Pitching, Pitching, and More Pitching

Last night Marty Noble reported that Pedro Martinez has received offers from various teams, but nothing of substance from the team he hopes to return to. When asked about the Mets, Pedro confirmed that he had met and spoken with Mets brass.

"We talked about a lot of things...there were questions about my health. I can tell you that they are interested in me. But in the end, there is nothing concrete...If possibilities (of re-signing) exist, we'll find them. What we need to do is find a halfway point between where they are and where we are."

A deal with Martinez is unlikely for the time being, especially with so much uncertainty in their #2 / 3 slot in the rotation.

Speaking of said rotation spot, earlier this week at Mack's Mets it was reported that a deal with Oliver Perez was to be completed this weekend. Now it is being reported by Joe DeMayo at NY Baseball Digest that if a deal doesn't get done by tomorrow, the team will be moving on to other options. All signs point to a deadline being in place, a very un-Omar like move. DeMayo's source goes on to say that he believes the deal will get done, because the organization loves the kid, and the kid loves them back.

Sign Manny Rally

Manny mania hit midtown Manhattan last night. On message board threads over the course of the past week, a "Sign Manny Ramirez" rally was organized to be held outside of the SNY Studios during the network's live Mets Hot Stove broadcast.

The crowd was a bit smaller than expected (approximately 30 people), but boisterous nevertheless. Chants of "We want Manny!" were screamed throughout the show - with one fan even doing so through a megaphone. Signs plastered the glass of the studio with images of the 36 year old right-hander.

The leader of the pack, and focus of SNY's outdoor coverage, even had a customized Mets Ramirez jersey. When asked where he got it, he said his mother got it for him. "She's an even bigger Manny fan than I am!"

To see a slideshow of images from the rally, click here.

2009 Offensive Production

It truly is amazing to see the different kinds of rumors that are getting cooked up this Hot Stove season. According to Matt Cerrone of Metsblog, two new Manny Ramirez to the Mets rumors have been hitting his inbox.

The first being that Omar is pulling a sleeper move, and waiting till the days before single game tickets go on sale before acquiring the right handed slugger. The second (and hands down the most outrageous) rumor is that Minaya is working with Scott Boras right now to sign both Oliver Perez and Ramirez. The local LA radio station that reported it stated the deal would involve the Mets getting Oliver at a "discount" so long as the club provides Manny with a guaranteed third year. Wow.

All this Manny talk has me nauseous. I would love it as much as the next fan if we acquired him. Honestly though, I think our offensive production should hold up just fine without him. Here is how our lineup projects as is, along with the projected run production of each player according to Bill James:

1. Jose Reyes - 117
   
2. Luis Castillo - 68
   
3. David Wright - 113
   
4. Carlos Delgado - 85
   
5. Carlos Beltran - 110
   
6. Ryan Church - 62
   
7. Daniel Murphy - 73 / Fernando Tatis - 34
   
8. Brian Schneider - 35 / Ramon Castro - 22
   
9. Pitcher - 15 (no projection by James - this is an estimate)

That's 734 runs from the starting lineup alone. Add in projected runs off the bench (Cora, Reed, Anderson, Evans - 104) and you have 838 runs, or 39 more runs than the team produced last year. Though most Met fans are clamouring for him, this offense will be fine with or without Manny.

Ollie Coaster

Round and round it goes, when it'll stop...hopefully this weekend. Mack of Flushing University is reporting on his blog that a deal with Oliver Perez will be complete by Saturday night or Sunday the latest. His source claims it is a 4 year deal, with a 5th year team option.

There is no telling where within the organization his source comes from, as the source is anonymous (aren't they all). However, after reading Doug Melvin's comments and numerous accounts that the Mets and Perez are inching closer, I believe it.

I originally posted on Monday that I expect the deal to be around 4 years and $36 million. None of the insiders we all know and love have dished out any monetary details of the deal on the table. They have reported however, that the deal exceeds the original 3 year, $30 million offer.

