As I watched Ryan Braun hit a 700-foot home run tonight to put the Brewers ahead in the 8th inning of a 1-1 potentially division-clinching game, I couldn’t help thinking of how he had cemented his claim to the MVP award and how he is the type of player the Mets no longer have. Fred Wilpon was right when he said David Wright is “a nice player, not a superstar.” And that depresses the living shit out of me.

This is not a “TRAID DAVID WRONGZ” post, but an honest take on what is a baffling decline that started at the age of 26. Besides, there’s no way the Mets could get enough value in a Wright trade, considering the one-year option they hold on him only applies to their team. Wright is not going anywhere, even if Jose Reyes might be a different story. You could argue that Reyes took the superstar title from Wright this season, but the total derailing of his season in the second half has only created more questions with regards to his durability. Much like Wright last year, he had a MVP first half only to put up middling numbers thereafter. If Reyes manages to still win the batting title, it will be the definition of an empty victory.

I think I mention the following any time I talk about Wright’s fall from the top of baseball, but the great Bill James himself named Wright the player he would choose to build a team around before the 2008 season (but he named Albert Pujols the best player). It’s like this 60 Minutes interview was the kiss of death for both Wright and the Mets. Since then, Mets fans have just become more frustrated and perplexed with the purported face of their franchise. Sure, Wright had one more great season in 2008, but he’s remembered for not coming through in a couple of big spots late in the season by all too many people. Since then, it has become nigh impossible for me to defend him against my father, poker buddies, or that random dude in the bar.

The issue now is not just his clutchness, but his overall level of performance. He’s gone from a hitter you could pencil in for .300/30/100 every year to one whose performance fluctuates immensely from year to year and week to week. One season his power disappears, another he regains his power stroke but consequently strikes out at an alarming rate, and now this year his batting line is the worst it has ever been — despite looking like he had finally gotten it back together after his stint on the DL. Throw in his fielding woes and you have a player that is a shell of his former self and objectively inferior to his contemporaries, Evan Longoria and Ryan Zimmerman (although the latter has struggled with his own throwing yips). There’s also Pablo Sandoval and the already scary-good Brett Lawrie in the young third basemen discussion.

Does all this mean the Mets can’t make the playoffs or (gasp) win a World Series with Wright manning the hot corner? Of course not. But it does mean that expectations might need to be tempered and that the Mets front office needs to embrace the reality of needing to build an actual team, not the real-life equivalent of the fantasy baseball stars-and-scrubs approach. And I’m sure Sandy Alderson and his self-assembled dream team realize this — it’s just going to take a little while to undo the damage wrought by Omar Minaya. By that time, the Mets will need to make a decision on Wright, just like they will have to do with Reyes this offseason.

No one can predict how the next year or two will play out. Perhaps the rumored changes to Citi Field will help Wright get back to his 2006-08 level of play and the Mets will pick up his option while giving him a contract extension (especially if they don’t sign Reyes). Or he can sink further into his personal defensive hell at third base and combine that with slightly above-average performance at the plate so that he’s barely worth the $16 million club option for 2013.

I just know it’s not fun watching teams intentionally walk Angel fucking Pagan to load the bases for David Wright, and then expecting the strikeout that inevitably comes. It’s crushing for any Met fan to bear witness to a player seemingly destined for the Hall of Fame turn into a hitter totally disregarded as a threat at the age of 28. It’s something that would never happen to Evan Longoria or Ryan Braun, and that absolutely destroys me inside. Wright was to be the cornerstone player who, in tandem with Jose Reyes, would lead a Mets dynasty for a decade or more. Now there’s a very real possibility that — without ever reaching a World Series — the latter will be gone, while the Mets are left with half of the former. It’s enough to make a man want to watch football.

A Bad 9 Holes of Golf
I don’t even need to play a full round of terrible golf before I want to drive my golf cart into the Great South Bay. Multiple three-putts combined with sand traps equipped with golf ball tractor beams is a recipe for me snapping a club in half and cursing out any human being who dares open his mouth.

When An Answer To A Sporcle Quiz Is Kyrgyzstan
You really expect me to spell that correctly? I hate you and your stupid face, person who came up with that quiz.

