two questions:

1. Is it possible to be on an award chase or milestone chase on a team that's not going anywhere and not be the focus of all attention?

2. Are there players on the team who were upset that their suckitude wasn't getting its due?

interesting question, Your Honor

"hey--why is the media focussing on how well RJ is pitching and completely ignoring how much the rest of us suck. It's performance bias."

As someone who has read the NYC papers for many years, dating back to the late 1970s, I'd say the Post has consistently had the best and most in-depth sports coverage, particularly baseball coverage.

Sherman and Davidoff are both very good national baseball columnists. Most papers are lucky if they have one good national writer on baseball.

The political bent of the Post's editorial page has nothing to do with the quality of the sports section.

And yes, let's keep politics out of the baseball threads. The political theorists around here already have their forum.

"As someone who has read the NYC papers for many years, dating back to the late 1970s, I'd say the Post has consistently had the best and most in-depth sports coverage, particularly baseball coverage.

Sherman and Davidoff are both very good national baseball columnists. Most papers are lucky if they have one good national writer on baseball."

I go back a bit further, but don't greatly disagree.

Don't really know Sherman, but on the tabloid scale, I have found him more responsible than most.

Ken is a former colleague and a class act. I only glanced at the Dickey column, and won't claim a lack of biased opinion.

To echo #53, Joel Sherman and Ken Davidoff are both excellent, thoughtful columnists. I didn't love the message of this column, but this is not your typical hack delivering a hatchet job.

"hey--why is the media focussing on how well RJ is pitching and completely ignoring how much the rest of us suck. It's performance bias."

To be fair, I looked at the Mets 2012 stats recently and was surprised by how many good young players they have. Duda, Davis, Murphy, Baxter, Nooenhoos, Tejada, Valdespin, Niese, Gee, Parnell, Harvey. But somehow these guys are punchlines because
A) the team is bad
B) the team has no money, therefore doesn't bring in players from other teams except relievers for some reason, therefore isn't trying to win so who cares about these schmoes
C) the team seems to have no interest in promoting anyone as a star except David Wright. I don't even know what any of those young guys look like except Lucas Duda (giant chin) and Justin Turner (red hair). Why is Starlin Castro so much more famous than Ruben Tejada?

The Mets have lots of solid youngsters with low ceilings.

To be fair, I looked at the Mets 2012 stats recently and was surprised by how many good young players they have. Duda, Davis, Murphy, Baxter, Nooenhoos, Tejada, Valdespin, Niese, Gee, Parnell, Harvey.

At the risk of upsetting Lassus, :) Duda and Nieuwenhuis aren't very good; neither one has much of a chance of sticking as a regular, and Duda will be 27. Baxter, Murphy, and Parnell simply aren't young; they're all entering their age 28 seasons, which is fine, but they don't fit your description of good and young. Gee is a back of the rotation guy. Every team needs that, but he's not a good pitcher. He has an 88 mph fastball, no plus pitches, and no upside. He's a great story, but the part of it that's to like is that he's in the majors at all. A 4A pitcher with just enough extra to stick around for several million dollars.

On the other hand, Davis might take a step up and be an All-Star for several years. Niese just had his first strong year, and he's 25. Once Dickey's gone the team may stop trying to trade him. Harvey's a top prospect. Valdespin walks in 5% of his minor league PAs and had a .278 OBP in his rookie season. The Mets played him all over the place, which is not what you usually do with someone you think of as a regular, but who knows. Make of it what you will.

Why is Starlin Castro so much more famous than Ruben Tejada?

Because he's a much better player. Starlin Castro now is Tejada in a few years if everything goes really, really well for Tejada. Tejada has so little power and seems so unlikely to develop any that his upside is very limited. In the last three seasons, Castro's HRs have gone 3-10-14. Tejada's have gone 1-0-1. Still, he's a nice ballplayer. An average fielding MI who can put up a .350 OBP and stay in the lineup is a good guy to have, but that's also his upside.