In non-Perez news, it is being reported that the Diamondbacks and Jon Garland are closing in on a deal. So scratch the only durable B-option on Omar's list off.

Oliver Twist

Over the weekend, SI.com's John Heyman reported that the Mets had upped their original offer to FA lefty Oliver Perez. The exact offer is not known, but it has been established that the organization would like to get a deal done this week. Should a deal not get established with Perez (whom Minaya desperately wants), only then will they make serious offers to their other candidates.

I assume the Mets have extended something in the range of 4 years, $36 million with incentives. Should Boras balk at this offer, I hope the organization is finally going to walk away, and put the offers out there for Ben Sheets and John Garland. There needs to be a timeline on Perez's offer too, as Ben Sheets is out having steak dinners with Jon Daniels. Should Sheets sign elsewhere before they move from Ollie, Minaya loses all leverage, and will get stuck with a bum contract.

Hey, Remember this Awesome Book Mets Fans? I do….I do.

5 Years Later- A look at The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman

This Metsmerizing website (see what I did there?) is very young, and wasn’t around when this page turner of a book was originally released. So, now that we have come in to existence, and we bleed straight up brown (blue and orange are complimentary colors, and make brown, duh yo) it would be a crime for this site to not acknowledge Mr. Pearlman’s look in to the Mets championship run of 1986. From the boozin’, gamblin’, fightin’, druggin’, fieldin’, base stealin’, fastballin’, and home run sluggin’, this book covers it all. Any other site will tell you this book is a flat out great read, so lets skip that because its been covered before. What I want to do is highlight my favorite anecdotes in the book. I can’t divulge too many of the juicy details, as you really should buy, borrow, or steal this book because the whole thing is worth the read; but just to prove how good a read you have in front of you, I will share some of the things I learned from the book that I feel are full of the most blatant badassery and chutzpah.

-Kevin Mitchell can beat up everybody in the world. Example; as a no name minor leaguer trying to prove himself, he beat the ever loving snot out of the star of the Mets farm system, teammate Darryl Strawberry. It was a pick up basketball game where Darryl took umbrage from a hard foul by Mr. Mitchell, words were exchanged, and Strawberry was promptly punched in the face several times, body slammed, then punched some more.

-TWO different Mets had GQ covers during the season. Chicks wanted the Mets, Dudes wanted to be the Mets.

-There was a clique of reserves on the team that drank so damn much, and were so damn gross, inappropriate, vulgar, and dirty that they earned the name the Scum Bunch. Forget drinking contests, they had puking contests. For more antics and the names of the scum bunch, do Mr. Pearlman a solid and buy the book.

-Sid Fernandez thought pro wrestling was real.

-Unlike our recent Met teams, the ’86 squad was super arrogant. They were hated by more than just Philadelphia and Atlanta fans, because their cockiness transcended the division. Basically, nobody on the corner had swagger like them. Don’t believe me, take it from the Wizard of Oz, Mr. Ozzie Smith; “The Mets had this arrogant thing all year. You can be a winning team and still be likable. You Can Still Have Class.” You could be, they weren’t though, eat it Oz.

-“Daryl was so strong, and when he was tanked, he was unstoppable.”

-Keith Hernandez at one point in a regular season win against the Dodgers, hit a home run, returned to the dugout, and lit a cigarette.

-Gary Carter can speak French and coincidentally or not, is a real jerk. Ok, that’s not badass, but it made me laugh.


Well, I could type a whole lot more about all this, but luckily Jeff Pearlman did that already for me. So go out and buy the book if you guys haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I did my best to persuade you, so if you still aren’t interested, you probably don’t like the Mets and I probably don’t like you!

Freddy Garcia is a Met

According to Adam Rubin of The Daily News, it appears as though FA pitcher Freddy Garcia has agreed to a minor league deal with the team from Queens. If Garcia makes the team, he can earn upwards of $9 million in incentives.

Welcome to Queens Freddy. If per chance you're friends with Alan Jackson, can you have him record a little recruitment message for Ben Sheets?

