batmagadanleadoff

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Eight years ago I knew who Danny Graves was. Now, even after looking him up, I have no recollection of him. I think that ten years ago, if we had played "Met? Or not a Met?" I would have had close to a 100 per cent score, even with 1960s players who were before my time. Now, I know I wouldn't do nearly that well. Same here. I can go all the way back to the '60's and even visualize players I've never personally seen play live for the Mets -- like Jim Bethke, Larry Stahl and Dennis Musgraves, for example. But I'm getting fuzzy on those fringe and cup of coffee Mets from just a few years ago. Like Taylor Buccholz and Jon Switzer, to name two.

I wanna see Engleberg's back of the card career stats.

Mets � Willets Point wrote: It's a good thing they [didn't] do anything like this for the Yankee Stadium ASG. A parade of douchebags would be pretty tacky. They did Statues of Liberty on parade for the ASG at Yankee Stadium in 2008.

Excerpt from Adam Rubin's Morning Briefing ... Megdal's latest piece cited by ESPN ... � On 2014 payroll, Joel Sherman in the Post writes after speaking with Alderson: It was Alderson�s best guesstimate that the Mets are committed to roughly $55 million next year with raises on long-term deals for David Wright and Jonathon Niese, and increases for arbitration eligible players likely to be retained including Daniel Murphy and Bobby Parnell and -- depending how you calculate it -- the buyout on Santana and deferrals to Bay. He believes the team will have a 2014 payroll between $90 million and $100 million. So that is $35 million-$45 million to spend. Which sounds like improvement, but keep in mind that would rank the Mets 15th this year -- exactly the midpoint -- in payroll. And should a team in New York with dedicated fans, a still relatively new stadium and its own network be 15th in payroll? �I think it is unlikely to go from $55 million to $150 million,� Alderson said. �Do I think we can get there? We would have to outperform our payroll, so we can increase attendance and increase payroll consistently over time. Overall, I agree with you [that a Met payroll should be near the highest], but I think we will get on a progression toward something. We will basically spend [on 2014 payroll] almost as much as we currently have committed next year, so that is a doubling. �It [the lowered payroll] is not because [of ownership financial problems]. It is because they have been burned by the big, long contacts, so we are not prepared to go from zero to 60 [mph] in 3.5 seconds, which I can�t argue with. But if we have enough young pitching, then $100 million will be enough to be competitive because we can use the money on position players, which is our problem right now.� Howard Megdal at Capital New York is skeptical the Mets will spend this offseason, even with a ton of money coming off the books. That is, the Mets won�t spend unless debt holder J.P. Morgan Chase signs off, according to Megdal. http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/69177/morning-briefing-90-100m-payroll-in-14

What's Sandy's Move? excerpt from Alderson on the Mike Francesca Show: Alderson told WFAN host Mike Francesa on Monday that the staff shouldn�t shoulder the blame, and Collins isn�t in danger of being let go.... "I don�t think staff performance has had an adverse effect. I just don�t think that this is a Terry issue or a staff issue. I think it�s a player issue. And if it�s a player issue, then that�s me. � (Letting Collins go) is not something that we�re considering now...." Alderson admitted that he simply doesn�t have much to work with within the organization at the moment. �I wish we had more depth in the system right now,� the GM said. �I wish that some of our better players were closer to the big leagues. I wish that certain guys were available to us, but they�re not, and nobody really cares. It�s all about whether you win or lose the games, and I understand that. But nobody is tying my hands at this point, nor would anybody be tying my hands at the trade deadline.� Among many other things discussed, Alderson told Francesa that left fielder Lucas Duda and shortstop Ruben Tejada aren�t necessarily part of the core moving forward, starting pitcher Zack Wheeler will likely make his major-league debut on June 18 and second baseman Daniel Murphy could play some first base. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/10/mets-gm-sandy-alderson-i-wish-we-had-more-depth-in-the-system-right-now/

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I guess I missed the whole Jeff Wilpon Bingo thing, but if he's going to be asked about what's gone wrong that's exactly the answer I want to hear him give. It's hardly a hook for criticism, unless you're Sour Apple Rubin. Jeff's Wilpon's comment is funny, ironical funny, even if technically correct, 'cause it's the exact opposite of what the Mets wre doing this entire century. Probably because of Jeff. The have patience and stick to a plan plan has to be Team Sandy's.

