Benjamin Grimm

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not getting a "superstar" vibe from Martinez. He may very well be a nice player with a nice career, but I think he's being over-hyped. Even more than usual.

Rockin' Doc wrote: Damn the wild card. I want the Brewers sweep the Phillies, preferably in a humiliating and demoralizing fashion. Of course! But if the opposite happens, the dark cloud can have a silver lining.

I agree. I don't want to see the Mets overpaying for a guy who set a not-very meaningful record for another team. I'm more interested in Brian Fuentes. He won't come cheap, but he'll be a hell of a lot cheaper than Rodriguez.

I'd rather see him make it as a starter.

Yes, especially if the Phillies narrow the gap a little bit in the next three days. If so, they'll be in a position where a four-game sweep of the Brewers puts them in the wild card lead.

I'm thinking Figueroa is more likely than Reyes, since Jerry's been using Figgy and not Reyes.

With Maine and Wagner on the DL, the Mets could choose anybody to replace them, as long as they were in the Mets organization by August 31.

I think all 19 games will be worrisome to some degree. At least the Mets have done well in Nationals Park so far this year. They're 4-1, including a three-game sweep in August.

Yeah, I was thinking similarly. Depending on how the NL Central breaks, the Phillies could be playing games that are meaningful to the Brewers while the Mets, later, play games that have less meaning to the Cubs. I think it's somewhere between optimistic and pessimistic to have the Mets win 11 of their remaining 19 games. (A .579 percentage.) If they do that, the Phillies have to go 13-6 (.684) to force a tie and 14-5 (.737) to win the division outright. If the Mets can go 13-6, the Phillies are in real trouble. They'd need to go 15-4 (.789) to force a tie and 16-3 (.842) to win the division. If last year taught us anything at all, it's way to early to count chickens. But the Mets can pretty much control their destiny by playing well. They just have to do it.

My first guess at what a 2008 post-season pitching staff (should we be so fortunate) would look like: Santana Perez Pelfrey Martinez Heilman Schoeneweis Feliciano Sanchez Stokes Smith Ayala Figueroa Figueroa and Stokes can potentially be used as emergency starters. Figgy can also be the "long man" that Pat Mahomes and Darren Oliver were. Had Wagner been healthy, I think he would have supplanted Figueroa from the roster.

I like your wish better than mine, but while that would be my preference, I don't expect the Mets to take that approach. Maybe that's one reason I prefer Fuentes to Rodriguez. Fuentes seems like he might be more likely to fit into a committee bullpen with a recovering Wagner.

Might as well. Especially since it looks like there might be some weekend home games for the Mets this year.

It's okay that you were wrong; we've all been wrong about many things in our lives. The lesson you should learn from this is to not be so absolute. If you had said, "I don't think Stokes will be helpful. He's been awful for Tampa Bay" nobody would be throwing it up in your face right now. But when you trash him so categorically ("it will be an enormous mistake") you open yourself to a bit of mockery. You often talk as if you know the future. You don't. None of us do. Soften your pronouncements a little bit and you'll come off as a more rational person.

Is Niese a contender for those two TBA starts? I'm not sure who the alternatives are. Much of it will depend on the condition of the standings on September 16 and 21.

Oh. So I guess you were right after all!

The firm confidence of the first quoted post had me pretty sure I knew who the author was. Clicking the links confirmed that I was right.

NL East W L Pct3 Avg W Avg L Champions Wild Card Playoffs 1D Change 7D Change Mets 80 63 .542 90.9 71.1 77.32940 2.90260 80.23200 .83837 .31720 Phillies 78 65 .521 88.5 73.5 22.50770 5.27997 27.78767 2.32856 .26487 Marlins 72 71 .482 81.6 80.4 .16290 .00446 .16736 -0.11565 .01466 Braves 62 82 .488 70.5 91.5 .00000 .00000 .00000 .00000 .00000 Nationals 56 88 .404 63.4 98.6 .00000 .00000 .00000 .00000 .00000 The doubleheader split works slightly in the Mets favor, as would be expected. (The lead remains the same, but we're two games closer to the end of the season.) Marlins are barely hanging in there. Their tragic number for the division is 12, and for the Wild Card is 10. Hopefully they'll win against the Phillies tonight (and tomorrow... and Wednesday...) to keep their hopes alive for a few more days. Dodgers are now at 76.6% for the playoffs, compared to Arizona's 23%. Yankees are at .27216%. Four teams are at 98% or higher: Tampa Bay, Boston, the Cubs, and the Angels. Mets still projected to open the playoffs against the Brewers in Milwaukee.

The problem with that is that the network would get fewer viewers in the home markets of the participating teams, and that's their most fertile soil.

AG/DC wrote: I don't think anybody has argued that Wagner is irreplaceable. I'm not aware that anyone has. I'm just stating that he's not.

I think it's refreshing that we Mets fans will call out one of our old heroes when he acts like a jerk. And he's been acting like a jerk.

Also, I think they can get more out of Stokes than from Ayala, and maybe the next 19 games will demonstrate that. (Or not...) I also hope that Wagner's injury prods the Mets to look at possible replacements in the free agent market this off-season. (I'm thinking Brian Fuentes, but I suppose Francisco Rodriguez will be discussed too. The problem with him is he'll get a lot more money than he's worth.)

Count me among those who don't see Wagner as irreplaceable. I think the Mets will be fine without him for the next 19 games, while they can still carry a 40-man bullpen. It's in October (if there is an October) that his absence will become more of a problem. Whichever pitcher takes his spot on the post-season roster will probably be a downgrade. (I'd speculate on the exact configuration of the post-season bullpen, but I'd prefer to wait until the magic number drops a bit more.) As for Maine, with the scattered off-days in the NLDS schedule, it's possible that the Mets can play five games with only three starters. (Santana, Pelfrey, and Perez.) If they advance to the NLCS and the World Series, then they'll probably have to use Pedro. It's noteworthy that, if Maine was healthy, then Pedro Martinez would be a decent bet to miss the post-season roster.

I'd let Church start against lefties. And the good news is that Beltran has been hitting better from the right side than he has in recent seasons. (At least, better than he did in 2006. His 2007 numbers were better than I had thought.) And Daniel Murphy, although it's a very small sample size, is 4 for 7 with a home run against lefty pitchers. I don't know that I'd automatically sit him in favor of Nick Evans.

It seems to me that Keith is away more often than Ron, but I don't really know for sure. Ron does seem more engaged, while Keith gives the feel that he's making a special guest appearance. But perhaps that's because he's frequently talking about how he'd prefer to be somewhere else.

Gwreck wrote: Funny story: the seats that I picked up for the game -- front row of the upper deck -- were the same exact two seats that we had for NLCS Game 7 in '06. I now consider the seats sufficently exorcised. Where were you sitting? In the day game, we were in Upper Box 709A, Section 3, seats 1 through 3.