Highly Offensive

November 25, 2008 Uncategorized No comments

Nobody asked, but were it up to me I’d try to make a deal with Mark Teixeira, trade Carlos Delgado to Toronto for pitching/bullpen/bench help, and somehow make Brian Schneider a backup catcher. Improving the offense is important. If Tex costs too much buy the cheaper of Fuentes or Rodriguez, or take your chances with the guys you get in trades. Somebody’s going to pitch in the ninth inning.

Despite all you hear of Omar’s rep as whacky wheeler-dealer, he’s probably going to play it considerably safer. Blowing his wad for the closer first is one of those moves that won’t get criticized considering how impovrished everyone thinks the bullpen is,and will excuse him for doing much more. Just saying, it’s probably not the cleverest thing he could do.

Citibank’s on the brink of collapse? How appropriate!

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Going Shopping

November 17, 2008 Uncategorized One comment

I have no idea what will happen this offseason but I’ll tell you this. I’m sitting here hoping the Mets just don’t throw the most money at the guy with the most saves, which is what they did the last time and look where it got them: Feeling pressure to throw the most money at the guy with the most saves, and still on the hook for $10 million, and still looking for a championship. You’re just asking for it.

So I’m thinking, if you’re going to go after a guy with closing experience, it may as well be Brian Fuentes, who lacks the Sex Appeal of K-Rod but just might get it done cheaper and wouldn’t be such a name brand diva that you couldn’t slide him into a set-up role if things go bad. And you know they might. Meantime while it’d be nice if they brought in a few good arms as well I hope what they’re really learning is that when building a bullpen, like building a bench, begins with turning the earth and fresh seeds every year.

Besides we already have a No. 57.

 

For the rotation they should just go sign Oliver Perez again.

 

I wish I had a better handle on how they’re going to help the offense but without knowing what they might expect from Church and Castillo, not to mention Daniel Murphy, next year, my guess is as good as yours. I’d be awfully tempted though to see if I couldn’t solve a few problems at onceby dangling Delgado in a trade.Yeah, and I’d look into getting a better hitter behind the dish and not Castro, whose been unable to answer the bell at crucial times far too often.

My apologies for the infrequent updates: I briefly lost use of the home computer and haven’t had a lot to report on. You may have seeen the Mets hired Luis Alicea to be their new first-base coach. He coached the Red Sox wearing No. 16 last year but I’d expect to see him — along withRazor Shines — take numbers in the low 50s.

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Deal Me Up Another Future From Some Brand New Deck of Cards

October 23, 2008 Uncategorized One comment

Word got out today that the Mets and Jerry Manuel are to make some changes to the coaching staff next season. Base coaches Ken Oberkfell and Luis Aguayo will be offered new positions within the organization after joining the Mets concurrent with the Willie Randolph firing this past June.

Aguayo’s replacement at third base will be none other than Razor Shines, a personal favorite of Jerry Manuel and of anyone who collects cool baseball names. Shines served to positive reviews under Manuel in Chicago — they were once both fringe infielders in the Expos’ organization — and appears to have a pretty good reputation. He wore No. 18 in Chicago.

The Mets also announced that Guy Conti would be reassigned and Met lifer Randy Niemann would return to the staff as bullpen coach.This would mark Niemann’s third stint with the major league staff — he served the same role under under Bobby Valentine and Art Howe, racking up three uni numbers (45, 48, 52) along the way. You might also not remember him as perhaps the least distinguished of the 1986 Mets– a lanky lefthanded reliever whose spotty Met career resulted in having worn Nos. 46 and 40 over parts of two seasons. That makes 5 unis so far, the overall record is in sight.

The Mets also said Thursday that hitting coach Howard Johnson; pitching coach Dan Warthen, and father-and-son staffers Sandy Alomar Sr. and Jr., would return to their roles with the Mets in 2009.

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Blue Days, Black Nights

October 8, 2008 The Uniform No comments

Turns out you can’t trust everything you read on the Internet. Who knew?

