Will Donald Trump buy the Mets and tell the Wilpons they're fired?

The Donald

I wouldn't expect to see Donald Trump wearing a Mets hat on his infamous comb-over anytime soon, but he does seem to have an interest in the Mets. On Tuesday, Mets owner Fred Wilpon called Trump to set up a face-to-face to discuss the possibility of selling Trump 20-25% of the team. The Wilpons are hoping that the cash generated from selling a portion of the Mets will help cover their liabilities stemming from the impending settlement of the Bernie Madoff lawsuit.

Trump has given mixed signals on whether he would be willing to own a non-controlling share of the team. Trump told the New York Post, "Fred Wilpon is a good friend of mine. Anything I can do to help Fred, I'd love to do." However, Trump has also been quoted as saying, "If you look at Trump's record, he is only interested in things he can control," referring to himself in the third person. Although Trump appears to be interested in the team, it's doubtful that he would want to buy a piece of the Mets without the ability to impact their day-to-day operations.

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Family Guy Takes a Shot at the New York Mets

For those that missed last night's Family Guy, Stewie Griffin is shown wearing a Mets hat (sort of) and at a Mets game. Those who know Family Guy know that's not a good sign for Mets fans. Let's just say that Stewie isn't enthused by the Sandy Alderson signing in this very quick clip from the Family Guy Halloween episode:

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Adding Another to the Team (and a few links)

We're not waiting until September 1st to expand our rosters here at NYaT. I'm happy to announce our newest permanent blogger (and our new Official Mets Blogger), Elissa Glucksman. E recently guest blogged about 5 reasons the Mets could make the playoffs in 2011 and before that had previewed Citi Field 2.0 for NYaT. Elissa even participated in a triathlon with former Mets manager, Bobby Valentine, as a partner. We're excited to see what else she has in store for us (there is some talk of Sarah and Elissa doing a blog series of sports from the feminine point of view). Please join me in welcoming Elissa to the NYaT team.

Omar Minaya will feel the wrath of new blogger, Elissa (NYDN)

Now for a few links:

• Someone else is keeping track of that whole CC Sabathia opt-out (as well as Joe Girardi's contract situation): Ben Kabak of River Ave Blues. Moshe Mandel of TYU tells us why Girardi isn't going anyplace.
• SI's Joe Posnanski nails arm injuries and pitching prospects in this great blog post. Then The Common Man at The Platoon Advantage takes down Rob Dibble.
• NoMass scores another great interview (this time with Yankees' SVP, Mark Newman) and talks about the Yankees farm system. Then Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus writes "just add [Brett Marshall] to the long list of Yankee pitching prospects who have taken a step in the right direction." I like the sound of that.
• Last week Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus handicapped the AL MVP race and the NL MVP race. It will be a close one.
• Rebecca of This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes on Kerry Wood. Sam Borden of LoHud on Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter. Aaron Gleeman of HardballTalk on the Yankees' "phantom disabled list". FanGraphs' Dave Cameron on the Minnesota Twins. Flip Flop Fly Ball on the many Yankees logos. Ben Kabak of River Ave Blues on HOPE week.
• The Big Lead on why Tony LaRussa is an idiot. Wall Street Journal's Brian Costa on why Ivan (Nova) is anything but terrible. ESPN's Jayson Stark with everything you would want to know about Roy Oswalt's night in left field.
• Eastbound and Down Season 2 (I can't wait)

Javier Vazquez is officially below replacement level according to FanGraphs (H/T Jay). More later.

Quick Hits: FanGraphs Event, Yankee Bullpen, Mets, Cervelli, CC, Granderson, and Other Baseball Thoughts

It's time to play some catch-up on the blog. A little of a lot here on a Monday. Some quick hits for you:

- The FanGraphs Live event last Saturday in Manhattan was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and the panels were all extremely engaging. Amanda Rykoff has a great review of the whole event at The OCD Chick, and Dave Cameron and Carson Cistulli of FanGraphs both have great recaps. A few observations/conclusions from the panel:

The FanGraphs live event was awesome

• I may be a nerd (Amanda did label this a "mini-dorkapalooza")
• Ben Kabak of River Ave Blues dislikes Francisco Cervelli as much on Twitter as he does in real life (and Jay Jaffe of Pinstriped Bible dishes out some dislike as well)
• Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues argues that the strength of the AL East pushes each team to get better
• Reporting on Twitter discourages analysis and makes it more about a personal brand
• The Wall Street Journal has a great formula for their sports section: smart, funny and analytical
• The game story is slowly leaving the papers (and with it, the need for the box score as well as Tim Kurkjian wrote on ESPN)
• Bloomberg Sports has an awesome fantasy sports tool that can even show video of Jeff Francouer drawing multiple walks
• Statistics are now for a wider audience than just nerds (though Tim Marchman of SI looks at the problems with defensive stats)
• The biggest myth in sports (according to one panelists) is that the pitcher stopping his windup mid-motion has led to a lot of injuries 
• I now own a FanGraphs t-shirt
• "Accept randomness"
• It was nice to finally meet in person people like Ben and Amanda who were, until now, just Twitter avatars and bylines on blog posts. This type of thing should occur more often.

