MLB 2024

[gunnar hendershow]

The lottery makes a teardown feel even harder, especially when the non-teardown Guardians are picking 1st this year. It's a tricky spot. A farm system based rebuild is a 4-6 year process, depending on whether you prioritize college or high school/international. I couldn't ever see a NY team actually pulling that off without fan revolt. One bad stretch requires some Herculean effort of propaganda about the prospects they currently have. It's why we get the hilarity of almost every once-in-a-lifetime prospect on a NY team being generally above average.

[The Buscher]

Plus Cohen himself has an ego, is pushing 70, and is probably regretting his "I'll be upset if we don't win a title in 3-5 years" statement when he first got the team but also too stubborn to fully commit to a blow-up.  The fans loved his statement at the time as it showed he was gonna go all-out to try to put together his East Coast Dodgers vision.  I don't know that he has the stomach for a full rebuild, let alone the fans.

The nightmare scenario will be the Mets keep all the stars in place, fail to make the playoffs again.  Maybe a few of the kids get up here but they'll probably struggle as very few prospects hit the ground running here, outside of Wright and Alonso it hasn't really happened in 20 years.  As said the other day I do not envision any realistic scenario where the Yanks let Soto go to the Mets, they'll match Cohen's offer even if it's more than they wanted to pay.

And then I see Cohen panic-paying Alonso trying to placate fans by keeping a homegrown talent to shatter their club HR records.  But really all he's doing then is quintupling down on a core that's failed 3 of 4 years (and the one year they didn't they won 101 games and still ruined it by collapsing in September and letting the Braves embarrass them).

Again I know this is dramatic for 4 games in but the vibes are already really bad and have been all offseason aside from the brief happiness of signing JDM.  Feels like the in-between 2014 Mets but with a lot more money and fewer likable players.

[gunnar hendershow]

This is going to be a fantastic 48 hours of east coast teams desperately trying to squeeze games in during horrific storms.

[Toe]

@The Buscher Thought you might like this video about your Mets...

 

[The Buscher]

On one hand, I'm glad the video was made because it shows the Mets have a track record of sliding this way for several years running.  This would point to it being something they've been deliberately coached to do that no other team other than the Mariners is, and hopefully prompts some internal discussion.

On the other, it's pretty eye-rolly because it's Jomboy.  He's a Yankee fanboy and, as such, he'll never personally do any positive coverage of the Mets or Red Sox even in cases where they're doing well - that's usually left to some of his other staffers.  Moreover I think if this were any team other than the Mets it'd be a quick video breaking things down, not a 20 minute mini-documentary.

Dunno, it's just one of those things where like, there's already enough crap to endure as a Mets fan.  Having the biggest baseball content creator putting out a long video ripping them is just adding more dirt.  There's a phrase on Mets Twitter called "Mets for Clicks" as it pertains to baseball media going out of their way to tweak the Mets fans.  It's tough to argue when you see stuff like ESPN or B/R putting out a list of their top 10 power hitters in baseball and omitting Pete Alonso who literally leads the league in HR since he debuted.  Like...it's surely meant to troll one specific fanbase.

At the same time, they do it because Mets Twitter routinely proves they're the most easily gotten-to fanbase.  And so the cycle continues.

"LOLMETS" became a popular baseball internet phrase with their 2007 collapse and it's just never gone away.  For people in my generation, where 2007 was now half my life ago, kinda easy to see why a lot of the fanbase around our age are just worn down to the point we don't want to deal with it anymore.

[GhostMachine]

The Mets are the ONLY MLB fan base I feel sorry for. 

Some teams like the Reds are hosed because they're small market teams (and the Reds are my favorite team; the Red Sox are just my favorite AL team) which makes their lack of success understandable, but the Mets have been hosed due to a combination of bad luck, management (and I don't mean on the field as much as I mean overall), and ownership.

