Welcome back to Mets Chat Room.
Today is all about Pedro Martinez’s return. While his players are excited about his return, Willie Randolph downplayed the emotional impact he might bring.
Martinez aside, this is an important game to the Mets for them to stay on their roll. I hope you’re enjoying the holiday, and thanks for dropping by. Talk with you throughout the day.
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144 Comments
Mike C-
1) Did Shawn Green kick your dog or steal your car or something? This guy could go 5/5 with 3 grand slams and you’d piss and moan that his shoelace was untied. Crunch time and playoffs the playoff experienced vet plays when the numbers are close with a prospects…
2) Yeah, lets go with an all rookie + Wagner bullpen, Gotay at second, and a rookie prospect in right for the playoffs. I was wondering where my crack pipe went!
Great day today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Too bad I come to this site after a 10-4 win and Pedro pitches his first day of the year, a day that’s like Christmas, not Labor Day, and have to read pure sh&%^ from this miserable wretch of a humanoid, this entity who takes oxygen and replenishes it with venom, this roach posing as a Met fan. MIKE C go to hell and leave us to enjoy the pennant race…
WE all love Milz but you will make us hate him…. SHUT THE F^&K UP ALREADY…
By the way Good beer today at this band box they call a satadium!!!!!!
See ya when we clinch. I can’t stand this one a-hole ruining everything for everyone…..and when we clinch he’ll still be bitching and crying away like the bozo he is…....
Mike C: Do you even bother to read? The stats I gave were for this year. The entire year dude. Green is better against righthanders. Plain and simple. And many people have already told you a pennant race is not the time to let Milledge work out of his funks. How many times do people have to tell you this? So for once, can you read what people are actually saying and not make up arguments that they don’t make? Let Milledge work out his deficiencies next year during the first half.
Congrats to NEW ORLEANS ZEPHYRS for winning their division
Congrats to ST Lucie METS for winning their division
I love the new font.
Deficiencies?
Deficiencies compared to Green?
Are we on the same planet?
Milledge is hitting .290 with power, speed and above-average-if-still-developing defense.
Green is fighting to stay above .270 with little power, no speed and a defensive prowess on a par with a rock stuck in tar.
The better player happens to not be “a proven veteran” and so he’s not playing in the stretch run and it sucks.
Using pre-massaged numbers like “lefty righty match-ups” isn’t a reason, especially when one of the players hasn’t been given the ups at both sides of the plate and is still developing as a hitter to begin with.
Whose hitting better for average and for power if the factor of righties and lefties… a difference that changes from game to game and inning to inning… thrown out the window, in the immediate present?
Whose fielding better by any estimation, who’s faster on the bases by any estimation?
Whose overall package of talents give the Mets the best chance of contributing to a win, playing rightfield and hitting in the seven hole?
It’s Milledge. It’s Milledge and then after that it’s Chavez to come in as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement for Alou.
It sucks that Sele, Schoeneweis and Mota are still being given throws when they’ve all proven their ineffectiveness beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Let’s at least SEE if Humber and Collazo… and Smith and Schmoll in the coming days… could at least not give up a run more often than not.
Experience means nothing, absolutely nothing, in the face of current overall performance.
Yes, if you massage the statistics so that you’re ONLY talking about batting average and you’re ONLY talking against righthanders and you’re counting the ENTIRE season, including Green’s hot start which feels like fifteenthousand years ago…
Sure, you can massage that number to make look Green look like a slightly better hitter.
You can make any number lie however you want.
You can say that my life was more significant than Jimi Hendrix’s because I lived to the age of twenty-eight.
It’s not true in any fashion but if you twist the debate until somehow how long you live equates to value, sure, you can sort of ape out that argument until you’re blue in the face.
Throwing out the irrelevant lefty-righty thing… we’re not discussing who would fit into which part of what platoon, we’re talking about which player should play every day…
And throwing out statistics from months and months ago when Green was in the last hot spell of his career and Milledge was injured or playing back into shape from injury…
And then factoring IN defense and basespeed…
And factoring in extrabase power and the odds of a multiple hit game…
Are you really saying that just because you were able to tightly isolate ONE batting statistic wherein Green is slightly better, the weight of the rest of the evidence goes out the window?
