For those of you who missed it, I was a guest on the Mets Public Record Blog Talk Radio Show last night. This was the third time I was a guest on their radio show. Click here to listen as we talk about the Mets disappointing season, possible moves for the off-season and much more.
I want to thank Anthony, Rich and Tommy for having me on. Be sure to check out these guys over at their website: Mets Public Record and their weekly podcast show.
Here is a link to an interview I did with Joe Martino from the Home News Tribune and Asbury Park Press about my experience in the WFAN Fantasy Phenom Contest. Check it out here.
Also don’t forget to go to WFAN.com and watch my video along with the other semifinalist and please leave a comment.
In the video below I interview Howard Megdal who is campaigning to be the New York Mets General Manager. You can check out Howard and learn more about his campaign at: Megdal For GM.
Sorry, no video today but below are a few Mets related links I’m reading.
Just a reminder that you can find me on iTunes, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube.
For those of you who missed it, I was a guest on the Mets Public Record Blog Talk Radio Show last night. This was the second time I was a guest on their radio show. Click here to listen as we talk about the Mets first half, the upcoming Braves series and much more.
I want to thank Anthony, Rich and Tommy for having me on. Be sure to check out these guys over at their website: Mets Public Record and their weekly podcast show.
In preparation for the Mets/Twins weekend series, I chatted with Seth Stohs of SethSpeaks.net and fellow Baseball Bloggers Alliance member. Read below as we discuss Johan Santana facing his old team, Joe Mauer and the Twins 2010 World Series chances.
Q. Tell the readers a little about yourself and SethSpeaks.net
A. My name is Seth Stohs, and I’ve been writing the Twins-related blog at www.SethSpeaks.net since May of 2003. I am one of four TwinsCentric bloggers that have written a few books and magazines in the last year. We also provided content for the Twins annual. My blog is on the Twins but focuses also on the Twins minor leagues. I have written 2009 and 2010 versions of the Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook. I host the SethSpeaks.net Weekly Minnesota Twins Podcast and co-host Twins Minor League Weekly. I am a Regulatory Product Planner for Marvin Windows & Doors, and have an active four year old daughter.
Q. The Twins are currently in first place and are the defending AL Central Champs. What are your thoughts on the Twins 2010 playoff chances and possibly a trip to the World series?
A. I believe that the Twins are the class of the AL Central. I think they easily have the most talent. Right now, they are slumping and struggling and have allowed the Tigers to stick with them and the White Sox to jump right back into the race (although the Sox have won 13 out of 14, so they deserve a ton of credit too). The general belief is that the Twins should win the division title but that without adding a significant piece (see Lee, Cliff), they will struggle against the Rays or Yankees in the playoffs.
Q. Give me one area of the Twins roster you’d like to see them improve?
A. The Twins do need a true ace. Francisco Liriano has been very good again this year. Carl Pavano has more than exceeded any expectations. Scott Baker has been solid for the most part, if inconsistent. Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn have been the definition of inconsistent, if I’m being positive. Adding someone like Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt or Dan Haren would help as well. 3B is another area many believe that the Twins could improve, and they could, but it shouldn’t be as high of a priority.
Q. Joe Mauer has struggled a little bit with hitting home runs so far this season. Any concern? What do you think the issue is?
A. Mauer has just three home runs this year. Target Field has been playing very big. He has crushed no fewer than eight to ten balls that would have been homers in the Metrodome that have died in the vast expanses of the gaps and CF at Target Field. Jason Kubel has found a way to pull the ball more at Target Field to hit home runs, but Joe Mauer refuses to change his approach at the plate to match a ballpark. Obviously there aren’t very many Joe Mauers out there, and I don’t think he should change that fluid swing and his approach at the plate. I believe that 28 home runs was probably an anomoly and that 12-18 home runs is more the range he will be in. And I don’t have a problem with that.
Q. Johan Santana was such a dominate pitcher for the Twins and gave you guys a lot of good memories. What are your thoughts on the Twins facing Santana this weekend?
A. It will be kind of fun to see the Twins face Santana. He was such a good friend and teammate to many of the Twins players. It will be interesting to see how he decides to pitch to guys like Mauer and Justin Morneau, guys he played with for several years. Santana was amazing when he was with the Twins. His changeup was incredible, and he has a good slider/curveball too. He won the two Cy Young Awards and really should have won the third (Bartolo Colon won because he had 20 wins one year).
Special thanks to Seth for taking the time to answer some questions for me. Be sure to check him out over at SethSpeaks.net.
One of the more interesting Mets blogs that I visit on a daily basis is My NY Mets Journal Blog by Joe Petruccio. Joe takes a very unique approach to blogging about the Mets. He creates a sketchbook entry after each game. Read below as I talk to Joe about his inspiration for the blog, the Mets playoff chances in 2010 and more.