.

At the risk of upsetting Lassus, :) Duda and Nieuwenhuis aren't very good

I have never said these two were very good. My optimism isn't blind. Tejada is better than you give him credit for, though. I think calling him an average fielder is a clear undersell.


Sherman and Davidoff are both very good national baseball columnists.

That may or may not be true, but this specific article makes Davidoff sound like a complete tool. It's embarrassing.


...but this is not your typical hack delivering a hatchet job.

Considering that's exactly how this reads, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to figure that out.

Gee is a back of the rotation guy. Every team needs that, but he's not a good pitcher. He has an 88 mph fastball, no plus pitches, and no upside.

I think this is particularly harsh. Dillon Gee's average fastball last year was 90.2. He put up a 3.71 fip, 3.54 Xfip. He put up a 7.96 k/9 and a 3.34 k/bb ratio. In his last 9 starts he put up a 3.00 ERA

Is he going to compete for a Cy Young? No. Is he a guy who can be a solid middle of the rotation starter? Absolutely. He doesn't have electric stuff but he's got 4 quality pitches, good control, and a feel for pitching.

I've been following him since the low minors. I hope his injury doesn't ruin him because I really think he does a lot with the stuff he has. I admire that quality.

I stand corrected on Gee's fastball. It was 88 in the minors, but he's bumped it up since then to the 90 mph you noted. I should have checked.

I do think you're overselling him, but I put a lot less stock in fip and xfip as predictive (which is how a lot of people treat it) or as indicative of true talent. I also see that on fangraphs, the values for every single pitch of Gee's bounces around. Some variation is inevitable, but his numbers look a lot like the numbers of a guy who doesn't have reliable stuff. One year his fastball's good, then it's not. His slider is awful, then it's his out pitch. His curve is his worst pitch, then it's ordinary. His change up is poor, then it's good. That's a guy with ordinary stuff.

I've been following him since the low minors. I hope his injury doesn't ruin him because I really think he does a lot with the stuff he has. I admire that quality.

As do I. My hat's off to him, and I hope he comes back and pitches well.

This recent barrage from the Mets is literally the first time, ever, that I've seen anyone say word one about Dickey's purported "unlikeability."

And again, I've been following him since his Mariners days. So it's not like I'm new to coverage of him.

To be fair (for some reason,) the whole criticism of Dickey is centered around what his new-found fame has turned him into. It might be utter baloney, but his reputation with the Mariners 15 years ago is not really relevant to that. It could absolutely be that Dickey used to be a likable guy but his recent success has gone to his head.

To be fair (for some reason,) the whole criticism of Dickey is centered around what his new-found fame has turned him into. It might be utter baloney, but his reputation with the Mariners 15 years ago is not really relevant to that. It could absolutely be that Dickey used to be a likable guy but his recent success has gone to his head.

It seems to have turned him into a guy who answers reporters' questions truthfully.

Actually, I could see how that would scare a team off.

If they do get d'Arnaud and Syndergaard back like reports say, I think the Mets can live with that. That's two very good prospects for a 38 year-old pitcher. It reflects badly on the Mets that they couldn't agree to an extension with him while his demands were so reasonable and they were already so close, and even worse that they turned to impugning his character in the press - but baseball-wise, this isn't going to kill them. It might even help them.

Why is Starlin Castro so much more famous than Ruben Tejada?

Tejada has never even been accused of rape, dude. No street cred.

The political bent of the Post's editorial page has nothing to do with the quality of the sports section.

That also holds true for the Times' mediocre-at-best sports section.

To be fair, I looked at the Mets 2012 stats recently and was surprised by how many good young players they have. Duda, Davis, Murphy, Baxter, Nooenhoos, Tejada, Valdespin, Niese, Gee, Parnell, Harvey. ...

I don't even know what any of those young guys look like except Lucas Duda (giant chin) and Justin Turner (red hair).