 

 

[Lint]

The Mets Refuse to Break Up Double Plays

Seriously, watch the Jomboy video thats in there, its insane

[Toe]

12 hours ago, Lint said:

The Mets Refuse to Break Up Double Plays

Seriously, watch the Jomboy video thats in there, its insane

Haha I shared that above!

[The Buscher]

0-5.  When Tommy Pham got traded last year he told the media that the Mets were the least hard-working group of players he's ever been around.  None of the players even attempted to defend themselves in a rebuttal.  And go figure, they're still playing the same way a calendar year later.

Again my issue isn't the losing it's that they come across like a complacent group of losers just happy to be there.  It's shocking how uncompetitive they look the second they face even a smidgen of adversity in a game.

[Krabby]

50 minutes ago, The Buscher said:

0-5.  When Tommy Pham got traded last year he told the media that the Mets were the least hard-working group of players he's ever been around.  None of the players even attempted to defend themselves in a rebuttal.  And go figure, they're still playing the same way a calendar year later.

Again my issue isn't the losing it's that they come across like a complacent group of losers just happy to be there.  It's shocking how uncompetitive they look the second they face even a smidgen of adversity in a game.

I was gonna @ you when it was 3-0, but I didn't want to jinx it for ya. I guess I should have to jinx the already-present team curse!

[The Buscher]

A win!  It took the longest hitless streak in Mets history (13 innings) but it’s a win.

My little Mets cap in my office doesn’t have to end up in the trash tomorrow.

[Your Mom]

Another weird Ohtani story

 

[gunnar hendershow]

I read that article and there's a part in there about Ohtani's interpreter saying he met the fan and also that it didn't happen. I think that article is still being edited.

The story isn't the weirdest, but the Dodgers threatening to not authenticate the ball is really dirty. Seems like she's basically gone from just excited to have caught it to realizing she got swindled out of $100k.

[Your Mom]

Thought this was interesting. Also I didn't even know KB played 1B now

[The Buscher]

10 hours ago, Your Mom said:

Thought this was interesting. Also I didn't even know KB played 1B now

Sadly it feels like KB might already be washed.  It feels like player primes last longer now than they used to with all the changes to sports science, conditioning, analytics helping guys make adjustments with age, etc.  At 32 and in the ultimate hitter's park you'd think he should have a few more productive years but the real problem is it seems like his bat speed is toast and it's basically impossible to succeed in MLB without that.

If he's got a nagging injury causing the lessened speed hopefully he can work through that but if this is just who he is now that's quickly become one of the worst contracts in the sport.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Phils City Connect continues the trend of pairing absolutely A+ hats with D- jerseys.

 

[Toe]

I feel like the City Connect jerseys are either A+ or D, and there's no middle ground. The only exception being Boston - I didn't like them until I learned how they were connected to the Boston Marathon. Now I kind of dig them.

 

EDIT - Jays vs. Yankees is starting now. Really cool to see Marcus Stroman. I was a big fan of him as a Jay and didn't really understand why they let him walk.

Edited April 5 by Toe

[Your Mom]

If you watch the video he might have actually fouled it off his face but the headline was enough to keep me intrigued  

[Michelle Branch]

 

[The Buscher]

With Shane Bieber going down for TJS and Spencer Strider getting an MRI, MLBPA is blaming the pitch clock for the injuries.  It might not help but I doubt it’s the singular reason.

Nearly 3 years ago, Tyler Glasnow cut a promo where he blamed the sticky stuff crackdowns. He thinks MLB doesn’t seem to realize you need substances to grip the balls with how inconsistent the baseball are now with all the changes made.

He admitted to using sunscreen and rosin for most of his career, not for spin but for grip. These were legal substances but to avoid risk of being thrown out he pitched a start with no substances, had to grip his fastball and curveball far harder than he ever has in his career and woke up the next morning with soreness in areas he’s never been sore in before. Gripping the ball harder like that engages far more arm muscles on top of what you’re already doing with pitching.

Feel like that’s way more likely a culprit than the pitch clock.