The below item about rumors of a uniform change was shot down this week by a source in the know. Not only are the Mets not ditching road greys for charcoal greys, but the black will continue to be an (unwelcome) element in caps, drop shadows and jerseys. The only changes, our source assured us, will be a sleeve patchadvertising Citibank honoring CitiField, and the removal of the black road NEW YORK jerseys from the lineup, allowing the team to suit up in the same black Mets jerseys at home or on the road.

(The photo here, snapped by the talented David Whitham, catches your host digesting the Mets’ inability to get the winning run home from third base with no outs in what became my final visit to Shea Stadium last month. We really oughta dispense with the moroseness now, and ditching the black — all of us — seems a fine way to start. I’m going to go set that hat on fire).

Very disappointing knowing that changes could be coming to the Mets ensemble had been an open secret since 2006, when Paul Lukas’s spirited but ultimately doomed Ditch The Blackcampaign got some publicity but no results.

The New York Times in 2006:

Mr. [Dave] Howard [Mets executive VP] said that the Mets’ uniforms would remain the same through 2007 but that the team might revisit the issue for the opening of the club’s new ballpark in 2009. Still, he said, “if you look around the building, you’re seeing a lot of the black, so it’s clear fans vote most effectively with their pocketbook.”

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Old Problems, New Unis?

October 3, 2008 The Uniform 2 comments

I can’t say a four-year contract for Omar Minaya and a Jeff Wilpon promise of “addition by subtraction” were the first things I was hoping to hear from the Mets this offseason.

As detailed in prior posts I’m not exactly sure what Omar has done to deserve the reward, beyond overwhelming certain free agents and their would-be suitors. His trade record, particularly since the shrewd acquisition of John Maine, hasn’t been particularly shining, and his restraint in consecutive deadlines, while admirable in some respects, also preceded matching second-place finishes.

To his credit, Omar appears to have made pursuit of interim manager Jerry Manuel among his top priorities. Manuel did a magnificent job turning around a sonambulent team this year and seemed to have charmed the press and the brass. Interestingly, chatter has begun over whether to bring back Bobby Valentine, who’d certainly be an acceptable alternative from where I sit.

(Edit — I see now where Jerry has agreed to a 2-year deal. Hoorah. In the Mets world, 2 years = 1 year, setting them up to return to Bobby Vee if things don’t work out next year. All good).

Wondering just what the 2009 team will look like might be tricky considering rumors of uniform changes have arisen again. Dave from Michigan passed along chatter from Chris Creamer’s Sports Logo website saying the Mets as expected are phasing out black (hooray!) in favor of blue but have the biggest changes in mind for their road uniform, said to be completely re-imagined in a charcoal gray (uh, OK?) with Mets in script (boo!). The message continues:

Interestingly there is absolutely no black on this uniform whatsoever – and I was told that the blue/orange/white color combination jumps off this uniform with incredible success. Blue/Orange/White piping will also be on the ends of the sleeves, down the front of the jersey, and down the pant legs as well.

OK, something else to look forward to, maybe.

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When I’m 64

September 28, 2008 Uncategorized No comments

As usual, the readership came through solving a Met Mystery with speed and precision. The Met wearing No. 64 pictured in the below post and here on the left was and is Luis Natera, a current Binghamton Mets coach and a former Mets DSL manager who earned the coaching version of a September callup this year while looking over former pupils such as Dan Murphy and Nick Evans.

As detailed in the comments below, reader C.M. even provided a link explaining the circumstances while perennial MBTN All-Star Jason provided Natera’s page in the Media guide, adding some baseball to the first non-baseball day of our winter.

I don’t plan to too inactive here this off-season. I’ve got a few projects underway to beef up the player and number content, and as always we’ll be on top of the hot stove with opinions and wild speculation as MBTN approaches its 10th birthday. Wow!

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Yours Sincerely Wasting Away

September 28, 2008 Uncategorized One comment

It’s a shame that such a heroic effort from Johan Santana and altogether excellent seasons from Reyes, Wright, Beltran and Delgado have gone to waste, and I won’t happily endure my team becoming a national joke again, but the Mets, you gotta believe, pretty much got what they deserved again this year.

