213 Miles From Shea

Some quick hits to go with your Wednesday Morning Blueberry Crisp Cliff Bar:

The Mets beat the Tigers by the score of 14-6 tonight. Whenever the score is that high, you can believe that we can pull a lot of interesting numbers out of this game. Before we get to that, lets review the game briefly. The Mets scored two quick runs in the bottom of the first. The game was then pretty smooth until bottom of the third inning. Through the first top frames, Niese held the Tigers hitless. The Mets at the start of the bottom frame of the third send in another run, and then the skys opened up. After a lengthy rain delay, Verlander didn't return to the game, but the Mets bats did. They ended up scoring another 7 runs in that inning, making the total 8. Then Niese returned, and after the delay he was not as sharp. After Nieve went in the game, and the Tigers got through the rest of their problems, the rest of the game was fairly uneventful.

Anyway Numbers!

Good (Statistically) Looking Game!

The Mets return to Citi Field after a long and successful road trip. Although the Mets tripped up over the last two days, a 7-2 road trip is a strong way to return home, where they just had a 5-1 home stand. This should be an interesting series for the Mets as the Tigers are also 8-2 in their last ten games and are also 2nd in their division. Both of these teams really want to win these games in order to continue their winning ways. Working in the Mets favor is their home record (24-10) vs the Tigers road record (13-19).

The Mets will be sending out Niese to the mound (4-2, 3.64 ERA) to take on the Tigers this afternoon. Jon has been pretty successful since his return from the DL. In that time he has made three starts where he has a 3-0 record over 23.0 innings and a 1.57 ERA. Due to the nature of Niese's age and the rotating interleague schedule, it comes as no surprise that Niese has no records against any of the Tiger's hitters. For Niese the key will be, as it has in his last several starts, getting that curveball over for a strike. When he gets it over for a strike, and in the armslot of the fastball, Niese becomes a very special pitcher.

The Mets batters will have to deal with the ace of the Tigers staff, Justin Verlander (8-4, 3.54 ERA). In the month of June, Verlander has an identical record to Niese (3-0) in the same amount of starts (3) while posting a 2.86 ERA over 22 innings pitched. Verlander has never faced the Mets in his major league career, however he has been around long enough to face a few Mets batters while they were with other teams:

We all know that to some degree, the MLB Draft is a bit of a crap shoot. However a team's first round pick should at least make it to the majors, right? Here I am not concerned with whether or not the first round player was effective once he came up, I just want to know if the player actually made it to the majors. The other ground rule for this study is that I am including the supplemental first round as first round picks. Below is a graph that looks at percentage of players that made it to the majors:

And the Raw Data:

Made It	Picks	Season	Percentage
23	35	1996	0.657143
31	52	1997	0.596154
30	43	1998	0.697674
23	51	1999	0.45098
24	40	2000	0.6
26	44	2001	0.590909
27	41	2002	0.658537
26	37	2003	0.702703
27	41	2004	0.658537
35	48	2005	0.729167

Notable Draft Picks that didn't make it:

Some quick hits to go with your Tuesday morning Blueberry Frosted Mini-Wheat:

As long as there is a buyer, one can (theoretically) sell anything. That has really been the case with the dismantlement of Shea Stadium as bizarre pieces to our beloved home make their way to the market place. When Shea Stadium was first being stripped of things that can be sold, there were popular items like chairs and bricks. Items that any reasonable person would expect to be sold as memorabilia.

However, other pieces of Shea have been surfacing since 2008. Some are funny (like Ketchup/Mustard dispensers), some leave you questioning why would they break that item up (like individual lightbulb holders from the scoreboard) and others just make you wonder. That is what we are celebrating here today. This item was found on a site that is selling old items from Shea, and I just can't imagine who would actually buy this, but I'm sure people have and will:

That's right. It's a cup holder taken straight from the seat. Ladies and Gentlemen, your Monday Memorabilia.

Some quick hits to go with your Monday morning Vanilla Milkshake Poptarts:

The Mets took game one. The Yankees took game two. Now it will be the battle of the aces today in a rubber match to determine whether the Mets win three road series in a row, whether the Mets will win the total subway series for 2010 or if the Mets and Yankees will spilt the 2010 series. As stated several times over the last few days, this pitching match ups this series were identical to the first 2010 subway series, and one of the most anticipated pitching matchups will happen again this afternoon as Johan takes on CC.

Santana has been off as of late, but hopefully he will get back on the right track this afternoon as he takes on the Yankees. On the season Johan is 5-3 with a 3.13 ERA. In his last two starts he has pitched 13.2 innings while allowing 8 ER, however just before that he had an amazing stretch of games including a good start against the Yankees where he picked up the win after pitching 7.2 innings allowing only one ER. The Yankees have these numbers against Santana:

The Mets handled CC pretty well earlier this season, and they hope to repeat this afternoon. CC on the season is 7-3 with a 4.00 ERA. He is 3-0 over his last three starts as he pitched 17.0 innings with a 3.43 ERA. When he faced the Mets this season he picked up the loss as he allowed 6 runs, 5 earned over 5 innings of work. The Mets have these numbers on Sabatha:

Lets Go Mets!

Here's a debate that happens, well all the time. Who plays in the best division in baseball? Generally when you have these discussions people talk like but they have the two best teams in the majors! This of course brings people to say “but you are not including those low market teams! They have great talent!”. These arguments can sometimes be resolved (to some degree) with numbers.

After running a Spreadsheet including wins and losses for every team in every division I feel confident in this statement:

Through Friday, June 18, the NL EAST statistically by wins and losses is the best division in baseball. However not by much. They beat out the AL EAST by .002 points. It ended up being really close. Anyway here are the numbers in order from best to worst:

These numbers are not so surprising when you think through them. Once you establish that the NL has the leagues best division, then it is expected that league will also carry baseball's worst etc. What was surprising was how geographically (almost by markets) the list breaks down. The East is the Best, followed by the West and finally the Central. That pattern is well very interesting.

Food for thought I guess. Well now when you have this discussion you can bring up these numbers.

In a video that has been making its way around the video, Wally Backman as a manager had an absolute meltdown some time ago when one of his players was thrown out of the game.

Oh, he was wearing a microphone.

I first saw the video over at The Daily Stache, and ladies and gentleman, its an absolute perfect example of a manager meltdown. I would embed directly below but, similar to stache, I'm just going to link to it here. The video is not censored, so you hear Wally in all of his cursoring goodness.

My favorite quote from the video:

Also, I'm a fan of the other umpire just saying over and over “Wally” and when Backman told the catcher to get out of the way. Classic. Classic. Classic.