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Reassurances Here

Edgy DC Sep 26 2006 11:06 AM

Of varying degrees of realism. Um, the 1986 Mets underwhelmed with a RS/RA ratio of 110-96 in September.

Yancy Street Gang Sep 26 2006 11:10 AM

The first round opponent may be the St. Louis Cardinals who, as mentioned in another thread, seem to be falling apart. It may look like the Mets are staggering towards the playoffs, but the Cardinals really are.

MFS62 Sep 26 2006 11:17 AM

Willie has been resting at least one regular per game over the past few weeks, so we haven't seen the real Mets. Try as hard as I can, that doesn't reassure me. Later

Johnny Dickshot Sep 26 2006 11:25 AM

They may be guilty of cruising now, but eventually will reap the benefits of having not played 3+ weeks of frantic pedal-to-the-metal baseball when their opponent's starters/hitters/bullpen falter from exhaustion and overuse.

Gwreck Sep 26 2006 11:28 AM

Our first round opponent will (probably) be the Cardinals. Their closer is Braden Looper. Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating: Braden Looper.

cooby Sep 26 2006 11:31 AM

Gwreck wrote: Our first round opponent will (probably) be the Cardinals. Their closer is Braden Looper. Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating: Braden Looper. My hopes have just soared

MFS62 Sep 26 2006 12:00 PM

Albert Pujols' real name is Joe Hardy, and the clock has just struck midnight. You asked for varying degrees of realism, and this was as much of a variance as I could come up with. Later

metirish Sep 26 2006 01:32 PM

If the Astros do make it they could have a spent pitching staff,Garner is just about pitching everyone these last few games.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 26 2006 02:26 PM

There's a distinct possibility our first round opponent will have had to waste a few pitchers on a play-in game.

metsmarathon Sep 26 2006 02:33 PM

there's no such damned thing as momentum, and it sickens me every time i hear it spoken in sports media. especially since half the time, you hear "you'd think the momentum from last time's wonderful performance would've carried 'em through, but it didn't." or "you'd think last time's crushing failure would've carried over, but it didn't" half the time, momentum works. half the time momentum fails to have an effect. (or so it seems) doesn't that flatly impugn the validity of the entire notion of momentum?

metirish Sep 26 2006 02:35 PM

Remember when Bobby V and Mo Vaughn had that little back and forth about momentum,IIRC the Mets were playing a four game series against the D-Backs.

Yancy Street Gang Sep 26 2006 02:36 PM

No. It means that momentum, which may exist, doesn't last forever. If a team is clicking, and feeling good about itself, why would it be impossible for that to carry over from one day to the next?

Vic Sage Sep 26 2006 02:54 PM

"momentum is as good as the next day's starting pitcher"

MFS62 Sep 26 2006 02:55 PM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: If a team is clicking, and feeling good about itself, why would it be impossible for that to carry over from one day to the next? If you could figure out the answer to that , you could make a lot of money a a sports psychologist. A LOT of money. Later

metsmarathon Sep 26 2006 04:12 PM

some games you play well. that's not a guarantee that you won't play poorly the next. its nice to think that momentum is a real commodity in sports, but i've come to be very much not a believer in that. if it was true, especially in sports like baseball, why don't teams with three-game winning streaks almost always turn them into four game winning streaks? fours into fives, fives into sixes, etc? if you're playing well, playing well is likely to continue. what i'm arguing against is the carry-over effect. or perhaps more to the point, the extent to which the carry-over is overemphasized as if it were a causal fact, and one to be heavily weighted in predicting who will win what game. case in point, the (NFL) giants game. you'd think that the week 2 win against hte eagles would've built up some momentum. they clicked in teh 4th quarter, tehy got lucky, they played exceptionally well, they had a teriffic win, a momentum building come-from-behind improbable win against a division rival. is there no better recipe for momentum? and where did that get them against seattle? they were flat. they were awful. they played like crap. they played like statues. they played like hte crap on statues that don't have the little pointy spikes that scare off pigeons and keep them less crap-covered. they were awful. what happened to momentum? yes, there's confidence. yes there's chemistry. yes tehre's good team play. what there isn't is momentum. to put it in a more metly context... i'm no more afraid of us playing the houston astros than the st louis cardinals as a result of any supposed momentum that might be ascribed to them as a result of their making it into the playoffs on the backs of a rousing september push and simultaneous st louis collapse than i would be from the inherent talent and personnel that the team brings to the game. the ability of a manager to rest or not use a certain player aside, wether a team wins or loses its previous game has terribly little to do with wether a team wins or loses its next game. when a team wins the game immediately following a great win, its attributed to momentum, and when they lose, its blamed on everything but. when a team loses a game immediately following a heartwrenching loss, its attributed to momentum, and when they win, its credited to everything but.