Nobody's gonna stave off Howie Megdal from reminding everybody that the owners ought to be fired. Unable to fire the owners, the Mets do what they can Ike Davis watches the ball go by. By Howard Megdal 11:46 am Jun. 10, 2013 After Sunday afternoon's 8-4 loss to the Marlins Sunday afternoon and a disspirited postgame show that dissected how the Mets had gotten swept for the second weekend in a row by baseball's worst team, S.N.Y. broke back into regularly scheduled programming for breaking news. Had the Mets finally acquired some frontline talent to pair with Matt Harvey and David Wright? Had the cash-strapped owners announced that they had found a big new investor who would give the team the capital it needs to go out and buy some new talent? Afraid not. The big news in Mets land, prompting the special-report music, was that three players had been sent down. The biggest name among the trio was Ike Davis, whose struggles merited demotion to Triple-A some time ago. But a lack of viable organizational options, brutal conditions and impossible-to-evaluate results for the Mets' Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas, and a June revival in 2012 helped to keep Davis in the big leagues through Sunday. Also sent down: Mike Baxter, mired in a 2-for-31 slump and incapable of getting a bunt down on Sunday, and Robert Carson, who gave up eight home runs in just 18 innings this season. The replacements aren't likely to be much better. Josh Satin will take over at first base, and he did post a .911 O.P.S. in Las Vegas this season. But he's no prospect, already 28, with a likely sub-.700 O.P.S. to come with the Mets. Josh Edgin struggled mightily with the Mets earlier this year and has an E.R.A. near six at Triple-A. Collin Cowgill, after his Opening Day heroics, didn't hit with the Mets, and has a sub-.800 O.P.S. in Las Vegas, which a particularly kind venue for hitters. It's not clear what this means for Davis, long-term. By not moving Lucas Duda or Daniel Murphy to first base, the Mets are essentially keeping the position open for him. But after a 2012 season in which Davis struggled for two months as well, the Mets can't responsibly count on having Davis at first base next season, any more than they can plan on Ruben Tejada at shortstop. For a team with few obvious answers at any position, an entire outfield to already fill, and apparently little financial wherewithal to do much about any of it, Davis' regression is particularly painful. The patience the Mets have shown him might well continue, simply because they don't have any other choice right now. They're intensely loyal to the players they have because they're intensely desperate for them to start playing well. But that's the sort of desperation that produces 23-35 records, and sweeps at the hands of the Marlins. "This is not a staff issue. This is a player issue," general manager Sandy Alderson, the staff member who picks the players, said Sunday. The financial handcuffs Alderson is wearing inhibit his ability to do much about that player issue. About all he can do is demote and hope for the best. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/06/8530815/unable-fire-owners-mets-do-what-they-can

Has Ike become non-tender candidate? June, 10, 2013 By Adam Rubin | ESPNNewYork.com NEW YORK -- Will Ike Davis' performance cause him to price himself out of returning to the Mets in 2014? That was the case with Mike Pelfrey last offseason. And it's at least worth wondering about with Davis, although there is plenty of season remaining. Davis -- in the majors or minors -- is earning $3.125 million this season. He again is eligible for arbitration next winter. Arbitration-eligible players almost always get a raise, although the only rule is that the pay must be at least 80 percent of the previous season. (So $2.5 million is the absolute floor.) One rival team entered the season estimating Davis would go to $6.1 million in 2013 if he had a normal performance. Clearly, that wouldn't materialize barring an extraordinary second half. But even at $3.5 million or $4 million next year -- a modest salary -- the Mets might have to consider ending Davis' Mets tenure. The Mets cut loose Pelfrey last winter rather than face a raise after he made $5.7 million the previous year. In Davis' case, it would seem logical if they were averse to a salary increase that they would explore a trade before considering a December non-tender. Non-tendering Davis would make him a free agent and free to sign anywhere with no salary floor other than the MLB minimum. Of course, on the trade front, an NL executive who predicts Davis gets non-tendered told ESPNNewYork.com: "They have completely devalued Ike Davis." http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/69143/has-ike-become-non-tender-candidate

