DavidGordonsFoot {l Wrote}:claver2010 {l Wrote}:the Nats insisting on their innings count for Strasburg
I don't understand this. Hasn't this experiment been proven a failure? I'm glad Nolan Ryan is re-writing the book.
claver2010 {l Wrote}:Mets welcome back Beltran tonight, apparently he wondered why he wasn't beloved by Mets fans. Great hearing Luis from Astoria this morning say it was racial, the mongos are out early this morning.
I always thought Beltran got slightly a raw deal from Mets fans but some of his antics annoyed me (getting a knee operation without telling the team, not coming out for curtain calls cause he was booed, having a hangnail and missing a week, Boras saying he was willing to take less to be a Yankee, etc).
However those 3 years in the middle of the deal were absurd.
On average:
.278/.372/.537, 34 HR, 113 RBIs, 22 SB and a gold glove every year (for you no OF had a higher WAR over that timeframe)
The problem was, it was a 7 year deal
bignick33 {l Wrote}:Every team in the NL East has a winning record. Every team in the AL East has a winning record.
Tiny Terry doesn’t let Mets stay down
Posted: 2:29 AM, June 5, 2012
Steve Serby
The Mets had just lost 5-4 and failed to complete a four-game sweep of the Cardinals yesterday when into a somber clubhouse marched Terry Collins.
“Great series,” Collins barked. “Don’t hang your head. Let’s go to Washington and handle business there.”
First-place business.
“So right then and there, that changed the whole demeanor,” Scott Hairston said. “We were kind of upset that we lost, but that’s what he’s been doing all year.”
Collins is the best manager the Mets have had since Bobby Valentine. He is the manager Omar Minaya thought he had in Willie Randolph and Jerry Manuel. As little as he is, he is the biggest reason the Mets believe again.
Little Big Man of Flushing. Who will fight you all the way to Flushing Bay. No matter who you think you are, no matter how big or tough you think you are.
His team will fight you all the way to the 27th out. Hairston’s two-run homer in the seventh made it 3-3. After Jon Rauch (elbow tenderness) surrendered a two-run homer to Allen Craig in the eighth, Kirk Nieuwenhuis was on third base with the tying run when David Wright lined to right to end the eighth.
Collins has handled New York as seamlessly as Brooklyn-born Joe Torre did The Bronx. He is driven like Billy Martin with Torre’s communication skills and Rex Ryan’s love for his players. He is a baseball man the way Tom Coughlin is a football man.
He believed in his players when no one else did, and his players believe in him and in themselves. He trusts them, and they trust him. He is their caretaker, Teary Collins on nights when Johan Santana throws a no-hitter on 134 pitches.
Dream Team so far. Manager of the Year so far.
“He’s our sparkplug,” Hairston said.
A morning rain was falling when I asked Josh Thole what he likes best about this Mets team.
“We’re getting to a point where we can’t wait to get to the ballpark,” he said. “We can’t wait to take the field. I’ll tell you, when you’re not winning any ballgames and it’s raining outside, you’re going, ‘Ugh. They’re gonna call this thing?’ Now it’s like, ‘Can somebody pull the tarp so we can get this thing going?’ And you see that in here.”
The starting pitching gives the Mets a chance every night. So does Collins.
“He’s a grinder,” yesterday’s starter Dillon Gee said. “That’s the mentality that we have. We’re a bunch of grinders.”
So when you ask Collins whether a team takes on the personality of its manager, he tells you: “Grind it. Grind it out.”
His fire and passion are impossible to miss in the dugout.
“He’s very intense,” Hairston said. “He’s a rah-rah type manager, and I think that’s what we need and it shows.”
He isn’t the intimidating presence Gil Hodges used to be. No matter.
“The only thing I ever want anybody to say is I’m fair,” Collins said. “That I’m honest, that I’m fair, and that I want to win.”
In a Vince Lombardi kind of way. In one previous stop, Collins wore a “Second Place Is the First Loser” T-shirt. In another, his players wore “Bust’n Ours Kick’n Yours” T-shirts.
“One of the things we’ve tried to set up in this system here is what it takes to play here — not [Single-A] Savannah, not St. Lucie — what do you have to do to play here?” Collins said. “And I think when those guys finally get here, they have a plan.”
The manager’s plan was never last place.
