smg58

You have to consider it, I think, but I'd give him some more time up here first before I'd decide it's necessary.

Ollie would have to agree to the demotion, and he knows being released is not an option. This is going to be tricky if Ollie can't get his act together FAST. And can we all agree that Rick Peterson was not to blame for Ollie's inconsistency last year?

He was a genius when the Mets went on a roll last year, and now he looks less brilliant. Considering how our starting pitching has been, and that our best hitter has been struggling, I'm perfectly OK being two games out at this point. At any rate I don't see a good reason to be that critical of Manuel right now.

I kind of had a feeling that if anyone were willing to sign him, they'd have claimed him when they had the chance. He's not on the 40, so they'd have to put him on to call him up and then take him off (i.e., the whole waiver process again) to send him down. It's the life of a AAAA player; I can't blame Figueroa for hoping for more security, but he hasn't quite earned it yet.

Evans' K-rate is abnormally high (17 in 49 AB's), but he's hitting the ball hard when he does make contact so that .102 average will certainly go up. I also like the 9 walks. Assuming the K/AB levels off at a more reasonable number, there's no reason for concern. Niese? Wow. At least he's not pitching like that for the Mets. (Granted, we have four other guys pitching like that, but you know what I mean.) Cross your fingers. F-Mart is making nice progress. His K/BB ratio needs work (3 BB's and 14 K's in 53 AB's), but you really have to like 10 extra base hits even if only one is a home run. Ad he's still only 20.

I'm surprised Figueroa cleared waivers as well. There have to be teams out there with worse guys in the rotation than him. But if he didn't clear waivers, I don't see how he gets a major-league contract from somebody should he opt for free agency.

Has upside, but is coming off a disastrous year. The Nationals' ridiculous glut of righty corner outfielders made it impossible to keep him. If he plays well in AAA, he'd give the Mets another viable bench option should Sheffield or Tatis get hurt. Not sure I'd expect much, but there's nothing to lose.

with apologies to Vic Sage: I heard, when we were buying our season plan, that our new seats would be much closer than the old ones, and there wasn't going to be a bad seat in the house. That's what they said, alright. And, grateful just to be in the park, we believed them.

="metirish":33x6skjj]I would think that is standard operating procedure .[/quote:33x6skjj] Paying Seaver for the appearance, or Heyman making cheap shots at the Mets? Kong76 Apr 18 2009 06:41 AM Hay Man: But just so everyone understands, he's paid for these appearances <<< You, over there, the one who didn't understand .... Together with me .... No shit, Jon metsguyinmichigan Apr 18 2009 07:27 AM His reply to my e-mail: i only knmew about seaver. i don't know about the others. that's the only reason i only mentioned seaver. thanks, jh I'm going to use this as part of a lesson in my journalism class. Fman99 Apr 18 2009 08:49 PM ="metsguyinmichigan":3uln17i6]His reply to my e-mail: i only knmew about seaver. i don't know about the others. that's the only reason i only mentioned seaver. thanks, jh I'm going to use this as part of a lesson in my journalism class.[/quote:3uln17i6] I will use it in my wankerism class. (It's more of a self-study though). Edgy DC Apr 18 2009 09:02 PM Jon, You mentioned Seaver to be a creep. Love, Edgy John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 18 2009 09:05 PM ="metsguyinmichigan":2o37fzw1]His reply to my e-mail: i only knmew about seaver. i don't know about the others. that's the only reason i only mentioned seaver. thanks, jh [/quote:2o37fzw1] Yeah, "I didn't know" is exactly what you want to hear from a reporter. metirish Apr 18 2009 09:57 PM Heyman is not good with email exchanges , Edgy and he had one years ago and Heyman got creamed. Edgy DC Apr 19 2009 05:48 AM To be honest, I'm not so porud of that one. He was a jerk, and his perspective was skewed, but the main thing he was arguing that the Mets do was to acquire some big righthanded stud of the year closer from the Marlins. Now, I hate the when a columnist denounces a cheapo team for not spending on big shot acqusitions with brand names , and then turn around and mock the team when such players become white elephants. It's basically skeetshooting. But by mid-season, when Looper had broken down, it looked like, yeah, we needed another righthanded closer. G-Fafif Apr 19 2009 09:13 AM Two years ago, when the Steinbrenner son-in-law divorce was a big story and it was mentioned that George's daughter could be part of the next generation running the Yankees (though Der Boss didn't believe in letting ladies do something like that), Heyman wrote of George's daughter, "she may be blonde, but she's not dumb" or words to that effect. I wrote to him to express my dismay that he'd indulge the "dumb blonde" stereotype so reflexively, that any blonde woman who wasn't "dumb" was an anomaly (my mother, my sister and my wife were/are all blonde, so consider it a personal affront never mind lousy writing). He wrote back pretty quickly that yeah, you're right, I shouldn't have done that. Of course we're not many steps, if we care to take purposefully large Wally Matthews-type strides, from Tom Seaver gets paid to appear and Jon Heyman instinctively trends to dumb blonde references to his dragging the blonde Mrs. Seaver into all this and maybe she's still jealous that Ruth Ryan's husband gets paid more to appear in places. If a modern-day columnist picked up that gauntlet, Dick Young would heartily approve.

I'm betting the Mets aren't the only team Joey Votto goes to town on this season. Without making a detailed assessment, I'd take the Reds lineup ahead of Houston's, San Diego's, Washington's, and Pittsburgh's. Maybe Colorado's as well since Holliday is gone.

