Benjamin Grimm

Bay 0.5 Carrasco 1.5 Gee 2.8 Murphy 0.5 Pagan 2 Parnell 1.5 Reyes 1.2

Well, you'd get a late-season race between the fifth, sixth, and seventh best teams, rather then the top two or three teams, which is kind of what we have with the wild card anyway.

I... don't hate it. I don't like the regular interleague play (although if this could be leveraged to eliminate the DH, which I doubt, it would be a plus) and I don't like ten playoff teams, but I think ten playoff teams is probably inevitable, and this would be a better way of doing it. I don't like the balanced schedule; teams should play more games within their division. The best way to balance the schedule is by eliminating divisions. And this does that. And I'd rather see a fourth- and fifth-place team play a sudden-death first round than two wild cards, where one of the wild cards might have 98 wins while one of the division winners, getting a bye, may have only 85. It sounds crazy, but it makes sense when you think about it. I don't care which team goes to the AL, as long as it's not the Mets or one of the "legacy" franchises: Reds, Phils, Pirates, Cubs, Cardinals.

There's apparently a realignment proposal on the table, and I don't think we've discussed it here. The plan would be that, beginning in 2012, there would be 15 teams in each league (I think the Astros would move to the AL -- why not the Brewers?) and no divisions. Five teams from each league would make the playoffs. In the first round, the 4th and 5th place teams would play each other, and the 1st through 3rd place teams would get a bye.

And today, I should mention, is "Good-bye Tom, Hello Keith" Day.

I would have thought, from all the angst and the tooth-gnashing, that he was a superstar.

I'm inclined to agree, but Steve Rogers' contrary opinion gives me pause... After all, when was the last time he was wrong about anything?

The Schaefer Mets Player of the Week for the week ending June 11, 2011 is Jos� Reyes with 8.57 points. =================================================================================== Voting for Monday's series-ending game in Pittsburgh will close on Thursday morning. Schaefer POTG 6/13/11 - Pirates 3, Mets 1

Beltran 1.5 Byrdak 1 Niese 3 Pagan 1 Reyes 2.5 Rodriguez 1

My hunch is that they may get the ball rolling once the Einhorn money is official. (Hope there's no "setback" on that front!)