- Joel Sherman of the New York Post asked today (re: the Yankees bullpen): "Do you believe in this group?" At one point the answer would most certainly have been no, but Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson, Boone Logan and Kerry Wood have joined together to form a nice "Bridge to Mariano". The Yankees bullpen in August is 1-1 (the one loss came from Mariano Rivera) with a 1.02 ERA in 35.1 innings and has a WHIP of 0.991. Since July 2nd, they've only allowed 16% of inherited runners to score (which was a bugaboo for a while with this team as they were at 30% at that point). With Andy Pettitte coming back (forcing Dustin Moseley back to the bullpen), and Alfredo Aceves and Damaso Marte on the mend, this is looking like a pretty good group. And despite his latest glitch, Mariano Rivera is pretty great/probably the greatest ever. The Yankees are 62-0 when leading after 8.

-CC Sabathia is getting less strikeouts as David Golebiewski of FanGraphs pointed out today and Dave Cameron pointed out last week. Here's my theory: from 2005 to 2010, Sabathia's thrown more innings than anyone in baseball. Maybe he's resting his arm a bit knowing he has plenty of years left to pitch in baseball. While strikeouts are the surest way to prevent outs, groundouts are usually a good way as well and they usually require less pitches. That's probably a good thing for someone who will have over 20,000 pitches in a 6-year span. Like Girardi told Chad Jennings of LoHud: "we don't want to wear the big guy down."

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View from the Seats: Citi Field 4th Row

Ari posts a picture from 4th row at Citi Field tonight as the Mets look for 2006 revenge against Adam Wainwright and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Yankee Clipper: A Series Win Before Heading Back to the Bronx

The Yankees lost for the first time in Minnesota since August of 2008 last night but they still leave Minnesota with a series win and head home to face what should be the easy part of their schedule (here's a look at their pitching probables from Zell's Pinstripe Blog). Since it's been a while since we've done a Yankee Clipper, let's look at how we got here, shall we?

1. A split with Boston, a 2-game loss to Tampa, and then a series loss to the Mets. Yeah, it's been a while since we've done one of these. Tampa seems to be on another level than the rest of the majors, this past week's series against Boston notwithstanding. The split with Boston was disappointing since they had every chance to win that second game including a 5-1 lead and a rally towards the end. The Mets series was even more disappointing as the bats went dead (a theme that has carried through since). Jason Bay continues to be a Yankee killer. Jason @ IIATMS looks into whether the Yankees are waiting for the big hit and while many Yankee fans were busy panicking, Steve at River Ave Blues put everything into perspective. Also to be put in perspective, the Yankees have been playing without Curtis Granderson who returns tonight and Matt from TYU looks at what Granderson's return means to the Yankees. I think it means more protection in a lineup that has recently been pretty bad throughout, especially the middle of the line-up. Getting Granderson back could allow the Yankees to move Swisher into the #2 hole, Granderson into the #6 hole and Gardner further back in the lineup where he thrived earlier in the season.
2. The Yankees still have Minnesota's number. Two one-run games (one suspended) went to the Yankees in the first two. Home runs by Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher in a park that has shown to be very hard to homer in were the difference. Jeter's bad and glove had been questioned recently so it was good for him to show up. So calls about his defense and moving him out of the lead-off spot will have to wait for now.
3. But other teams still have Javier Vazquez's number. Despite looking really good in his last two starts, Vazquez didn't look quite as good last night going for the sweep. Maybe it was that bunt attempt that he took off of his finger...or maybe he really hasn't turned a corner just yet (or maybe he's historically struggled against some of the Twins). Rob from Bronx Baseball Daily writes that just when Javy looked like he had turned the corner, last night happened, and Joe from River Ave Blues writes that there was some good, but mostly bad last night.

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Is There a Free Agent Market For Cliff Lee?

One of the biggest off-season moves of this past winter was the Seattle Mariners acquisition of Cliff Lee from the Philadelphia Phillies. With one year left on his contract, Lee was deemed expendable by a Philadelphia team that didn’t think they could resign him once his contract was up. The Mariners had dreams of pairing Felix Hernandez and Lee together for one season and seeing what they could do in the spacious confines of Safeco Field.

Well, it may only be one year that they have together. Lee’s agent, Darek Braunecker, told ESPN’s Buster Olney that Lee will be testing the free agent waters in five months. With Josh Beckett locked up, Brandon Webb injured and Javier Vazquez having a rough go of it in the Bronx, Lee is definitely the cream of the free agent pitching crop.