Mets Sheeting the Bed

On MLB Network's Hot Stove program this week, Tom Verducci of SI.com said the Mets and FA Ben Sheets aren't even close on terms. The Mets are reportedly thinking of a contract similar to that of Brad Penny's and John Smoltz's - a one year deal worth roughly $5 million - loaded with incentives to bring it up to eight figures and club options.

Sheets on the other hand pitched almost 200 innings last season (198) while making 31 starts. He is looking for something closer to 2 years at $9 million per, including incentives to bring it close to $12 million with mutual options.

Again can his medical report be that bad? The organization figures to have around $10+ million left to spend this offseason with their focus on "pitching, pitching, and more pitching." I know the team won't bid against itself, but we just spent $2 million on Alex Cora and another half guaranteed for Cory Sullivan. Surely this club can shell out $7 million guaranteed for Sheets, and meet at a middle ground. There is no progress on the Ollie front, and pitchers and catchers report in 22 days. We need to lock Sheets up.

See You in the Hall, "Jeff Can't"

According to recent wire reports, Jeff Kent, 40, will retire tomorrow (Thursday, January 22). Let us therefore briefly take stock of this somewhat controversial player's career, although mainly from a Met perspective.

Admittedly never the most popular guy in any clubhouse, the man's stats do speak for themselves: 377 home runs (best all-time for second basemen), 2461 hits (96th all-time), 537 doubles (27th all-time), just to throw a few out there. In addition, Kent was a five-time all-star and the 2000 NL MVP.

This résumé (which is, of course, considerably longer than the above-referenced "nuggets"), I submit, will earn Kent a place in Cooperstown. And as alluded to above, he won't get there by being popular with voters, either.

Kent, whose MLB career started with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992, always struck me as an intense straight-shooter with a burning desire to win, not the ill-tempered diva others labeled him as. After all, the guys he famously tangled with include the likes of Barry Bonds and Milton Bradley -- neither of whom would win a Mr. Personality contest, except maybe in San Quentin.

In a 2003 New York Times interview, Kent referenced his oft-mentioned feud with Bonds.

"I think we motivated each other. We elevated each other's game. We elevated our team's game. That'll be a time in my life that I'll never forget. I don't worry about the relationship that Barry and I have. You worry about being a better player and Barry made me one.''

This quote, I think, speaks volumes about what made Kent tick, that is, being the best that he could be, and, of course, winning.

With the Mets for four years, '92-'96, a woeful period in the team's history, Kent really was up against it from the start with the fans. Having been traded (along with the ubiquitous "player to be named later," which turned out to be the anonymous Ryan Thompson in this particular instance) for David Cone, one of the most distinguished and popular hurlers in franchise history, Jeffrey Franklin Kent was quickly dubbed "Jeff Can't" by the Shea faithful. However, the epithet was decidedly undeserved, although Kent's tenure with the Metropolitans never foreshadowed the amazing seasons he would later have with the Giants.

To make matters worse as far as his Met legacy is concerned, Kent's departure from New York was effectuated through one of the most infamously poor trades of the '90s, namely, Kent and Jose Vizcaino (to the Indians) for Carlos Baerga and Álvaro Espinoza.

In a piquant episode illustrative of his unique brand of principled
-- some would say arrogant -- intransigence, Kent, as a 24-year-old "rookie" in '92, refused to submit to standard hazing practices by insisting that his teammates return his street clothes, which had been absconded with and replaced by a garish getup designed to make Kent the object of ridicule. In the end, then-Manager Jeff Torborg had to intervene, ending the stand-off with a proverbial hail storm of expletives.

A "nicer" guy surely would have gone along and worn the hilariously inappropriate outfit, right? Surely. But nice guys finish last.

Sully Stir

The signing of Cory Sullivan to a one year deal is creating quite the stir across the Mets blogosphere. The organization already has a projected starting outfield of Beltran (CF), Church (RF), and a platoon of Murphy & Tatis (LF). This leaves Marlon Anderson, Jeremy Reed, Angel Pagan, and Cory Sullivan all vying for essentially two bench spots, while almost assuring Nick Evans will start the season in Buffalo.

