Isn't it a bit early to talk about Giancarlo's Stanton's 700th HR?

Jaromir Jagr is having a good year at an advanced age. Gretzky recently marveled and pointed out, when asked, that, sure -- if Jagr had stayed healthy and whatnot, he could have broken Gretzky's goal record.

Which is why the hard part is actually doing it.

Kal Daniels was on the path to the Hall of Fame after his second season.

Joel Sherman ponders Mark Teixeira's Hall of Fame chances.

"Teixeira acknowledges he is not getting to 3,000 hits, but has his eyes on 500 homers (he is at 394). He has finished in the top 11 in MVP voting just twice. His OPS-plus is much like other excellent two-way first basemen Keith Hernandez and John Olerud, neither of whom ever reached even 11 percent in Hall voting.

Teixeira says he wants to play another five years and will have to produce a lot of greatness in what should be his twilight to have a strong Hall shot.

'It’s a natural thing as a baseball player to at least think about the Hall,' Teixeira said. 'It is, after all, the ultimate goal.' "

Yes.

I believe Mark Teixeira will absolutely enter the Hall of Fame if he wants to.

I even found a website that will help him accomplish this ultimate goal.

Or just call 607.547.0397 (service fees apply).

Randy Levine met with Scott Cutler, President of StubHub

Randy Levine met today with Scott Cutler, President of StubHub, and had a good and productive meeting. It lasted about an hour and they agreed to continue talking. There is nothing to announce at this current moment.

I am generally a nice guy. I don't wish "enemy" ballplayers ill will.

But this is ridiculous:

"When Ortiz, 40, makes his final Yankee Stadium appearance on Sept. 29, this is what he wants, and it speaks volumes about Ortiz the player, the competitor, the enemy, the star.

'You know what I want most of all?' Big Papi told The Post on Tuesday at JetBlue Park. 'I would love it if the fans at Yankee Stadium gave me a standing ovation.' "

...

Ortiz deeply respects the fans, even those from other teams who boo him, because it shows how much they love the game and their team. Yankees fans can show Ortiz respect in that final game.

Cheer for Big Papi. Chant his nickname. Send him out with class."

The writers sure love David Ortiz.

I am not sure why ... an obvious steroid cheat, not really classy by any useful definition of the term ... just a pretty good interview sometimes. Maybe that's why.

Tormented the Yankees for a while. That might be the real reason.

Lupica makes it too easy.

Mike Lupica plus political commentary.

Two great things that go great together.

Like that Reese's peanut butter cup commercial ... except you substitute rancid sushi for a chocolate bar:

"It is a good thing that sports doesn’t work the way politics does. If it did, the Carolina Panthers would have flown straight back to Charlotte after the Broncos threw them down the stairs in the Super Bowl and thrown themselves a victory parade."

Nah. That would be silly. That would be the Mets, of course:

"You know the moment I’ll remember most in New York sports, before the last night of the baseball season went wrong?

I’ll remember what it felt like and sounded like at Citi Field when the Mets were still ahead in Game 5, and they were three outs away from going back to Kansas City.

I’ll remember what it felt like and sounded like when Matt Harvey came out of the dugout to pitch the top of the 9th, because I would have done the same thing Terry Collins did that night, and send him the hell out there.

Harvey walked the leadoff guy, of course, and should have been gone right there.

Before long Duda was throwing wide and Hosmer was on his way home, and you know what happened later.

The other team was just better.

Not a lot better.

Just enough.

This was the time in baseball New York when Citi Field finally sounded the way old Shea did across the parking lot.

It would have been great to win it all, of course it would, are you kidding?

But how could you ever walk away feeling like losers after a run like that?"

Probably because the other team scored more runs. Not that I'm a sabermetrician or anything, but isn't that how it works?

I always suspected Griffey was God.

Barry Bonds: "God knows I'm a Hall of Famer."

Ken Griffey: "Bonds deserves to be in Hall of Fame."

$25 million, 6 wins, 10 losses, 4.73 ERA

Oh, shut up.

You didn't even win the World Series. Imagine how much he'd run his mouth if he had:

"I'm not going to sit there today and look at all of these (expletive) numbers and try to predict this guy is going to be a great player. OPS this. OPS that. GPS. LCSs. DSDs. You know who has good numbers? Good (expletive) players.