But what type of market awaits Lee? Which teams will be involved in the bidding? While 5 years ago, Cliff Lee would be looking at a huge contract deal, in 2010 with a depressed economy, sagging attendance in some parks, and teams looking to be more fiscally responsible, it seems like Lee’s prospects are drying up in certain areas. So will Lee get a CC Sabathia-type contract or will he be left disappointed after the off-season is over? Let’s take a look at the possibilities (with thanks to Cot’s Baseball Contracts on the salaries):

Seattle Mariners: The Mariners traded away some of their best prospects to get Cliff Lee so it would make sense they would keep him, right? Well some of thought behind acquiring Lee was that they would keep him for a year and try to recoup the prospect loss in draft pick compensation for Lee signing elsewhere (Lee should be a Type A free agent). And since the Mariners are yet to approach Lee about a contract, that draft pick grab may be the path they are going to head down. If Lee has a huge season in Seattle, though, the Mariners will have a lot of incentive to resign him. If the team struggles, however, they may have to trade him and The News Tribune says they should think about doing that now, rather than later. The Seattle P-I says that the Mariners haven't really been showing much love Lee's way (picture to the right from that article).

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Just When Things Were Starting to Look Up for the Mets...

No matter how good things get for the Mets, there's one bad date they have to put on their calendar: July 1, 2011. And, well, every July 1st thereafter--until 2035. Why? Bobby Bonilla. Let's let CNN and Mental Floss explain:

Next year former outfielder Bobby Bonilla goes back on the payroll at the ripe old age of 48.

In 1999, Bonilla returned to the Mets for a second stint at Shea following his borderline disastrous free-agent signing in 1992. Bonilla wasn't any better the second time around, so the Mets waived him in 2000. The problem was that the team still owed Bonilla $5.9 million in guaranteed salary.

Bonilla's agents worked out a deal with the Mets where he would defer the salary if the team would pay him $1,193,248.20 every July 1 from 2011 to 2035. Not a bad deal for someone who was so bad the team basically paid him to go away.

Now, if you're wondering, what that $1.193 M could pay for the Mets in 2011, Cot's Baseball Contracts is the place to go. But even if you just take the Major League Minimum of $400,000, Bonilla's salary could pay for almost three players to play--or, for 2011, Ike Davis, Jon Niese and Jenrry Mejia.

How bad was Bonilla in 1999 that the Mets decided to waive him and incur this future albatross? Well in 60 games, he hit .160/.277/.303 and a cool .260 wOBA (which, according to FanGraphs was 9.9 runs below average). According to Baseball Projection, that was good enough for -1.5 wins, the worst mark of Bonilla's career. He also supposedly was playing cards with Rickey Henderson during the 1999 NLCS--while the game was going on. And the Mets will be paying him until he's 72! Maybe if the Mets are looking for some offense this off-season, they can ask Bobby Bo to actually come back and earn some of that money.

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One if By Sea to Two New York Baseball Stadiums

The Mets and Yankees have continued to come up with ways that people can avoid driving to baseball games and here's another way: they can take a complimentary New York Water Taxi to either stadium (H/T Aimee via Sarah). The transport leaves from Pier 11 (at the end of Wall Street) and is a great alternative for businessmen and businesswomen who would rather not squeeze into a packed 4 train in business suit and sweat their way to 161st in the Bronx.

During the course of the season, the taxis will leave 90 minutes before game time and arrive at least 30 minutes before first pitch. There will be no return service.

The water taxis, adorned with the team and Delta logos, are equipped with air conditioning, a bar and satellite television, and can accommodate 147 passengers. Tickets will be available up to two hours before departure and can be found on the New York Water Taxi website or by going to Pier 11.

Now, before we celebrate, there are some drawbacks here:

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Let's Play Two (for one)

With New York getting pounded by some real April weather (remember how April Showers Brings May Flowers used to actually make sense?) the Metsies decided to postpone last nights game before the gates even opened. First off I want to take an unusual step for me and applaud their decision to postpone the game well before it started. Last year both the Mets and Yanks opened the gates on nights where it was almost obvious no baseball was to be played, collected their fans parking and concession money, let them sit in the wet and cold for 90+ minutes and then called the game. It made economic sense for them - new ballparks, plenty of fans, but was a real gut punch to the loyal fanbase that showed up.

Whether for altruistic reasons this year (or merely because they knew nobody would show up anyway) the Mets decided to call yesterday's game before 6pm and schedule a classic, old-school, doubleheader for today at 4pm. Yes that's right, one of those goodie 2-for-1 opportunities that I personally never thought we would see at Citi Field. The Mets are clearly struggling with attendance - even with the Dodgers in town they still have well over 10,000 seats per game unsold, so this move probably made economic sense. They also moved Johan up to game one, so there should be fannies in the seats starting with the 4pm game, if the weather improves.

