Alderson & Company Plan To Attack The Mets Problems By The Numbers

With the addition of Paul DePodesta to the Mets’ front office the numerical triangle has been closed.  GM Alderson and his top lieutenants Ricciardi and DePodesta come straight from the Moneyball tree and all have a deep and abiding respect for mathematical analysis.

They have already hatched a plan to show all of baseball how different the Mets will be now that they are led by mathematical gurus.

First, the outfield fence signs will be replaced by their equivalent number in the metric system.  While David Wright might be intimidated by the fact that the fence in right center field is 415 feet away he’ll certainly be more encouraged when he sees the 126.5 sign since that’s the distance in meters.  And to poke one down the line instead of seeing a depressing 335 feet sign  it’ll read 102 (that’s it in meters).  Sounds a lot easier, right?

And there’s the speed gun.  R.A. Dickey has a reasonably fast knuckleball that gets to the plate at 83 miles per hour.  That’s not too intimidating.  But wait til the scoreboard shows the reading in kilometers/hour.  That 83 is now 133.6!  Take that opposing batters.

But the most noticeable change will be that many of the Mets players will be wearing more sophisticated and telling uniform numbers. 

Take Jose Reyes, the Mets’ own Mr. Energy, he’ll be wearing "mc^2"

Angel Pagan was the prankster on the team who would often smash a pie into a teammates’ face while the star of the game was being interviewed by Kevin Burkhardt.  So naturally Pagan’s new number will be the symbol for pi.  There was some consideration to giving out the number 3.14159 which is pi carried out a few places.  But to do that the team would have to trade for a wide back player like Prince Fielder or Pablo Sandoval.

Ollie Perez, should he come north with the big club, will be wearing "-$∞"  which can easily be read as “minus infinite dollars”.

All articles featured on The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story. Today's story by Larry Smith.  You can follow Larry Smith on twitter @dr4sight

Thank You Seth MacFarlane

Last night on Family Guy, after having his Halloween candy stolen from him, little Stewie Griffin compared the whole experience to being a Mets fan.  Stewie, we know your pain all too well.  Thank you Seth MacFarlane and Co. for so perfectly summing up a lifetime of frustration in 18 hilarious seconds.

Note: I find myself watching it over and over again just for that hat toss at the end.  What Mets fan hasn't done that move repeatedly over the last 10 years.

The Winners Of The Mets Photo Caption Contest Are...

The judging is over.  After going over the finalists, Darren from The 7 Line and I have decided on the contest winners.  In the end we just couldn't resist a good Ollie joke.  While we both felt a good caption should be short and sweet we made an exception for one clever entry.  The Winners are:

1st Place
A 7 Line Queens Hoodie

Steven said...

"5 members of the New York Mets attend the funeral for Oliver Perez's baseball career."

2nd & 3rd Place
A 7 Line T-Shirt of Their Choice

Sloatsburg Guy said...

"Excuse me your honor, we are here to testify on behalf of Francisco Rodriguez."

 


Srabanti Munshi said...

What should we do?
Should we admit that our team is hopeless?
Should we try to act like we actually care?
Should we stop working late night bachelorette parties?
What should we do?
Should we stop playing cards and start working out?
Should we be who You Want Us to Be?
What should we do?
Should we just shut up and play?
Or should we just go back to stripping?
What should we do?

JUST FIX IT

Thanks to everyone who participated.  It was tough to pick just three.  There will be more contests in the future so if you didn't win don't be too upset. 

I also want to thank Darren from the 7 Line for providing the prizes.  Darren is constantly pumping out new and cool Mets/Jets tees and if you haven't checked them out yet you need to do it now!  Use the discount code APPLE and get 10% off of their already low prices.

Alderson May Let Strat-O-Matic Tournament Decide Next Mets Manager

The Apple has learned that new Mets general manager Sandy Alderson plans to add a unique task to the managerial interview process. Long an advocate of probabilities, Alderson has decided that phase 2 of his interview process will be to have each prospective manager participate in a Strat-O-Matic Baseball tournament.

Alderson explained to our reporter, "I know these manager candidates all are going to want the job so badly that they'll say just about anything - you know, blow smoke up my you-know-where." He continued, "They'll all want me to believe that they share my philosophy in how to run a team. Well, it's the offseason now and I have to know how these guys will really utilize their players. So we'll assign them each a team and we'll all have at it."

Asked whether he, Alderson, would be playing, he replied, "Sure absolutely. Frankly I can't decide whether to manage my '88 A's team which won 104 games or the '90 team that won 103. I guess it doesn't matter. I'll let Backman run the '86 Mets and we'll decide about the other guys after round 1 of the interviews. Ricciardi wants to play too but I doubt he can find even one of his Blue Jays teams that'll be able to compete."

Alderson is also going to have members of the local press corps come into the game room after each game is played. Their job will be to riddle the candidates with questions about any questionable strategies that they used. The GM hopes to find out which manager-in-waiting can handle the rigors of the NY beat writers and the constant threat of Adam Rubin coming after their job.

The logical question we posed was whether the tournament winner automatically gets the Mets manager job?

"Not necessarily", said Alderson. "If it looks like the winner got there due to 'hot dice' we would not feel obligated to award him the job. But if he has managed with careful thought and maximized his 'probabilities' then he may just be our guy."

All articles featured on The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story. Today's story by Larry Smith.  You can follow Larry Smith on twitter @dr4sight