Q. Tell the readers about yourself and My NY Mets Journal Blog.
A. Well, For starters, I’m an artist who works primarily in the music & entertainment business. I am the Official artist for The Elvis Presley estate and many other people in the Music industry. Recently I’ve started working in sports, my other passion. I am the Official artist for Muhammad Ali as well as being the Official artist for the 30th Anniversary of Rocky. Everyone can check out my work at http://www.joepetruccio.com.
I also worked in the Advertising industry and worked on the NY Mets account as an Art Director back in the early 80′s. There I worked on a few campaigns for the Mets.
But the highlight was being able to design the uniform they wore (racing stripes) when they won the 1986 Championship!
I am a HUGE Mets fan. I bleed orange and Blue. Every year I start a journal to try and capture The Mets season in a sketchbook but each year I get frustrated so I stop about June or July.
Q. How did you come up with the idea and what was the inspiration behind My NY Mets Journal Blog?
A. This year I started to journal the season again. I didn’t want to fail. So I started a blog. After every game I do a drawing and post it. I figured that some of the people who follow my art would inspire me to keep going, That is what is happening now. Only I am finding a lot more fans and friends which is really cool. I can’t let them down.
Q. All of your Mets sketches are fascinating. Do you have a personal favorite? If so which one?
A. I guess the one that makes me laugh the most is the one from May 5th. It’s called “Sinko de Metso” a take off on Cinco de Maio. It shows Jerry Manuel sinking and his glasses floating to the top of the sea.
Q. Three of your more recent sketches talk about Jerry Manuel being fired. Do you think it’s time for the Mets to make a change?
A. I think some change is needed. I’m really not sure what it is. You can’t fire a whole team. I guess in Baseball as in other sorts, a manager is fired to inspire.
Q. It’s still early, but give me your thoughts on the Mets playoff chances this season?
A. I think we have the ability and the players to get there. We just need consistency. Every once and a while we see these bursts of greatness. We need to keep it going. This past Yankee series should “inspire” them to believe they have what it takes.
Thanks so much for this opportunity to talk to the fans. Thank you all for your support and for following my blog. Hopefully it well end well and make a great book at the end of the season.
For those of you who watch/read “On The Black” regularly you know that I do not incorporate a lot of Sabermetrics into my blog posts. I don’t have anything against the use of Sabermetrics it just hasn’t been my thing. However as I look to try to expand my blogging repertoire I’ve become more interested in the use of Sabermetrics. With that said I reached out to Craig Glaser of Sabometrics with a few questions. Read below as we discuss the basics of Sabermetrics and it’s importance when evaluating a baseball player.
Q. Please tell the readers a little about yourself and Sabometrics.
A. I’m a lifelong Mets fan from Long Island. My first ever favorite player was Gary Carter (followed closely by Keith Hernandez.) I studied Economics in college and went on to a PhD program in Cognitive Psychology. I’ve been interested in sabermetrics for a few years and thought it might be fun to actually do some of my own research. A friend and I talked about it a lot and I started Sabometrics. I try to bring an interesting perspective to baseball statistics from my background in decision making research. Thanks to the magic of the internet some people started reading my research and I was offered writing gigs at Surviving the Citi and The Hardball Times. I am now working at Bloomberg Sports as well. It’s been a whirlwind ride so far and I’m hoping to keep learning about baseball and statistics. Working for the Mets (or another team) would, of course, be really cool but this side of the industry is really fun and exciting.
Q. For those out there who want to learn more about sabermetrics can you give a brief overview as to just what sabermetrics is and is there a good resource out there that someone can use to build a foundation on sabermetrics?
A. To me sabermetrics is all about using statistics to try to understand baseball better. One of the main things which I studied at school is how people misperceive probability and chance. Watching baseball is fun and is obviously really valuable to evaluating players and teams but statistics can tell us things which we can’t observe. They can also show us a more accurate version of what we think we’re observing. Statistics have definitely enriched the game of baseball for me. One of the best resources is Steve Slowinski’s Sabermetrics Library where they have an online introductory course. Lookout Landing also has a great 101 section here. There’s lots of great sabermetric info online. My favorite sites include The Hardball Times, Beyond the Box Score, Fangraphs and a bunch of others.
Q. Why is sabermetrics important in evaluating a player?
A. Sabermetrics is important in evaluating players for a number of reasons. Statistics remove your perception from the equation and let you evaluate players objectively. Since people have problems with probabilistic and random information this is very important. Sabermetrics also tells you how much value each game state and play has. Without this information it’s extremely hard to rate how responsible each player is for a run or a win. Sabermetrics won’t win the game for you but it will help you to get into a situation where you have the best chance of winning.