So, kudos to the Mets for going with the fan-friendly value option here, instead of trying to milk two separate gates today or Wednesday. With the team's improved play they could even be, gasp, in first place by 10pm tonight. However, as most of the educated NYaT community knows, it is statistically unlikely that any team sweeps a doubleheader, even if they are playing at home. So mother nature might have delivered some value to Met fans, but may also now be responsible for ending their win streak. But hey, you gotta believe!!

Any of our loyal readers heading out to Citi this afternoon?

Side note: The Metsies hit Philly this weekend for a series with their hated rival. The weather forecast is looking good and the Saturday 3pm matchup will likely be Doc Halladay (fresh off his first loss) vs. Mike (Hand-licker) Pelfrey. The game is sold out but there is plenty of inventory on Stubhub and I am seriously thinkin about making the trip. Startin to feel things turning around for my Mets!

Jerry Manuel vs. Lou Pinella: Which Manager Has a Worse Disadvantage?

The gauntlet has been thrown. Jerry Manuel took our first Stupid Call of the Week by throwing K-Rod for 100 pitches in the bullpen and Lou Pinella fired back with the second Stupid Call of the Week by moving Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen. So I decided to pit manager vs. manager to see who has a worse disadvantage at doing their job. Is it "Sweet" Lou Pinella and his band of lovable losers, the Chicago Cubs? Or is it Jerry Manuel and his unlucky group of New York Mets? Best of 7. Let's get to it!

	Jerry Manuel	Lou Pinella	Dis-Advantage
GM	Omar Minaya - What can you say about Omar that hasn't already been said? Oliver Perez. Lack of bench depth. Tony Bernazard. Lack of starters. If the Adam Rubin press conference didn't do him in, you wonder what will finally end the misery?	Jim Hendry - One hamstringing contract after another. Alfonso Soriano. Milton Bradley. Now Carlos Silva. Also, surprising lack of NLCS appearances despite playing in weak division and weak league and spending plenty of money	This one goes to Jerry. Minaya's public spat with Carlos Beltran put this one over the top this year.  1-0 Jerry
Team Curses	You wonder if breaking ground on Citi Field is going to be this team's ultimate downfall. 2006 NCLS breakdown, two seasons of losing on the last day of the season and then last years debacle	The Billy Goat. Merkle's Boner. Steve Bartman. Collapse after collapse and bad fortune after bad fortune. A century of losing. The team has tried to sacrifice goats on Harry Caray's statue and it hasn't even worked. And there's even an "Ex-Cubs Factor"	This is all Sweet Lou. Now that the Red Sox and White Sox won, it's the Cubs all alone. The Indians haven't won in 60 years and it looks like nothing compared to the Cubbies. All tied up at 1

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The Stupid Call of the Week: Mets and K-Rod

Starting a few new series this year and this is one of them: "The Stupid Call of the Week". This is where an umpire blows a call, a manager or general manager makes a horrible decision, a player has a huge brain fart, or a fan does something so stupid, they have to be called out on it. Today's culprit is the New York Mets and their manager, Jerry Manuel. Amazingly, the move didn't get called out by many people (ESPN's Adam Rubin barely mentioned it in this article dissecting the entire game), but it was definitely the stupidest move of the past week.

What move was that, you may ask? Well in that 20-inning game the Mets played against the Cardinals this past weekend, Jerry Manuel had Francisco Rodriguez warm up multiple times during the extra-inning affair. He warmed up so many times that he threw 100 pitches in the bullpen. 100! K-Rod came in with a dead arm and promptly gave up the lead. He was warming up EVERY INNING from the eighth through the 19th. The entire Mets bullpen was used as K-Rod continued to throw. Incredible.

FanGraphs' Matthew Carruth reacts:

Amazing, just plain amazing. Forget the idiocy of holding your supposed best reliever back for a possible future lead for a moment and just soak in the stupidity on the part of whoever had Rodriguez up and throwing for 11 consecutive innings.

On the plus side, I think he’s stretched out now so the Mets can go ahead and get Oliver Perez out of the rotation.

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The Mets REALLY Need to Swing for the Fences

If there wasn't incentive enough before, now there's real incentive for the Metsies to take a page out the book of their cross-town Bronx Bomber friends: hit some home runs. Why? Because at least when they do so in 2010, it'll go to a good cause. From the New York Post:

If there are Mets fans who don't know who Stewart Rahr is, they will soon enough. The Brooklyn-born billionaire -- a k a Stewie Rah Rah -- is donating $1,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation every time a Met hits a home run at CitiField, and $5,000 every time David Wright does, as he did on Opening Day. Later in the season will be "Home Rah Rah Day" with giveaways of Rahr's trademark yellow sunglasses.

