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There are certain moments in spring training when you stumble across a story you weren’t expecting. Maybe it’s a kid throwing 97 free and easy like he found it in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box, or maybe it’s just wandering past a locker when a glove catches your eye, covered in pop culture references that would make a film studies professor spill his latte.. That’s how I wound up talking pitching and psychological satire with Mets prospect Ryan Lambert, which is how you k

Even before analytics baseball has always been a numbers game. Not the kind that requires spreadsheets and algorithms, but the kind where a handful of digits become shorthand for a life’s work. Say 60 or 714 and the mind drifts automatically to immortality. Mention 56, .406, or 511 and you don’t even need to attach the names. Numbers in this sport have a way of sticking to players like pine tar. Some careers are defined by one unforgettable line on a stat sheet. For Elroy “Ro

There are certain sites and sounds in spring training that signal baseball is officially alive again, the pop of a fastball in a catcher’s mitt, the sound of a fungo bat, and the unmistakable cadence of a manager standing at a podium explaining, in calm baseball speak, why everything is both encouraging and cautiously monitored. On Friday, Carlos Mendoza stepped into that role, delivering a wide-ranging briefing that touched on pitching health, roster development, defensive p

If you’re anything like me and my wife insists there is no one like me (I’m still not sure if she meant that as a compliment), you can remember exactly when and where you bought your very first pack of baseball cards. Just reading this probably has your sense of smell kicking into gear right now. (Is that… that smell?) That unmistakable aroma of cardboard, ink, and gum, or what passed for gum in the 1960s, especially when you peeled back that last card in the pack, hoping for

There are Hall of Famers, and then there are baseball lifers—guys who looked like they could’ve been sitting two stools down from you at the bar, but instead went out every fifth day and took the ball like it owed them money. Mickey Lolich was that guy. Lolich, who passed away on February 4, 2026 at the age of 85, described himself as “the beer-drinker’s idol,” and nobody ever accused him of false advertising. With his sturdy frame, soft belly (which he insisted was “all musc

Mets fans, let’s take the blue-and-orange tinted glasses off for a minute. Vidal Bruján is not the next José Reyes, hell he isn't even the next Pablo Reyes. He’s not a secret All-Star hiding in plain sight. He’s not about to steal 60 bases and force the Mets to install a speed limit at Citi Field. So who is Vidal Bruján ? If your reaction to the question, “Is that a new member of the Queens Crew — congratulations, you’re normal. He’s basically baseball’s version of the guy w

This column focuses on impactful trades in Mets history. Well, the first three World Series appearances of the Mets were fortified by three different consequential trades with the Montreal Expos! The Mets most likely do not see 1969 (Donn Clendenon), 1973 (Rusty Staub), and 1986 (Gary Carter) without these dynamic trades. Do not worry, Washington Nationals fans, its not that I'm ignoring the Nats, its just that the most significant trades were made when they were Les Expos.

Every few years, baseball social media gathers like villagers with torches and pitchforks to anoint The Worst Free Agent Signing of All Time. This winter, the mob has pointed west, squinting into the Anaheim haze, yelling one name in unison: Anthony Rendon. And look — fair. Very fair. The conversation flared back to life because the Angels just quietly reworked the final year of Rendon’s seven-year, $245 million deal, a move that functioned less like roster planning and more

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where we brush the dust off the bubble gum cards, flip through the curling pages of old yearbooks, and rediscover the players who once made you pause mid potato knish and mutter, “Hold on… he was a Met, right?” Last week, we told the story of Jim Beauchamp, a baseball lifer whose time in Flushing was brief, bruising, and ultimately redemptive, a reminder that baseball caree

Week 6 of Franchise Fridays returned us to Citi Field, where the All-Time Mets Greats hosted the All-Time Giants Greats in what has become our favorite winter pastime: using Strat-O-Matic All-Time Great teams to give Mets fans something glorious to stare at when the real box scores are frozen solid. Dice were rolled. Cards were flipped. Legends were unleashed. Looking for back-to-back wins, the Mets entered play hoping to gain their first bit of momentum all season. After ope