I once wrote here that if the Mets primary goal in re-signing David Wright was to compete for the crown, then the signing was a bad move. I thought, and still do, that by the time the Mets field a team that, at least on paper, could win 85+ games, Wright will be significantly less than the player he is today. Whatever. Regrets? Might Capt. America have a few? June, 10, 2013 By Adam Rubin | ESPNNewYork.com NEW YORK -- Was David Wright hoodwinked? And what must he really be thinking now? Before Wright signed his eight-year, $138 million contract with the Mets in December, Sandy Alderson visited the third baseman in his native Norfolk, Va., to convince him the organization had a sound plan to return to contention. It is quite apparent now that things are going to take longer than intended, as Jeff Wilpon acknowledged to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin last week. David Wright re-upped for this? Said Wilpon: �You can�t just say it�s not going as fast as we want -- �We�re six months behind, two months behind,� whatever it might be. You�ve got to let the plan go all the way down the line. If you�re going to buy into something, you got to buy into it. You can�t change midstream, because if you�re constantly changing, there�s no chance you�re going to succeed. � I think we�re definitely happy with the plan and the direction we�re going. Is it happening as fast as anybody wants? No.� Wright is loyal to a fault. And probably a bit na�ve. So he may very well still believe. Yet at 30 years old, the organization indisputably is wasting his prime years. Still, there is a case to be made, if you want to be glass-half-full like Wright appears to be, that the mid-range horizon is OK. The Mets may be able to form a solid young rotation with Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jonathon Niese, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero within a couple of years. And with Johan Santana, Jason Bay, Frank Francisco, John Buck and Shaun Marcum among the players coming off the books, the Mets will not be saddled with bad contracts going forward. Only Wright and Jonathon Niese have deals of any length. Wright has been sold that the minor league system will start spitting out players, so he is living with the now for the promise of better days to come. It�s worth noting that not everyone is as bullish as the Mets are on their future. One NL executive told ESPNNewYork.com after Sunday�s mass demotions: �The farm system falls off after the top three. Long term, the Braves and Marlins are better positioned. Maybe even the Phillies.� Wright, for his part, consistently has said he has no regrets. �Any time you go through the stretches -- I guess a couple of stretches -- that we�ve been through this year, it�s frustrating,� Wright said. �It�s obviously disappointing. We knew we had our work cut out for us. We knew that it was going to be challenging. But I think that, needless to say, we�ve underperformed. It�s execution. We�re not executing on a number of different levels, a number of different areas of the game. It�s not one glaring area that you say, �Hey, we fix this, we get things turned around.� � �I always want to win. It doesn�t matter if it�s when I was 21 years old, now 30, or as I get older. You want to win. So it�s always frustrating when you lose.� http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/69134/captain-america-cant-carry-mets-yet-no-regrets

Ashie62 wrote: I don't believe the big numbers that Megdal quotes to build his "model".. Have the Mets bankers shown him the books? I doubt it.. The Mets bankers may disclose the team's financials only to entities that are authorized to view..... But Megdal, almost certainly, has a confidential informant feeding him a good amount of the team's private financials. Those financials were exposed to a lot of new eyeballs over the past few years as the Mets sought additional financing. Someone likely breached their confidentiality agreement.

