smg58

Sosa, like Figueroa, pitched himself out of the majors. Sosa has a $2M contract, which means he will certainly clear waivers. I think he could opt to become a free agent rather than accept a demotion, but he might lose his contract if he does that; I'm not sure what the rule is on that. People talk about Sosa's "rubber arm"; well, he HAD a rubber arm out of the pen last August, but it fell off in September and he hasn't recovered. Based on Wise's history, he can't take on all of Sosa's innings. So we'll need a few guys, both in the rotation and the pen, to do more. That being said, Smith is pitching far better than Sosa and clearly deserves to stay up. No arguments with the moves here. I'm very happy to see that Casanova cleared waivers. We'll need him later, I just have that feeling. I'm kind of surprised the Yankees didn't give him a look, though.

The Padres still owed him quite a bit of money for the year, too. He was definitely slumping, but he really had to give the Padres no reason for hope.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I agree. I'm not willing to give up on him either. Sucks for Casanova, though. He's done a good job, but he's going to get displaced by Castro. But I suspect he'll be back once or twice before the season is done. Casanova may have to clear waivers first, though, and I'm not certain that will happen. As for Schneider, you always play up defense and other intangibles when you acquire a catcher you know can't hit. And I have no idea how you objectify the value of such a player. Unfortunately, there's really only one way his batting average will go from here. But he's a warm body at a position where the Mets lacked warm bodies, and I kind of think the Milledge deal will ultimately be judged by the performance of Church anyway.

Pagan flips over the wall chasing a foul ball, but makes the catch and more amazingly avoids injury in the process. Very classy of the Dodger fans to applaud the replay on the big screen.

The Reds are beating the Cubs 9-0, on the strength of three home runs from Joey Votto and four more from his teammates. And in typical Dusty Baker fashion, Edinson Volquez is allowed to throw 118 pitches with a nine-run lead.

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Serious contender for defensive play of the year there. (At least the end of the play.) Burke bunted, Feliciano threw the ball into right field, Burke rounded second and looked very certain to make third but Church made a great throw and Wright made a great tag.

Last year's pitching woes, at least in the pen, had to do with a few guys being overworked and a few guys just not being all that good. As for the rotation, Glavine is an over-40 pitcher who ran out of gas at the wrong time, the injury risks with Pedro were well documented before he got here, nobody would have looked at Maine's full season as a disappointment before the year started, Perez and El Duque were better for the Mets than they had been for their previous teams (at least recently in Ollie's case), Pelfrey's major-league readiness was badly overestimated but that may or may not have had anything to do with Peterson, and there was no reason to expect anything from the other starters. Unless Peterson convinced Minaya that Heath Bell, Brian Bannister, and Matt Lindstrom wouldn't amount to anything, I don't see a reason to blame Peterson for last year. Relief pitchers can and do go bad quickly all the time, on every team. That doesn't mean that Heilman's season is unsalvageable (or Sosa's for that matter), but these things do happen, and Heilman and Sosa have been and continue to be used often. Now perhaps Peterson told Randolph to keep sending them out there because their arms could take it, but otherwise, it's way too early to pass any sort of judgment his handling of the arms this year. As for Ollie, under Peterson's watch he's gone from being a total wreck to being maddeningly inconsistent. Obviously we're rooting for more than that, but was it really that easy to get even that much from Perez?

Good analysis. I have to say the D-Backs scare me.

The DL would have made more sense. Something isn't right with his arm, and you might as well find him a decent doctor and free up a roster spot.

Krivsky first got in trouble for the deal that sent Kearns and Lopez to Washington for a pair of mediocre relievers. The deal produced no tangible benefit to the Reds, but neither Kearns or Lopez has exactly lit things up for the Nats either. I'm not sure how many of the Reds' top prospects are actually Krivsky's doing, but for all his lack of popularity, he leaves the Reds in better shape than they were when he arrived. And I don't see the point of making a move like this three weeks into the season. If you didn't like him, you could have hired somebody else in the offseason.

The Mets don't have a viable second option at first base in house, so barring a trade, Delgado's going nowhere. And it will take more than three weeks for me to think a deal is necessary. There are enough guys in the league hitting worse than Delgado. Delgado was better than Jacobs even last year. With the glove as well as the bat. Stop being silly. I don't regret the deal at all; what I do regret is that we could have had Delgado a year earlier and traded nobody for him had certain people in the front office been a bit more competent. But one good week doesn't make Jacobs better, and certainly doesn't make dealing him in that spot regrettable. If the Mets still consider themselves contenders after this year, they're not going to hand first base to somebody who hasn't played in AAA yet. Now it's possible that Carp could make up for lost time, but I see that as really unlikely to be enough.

