The Mets Police

ESPN has announced their 2010 Ultimate Team Rankings in which they “measure how much MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL franchises give back to the fans in exchange for all the time, money and emotion the fans invest in them.”

OK sounds like my kind of thing.   Let’s check in on the Mets.

Ouch #107 of 122, down from #82 last year.

Fan Relations #102! (defined as “Openness and consideration toward fans by players, coaches and management.”)  I’m here to help David.  102 of 122.  4 ahead of the Lions.

Stadium Experience: #81

Read the rest here.

Friday, July 2 @ Washington

Angel Pagan – CF

Ruben Tejada – SS

David Wright – 3B

Ike Davis – 1B

Jason Bay – LF

Rod Barajas – C

Jeff Francoeur – RF

Alex Cora – 2B

Jonathon Niese – LHP

I kid you not.

On MLB.com you can see for yourself that:

MLB.com is offering you the opportunity now to buy tickets at the face value price for your favorite team.Postseason Ticket Reservations is a new feature intended to broaden potential access to these valuable seats, ensuring you that if your team plays in a game you reserve, you get to buy a face-value ticket and go to the game.

Let’s take the defending National League champs as an example. If you purchase a National League Division Series Home Game 1 reservation for the Phillies and they qualify for the postseason, your selected game will occur and a reservation would allow you to purchase a ticket for the first home Division Series game at Citizens Bank Park (either Game 1 or Game 3 of the Division Series, depending on whether the Phillies have home field advantage in the series).

The cost for each transaction is $10 for the Division Series, $15 for the League Championship Series and $20 for the World Series. The maximum purchase for each game is two reservations per household per team per series. So it would cost $90 now if you wanted to reserve two tickets for one game of all three possible postseason rounds, for example.

And let us not forget the always inexplicable: * A $1 per order transaction fee applies to each purchase of Postseason Ticket Reservations

So Mets fans, do you wanna “waste” $45 on a chance at being at the first home game of all three rounds?

Maybe you are considering this.  A few things to ask yourself….

…what happens if your face value tickets are the top tier tickets?

..how does this affect post-season lotteries?  Smaller pool for you folks with the 15 game plans I assume.  Maybe?

…29 of the 30 teams are participating.  Wanna guess who isn’t?

…I kinda wanna buy Cubs World Series tickets just to be one of the 4 people on Earth who can say they have ever done that.

…and what happens to Stubhub?  Well I am no lawyer but I can read:

Trading or transfer or Postseason Ticket Reservations.
The trading or transfer to any person or entity of Postseason Ticket Reservations is not currently permitted by the Postseason Ticket Reservation marketplace. In the event that MLB.com determines to allow the trading of Postseason Ticket Reservations, notice will be provided on this website. The rules and policies associated with such trading will be made available to users not later than the time when trading becomes permissible. Any trading of Postseason Ticket Reservations will be governed by the rules and policies published by MLB.com on this website.

Get your playoff tickets now while I ponder if the ticketpocalypse just happened.

I like the discussion happening in the comments of this post…thought I’d post them on the main page.  In a nutshell, I would use K-Rod to try to keep the tie game going rather than hope the 5 man infield would.

Ceetar:

It’s mindboggling to me that a manager will sit there and insist he can’t use his best pitcher (closer designation or not, the guy is probably the ‘best’ pitcher) on the road unless it’s a save situation, and instead you have to use your second-best/8th inning guy. And then goes on to say the Mets don’t have an 8th inning guy (implying I guess that he doesn’t have anyone good enough for this role, yet isn’t going to use the guy that he knows is ‘better’ than that role). He’s going to stubbornly sit there and throw games away on the road because he wants to throw his temper tantrum at Omar until he gets another pitcher that has the Jerry stamp of approval. (omg..is he doing this because they sent Mejia down?) This is not the way of a professional, winning, manager.

Eric:

Couldn’t agree with you more Shannon. Seems like K Rod is a big baby about coming in during non-save situations, so I’m sure that doesn’t help. I love how relievers talk about needing to know their role… Um… you make millions of dollars a year to do nothing but pitch every few days. How about your role is when the manager needs you to pitch, whenever it is… you do so without bellyaching?

Brian:

disagree. this seems to be the one facet of baseball strategy people botch constantly. it’s the most easy to second guess, but it’s wrong. you need your closer to close the game when you’re on the road. that’s the guy you want for the last three outs. you’re already at a huge disadvantage playing in the bottom of the 9th and onward on the road and you want to have your bullet left to save the game. i’ve heard yankees fans complain about this with torre and rivera, mets fans about franco, benitez, looper, wagner, ayala and k-rod. you need to save your closer.

not to mention the fact that the offense scored one run. i mean…come on, guys. do you know many teams that win games consistently by scoring a single run? the offense didn’t hit. not every loss in on the manager.

Ceetar:

Answer me this then brian: Which is the more difficult (i.e. higher leverage) situation? Tie game, bottom 9th, or up 1+ runs in the bottom of the 10th?

The More AB you have in a game, the more likely you are to win. Pitching your best reliever in the 9th of a tie game gives you a better shot at those 3+ AB in the 10th.

Also, the home manager likely will use his closer in the 9th. So if you get to the 10th, you either got a more tired closer that’s been extended past what he usually does, or a lesser reliever to hit off of.

So wanna-be managers…what’s your strategy?  Discuss!