Frayed Knot wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Because I'd truly like to answer your post without pissing you off. If that's at all possible. I increasingly doubt it. That's totally on you. I don't know why my earlier post would annoy you, or why you would take it as some sort of personal offense. Other than that just about everything I write seems to annoy you.

Edgy MD wrote: Or maybe it's the fever, and maybe he's done. Done-done. I don't know what's wrong with Ike, but if I was guessing, I'd guess the fever. It comes. It goes. It's supposed to remain with a person for life, and at the level that Ike competes at, having just 5% of his energy sapped by the fever might mean the difference between starring in the major leagues and struggling for a spot on the bench.

Ashie62 wrote: I do not agree with Medgal's financial interpretation here... Why? (Not that the Wilpons seem to have dodged every bullet so far, including the potential H-Bomb Picard lawsuit.

I know, there's probably another thread or eight that should logically accommodate this post. And until the forum search engine acts as efficiently as it ought to, I ain't bothering to look. Jeff Wilpon and the myth of a free-spending Mets winter to come By Howard Megdal 12:59 pm Jun. 6, 2013 Jeff and Fred Wilpon. Jeff Wilpon, chief operating officer of the New York Mets, was back in the news Wednesday, about a week after he conceded the 2013 season to Mariano Rivera. This time, Wilpon visited Binghamton, the Double-A home of the Mets. Whether this was a previously scheduled visit, or a public relations response to the Wall Street Journal piece which reported a primary factor in the Mets getting stuck with Las Vegas as a Triple-A affiliate was Jeff Wilpon, is unclear. Wilpon was there to preach patience. He said some hard-to-fathom things about general manager Sandy Alderson taking "two or three years to get the plan into effect, and we have to see and wait it out." Wilpon spoke the truth, but not quite in the way he intended. Waiting out Wilpon's ownership, devoid of the resources to field a good major league team, will require even more patience than Mets fans have given so far, for a major league team that's won progressively fewer games each year since 2010. So for a fan base that has already written off 2013 as surely as its owner did, the view has turned to this winter. The hope, and increasingly, the conventional wisdom, is that with a number of large contracts coming off the books, the Mets will spend money on new talent the team desperately needs, and which isn't coming through the minor league system just yet. The problem with this theory comes from treating the Mets, and their ability to spend money, as an independent function of the team's payroll alone. This winter promises to be far more complicated than that, and ownership's ability to spend will hang in the balance while Wilpon and his partners attempt to stave off the debt reckoning barreling toward them. Remember, this is fundamentally different than paying the annual interest on their debts, which has financially crippled the team annually, and forced things like a minority sale in March 2012, and a large loan this past winter. So measure the impact of these two things, if you wish: Johan Santana's $31 million coming off the books, along with Jason Bay's $21 million. This is more complicated than it sounds, in terms of freed-up money, since $15 million of Bay's $21 million was deferred, the Mets just choosing to call that money part of 2013 payroll (likely to inflate the 2013 number for public consumption), while $5 million of Santana's 2013 salary was already deferred, and another $5.5 million of that $31 million is a buyout of Santana's 2014 option, not due until the end of the season. So functionally, Bay and Santana earned $32 million this season, not $52 million. How that supposedly stopped the Mets from improving the team last winter would be a mystery, absent other information. But naturally, we have other information. And a cursory look at the obstacles ahead quickly makes thinking of how the Mets will spend this winter in terms of Bay and Santana look like the red herring it is. Mets' ownership is still financing an enormous debt load, took another $160 million in loans against their S.N.Y. ownership stake last winter, all part of their year-by-year effort to keep the ball in the air. They owe $320 million in a loan against the team, due in June 2014. And their debt total against S.N.Y., including the new loans last winter, are up over $600 million, and due in 2015. Getting their creditors to sign off on major new outlays of money isn't easy. JP Morgan Chase objected to the proposed deal with David Einhorn back in the summer of 2011 at first, because the original Einhorn-Mets deal put Einhorn in line among Wilpon creditors ahead of the team loan. And the same need to keep J.P. Morgan Chase happy led to the heavily deferred contract with David Wright, signed last winter, actually reducing the amount the Mets owed Wright between the date it was signed and the June 2014 due date for the team loan. It is unlikely the Wilpon and his partners would have been allowed to make the offer otherwise. Accordingly, the Mets have seen money come off the books before, like after 2011, when Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo no longer clogged the team's payroll. Back in early 2011, Jeff Wilpon preached a single year of patience. But it's not up to him. Those creditors are why it isn't just money in, money out on payroll. It's about getting their creditors to go along with new spending. So now consider the real winter ahead for the New York Mets owners. They have less than a year to either find a way to pay J.P. Morgan Chase $320 million, or convince the bank to give them more time. And they'll have to do so with more than just a Fred Wilpon press conference sunnily declaring his money problems a thing of the past. If the bank believes, unlike Standard and Poor's, that the Mets are on the cusp of profitability, or that a forced sale now will produce less revenue than giving ownership more time, then a stay of execution is possible. But it's more complicated than that. Any additional time built into this loan needs to also pass muster with the group holding the more than $600 million in debt against ownership's S.N.Y. holdings in 2015. The structures of the two loans, both held by ownership's parent company, will need to be reconciled. At that point, can the Mets spend money to sign new players? In theory, if J.P. Morgan Chase decides that an infusion of new talent is worth seeing a bunch of money go to, say, Shin-Soo Choo ahead of the bank to help turn the Mets profitable. And if the S.N.Y. creditors agree. While all of this is resolved, one way or another, 29 other teams, flush with new television money that will put an additional $50 million in their coffers in 2014, but without the need to go through a Queen of Versailles-style gauntlet to spend, can also bid on Choo and other free agents. So the Mets certainly have holes, between an outfield in need of three starters next season (Marlon Byrd's recent hot streak notwithstanding), possible starters at shortstop, first base, even catcher, depending on the progress and recovery of Travis d'Arnaud. But Jeff Wilpon is right: Mets fans really need to be patient. Wilpon and his partners have lots to do before Sandy Alderson's plan can include anything like spending money on baseball players. http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/sports/2013/06/8530740/jeff-wilpon-and-myth-free-spending-mets-winter-come