The Rangers made a mockery of the Indians' pitching this week.

What's worse, a bigger deal is made about what Joba said while he was plastered than the fact that he was behind the wheel while he was plastered. A little perspective, please?

Just horrible.

You could make a very serious argument that Beltran, Chavez, and Gomez are the three best outfield gloves in baseball right now.

="batmagadanleadoff":27sc5mu8]I can't figure out these results. Also, I don't know how the program was written: under what conditions were the Mets programmed to sac bunt? Technically, a team could sac bunt whenever there is at least one runner on base with less than two outs. When did the computer Mets bunt? Did the computer have Delgado, or David Wright bunt? This information would be more helpful. I'll stick to my guns though, about sac bunting with your number two guy in the first inning of a ball game. I think it's a horrible strategy, and I would hope that any skipper that has the inclination to do this would be managing any NL East team other than the Mets.[/quote:27sc5mu8] It's also misleading to compare an American League team with a National League one. The situation where the benefits of sacrificing are least ambiguous is when a particularly weak hitter (like, say, most pitchers) comes up with a runner on first. If the computer Mets let the pitcher swing away, I could see that having a negative effect. But in a lineup with a DH, situations where a bunt would clearly help more than hurt would be very few and far between. Frayed Knot Apr 09 2009 01:13 PM btw, Hanley Ramirez - maybe 2nd only to Albert in NL offensive prowess - celebrated his first AB this season as a newly minted #3 hitter by sac bunting w/a man on 2nd and no outs. seawolf17 Apr 09 2009 01:35 PM ="Frayed Knot":3f36140k]btw, Hanley Ramirez - maybe 2nd only to Albert in NL offensive prowess - celebrated his first AB this season as a newly minted #3 hitter by sac bunting w/a man on 2nd and no outs.[/quote:3f36140k] I thought Willie was bench-coaching in Milwaukee, not Florida?

Why all the knocks on Murphy's outfield defense? The Fielding Bible had him at +4/+5 (meaning four saved baserunners and five saved total bases relative to the average leftfielder) last year, which is very good for an inexperienced outfielder who should only get better as he gets more familiar with the position. As for Monday, I saw Murphy make a nice catch on a sinking liner a lot of leftfielders wouldn't have gotten to, and I would not consider deferring to Beltran a little late on a flyball he'd have caught as well to be a bad omen. Defense will be an issue if Sheffield gets significant playing time over Church, but there is no good reason to believe that will happen more than occasionally with a lefty starter, and probably not often at all at Citi, and never at Citi with a flyball pitcher. Otherwise, Beltran is consistently one of the top two or three centerfielders, and Church has made the top ten at his corner position each of the past two seasons despite limited playing time. I'd consider outfield defense one of our strengths, if not our biggest one. Injuries are always a concern, but you can't worry about them until they happen. I consider you guys to be my media, so I won't worry about the last two points at all. Starting pitching? Pelfrey has as much chance of going backwards as forwards, Ollie is like a box of chocolates, Maine might not be 100% or even close, and Livan had an ERA over 6 last year. THAT is a concern.

Aside from how I feel about him personally, I get the feeling that if he were actually a better player right now than either Nick Evans or Bobby Kielty, the Tigers wouldn't be paying him $14M to play for us.

NL East: Mets NL Central: Cubs NL West: Dodgers NL wild card: Phillies AL East: Rays AL Central: Indians AL West: A's AL wild card:Red Sox League finals: NL:Mets AL: Indians World Series: Mets in 6 NL MVP: M Ramirez NL Cy Young: J. Santana AL MVP: B J Upton AL Cy Young: R. Halladay Mets win total:

2005 Doug Mintkiewicz 1979 Richie Hebner

1999 Shawon Dunston

1986 Ed Hearn

I'll take the Rockies, since those two series appear to be open.

Marlon had a sub .600 OPS last year, and he has a sub .600 OPS in spring training. The Mets have already committed to two lefthanded hitters on the bench; if Anderson is a third, then when Tatis starts the only righty bat on the bench will be the backup catcher. He was needed to play second base just once last year (four innings), and presumably Murphy could give us that in an emergency. Bobby Kielty and Nick Evans are better hitters who would give our bench better balance.

If the Tigers can cut Sheffield then we can cut Marlon, right? I'd have no problem giving Willis a no-risk look. It would be ironic, given all those trade rumors a few years ago. I wouldn't get my hopes up for too much, though; he's basically a lottery ticket at this point.

Arizona- 86.5 under Atlanta- 83.5 over Baltimore- 73.5 over Boston- 94.5 over Chicago C- 91.5 over Chicago W- 79.5 over Cincinnati- 80.5 under Cleveland- 85.5 over Colorado- 77.5 under Detroit- 82.5 under Florida- 76.5 over Houston- 74.5 under Kansas City- 75.5 over LA Angels- 89.5 under LA Dodgers- 82.5 over Milwaukee- 80.5 over Minnesota- 83.5 under NY Mets- 88.5 over NY Yankees- 97.5 under Oakland- 81.5 under Philadelphia- 87.5 over Pittsburgh- 69.5 over San Diego- 71.5 under San Francisco- 80.5 under Seattle- 72.5 under St. Louis- 82.5 under Tampa Bay- 87.5 over Texas- 73.5 over Toronto- 80.5 under Washington- 71.5 under