bmfc1

(Moved)

How about "Jane Jarvis Day"? They must have tapes of her classics (unless the Wilpons left them at Shea or sold them to the highest bidder). One game, instead of the usual music, play nothing but recordings of Jane's music.

I would support signing Washburn if he's OK (have the Mets crack medical staff, lead by Dr. Nick, give him the once over). He was great in the first half of last season--look at his July--before breaking down. Given what they have and the available options, including the fragile Bedard, Washburn looks like a good choice.

Based upon the roster above, there will be 5 brand new faces from 09. Since 09 stunk, you would think that we'd see a major overhaul, but no. The only 5 new players are: Igarashi, Blanco, Bay, Carter, GMJ. With Tatis returning, he'll take probably take Carter's spot so that gives us only 4 new players from an awful team. (I know that management would say that we saw the inventory last year because of all the injuries which results in fewer players that are new to us but, to me, it's still surprising and distressing only to see 4 or 5 new players.)

I amended the original message to tell you that the Mets will on Sunday night 3 weeks in a row. First of all--has ESPN checked the Mets roster lately? Second--crap! No Gary, Keith and/Ron. Third--we look forward to watching the Mets on Sundays and now we have 3 weeks in a row where we have to wait until the night.

Oy is right. Four of those five starters are coming off injuries. When you have so many injured pitchers, common sense dictates that you get some starters that can throw 200 innings but common sense has no place in the Mets front office. Last season ended with Misch and Figueroa and this season might begin that way, too. Unless they get Washburn, who was injured at the end of last year or Smoltz (please don't), the office season will have seen the Mets get Bay, some crappy catchers, a reliever that didn't pitch last season (Escobar) and a guy whose team was so happy to be rid of, they paid almost his whole salary. This team might finish last this season.

http://sportsmediawatch.blogspot.com/2010/01/yankees-to-play-mets-dodgers-in.html

Those of you planning to go to CF--heads up! There have been some time changes to accommodate national TV in April and May: April 25--8:05 (ESPN) May 22--7:05 (FOX moves NYM/MFY to prime-time) May 23--8:05 (ESPN) The above means that consecutive games between two NY teams will not have NY announcers on TV. The April 18 game at St. Louis and the May 2 game at Philadelphia are also Sunday night games meaning that the Mets are on ESPN three Sundays in a row.

Brutal reports on Matthews from Olney's ESPN column, today: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the Mets completed their trade for Gary Matthews Jr. on Friday, committing about $2.5 million and a middle reliever to land him, one talent evaluator dug into his team's scouting reports, wondering if maybe his general impression that Matthews was a player in decline was wrong. The reports for his team were clear: Matthews is a player to be avoided. Slow bat. Declining range. And above all else, a player who wants to be a regular and will be an unhappy distraction in your clubhouse when he's not in the lineup every day. Said an executive with another team of the Mets' efforts to acquire Matthews -- which have been extensive, including the discussion of one possible four-team deal this winter: "Baffling." The Angels signed Matthews to a five-year, $50 million deal after he had a strong 2006 season, in which he reached a career highs in batting average (.313), homers (19) and OPS (.866). It wasn't long after that Matthews was linked, with intense scrutiny, to past acquisition of human growth hormone. His OPS the last three seasons: .742, .675 and .697; the last number ranked 90th among 104 outfielders with at least 300 plate appearances. His slugging percentage of .361 ranked 96th among 104 outfielders with at least 300 plate appearances. He is now 35 years old. The Mets are seeing something in him that other teams are not seeing -- especially the Angels, who also have a need for an extra outfielder but essentially ate $21.5 million just to get Matthews off their team. I asked a scout with a team not involved in this deal for his observations on Matthew's play. His response: "I still see Matthews as an expensive extra outfielder," said the scout. "The Angels knew they were fooled by his Texas numbers before they went after Hunter. He should still be able to play center field while Beltran is out, but he hasn't shown any sock since he was outed for receiving shipments of HGH a couple years ago. His bat has been dragging through the zone the last couple years. Nevertheless, he should benefit from getting more consistent at bats in NY than he had been getting in Anaheim." His defense? Well, Mark Simon of ESPN Research sent along his year-by-year UZR/150 ratings from FanGraphs. Let's just say there's a trend in the numbers: * 2002: 23.8 (1st among 107 outfielders with at least 500-plus innings) * 2003: 6.6 (33rd of 105) * 2004: 21.3 (9th of 107) * 2005: 18.7 (15th of 112) * 2006: 1.0 (46th of 108) * 2007: -12.2 (88th of 108) * 2008: -13.7 (94th of 112) * 2009: -24.6 (109th of 115) The winter's market has had other guys who could've fit the role of extra outfielder. Randy Winn. Jeremy Reed. Endy Chavez, who reportedly is making progress in his rehabilitation. To sum up the view of Matthews within the game: He can't hit for average, can't hit for power, his defense ranks statistically among the worst outfielders in the majors, and, to top it off, rival scouts have been reporting that in recent years he has been a clubhouse negative. If Matthews were a free agent, he would be a player who might get a $500,000 non-guaranteed minor league deal with an invitation to spring training. And yet the Mets opted to commit $2.5 million to get him, as well as trade a serviceable pitcher in Brian Stokes, to get a player whose effectiveness might have ended years ago. Very strange.

