Its only April, only a little over a week into the season, and the Mets are hotter than July. New York leads the majors in home runs and sits atop the eastern division with a 7-3 record.
Cespedes is just ridiculous
They swept the Phils and then last nights marathon 16 inning victory over the Fish gives them a five game winning streak. The extra inning game was the longest in the history of Marlins Park lasting five and a half hours.
From the 2016 mfc Mets Set
Gsellman had a rough night but the Mets bullpen was aces. Especially Josh Smoker and Hansel Robles who covered the final five innings. Blevins and Reed blanked Miami for 2 innings a each. Edgin, Montero and Blevins all did their jobs.
From the 2015 mfc Mets Set
And New York's offense is doing more than just launching long balls.
d'Arnaud ripped a bases loaded triple. Granderson singled in a run. And Conforto came off the bench to tie the game with an R.B.I. double.
Travis d'Arnaud led off the 16th inning with a home run, giving him a career-high four hits. D'Arnaud's homer came on the 475th pitch of the night.
Travis caught all 16 innings and took the crown.
New York has had a string of great games this week, baseball at it's best and a very nice way to start the season.
The Mets took it to the Phillies in brutal fashion as they pummeled Citizen Bank Ballpark with a barrage of hits, extra base hits, & home runs! When it was all over New York had hammered out a 14-4 victory and the Phils were totally demoralized.
The Mets launched seven homers and scored 14 runs on 20 hits. Yo had three gophers. The Dude had two. Cabrera, d'Arnaud, one each. Cabrera went 4-for-6, scored three runs and finished only a triple short of the cycle. Duda went 4-for-6, capping his night with a ninth-inning solo shot.
Cespedes crushed a three-run home run 411 feet to center field in the first inning, smashed a laser 428 feet down the left-field line in the fourth (back-to-back with Asdrubal Cabrera) and smoked a towering shot 382 feet to left in the fifth. Statcast™ listed their exit velocities at 105.2 mph, 109.3 mph and 108.3 mph, respectively. He doubled in the seventh to finish 4-for-6 with five RBIs.
"Can you imagine?" Cespedes said."I think any baseball player that hit three home runs would be having a lot of fun. It wasn't just fun for me, though. It was really great to see the whole team getting hits out there and having fun."
The Phillies had little luck against Mets right-hander Matt Harvey, who allowed five hits, two runs, one walk and struck out six in 5 2/3 innings, before he left with tightness in his left hamstring. Harvey said after the game that the tightness was nothing serious and he expects to make his next start Sunday in Miami.
Lucas Duda put the exclamation point on the rout in the sixth, when he hit a home run over the batter's eye in center field. It traveled a projected 448 feet, making it the fourth-longest homer in baseball this season, according to Statcast™. Duda hit a solo shot in the ninth for the Mets' seventh home run.
"It looked like a driving range out there the way he was hitting the ball," Mets manager Terry Collins said.
The Mets have hit seven home runs in a game three times in their history. All three have come against the Phillies, including an eight-homer barrage on Aug. 24, 2015. That game also marked the only other time the Mets have collected 14 or more extra-base hits.
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A Met has hit three home runs in a game 13 times, the last two courtesy of Yoenis Cespedes.
Player Date Opponent
Yoenis Cespedes- April 11, 2017 at Philadelphia
Yoenis Cespedes- Aug. 21, 2015 at Colorado Lucas Duda- July 29, 2015 vs. San Diego
Kirk Nieuwenhuis- July 12, 2015 vs. Arizona
Ike Davis- July 28, 2012 at Arizona
Carlos Beltran- May 12, 2011 at Colorado
Jose Reyes- Aug. 15, 2006 at Philadelphia
Edgardo Alfonzo- Aug. 30, 1999 at Houston
Gary Carter- Sept. 3, 1985 at San Diego
Darryl Strawberry- Aug. 5, 1985 at Chicago
Claudell Washington- June 22, 1980 at Los Angeles
Dave Kingman- June 4, 1976 at Los Angeles
Jim Hickman- Sept. 3, 1965 at St. Louis SNYs excellent intro from last nights game:
Lets get some cards for the current Mets squad out there.I love making the oldies but we have a season coming up and we have a team that any Mets fan has to be excited about. If we can stay healthy, always the big IF, we should be in the running. It would be nice to run away with it but one should never expect that. Anythings possible though. It's baseball!
So here's a few players on the 2017 Mets, and lets start getting excited, because before you know it baseball will be starting up again! Lets go Mets!
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Will Steven Matz have a bounce back year? He only pitched in 22 games in 2016 and gave us around 132 innings. He did have some high points. He actually got one Rookie Of The Year vote, which I found surprising.
After compiling a 4-0 win-loss record, a 1.83 ERA, and 31 strikeouts in May, he was named the National League Rookie of the Month. But after that he fell off, not winning a game in all of June and July. And then came the news of the bone spur in his elbow. He put off surgery and did pitch well in August, however, picking up his 9th win (he went 9-8, ,340 ERA). But the Mets shelved him on August 22nd (DL) and on September 27, it was announced that Matz would undergo surgery for the bone spur, therefore ending his season.
We need the full Matz. I'd like 30 starts, 180 innings from this youngster in 2017. From all our starters, really. I won't get any more specific that because you don't reach those numbers without doing well. Just get your work in and we should be fine. Mets pitching will have to step it up with Bartolo Colon and his massive inning eating stomach currently in Atlanta feeding itself.
Now it's all up to our our talented young arms..
This is exciting.
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Some players should always be pictured doing what they do best. Lagares tracking down a fly ball. Centerfield should be interesting in 2017. Especially since they have thrown Jose Reyes into the mix.
I have high hopes for Gsellman. This righty went 4-2 in 8 starts and compiled a nice 2.42 ERA.
