice.

-And what's with the first ballot bias?  If a guy is a Hall of Famer, put him in the Hall of Fame.  In all honesty, I think you should have one year of eligibility on a Hall of Fame ballot.  There should be no debate on if someone is a Hall of Famer.  If you have to think about whether or not a guy is worthy of the Hall of Fame, he's not worthy of the Hall of Fame.  Because of a first ballot bias, Biggio sits in a class with Pete Rose and Rafael Palmeiro as (retired) guys in the 3000 hit club who are not in the Hall of Fame.  I hope they feel good about that.  And the fact that Piazza got 57.8% of the vote means that he's not included in the Bonds and Clemens cloud of PED guys.  The guy is indisputably the best offensive catcher of his generation.  The fact that he's not a first ballot HOFer is a joke.

-Guys who vote for Shawn Green and Aaron Sele for the Hall of Fame should have to sit in front of a committee and explain themselves before having their votes taken away.

-For what it's worth, my ballot would have went: Biggio, Morris, Piazza, Schilling, Clemens, Bonds and McGwire.  Screw the steroid use.  It is what it is.  Biggio hit a HOF magic number with his 3000 hits for me and the other guys I felt I was watching Hall of Famers as I was watching them.  Reggie Bush won the 2005 Heisman trophy and Joe Paterno won 409 games.  I know what I saw.  It's ridiculous already that baseball's all time hits leader isn't in the Hall of Fame.  I'm not keeping out the Home Run King as well (no matter how much I hate him).  As for Bagwell, don't get me wrong, he was awesome but for me he was just another big offensive player at a big offensive position.  For me, he's the one who gets hurt by the era he played in.  Doing what he did, when he did it, never really felt special to me.  I don't care about WAR and OPS and stuff.  I'm old enough now that I experienced these guys' whole careers.  I don't need to go back and analyze their stats to make my decision.

I'm Ready to Start Panicking - Mets Fan Style

My hiatus is over.  I didn't really have time to post as my wife and I welcomed our second kid in to the world.  But I'm back just in time to start panicking over the Mets.

I know I could be overreacting right now as a Mets fan but, I am now in fear of Johan Santana's no-hitter on June 1st being the catalyst in the wheels coming off on their surprising early season.

I shouldn't say the no hitter is the reason, but it's Terry Collins' handling of the pitching staff after the no-hitter.  Johan Santana is a creature of habit.  I completely understand that off of his surgery and 134 pitches you would want to do something to lighten his load, but giving him extra rest was not the way to do it.  By giving him extra rest and shuffling the pitching staff around it created a domino effect that resulted in losing 6 of their last 7.  Just say Santana is on a 110-115 pitch count for each game.  Have him start on normal rest but have him only throw 90-95 pitches.

Lets take a look at the last two series:

June 5th - @Washington - Lost 7-6 in 12
This was Chris Young's first start back from the same surgery Santana had.  As a means to push Santana back the Mets opted to go with a 6 man rotation and start Jeremy Hefner the next night.  So not only was the bullpen shorthanded with Hefner slated to start tomorrow, Jon Rauch had an elbow issue and was unavailable to pitch.  So 5 man bullpen.  My question   Of course it goes 12 innings and the bullpen blows leads in the 8th, 10th and 12th.  Knowing what we know now that the Mets would send down Pedro Beato and keep Jeremy Hefner up when the rotation stabilizes, wouldn't it have been nice to have Hefner available in the pen to eat some more innings instead of stretching Frank Francisco and Elvin Ramirez into second innings?

June 6th - @Washington - Lost 5-3
Hefner didn't pitch terribly after allowing a three-run homer in the 1st but this is where Santana should have been pitching on regular rest.  Based on how he's been this year you'd like to think he would have done as well or better than Hefner did in his 6 innings.

June 7th - @Washington - Won 3-1
Thank god for R.A. Dickey.  On regular rest by the way.