"That's why to me the (Yoenis) Cespedes signing was good for us. He changed our team last year. He makes our lineup legitimate. This guy is going to hit 25 to 30 homers. He's going to drive in 100 runs. That's what he does.

"Those are the numbers I like.''

As if Yoenis Cespedes had a bad OPS.

OPS is just on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, for crying out loud.

Pushing fan loyalty right there.

This is what I was complaining about.

Mike Lupica quotes an actual source.

Getting closer to journalism (journalesque?), but it's still baffling.

I also seriously wonder if Lupica understands the meaning of simple words, such as "but":

"Here is the way Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports described what happened to Jenrry Mejia of the Mets on Friday:

'(Mejia) was in the major leagues with the New York Mets at 20. He was established in their bullpen at 24. He was suspended twice after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs at 25. And on Friday afternoon, at 26 years old, Jenrry Mejia became the first player — major or minor leagues — to be banned for life because of a third positive test.' "

Tim Brown of Yahoo sports!

Congratulations to Tim Brown of Yahoo sports. You got an actual real-life mention in a Lupica column.

I'm curious what Lupica has to say about Tim Brown's milquetoast observation. It's just the basics ... who and what ... not a whole lot to comment on.


"That’s it, and that’s all."

Ummm ... here's the whole article by Tim Brown of Yahoo sports.

Couple of things:

1) It's 2016. Hyperlinks have been around for 20 years. Use a hyperlink when you cite another online article. That way, your audience can see for themselves that it's not all that Tim Brown wrote.

2) Lupica lied. While there's not much to Tim Brown's article, there's a lot more than two paragraphs, and I really think Lupica intentionally misrepresented the work of a fellow sports writer.


"Maybe Mejia himself can’t explain why he would keep going back to banned substances, knowing the possible consequences of continued drug use.

Maybe he was willing to take the chance, because he was afraid that he couldn’t perform without the drugs, and ended up throwing away his career, before he is anywhere near the age of 30."

Maybe so.

Is this going anywhere?


"But then Alex Rodriguez, who I keep reading is the toast of the town now, went looking for Anthony Bosch after his career and his reputation had survived being outed as a user of baseball drugs by Sports Illustrated once."

1) ARod is not the toast of the town. You keep reading he's the toast of the town, but you can't cite one article that praises ARod. Because ARod isn't the toast of the town.

2) This is not a "but." "But" is one of the first words a child learns. I seriously can't figure out this transition to ARod. "Maybe Mejia did this ... but probably not ... because ARod did the same thing."


"Rodriguez, so clearly full of his own fears and insecurities, didn’t lose his career.

But he nearly did."

 ARod didn't lose his career. But he nearly did. Hard stop.

That's it?

 
This is what I think Lupica is trying to say:

• ARod's 200-game suspension was not enough of a deterrent to Mejia.
• While Mejia was foolish, ARod was also foolish in a similar way.
• Tim Brown of Yahoo sports shouldn't have commented on Mejia's foolishness without immediately referencing ARod's foolishness.
• Since ARod is now the toast of the town, unknown Mets closer Mejia had every reason to expect that, following his lifetime suspension, he'd also become the toast of the town.

None of this is logical, of course, but I'm trying my best here, folks.

The thrill is gone :-(

No hand-wringing for the children ... no tiny violins playing for the AAA relievers who never got a shot ...

"It didn’t have to be some morality statement; these days no one raises an eyebrow when suspended PED users get a second chance, and plenty of teams have cashed in by taking chances on them.

Heck, the Mets wanted to sign Jhonny Peralta and Nelson Cruz a couple of years ago. But it doesn’t mean they would have been hypocritical had they dealt harshly with Mejia, considering the circumstances."

The Daily News spent so much time and effort chasing down ARod that when the story died, the Daily News fired most of its sportswriters.


"But that’s not really the point. The Mets put their misplaced faith in Mejia and they were rewarded with more embarrassment. They should have known better."

That's all you're gonna get, folks: "The Mets shoulda known better."

