Edgy MD

Well, Duan, that's because you're a world-class badass. Yeah, I know head wounds look far worse than they are. But sharply struck liners come at you a lot faster than an opponent's head on the football pitch. And the eye is the eye. The bad hop at third is a scary prospect and has ended more than one career. Bobby Valentine got his nose squished by one, and came out of it with a new-found appreciation for artificial turf.

Hate blood? Don't scroll down. Tough dude. Gutsy of inge to walk over like that and ask if he could play third again.

Megdal sticks to his tune, at least in his lede.

And... the Mets owners complete a very busy day by finalizing their sales and paying off $65 million in loans. Mets finalize sales of 12 minority shares Stakes each worth $20 million; club also pays $65 million in loans By Anthony DiComo / MLB.com | 03/19/12 9:03 PM ET PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- The Mets have finalized the sales of 12 minority ownership shares and paid back $65 million in outstanding loans to Major League Baseball and Bank of America, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The team has not commented on the deals. The Mets had been working to finalize the ownership sales for weeks, with two of the shares going to the team's parent company, Sterling Equities, and another four to the partially team-owned cable network SNY. The sales are worth $20 million each for a total of $240 million. The influx of cash has allowed the Mets to repay a $25 million loan to MLB, which had been outstanding for more than a year, and a $40 million loan they took out with Bank of America in December. The rest of the money is expected to help the team cover operating expenses and potential losses in 2012. Earlier Monday, before the trial could begin, Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz settled for $162 million with the trustee seeking to recover funds from Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The Mets originally intended to sell one larger minority ownership sale, but they broke off talks to do so with hedge-fund manager David Einhorn last September. At that time, the team revealed an alternative plan to sell multiple, smaller ownership stakes, which has now come to fruition. Anthony DiComo is a reporter for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @AnthonyDicomo. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

.288-31-106.

The post-settlement reports seem to suggest that the family does still have money, and expects to gain more from their suits. And operating as lean as they are, I think there's valid reason to think the team won't keep losing money, although how that shakes out remains to be seen.

Well, I don't think the suggestion is/was that hey were losing $70 million every year, but only that things had come to a head in the post-2008 period with success not forthcoming, the recession, and the persistence of contracts that were signed without recession-minded caution. The cutting salary by $50 million (or whatever) could go a long way toward making up that deficit. So could cutting staff and operations. I feel confident that they are looking pretty secure in their ownership right now.

We almost missed yesterday's anniversary of Castillo's release and Tracksuit's article.

Yeah, man. Get it together.

I know, right? Someday, your kids are going to ask you about grunge-era music, and you're going to have to explain it to them. Our whole culture was constipated from 1994 to 2004.

Seems to have kept cool though. I'd have crumbled like a ragdoll. I'm crumbling right now just watching it.

Miggy Cabrera, taking a hard Hunter Pence hopper off the eye socket. Supposedly left the field bleeding profusely.

Was there a "Do you think they're going to lose the team?" poll?

He's certainly not a finished product. But neither is he unburdened.

I don't know about the question for Heyward being "continuing to develop" so much as "ceasing to regress." He was Wayward Heyward last year, and as good a reason as any for their ultimate failure to appear in the post-season. He more or less got stinkier as the year progressed, with half of his season's homers coming in April. Probably pissed off a lot of fantasy owners too. Psyche!

I'm going for Wright and Davis, but I also think Duda will rip apart the league in the first half. Can you set it to allow re-votes?

I think the Mets have done well getting quality out of quantity when filling out the back end of their rotation --- finding guys who are nobody's ideas of top prospects, but can grind it out every fifth day for a year, have a few good runs along the way, but then the league catches up to them, and they regress and become the fringey guys they were supposed to be all along. Glendon Rusch, Jae Weong Seo, and John Maine, meet Jon Niese and Dillon Gee. Maybe. Yet something makes me believe a little in Niese. I'm still chewing on this a bit.

Wise one? Maybe. That's why I'm encouraging Norrin to bet while I enjoy the action from the sidelines.

Yes! Yes! Bet, bet, bet!

The main thing I can say is, sure, but quality pitching tends to be ephemeral. It's everywhere then it's nowhere. I think there's some talk of Philies shortstop-of-the-future Freddy Galvis getting a Tejada-like intro to the bigs as a phil-in secondbaseman. He's 21 and looks to be have been getting some Bernazard-like aggressive promotion, and hasn't quite learned to hit yet.

Martinez has a real noodlebat, and I'd be surprised if they weren't at least tempted to go with Wigginton at second and Thome at first, at least a few times per week. Widget played 40 games at second in 2010, the year he made the All Star team as a utility pole.

Rubin: "And because the Wilpons will be able to recover money from loser fund, their out-of-pocket expenses should be fraction of actual settlement." Shit. Why don't I have a loser fund?

By the way, nice "In-Trial Thread," Edgy. Jackass.

Who is playing second for them? Can Wigstone still play over there?

Frayed Knot wrote: Well, if nothing else, this removes the uncertainty from the near future. Doesn't mean there won't still be tough times ahead, but at least those in charge presumably know where everything stands. See (and this tells you where I am), this really is a punch to "no way in hell" insistence of Megdal. But yeah! Go baseball!