Frayed Knot wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: If the "fire everybody" rants are gonna need to be staved off, this move won't do it, Gee, and I was so adamant that this move WOULD do it. Maybe I should have stated up front that obviously this team was NOT one move away and instead was just interested in finding out what folks here thought should be the top priority ... Oh wait. Well excuuuuuuuse me. I must've mis-read your post. I thought you agreed that this one move won't necessarily help the team, but that you were silent on whether or not the one move would stave off the "fire everybody" rants. So ... top priority for what? Helping the team or staving off rants? Or both? Or something completely different? Because I'd truly like to answer your post without pissing you off. If that's at all possible.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Suggest ONE move ... in order to stave off all the FIRE EVERYBODY!!! rants .... If the "fire everybody" rants are gonna need to be staved off, this move won't do it, I don't care who's promoted. Shit in. Shit out. I don't get why anybody's gonna work themselves into a tizzy over the Mets ineptitude either. For the millionth time, what were they expecting? You get what you pay for. Oh, I forgot. Zack's coming.

Frayed Knot wrote: Suggest ONE move ... in order to stave off all the FIRE EVERYBODY!!! rants .... If the "fire everybody" rants are gonna need to be staved off, this move won't do it, I don't care who's promoted. Shit in. Shit out. I don't get why anybody's gonna work themselves into a tizzy over the Mets ineptitude either. For the millionth time, what were they expecting? You get what you pay for.

Zvon wrote: ahhhhhhshit well, its not like I didn't know we would need more runs. Rice gives up his 1st homer of the season? Is that what Garr said? Wow. And bummer. Ralph Garr's in the booth?

