Comments on: The dumbest thing you’ll read today

By: smokehouse56

smokehouse56 — Sun, 08 May 2011 12:30:55 +0000

Not living in the cesspool that’s called New York, one has to wonder about their team and especially their so called sports writers and fans. Let me be clear folker in NY. Jose Reyes is a fine SS and would be a welcome edition to any team in fly-over country. Can’t understand your band wagon mentality. You don’t deserve any of the team you have.

By: diehardcubbiefan4life

diehardcubbiefan4life — Sun, 08 May 2011 03:10:06 +0000

Whata chipwich.

By: Sign Ahead

Sign Ahead — Sat, 07 May 2011 20:47:55 +0000

Darn it, tomemos! It’s not NICE to make me shoot milk out my nose.

By: fquaye149

fquaye149 — Sat, 07 May 2011 20:26:21 +0000

Which is why they won the division by a very narrow margin over the “non-red light” (???) Mets and didn’t do a g-darned thing in the playoffs? Gotcha.

By: tomemos

tomemos — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:40:11 +0000

“I have never seen a site that let so many idiots post like this one.”

I think your grammar said more than you meant it to there.

By: chrisny3

chrisny3 — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:09:06 +0000

aburns, while I agree that there are some Mets fans who knock Reyes or Wright (but rarely both), they are in the minority. Go to metsblog.com and look at the posts. The overwhelming majority of Mets fans seem to want to keep both players.

Regardless, go to the Forbes article that D.J. linked to. There are archives listed there for Van Riper. He wrote a ridiculous article about how the Dodgers should move back to Brooklyn and MLB should “dissolve” the Mets. No Mets fan I’ve ever come across has ever advocated for their team to be dissolved. Ever. So Van Riper is definitely a fan of another team. I’m guessing Yankees, Red Sox, or possibly even the Dodgers (based on his prior writing).

By: oneshot386

oneshot386 — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:04:39 +0000

I have never seen a site that let so many idiots post like this one. I mean really guys, people really believe that reyes is better than rollins. Give me a f*cking break!!

By: aburns77

aburns77 — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:01:06 +0000

Yes Francesca does say that, but my point was more generally that Mets fans I know and have heard frequently downplay both Reyes’ and Wright’s value and say how both of them should be traded all the time and I don’t think that’s fair. Both of these guys are very talented and would make any ballclub better and I think that on the whole Mets fans want to blame them for their teams’ failures when in fact their failures are really more of a product of the front office (cough Minaya cough) not putting enough talent around them. Of course there is a large group of Mets fans who don’t feel that way, but they’re not nearly as vocal or as prevalent as the haters out there.

By: solidzac

solidzac — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:56:13 +0000

Also, keep in mind that for as good as they were, the Phillies in 2007 were basically one really terrible Tom Glavine start away from not making it to the postseason, not fulfilling Rollins’s prediction and possibly not winning the MVP.

By: chrisny3

chrisny3 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:55:54 +0000

Stupidest comment I’ve ever seen, but then Van Riper habitually rips everything Mets — from the owners to all the players.

He’s definitely not a Mets fan, as he’s called for MLB to ‘dissolve” the Mets. I think he’s either a Yankees or Red Sox fan.

As for Rollins, he’s a good player but Reyes is better. Rollins has been helped by playing in a hitters haven for his entire career, while Reyes has always played in parks favoring pitchers.

By: chrisny3

chrisny3 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:49:32 +0000

Just looked back at Van Riper’s archives. He’s definitely not a Mets fan. Everything he writes he rips the Mets — from the owners to all the players, And he called for MLB to “dissolve” the Mets. No fan of the team would ever call for that.

Don’t know for sure, but I bet he is a Yankees fan.

By: epi44

epi44 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:43:53 +0000

LOL at the Rollins MVP. His mystical MVP year he put up a line of (.296 /.344 /.531 /.875) with an OPS+ of 119. Good year, but certainly not MVP worthy. He wasn’t even the best player on his team that year, Utley was. And for comparison sake “non-winner” David Wright put up a .325/.416 /.546 /.963 line with an OPS+ of 149; including a 1.034 OPS in Sept. Matt Holliday was also a monster that yr, especially down the stretch…Rollins winning was a joke.

Rollins’ “MVP year” actually had a lower OPS+ than any full season of Wright’s career…even the last 2 seasons the worst two of Wright’s career which was considered a let down (and many Mets fans complained about) he had OPS+es of 124 and 131.

And lets not forget it took 8 full seasons into “winner” Jimmy Rollins’ career before he even won a single playoff game. So if we really are going to judge players by their teams success, Rollins was as big of a “loser” as anyone until he was a couple months shy of 30.