Last season the Mets hit 95 home runs which was dead last in the National League--well dead last in any league. Their leading homerun hitter was Daniel Murphy  with 12 and they had 4 people (David Wright, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran, Jeff Francoeur) tie for second with 10. They had the longest streak of games without a home run in 2009, when they had an 8 game drought from July 3rd to July 11th (they also went 7 games in May). So let's just say, they need to hit some more home runs in 2010. That's why they signed Jason Bay, wasn't it?

David Wright was the real disappointment of 2009 on the power front only hitting 10 home runs after hitting 33 the year before. Wright has the Mets only home run so far this season (pictured to the right from The Star-Ledger), so that's $5,000 in the books. It must be The Situation and Vitamin Water (H/T Ari). According to FanGraphs, the projections for Wright's 2010 home run total lie between 19 and 25. Let's hope that he finds his power stroke again. Come on David, it's for the kids!

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Narrowing Down The Candidates

Last night the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament ended but we're still finishing up with our New York Baseball Bracket Challenge. We're going to pit the best against each other so you can declare the best in New York. We'll list all the candidates this round, have you pick three and then we'll list arguments for those three players and have you vote for the top baseball player in New York (Mets or Yankees) history.

I decided to cheat a little and forgo the outfield vote. The Yankees own the three best outfielders in Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio. Just missed includes: Charlie Keller, Roger Maris, Dave Winfield, Tommy Henrich, Bobby Murcer, Earle Combs, and Darryl Strawberry. But we're just going to go ahead and put the Yankees top three into the finals.

So here's the list (click on the link to find their original argument):

• Catcher: Yogi Berra
• First Base: Lou Gehrig
• Middle Infielder: Derek Jeter
• Third Base (results below): Alex Rodriguez
• Outfield: Babe Ruth (picture from Babe Ruth.com)
• Outfield: Joe DiMaggio
• Outfield: Mickey Mantle
• Righthanded Starter: Tom Seaver
• Lefthanded Starter: Whitey Ford
• Closer: Mariano Rivera

Remember, on the right side, pick your top 3 New York baseball players and we'll pit the top 3 all together head-to-head, to see who is the best baseball player in New York history. And let us know why you chose the way you did in the comments below!

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NYaT's Expert MLB Predictions for 2010 Part Deux

Well, we gave the first part of our predictions yesterday, but as the first full day of baseball gets underway, let's take a look at the rest of NYaT's predictions for 2010.

	Andrew	Ari	Ben	Jay	Sarah
AL MVP	Evan Longoria	A-Rod	Mark Teixeira	A-Rod	Kevin Youkilis
NL MVP	Prince Fielder	Albert Pujols	Albert Pujols	Albert Pujols	Chase Utley
AL Cy Young	Felix Hernandez	CC Sabathia	Justin Verlander	Zack Greinke	Jon Lester
NL Cy Young	Roy Halladay	Roy Halladay	Roy Halladay	Roy Halladay	Tim Lincecum
AL Rookie of the Year	Brian Matusz	Michael Brantley	Austin Jackson	Neftali Feliz	Scott Sizemore
NL Rookie of the Year	Alcides Escobar	Jason Heyward	Jason Heyward	Jason Heyward	Stephen Strasburg

3 facts/3 fictions

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The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Third Base

Voting just completed for middle infielders (where Derek Jeter took that in a land slide) and first base (where "The Iron Horse", Lou Gehrig took it easily). Now it's time to vote for the hot corner. We have some more below including information about a similar voting process at MSG and results from the past two polls. But make sure to vote on the right and let us know in the comments why you voted the way you did. And to switch it up this time, we'll give the Mets candidates first. Without further ado, the best 3Bs in New York (stats from FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference):

Mets

David Wright: Since he made his debut in 2004, Wright has been a fixture at third for the Metropolitans. And despite his wacky 2009, he deserves a spot on this list for his time in Queens. His .309/.389/.518 splits are excellent (and are all among the top 23 among active players) and he's added to that a .391 career wOBA. That wOBA total is 10th among all 3B (min 2500 PA) and ranks ahead of such names as Eddie Matthews, Miguel Cabrera, Harmon Killebrew, Kevin Youkilis, Wade Boggs, and George Brett at the hot corner. In 2007 and 2008, Wright won the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger both years. He also finished in the top 9 in MVP voting in each year from 2006-2008. The big question for Mets fans is "can Wright rebound from a low power output in 2009?" Even without answering that question here (he only hit 10 HR and 52 XBH total), the truth is that the guy still hit .307/.390/.447. But this is a guy who averaged 73 XBH a year from 2005-2008 which is impressive for a third baseman. He just turned 27 in December so he should have plenty of time to build on these credentials. But even through age 26, he looks very similar to Scott Rolen and Duke Snider and adds the element of speed to his repertoire as well (119 SB). Since he broke into the league, Wright has been worth 32.0 WAR according to FanGraphs and has been an invaluable player to the Mets. (picture from the New York Times)

