Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Another guest column, this one from regular reader Nate Little, who was looking for an outlet for some of his Mets research. He noted that my "Met nerdery is unparalleled" and when someone says something so nice, I figure, why not offer him the space for his work. I came across this excerpt from the always-excellent Hardball Times: "#1 Boston Red Sox (Dartboard Factor = 98, 100): Congratulati[ons] to Clay Buchholz on the no-hitter. It is kind of weird that [we] celebrate so many luck-driven events in baseball. Johan Santana strikes out 17 Rangers and walks none [in] 8 innings, but because he gave up two harmless hits along the way, not many people will remember his performance. Buchholz strikes out only 9, walked 3 and hit a batter. But since he yielded no hits, his day will be much talked about." This inspired me to propose a new stat: the no-walker. 9 IP, 0R, 0BB, and however many hits may have landed. I wondered how the Mets compare to other franchises ...

Yes, I know that everyone may be talking about the Most Valuable Pedro today and that's fine, as I'm sure I'll have something to say about that in the near future. Today I'd rather talk about the Mets best chance at winning Most Valuable Player. I hadn't really bought into the David Wright for MVP talk until the last week or so, but a few things (victories) have happened to change my mind. I took a closer look at the numbers and it got me to thinking that the Mets have a really good chance to have their first MVP winner. The last two days, David Wright has hit go-ahead home runs and that prompted me to take a closer look at his 26 homers this season. What I found is that all 26 could be considered meaningful. 11 of the 26 snapped ties. Add the one he hit on Monday against Aaron Harang and you have 12 home runs that have given the Mets the lead. The other New York third baseman doesn't have that many go-ahead dingers and he's got a lot more to work with. Wrig...

Guest columnist Barry Federovitch was looking for an outlet for this material, and thought this would be a good place. On the day of perhaps college football's greatest upset, Appalachian State over Michigan, the Mets (after one of their most devastating regular-season series in years) showed, in lieu of a more appropriate term, ''some sack’’ on Saturday, winning a second straight game in their traditional chamber of horrors, Atlanta. The 2007 National League title is far from being resolved, but while in football the term ''sack'' means being knocked down, in baseball it means getting up, which the Mets did with a vengeance. It means responding when things are bleakest, toughest, showing character when the momentum is very much against you or the prognosticators say you have little chance. Some of the all-time ''sack'' performances by the Mets, as a team and individually, have been: 1964 (Oct. 2-4, at St. Louis) - The Mets had 108 losses whe...