June 8th - June 10th - @ Yankees - Swept all 3 games
It's hard to assume this series would have gone much differently than a sweep even if the Mets staff was on regular rest.  The Friday night game was a foregone conclusion.  Anyone who expected anything from Santana was misguided.  Long rest = disaster for him.  It would have been Niese's turn and there was probably nothing he could have done with the way Kuroda pitched.  Gee on Saturday battled despite not having his best stuff and who knows what Chris Young would have given you on Sunday.

The point is, this is a brutal stretch of schedule for the Mets and as fun as this season has been so far, Mets fans know how fragile it is.  By babying Santana too much, I feel they probably cost themselves a 3-3 stretch in these which is a lot less damaging than 1-5.

New York Mets in 2012!

It's embarrassing that I have to go into a season with a New York baseball franchise having this kind of attitude, but here is why I'm holding out hope for the 2012 New York Mets:

Actually before starting I should clarify what "hope" means. I do not think the Mets will sniff the NL East or the Wildcard (or even the rumored 2nd Wildcard if that happens). What I mean by hope is a team that can put together a brand of baseball that will keep me interested until August. I'd actually sign up for what the Mets did last year until September 7th when they were 1 game under .500 at that point. There is a reason Terry Collins actually received a 1st place vote for NL Manager of the year. For most of the year, they were not a terrible watch. Ideally you don't want to refer to a team with a 100+ million dollar payroll as scrappy but situations what they were they were a scrappy, fun bunch there for a little while.

So why do I think the Mets might not be a total disaster:

1. I understand the Mets are arguably in the best division in baseball so the unbalanced schedule effects them more than others but look at some of last year's teams that overachieved in 2011: the Pirates were players at the trade deadline, the Indians were a .500 ball club with two days left in the season and Vegas had Arizona's win total at 72.5 going in to spring training. In any year the right group of guys can overachieve. Now that I have my "hope springs eternal" reason out of the way...

2. I know injuries are a part of sports, but injuries! Do you know how many teams didn't have a single position player play in at least 130 games? I'm not looking it up but it's probably not a lot. The Mets leader in games played was a tie with 126 with Jose Reyes and Willie Harris. Angel Pagan and Jason Bay 123, Justin Turner 117, Josh Thole 117, Daniel Murphy 109, David Wright 102. Do you know how many at bats Jason Pridie had? Too many. These aren't normal numbers for any team. I want to see what happens when the core of the offense plays 140-150 games together.

3. The rotation is the worst in the NL East but it's not as bad as it looks. I'm not expecting miracles from Johan Santana. If asked for a prediction I'd go with an 11-11 4.50 ERA. I'm looking at this year as still a rehab year for him. Assuming you get more of the same as last year with the remaining four members of the rotation (other than Pelfrey who throws up a lot of stinkers) Dickey, Gee and Niese keep you in games. But with Gee and Niese both only being 25, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some improvement out of them.

4. The walls are moving in. It sounds like a lame excuse but the dimensions at CitiField had to get in to hitter's heads. My theory is this: players do care about their numbers. It's how they get paid. The reason that the home and road splits are both bad for Mets "power hitters" is because they let CitiField get in their head so much that they pressed to get their numbers up on the road. If nothing else, I really do feel that guys like Wright and Bay will be able to relax a little more at home and if/when they start to get their numbers there, their numbers on the road will come too.

5. I'm not expecting much out of Ruben Tejada, Josh Thole and Andres Torres offensively but Ike Davis (he was on pace for a 27 HR 97 RBI type of season) and Daniel Murphy (until he inevitably gets hurt on a takeout slide playing 2nd) are coming back and they both can hit. As a Mets fan, you have to like what you saw from Lucas Duda last year so I feel all is not lost offensively. If you can put some order of Murphy, Davis, Wright, Bay and Duda together for any stretch of time I think they can put up more runs than last year.

I know Reyes not being back is going to kill this team. But the baseball season is so long and so pivotal in my enjoyment of the summer that I'll look for hope anywhere I can find it.