Add Jonathan Niese (unattractive nose - even after Beltran paid $10K to fix Niese's "deviated septum")

That also holds true for the Times' mediocre-at-best sports section.

That's only since Murray Chass left.

One question: what exactly did Dickey do this year to promote himself, beyond being accessible to reporters?

For what it's worth, and that's not very much because it's just one claim being made by one random guy on the internet, but two different guys I know who are in a position to know told me Dickey was very unpopular with the Mets clubhouse by the end of the season. And you know, it's possible; beyond the 'self-promoting' he may or may not have been engaged in, Dickey seems from what I've read to be an intelligent and perhaps even kind of nerdy guy. If that's true, well... that tends not to go over well in locker rooms in just about any sport.

OK, my own wild speculations and generalizations aside, I still don't understand what the Mets gain from trashing a guy in the media they're trying to trade. I expect Sandy Alderson to be smarter than that. (Counterpoint: he works for the Wilpons.) Branch Rickey did the same thing 60 years ago when he wanted to get rid of Ralph Kiner, and got about the same results (he was able to trade him, but not for any tremendous value, as part of an eleven-piece deal).

Dickey and Thole for Snydergaard, D'Arnaud and Buck.

It would be fun having Dickey on the Jays, but this looks like a solid Mets win.

I'm pretty surprised the Jays are doing this. Is this a better return than the Shields deal?

Dickey and Thole for Snydergaard, D'Arnaud and Buck.
It would be fun having Dickey on the Jays, but this looks like a solid Mets win.

What? Done? Source?

Your use of conflicting tenses is troubling.

The only thing I see is that it will probably be completed today. That deal plus a random prospect on each side.

What? Done? Source?

Oh no, just latest rumour. Apologies.

One question: what exactly did Dickey do this year to promote himself, beyond being accessible to reporters?

You have to admit that this was a bit over the top. The Poles and Czechs in particular were not amused.

And laying claim to all of Westeros was the icing on the cake.

Reading Davidoff's Twitter, it seems like he legitimately didn't know that knuckleballers routinely outperform DIPS. So part of his feeling that the Mets should "sell high" on Dickey was based on ignorance which has hopefully now been corrected.

Still, as far as Dickey "letting his press get to his head", the only other evidence Davidoff has is Dickey's feeling he should have started the All-Star Game, and "pushing for Wright to get charged with an error against Tampa Bay so he could get a no-hitter." I would be truly surprised if Dickey were the primary person driving the latter, which would mean that all three things Davidoff's complaining about are ridiculously minuscule incidents where I don't even see how Dickey is wrong in the first place.

(Luckily, the smear campaign doesn't seem to be killing Dickey's trade value much, so I guess who cares, right? Nah... still the wrong thing to do.)

Dirk Hayhurst reporting on Dickey will presumably be better...

Reading Davidoff's Twitter, it seems like he legitimately didn't know that knuckleballers routinely outperform DIPS. So part of his feeling that the Mets should "sell high" on Dickey was based on ignorance which has hopefully now been corrected.

Ken hadn't realized that we could retroactively apply DIPS theory. Eno Sarris subsequently showed him the BABIP numbers for all known knuckleballers.

What makes so much of Ken's work enjoyable to read is his willingness to learn and apply new information. What surprised me about this piece was that he casually brought up the negative clubhouse sentiment against Dickey (no quotes, let alone attribution) as if it were common knowledge.

What makes so much of Ken's work enjoyable to read is his willingness to learn and apply new information.

Yes, this is precisely what has always impressed me about Davidoff: he has far more inquisitiveness and authentic humility than the vast majority of MSM sportswriters out there. Instead of getting defensive, he seems to positively ENJOY being 'schooled' so to speak: instead of digging in his heels he takes the lesson learned and applies it as best he can thereafter. Can't complain about the method.