I don't think anybody is accusing the Mets of hypocrisy. The Daily News, on the other hand ...

Broncos 30, Panthers 21

A rare non-baseball post.

See what I did in the title?

I made a prediction about the Super Bowl. Like everyone else in America, from President Obama to your mom.

No self-respecting sports writer would avoid making a Super Bowl prediction.Which probably explains why I can't find Mike Lupica's prediction.


A week ago: "Super Bowl won't affect Peyton Manning's legacy."

Today: "Super Bowl 50 stakes sky high for Manning, Cam Newton."

Followed by this doozy: "The Panthers will have the two best players on the field in Super Bowl 50 Sunday night. That means Cam Newton and Luke Kuechly ..." Screech. Full stop. Nothing against Kuechly, but give me a break.


There's a lot of words about the Big Game and I sure didn't read all of them. But I don't see a bottom line prediction anywhere. What a joke.

I think Tanaka is the best pitcher on the Yankees.

Just an opinion.

It's kind of interesting to review the Yankees' starting staff and realize it is full of young power pitchers.

Mike Lupica doesn't like ballplayers who play for the New York Yankees.

He says "no kidding," but he really is kidding. It just isn't funny:

"Before long, we will start to hear that 'Pride of the Yankees II,' the inspirational story of Alex Rodriguez’s comeback, is in development in Hollywood.

I think Jay Z should play him.

No kidding, eventually we’re going to start hearing that this guy is more beloved than Yogi was."

Guffaw.


Let me help you with your Hollywood options:

"That Art of Standing Around: The Story of 2015 Gold Glove Winner Yoenis Cespedes"

"It Ain't Cheating if They Don't Catch You: The Mike Piazza Story"

"No Rings and No MVPs: Let Me Call a Sports Radio Show and Explain How This is David Wright's Breakout Year"

"Cocaine, Cocaine, and More Cocaine: The Mets Ring of Honor"

"Not as Smart as You Think You Are and Shut Up About the DH Already: The Life and Times of  Gary Cohen"

"Annuities and the Future Value of Money: Explaining Bobby Bonilla's Contract"

50% of nothing is still nothing.

Once again, I conclude that nobody watches baseball on TV:

"When the Mets came to terms with Yoenis Cespedes, Sandy Alderson did not only ink a bona fide game changer, he signed a player who is a TV ratings changer — something the Yankees, as of today, do not have."

Nobody will watch regular season baseball games to see Yoenis Cespedes.


"In 2015, before the Mets acquired Cespedes from Detroit, SportsNet New York was averaging a 2.25 household rating, 202,911 total viewers, on its Mets telecasts. Once Cespedes arrived in Queens, the average rating increased by nearly a full point and total viewership increased by over 100,000 viewers."

Exactly.

A paltry 300,000 viewers.



"Who on the current Yankees roster can produce those kind of results? Alex Rodriguez? That’s doubtful. Last season, on the comeback trail, A-Rod was a curiosity. This season, his story is not as compelling, unless the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network uses him in the booth when he’s not playing. Perhaps the Bombers’ Trio Grande — relievers Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances, Aroldis Chapman — will quickly turn into eyeball magnets."

It will be easy for the YES Network to attract more viewers than Mets games.

Just put on some replays of NFL games.

Or maybe a live feed  of Isaac Mizrahi selling new slippers in a variety of colors.


"Cespedes is backed by a charismatic choir, the best young starting pitchers in baseball, major attractions in their own right. This gives the Mets a good chance of pushing the ratings needle to the max from jump street on a nightly basis.

Still, the ultimate ratings generator is winning — no matter who is doing it. Success is what eventually captures the 'floaters,' front running fans (and there are a significant number of them) who glom on to the hot baseball team in town and jack up the TV ratings.

Now, they lean Mets. After all, they did make it to the World Series.

With Yoenis Cespedes."

These floaters that Raissman always talks about ... where are they? The Mets got a 3.0 with the floaters.

The Mets will get big ratings when they play the Yankees, the Nationals, and if they have a rematch with the Royals (Opening Day, of course). The rest of the time, regular season baseball games get tiny ratings.