Because that’s not an explanation.
That’s a constructed justification to fulfill a predetermined conclusion.
You fought until you found the number to justify your conclusion as opposed to looking at their overall performance over the last few months.
The ONLY arguement you have for Green is mainly predicated on at-bats accrued against righthanded pitchers in April and May before he broke his foot?
You’re making your argument from your conclusion, man.
Not to get political but you’re sounding a lot like the lingering justifications toward the debacle in Iraq…
Arguing backward from your foregone conclusion as opposed to determining forward from the obvious statistics in front of us.
The condensed point:
You’re starting with the assumption that the veteran player is better and then fight for some kind of empty isolated rationale to support that point.
That’s what Willie’s doing too.
I’m looking at the available players overall recent performance and working forward from there.
That’s what someone unbiasedly looking to win does.
I was hoping my computer just didn’t switch fonts randomly, but it’s odd because other blogs on this site haven’t switched. I love Comic Sans though; use it whenever possible when I write. I just wish it was as big as the prior one.
Mike C. – shut up. You have to look at the recent stats, not just the whole season. Green has been hitting pretty well in the past week, at least in terms of RBI, so give it a rest. Milledge can start next year no problem, but why not go with the good-streaking player in the final month? Willie tried Lastings for several games, but he came down from his cloud, so he went back to Green. Unfortunately with Gotay, he can’t seem to grasp anything else except hitting.
You should have stopped before you got political.
By the way, are you familiar with the guy who constantly changes his name and criticizes the Rangers on the the Rangers blog? Either you two are the same person or you would make great friends. You should read some of his posts about going for youth; I think they might be more rediculous than yours, especially with his trade proposals.
Regardless of the numbers, you need to actually watch some of these ABs Mike C. Green give you a quality AB more often than not, even against quality pitching. He’s able to take a walk, hit a breaking ball, control his bat well for situational hitting, etc.
Milledge, while at times looks like a future all-star, still has plenty of rough edges. I bet if someone had the numbers for how many times Milledge Ked in 3 pitches, you’d see its significantly more than Green over a much smaller sample of ABs.
Now, if you want to talk numbers, they’re not all that far off. Greens season OPS: .735, Milledge: .771. A point .035 difference in OPS is pretty negligible. Green has done a better job of stealing bases, has a much lower K/AB, and better BB/AB. They’re virtually dead even in XBH/AB, and Milledge’s only really big advantage comes in HR/AB, but its not like he’s hitting one per week, he has 4 in about 130 ABs, so that stat doesn’t even mean much to me. Its basically the difference between 0-2 HR the rest of the season (Green) and 1-3 HR the rest of the season (Milledge). Its a negligible power difference at this point.
If you want to go defensively, I don’t mess around with defensive stats, but just from what I’ve seen Milledge has a clear advantage in both range and athletic ability, but especially in the corners is still inferior in reading the ball off the bat, which is really as important as those other two combined. I’ll still give an advantage to Milledge, but again, its marginal.
However, to be honest, the big thing for me is, in a pennant race, for a guy in the #7 or #8 hole, I want a guy who knows how to take a bad breaking ball and hit a “get me over” one. Milledge hasn’t shown the ability to do this with any consistency in my opinion, especially against righties. I’m just about ready to call him next years opening day RF, and I think he’s made a ton of improvement and is well on his way to becoming a fine ballplayer, but there are still plenty of reasons to keep Green in the lineup 3-5 days a week.
In the big picture of Metsworld – it doesn’t get much better than today. Pedro has successful return and they appear to be on a roll.
Whether Pedro pitches against A/AA/AAA or MLB…its a risk for the Mets if he craters. No other real risk for Pedro. It has to happen sometime and Cincy on the road is as good as any other venue.
