Turning Heel

Jerry Manuel announced today that Daniel Murphy will be in the 2 hole, regardless of whether there is a left or right handed pitcher on the mound.   Thank god.   I know Castillo has come into camp in great shape and all that bullshit, but let’s be serious.  Even if he has a great season, gets on base at a .375 clip and plays great defense up the middle, he has no business batting near the top of the order (although leadoff would not be a horrible idea).   The dude has no power, period.   All of his Slappy McSingles are just going to move Reyes over, which is fine and all, but the one thing I feel the Mets lacked the most last year were big innings, especially at the start of the game.  

While Murphy is by no means a power hitter, he should probably drive ~15 home runs, but that’s not the point – he is a pure doubles hitter.   Reyes has the reputation of being the most exciting player in baseball – there are few things more exciting than seeing the guy fly around the bases and scoring from first on a gapper to the outfield.   Unfortunately for the 2008 Mets, Castillo’s gappers tended to be in the infield.   While there is always something to say about ‘productive outs,’ I think there are fewer things more productive than a huge inning.   I haven’t looked at the staaaaaaaats, so I might be wrong, but I feel the Mets would always have these 1 or 2 run innings when it seemed that they really should have plated a few more than that.   As horrible as our bullpen was last year, I can’t see them blowing so many games if we had come into the later innings with a more comfortable lead. 

On the flip side, Castillo is a somewhat ideal player to have in the 8 hole.   As the Mets’ lineup is lefty heavy as-is, a switch hitter at the bottom will help break things up in that regard.   Furthermore, being a patient hitter in front of a pitcher won’t hurt, as he will take a lot of crappy pitches and probably walk a lot.    At the least, he will clear the pitcher spot a lot with 2 outs, and at best will be bunted over to give Reyes to knock in some RBIs, as Castillo still has decent speed and can get around the bases OK.   

It’s a good start, but I don’t think we should stop there.  Without going into detail, The Book explains that LaRussa is right, and the pitcher is best suited to the 8 spot, as it would gain an average of 1.9 runs for a typical NL team.   While 0.012 runs per game may not seem like a lot, the more you optimize your team, the more things add up.   The Hardball Times has a good article about batting the pitcher 7th/8th, but with the current Mets team, 8th would be ideal.   After the first time through the lineup, it would open the Mets up to the ‘two leadoff hitters’ idea, and could really make for some interesting baseball.

No complaints though, I have full faith in That Gangster Jerry M.  Lets go Mets!

I’m not going into staaaats or anything, but I do need to have my predictions timestamped somewhere, so that after the season I can look at them and either claim to know a lot about baseball, or have been ripped off.

AL EAST:
1. Yankees      (96-66)
2. Rays            (94-68)
3. Red Sox       (93-69)
4. Orioles         (76-86)
5. Blue Jays     (70-92)

AL CENTRAL:
1. Indians        (89-73)
2. Tigers          (83-79)
3. Twins           (79-83)
4. Royals         (75-87)
5. White Sox   (71-91)

AL WEST:
1. A’s              (87-75)
2. Angels        (85-77)
3. Rangers     (76-86)
4. Mariners     (66-96)

NL EAST:
1. Mets          (91-71)
2. Phillies       (89-73)
3. Braves       (82-80)
4. Marlins       (75-87)
5. Nationals   (65-97)

NL CENTRAL:
1. Cubs         (93-69)
2. Brewers    (86-76)
3. Reds         (85-77)
4. Cardinals  (78-84)
5. Pirates      (76-86)
6. Astros       (68-94)

NL WEST:
1. Dodgers    (86-76)
2. Rockies     (85-77)
3. Giants       (83-79)
4. D’Backs     (78-84)
5. Padres      (70-92)

AL Playoffs:
Yankees over A’s, 3 – 1
Rays over Indians, 3 – 2

Rays over Yankees, 4 – 3

NL Playoffs:
Cubs over Phillies, 3 – 2
Mets over Dodgers, 3 – 1

Mets over Cubs, 4 – 2

World Series:
Rays over Mets, 4 – 2

Obviously the fan in me wants to say Mets win 110 games and sweep through the playoffs and win the world series, but that’s not realistic.   They should be pretty good this year, and while the bottom of the order and rotation could be a potential disaster, I think this is the year they don’t collapse at the end, and if they actually do make the playoffs, I see them getting to the World Series.  I can’t, right now at least, say in good faith that I could realistically see them beating the Rays in the end, but you never know.

The Rays may have struggles in the regular season, but they are exactly the type of team that can beat the Yankees in the playoffs.   However, while I think the Yankees will win the division by a few games, there will be a real dogfight for the AL Wild Card between the Sox and Rays.   Since I don’t like the Sox, I’m going with Tampa but it could go either way.  If the Red Sox do win out, I think the Yankees beat them in the playoffs and probably win the World Series.   Tampa is one of the most well rounded teams I have ever seen and would outgrind the Yankees in a long series, in my opinion.

The Reds will be better, and the Astros much worse, than people seem to think.   Both the Orioles and Rangers have a ton of good prospects coming up and should be division contenders within 2 – 3 years, possibly sooner.   The Mariners will be pretty horrible, and the Padres will be pretty shitty as well.   I’m not really seeing any team as a 100+ win or loss team, but you never know.    The predictions that I feel will look the stupidest at the end are the Cubs and Nationals.   Cubs could totally fall apart mid season, especially considering Bradley, Harden and some others are pretty damn injury-prone.   Nationals could surprise and be half-way decent, in no small part thanks to:

Put some money in stocks, in like two weeks.  Right now everything has been up for a few days, it’ll swoop back down before it really goes up so get in then.  Big companies – I have money in GE, WFC and BAC.  Go for them if you want, there’s lots of really low priced shit out there.  Everyone has been scared shitless and sold the house, making the prices get lower – when the big money gets back in, this shit will go up 25%+ at least from where they’ve been, and probably a lot more.  

If you get your money into these big companies that are basically tied to the economy, you are basically betting on the fact that within a few years, we’ll be out of a recession.  Companies that are ‘too big to fail’ or close to it will not be allowed to fail by the government, so when the economy recovers they will be back to where they were and you’ll make money.  I’d recommend putting it into a Roth IRA and save long-term for retirement, but do what you want.   

Why this bet works is that since these companies are ‘too big to fail,’ if they actually did fail, the country is fucked plain and simple.  If that’s the case, the dollar is worthless so who cares about any money you lost – it ain’t worth shit at that point anyway.  Don’t be dumb, you’ll kick yourself in the ass everyday 5 – 10 years from now if this doesn’t happen.