Cespedes is not a monumental superstar by any means. He is, like, the 4th-best LFer. He isn't the second coming of Babe Ruth.

Three words: Return on Investment.

Mike Lupica is stupid:

"There is only one team, still, in baseball history that spent more than $200 million on baseball players and actually won the Series. That was the 2009 New York Yankees. Their payroll that year was around $210 million. They have spent more than $200 million a year for every year since that (the way they did for the five years before that), and haven’t won since."

This is very difficult to explain to stupid people, but this does not prove that spending a lot of money hurts a team's chances of winning the World Series.

Only one team can win the World Series every year, understand?

Another way to look at this test: In the 11 years under discussion, the Yankees won the World Series 1 out of 11 tries. The other 29 teams combined won the World Series 10 times out of 319 tries.

Who has a better World Series winning percentage? The Yankees or the Not Yankees?


Even the conclusion is off: "The Yankees haven't won since."

The Yankees have not been under .500 in 20 years. The Yankees draw 3 million fans every year. I know the marketing spiel, but if you really think Hank and Hal expect to win the World Series every year, then you are stupid.

The product has slipped quite a bit, but the brand is incredibly strong and people therefore keep buying the product.

How did the brand gain so much strength? It certainly wasn't because the Yankees signed a lot of inexpensive players.


"The closest thing to a dynasty in baseball over the past several years are the San Francisco Giants, who have won three World Series in the last six seasons. The most money they spent in any of those years was when they were a little over $150 million. The Mets aren’t there now that Yoenis Cespedes is coming back, but they’re close enough. And maybe the people in charge aren’t the dumbest and cheapest in the world after all."

$150 million isn't chump change, but I think we can all agree that the baseball GM discussion has become overwhelming and tiring. Maybe the contract sizes should be secret and we can all just try to enjoy the game on the field.


"And the team that beat them in the World Series in a five-game series that looked and felt and even sounded a lot closer than that, the Royals, a team that has a batting order that is like barbed wire and enough pitching and plays a beautiful game of baseball, they were at $110 million in 2015 when they won their first World Series in three decades."

Right.

Don't ignore the last sentence ... "first World Series in three decades."

I wonder if Lupica understands that this hurts his small-payroll argument or if he's just ignoring all the conflicting data.


"Here is what Tyler Kepner, the fine baseball columnist for the Times, wrote on Saturday:

'Can Mets fans finally trust that the stewards of their team might know a bit about how to run a franchise?' "

I have nothing to add to this observation, but I think it's the first time I have ever seen Mike Lupica credit another person. It's usually "people are saying" or "lots of people" or "some people" or he just makes stuff up.

Can it be that Mike Lupica has suddenly adopted first-class journalistic techniques?


"The great myth of modern baseball, despite all the evidence, is that there’s only one way to win the World Series lottery, and that is by spending an insane amount of money. It doesn’t work that way anymore. An amazing thing has now happened with the Mets: Six months later, Sandy Alderson surprises you again with Yoenis Cespedes. Amazin’."

That's more like it! Garbage journalistic techniques. The "great myth" that isn't a great myth at all.

The bottom ten in payroll in 2015? Guess what? Only one of them even made the playoffs. That was the Pirates at $85 million ... and that's with ten freaking teams making the playoffs.


I actually agree that the Mets played this nicely. It's essentially a one-year mega-contract that will avoid the long-term commitments that quickly lose their value as the players age without help from PEDs.

But it's oddly important for Lupica to act like the Mets are still a small payroll team ... $27.5 million for one player for one year isn't something a small payroll team can do ... and it's even odder that it's important for Lupica to try to make a case that a small payroll teams are outperforming high payroll teams. They aren't.

Rather staggering.

"But by taking the three-year deal at an average of $25 million per year — including a rather staggering $27.5 million in 2016 — he is making significantly more per season than either Upton or Jason Heyward, which saves some face for both him and his agents.

'That was hugely important to him,' said a source close to the situation. 'He needed to feel wanted, and $25 million a year does that for him.' "

The contract itself sounds like a good compromise for both sides in terms of overall contract side and protections for both parties.