He pitched in some pressure spots too, so I think this guy can handle pitching in New York.
I'm going to over compensate for the Lucas Duda/ Eric Campbell Topps error. What a way to start the baseball card season. Ha!
Duda will get one mfc joke card and two regular issue in an effort to balance the scales due to Topps impropriety. The up side is we should see another Duda in this years Topps set (if it is corrected, and it should be this early in), hopefully with his actual photo on it.
Eric Campbell went the free agent route and in December 2016 he signed with the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. He played in 40 games for New York last season, so eventually he will get a '17mfc card.
Lucas is going to have a breakout year (I say this every year, lol). Well, that's if he plays. I hear talk of David Wright moving to first base. Where will that leave Duda? I don't ever want to see him playing the outfield again, that's for sure. I hope Wright is healthy enough to handle third base all season and the Dude gets every opportunity to excel at first base. I really don't expect to see Dom Smith up early unless something has gone wrong. I hope to see a little bit of Smith in September.
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I've already displayed the 2017mfc Cespedes and his card back, but I don't think I showed them together, so here they are.
I'm not sure if all the card backs will be based on the 84t design. I chose that here because it's one of my favorites. I might stick with it, might switch it up a bit. If I do go with more than one design from the past I imagine they'll all be pre-1990. They seem more baseball cardish to me.
So I guess there will be a card number followed by the players uniform number. I just make it up as I go along. Only Mets stats, to keep it as simple as possible (Wright & Reyes are gonna be a bitch though, lol). Also, only player cards will have facsimile backs, not season highlight cards.
I'd like to make a limited amount of the 2017 Mets player cards (the set will consist of 55 cards) available for purchase to Mets fans and card collectors through this blog if there is enough interest.
You can contact me here, at zvon58@hotmail.com, or on facebook.
Using the 2017 Topps border as inspiration I have come up with this design for the 2017 mfc Mets Season Set cards. I can't say this is the final version. There's is plenty of time between now and the '17 season and I'm always messing with stuff. I'm not totally satisfied with it. But I've also been working on it off and on all day and I'm sick of looking at it. ;) Maybe if I step off a few days I'll view it differently. Any suggestions or criticism is welcome.
Photo by Steve Moore
I do like this though. It contains elements of the Topps design, includes a border based on that design, and I unscrunched the best logo known to man and the universe, which was a priority. With this more horizontal/verticle layout (as opposed to the Topps slant) I can complete the font work much quicker. It also provides plenty of space for the player picture, always a concern for me. Hearing Cespedes during the press conference this afternoon really pumped me up for 2017.
Cespedes: "..Godwilling, I will finish up my career with this team." Alderson: " Godwilling and a no trade clause, by the way."
The waiting was, of course, the hardest part. But we didn't have to wait all that long. I figured this wouldn't be resolved until after the New Year, but here we are, not even December yet and we have the gift that hopefully keeps on giving, Yoenis Cespedes.
So now we can all relax and enjoy the upcoming holidays with talk of "will we get Yo back?" off the table. I didn't think we could get him to take four years (@$110 million). I figured five minimum. This is a great deal and fantastic news! Thank you for pulling this off Mr. Alderson! And thank you for deciding to stay, Mr. Cespedes! You have made all Mets fans very happy campers.
Already the 2017 season is going well and it's not even 2017 yet. I like.
I didn't see the Topps 2017 baseball card design until I heard the news about Yo earlier today and decided I had to make a card to celebrate. Overall it's a great design.
But I have my little idiosyncrasies. Once again, as in 2016, Topps messed with the best logo known to man and the universe. This time they scrunched it! AHHHH!
Also, no defined border.
So more than likely the final MFC design for 2017 will add a border of some kind and I'll most certainly be unscrunching the logo to make it as Gotto intended, circular.
There's an outside chance I might design a 2017 Season Set border from scratch. The angled font and logo were particularly painful to reproduce. Topps is getting difficult ;) .
The card above is just a quick mock up job to add to the celebration.
When re-worked this card will be numero uno of the mfc2017 Mets Season Set!
Everything revolves around if we retain Yoenis Cespedes.
At least in my mind.
Do I want him to stay a Met? Of course I do. Do I care about the money? No, more so the years. He's no spring chicken. Whatever the cost (within reason, which has very little to do with today's salaries), I feel he will be worth it.
I think we can safely say we know what we have in Cespy. Awesome feats of strength and flash as well as moments of weak doltishness. I don't think he's ever seen a curve ball he didn't love. But he hits a lot of 'em. Some that you would think were unreachable. Some go very, very far.
He has lapses of judgement and laziness in the field and sometimes on the bases (usually the running to first base part, which many players don't seem to consider important these days). He picks and chooses his spots to go full steam, which I have no problem with.
When he decides to give the game his all, which to be fair is a good 90+% of the time, he does amasticazeing things.
At the end of August I was starting to worry that the Mets were going to fall off. Their offense went through one of those sluggish phases. And then Cespedes hit this walk-off and it totally revitalized my season from a fans standpoint. It renewed my confidence in the team. It may have had the same effect on the team itself, which was floundering. New York was 15-14 during the dog days. After the night Yoenis banged that sudden death bomb the Mets went 20-10 to close the season.
You could call this one above a lack of judgement but it showed me how he is willing to go beyond any and all expectations at times. Also that he's kinda insane and that doesn't hurt.
We need Cespedes.
If not him, someone like him in the thick of the line-up. There are other players out there who could possibly fill the void should he not re-up. But let's not even go there yet.
Yo's here and we know he can thrive under the hot lights of NYC. So Mr. Alderson, try your best to make the deal. Get it over with so we Mets fans can start thinking about other problems we can bug you about.
Right now we all wish for one thing...
