Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

Good News Everyone!  ESPN is reporting

Right-hander Kodai Senga and the New York Mets agreed on a five-year, $75 million contract Saturday night,…Senga, 29, starred over 11 seasons with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Nippon Professional Baseball, going 104-51 with a 2.42 ERA in 1,340⅔ innings over 275 starts. He’s armed with a fastball that has reached triple digits and a split-fingered fastball nicknamed “the Ghost Fork” for how it disappears before reaching the plate. (via ESPN)

My favorite part of this is Steve Cohen’s IDGAHoot attitude on the tax.

Currently, the Mets’ competitive-balance-tax payroll — calculated by adding the average annual value of all their deals — is estimated to be around $345 million. If that holds, the Mets would be levied a never-before-seen luxury-tax penalty: $6 million for money spent from $233 million to $253 million; $8.4 million for $253 million to $273 million; $15 million for $273 million to $293 million; and $46.8 million for above $293 million — a 90% tax rate. All told, the Mets are facing a $76.2 million CBT bill — and a total payroll in excess of $421 million.(via ESPN)

One thing that sometimes will get me to watch baseball is an interesting starting pitcher.  (The Opener should be banned for this reason, as I am not alone in this).  Maybe I will have to tune in and watch some innings this summer.  Fun!

I did receive a text this morning from Media Goon asking me to pick him up at “Japanese Modell’s” which I didn’t know was a thing, and I didn’t know what he was talking about, but now it all makes sense.

As exciting as all this is, remember that MLB broke the sport with too many playoff teams -the Mets could win 101 games and not get out of the NL quarter-finals.  So, why watch?

 

Season 3, episode 2. Very good show btw.

This reminds me of the kind of cap we would have in the late 70s when it was not easy to get proper MLB merch.

Wow a SECOND after-6-on-a-Friday press release!  This too didn’t have an image, but this is kinda more fun anyway.

 

METS SIGN ALL-STAR RHP DAVID ROBERTSON

 

FLUSHING, N.Y., December 9, 2022 – The New York Mets announced today that the club has signed All-Star right-handed pitcher David Robertson to a one-year contract.

“We’re very excited to add a pitcher of David’s caliber to our bullpen,” Mets General Manager Billy Eppler said. “He has been pitching in high-leverage situations for teams with Postseason expectations since his career started.”

Robertson, 37, spent the 2022 season between the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies where he totaled a 4-3 record with 20 saves and a 2.40 ERA (17 ER/63.2 IP) with 35 walks and 81 strikeouts. Robertson ranked tied for seventh among National League relievers in opponents’ batting average (.173), tied for eighth in saves and tied for ninth in strikeouts. He placed 10th among relievers in the majors in expected batting average allowed with a .176 mark (min. 200 batters faced). He recorded 20 or more saves in a season for the fourth time in career, also doing so in each year from 2014-16.

The Birmingham, AL native made eight appearances in the 2022 Postseason for the NL Champion Phillies, going 1-0 with a save and a 1.17 ERA (1 ER/7.2 IP) with five walks and 11 strikeouts. He threw 4.0 scoreless innings and recorded a save in this year’s World Series. He ranks tied for eighth all-time with 41 career appearances in the Postseason, pitching to a 6-0 record in the playoffs with a save and a 2.78 ERA (14 ER/45.1 IP) with 16 walks and 53 punchouts.

The 14-year major league veteran owns a career record of 57-36 with 157 saves, a 2.89 ERA (237 ER/739.1 IP) with 305 walks and 977 strikeouts with the New York-AL (2008-14, 2017-18), White Sox (2015-17), Phillies (2019, 2022), Rays (2021) and Cubs (2022). His 731 career appearances are the eighth-most among all active pitchers, while his 157 career saves are tied for eighth-most. He ranks 13th all-time in strikeout rate by a relief pitcher, whiffing hitters at a 32.1 percent clip.

The right-handed pitcher earned All-Star honors in 2011 as a member of the Yankees, posting a 4-0 record with a save and a 1.08 ERA (8 ER/66.2 IP) with 35 walks and 100 punchouts. He finished 11th in Cy Young Award voting that season and 22nd in the AL MVP race.

Robertson was originally selected by the New York Yankees in the 17th round of the 2006 First-Year Draft out of the University of Alabama.

Brandon Nimmo has played 7 seasons with the Mets.  With his new 8 year deal, that would give him 15 seasons with the Mets.

How many Mets have played 15 seasons on the club?  I don’t know, who am I, Greg Prince?   Kranepool?  Anyone else?  I just don’t you I don’t know.

15 seasons as a Met probably gets his number retired in the late 2030s/early 2040s.

In the meantime, I looked at his stats and they are surprisingly not that good!  Are we sure this deal isn’t insane?

I used the word UNBELIEVABLE on a lot of tweets this summer.  I also added this phrase to my twitter bio: You’re no fool and yet you choose not to see it

And to that I am talking to the baseball media, including at least one extra special person who reads my stuff.   You guys know better, and nobody says anything.

Well, it seems that in the season I which Aaron Judge hit an unbelievable 62 Home Runs, there were at least three baseballs.  An explosive report says…

Though the overwhelming majority of baseballs we obtained were dead, 36 of them fit the bill for what Wills dubbed the “Goldilocks ball” (not too heavy, not too light — but just right). Of those, most were found in one of three situations:

• Postseason games, including the World Series;

• The All-Star Game and Home Run Derby;

• Regular season games that used balls with special commemorative stamps (i.e. Texas Rangers 50th anniversary ball) on the outer leather.

The only Goldilocks balls we obtained from the regular season that did not have commemorative stamps were found in Yankees games.

 

Ummmmm……weird right?  Insider adds

In the sample we accumulated, nearly all of our specialty-marked balls were Goldilocks, while the standard, MLB-stamped balls were almost always the dead ball.

There were, however, 20 exceptions — Goldilocks balls that bore no specialty markings on their covers. We found:

Nine in the postseason across four playoff rounds;
11 obtained from Yankees games.

…

According to two sources familiar with MLB’s ball shipment process, the league not only directs where its balls are sent, it also knows which boxes its game compliance monitors – league employees tasked with ensuring each team adheres to league rules – approve and use before each game starts.

This is a fascinating read which quotes several players including Scherzer and Bassitt.

And remember, as I always point out, when you see some sort of unbelievable display of power, you should always be wary.  This never ends well, and here we go again.