What surprised me about this piece was that he casually brought up the negative clubhouse sentiment against Dickey (no quotes, let alone attribution) as if it were common knowledge.

And yet in this very thread we're seeing multiple confirmations of it. It's all a revelation to me, literally the first I've ever heard of it. But it seems likely to be true.

Regardless of the underlying veracity of the allegations, casually bringing them up as if they were common knowledge would be a very effective way of lending credence to them.

Instead of getting defensive, he seems to positively ENJOY being 'schooled' so to speak: instead of digging in his heels he takes the lesson learned and applies it as best he can thereafter.

To be sure, I have also encountered Ken's dark side, which comes out if he catches even the faintest whiff of nitpicking about something he wrote! ;-)

And yet in this very thread we're seeing multiple confirmations of it.

Er, what now?


But it seems likely to be true.

I'm thinking your usage of "likely" and "confirmation" is pretty suspect here.

This isn't something being pulled out of thin air. I think the most neutral way to put it might be that Dickey is perceived to be very aware of his brand. Since that brand is based on openness and authenticity, there's a little bit of dissonance, and that's going to mildly irritate some people. That's mostly irrelevant gossip. (And it doesn't mean that Dickey isn't a legitimately great guy. Every public person is playing a role and managing their brand to some extent.)

The relevant part is that Dickey is (rightly!) seen as being very good at manipulating the press, so if you've decided to trade rather than extend him, you probably want to get it done sooner rather than later, since if the issue lingers he'll be around making himself look good and you look bad. (Not that there's anything wrong with him doing that!)

so if you've decided to trade rather than extend him, you probably want to get it done sooner rather than later, since if the issue lingers he'll be around making himself look good and you look bad.

Of course, since we are talking about the Mets, Dickey could accomplish this by doing absolutely nothing and letting the Mets do what they do.

I know people are falling all over themselves to paint Davidoff as a stand-up guy, and maybe he is. Or maybe he was, until he changed employers - whatever.

But WTF is "laughable" about a "threat" to leave after 2013? Isn't that what players do when their contracts expire? This all has the definite feel or third-party-projected-brinksmanship. Invent a story so you can comment on it.

To echo #53, Joel Sherman and Ken Davidoff are both excellent, thoughtful columnists. I didn't love the message of this column, but this is not your typical hack delivering a hatchet job.

It may not be a typical hack, but it is a complete horseshit hatchet job.

But WTF is "laughable" about a "threat" to leave after 2013? Isn't that what players do when their contracts expire?

Exactly. This is part of what makes the Davidoff piece a deplorable hatchet job. His contract is up in 2013. If the Mets wanted to keep him after that, this was their best window since nobody else is allowed to negotiate with him. After that, he can talk to anyone.

And we have seen this a thousand times. A player in his last year makes it clear that he wants an extension, and if not, he will leave after the year -- and then he leaves. There is nothing laughable abut it, it is not a threat, it is the way business is and always has been done.

WTF is "laughable" about a "threat" to leave after 2013?

No kidding. One would think from the headline that Dickey had threatened to leave immediately for the North Korean League.

But stuff like this sells papers (or clickthroughs) over the winter. The DFW media spent much of 2012 running down Josh Hamilton, floating rumors about how the Rangers wouldn't want the quitter back at any money, questioning everything from his guts to his contact lenses. Then Hamilton signs a perfectly reasonable FA contract with the Angels, and the columnists here are all "He said he'd let Texas match any offer, he's leaving the only team that believed in him, such a classless traitor." Whatever.

No kidding. One would think from the headline that Dickey had threatened to leave immediately for the North Korean League.

I suspect that Ken's editor is responsible for the headline.

I suspect that Ken's editor is responsible for the headline.

That's what I figured, but in this case the headline writer is just accurately reflecting the writer's thoughts. This is from Davidoff's lede:

All about himself once again, Dickey issued the laughable threat that, if the Mets didn’t extend his contract, he’d bolt the organization after 2013.

