2009 Mets Season Thread

Started by Feva, February 06, 2008, 02:28:45 PM

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MDS

Zero hour, Michael. It's the end of the line. I'm the firstborn. I'm sick of playing second fiddle. I'm always third in line for everything. I'm tired of finishing fourth. Being the fifth wheel. There are six things I'm mad about, and I'm taking over.

PhillyPhreak54

Joe Reyes
So Taguchi
Billy Wagner's vagina
Victorino
Feliciano muffing the DP

Starz o' the game!

ice grillin you

i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous

PhillyGirl

"Oh, yeah. They'll still boo. They have to. They're born to boo. Just now, they'll only boo with two Os instead of like four." - Larry Andersen

PoopyfaceMcGee


ice grillin you

it would be more realistic if you had him sniffing david wrights poop shoot

or molesting a flaming 13 year old cambodian
i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous


Seabiscuit36

"For all the civic slurs, for all the unsavory things said of the Philadelphia fans, also say this: They could teach loyalty to a dog. Their capacity for pain is without limit." -Bill Lyons

ice grillin you

i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous

PoopyfaceMcGee

The guy with the Eagles shirt... I wonder if he's a Phillies fan.  Hard to tell these days.

ice grillin you

i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous

PoopyfaceMcGee

Pedro's distraction is no longer.  Pablo Martinez dead of brain cancer.

I'm just glad he's not pitching tonight.  Could be on par with the game Favre played after his dad died (not as productive, but just as hyped).

Rome

The dorks at ESPN kept saying last night how much of a distraction it was for Pedro, yet every time they showed him on the bench he was yucking it up and clowning around with his teammates.


ice grillin you

this is kind of disheartening...

Quote
Mets heading into new financial ballpark

NEW YORK - The new ballpark does not cast a shadow over Shea Stadium, not literally and especially not at night. But it looms there, crowding into the open spaces behind the left and centerfield fences, the brick and the classic arches signaling both the past and the future.  You cannot help but fixate on it. Six-run ninth inning on Tuesday, you see it. Brett Myers scuffling early last night, you really see it.

Looms. It is exactly the right word, especially when you think of how the new Citi Field might be viewed from the visiting dugout along the third-base line. It is a great word, looms. It suggests significant size but it also hints at significant danger. There is almost always a portent of dread attached to it. The ice-cream man does not loom, not ever, not even when he is 6-8.

But Citi Field looms - for the Phillies, the rest of the National League East, and the rest of the National League. Because it is the ballpark that could make the Mets financially untouchable.

All of which adds importance to every pitch, every inning, every game between the Mets and the Phillies this season. There is no other way to look at it. There is no time to wait, no opportunity to nurture, not anymore. Now has never meant more for the Phillies, seeing as how the license for the Mets to print money has just about been issued.

So, when the Phillies shocked the Mets with their late Tuesday night comeback, it meant more than just a game. When Myers endured through five extremely difficult-to-watch innings, it at least gave the Phillies a chance on a night that, at the same time, raised the question of how long the team can wait if he cannot throw his fastball for strikes.

Because everything is magnified. Because the opportunity for the Phillies is here and now. It will only get harder next year and the year after and the year after that, when construction is complete and Shea is mercifully obliterated, rats and all.

"I hear the numbers and I can't believe them,'' Phils manager Charlie Manuel was saying, during a relaxed moment in the dugout before last night's 6-3 loss to the Mets, a game lost when reliever Ryan Madson gave up a three-run homer to Mets shortstop Jose Reyes in the sixth inning.

Manuel was looking out there at the new brick ballpark, talking about the price tag for construction - a reported $800 million (which is nothing close to the $1.3 billion being spent on the new Yankee Stadium, which is another obscenity entirely).

Citi Field likely will be beautiful, harkening back to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn (but with 54 luxury suites). The beauty will be a matter of opinion, though. That it will be a goldmine is an undisputed certainty. The people at Forbes who figure out these things estimate that the Mets franchise will be worth about $1 billion when they open the gates next season, second in baseball only to the Yankees (whose new franchise value will be an estimated $1.5 billion).
By comparison, the Phils are worth $481 million. As they say, do the math.


Which is what you see every time you look up here, that abominable financial potential. It creates all kinds of additional imperatives for the Phillies and for this season - it just does.

The counterargument is that money isn't everything in baseball, and it isn't as important as it might have been a decade ago. That is all true enough, and there are plenty of examples from which to try to prove the point, from the Diamondbacks, Indians and Rockies last year to the Rays this year.

But money still matters, and you are naïve if you don't think it does. As things stand today, the Mets spend more than $30 million more on players than the Phillies are spending. What if that difference gets to $50 million? What if it that difference gets even bigger?

Don't kid yourself - that is where this is headed, even when you factor in the Mets' big, new mortgage. And, well, put it this way: It still takes brains to win in baseball, but that kind of money will buy you out of a lot of stupidity.

Baseball teams' player spending closely tracks with their revenue and always has. The top three revenue teams today are the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets. The top four payroll teams are the Yankees, Tigers, Mets and Red Sox. Eight of the top 10 payroll teams are also in the top 10 in revenues. In the vast majority of cases, teams spend what they bring in.

The Phillies? They are at 13th in revenues, 13th in payroll - although, if you count the money they're still paying Jim Thome, they rank higher than that. They are not cheap. They do what everybody else in their sport does.

But, through no fault of their own, a financial deficit against the Mets is soon to become a chasm. That is the message with each pounding hammer outside the centerfield fence. To ignore it is to ignore the truth.

Now, baseball players are all about today. They don't think long term, even when the long term stares at them from right over the wall. Each pitch, then. Each inning, each game, each series, with Jamie Moyer trying to keep the Phillies in first place this afternoon against the Mets' Oliver Perez.

This game is important. This year is really important. *


i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous

DH