Cover: Go-Time?

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Go-Time?
By Matt "The Stat" Himelfarb
Posted Monday, August 6, 2007

In the face of political ramifications and possible treason resulting in jail time, a wise young man once wrote arguably one of the most famous and carefully crafted pieces of writing in American history. That’s right, under such circumstances, Thomas Paine managed to write his “Common Sense” pamphlet, rallying thousands of supporters on the brink of war.

But do Mets fans really find something as simple as finding a proper second baseman anywhere close to common sense? Apparently not.

Prof. Matt "The Stat" Himelfarb persuades us that the Mets' recent acquisition of Luis Castillo from the Twins for second base is a good solid move, and is really just about common sense and some foresight.

Read entire article here: http://www.flushinguniversity.com/mo...s/gotime.shtml

[John Peterson]

What a weird article, Matt. Reading the teaser in the RSS feed, and the beginning of the piece, I thought you were saying that Castillo should be the everyday 2B... certainly a strange point, coming from you.

But then it turns out that you're saying the opposite.

The hinge is the point that it was a good trade, but because the Mets don't follow common sense, Castillo will be the everyday 2B by default.

If you use the Lineup Analysis tool at baseballmusings.com, inserting Castillo and Lo Duca rather than Gotay and Castro, the #2 hitter in the worst possible lineups is always either Castillo or Lo Duca. That's because having slugging percentage in the #2 slot is extremely important.

Of, course, it's not as important as "doing the little things." David Wright (the ideal #2 on the Mets) doesn't know how to do the little things, apparently.

[Matt Himelfarb]

What a weird article, Matt. Reading the teaser in the RSS feed, and the beginning of the piece, I thought you were saying that Castillo should be the everyday 2B... certainly a strange point, coming from you.

But then it turns out that you're saying the opposite.

The hinge is the point that it was a good trade, but because the Mets don't follow common sense, Castillo will be the everyday 2B by default.

If you use the Lineup Analysis tool at baseballmusings.com, inserting Castillo and Lo Duca rather than Gotay and Castro, the #2 hitter in the worst possible lineups is always either Castillo or Lo Duca. That's because having slugging percentage in the #2 slot is extremely important.

Of, course, it's not as important as "doing the little things." David Wright (the ideal #2 on the Mets) doesn't know how to do the little things, apparently.

Just for the reocrd, I was in favor of the trade, but the main idea was that playing Gotay over Castillo was simply common sense.

And I competely agree about the number two hole. As I've said before, the number 3 hole is overrated since they're most likely to come out with nobody on and two out. (Although it's possible that'd change even teams simply put their two best hitters in the 1-2 slot.)