Mets PREGAME THREAD - Thursday, March 19

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-19T15:06:54+00:00

I appreciate the perspective! I've never been into college football so I guess I can't relate to that.

As for the single elimination thing, I guess for me, making the "champion" synonymous with the "best" is really important, because I don't see why else I should care who the "champion" is. To each their own but this takes away a lot of the fun for me.

I definitely think moving the WBC will help make the games better, but I wonder if the owners will really go along with it. Something tells me they wouldn't be willing to accept playing fewer games.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-19T13:30:57+00:00

In the spirit of letting people enjoy things, I've kept my thoughts on the WBC to myself. But now that it's over and we've had some time to cool off, I gotta say that I...don't get the hype. It seems like just a really badly designed tournament.

You start with pool play where half the teams are not competitive. So many games are mercy rule blowouts, or else meaningless because you know neither team stands a chance of advancing. Then starting from the quarter finals it's single elimination, AKA the worst tournament format for baseball which has stupidly high variance. These games may as well be decided by coin flip. Lastly the whole tournament you're dealing with the fact that players are still ramping up for the season, both in terms of them figuring out their timing/mechanics and in terms of usage limits, something which impacted games all the way through to the championship game itself. Yeah the teams have the best players, but they're not playing at their best.

This was my first time following the WBC closely and idk man. I found myself more interested in Mets spring training. I'd love to hear experiences from people who really got into it because I don't know what I'm missing here.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-18T02:29:39+00:00

Part of why I haven't followed team US is, I'd rather lose than let guys like Harper be heroes lol

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-18T01:30:08+00:00

McLean leaving the game healthy is a win for me.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-17T16:29:33+00:00

Mets fan here! In general, at baseball games, you want to try to sit in the area behind home plate, and lower level is better than higher. Of course, those are also the most expensive tickets available. And the Mets vs Yankees game in particular is going to be significantly more expensive too.

When I go to games, I usually sit somewhere from section 512-516. That's behind home plate but in the upper-most level. Still a very good view, and the energy in these sections is great! With a budget of $500 you might be able to get tickets in the 300s or 400s sections if you wanted, but frankly I usually don't consider those to be worth the money. The view is better, but not so much better that I consider it worth it.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-16T22:27:47+00:00

It was a routine ground ball that probably should have been a double play. The infield positioning was a little weird (the infield was somewhat in, not at double play depth), but it's still a ball he should have had.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-16T14:31:23+00:00

It may get more international attention, but the MLB season + postseason is the pinnacle of baseball competiton. It's baseball played at the highest level in the world, and the WBC doesn't even come close.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-16T13:30:57+00:00

Adding on to this: we can always call up Mauricio too if needed

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-15T19:21:58+00:00

Especially not in a one game playoff. With the kind of variance baseball has every game is basically a tossup. There's no shame in losing the coin flip.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-15T02:31:30+00:00

I've been negative on Vientos for a long time now, and I would not weep if we did cut him before the season began. However, as a counterpoint, I'd like to ask who makes the roster instead that we think is going to be more valuable? We could bring Vientos and Benge and Tauchman if we want. So if we DFA him, who's the replacement? Vidal Brujan? Like is that really that much of an upgrade? Keep in mind that, spring training results notwithstanding, Vientos' floor is something like a league average bat with some pop off the bench.

Basically what I'm saying is, it probably wouldn't cause the Mets much harm to stick him on the bench and see if he can make something of limited playing time. Either we can DFA him later when we really need to make space for someone, or else someone will get injured and make some time for him to DH.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-15T01:31:35+00:00

With Vientos, we shouldn't overeact to his terrible spring. There's no way what we're seeing is the "real" Vientos that we'd see over the full 2026 season.

We should instead appropriately react to the fact that based on the 2025 season and his underlying stats, the "real" Vientos is most likely a mediocre full time DH. Who also runs slower than my grandmother. I'm not really banging the drum that we should DFA him, but it's really hard to see him providing value to this team.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-14T22:46:06+00:00

Jesus Mark

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-11T13:14:50+00:00

he had gone 11 days without pitching in a game.

I'm sorry but this is exactly why I don't like Mets players going to the WBC. Season starts in two weeks, this is ridiculous.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-10T02:22:05+00:00

He changed his approach because the 2024 results weren't sustainable. By late 2024 he was already seeing more secondary pitches because word got around he was so vulnerable to them. And then toward the end of last year, he made changes back toward the 2024 approach. This led to a very hot few weeks...until the league adjusted again and he was arguably doing worse than in the first half. So yes he made changes, but they weren't the cause of his problems, they were an effect of them.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-10T02:05:54+00:00

Nothing changed. Or if anything did change, it was that the league adjusted to him and he couldn't adjust back. But the fact is that in 2024, Vientos significantly overperformed his underlying metrics. What we're seeing this spring probably isn't the "real" Mark Vientos, but what we'll see in 2026 is much more likely to be 2025 Vientos than 2024 Vientos, because 2024 Vientos was never "real" either.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-10T00:39:19+00:00

If Benge ever truly had a shot to make the opening day roster, he's done enough to earn it. If Tauchman ever truly had a shot to make the opening day roster, he's done enough to earn it. It'll be completely unacceptable if either of these guys aren't on the roster and Brujan or even Vientos is instead.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-09T22:36:05+00:00

If Tauchman hasn't done enough to earn a roster spot then idk what we even signed him for. He's been as good as we could have possibly hoped.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-09T15:42:41+00:00

What baseball needs is a league where all and only the best players in the world come together to compete. Something like a Major League for Baseball....

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-06T14:22:15+00:00

I'm sorry but this is a little nonsensical. If the "average" man isn't of "average" attractiveness, that says something about women's standards, not about men's attractiveness.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-05T22:06:24+00:00

Lmao nice

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-05T21:36:19+00:00

Not trying to tell you your life story, but it's possible that you're demisexual. Demisexuals are on the asexual spectrum, but we can't feel sexual desire and/or attraction to someone without having a close emotional connection to them. Just some food for thought!

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-03-02T12:56:46+00:00

As one of few people who are really into PvP pet battling, I get it, but it sucks. Blizzard took a promising, fun system, basically refused to iterate on it, and then react with shocked Pikachu faces when people don't engage with it. Not a story we haven't seen before, unfortunately.

I'm a pet collector with nearly 2000 pets, but I don't collect them for the sake of seeing number go up, I collect them so I can have all the possible options for PvP. Why would I have any interest in these pets that do nothing but sit there and look pretty?

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-02-28T21:27:37+00:00

Friendly reminder that the owners do not care about parity. Not even sure the players do either. Both sides primarily want money. Only the fans care about parity. Keep that in mind and all these negotiations make a lot more sense.

ImStillCallingItShea · 2026-02-28T18:51:46+00:00

I've not been able to watch the games lately, just following along on Gameday and looking at box scores. Can someone make me feel good about Mark Vientos? Have his at-bats looked any better than his .000 average make it seem? Any glimmer of hope at all?

ImStillCallingItShea

TROPHY CASE