Murphy 0.5 Pelfrey 4 Reyes 0.5 Tejada 0.5

Marty Noble weighs in. (But I think he dozed off while typing the last paragraph.) Reyes trade would impede Mets' recovery Shortstop could bring impressive haul, but value greatest in NY By Marty Noble / MLB.com NEW YORK -- As the Mets hover at or near .500, the chances of them finishing this thus-far schizophrenic season with Jose Reyes in their employ aren't half bad. Their mercurial shortstop has sped to the lead of the batting race and played his best baseball since 2006, forcing the club's GPS to recalculate. The Mets must determine his value and decide whether it is prudent to deal him for pieces of an unclear future. With little input from general manager Sandy Alderson, the rest of us concluded that Reyes would be joining the e-Mets -- erstwhile Mets -- at some point in July. The possibility existed for sure, but Alderson -- his poker face in a jar that he keeps by the door -- gave no indication of his leaning or whether he was leaning at all. This much we know: The general manager has witnessed such superlative performance for most of the team's 65 games that his perceptions of Reyes must have changed -- from whatever they were to something they were not. Again, we must speak vaguely because Alderson does. From this press-box perspective, Reyes, the Mets generally and Terry Collins unquestionably, have exceeded expectations. No Mets bandwagon has been built or occupied yet, and none should be at this point. The road separating the 32-33 record the team carries into its Monday night game against the Pirates and a 162-game record that represents genuine progress is long and potentially treacherous. But through all the injuries, growing pains, financial uncertainty and the general disorder inherited from the previous regime, a glimmer is visible. Perhaps these Dark Ages won't last quite as long as feared and won't be quite so dark. For every game David Wright and Ike Davis are unavailable, Ruben Tejada gains the best kind of experience -- on-the-job training. And for each inning Johan Santana misses, Dillon Gee polishes the notion that offspeed pitching works. And more conspicuously than any of that, Reyes, the ultimate triple threat, plays the game as if he embodies the skills of Rey Ordonez, Mookie Wilson and John Olerud, and the high-octane additive that fueled Wally Backman. He is a wonderful player again. His value to other clubs has seemingly increased; his value to the Mets has seemingly soared and added new elements to the "Do we deal him?" discussion. If Alderson and his band of vanguard evaluators see the performances of Tejada, Gee, Davis, Jon Niese, Josh Thole, Angel Pagan and Justin Turner as indications of genuine potential, and if they sense that Santana, Wright and Jason Bay can be the players they were, then the Mets are not the fourth-place contenders they appeared to be when Ollie Perez lockered among them. And Reyes can't be traded or allowed to leave. Davis, Tejada, Wright and Reyes make a nice infield, not great but certainly more than representative. As a foursome, they are young enough to have futures that extend beyond 2014, and enough differences in age exist among them that a four-at-once overhaul is unlikely. We don't yet know enough about Thole, Gee, Niese or Bobby Parnell. And to ask for all of them to reach their potential when Reyes, Wright, Santana and Bay are prospering is to ask for a encore of 1969. That summer was characterized as a Miracle. Moreover, we can't begin to know all the fiscal obstacles facing Alderson from the Wilpon family's diminished treasury. A future without Reyes would add to the obstacles. It will be a challenge with him. Going on without him -- notice it doesn't say moving forward without him -- seems implausible, a giant step backward for the sake of taking several smaller steps forward. The Mets could play for another 25 years and not have a player with such skills on their roster. Reyes, even more than Wright, is an attraction. The club ought to look to its past to see the impact of an attraction. The Mets have had precious few special attractions in their nearly 50 seasons -- Tom Seaver, Dave Kingman, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Ordonez and Mike Piazza. Each of them provided a better-than-average chance for a spectators to see something extraordinary, something worth a dozen replays. Reyes warrants a place on that short list. In that regard, his value is greater to the Mets than to other clubs, even though his performance to date has to have enhanced his value to others. If the Reds had interest in mid-May, what do they think now? Imagine the Reds of Joey Votto, Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips with a player as dynamic as Reyes added. How would the Mets read that added interest? What would their price be? How would other clubs regard Alderson's image of being an astute roster/payroll manager? No club wants to mortgage its future, even for a fleet, 28-year-old, switch-hitting shortstop with an exceptional arm, above average glove, untold and contagious energy and the ability to dominate an opponent. Perhaps none of that will develop. Perhaps the Mets will dismiss the notion of dealing the second-most-talented player -- to Strawberry -- they have developed and allow Reyes to be part, a focal point, of their next period of success. Perhaps the dynamo they know is...

Voting for the games played in Pittsburgh on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will close on Wednesday morning. Schaefer POTG, 06/10/2011: Mets 8 Pirates 1 Schaefer POTG, 06/11/2011: Pirates 3 Mets 2 Schaefer POTG 6/12/11 - Mets 7, Pirates 0

I got an email from mets.com asking me to vote for Reyes for the 2011 All-Star team. I'd much rather vote for him for the 2012 Mets.

I also gave it 3.5. I liked it a lot, although your first Head-Scratcher occurred to me too, and was nagging at me throughout the entire movie. They should have come up with some explanation for that. I think it was the second-best of the X-Men movies. (I should point out that I didn't see Wolverine.) I liked First Class more than the first and third movies of the original trilogy. X-Men 2 remains my favorite X-Men movie.

Thursday's win over the Brewers is still a little light on votes, but will close as scheduled on Tuesday morning. Those who haven't voted yet, please try to do so today. Schaefer POTG 6/9/11 - Mets 4, Brewers 1

Bay 0.5 Beltran 1 Capuano 4.5 Harris 0.5 Murphy 0.5 Pagan 0.5 Reyes 1.5 Turner 1

Mets making sure the controversy over the first run is moot; they keep piling on. 5-0 now.

Pirates announcers saying that the umps conferred, and the run is going back on the board. Explanation after commercial break.

Wow, that sucked. Jason Bay comes through with a sac fly to put the Mets up 1-0 but an appeal play at second base takes the run away and ends the inning.