Let's Go Mets

Finally our years of patience are paying off and the Mets are playing great.
They have an 11-game winning streak after a 2-3 start (exactly the same as the 1986 Mets) and I am loving it.
The year I turned 8 the Mets won the World Series. This is the year Chase turns 8 and he's starting to get into the Mets as well.
Obviously they are playing great, getting great pitching, timely hits and teams are not making them pay for their mistakes.

Here are some reasons to be hopeful:
1) They're due. Bad luck in close games has plagued them for years and now it could be reversing itself.
2) They're doing it without being at full strength. Wright, D'Arnaud and Wheeler are all hurt. And Mejia is suspended, though we can't be sure he'll be any good if he comes back and isn't on the juice.
3) Help is still on the way. Steve Matz, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero could all be in the starting rotation by next year and Dilson Herrera, Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto give the Mets some good hitting prospects as well.

But there are also reasons to worry:

1) The current lineup is old, 5 regulars are 29 or older (Murphy, Duda, Wright, Cuddyer and Granderson). The starting rotation is built for long-term success, 6 - 8 years. The lineup doesn't match in youthfulness and lots of reinforcements will need to come, and develop in order for the team to have the success I desire.

2) We're stuck with Terry Collins. He's a bad manager and at some point if the Mets make the playoffs he will blow a series. But we're not getting rid of him now.
3) The fear of the trade deadline deal. It would be an absolute disaster if the Mets make a panic move in July to improve this team that trades a player like Matz or Syndergaard and brings in an older player with a limited window. The Mets must resist the talk-radio temptation to sacrifice the future to play for this year.

This is still a work in progress, but as we can all see, it's nearly finished.

Lin-Sanity

It's been nearly 40 years since the New York Knicks have won the NBA title. It's been ten since they have even won a playoff game. That is the reason for the sudden Lin-Sanity that is sweeping the tri-state area.



It all started against Nets when Lin played 36 minutes. He had only one game with more than 10 all season to that point. Amare Stoudemire missed the next game, Melo got hurt and Lin took over leading the Knicks to four-straight wins.
His amazing stats:
vs. Nets: 25 points (10-19 FG), 7 assists, 5 rebounds
vs. Jazz: 28 points (10-17 FG), 8 assists, 2 rebounds
vs. Wizards: 23 points (9-14), 10 assists, 4 rebounds
vs. Lakers: 38 points, (13-23), 7 assists, 4 rebounds

Those are absolutely incredible numbers: 28.5 ppg and 8 apg on 57.5% shooting. But there are several reasons why I don't expect this to keep up.

1) Carmelo and Amare will be back eventually. When they come back they will demand the ball and they will clog up the middle taking driving opportunities away from Lin.
2) Teams are going to start to lay off him and make him shoot from the outside. That might be a weakness. Even during this amazing stretch, he has made only 3 of 14 from 3.
3) He's reckless. There are several ways this can manifest itself. First off, he could get hurt. Second, he makes a lot of wild drives resulting in some crazy layups, most have been falling, maybe that will stop. Third, he makes a lot of turnovers, 17 in these 4 games. An assist to turnover ratio of nearly 2 is decent, but if his teammates' shots stop dropping, his ratio will.



4) Nothing like this ever lasts very long. If Lin were the most heralded point guard prospect ever, it would still be implausible for anyone with so little experience to be performing at this high level. The only question remaining, is when he returns to a more normal level of performance will he still be a good NBA point guard, or is his natural level something closer to serviceable backup?
5) If this keeps up we're going to have to put Papa Poop in the Lin-sane asylum. He has the most severe case of Lin-sanity I have ever seen. And he hasn't even been able to watch all the games because of the dispute with Time Warner Cable and the Knicks. After every game he messages me the stat line, followed by a bunch of exclamation points. A few more games like this and he'll end up in a straitjacket that looks like this:

We're Number One

There’s an often quoted line from “Pulp Fiction,” spoken by the Wolf to remind Jimmy, Vincent and Jules that even though they had set the stage making it possible for them to get away with Marvin’s murder, nothing had been accomplished yet, and praise at that point was premature: “Let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet.”

It was the Wolf’s way of reminding everyone that a job is not done, until it’s done. If the Wolf were a Syracuse fan he’d be reminding us of that right now.

Syracuse is ranked #1 in both major polls, for the first time in 20 years. This is what fans and alumni get excited about (as the great Petey Bell said "the only time the alumni ever jerk off is when we win"), and rightfully so but no one will consider this season a success if SU doesn’t at least make the Final Four.

Right now 2003, is the best season in SU history, and 1987 and 1996 are tied for second.

This could be the best SU team of all time, but only if they win a title.

Yes those are high expectations, but what else would you demand from the best team in the country?

Was It Worth It?

Even though I never posted about it explicitly, I was always very skeptical about the Jets acquisition of Brett Favre. Hearing from Jets fans after the trade the only phrase that came to mind was the Wolf's classic line from Pulp Fiction, "let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."
Now that the season is over we can look back on a 9-7 season in which Brett Favre threw 22 interceptions (including 9 against 2 touchdowns in the fateful 5-game stretch to end the season) and even the most positive Jet fan would have to say the move didn't work out.
The acquisition of Favre cost the Jets Chad Pennington who was always a good quarterback when healthy. he should have been given a chance to work with the Jets other new additions (Faneca, Woody). Instead he went to the Dolphins had a better year than Brett Favre in every significant category (except TD passes, but only marginally) and led the biggest one-season turnaround in NFL history.
But it wasn't what the Jets lost that makes the Favre move a mistake. It's what they got.
A ticket on the Brett Favre carousel.
The Packers had to cut ties with Favre because going round-and-round with him every offseason was setting back the franchise and it threatens to do the same to the Jets.
The Jets desired coaching replacement for the fired Eric Mangini (who deserves about 25% of the blame for this season's disaster and only for not reining in Favre), Bill Cowher, turned down the job, reportedly because he doesn't want to coach Brett Favre, or spend an offseason waiting for Favre to make up his mind.
Also, Favre may hamper the Jets efforts to get the quarterback they want (maybe Matt Cassel) because who in their right mind would go to a team that Favre may want to come back to).
And the Jets don't really have a quarterback of the future on their roster, so they have to draft one. And if they do he will either have to play before he's ready, or spend a year learning bad habits from Favre.
The Jets need to come out right now, today and say "we don't want Favre back next season."
Riding his carousel, or worse bringing him back next year and hoping for different results, is just going to add to the immeasurable pain Jets fans already feel.