Howard Johnson: When David Wright needed some help with hitting this off-season, he went to hitting coach Howard Johnson. Why? Because HoJo was a pretty good hitter back in his day. A .251/.341/.459 hitter with the Mets, Johnson held his own at the hot corner. His two best seasons were 1989--when he led the league in runs with 104, hit .287/.369/.559 with a .416 wOBA (a career high), 41 2B (a career high), 36 HR, 41 SB (a career high), and a 169 OPS+ (also a career high)--and 1991--when he led the league in homeruns and RBIs with 38 and 117 respectively (both career highs), scored 108 runs (a career high), and hit a major league leading 15 sac flies. Both years he finished 5th in the MVP race, made the All Star team, and won the Silver Slugger. HoJo was originally drafted by the Yankees in the 1978 amateur draft but did not sign. He was eventually drafted in the first round by the Tigers before being dealt to the Mets in 1984. Johnson still leads all Mets 3B in HR, RBI and SB. Johnson also became the first Naitonal League infielder to go 30-30 in a season in 1987. (picture from JetsandMets.com)

Just missed: Robin Ventura (who only played 444 games with the Mets and his numbers lagged behind the two Mets candidates) and Wayne Garrett (played more games at 3rd than Wright but was nowhere near the offensive producer)

Yankees

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The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Middle Infielders

What a night in college basketball last night. An upset and a double OT thriller that almost killed Gus Johnson. But that tournament has nothing on our bracket challenge for best in New York baseball. We've voted for the best closer (Mariano Rivera), the best right handed starter (Tom Seaver), the best southpaw starter (Whitey Ford), the best catcher (Yogi Berra--with poll results after this article), and we're still voting on the best first baseman over to the right. Now we're going to go with the best middle infielder. There weren't enough candidates for both second and short on the New York Yankees and Mets so we'll combine them and give each team a few more candidates. Here we go (with statistics from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs):

Yankees

Derek Jeter: He won the Rookie of the Year in 1996 and brought winning back to the Bronx. He's finished in the Top-11 in MVP voting 8 different times. He won the All-Star MVP in 2000...and then won the World Series MVP the same year. He's a 3-time Gold Glove winner (probably undeserving), a 2-time Hank Aaron Award winner (also probably undeserving), and a 3-time Silver Slugger (definitely deserving). He's also won a Babe Ruth award and a Roberto Clemente award so he's got a lot of the legends in the game covered. Jeter's a career .317/.388/.459 hitter in the regular season with a .375 wOBA--the only shortstops in history with higher in Major League history (min. 4000) are Honus Wagner, Alex Rodriguez, and Arky Vaughan (meaning higher than Nomar Garciaparra, Ernie Banks, Barry Larkin, Robin Yount, Cal Ripken, Jr., etc.). Jeter has 2,747 hits which means he should reach 3,000 sometime in 2011--and become the first Yankee to hit 3,000. He doesn't just lead in hits amongst Yankee middle infielders either; he also leads in runs (1,574---4th among active players and 49th in ML history), doubles (438), HR (224), RBI (1068), HBP (143--5th among active players and 21st All-time), and SB (305--9th among active players). And no Yankee middle infielder hit over .293 (min 800 games) so no one is within 20 points of his average (which is 6th among active players) and his .388 OBP (15th among active players) is tops among Yankee middle infielders as well. He's now played 138 games in the postseason (which is approaching a full season) and his numbers are great there too with a .313/.383/.479 slashes, .377 wOBA, and 20 HR against superior pitching. Amazingly, 2008 was the only year he didn't get to the playoffs in his sure-to-be Hall of Fame career and last year collected his 5th World Series ring. Since FanGraphs started tracking it in 2002, Jeter has been worth 40.1 wins (only Albert Pujols, A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Lance Berkman, Carlos Beltran, and Chipper Jones have had higher totals over this period), equaling about $144.7 million--but he's truly been invaluable. The Yankees captain is still going and going strong so these numbers are sure to increase as time goes on. (picture from the NY Daily News)

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The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: First Base

We're moving right along here on the New York Baseball Bracket Challenge at NYaT. Mariano Rivera was picked as the best closer, Tom Seaver as the best righthanded starter and Whitey Ford as the best lefthanded starter (results below). The catchers are still being voted upon on the righthand side, but Yogi Berra looks like he's going to take that one (though still time left to vote and look at how impressive Bill Dickey's resume was as well). Now it's time to look at the first basemen (stats from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs).

