Crazy Mets fan: "souvenir? I don't want no stinkin' souvenir!"

In the 4th inning today, A-Rod blasted a foul HR, deep to left field:


Apparently that confused fan wanted no part of the $12.99 baseball that beat the odds and made it up to his section. Forget that it had a commemorative logo honoring the last season at Shea. Forget that it was hit by possibly the greatest HR hitter of all time. Forget that it was a FOUL BALL, and did not tie the game, or have any impact on the score. That guy must have always wanted to "throw it back" and for better or for worse, he was going to do it.

Kudos to him... I guess.

Talk about it in the NYYSI Forums! Read the full post, after the jump

Subway Doubleheader scheduled for June 27, 2008

MLB announced the date of the gimmicky double header...

courtesy of rotoworld.com:

The Mets and Yankees will play a two-stadium doubleheader on June 27 to make up for the game that was rained out last month.
Major League Baseball announced Friday that the Yankees will host the Mets at 2:05 p.m. and the teams will play again at Shea Stadium at 8:10 p.m. The night game was originally scheduled for 7:10 p.m. but was pushed back to accommodate the teams switching stadiums.

This would have been cool and newsworthy if it hadn't been done before
.

For the record, the Yankees swept both of those "Subway doubleheaders". Lets hope for the same result.
Talk about it in the NYYSI Forums! Read the full post, after the jump

PECOTA Projected Standings - Yankees are # 1

UPDATE: Projected standings have been revised

American League, ranked by projected 2008 record

East	W	L	RS	RA
New York Yankees	97	65	882	727
Boston Red Sox	91	71	837	738
Tampa Bay Rays	89	73	785	714
Toronto Blue Jays	79	83	768	775
Baltimore Orioles	65	97	746	889

I guess it is getting a little carried away tracking this so closely, but what else is there to do in February.

Original Post (2/16/08):

Its an exciting day as the first round of PECOTA projected standings have been released. To my surprise, PECOTA projects the Yankees as the best team in the land and finishing with 96 wins. Check out PECOTA's projected AL standings (courtesy of Nate Silver over at Baseball Prospectus:

American League, ranked by projected 2008 record

East	W	L	RS
New York Yankees	96	66	885
Boston Red Sox	93	69	840
Toronto Blue Jays	83	79	766
Tampa Bay Rays	82	80	788
Baltimore Orioles	69	93	742
Central	W	L	RS
Cleveland Indians	89	73	835
Detroit Tigers	89	73	842
Chicago White Sox	77	85	780
Minnesota Twins	74	88	709
Kansas City Royals	71	91	741
West	W	L	RS
Los Angeles Angels	89	73	810
Oakland Athletics	78	84	732
Texas Rangers	74	88	788
Seattle Mariners	73	89	691

I'm gonna go ahead and blame this guy

YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EATEN CURT SCHILLING, BECKETT - NOW PECOTA PROJECTS YOU IN SECOND PLACE!!

and lets take a look at this quote from Papelbon yesterday:

"If we're not the team to beat," Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon said Thursday, "I'd like to know who is. I think that our No. 1 thing is to stay healthy. If we do that, I don't know who can really compete with us."

Obviously, PECOTA is just a computer running projections, but considering what they are showing, maybe Paps shouldn't so damn cocky? An attitude like that is why people all over America are starting to hate the Red Sox as much as they hate the Yankees.

As a final note - I didn't post the NL projected standings, but PECOTA also projects the Mets with 96 wins as the best team in the NL. Subway Series 2008 anyone?


Link to PECOTA 2008 MLB projected standings (paid content)

Link to Nate Silver mini-analysis of projected standings Read the full post, after the jump