Q. What are your favorite stats to evaluate a position player and then a starting pitcher?
A. For position players I really like wOBA. It’s a rate statistic, scaled to the on base perecentage scale, which tells you how productive a player is. It takes both OBP and SLG into account and is kind of a more advanced replacement for OPS, applying the proper weights to each kind of result. It’s also related directly to WAR which tells you how valuable a player was for a whole season. WAR also includes defense – though defensive stats are not as advanced or polished as offensive ones are right now.
For a pitcher I like to look at FIP and xFIP. Both of these are similar to ERA (and in fact were designed to predict future ERA better than ERA itself does.) They operate on the principle that pitchers cannot control the ball once it is put in play, so they look only at strikeouts, walks and home runs. xFIP takes luck out of home runs allowed per fly ball. There is also a version of WAR for pitchers.
Q. Since you are a Mets fan, give me a couple Mets blogs that do a good job utilizing sabermetrics?
A. Besides my site (which I don’t consider a Mets site, more of a general sabermetric site, though I do write about the Mets a lot) I would say Amazin Avenue does the best job of integrating sabermetrics with the Mets. There are a few other sites (Surviving the Citi is another smaller site) out there but Amazin Avenue is a great place to start out.
Special thanks to Craig for taking the time to answer some questions for me. Be sure to check him out over at Sabometrics.
In preparation for this weekends subway series, I chatted with Robert Abruzzese of Bronx Baseball Daily and fellow Baseball Bloggers Alliance member. Read below as we discuss the subway series, Javier Vazquez and much more.
Q. Tell the readers a little about yourself and Bronx Baseball Daily.
A. I am a blogger with a journalism degree from “Fuhgeddaboudit University” better known as Brooklyn College. I have worked for the NY Daily News, Pinstripes Plus magazine, and various other sports publications. Bronx Baseball Daily was started about a year and a half ago and has grown into one of the most successful Yankees Blogs on the internet. I also am the publisher of Broadway Hockey Daily and Flushing Baseball Daily, Rangers and Mets blogs respectively.
Q. The Yankees are defending World Series Champs and a favorite to go back to the World Series in 2010. What are your thoughts on a return trip to the World Series?
A. The 2009 Yankees had the makings of a dynasty and I said all offseason that the only thing that could stop them in 2010 were injuries and so far that has been the case. The Yankees came out of the gate fast this season, but have been slowed down by a long list of injuries lately. For the most part they are minor injuries that they will get past though so a trip to the playoffs looks likely. Winning a World Series always takes a bit of luck, but the way their pitching staff has looked this season indicates that a repeat is certainly another possibility.
Q. Javier Vazquez looked like a good pick up for the Yankees at the back end of their rotation. Thus far he’s struggled and the media and fans are all over him. Did you think it was a good pick up at the time and how confident are you in Vazquez?
A. I haven’t given up on the idea that the Javier Vazquez trade will be a fruitful one for the Yankees, but with the way he’s pitching it’s hard to blame those who have. The thing about the trade was that the Yankees didn’t give up a whole lot, an outfielder who is currently hitting .195 for Atlanta, Melky Cabrera, and a good pitching prospect who is probably at least four years away from the majors. The alternative was either Sergio Mitre or Chad Gaudin so I still think the Yankees made the right gamble.
Q. Give me one area of the Yankees roster you’d like to see them improve?
A. As far as improving the Yankees roster, if they get guys back from the DL things will be fine. The biggest issue right now is at DH. The Yankees took another gamble in thinking that Nick Johnson would stay healthy and now he’s probably out until August. The Yankees have other options, but right now you have to wonder how long they are going to hold out until they recall their top prospect Jesus Montero from the minors and plug him in at DH.
Q. The Mets and Yankees play 6 times a year now. Do you like the subway series and what are your thoughts on inner-league play as a whole?
A. I love the Subway Series. No matter how good or bad either team is, this is a series I think everyone in New York looks forward too. Some of the other interleague games seem a bit arbitrary, but the Subway Series makes up for that. The Mets also have a team that I think is right on the precipice of greatness and I’m not sure a lot of Yankee fans realize this. Obviously the Mets have a lot of their own issues right now especially within their rotation, but I think this weekend will open a lot of eyes in the Bronx because the Yankees their fair share of issues with all their injuries. So I’d actually say the teams are pretty closely matched-up right now. This will be an exciting weekend (I just hope that Castillo is practicing those infield flies).
Special thanks to Robert for answering my questions. Be sure to check him out over at Bronx Baseball Daily.
Here is the schedule and pitching match-ups for this series.
For a complete listing of the Mets schedule click here.
NEW YORK METS NEWS