Mets Fans Who Don’t Like David Wright
What the fuck is wrong with these people? Is this a Wire situation where its 5th season was maligned due to being obviously inferior to its predecessors, even though it was still better than 95% of television? David Wright from 2005-08 — while not quite as valuable as Albert Pujols or Chase Utley — was arguably the first player you would pick to build a team around; Bill James even said so himself on 60 Minutes before the 2008 season. And even though Wright’s taken a frustrating step back the past two seasons, he’s still been worth ~4 wins each year. He’s the only guy that’s been on a field consistently the past four disastrous seasons. But you want him off the team because he has been striking out more than you’d like. Ok, I’ll admit the throwing errors are frustrating. You still don’t deserve David Wright.

The Fact That American Idol Is Still The Highest Rated Show On TV
Do any of its viewers actually listen to the performers? This includes my parents, as they are the sole reason I am forced to acknowledge the show’s existence. Any time I overhear someone signing, it confirms my suspicions that the talent pool has been diluted to the level of a high school audition. I cannot wrap my head around the ratings this terrible competition receives.

Oh Wait, Jersey Shore Is Ten Times Worse
You are the reason The Situation makes more money than you. You enabled Snooki to “write” a book. If this is ever aired in the Middle East, al-Qaeda’s recruiters will have a watermark year.

Thinking One Of My Tweets Is Awesome Only To See It Not Get RT’d
Fuck all you people for not recognizing my momentary genius! Twitter is dumb anyway! *cries*

An Extended Death Streak in CoD/CS/DoD/Quake/Unreal/Halo/Any FPS
Is there anything that makes you want to throw your controller anymore than getting repeatedly murdered in the digital realm? If I’m going to die, I want to bring at least one virtual guy down with me. Re-spawning under airstrikes, getting killed by camping snipers, dying to a random grenade, or just being legitimately terrible are all grounds for rage-quitting while yelling “FUCK THIS”.

When A Favorite Streaming Porn Video Disappears
A part of my penis dies whenever this happens. And it’s not like I have an ample amount to spare.

Whenever I Think Of How Much (Spam) Traffic I Lost By Moving To Self-Hosting
“Hey, it’d probably be a cool idea to get some storage space on the internet for all those GIFs. You could self-host your blog, too. Maybe even try adding one of those Google ads just for curiosity’s sake. Nevermind that you got linked by Deadspin and Fark on the old URL. Ignore the fact that over a year later, you’ll still have a fraction of the traffic and comments you had before you changed that URL and moved away from WordPress.com. And you won’t ever bother with that whole ad idea because it was pointless in the first place.” I suck at the internet sometimes.

These Two Tweets
How is it possible for someone to believe this? Has anyone ever been more wrong in the history of mankind?

Myself
What a waste of a human being. I need to write a script about a guy who goes back in time to stop himself from being born, based on myself. The Abortinator. Can you imagine the paradoxes?

- The difference between the David Wright mentions in my last two REAL TALK posts is hilarious and depressing. June: He’s awesome! August: He sucks!

- How is it that women just know when you have given up on or forgotten them and subsequently decide to initiate intimacies again?

- The Prisoner (1967) is one of the weirdest television shows I have ever seen, but it also has one of the best openings ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AL7npkSXZE

- Who decided Chris Bosh was a great basketball player? I’m asking because due to my lack of basketball knowledge nowadays, I was led to believe he would make a perfect third man for the Wade-LeBron duo. Is this like the baseball writers who thought Jeff Francoeur was good?

- Someone needs to manufacture a breathalyser for people to log on to their computers.

- I think forgetting to wear a belt for the second time in a month is grounds for being committed (I’m losing my mind).

-  The American public seriously needs to stop being averse to subtitles. Inglourious Basterds did well because it was by Quentin Tarantino and featured plenty of English, allowing it to hide the presence of subtitles in its marketing. I remember telling my “boss” to watch it and when I mentioned subtitles he groaned and I wanted to slam his face into the nearby desk.

- I must be one of the few internet-obsessed people left in the Western world without a smartphone.