Sullivan isn’t buzz worthy himself - he spent the majority of 2008 putting up good numbers in AAA, but hit only .217 in 23 AB’s with Colorado. The news here is in that crowded outfield. Is there a trade in the works? Nothing of note has hit the surface yet, but the acquisition of another 4th outfielder (and left handed hitter) is certainly raising eyebrows.

A Tip of the Hat to the Mets

We get it - it sucks. Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert gives kudos to the Mets in his "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger" segment for their less than stellar inaugural season patch.

Since it's unveiling, the organization has received flack from the press and fans everywhere. Tyler Kepner of The New York Times was the first to get some semblance of an explanation for the design from Mets brass in Wednesday's edition.

Lets Talk About Sheets, Baby

With Atlanta signing Derek Lowe, the fans are crying out for the Wilpon’s to shell out some money for Ben Sheets. This is not to say they need to throw the injury plagued righty 4 years off the bat, but they must allow Omar to take another look.

Sheets’ medical report must look as though it was written by a left-handed, seizure prone physician on a spiral bound notebook. To the knowledge of the Heyman’s and Rosenthal’s out there, nobody has even given him a formal offer (sans usual Winter Meeting slush). Now is the prime time to do so.

Omar must at least give Scott Boras reason to believe he is not going to this play this ludicrous game much longer. The facade of moving on to another target needs to be employed. Should Boras take his client elsewhere, then just pay Sheets. He’ll require less in contract length, and most likely annual value as well. Comparatively the last 3 seasons:

• Oliver Perez – 85 GS / 483 2/3 IP / 1 SHO / 456 K
• Ben Sheets – 72 GS / 445 2/3 IP / 7 CG + 3 SHO / 380 K
  

Even the most fervent of Ollie P supporters would have to admit a rotation including Sheets at #2 would certainly put the Metropolitans among the best in the NL (Projected - Santana, Sheets, Pelf, Maine, Redding). Omar could assumingly sign another innings eater on the cheap, allowing us to go into the season with 6 viable starters (7 if we include John Niese). The rotation flexibility, should this option present itself, gives Jerry Manuel the chance to give Sheets DL time and other rotation members rest.

Mets, Alex Cora Reach Agreement

MLB Trade Rumors is reporting that the Mets have reached an agreement with 33 year-old utility infielder Alex Cora. The deal is reportedly for 1 year and $2 million.

Not many expected Damien Easley to be back with the club at the ripe age of 38, and this appears to seal the deal. In 316 AB's with the Mets in 2008, Easley hit .269 with 6 HR's and 44 RBI's while playing subpar in the field. For Boston, Cora hit .270 in 152 AB's with 0 HR's and 9 RBI's.

Most will consider this a defensive upgrade. Cora's range is certainly greater than that of Easley's, however both commited the same amount of errors in 2008 (granted Cora's were at short).

Braves, Lowe Reach Agreement

Reports everywhere indicate that the Atlanta Braves and Derek Lowe have reached a 4 year $60 million agreement. Oh well.

Mets Make Offer to Oliver Perez

I have seen Oliver Perez pitch as a Met. I have seen "Big Game Ollie P" pitch as a Met. According to John Heyman tonight on MLB Network's Hot Stove program, I may be afflicted with watching Oliver as a Met again in 2009 (hat tip to Matt at Metsblog). Omar Minaya has extended an offer in the 3 year, $30 million range to the erratic lefty.

The fan base's thoughts on Perez tend to be split - those who think the wild one has some of the best pure "stuff" in baseball, and those who think he lacks the mental dexterity to harness said skill.

Personally I like the kid and view him as a sort of little engine that could (that is until he walks six, hits a batter and turns into the little engine that can't). He is 27 too - a time when most young bucks develop and start to hit their stride. His sweeping slider, when on, is absolutely filthy and one of the best out pitches in the game.