“As I sat down this winter, especially when Jose [Reyes] signed with the Marlins, I sat down, I put our lineup together,” Collins said. “Obviously, he wasn’t in it, [Carlos] Beltran wasn’t in it, [Angel] Pagan wasn’t in it.
“We all knew that if Johan came back, never expecting to be as good as he has been, but had he come back, we obviously knew we had a frontline, top-of-the-rotation guy to add to our staff, which we always thought was pretty good. And we thought we strengthened the bullpen.
“So as I wrote it all down, I looked at it and I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with this team.’ ”
So bring on the Nationals. Then bring on the Yankees on Friday night, when a rested No-han returns and Little Big Man spoils for a fight.
claver2010 {l Wrote}:Absolutely brutal loss last night.
Not sure what is up with Ike but if he is going to hit the way he has been he has to provide his usual plus fielding.
Now what to do with Bay?
claver2010 {l Wrote}:Wang vs. Dickey this afternoon
Yes I found this hilarious
claver2010 {l Wrote}:Much to the glee of one of our recently departed, have to talk about Dickey.
This is unbelievable. Start with the redemption story of him completely recreating himself as a pitcher toiling around in the minors to picked up off the scrap heap to where he is now...
Leading the majors in wins (I know it's a shitty stat you weird0s)
9-1, 2.44, 78 Ks 19 BB (FOR A KNUCKLEBALLER)
Now the stats get even more absurd if you eliminate the game where it was pouring (apparently it's impossible to throw a knuckleball in the rain):
9-0, 1.64, 73 Ks, 17
Logitano {l Wrote}:claver2010 {l Wrote}:Much to the glee of one of our recently departed, have to talk about Dickey.
This is unbelievable. Start with the redemption story of him completely recreating himself as a pitcher toiling around in the minors to picked up off the scrap heap to where he is now...
Leading the majors in wins (I know it's a shitty stat you weird0s)
9-1, 2.44, 78 Ks 19 BB (FOR A KNUCKLEBALLER)
Now the stats get even more absurd if you eliminate the game where it was pouring (apparently it's impossible to throw a knuckleball in the rain):
9-0, 1.64, 73 Ks, 17
What do we think Anderson can do about the pen? The Metropolitans would be about 25 games over 500 at this point if not for them stinking.
New $3B shopping and entertainment complex to be built next to Citi Field
By DAVID SEIFMAN City Hall Bureau Chief
Last Updated: 7:08 AM, June 15, 2012
Mayor Bloomberg made a pitch yesterday to develop the run-down Willets Point section of Queens with a 200-room hotel, retail and restaurant space, an interim 20-acre recreational field and a huge shopping center right next to the Mets’ ballpark.
“Willets Point is one of those things that’s gone on and on and on,” the mayor told a breakfast meeting of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. “There are a lot of guarantees this is going to get done on time, on budget, on schedule, and make a very big difference in our city.”
The plan unveiled by the mayor calls for 23 acres to the east of Citi Field to be revamped over the next 10 to 15 years in a $3 billion project by Related Companies and Sterling Equities, the investment arm of the Wilpon family, which controls the Mets.
Cleaning up the contaminated land probably couldn’t start before 2014. Assuming there are no delays in that process, construction would begin sometime in 2015.
Down the road, the Mets’ parking area on the west side of the stadium would be moved temporarily to prepare for construction of 200 retail shops, movie theaters, restaurants and “entertainment venues” in an enormous, million-square-foot complex that hadn’t been envisioned in the city’s original 2008 proposal for Willets Point.
Mayors going back 50 years have been befuddled about what to do with Willets Point, a 62-acre expanse the mayor described as “one body shop and junkyard after another.”
The city has bought out 95 percent of the property owners, but is still facing lawsuits.
City officials insisted that they would prevail and that the project, which requires further approval by the City Council, would not get sidetracked.
“We anticipate fully that this project is going to happen exactly as planned,” said Seth Pinsky, president of the Economic Development Corp.
Bloomberg pointed out that the developers would have to pony up a $35 million penalty fee if they decided to bail out.
Mayors going back 50 years have been befuddled about what to do with Willets Point, a 62-acre expanse the mayor described as “one body shop and junkyard after another.”
The city has bought out 95 percent of the property owners, but is still facing lawsuits.