Dumped by Mets, Perez Revives His Career as Mariner By DAVID WALDSTEIN Published: June 8, 2013 Oliver Perez pitching against the Yankees last month. Through Friday, his E.R.A. was 1.29. In 2010, his last season with the Mets, his E.R.A. was 6.80. SEATTLE � At the worst moment of his career, Oliver Perez swallowed hard, blinked several times to prevent tears from forming and told reporters what all ballplayers say, even if sometimes it�s hard to believe. He claimed he still loved the game. His earned run average was over 8.00, his velocity was under 86, and every time he walked anywhere near a mound, a thunderstorm of boos assaulted his ears. Other than the money, what�s to love about that? It was March 21, 2011, and the Mets had, in the words of Perez, just fired him. He was so bad that the strapped club was willing to eat most of the $12 million it still owed him just to make him go away and stop reminding the Mets of their costly mistake � a three-year, $36 million extension for a left-handed starter they thought could win 15 to 18 games a season. Perez had been so bad the season before that the Mets tried to send him to the minor leagues, a request he rebuffed. The Mets responded by refusing to pitch him for a month, and in all, he appeared in only 17 games for the season, with an 0-5 record and a 6.80 E.R.A. In an absurd outing in the final game of 2010, he walked three batters and hit another in the 14th inning. Naturally, he took the loss. By spring training in 2011, he had become such a distraction that the Mets could no longer abide his presence. Never mind that a lingering knee injury was preventing him from throwing with his usual force. The Mets, and their fans, wanted him gone, and now he was. But before he ducked into a waiting sport utility vehicle, Perez dutifully spoke to reporters in Port St. Lucie, Fla., vowing to come back with another team. �I think when you get fired from anywhere, you feel sad,� he said. �It�s not a good moment. But you have to be stronger, you know. And my life is not done.� More than two years later, Perez has made good on his promise. After spending 18 months fighting and scraping his way through the lower levels of the professional game, Perez has reinvented himself with the Seattle Mariners and now has some of the most impressive numbers of any major league reliever. His E.R.A. is 1.17, and he has 31 strikeouts in 23 innings. �He�s been invaluable to us,� Mariners Manager Eric Wedge said. �He got his velocity back, and now he�s pitching with confidence. He�s just been huge.� His path to being an invaluable member of the Mariners actually began the day he left the Mets for good. �I couldn�t believe it,� Perez said in a recent interview. �I got home and I cried with my wife. I was in shock. But I was only 29. My family told me, �You are too young to quit.� � Two days later, Scott Boras, his agent, found Perez work with the Washington Nationals. It was not glamorous. He was assigned to Class AA Harrisburg, where he spent the season riding buses and sleeping in modest hotels. He made 15 starts and had a 3.09 earned run average. And his knee was healing. Toward the end of the season, the coaching staff in Harrisburg, realizing that Perez�s numbers against left-handed hitters had become exceptional, suggested that he consider becoming a left-handed specialist, a short reliever used primarily to retire left-handed hitters. Thinking it was the quickest way back to the majors, Perez embraced the idea. He went home to Culiac�n to pitch in the Mexican Winter League and also went to work with Rafael Arroyo, a former bullpen catcher with the Mets. Perez�s career as a reliever began to take shape. �He was very vulnerable at the time,� Arroyo said. �He hadn�t had success, and he lost a lot of confidence. He was really in a do-or-die situation. It was a turning point for him. He had to give up his ego and go about as far down as you can go to get back up to where he is.� While Perez was toiling in Mexico, Boras called the Mariners and told them they had to see him. His knee was strong again and his velocity was up to 94 miles per hour. And Perez did pitch well for Culiac�n, although even there, in the city of his birth, he was still susceptible to hearing the jeers that had become his soundtrack with the Mets. �I was more nervous pitching in Mexico because everybody wants you to be good all the time,� he said. �I�m the first one to get to the big leagues from that city. But sometimes, they boo me, too.� So far, he has not been booed in Seattle. He joined the Mariners last June, and in 33 games last season had a 1-3 record and a solid 2.12 E.R.A. This season, his E.R.A., after 25 appearances, is startling. Moreover, Perez, 31, says he wants to pitch until he is 40 and wants to pitch on a championship team. Maybe that will be in Seattle, or maybe somewhere else. Just not in Queens. �With these numbers, he�s going to be at minimum an eighth-inning guy like a Jeremy Affeldt,� Boras said, citing the left-handed specialist who has won two championship rings with the San Francisco Giants in the last three seasons. �He fought his way back,� Boras said of Perez. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/sports/baseball/mets-discard-oliver-perez-reinvents-himself-as-mariner.html?_r=0 ________________________________________ If, two or three years years ago, Perez was willing to acknowldege his knee injury and accept his Minor League reassignment, the response would have been more sympathetic and he might still be a Met today. His contract was guaranteed. Instead, he brought on all of the wrath by insisting on remaining with the big club, despite a fast ball that was almost 10 MPH slower and a total loss of pitch control.