I'll say the Twins.

The pen, like the rest of the team, has performed terrifically this past week. The presence of Sanchez helps, and Smith has been particularly good. If they can keep this up, the pen will be much less of an issue this year. But the pen will still be asked for a lot of innings this year, and your guess is as good as mine as to how many quality innings those two can provide. Heilman has 12 IP in 16 games, and that's a pace he shouldn't be asked to sustain. I'm not sure what to make of Wise. I don't think he's better than Smith, or even Carlos Muniz. The contract actually makes him likely to clear waivers, and he's not worth $1M even if he does get claimed, so I don't see why options should be an issue. He's also tanked after the All-Star Break the last two years.

They wanted Humber and Gomez for Cordero. And now they'll get nothing. They did the Milledge deal because it was a high-upside young player for two guys they didn't think had much value. The numbers and defensive metrics said otherwise on Church, but they had made it clear from the start of the offseason that they were looking to move him. Like I said, I wouldn't mind having Nick Johnson if he's healthy, but I just don't see a reasonable offer getting it done.

Dealing with the Nats is always a strange proposition. They haven't dealt Felipe Lopez or Dmitri Young, neither of whom will play much for them this year. (I'm not sure what their thinking is there.) And it cost Lastings Milledge to get two guys they were looking to dump. (I can understand Schneider, but I'm still not sure why they soured on Ryan Church.) And their asking price for Chad Cordero last year was obscene; I wonder what they can get for his 78 MPH fastball now? I really like Nick Johnson, but the Nats could make the price really prohibitive if they feel like dealing him at all. As for Teixeira, the Sox have Youkilis and Lowell under control so I think they'd rather spend on pitching. The Yankees could get in a bidding war with us for sure, but Teixeira's agent is Scott Boras, and under current circumstances I think that gives us an edge.

The Mets aren't the only local team with issues like this. The Giants were a terrific football team -- and tops in the league on the day when it mattered most -- but only when they played away from Giants Stadium. The fans were so eager to throw Manning/Coughlin/etc under the bus that it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy at 5 of the 8 home games. And if the Giants didn't find a way to run the table in the playoffs, they'd be cut no slack this year. Now they might get a few games reprieve, lucky them. But the sportscasters yesterday mentioned that Beltran and Delgado have had home/road splits since coming here that are too large for the park to account for. So there's reason to think that this does affect some of the players.

I'd have given Duaner the 8th. Heilman has 8.2 innings in 11 games, and even if he weren't struggling, I think you need to be more protective of him.

Wright should have hustled on that grounder... not sure it would have made a difference but he'd have at least made Zimmerman hurry the throw after looking Reyes back to third.

Gwynn just went on the DL, so Gross will start in center against righties. Does Kendall already have more hits this year than he did last year? Brewers fans have to be hoping that Sheets doesn't tease them the way Rich Harden keeps teasing A's fans (i.e., looking great for a few starts then making yet another trip to the DL).

Frayed Knot wrote: Now will the Cubbies invite 'Bartman' back to throw out a first ball? The fans & media have even more reason to be ashamed of themselves over that one. Bartman will be forgiven once the Cubs win. At least that seems to be how it works.

I think we need to get to "better than most" first, before deciding if that's good enough. It's definitely a relief (no pun intended) to know that Feliciano was neither hurt nor available. But I think Willie yanked Perez too soon knowing that he had a short-handed bullpen, and that Pelfrey's no lock to go six tonight either. Maybe it wouldn't have affected the outcome yesterday, but a priority needs to be made of keeping the pen from wearing down for as long as possible.

Any word on Feliciano? If he is healthy, there were two situations in the game where he would have been the prudent choice. If he is not healthy, then I don't care what Ollie's control was like in the sixth, he HAD to throw more than 94 pitches and get the team into the seventh inning. We have one reliever (Feliciano) ailing, one (Wise) just put on the DL, and three qualified starters. The biggest reason, I think, for the collapse last year was that too much was asked from the bullpen. Heilman and Sosa have pitched 5 and 4.2 innings, respectively, in six games. While that's hardly an excuse at this point for their current struggles, that's a trend which simply cannot continue. But what are the options? Waiting for Sanchez is like waiting for Godot, Schoeneweis is only useful within very strict limits, and Wise has a track record of being useless after the All-Star break even when he starts the year healthy.

Muniz goes 1-2-3. At this rate he'll be closing by Thursday.

Castillo's knees started bothering him, so Easley took his place.