Meet the Mets,Tweet the Mets: The Story Behind a Winning Blogging Startup and Baseball's Best-Wired Team
There’s something about the New York Mets that inspires a certain loquacity. Through 50 years of occasionally thick and mostly thin, the Mets fan base has adopted a verbal style that fits its hometown far more snugly than the more corporate and decidedly post-Steinbrennerian discourse in the Bronx. In short, we argue. Heatedly. And in the last few years, along with headlines of historic late-season collapses on the field, subsequent losing records and injury epidemics, and the entanglement of an unpopular ownership group in that Dickensian scandal involving the funds of one Bernard Madoff, the gabfest of the Mets’ downhill slide has run concurrent with the steady rise of social media. That is to say, an already overly verbal group of obsessed (and often angry) baseball fans has been handed a set of tools to blather on with – and blather on they do, much to my own enjoyment and participation, as I share their hereditary (and incurable) blue and orange disease.
Yet there is a clear leader in the Mets social media maelstrom, a start-up that has somewhat improbably reached major media proportions to stand at the center of what is (to my admittedly prejudiced mind) the most socially-wired fan base in professional sports. MetsBlog, founded by Matthew Cerrone as a college project almost a decade ago, is now the leading source for news and opinion on the Mets. Every day, it features up to a dozen posts on the day’s game, reaction, player moves, transactions, rumors, historical perspectives, polls, quizzes, photos, video, and posts on the National League, and all Mets, past and present. The site supports a large and opinionated group of commenters, with a wide range of ages in evidence: from newbies who only know the present Citi Field era to geezers whose favorite player of all time is Cleon Jones (that’d be me). As part of Startup Month here at Forbes, we thought we’d take a look at the journey of MetsBlog – how Cerrone, now 36, overcame the odds, built a real brand, stuck with it, found a partner, and moved Metsblog from fan project to real widespread success.
1. Matt – MetsBlog is the leading blog about the team and in my view, one of the top team-focused blogs in major sports. How’d you get the idea – what was the early venture like?
I started MetsBlog.com in 2003 as a project for a digital media class in college. The class ended, but I kept writing it because – as an out-of-market mets fan, going to school in DC – it was a great way to stay up on the team. The site was just text (literally), no pictures, no color, just black text on a white Yahoo Geocities page. I simply gave my thoughts on news items, with one post a day. At most, 100 people were reading. Today, after several iterations in look and feel, strategic partnerships and understanding my role as a fan, the site has evolved into covering all sorts of team news, entertainment and opinion, with several writers on staff, all while reaching close to 30,000 people in a given day and logging around 2.5 million page views each month.
2. You went from tiny startup to part of the large cable system when MetsBlog became part of the Mets network SNY. How did that come about? And how does the relationship work – do you still feel ‘independent’ or are you a part of the big media operation?
In early 2007, after SNY launched, I approached them with the idea of creating a regional sports blog network, ‘an online sports bar,’ as I pitched it, featuring vertical team sites under one roof. At the time, I was doing roughly one million page views per month, but I was struggling to get press credentials and consistent interviews (which I believed would help me create better content). It took a while, but we partnered later that year. Together we have built a hugely successful blog network, but it’s only the beginning.
Earlier this year, SNY promoted me to be their Director of Digital Media, which will allow me to further grow MetsBlog.com in ways I never thought possible, while also recommending and managing changes to design, audio, video and editorial strategies across their entire digital business. I’m now trying to change how sports blogs operate, creating a versatile panel of passionate fans (with individual brands), who comment on news items, much like you’d get on a Sunday morning political talk show or on talk radio. The blog started as just me and my opinion, but to continue to build I know it needs to be more than that. These days, nearly half my readership gets their breaking news from Twitter. However, they still read MetsBlog every day to see what else happened and why it matters. It’s a subtle, but fundamental shift, and one that requires more versatile and better opinions than just one blogger. Brian Erni comments on all things position players; Michael Baron breaks down pitching; Vinny Cartiglia relays online and offline fan sentiment; Toby Hyde focuses on the farm system; Patrick Flood looks at the team from a statistical point of view; while I fill in with insider information, among other things. As a group, I think we cover all sides of a story, and I hope to bring that model to every blog on SNY’s digital network.
3. Social media has clearly changed the landscape for blogs and citizen journalists. How has MetsBlog.com changed over the years to adapt to the fact that so much of the fan base is on Twitter or Facebook these days?