Week 5 of Franchise Fridays brought the All-Time Mets Greats back into action, this time facing the All-Time Giants at the breezy confines of virtual Candlestick Park. After dropping their first four games—three to their Dodgers cousins and one to the Giants—the Mets were desperate to get off the schnied and remind everyone that New York baseball can, in fact, be victorious. As always, these games are more than just numbers on a Strat-O-Matic board. By pitting all-time greats

Now that last week's incredibly painful Winter Meetings are over, let's get back to some all-time impactful historical trades between the Mets and Pete Alonso's new team. Surprisingly, there haven't been that many major trades between the 1969 World Series opponenets. December 1, 1998. Mets get RHP Armando Benitez from Baltimore for C Charles Johnson. Before you throw your phone away because Charles Johnson was never a Met, he was on paper! They got Charles in a three-team tr

" I've just closed my eyes again Climbed aboard the Dream Weaver train Driver, take away my worries of today And leave tomorrow behind " Gary Wright 1975 Yesterday it was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused.” Today it’s Gary Wright’s Dream Weaver. That’s quite a musical pattern we’ve got going here—my apologies for the earworm. Not sure how many Mets fans were dreaming about signing Luke Weaver this offseason. If your REM sleep visions were more “Co

You know those social media posts that pop up every day asking things like, Describe your mood today with a movie title? Or a song? Or the old internet classic where you create your “adult film name” by combining your first pet with the last name of your least favorite Mets reliever and yes, mine would be Coco Looper thanks for asking. Honestly, that’s how my brain has always worked. I don’t process life in neat paragraphs. I process it in pop culture references movies, lyr

Last week, we decided Ed Kranepool was the best Mets 1st baseman of the 1960s. He was a solid fielding option who could also hit for average. The 1970s, however, did not start the way Kranepool or anyone else had planned for the life-long Met. Kranepool started in 1970, probably trying way too hard, after a humbling 1969 season. The Mets organization went out and traded for a slugging first baseman in '69, Donn Clendenon, who ended up being World Series MVP. Clendenon returne

The Mets reportedly have agreed to a two-year, $40 million deal with Jorge Polanco. That’s right: two years, forty million dollars. For a guy whose primary claim to fame is well, hitting .265 with 26 homers last year and being really good at remembering how to swing a bat. Polanco, 32, will be in New York reportedly to play first base and DH. And yes, I said first base. Hold on to that thought—we’ll circle back. Let’s start with the stats. Over a 12-year MLB career, Polanco h

The Dodgers landed the first haymakers. In the bottom of the third, the Brooklyn–Hollywood hybrid unleashed a historical mashup that only a strat-o-matic simulation could produce. Corey Seager, who never sniffed a trolley car, blasted a two-run homer. Then Duke Snider, who practically owned the trolley line, added a two-run shot of his own. Just like that, the Mets trailed 4–0, and Doc Gooden—who had racked up strikeouts like it was 1985—saw his ERA on the afternoon jump fast

The Mets’ newest second baseman, former Rangers star, Gold Glover, father of five, and now owner of the Most Spoken Words in a Zoom Call Since 2020, Marcus Semien met the New York media today for the first time. And if first impressions matter… well, Mets fans, start stretching now because this guy plays like he expects you to run out every grounder too. From the jump, Semien was vintage Semien: direct, thoughtful, polished, and sneakily funny in that “I’m a dad of five and

If you’ve ever fallen down the Strat-O-Matic rabbit hole—and if you’re reading this, the odds are dangerously high—you understand that the game is less a hobby and more a lifelong affliction. Those dice don’t just “roll”; they call to you. And for some of us, like the faithful members of the Long Island Strat Club (where the first rule of Strat Club is you constantly talk about Strat Club), Strat isn’t just baseball. It’s religion. With charts. So imagine the kind of mind it

Randy Jones never threw a pitch that frightened a radar gun, but he built a career that could humble even the most electrified arms of his era. He grew up in southern California, a left-hander whose fastball wasn’t exactly the sort of thing scouts sprinted to see twice. What he did have—and what would eventually make him one of the great artisans of 1970s pitching—was a stubborn belief that there were other ways to get hitters out. When he talked about it, even decades later,