Matthews for Stokes and $2 million of Matthew's salary. At minimum, if Matthews remembers how many outs there are and which base to throw to, he's an improvement over Pagan. If he's in a "I'll show them!" mode, all the better.

If you're interested, I found a thread on an Angels message board: http://www.angelswin.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=32641&posts=6&start=1 Heyman says that he hears that Castillo is not part of the deal. The Angels are paying most of his big contract (I think he said 20 of 23 million).

I should have said "re-acquired": http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/M/Gary-Matthews.shtml

Tweets say that the Mets have acquired Gary Matthews, Jr. # SI_JonHeyman #angels will pay a lot of $ on matthews' contract, says AL source. beltran expected back in late april, but #mets concerned 2 minutes ago from web # Jon Heyman SI_JonHeyman #mets are acquiring gary matthews jr. from angels, according to an AL source. story will be up soon on si.com. 4 minutes ago from web

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/why-nelson-figueroa-is-good/ The first comment is worth noting as it brings us up to date.

Would have been a good 4th OF. A good CF that knew how to play LF (i.e. caught the ball and didn't crash into the CF) and, unlike the guy who will start the year at CF, always threw to the right base.

Does the Mets front office have any clue about assembling a pitching staff? This wasn't that difficult: sign a FA SP and trade for another. Instead, they have done nothing. Santana, Pelfrey, Maine (off an injury), Perez (off stinking), and the same nobodies that permeated into our lives last season. No Piniero, No Marquis--the guy that actually wanted to be a Met! So that means overpaying for fragile Ben Sheets or signing Jon Garland or Jarrod Washburn. I know: their strategy is to get the only guys left after everyone else has signed because those guys will come the cheapest. The only real hope, if you can call it that, is if the Reds have to dump salary and get rid of Harang or Arroyo. It should not have come to this but the Mets FO screwed it up. So let's sit back and enjoy Nelson Figueroa and Pat Misch.

Hairston is primarily a 2B but he's played SS and everywhere in the OF so he could be a good fit for CF and to give Reyes a day-off. http://www.rototimes.com/mlb/player/3332/eligibility

I'm not angry--if I went to say hi to David Wright and he beat the crap out of me and the team did nothing (I just watched "Big Fan"), I'd be angry. But I'm not as philosophical about the team as Edgy--and kudos to him for being so friggin' level-headed--because I'm an emotional fan (perhaps that's redundant), this is my favorite team in my favorite sport, and, while I don't expect it to be our birthright like MFY fans, it would be nice if they won once in a while (29 out of 30 don't win but it would be nice to be The One more than every 20 years or so). It would also be nice if the team's management didn't continuously make a fool of itself, as it did here ("I'll show him who's the boss and who's the employee!"). What also makes this annoying-aggravating (to respond to the original question), is that it occurred on a media day, so instead of the story being Pelfrey losing 20 pounds, Maine being healthy, Wright being confident, etc., the story was Beltran. It's hard to believe that the Wilpons became billionaires with such poor management skills.

The Mets issued the following press release a few moments ago: �Carlos Beltran had worsening of osteoarthritis of the right knee during the offseason. He had not been experiencing pain following the conclusion of the season and into his early offseason conditioning. The symptoms returned to the point where pre-spring training conditioning became too painful. He elected to undergo arthroscopic clean out of the arthritic area of his knee by Beltran�s personal physician Dr. Richard Steadman today in Colorado. He is anticipated to return to baseball activities in 12 weeks.

SI.com: Mets center fielder Carlos Beltran underwent minor knee surgery Wednesday, sources connected to the Mets told SI.com. Beltran will need 8-12 weeks of rehab and is expected to be recovered at or around Opening Day. The Mets begin the season at home vs. the Marlins on April 5. Beltran missed significant time last season because of a bone bruise behind the right knee cap.

I'm hoping that the bad news is limited to "Castillo will be the 2B next year."

Cancel your plans. Cerrone says to stay tuned for news. 1st, he tweeted: You might want to keep a close eye on MetsBlog.com tonight, as things are about to get interesting. The speculation was on B. Molina but that's expected so it must be something else. But then injury expert Will Carroll tweeted: Big news pending for Mets. Doesn't sound good.