“Hit it where they ain’t.”
Or so said Willie Keeler in 1904, his 7th straight season with a batting average over .360. Ever since, it’s been a classic adage for baseball, one of the, well, strangest games people play worldwide.
Continue reading “On Baseball, Luck, and Squirrels”
The Mets have cooled down in the couple of weeks since their historic 15-1 stretch, but have still done enough winning to keep themselves firmly in the playoff picture. While they’re a team that’s been known to have the injury bug over the past few seasons, this season things have been very different. Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz are all (for now) healthy, and the intact rotation is the top-5 unit Mets fans always assumed they would have “if they stayed healthy”.
Continue reading “ReinforceMets: Impending Returns to Fuel the Playoff Push”
On August 19, after a brutal 8-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants, the New York Mets, defending champions of the National League, were 60-62. Their playoff odds were 6.7%, per Fangraphs. 6.7%! It wasn’t quite the home stretch to the 2016 season the Mets had visualized when they entered the year looking to defend their pennant and complete the path to redemption in the World Series. When they re-signed Yoenis Cespedes on January 26, they looked poised to do it, with a rotation that was being hailed as potentially one of the greatest of all time, and a mostly-intact offense from last season’s number one NL offensive team in the second half. Baseball wouldn’t have it that way.
The New York Mets are coming off of a very pleasantly surprising season in 2015, making a thrilling run to the World Series after not previously making the playoffs since 2006. They also have plenty of cause for optimism in the future, with a young and still improving pitching rotation that could already be considered the best in baseball. However, some of the moves (and non-moves) they’ve made this offseason have the fanbase scratching their heads and even calling for the owners to sell the team. Why?
Continue reading “Are the Mets Squandering a Billion Dollar Opportunity?”
Corner Three 