By: mikedi33

mikedi33 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:42:00 +0000

Alot of revisionist history here. The Phils were not stacked in 2007 but the underdogs in the division going in. certain players are red light players and the Phils are blessed to have some while the Mets do not.

By: clydeserra

clydeserra — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:37:15 +0000

true MVP then

By: chrisny3

chrisny3 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:35:54 +0000

Also, most Mets fans want Reyes back.

By: chrisny3

chrisny3 — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:34:48 +0000

Disagree. Sounds like a Yankees fan to me. I listen to sports radio in NY and most of those who knock Reyes and Wright are Yankees fans or fans of other teams. Mike Francessa who is NY’s biggest sports radio host and is a biased Yankees fan constantly knocks those two.

By: solidzac

solidzac — Sat, 07 May 2011 18:09:45 +0000

“Rollins won the NL MVP when the Phils were trotting out Moyer, Hamels, and Eaton.”

I’m not about to argue that their 2008 rotation was one for the ages or anything, but Hamels’s ERA + in 2008 was a very good 146, 3 points higher than Oswalt’s last year. Further, Moyer’s was a very solid 118, or 4 points higher than A.J. Burnett’s in 2009 when the Yanks won it all.

By: chadjones27

chadjones27 — Sat, 07 May 2011 17:51:23 +0000

Rollins won the NL MVP when the Phils were trotting out Moyer, Hamels, and Eaton. Not exactly what I’d call a great pitching staff.

By: nicosamuelson2

nicosamuelson2 — Sat, 07 May 2011 17:21:24 +0000

Reyes > Rollins.

By: Cran Boy

Cran Boy — Sat, 07 May 2011 17:01:03 +0000

I think it was Bill James who said that it’s a sign of a messed-up franchise when its failings are attributed to its best players. Reyes, Wright, pre-injury Beltran…pretty much sums it up.

By: Jonny 5

Jonny 5 — Sat, 07 May 2011 16:52:04 +0000

It’s as if he didn’t even see the play.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 07 May 2011 16:06:56 +0000

Sorry the end should say he should have been more like Rollins.***

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 07 May 2011 16:06:06 +0000

Maybe you could help explain something for me. I’d love to believe Rollins carried the team. He’s a great guy. And he even said they were the team to beat. I just thought I’d point out how he’s carried the team during the playoffs:

Career NLDS: 246/306/439 (745 OPS)
Career NLCS: 212/278/303 (581 OPS)
Career WS: 222/308/267 (574 OPS)

When they won the WS vs TB: 227/261/318 (579 OPS)

Maybe you can help me out here because I’m just a tiny bit confused. Rollins carried the team, right? I’m obviously not that good at understand baseball, because I thought having a 600 OPS was not a good thing. And would not be considered carrying a team. Since when did this become a standard of carrying the team?

But you’re right. Jose Reyes totally let the team down. Not the pitching, none of the other players, none of the injuries. It was squarely on Jose Reyes. He should have been more like Reyes and posted a sub 600 OPS to “carry” the Mets.

By: clydeserra

clydeserra — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:44:39 +0000

He wasn’t the best player on his team that year, Chase Utley was, 7.7 WAR to 6.3. Utley payed 30 less games too.

By: cktai

cktai — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:44:28 +0000

Smart move of Rollins to start carrying his team right when a fresh batch of talent joined his team though.

By: cktai

cktai — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:39:17 +0000

And I here I thought that the Phillies succes was thanks to the breakout seasons that Hamels, Utley, Ruiz, Victorino and Werth all had in 2007.

By: oneshot386

oneshot386 — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:38:19 +0000

How about thing he won, thats right, I think its called NL MVP. What has reyes ever won since being in the league???

By: davebrownspiral

davebrownspiral — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:28:23 +0000

If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t Rollins National League MVP in 2007?

By: paperlions

paperlions — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:23:19 +0000

When has Rollins ever carried a team? He has never even been close to the best player on his own team, and all of the Philly teams that were successful have been stacked. By definition, no one carries teams like Philly, NYY, or Boston, because those teams have so much talent in the field and on the mound….no one is ever doing it by themselves.

By: aburns77

aburns77 — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:14:32 +0000

Nothing against Rollins, but I think you’re giving him a little too much credit for the success of the Phillies. You look at their roster top to bottom and it’s very solid, which is why they can lose a guy like Utley for a couple of months and still be the best in the NL. You can argue that Wright and Reyes aren’t winners I guess, but they’ve never had a pitching staff and a deep lineup that comes anywhere near what the Phils are trotting out there everyday.