- As great as the Mets’ front office now is, it’s going to be a depressingly inactive offseason for them. But hearing your GM say that their top starting pitching prospect is not going to be used in the bullpen as a stopgap anymore can’t help but be encouraging.

- Building a PC is less intimidating to me than preparing a multi-course dinner for two. Unfortunately, only the latter helps you get laid.

- I feel like such a massive douchenozzle for ever doubting David Wright. I didn’t draft him with either of my first-round draft picks in fantasy, and he was gone by both my second picks. And then I allowed him to go for $33 in my auction draft. That actually is decently high, but I paid more for Prince Fielder. What a fuckface I am.

- I admit it: I’ve never gotten the appeal of the “Auto-Tune the News” thing.

- I just saw some people describe the first two seasons of Friday Night Lights as soap opera-y. Sorry, I only watch soap operas with amazing production values that air on AMC.

- Speaking of which, I think I’m going to end up buying this poster.

- It’s kinda amazing how FIFA consists of more national teams than their are member states in the United Nations. Especially considering how much a joke FIFA seems to be.

- It took until I was 24 years old for me to get my first, “I used to have a crush on you.” I feel like that’s kinda sad.

- Red Dead Redemption convinced me to tell myself not to buy any games for a while (except for Starcraft 2). Steam constantly makes such a pronouncement extremely difficult to adhere to. Really, Left 4 Dead 2 for 10 bucks? Yet I resisted. Perhaps I am developing some semblance of willpower.

- I think we can all agree that The Shield has one of the best series finales of all-time. But it also has one of the best series premieres. What other show(s) can say that?

- Do not slam your putter length-wise into the ground, no matter how half-assed you might think the slam will be.

- Girls really do dig guys with iPhones – I witnessed it firsthand. Maybe I should carry around my iPod Touch and pretend it’s an iPhone.

- INCEPTION is less than three weeks away. I wonder how many (more) wet dreams I’ll have about it between now and July 16th.

- In case you were wondering: yes, oil is still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. I say we nuke the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. I’m so original.

If I didn’t make it clear with the last post, I’m keeping track of all these tweets because I know they eventually disappear (into the Library of Congress archives), and I also like to expand on the 140-character comparisons.

Once again, hit the jump for the fun with numbers.

5/7

Cal Ripken Jr.: 3185 hits, 8893 outs. Tony Gwynn: 3141 hits, 6662 outs.

This is just to show that not all 3,000 hit club members are made alike. Career-wise, Ripken is probably the worst hitter out of all 27 members. Meanwhile, Tony Gwynn was able to slap the ball around wherever he wanted, even at 350 pounds.

5/8

Jamie Moyer: 2362 K, 1122 BB. Tom Glavine: 2607 K, 1500 BB.

I don’t like Tom Glavine. I believe he’s only going to make the Hall of Fame because he was so durable and played for the winningest team of the 90s (for some reason, there’s no easy google search to confirm this, and I’m not doing the math to compare them to the Yankees). He also got half a foot off the plate until Questek came around. What better way to belittle him than to compare him to Jamie Moyer? This has nothing to do with that final game of 2007, nope.

5/9

Perfect games: 19. Unassisted triple plays: 15. Four-HR games: 15.

Sure, the unassisted triple play is all luck — as opposed to the other two — but they are all cool numbers anyway.

5/10

Livan Hernandez: 1.04 ERA. Livan Hernandez: 5.18 xFIP.

What this means is that this Cuban defector is due to fall back to earth. Hard.

5/11

David Wright, Career: .308/.389/.519. David Wright, 2010: .293/.417/.552.

His 2010 numbers have fallen a bit in the past few days, and now he’s even more in line with his career stats, at least when it comes to OBP and SLG. Sure, he’s striking out an obscene amount — which is frustrating as hell — but he’s still by far the best hitter on the Mets. And also one of the better hitters in baseball.

5/12

Brady Anderson: 210 HR, 315 SB. Derek Jeter: 228 HR, 308 SB. @PixelGorilla

Proof that I give my fans what they want. PixelGorilla asked for a Brady Anderson comparison, so I gave him one.

