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2019 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Posted by on 30 December 2019 Comments Off on 2019 Mets Draft Class Autographs

Superior selections supported by seven sequential senior signings

Full list of 2019 Mets draft picks

Anticipation was running high for this year’s draft, the first with Brodie Van Wagenen as GM. Day 1 was business as usual, a couple of picks that went a few slots ahead of where they were projected because the Mets probably already had deals worked out so they could save some money (or so we thought). Brett Baty and Josh Wolf have the usual Leaf autographs and such, as do all highly-ranked high schoolers these days. Day 2 though went way off script and saw the Mets taking Matthew Allan, considered to be a first-round talent, in the third round after he fell due to reportedly asking for way too much money. Then they spent the rest of the night picking college seniors, who can be signed for a Burger King coupon book and a six-pack of Red Bull (collectively, not one for each). While it looks strange on paper, the Mets have an awful track record when it comes to later early round picks (see: 2014, et. al.), so effectively punting rounds 4-10 on a bunch of scratch tickets is functionally indistinguishable from their usual draft strategy. And if it gave the Mets the $3 million it was estimated to take to sign Allan (down from the $4 he told everyone so they wouldn’t pick him), then it would all be worth it.

So of course the Mets ended up with $2.5 million they could use for Allan after saving less than expected on Baty and going over slot on Wolf. Lets’s recap: Allan floats a $4 million asking price so teams won’t pick him, allowing him to fall to the Mets in the 3rd round. Then the media reports that the $4 million figure was never his real number, which was instead $3 million. And then the Mets worked out their signings to give them $2.5 million to work with, which reports later said would be enough to sign Allan. And which was probably a number that several other teams would have been willing to pay. Look, I’m all for the Mets loading up on young talent, but this is sketchy as hell and seems like something that MLB will want to take action on before it gets out of hand. By instituting a hard slotting system, MLB has made it profitable for teams and players to concoct elaborate schemes to beat the system, largely because of the impact of not signing a high pick, which makes teams extremely risk averse.

Seven other picks also have autographs, all but one from either 2014 or 2018 Leaf Perfect Game products. Of those seven, only Kennie Taylor, Hunter Parsons, and Ryan Shinn signed.

1 Brett Baty 2 Josh Wolf 3 Matthew Allan 4 Jake Mangum
9 Joe Genord 14 Kennie Taylor 19 Hunter Parsons 24 Hunter Barco (DNS)
25 Joseph Charles (DNS) 34 Ryan Shinn 35 Daniel Maldonado (DNS) 36 Tucker Flint (DNS)

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First ever reader poll

Posted by on 1 April 2012 Comments Off on First ever reader poll

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These aren’t the stats you’re looking for

Posted by on 16 March 2012 Comments Off on These aren’t the stats you’re looking for

A post about Star Wars and baseball that does not mention R.A. Dickey.  Except for right there.  Oops.

We’re knee-deep in the ides of March, which, for all of you who are not Roman emperors, means lengthy discussions of the rites of spring training.  It’s the time of year when every injury, every car-flipping DUI, every sub-par outing, every billion dollar lawsuit, and every sky-high batting average is completely blown out of proportion by sportswriters with too much time on their hands and too little actual news.  What a way to make a living.

As for me, I’m stuck in fast-moving bumper-to-bumper traffic thinking about a Twitter discussion about the significance of spring training stats, of which I probably only saw less than half before throwing out a comment and losing interest.  My remark about considering all stats to be meaningless probably went unnoticed but would otherwise have been dismissed as a satirical take on the whole sorry state of affairs.  Which, in some part, it was, but it was also touching on a deeper truth.  I just don’t believe in baseball stats.

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Random Thought: The Number 18, an exercise in Small Sample Sizes

Posted by on 29 January 2012 Comments Off on Random Thought: The Number 18, an exercise in Small Sample Sizes

The tip of the iceberg?