Yancy Street Gang Sep 26 2006 04:17 PM

I'm not convinced that it doesn't exist, but I do agree that it's over emphasized.

metsmarathon Sep 26 2006 04:22 PM

i suppose it could be statistically measured, comparing a team's rate of winning after a win, and losing after a loss, to a team's overall win-loss rate, across baseball-time. if momentum is real, a team will be signifcantly more likely to win a game after having just won a game than would be expected by their 0.566 winning percentage, and likewise with the losing. but i'm only geekly enough to propose such a thing. i can't begin to start doing it!

metirish Sep 26 2006 04:24 PM

Didn't the Dodgers lose the next teo games that that amazing game in which they hit four consecutive home runs,you'd think that game would have given them momentum.

Gwreck Sep 26 2006 04:31 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: There's a distinct possibility our first round opponent will have had to waste a few pitchers on a play-in game. Exactly. St. Louis has a potential game to make up against the Giants (which would be Monday, in St. Louis), and then could have to do a 1-game playoff against Houston (Tuesday, in Houston).

Yancy Street Gang Sep 26 2006 04:37 PM

I can't string together all the scenarios in my head, but isn't it possible that the team that's supposed to open the NLDS on Tuesday might be involved in a playoff game that day? Would the other NLDS series (the one slated to start on Wednesday) start on Tuesday instead? Or would there be one fewer game on Tuesday and one more on Wednesday? I thought the series involving the wild card was supposed to be the Tuesday series? They might want to reconsider that, if true.

OlerudOwned Sep 26 2006 06:11 PM

metirish wrote: Didn't the Dodgers lose the next teo games that that amazing game in which they hit four consecutive home runs,you'd think that game would have given them momentum. http://firejoemorgan.blogspot.com/2006/09/im-not-sure-what-you-mean-by-carryover.html

MFS62 Sep 26 2006 06:23 PM

No, those four dingers tied it. They won on a walkoff homer by Nomar in a later inning. Later

Elster88 Sep 26 2006 09:42 PM

metirish wrote: Remember when Bobby V and Mo Vaughn had that little back and forth about momentum,IIRC the Mets were playing a four game series against the D-Backs. I've forgotten this one. Remind me?

metirish Sep 26 2006 09:45 PM

I will as best I can...IIRC the D-Backs were in town for a four game series, the Mets won a game and Mo talked about how that game would give the team momentum...the back pages the next day had Mo-mentum as the banner..Bobby basically said that there is no such thing as momentum and that it was a silly thing to say...then again maybe I am wrong in my memory. I do remember that the media had a blast with it though.

soupcan Sep 27 2006 09:09 AM

Just a snippet from the recap article... September 27, 2006 Championship Hangover Lingers for Mets By BEN SHPIGEL But Randolph was a part of what was almost a colossal collapse. In 2000, when he was a coach with the Yankees, he watched a bunch coming off two consecutive World Series titles stagger down the stretch. Those Yankees lost 15 of their last 18 regular-season games, including the final seven, and backed into the division title with a Red Sox loss. It took a while in the playoffs for them to regain their swagger, needing all five games to defeat Oakland, then six against Seattle before dispatching the Mets in five games to win the World Series. 15 of 18 and 7 in a row to close out the season. Not saying that I'd prefer that the Mets finish up like that but it does prove that momentum may actually be overrated and that perhaps, once the postseason begins it in fact IS a brand new season.

smg58 Sep 27 2006 09:51 AM

The statistical analysis from Baseball Prospectus that suggested that pitching and defense are statistically significant factors in the postseason also said that how a team finishes the regular season isn't one.

HahnSolo Sep 27 2006 11:56 AM

Don't remember all the numbers, but the White Sox were pretty dismal the last 40 or so games last year, leading to speculation they would either: a) be bypassed by Cleveland, or b) be eliminated in the playoffs by the more "postseason tested" Red Sox, MFYs, or Angels. And we all know how that turned out.