5/13

Tom Glavine: 4413.1 IP, 118 ERA+, 1.74 K/BB. Bert Blyleven: 4970 IP, 118 ERA+, 2.80 K/BB.

More Glavine hate, sorta. Or more just pointing out that if Glavine is a no-doubt Hall of Famer, than so should be Blyleven.

5/14

2010 Nationals, May 14th: 20-15. 2009 Nationals, June 19th: 20-46.

This is just mind-blowing. I can’t believe the Washington Nationals are 20-15. And they haven’t even called up Strasburg yet. Fuck me.

I’d say this is as good a time as any to gush about the guy who will become — if he isn’t already — the best position player the Mets have ever had.

In the 868 games he’s played, he’s racked up 143 HR, 575 RBI, and 126 SB, while hitting at a .308/.391/.517 clip. Of course, during the SNY broadcast of tonight’s game, Gary Cohen had to put Wright in company with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, saying that only those three New York players reached 1,000 hits in that few games with that many home runs. That’s stretching it a little bit, but Wright’s career is certainly off to an awesome start and anyone that booed him this past week deserves to have beer poured on his head.

Looking at those HR and SB totals got me thinking that Wright could possibly become a member of the 300-300 club — a club I didn’t realize included Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley until I just looked it up. Sure, it might also include Barry and Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays, and Andre Dawson, but those two other guys kinda sour it, don’t they? At least if we’re talking about Hall of Fame status. Both of them are behind even Jim Rice in career WAR!

But then I thought of another stat to add to that club: a .300 average. That eliminates all but Willie Mays (yes, Barry Bonds’ career average is only .298). If David Wright somehow manages to maintain that all-important .300 number, people will be talking about him in company with Willie Mays all the time. The Hall of Fame couldn’t be far behind.

Sure, I may be perpetuating the idea of these stupid arbitrary clubs, but even I have to admit they’re kinda fun sometimes. Everyone loves round numbers, and the beauty of a .300-300-300 club cannot be denied. I probably should have named this post after the idea because it’s so awesome.

Plugging Wright’s career stats into the quick and dirty Bill James career assessments formula, he has a 91% chance of reaching 300 HR, and a 72% chance of reaching 300 SB. I’d say the former percentage is spot-on, but even I’m not that optimistic about 300 SB. I feel like a player’s SB totals decline faster with age than his HR counts, but I forget if this has actually been proven or not. But it seems obvious, doesn’t it? Either way, the .300 average might be the toughest to end his career with.

Admittedly, the 300-300 club is going to explode in the next few years, as Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Beltran are all locks. And Mike Cameron and Bobby Abreu will probably enter it as well. Even Derek Jeter has a shot. But out of all those, A-Rod and Jeter (the two Yankees, of course) are the ones who would be hitting over .300. And A-Rod isn’t a lock for that batting average milestone, since he’s signed with the Yankees for I believe the next 28 years. He’s bound to continue his decline and he’s sitting at only .305 right now.

In ten years we might be looking at a snazzy .300-300-300 club that everyone can love, and it will possibly contain Mays, A-Rod, Jeter and Wright.

Man, people will only hate New York even more once this is plastered all over ESPN. But I hope you’ll remember you heard it here first.*

*Or at least pretend that I’m actually the first person to ever say this. I did the requisite Googling and I didn’t find anything, but nothing on the internet is original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTRvlrP2NU

In related news, I really want Tom Watson to win the Masters at 60 years old, just so no one can pretend golf is a sport anymore.

The other commercial is not bizarre — just homoerotic. I feel like anything involving a male cast member of Jersey Shore is bound to have gay undertones, and I guess non-Mets fans will argue that David Wright has the same effect. Fuck you.

I present to you a Vitamin Water commercial starring David Wright and The Situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W-nCmN_Ovk

- David Wright’s 2009 was an anomaly. And I still love him. I’m ashamed that I didn’t have enough faith in him to fight off all bidders for him in my auction league. FORGIVE ME.

- Albert Pujols proved once again he is not of this earth.

- Roy Halladay is going to absolutely roll over the National League. 7 IP, 1 R, 9 K will be a normal line for him this year.