I noticed something interesting the other day while sorting through scans for this site: I have a lot of cards numbered 18/25.  I rarely notice any particular number, even the ones that idiot sellers on eBay proclaim to be “Like a 1/1!!!” (jersey numbers, first/last numbered, etc.).  Once I got that in my head, I started noticing more of them on a regular basis.  While interesting anecdotally, I wondered how significant the population of 18/25s would turn out to be when studied more closely.  And so today’s random diversion was born.

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Introducing the Wild and Crazy Card

Posted by on 14 November 2011 Comments Off on Introducing the Wild and Crazy Card

Well, it happened again – a mediocre Cardinals team that many people thought had no business in the postseason went on to win it all.  This time, they didn’t even win their division, they made it in as the NL Wild Card.  The very idea of a Wild Card is a polarizing subject, but when a Wild Card team wins the World Series, well, OK, so nobody really seemed to care this time around, probably because of all of the “How do we fix the Wild Card?” speculation we got during the regular season (and the Cardinals did have a pretty good run).  Between adding more Wild Card teams and throwing them all in the Thunderdome, realigning the leagues to create more or fewer divisions to get to a power of two in each league, or just living with what we have, everything was put on the table.  Well, maybe not everything.  With that, I give you my solution, the Wild and Crazy Card.

From the makers of the Designated Hittee and the Seventh Inning Streak, it’s the Wild and Crazy Card!

Has this ever happened to you?  Your season is going great, but with one stumble, oh no!  That pesky division rival who you totally pwn passes you in the standings and goes on to the postseason while you’re left spending October in your beachfront mansion surrounded by supermodels.  Oh, the humanity!  Don’t fret, there’s a way out of this fate worse than death now with the Wild and Crazy card!  [Offer not valid for Canadian teams unless they complete this math problem: (St. Louis Cardinals – Albert Pujols) / (Milwaukee Brewers – Prince Fielder) x (Chicago Cubs + Theo Epstein) + (Boston Red Sox – Beer) / (Texas Rangers – C.J. Wilson) – (Florida Marlins – Florida + Miami) x (New Stadium + Orange Uniforms – Home Run Monstrosity)]

Here’s how it works:  At the end of the regular season, the eight playoff teams are selected using the current method.  But wait!  There’s still one more day of games to get through before any of them can taste sweet, sweet October baseball.  The 22 failures in MLB can now challenge any of the playoff-bound teams that they have a winning record against to a Wild and Crazy Card game to decide who moves on and who is the sad, pathetic loser.

Each non-playoff team may submit a maximum of one challenge request, due no later than 12:00pm EDT on the day following the final day of the regular season.  For each challenged playoff team, a Wild and Crazy Card game will be scheduled for the following day at their home stadium against the challenging team with the best overall regular season record (with ties decided by season series or, if still tied, a coin toss).  Each game will be limited to a number of innings equal to the difference in season series wins; if a challenging team won the season series 9-6, three innings would be played, while a record of 4-3 would result in a one-inning game.  If the difference in the season series record is greater than nine, a nine-inning game will be played.  If the challenging team scores more runs in the allotted number of innings, they go on to postseason glory!  If they tie or lose, better luck next year.

If this had been implemented for the 2011 season, there could have been 20 additional innings of baseball after the final standings had been decided:

Yankees vs. Red Sox, 6 Innings (!)
Tigers vs. Angels, 1 Inning
Rangers vs. Blue Jays, 2 Innings
Rays vs. As, 3 Innings
Phillies vs. Nationals, 2 Innings
Brewers vs. Braves, 2 Innings
Diamondbacks vs. Cubs, 1 Inning
Cardinals vs. Giants, 3 Innings

How’s that for exciting baseball?  The Wild and Crazy Card: because it ain’t over ’til nothing is decided until the last possible moment.

(Fun Fact: If the Red Sox had won the Wild Card instead of the Rays, the Yankees would have had an automatic pass into the postseason.  Would the prospect of facing the Red Sox in an elimination game have changed the result of their final game?)