Yankees

Lou Gehrig: I'm not sure there's this great a player who really seems to be so underrated. Playing with Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio can do that to you, though. Amazingly, only 7 guys have played in 800 games for the Yankees with at least 60% of those games at 1st base (according to Baseball-Reference) and no one even seems to come close to "The Iron Horse". Gehrig won the 1927 and 1936 MVP, but amazingly came in 5th in the 1934 voting despite leading the Majors in HR (49), RBI (165), BA (.363), OBP (.465), SLG (.706), and OPS+ (208). Yes, the man won both The Triple Crown and the slashes Triple Crown and was behind 4 people in the MVP voting. That's incredible. Gehrig had a career wOBA of .474 in the regular season which is third all time right behind Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. On the all-time career list, Gehrig is 17th in average (.340),  5th in OBP (.447), 3rd in SLG (.632), 3rd in OPS (1.080), 10th in runs scored (1,888), 26th in HR (493), 5th in RBI (1,995), 4th in OPS+ (179), 8th in runs created (2,223), 5th in adjusted batting runs (984), 7th in adjusted batting wins (90.3), and 7th in extra base hits (1,190). And this was all before the disease named after him cut his life short. Oh, and he had a nice consecutive games played streak without the aid of a DH or modern medicine. The guy also mashed in the playoffs hitting a ridiculous .361/.477/.731 (yes, that's a 1.208 OPS) with a .512 wOBA, 10 HR and 35 RBI in winning 6 out of 7 World Series--his best performance may have been in the 1928 World Series when he hit .545/.706/1.727 (2.433 OPS!) with 4 HR against the Cardinals. Simply an amazing player. (picture from Art.com)

Don Mattingly: Well, someone else had to be nominated with Gehrig. Tough spot for Donny Baseball. But he's definitely deserving of it. His career slashes of .307/.358/.471, wOBA of .361, and OPS+ of 127 made him one of the more feared hitters in the Majors. His end-of-career downfall due to back troubles seems to have clouded some memories of Mattingly, but he could really handle the bat. He won a batting title in 1984, won an MVP in 1985 and his 1986 season--where he came in 2nd to Roger Clemens in the MVP voting--may have been his best (his 1987 was nothing to sneeze at either).  He won 9 Gold Gloves at 1st and even though defense isn't excluding any candidates, it's certainly worth mentioning. He also won 3 Silver Sluggers and made 6 All Star games. the problem for Mattingly is that his power was basically gone from his resume after the 1989 season. He would only hit double digit home runs twice and never showed the offense he did in his peak. He finally made the postseason in his last season in Pinstripes and did not disappoint with a .417/.440/.708 performance including one memorable home run that shook the Old House to its core (I was there so I can testify that when Gary Thorne yelled "hold on to the roof", he was correct). As Sweeny Murti wrote in 2008: Of the top 25 players on the Yankees career games played list, only one never got to play a World Series game at Yankee Stadium. But it's safe to say that none of the other 24 ever received the ovations that Don Mattingly did in the 1995 Division Series." True that, Sweeny (though Mattingly may have been cursed). And it was well deserved for perhaps my favorite baseball player of my youth. (picture from About.com)

Just missed: Tino Martinez (if the Yankees had signed Tino instead of Jason Giambi, he may have replaced Mattingly on this list...and a lot of Yankee headaches may have been avoided)

Mets

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The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Catcher

The NCAA tournament is heating up and so is The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge here at NYaT. The preliminary rounds are about done for the pitchers (more poll results below) after closers, right-handed starters and left-handed starters were all voted upon, so now it's time to move on to their battery-mates. One rule for the hitters in our bracket challenge: only offense is rewarded. We'll mention defense as we see fit, but since I can't tell you how good a catcher Bill Dickey was, we'll just have to compare him to Jorge Posada on the offensive merits. And this one was a difficult category for that.

The Yankees have had 5 catchers play 1000 games for them and all 5 were legitimate candidates for this poll. Elston Howard and Thurman Munson both won MVPs, Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra both are in the Hall of Fame and Jorge Posada is one of the best offensive catchers of his generation. I decided to take three from them and only one from the Mets. So, without further ado, let's get to the candidates (all stats from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs):

Yankees:

Yogi Berra: 3 MVP awards. 18 All-Star games. 10 World Series rings. And from 1951-1956 when he won 3 MVPs, came in second twice, third once and fourth once, there was perhaps not better player in the American League--especially considering the position Berra played. 358 HR and 1430 RBI were amazing numbers for a catcher and his 704 BB to 411 SO ratio was simply amazing for any position. A .370 wOBA (weighted on base average from FanGraphs) ties him for 10th all-time among catchers with Jorge Posada (min. 5500 PA) and his 5.5% strikeout percentage is a great testament to his ability to make contact. Berra was a great postseason performer too, putting up a .357 OBA and batting .274/.359/.452 with 12 HR across 14 World Series. His best World Series was probably in 1956 against the Brooklyn Dodgers where he hit .360/.448/.800 with 3 HR and 10 RBI. Amazingly, it took Berra two ballots to get into the Hall of Fame and even when he was elected, it was only 85.6% of the vote. But he was finally enshrined in Cooperstown in 1972. (picture from Dave's Dugout)