Source: Mets eye next Friday for Zack debut By Adam Rubin | ESPNNewYork.com Zack Wheeler is expected to make his major league debut against the Chicago Cubs. WASHINGTON -- The Mets are eyeing next weekend�s series against the Chicago Cubs at Citi Field, and specifically next Friday�s series opener, for Zack Wheeler to make his major league debut, a baseball source told ESPNNewYork.com. The date is not set in stone because of factors such as potential rainouts in the interim, but is tentatively set. Wheeler is due to make what his likely his final start with Triple-A Las Vegas tonight at Tacoma. Jay Horwitz, the team�s vice president for media relations, flew to the West Coast during Monday�s Mets off-day to prep Wheeler for dealing with the New York media. Wheeler, 23, is 4-1 with a 3.86 ERA in 11 Pacific Coast League starts. The Mets have been waiting until after the �Super 2� deadline to promote Wheeler. By ensuring he is not in the first portion of MLB prospects called up this season, the Mets can delay Wheeler�s arbitration eligibility by a year, until after the 2016 season. Either way at this point, Wheeler would not be eligible for free agency until after the �19 season. Wheeler�s promotion would come amid solid recent performances by Dillon Gee and Jeremy Hefner, which complicates the decision. Still, the Mets might not immediately need to bounce anyone from the rotation because of a doubleheader on June 18 in Atlanta, which will create the need for an extra starter for one turn. http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/68848/source-mets-eye-next-friday-for-zack-debut

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Edgy MD wrote: Sheesh, it's like tax law. You claim it's designed to help the poor, but all it does is encourage the rich to come up with ever-more-sophisticated dodges. Isn't it a little more even-handed? The real trick seems to be to draft someone who'll sign for, say, a million or two under slot in the first*, then use that million to tempt a couple more iffy-signability types from their verbal commitments in the middle rounds. Expand the middle-class! Hand up, not hand out! *Assuming there's no once-in-a-generation type up when your team is scheduled to pick Plus, the better teams (and likely, or at least presumably, wealthier) have less total money to spend on the entire draft. So whatever the better teams can do, the worsers can do better than the betters.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Naming the Rotunda for me would sort of result in a homina-homina-homonym. At least he was a Met. Sort of. Though I doubt any of the Wilpons know anything about JR. Never had a logo on his cap on his baseball cards. In fact, he was lucky to even have a cap some years. JR looks like a hard-boiled TV detective from the '70's. In the style of Mannix. Or Harry O. But not Cannon.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Naming the Rotunda for me would sort of result in a homina-homina-homonym. At least he was a Met. Sort of. Though I doubt any of the Wilpons know anything about JR. Never had a logo on his cap on his baseball cards. In fact, he was lucky to even have a cap some years.

G-Fafif wrote: Naming the Rotunda for me would sort of result in a homina-homina-homonym. At least he was a Met. Sort of. Though I doubt any of the Wilpons know anything about JR.