The Time has Come for a Post-Season IGT, NYM@MIL, 2024-10-01

[Edgy MD]

I keep thinking about that triple. Why was Frelick so far off the line that it took him forever to track that ball down? I was thinking that it was a standup double and it might be risky to send Alonso home from first, but Pete scored easily and Winker had enough to time to jaw at Adames as he rounded second.

I guess part of it is that Frelick is still smarting from crashing into the window in the padding last week, but he had a long way to go.

[Chad ochoseis]

Nice article in the Athletic:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/581141 ... ed-article

If there's one thing that Mendoza has accomplished this year, it's killing the #LOLMets culture. A couple of years ago, nobody would have been surprised to see a bonehead play like Diaz forgetting to cover first base in the Braves game. This year, the Mets are the team that does more with less and doesn't have many brain farts.

I don't have cable, so for post season games I need to find a bar in Cleveland that's showing the Mets or listen on the radio, so I got to hear Howie's calls last night. Sounded like a great game.

[Gwreck]

I also wasn't sure about pinch-hitting JD Martinez in that big spot. I feel like he's not right yet. But Mendy made those calls, and man did they work out.

When the Brewers intentionally walked Alonso, it was the third batter that Ashby (the lefty) faced. Makes sense to then hit Martinez there for Winker; I’d take Martinez righty-righty over Winker lefty-lefty. But, the Brewers elected to keep Ashby (the lefty) in anyway. Strategy win to Mendoza.

[Edgy MD]

Mendoza also probably had a better sense of whether the Brewers had a righthanded replacement ready.

One advantage to the old four-pitch intentional walk is that it helped buy time for relievers to warm up.

The intentional walk seems to be far less used these days than a generation or two ago. Just being handed one feels a lot more like a surrender than it used to.

The message of an intentional walk used to be "Man, they really feel like the guy on deck stinks compared to the guy at the plate."

Now it feels like "Man, they really feel like their pitcher stinks."

I'm jumping from thought to thought, but I think the story of Mendoza's season is how he kept guys active and involved when they were pretty bad and still tried to keep looking for situations where they could help the team in the right situation, and eventually they became guys who were able to step up in any range of situations.

Lindor, Martinez, Nimmo McNeil, Bader, Álvarez — all of them and others had periods this year where they have looked utterly clueless, and all of them have had periods where they were the only guy you wanted up with the game on the line. Pitchers too. The team has gotten through some dark valleys with guy after guy that eventually became the guy whose shoulders they stood on.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Stanek for example

[Edgy MD]

Certainly Stanek indeed.

Using the trade deadline to get multiple career guys who could help around the margins and possibly step up to fill bigger needs as they appeared — rather than dropping hot prospects for name-brand guys who you put a huge amount of chips on sure got treated as low-rent thinking by Stearns, but I think it has really played well no matter how far the Mets go.

It may not give you much of a chance to catch lightning in a bottle like Céspedes, but you don't necessarily need that. It gets quality out of quantity, doesn't upset the team dynamic at crunch time, and doesn't leave you spending the next two seasons despairing over the talent you lost.