Mets have been inconsistent most of the year but I feel a good Sept push coming. Great chance to sweep the Reds given the pitching matchups in G2 & G3 and then the hapless Houston Oilers at home for 3. Not sure of matchups but winning 2/3 isn’t unreasonable. Houston sux on the road. Then Atl and Philly. I think the Mets take 2/3 from Atl and sweep the Cheesesteaks – this time scoring 30 runs over 3 games on the inept Philly pitchers. The rest of the month should be cruise control and play the rooks some to tune up.
Green is better than Milledge aganst righthanders not only for the year, but also since the all star-break. Green’s BA/OBP/SLG since then is .309/.359/.383 while Milledge is at .272/.313/.370. So it’s simply not true that Green’s advantage over Milledge is just due to a hot April and May. It’s recent and pretty big.
You can’t just ignore lefty/righty splits. That would be really stupid. Against real good righthanders Milledge has shown he can be extremely overmatched. Green hangs in there much better than Milledge. So for the rest of the year and in the postseason, I’d rather see Green in the lineup against a quality righthander.
I am so happy Pedro came in and won today. It was a nice interview on SNY after his outing.
JD – nice quote from Wright on Pedro’s effect on the club. I guess it really is 4-0 this year for him.
I won’t get into this negative stuff. The Mets are on a roll, 25 games to the starting line.
Go Mets.
Dave
Milledge is a great slugger.. 4 … That’s quite a threat to Barry Bonds. You want a power guy with few at bats, try Castro.
Milledge is faster than Green but doesn’t have a clue how to steal a bat, is slow out of the batters box because he has a wild swing which hurtles him to 3rd base negating his speed.
Milledge hasn’t a clue where a fly bal is going. His speed advantage is more than negated by his inability to get a jump. He waates his arm by throwing to the wrong base. 5 tools none of which are used correctly today. And in a stretch drive only today counts.
Milledge has proven he’s not ready for prime time.
Green at this date is the better choice for RF and Chavez is the better choice for RF and Conine is the better choice for RF against lefties because he too knows how to work the pitcher, and he knows where a fly ball is going. Milledge has earned the pine. He gave us 2 great weeks, and the league adjusted and he hasn’t.
Milledge’s inability to adjust to big league breaking pitches and his poor fielding has put him behind Gomez on the regular job list for next year.
What is Milledge? 21, 22? Of course he should be splitting time and filling in. I cannot understand this arguing that is going on at all. It has taken on a venom that is not understandable. It would seem at some point everyone that is involved would just say “we agree to disagree” and move on.
This team is doing well. I don’t always agree with Willie but how can you possibly argue with his success? Did he allow this team to flounder as they could have after a sweep in Philly? Not on your life.
Enjoy your team Mets fans—cause they are for real. When I read this blog I am reminded more of the Howe era because there is too much arguing.
Yes, we love to see theh kids play. Yes we love to see Green do well. Let’s leave it at that.
Gil: Just want to check in with you and see how you were. When we last left on Friday, you were on the ledge ready to jump. Like I told you, “Keep the faith!!!” And I hate to say I told you all so, but I did say that the way this season has been , it wouldn’t shock me at all for the Mets to go into Atlanta and sweep the Braves. :-)
JD: How is D.Wright? I don’t know if anyone mentioned it here, but he looked like he came up lame his last AB and I read in the Daily News that he did “tweak” his hamstring. What’s up with that?
JD: Also, I noticed that you had the entire Scott Hatteburg quote. ESPN carefully left out the part where he said “His command was Phenomenal.” Also during an update they mentioned Pedro pitching 5 innings but giving up TEN HITS. ESPN is such a damn joke.
Hello CLM; The hostility is caused by one poster who everytine that Milledge isn’t posting writes a very hostile quote about Willie and Green and now Chavez, and then follows up with more vicious stuff about Mota Schoeneweis and Sele. It sets the tone for the site because it is very hostile.
This is my sober good bye to this site. Most of us have our things that we ragged on and went on about after a few posts. We fought over smart things and dumb things, but this site has been overwhelmed by the negativity of one very sick poster who cannot let go of his thing, says it in a way that gets responses and everyday we are subjected to the Milledge saga.