Bill Dickey: I didn't realize how good Bill Dickey was until I went back and looked through the statistics. His .394 career wOBA is second all-time among catchers to Mickey Cochrane (min. 2000 PA). That's higher than Mike Piazza, Joe Mauer, Jorge Posada, Berra or almost any other catcher. Dickey leads all Yankee catchers in the slashes Triple Crown: batting average (.313), OBP (.382), and SLG (.486). His 617 XBH ranks him second behind Berra and despite over 1500 less ABs, Dickey only trails Berra by 179 hits. Here's one of the most amazing stats: Dickey only struck out 289 times in his career (to 678 walks) and only struck out more than 22 times twice in his whole career. Dickey never won an MVP award, but playing next to Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gerhig really hurt him in that cause. Dickey's 1936-1938 was one of the best three-year runs a catcher has put up in Major League history. Dickey was an 11-time All-Star and won 7 World Series rings (in 8 chances). The two most amazing parts are that Dickey only played catcher in his 17 years in the bigs and that it took a ridiculous 9 years to get Dickey into the Hall of Fame. (picture from CharlesPaolino's Blog)

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The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Lefthanded Starters

We've done closers (and Mariano Rivera won in a landslide--more results on that later) and we've done right-handed starters (with Tom Seaver currently holding the leader there). But now it's time to do lefties. These weren't easy choices, especially for the Yankees. Since I get to make up the rules, I'm bending them a bit for this category to include 3 candidates for the Yankees. Let's get to the lefties (stats by Baseball-Reference except FIP from FanGraphs):

Yankees

Whitey Ford: "The Chairman of the Board" is an easy choice for this list (it got harder between the second two). He's won more games than any Yankee pitcher who pitched with either hand and his .690 winning % is absolutely remarkable (if you take away his last two partial seasons, it jumps to .705). No lefty comes close to his 2.75 ERA (min. 1000 innings). And unless Andy Pettitte pitches a few more seasons, he'll have the most strikeouts among lefties as well. He threw an amazing 45 shutouts in 438 starts. He led the league in wins 3 times, won 2 ERA titles and won one Cy Young. He was a 10-time All-Star and won the World Series MVP in 1961 when he went 2-0, giving up no runs to the Reds in two starts. If you compare his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) to Andy Pettitte and Lefty Gomez, Ford dominates them both in the regular season and the playoffs and Ford's H/9 is less than any Yankee lefty except Al Downing. On his second try, Ford was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974. (picture from Yankeeology)

Lefty Gomez: It came down to Gomez and Pettitte for the final Yankee spot...and I decided to list them both. Pettitte now has three more wins, but Gomez has the higher winning percentage and gave up less HR/9 (0.50) than Pettitte or Ford. But where Gomez really shined was in the playoffs where he went 6-0 with a 2.86 ERA and helped the Yankees go 6-0 in the World Series under his tenure (Ford's Yankees were 6-5 and Pettitte's Yankees are 5-2). More impressive were his pitching Triple Crowns he won in 1934 and 1937 (two seasons he led the league in K/9 and SO/BB as well). The one big knock on Gomez is that his career span was too short, having fizzled out by 34--which is one of the big reasons it took 27 years and a Veterans Committee vote to get him in the Hall of Fame. But make no mistake: Gomez was one the best Yankees lefties in history. (picture from Wikipedia)

Andy Pettitte: Pettitte may have been an easy choice as the top Yankee pitcher had he not left for Houston in the middle of his career. And what he does in 2010 and beyond could propel him there. But even without all that, he's still in the running. 192 Yankees wins with an excellent winning percentage and a 4.02 ERA in a hitter's era in the best hitting division in baseball certainly help his case (and a FIP of 3.74--though that includes Houston as well). So does the record number of series clinching wins in the playoffs (though it overshadows some bad pitching performances as well especially the 1998 ALCS, the 1999 World Series, the 2001 World Series and the 2002 ALDS). He also took home the 2001 ALCS MVP, going 2-0 with a 2.51 ERA in that series vs. Seattle. He walked less guys per 9 and struck out more per 9 than Gomez or Ford. And although he never won a Cy Young, he came in the top-6 four different times with the Yankees including a 2nd place finish in 1996. His durability has been amazing, too, starting in 31 games or more in every season except for one (2002) while with the Yankees. (picture from New York Magazine)

Just missed: Ron Guidry (whose 1978 season was one of the best pitching performances in Major League history and who had a couple of other dominating years but just didn't have the raw data needed to place in the top-3, in my opinion)

Mets

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