metsmarathon Sep 28 2006 12:01 AM

maybe this should be split from here... i dunno... but i was in a procrastinatey mood just now, and i decided to look at how momentum has affected the mets this year - are tehy more or less likely to win a game following a win, or lose a game following a loss, than you would expect based on their record for the season? so i took the mets winning percentage = 93 / (93+64) = 0.592; and a corresponding losing percentage of 0.408 i then tallied up all of the mets' wins and losses follong wins or losses, respectively, in the previous game what i found out was that the mets won 54 games after having won the previous game, and lost 25 games after having lost the previous game. (they also won 39 games after losing the previous game, and likewise lost 39 games after having won the previous game.) so, how does that compare to what we'd expect? well, the mets had 92 opportunities thus far this season to win a game after having won the prior game (the first game they won would have no predecessor), and the mets also had 63 opportunities to lose a game after having lost the game previous (the first game they lost would have no predecessor) if we multiply 92 opportunities by a 0.592 winning percentage, we find that, statistically, the mets would have been expected to win 54.496 games after having won the game prior. if we multiply 63 opportunities by a 0.408 losing percentage, we find that, statisticall, the mets would have been expected to lose 25.68 games after having won the game prior. 54.496 versus the actual 54 25.68 versus the actual 25 what this tells me, based, admittedly, on this very small sample size, is that "momentum" has played no role in the mets season, and wether the team has won (or lost) the game prior offers no indication as to their liklihood of winning (or losing) their next game. further study is of course warranted.

MFS62 Sep 28 2006 07:30 AM

ElDuque, Glavine and Traschell are three veteran (every time I hear that word I think of Murph) pitchers who can deliver quality starts in the post season. Later

metsmarathon Sep 28 2006 08:31 AM

its better to slump at the end of the season when you're already in the postseason, than once the postseason actually starts. provided you get out of said slump that is. as a corollary, slumps don't last forever.

TheOldMole Sep 28 2006 08:47 AM

Pedro has earned his place in our hearts, and he's an integral part of our championship-to-be team, whether he pitches an inning of the postseason or not.

MFS62 Sep 28 2006 09:51 AM

Three names come to mind: Nolan Ryan Moe Drabowsky Howard Ehmke All three had unexpectedly great post season pitching performances. Drabowsky and Ryan came out of the bullpen and Ehmke (1929) (at the end of his career) was a surprise starter for the Phillies who pitched an 11 (or was it 14?) strikeout victory. Will John Maine or Aaron Heilman be added to that list? Later

Edgy DC Sep 28 2006 09:56 AM

Aaron Heilman is a good bet to not pitch.

MFS62 Sep 28 2006 10:05 AM

Edgy DC wrote: Aaron Heilman is a good bet to not pitch. As a starter? Or are you saying the Mets will never have a late inning lead to protect? This is a thread for reassurances. Later

HahnSolo Sep 28 2006 10:24 AM

Success by Heilman would not be unexpected, at least not by me.

metsmarathon Sep 28 2006 10:33 AM

wow. humber aside, heilman has the lowest ERA of any metly pitcher in september

Edgy DC Sep 28 2006 10:35 AM

...as a starter.

Yancy Street Gang Sep 28 2006 10:40 AM

Oh, there's little chance that Heilman starts, unless there are a couple of more injuries. Even if Pedro's not in the picture, there's still Glavine, Hernandez, Trachsel, and Maine. Even if Hernandez got injured in Game 1, and couldn't go in Game 5, you'd probably have Oliver start Game 5 (ouch!) or let Glavine go on short rest with the bullpen on alert. Also, if Pedro's not on the postseason roster at all, you're more likely to get another long guy on the roster, like maybe a Williams or a Bannister.

cooby Sep 28 2006 10:42 AM

Maybe four of us ought to pitch

soupcan Sep 28 2006 10:47 AM

I've been pitcing batting practice to my son's 4th grade Little League team. I can get it over the plate pretty good (granted the distance is a bit shorter) and when I need it I can definitely reach back for something extra and whiff these 9 year-olds. If Willie wants me, I'm there.

MFS62 Sep 28 2006 10:48 AM

cooby wrote: Maybe four of us ought to pitch Put me in coach. I'm ready to play. Later

cooby Sep 28 2006 10:51 AM

All right, we've got two on the staff so far!

Yancy Street Gang Sep 28 2006 10:52 AM

I'm supposed to be reassured by the idea of cooby and MFS62 pitching for the Mets in the NLDS? It's not working!

cooby Sep 28 2006 10:53 AM

No, no no Soupcan and MFS

soupcan Sep 28 2006 10:54 AM

BIG difference!

Yancy Street Gang Sep 28 2006 10:54 AM

Still not working!

cooby Sep 28 2006 10:55 AM

Well, then hotshot, how about you volunteering? (whattya mean BIG difference?)

Yancy Street Gang Sep 28 2006 10:57 AM

I wasn't on the 40-man roster on August 31.

soupcan Sep 28 2006 10:57 AM

cooby wrote: (whattya mean BIG difference?) Means I can strike out little kids and you can't.