Old and new media think about this question every day. It’s a HUGE deal. I meet often with other news directors and social media managers and this is all we talk about. The reality is that, while fans are on Twitter and Facebook, the same number of people still read MetsBlog every day. The difference is that refresh the site less each day and (I think) they come to the blog for a different reason than they used to. The issue for us is meeting that new need. The trouble is that, just when you think you’ve cracked it, another new technology emerges and it starts all over.
4. I’m prejudiced, but it seems to me the Mets have the best network of blogs and semi-pro journalists in major league baseball. There’s an incredible range of both opinion and analysis out there, and some really strong voices. Why do you think that is – what about the Mets seems to attract writers and self-starters?
I’d like to take some credit for this, since MetsBlog started in 2003 and I’ve hustled and worked very hard to keep innovating and changing what the blog is and what it means to online content. I think I’ve helped show what is possible and I believe that has inspired a lot of Mets fans to want to do the same. That said, it’s New York City. There is no shortage of media and opinion. Also, Mets fans exist for tomorrow. We’re very much in the business of hope and what’s next, talking trades, roster management, etc., all of which lends itself to blogging. I find most Yankees fans simply watch the game, and take for granted that the team will be playing in October, so there is less day-to-day anxiety, and thus less of a need for day-to-day information. This is NOT the case for Mets fans.
5. You’re a Mets fan but you’re also an entrepreneur working on a business that’s closely related to your long-time avocation. How do you separate your status as a “fan” with the guy running a growing enterprise?
Bering a fan is what makes the blog possible, so I don’t separate it. I make a concerted effort to limit my access to what goes on behind the scenes, to help protect that innocence, because being emotional and caring about baseball is a) something I don’t even want to lose, and b) it fuels my passion for the blog, and that passion is part of what helps it connect with fans. However, from a business point of view, being a fan and talking with other fans is also important because it lets me better understand experience and people I’m trying to educate, inform and entertain all day.
6. You may disagree, but you’re among a handful of the most important journalists covering the Mets on a daily basis. These last years have been tempestuous ones for the franchise – the change in management, the epic collapses, the Madoff situation, losing Jose Reyes – and you’ve been a big voice in all those stories. What have you learned? How is sports journalism changing in the digital age?
I don’t see myself as a journalist. Journalists should always be in the business of seeking more information as they aim to determine truth. I do that sometimes, but not all of the time. There are some things I just don’t care about. If I don’t care about it, or I’m simply tired of writing about a topic, or if I don’t find it interesting, then I don’t write about it or ask questions about it. There is only so much time in the day and my true love is watching the Mets and hoping they win. That filter and my judgement has done me well in connecting with fans and building the blog. On the flip side, if it’s a topic I do find interesting, I’ll research it and write about it and if that happens to run up against the definition of a journalist (because every one else wants to know about it as well) so be it, but it’s more of a coincidence and a label than anything else.
To me, though, that’s OK, and that’s how journalism (and sports journalism) have changed most, in that the writer (radio show, TV show, etc.) is an individual brand that people can choose to connect with or not. If you like his or her style and approach, and you find their interests and methods compelling, great – if not, don’t follow them. There is no shortage of writers and talking heads and content to choose from, so there is something for everyone. I think this lesson is still escaping traditional media, though, as beat writers still hustle for repetitive and easily-available minutiae, instead of seeing themselves as an individual brand. I know they disagree and feel that is counter to what it means to be a reporter, and that may have been true, but times (and sports journalism) are changing and they’d be smart to change with it.
7. A final fan’s question to the pro: does this team have a legitimate shot in 2012 – does Santana’s no-hitter make a difference?
In terms of talent, yes, I think they have a chance, but it’s not fantasy baseball and it takes a lot to push through a full season. I wrote a quick post on June 1 talking about the potential June Swoon that could result from a tough schedule, a young team and the grind of the season – and, because of this possibility, we’d have a better idea of what this team was about on July 1. This is still the case. It’s hot. They’re losing. They’re banged up. The roster is a mess. Key players are not producing. Johan’s no-hitter hopefully added to their confidence, but that can be erased by one losing streak. I hope they fight through it. If they do, then I think this rolls through late September (and that would be awesome). If they fall down here, I think it will take a lot to get up.
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