Yeah the bullpen was awful but we knew that. What was hardest for me to take was the poor execution from the offense — never more obvious than in the 9th inning of what today was confirmed to be my final trip to Shea Stadium (those NLDS tickets I printed up yesterday join my 1988 World Series tickets in the ultility drawer) on Wednesday. It was a leadoff triple for god sakes.

Considerably more subtle but just as telling a moment occurred in the bottom of the 6th inning on Friday night. This was long before Mets were out of it: They’d just scored to cut the deficit to 3-1 and the tying runs were on third and first. The situation called for a pinch hitter to extend the rally with two outs and who emerges from the dugout?

Marlon Anderson.

As Randy Myers once asked of Gregg Jefferies: Are we even trying? Omar sure wasn’t when he re-signed this guy — for two years — based on a decent 60-some times at bat following a well-earned unconditional release by the Dodgers last summer. Anderson produced one hit — an infield dribbler that didn’t reach the pitcher’s mound — since his return from the disabled list and was making outs at 75% clip all year long. This was our Danny Heep? Our Matt Franco or Shawon Dunston? The first guy we called on when the correct play was to go slam one off the wall?

Anderson, we needen’t be reminded, struck out swinging, ending the rally and beginning a parade of ineffective relievers who, just like Anderson, were retained foolishly, performed ineffectively, and nevertheless remained in heavy rotation while the trade deadline came and went. Of course they lost it. Of course the weight of so many poor players was eventually too much to bear.

Omar did get rid of an ineffective manager, but whether he waited too long to do that is a fair question too. Why is not surprising that the first move of the offseason will reportedly be to retain him for too long?

* * *

Now onto important matters: Ever alert reader Gordon over the weekend pointed out some guy wearing uniform No. 64, and on Sunday “as they were leaving the bench to make tee times” he got the above capture (see a larger photo here). Who is that guy? Any ideas? Thanks!

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Sit on It

September 23, 2008 Uncategorized 2 comments

So maybe it was premature to declare total confidence in the Mets way back … uh, when we had a three game lead and um, 17 to go. It wasn’t that carelessly losing games to Washington and Atlanta wasn’t expected — we’re good at that, actually — it was that I wasn’t counting on Milwaukee concurrently failing to record even a single loss over a four-game series in Philadelphia.

That series, which cost the Brewers a lame-duck manager, might have done even more damage to the Mets by changing the whole complexion of the race. A split or even a single win there would have given the Mets ample room to flail away while burying the Phillies just deep enough to bring the pressure on them.

As it is, we’re now left needing to match or exceed the Brewers over the final six games to avoid a one-game playoff in which we’d pitch… Pedro on short rest? Brandon Knight? Jon Niese?

Help us, Fonzie, you’re our only hope.

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You Just Gotta

September 18, 2008 Uncategorized One comment

39This team has me so on edge I’m finding it hard just to record coherent thoughts about it but wanted to toast the addition of Bobby Parnell to the sacred scrolls: last week he became the 848th Met of all-time, the 50th player of 2008 and the second No. 39 this year: Claudio Vargas wore No. 39 earlier this year.

It also appears that Parnell will be the last of the 2008 Mets: Word came this evening that the Mets had let Gustavo Molina — the first of four No. 6s and the last of four 29s this season — to get a head start on winter ball, prompting the question of there being any politer spin of “Clean out your locker, Meat.” They also released erstwhile would-be closer Al Reyes before Reyes ever received a ball in a Met game, begging the unfathomable: Just how bad does a guy have to be to not get a job in the Mets’ bullpen? Don’t answer. Let’s go Mets!

* * *

On unrelated notes, I want to pass along a link to Kevin’s cool NumerOlogy site and his exclusive interview with obscure lefthander John O’Donoghue. In a it’s-a-small-world-after-all coincidence, I’d interviewed O’Donoghue myself 15+ years ago when I was a cub reporter at a newspaper in his hometown.

Speaking of odd connections, Greg over at Faith & Fear is among those whose recent example finally convinced me to try the whole social networking thing: You’re welcome to visit my new Facebook page and see if anything comes of it.

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Chokely-Dokely-Doo!

September 16, 2008 Uncategorized One comment

It’s the offense, stupid! Terrible bullpen notwithstanding. Always has been.

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