MFS62 Sep 28 2006 10:57 AM

Just to let you know, I throw a spitter. feel better now? Later

Yancy Street Gang Sep 28 2006 10:59 AM

And my daughter can throw a fit.

cooby Sep 28 2006 10:59 AM

="soupcan"] ="cooby"](whattya mean BIG difference?) Means I can strike out little kids and you can't. That is reassuring Yancy had to remember that antiquated Aug 31 rule

MFS62 Sep 28 2006 01:20 PM

From Elias Sports Bureau: ] The Mets have lost seven of their last eight games and are 11-15 in September. But don't fret, Mets fans, several teams have struggled in September/October but still won the World Series that year. Here are some examples during the wild card era: 2005 White Sox: 4-10 during one stretch in September, turning a 9½-game lead to 1½ 2002 Angels: 5-8 over last 13 games of the season 2001 Diamondbacks: 14-13 in September/October 2000 Yankees: 13-18 in September/October, 2-13 in last 15 games, lost last seven 1997 Marlins: 12-15 in September, 2-7 in last nine games Ya' Gotta' Believe. Later

Rotblatt Sep 28 2006 01:29 PM

That's more like it, MFS62! I've been trying (and failing) to draw strength from BP's finding that "hot" teams don't do any better in the postseason than non-hot ones. I just feel like our hitters are so streaky that they need to be raking when the season closes out.

Rockin' Doc Sep 28 2006 01:33 PM

The offense is too good to suck like this for much longer. They're due to bust out soon.

Gwreck Sep 28 2006 10:53 PM

Mets all-time home winning percentage in playoff games: .667

MFS62 Sep 29 2006 10:47 AM

This probably belongs here more than in the "Sportswriter" thread. ] MET FANS, IT'S NOT AS BAD AS IT SEEMS Mike Vacarro, NY Post September 29, 2006 THERE is something you really should ponder if you are a Mets fan, if your teeth are chattering, if your knees are clattering, if you're convinced - in the time-honored way that Mets fans see the Apocalypse lurking around every corner - that the sky is not only falling, but already fallen. The Mets lost the services of a player named Pedro Martinez last night when it was announced, somberly and sadly, that he will be out 4-6 weeks with a freshly-discovered tear in his left calf (which, before yesterday, was heretofore known as "the healthy calf.") But they didn't lose PEDRO MARTINEZ. Because the truth is, the Mets haven't had the italicized, capitalized version of that player in an awfully long time. The Mets don't lose the 1969 edition of Tom Seaver, or the 1986 version of Dwight Gooden, or even the 2000 versions of Al Leiter and Mike Hampton. Those pitchers were central to everything those Mets teams accomplished. Subtracting them from the Mets two days shy of October would have been like showing up for an evening of "The Producers" a few years back and finding out that Nathan Lane had been replaced for the evening by Dick Butkus. Look, there isn't a Mets fan alive who wouldn't feel better if they had a vintage Pedro Martinez ready to pitch in the playoffs. There isn't a fan of baseball anywhere in this city who wouldn't prefer to see that, in truth, because when he's on, when he's right, that's about as good as New York baseball has been the past couple of years. But we haven't seen that Pedro in a long time, maybe not since his epic scoreless duel with Arizona's Brandon Webb on May 31. We've seen flashes of it. But really, ever since he went back to Boston and was blitzed by his former mates on June 28, flashes is all we've gotten. And flashes is all we would have gotten, if we're being honest with ourselves. And here's the thing to remember: The Mets spent most of this summer without Pedro. And they spent most of the summer winning without Pedro. In many ways, Pedro has been the Mets' placebo over his two years with the team: When he was on the mound, the Mets felt like they were practically unbeatable. But the reality is, their winning percentage since the first day of the 2005 season is over 40 points higher on days when Martinez doesn't pitch than on days that he has. It's true. You can look it up. "I knew he wasn't the regular Pedro," Minaya said yesterday, when he made official what Mets fans and players alike had been secretly fearing for weeks. "He's been battling lower half injuries all year." For most of the season, Pedro's presence, and personality, have been far more valuable, and relevant, than his performance. That won't change now. He'll still be around the team. He'll still be there. And make no mistake: If he were himself, if he were healthy, he would still be the Mets' most significant weapon. But he isn't. And he isn't. And before you start wringing your hands about Pedro not being available in October, you should ask yourself this question: Knowing what you know, seeing what you've seen, would you really feel better if he was? Later

cooby Sep 29 2006 10:50 AM

That last sentence says it all, doesn't it?

TheOldMole Sep 30 2006 03:27 PM

Thank you for everything, Pedro. We'll take it from here, and your ring will be waiting for you.

metirish Sep 30 2006 08:47 PM

Green...

metirish Oct 02 2006 07:39 PM

When the Mets have the lead after the sixth inning they have a record of 71 - 4...thanks to Darling for that info.