We should be yelling and cursing each play as we go towards the promised land, but no we have to hear stupid names for everybody one poster doesn’t like and defend the lineup everyday. This is a good site with the right amount of posts but its ruined…...
Delcos you’ve proven your OK. But you should have set up a place called bitch land for Mike C so the blog would have stayed good. Poor Milledge, losing fans thru no fault of his own.
Mike C – Just shut the hell up – Sloppy is right about this Site.. All you do is complain. People like you make it unbearable to read the posts. You just love to hear the sound of your own keyboard. Im done with this site too.
Mike C: Keep on truckin. You’re doing fine. You are entitled to your analysis. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out the teams faults or if you disagree with a situation.
To all others: If you don’t like what Mike C. writes, don’t read it and don’t reply to it. It’s no reason though for you to leave the blog and stop posting yourselves. That’s just plain crazy.
ok, i missed a few thousand posts, What the hell is going on with milledge saga?
geez Chavez is back and we have a full roster. so i am unsure why people thing that platooning the outfield corners is a bad thing. or even center giving beltran a rest when we are far in the lead?? this is the part of baseball that has been missed. the platooning of players depending on the pitchers you are up against. oh well.. i am around this week so i will be posting again. everyone just relax and enjoy us being in 1st all SEASON!
Hollywoodjosh
Hey Steve, You god?? Didn’t think so. You got your freakin nerve tellin everyone what to do. We don’t like a poster we have every right to shove his crap back down his stupid negative throat. You don’t like it , take your own advice…..
I never said I was god. and all i did was ask people to just relax .. because we dont need negative posts. and for you to react this way is very typical of the type of posts that arent constructive at all. There is NO reason at all to be hostile. none.
It wasn’t even addressed to you Mr C It was addressed to Steve without the C. But if there’s no reason to be hostile why is it OK to be hostile to players??? Wy can’t they be critiiced in a non hostile way but posters can’t.
My mistake, the hazzards of Many steve’s on a site.
you are correct we should discuss players in a non hostile way. But most of the time we are venting at the way they appear to be playing. which doesnt make it right. but we are showing displeasure in the third person. When interacting on a blog. one shouldnt direct hostility towards any one person.
We are human, and therefore, the worst lifeform on the planet. ;-]
I have my issues with certain players but my anger is what they are Not doing etc.. But I certainly dont mean anything towards the human being because well I dont know them …
The written word is a very tricky thing..
Hollywood Josh, If you are going to post things like “We don’t like a poster we have every right to shove his crap back down his stupid negative throat,” then Mike C certainly is entitled to post whatever he wants to. And I am entitled to defend another poster and his right to his opinion as well.
And another thing HJ, what are you a bully or something? That’s what you are acting like in case you don’t realize it.
steve without the C
you have a right to be as big a jerk as you want, and we have the right to inform you of that fact.
Yes, you do. And I also have the right to point out to you that you never have one thing to say either good or bad about the Mets. The only thing you do is critique other people who post. And if you look carefully, I wasn’t being a jerk at all. It is you that are a bully.
Oh, don’t worry… I’ve been on the internet long enough to have a pretty thick skin against bullies and trolls and people whose conceptions of reality are impervious to fact.
You just keep throwing facts at them and let them bluster and fluster until everyone basically sees that they’re being d-bags.
I’m a huge Mets fan and I want them to win and… I see ways that they could be playing beter and I’m-a gonna say ‘em.
Such as:
Since the All-Star Break…
Lastings Milledge – 135 AB, .296/.342/.444, .787 OPS
Shawn Green – 127 AB, .268/.329/.362, .691 OPS
AND Milledge is an above-average fielder who is merely still making some rookie judgement mistakes while Green is one of the worst fielding outfielders getting regular time in the game today.
AND Milledge is a speed demon while Green is runnin’ in mud out there.
Even if their talents were a flat-footed tie, Milledge should get the playing time because he can only get better and Green can only regress.