Like others, I've enjoyed Davidoff's work. But even if there are issues with Dickey in the Mets' clubhouse, this column is just flat bad.

From Twitter:

Craig Glaser @sabometrics
The Mets are not 'calling Dickey's bluff' they are doing what they wanted to do, cashing in a present asset for future ones. @KenDavidoff

Ken Davidoff @KenDavidoff
@sabometrics I agree. Poor wording by me.

DKulich44 @DKulich44
@KenDavidoff @sabometrics Poor wording? That's the entire theme of the article, the statement you were trying to make. Maybe a rewrite?

Ken Davidoff @KenDavidoff
@DKulich44 @sabometrics Nah. Just a change of the one phrase.

Don't get Davidoff's logic here, but at least he backed off the "bluff" thing. It's also the case that columnists for big print newspapers don't write their own headlines.

However, he does use the "laughable threat" language in the actual article. (Edit: Coke to SoSH on that.) And certainly a lot more people see his column than his Twitter.

Overall, I respect Davidoff enough to believe that he thinks this is a good baseball move for the Mets, and is motivated by that belief to defend it in various ways, one of which is to try to chip away at Dickey's previously universally beloved personality.

However, Davidoff really needs to be less credulous than this. These are 25 guys living together for six months. It's crazy to think that any one of those 25 is going to make it through the six months without doing something that at least one of the other 24 isn't going to love. Davidoff isn't even claiming that Dickey is disliked in the clubhouse. He points to three times where Dickey arguably did not say the exact right thing, in insignificant situations that no one really cared about. That is an impossible standard, and one that virtually all players would fail much quicker than Dickey does.

Ultimately, Davidoff should have just written an article about how this is a totally defensible baseball move (which it is). He didn't need to go this route.

On MLB Network Radio with Joyce and Kennedy, Ken acknowledged that he may not have conveyed his thoughts very well in that column. He also made clear that the clubhouse distraction potential would only have been an issue if the Mets had not extended RA's contract.

Ken acknowledged that he may not have conveyed his thoughts very well

I call shenanigans. He came back to the same theme time and again. He conveyed his thoughts very well, he is just now realizing that they are not going down very well with anyone,and it is damaging his credibility.

Why is Starlin Castro so much more famous than Ruben Tejada?

Tejada has never even been accused of rape, dude. No street cred.

Yeah, who cares that it was only an accusation. It must be true.

Davidoff has not come off well in this. The article gives every appearance of his simply puking in the direction the Wilpons wanted him to puke. I realize sports journalism isn't really journalism, but you'd think Davidoff would have wanted to appear as something other than a hired hand.

It's also the case that columnists for big print newspapers don't write their own headlines.

Dunno how you're defining "big print," but I'd be very surprised, based on a couple of decades in the business, if any writer on any paper with circulation of at least 10,000 or so writes his own heds. Granted, staffing & such have plummeted since I was excused from the profession 10 years ago, & in many cases genuine on-site copy desks (the guys who actually write heds, or at least did) don't exist, but still.

Yeah, who cares that it was only an accusation. It must be true.

Wow - crazy that I used the exact word "accused" and in no way stated anything that could be construed to imply that I believed it or not. Look, Don Quixote - a windmill!

It's one of his issues, like some kind of open nerve.

Ken Rosenthal on MLBN this morning: "Ken Davidoff is a good friend of mine. I love his work like you guys said, but at the same time, I don't buy this argument at all."

Using Rosenthal to prove your point, JE? Then Davidoff HAS to be right.

It's a shame that the Mets wouldn't pay Dickey "Ollie Perez money".

Using Rosenthal to prove your point, JE? Then Davidoff HAS to be right.

Considering that they really are good friends, I was a bit surprised that Bowtie Ken was so brutal in his analysis.

Check out this scumbag. Good call, Davidoff.

great article. In the words of Jon Stewart, "the man's got soul."