If Warthen could work a whole off season with him and concentrate on limiting the walks, I think this could be a great signing. Whoever inks him will get a recession special (a Boras special at least), making him a trade option should their pitching coach fail to get Ollie on the right track. Though the currently discussed price will certainly not stick - something in the 4 year $45 million range seems possible, and with upside at that price.

Bullpen Bolstered, Rotation Remains Rudimentary

With the epic collapse of ’07 and the somewhat more mundane choke of ’08 – both largely fueled by woeful relief pitching – in fresh memory, Met fans were understandably elated when GM Omar Minaya brought in one of the most dominant relief pitchers of this decade, along with a serviceable ex-stopper from the Mariners. The presence of K-Rod and Putz, respectively, will hopefully significantly strengthen a beleaguered bullpen that blew 29 (!) saves last season, tying the franchise’s all-time high in holding/closing futility.

However, great relief pitchers in general, and lights-out closers in particular, are much akin to platinum rims on a Bentley, that is, they’re the icing on the cake, not the creamy center. Well, regrettably for the Mets, their center, i.e., the brave souls that take the ball at the outset of a game, is somewhat dry and unpalatable.

Let’s face it: Behind Santana, the Mets’ ’08 starting rotation was mediocre at best. John Maine started brightly, but faded down the stretch, beset by injuries and, perhaps, a sophomore jinx (’07 was his first season as an everyday starter). Mike Pelfrey, too, showed flashes of brilliance early on, but his sturdy 3.72 ERA belied a persistent inability to deliver in key games (e.g., going 0-3 over his last five starts in the midst of a pennant race). The less said about Oliver Perez, who was back to his old mercurial self, and Pedro, a pale shadow of his former electrifying self, the better. Finally, Jonathon Niese, a supposed stud prospect, in three ineffective starts looked every bit the Major League neophyte.

Thus, even with yesterday’s addition – pending a physical – of Tim Redding, a journeyman pitcher devoid of an “out pitch,” I cannot feel entirely comfortable with the current crop of Met starters. In fact, I’ll go one step further and suggest that, in the absence of the addition of a proven commodity, such as Derek “I scoff at your $12 million per annum” Lowe, a playoff berth will once again prove elusive.

In the absence of another acquisition, the projected rotation would look something like this: Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, Tim Redding, and Jonathon Niese/Bobby Parnell, a group that collectively had a paltry 40 Major League wins last year (by comparison, the Yankees’ top three projected starters had 43). I hate to sound like John McCain, but this motley crew will not get it done, my friends.

Fortunately, I think that Mets brass realize that. In other words, watch this space…

Mets & Tim Redding Reach Agreement

Update: 6:28 pm
The Mets have agreed in principle to a deal with RHP Tim Redding according to the Denver Post.

Original Post:
According to SI's John Heyman, the Mets are on the verge of completing a deal for FA starter Tim Redding.

Happy New Year!

Image courtesy of WCBS 880.

Happy New Year everyone. I apologize for the dearth of posts lately. I was in another borough for the holidays without a computer.

It's been slow in Met land, and I'm sure you're all sick of reading about Bore-ass, Lowe, and Big Game Ollie P. All will be well soon enough though as it's only 34 days till pitchers and catchers report. We have to sign one of them before then.

Some thoughts, happenings, and promises for the new year:

• Where are my Shea seats? Has anyone else out there been waiting way past the 12 week mark?
• I purchased my 15 pack - Promenade Infield Section 506. Not sure what that means. Mezz 9 is what I know.
• One of the original intentions of this blog was to bring Mets fans together. Not just with comments and fodder for said comments, but with events at local watering holes to watch games. Please let us know of any establishment you think might be interested in holding one of these "viewing parties."
• Eric Simon over at Amazin Avenue had a wonderful post this week on the projected "pitcher's park" Citi Field will be. However on Wednesday night, John Heyman said on MLB Network's Hot Stove program that Met's brass feel as though it will play to the hitters (hence their preference of Lowe the ground ball machine over Ollie). I'm curious to see how things go myself.
  
• We are looking for more writers to keep the contect flowing here at Priced Out of The Citi. If you or anyone you know may be interested, send me an e-mail.