But it isn’t a flat-footed tie. Milledge’s OPS is nearly a buck higher since the Break, his defense is infinitely better and his speed is nearly infinitely better.
Chavez since the All-Star Break? It’s a small sample, admittedly but…
Endy Chavez – 15 AB, .133/.188/.200, .388 OPS
Yeah. The dude is an amazing outfielder and quicksilver on the bases but… his bat didn’t come back with him. A brilliant pinchrunner and defensive replacement who clearly shouldn’t start over Milledge either.
In hitting statistics, Milledge is a step and a half better than Green since the ASG.
In total contribution to a win or a loss since the ASG, Green isn’t even CLOSE to Milledge’s contribution.
Mike C, i’m right there with you. Endy as a full time player has been exposed. In Lastings case, I don’t mind him sitting versus a real tough righty or when Green is dominant against a particular pitcher. But tonight, I don’t understand why Milledge isn’t playing against a guy like Belisle. Makes no sense unless his knee is still hurting from last week.
Here’s a FACT which Mike C continues to ignore: Since the all-star break, Green has a better BA, OBP, and SLG PCT against righthanders.
That’s why Willie plays Green in the heat of a pennant race against some righties.
All managers believe in and adhere to the righty-lefty strategies. I guess Mike C believes he’s smarter than every manager in the game.
JK: I understand completely why Willie gives Green a chance against some tough righties and guys he has owned (Smoltz,) for his career. But, how much better has Green actually been since the ASB? Overall Milledge has a .796 OPS vs a .691 OPS for Green after the ASB and Lastings is a better defensive player. But can you seriously tell me that you’d rather have Green in there for the most part?
Steve, we’re NOT talking “about the most part” here. We’re talking about righties. And here’s how much better Green has been against righties since the all-star break:
BA/OBP/SLG (Green)
.309/.359/.383
BA/OBP/SLG (Milledge)
272/.313/.370
He’s got a 59 point advantage over Milledge in OPS, and a 46 point advantage over him in OBP. Now why would you play your worse offensive player against righties?
This must be some new school of managing. The Bobby Cox school? The Lou Pinella School? Pray tell me.
Listen, I was never a big Green cheerleader. But after his DL. he started playing harder. I was very critical of him all season but after the DL, I saw a positive change in his game play. after that, to me he has been very consistent and reliable especially RISP. much more so than delgado has been… Milledge though he makes some great plays. still needs to learn the corners more. there have been a few routine plays he flubbed.But he has also earned respect from me, he really turned his act around…
;-]
JK: Maybe Lastings is just in a slump and needs to play his way out of it. I’d rather give him the experience now. Especially since he just went deep against the Braves on Saturday. Certainly it should have earned him a start against the Reds and Matt Belisle.
I hope no one thinks I’m a big Green supporter. I’m not. I don’t want him back next year and I’d llke to see Milledge be the starting rightfielder right out of spring training.
But for now, while the Mets are in the heat of a pennant race and until they lock things up, I want Willie to put the best lineup out there each night based on matchups, with consideration for giving guys rest and keeping bench guys like Gotay, Conine, etc sharp.
Steve: And you risk Milledge not being in a slump but instead just not skilled enough right now against righthanders who by now have a book on him. I don’t want to risk that. I’d rather go with a more sure thing. When the pennant is locked up, then Willie can play whoever he likes.
JK: I understand your point. I’m just sayin…Matt Belisle? Matt Belisle?? You can’t give Lastings some ab’s against Matt Belisle?? Peace out.
as a batter Milledge has always n been hot/cold. Its due to impatience. when he relaxes and is patient he hits well. when he gets over anzious he swings for the long one. it usually happens after a HR. not too dis-similar to Reyes. its the swelled head syndrome. if they learn to walk off the high, they will be better …
duh:
anxious not anzious.
Steve: How about Tom Shearn? He’s pitching for the Reds tomorrow, he’s a righty, but I think Milledge will be in RF tomorrow. Day after night game. And I think we’ll see a B lineup tomorrow as Reyes and Alou get rested as well.