- Jason Heyward is truly the Messiah. Goddamn it.

- Mark Buehrle is able to do whatever he wants on the baseball field.

On a side note, having to watch a commercial before watching a one minute highlight is fucking bullshit. The NHL allows all sorts of highlights on YouTube, why can’t the MLB? I guess because the latter is a real league.

- The Royals are unbelievably awful and Zack Greinke — if he does win another Cy Young — will do it in spite of the pure ineptitude around him.

- Livan Hernandez — before yesterday — led active pitchers in Opening Day starts. How the fuck did that happen?

- Pitching like dog shit doesn’t hurt your extension negotiations, Josh Beckett.

- Tiger Woods tried to ruin the most holy day of the year. Cheat on your wife all you want, just don’t have a bullshit press conference on Opening Day, douchebag.

I’ll also be shocked if the season closes out without Johan Santana getting hit in the face with a line drive. As embarrassing as it was to see Santana throw behind Pablo “Kung-Fu Panda” Sandoval in retaliation, and then let up a home run to the fat fuck, I guess it was better than the aforementioned scenario. If Parnell throws another gem like he did yesterday, I’d probably store him away for the rest of the season.

So the Mets lineup is officially done now. Gary Sheffield has the highest OPS left on the team, but he only can play 3 games a week before breaking down, which leaves Jeff Francoeur as the most dangerous everyday bat on the team currently. How did it come to this? The entire CORE down, 12 games behind the Phillies, 10 games out of the wild card. This is worst case scenario shit.

Meanwhile, the Braves are actually staying in the hunt for the NL East title, thanks to Brad Lidge continuing to make up for all the blown saves he missed last year. The goddamn Braves are 5 games ahead of the Mets, and they have Tim Hudson coming back. Why am I still getting worked up over this? Didn’t I declare the season dead a month ago? I should be happy with Parnell’s promising walk-less start, and that should be enough.

Everyone knows David Wright has struck out a lot this year (70 times). Everyone pays attention to his now .356 batting average. A good amount are also aware of his .444 on-base percentage, now that the stat is displayed on most broadcasts and scoreboards. And of course, we all know his home run total is shockingly low (4). Combine all these and you have a high BABIP. What is BABIP, you ask? It is Batting Average on Balls in Play:

where H is hits, HR is home runs, AB is at bats, K is strikeouts, and SF is sacrifice flies. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

After tonight’s 4-4 performance — of which no hits were a HR — Wright’s BABIP has risen to .471. For the past week, there have been numerous articles about how Wright will eventually come back down to earth. Even this very morning, Fangraphs made sure to join in on the fun, putting forward the data that shows that for whatever reason, Wright’s groundballs are finding holes. Well, that’s what happened once again tonight. Maybe Wright will be the first man to defy the BABIP gods for an entire season. Extremely rare is the season where a player has a BABIP over .400, but Wright is currently destroying that barrier, with no sign of letting up. He has shown no sign of hitting any home runs anytime soon either, but I’ll let that slide.

The most interesting part about this phenomenon has to be the continuing penetration of sabermetrical analysis into the mainstream. Never was it more evident than when I heard Gary Cohen mention it on the SNY broadcast a few days back. People knew Wright was having a strange season — who strikes out more while hitting less home runs? — but BABIP provides an easy way to quantify it. It is almost “luckiness” in number form. I say almost because there might be something more to it than that, and no one has quite figured it out. Maybe it’s just INTANGIBLE, which would explain why Derek Jeter’s career BABIP is .360. That’s how you become the Yankee captain. See, it’s not LUCK, it’s CLUTCH. Ichiro is right behind him at .357, but you could have guessed that. The guy hits line drives off of bounced balls.

I can’t say that Wright will keep this up for the entire season, because he won’t, but I don’t think he’s going to strike out at this rate for the entire season either. Maybe he will be able to keep his average this high. Maybe he’ll end up with the line of a speedy second baseman: .350, 10 HR, 45 SB (let’s ignore the RBIs). And maybe another stat will be ingrained into the collective psyche of casual baseball fandom.