Yes, Cespedes turned away future guaranteed earnings of $25 million ... which is incomprehensible to most of us. But he's also getting a ridiculous amount of money up front ... I don't know how the Nationals offer was constructed, but it's a 37.5% raise over the $20 million annual average contract offer ... and Cespedes gets an opt-out clause after one year.

Though it shouldn't shock anyone at this point, the implication from the quote from the "source close to the situation" is that Cespedes didn't feel wanted by an offer of $100 million.

I know, I know. I'm thinking the same thing. Someone ought to make me feel unwanted with 1% of that offer.

Sure, come play for the Yankees.

Position shmosition.

We'll figure something out.

"Just" 88 wins.

Maybe the Mets will win the World Series.

Something tells me their fans will be disappointed if they don't.

The stellar investigative journalism of the Daily News.

Mike Lupica has been swimming in this ocean for so long, he doesn't see the water:

"I keep wondering why all the people who are such experts on baseball drugs now didn’t tell us a whole lot more about them back in the 1990s when they had the chance."

A so-called senior online sports editor at the Daily News recently posted an article about Alex Rodriguez looking at cheerleaders at a Lakers game. Woodward and Bernstein would be proud.

Mike Lupica himself wrote a book about McGwire and Sosa. That was in the 1990s. Why didn't you tell us a lot more back in the 1990s?
 
Or, more to the point, forget about the 1990s ... why don't you conduct some contemporary investigations? Spend 2 weeks and $50,000 hunting down the dealers for Pedro and Piazza?

You surely won't find something unless you look for it. So why aren't you looking for it? Why do you condemn some players and protect others?

Yeah ... the light bulb goes on ... why do you protect some players and condemn others? Why isn't the Daily News obsessed about Mejia? He plays baseball right here in New York! He was suspended two times in one baseball season! I mean, listen, fellas ... he has friends, he has cousins, he has dealers, he was in New York this whole time. Look under a rock and see what you find, huh?

What about Tim Peterson? If I mentioned the name "Tim Peterson" to the Daily News sports writing staff, their reaction would be just like yours: "Who?"

This guy. Mets minor leaguer suspended for 80 games. Just happened.

So why doesn't anybody in the sports journalism business in New York find out where this guy got his PEDs? Was his supplier the only supplier in supplier history who had exactly one client? Where are the other customers and how deep does this go in the Mets organization? And what is your justification for ignoring all other PED users with all the ink you've spent on ARod?

How does this easily identifiable bias fit into your understanding of the ethics you learned in journalism school?


What do you think will happen when Lupica takes on MLB HOF voting?

It isn't pretty.

He's a never-was mystified by the death of an institution:

"Who passed the law that everybody who does have a Hall of Fame vote in baseball has to explain his/her ballot to us?"

The first principle of journalism is the search for information. Why would any journalist or columnist take an anti-explanation stance? Lupica's job is to cook omelets, but he's anti-egg.

As the baseball HOF strains itself to retain any relevancy to new baseball fans, the only hope is to meet the fans halfway. You can't fool us anymore. The information is widely available and you're no longer the gatekeepers.


Lupica also doesn't know the meaning of the words "irony" and "moralizing":

"You think any of the people accusing Hall of Fame voters of being judgmental and self-righteous about steroid users ever process how judgmental and self-righteous they’re being?

Of course that would involve a level of self-awareness — or at least irony — that is almost impossible to find in the media sometimes.

But it really is my favorite part of the whole process, the moralizers accusing anybody who disagrees with them … of moralizing!"


Lupica is accusing others in his field of lacking self-awareness ... and I just spit coffee all over my laptop.


I will briefly take the bait here and explain what Lupica chooses not to see.

It's difficult to address Lupica's non-specific grievances, because they are non-specific. All HOF voters are individuals and so are their critics. But I'll try to explain the other side in general terms.


1. HOF voters are often inconsistent and perplexing.

2. HOF voters use steroids as an excuse to exclude players they don't like. That's not a valid anti-cheater ethical position.

3. HOF voters invoke the morals clause when it comes to surly interviewees who used steroids. Meanwhile, the HOF is full of racists, wife beaters, drug users, and cheaters.

It's OK if HOF voters are judgmental and moralizing. The problem is, their judgment is off and their moralizing is insincere.