Removal from SNY

I was lucky enough to attend last night's 4 - 0 victory over the Colorado Rockies. Dear God was it fantastic to catch a live ballgame. The crowd was electric during a Tuesday night match-up against the Colorado Rockies of all teams. It was really wonderful to be a part of and something I have been missing.

If you're still reading this blog (and according to the Google Analytics, times are tough) you've noticed the dearth of posts the past couple of months. To answer questions I've been asked, no it has nothing to do with the recent tailspin the Metropolitans have been involved in. I recently was "priced back into the city," by which of course I mean the isle of Manhattan. Unfortunately for me it is physically impossible to get cable due to faulty wiring at my abode. As a subletter it is also something out of my control.

Why don't I just listen to Howie and Wayne? Well even that is bunk as there is no radio access either. WFAN.com refuses to broadcast the games from their site, at least from every access point I've tried. Radio broadcasts are slightly scrambled for some odd reason here and it is difficult to pick up games. MLB.tv is also moot as I am a New York resident and games are blacked out. All secondary P2P streaming sites have been shut down, and as a Mac user, tvants isn't a possibility.

I have no access to the trio that has been such an integral part of my life since 2006. It has been as if actual friends of mine have gone on a vacation that may never end. Because of this, it has been difficult to write about the state of the team. Forming an opinion based off of beat writer reporting, tweets, and blogger bias just seems unfair to write about to those that still care to read.

So there will be a bit of a reformat here at least for the time being. Despite COO Jeff Wilpon's efforts to apologize for his gaffe this evening, I cannot possibly see our GM Omar Minaya surviving the season. As a matter of fact I even expect a step down by seasons end. Starting Thursday I will be posting a top 10 GM replacement list. It will be heavily researched and I hope informative to all. I'd appreciate you joining me if you are interested in what could possibly be the future of this team. Thanks for stopping by readers.

Best,
Brendan Bilko
pricedoutoftheciti.com

Oh Omar

“I don't know how I'm going to cover the team now.” That is the one statement from yesterday that resonates within.

When Adam Rubin probed Jeff Wilpon about how to break into the baseball industry a line may have been crossed in the opinion of some. However I can’t sit here and see how that is so. In this economy networking should be an integral part of everyone’s existence – blurred boundaries of journalistic ethics not withstanding. It is in his right as a human being to make sure that should The Daily News make cut backs, he and his family are covered.

Kudos to Martin Dunn, deputy publisher and editor-in-chief of The Daily News, for sticking by his guy “1000%.” That presser / circus yesterday could have resulted in two men losing their livelihood – ironically enough one of them for doing their job (and to add to the irony, because Omar had a vendetta against him for forcing his hand at doing his own). It appears as though a position with The News is still in Rubin’s present and future. Unfortunately because of Omar, it may no longer be covering the Mets. That is despicable.

HALLADAY! CELEBRATE! IT WOULD BE SO NICE!

(Author's Note: Please don't think I wrote this to upstage the well thought out, beautifully written article with the exact opposite opinion below this. I wrote it without ever having seen that, and don't have time to change it. My tone and general baffoonery may make it hard to believe, but its true. Mets fans disagree, as do super bloggers. There's room for us all though on the internet though. Please enjoy both perspectives. God Bless).

Man I hate Madonna, but when she’s right, she’s right! It would be really nice to get Roy-Doc Halladay. I’m sure you all heard the rumor that the Blue Jays offered us Doc Halladay for Parnell, F-Mart, Nietzsche, and Ruben Tejada, Oh you didn’t hear that? Well, the Blue Jays offered us Doc Halladay for Parnell, F-Mart, Niese, and Ruben Tejada.

Now, If the Mets were to get Halladay, they’d have the most slamminest 1-2 combo is baseball history between him and Bro-man Santana. Tales of their constant back to back perfect games would quickly become part of American Folklore. George Lucas would digitally put them in all the Star Wars movies and release the DVDs again, and that franchise would finally reach its potential. Basically they’d straight up OWN. So for the Mets to reach their potential as a franchise, they must pull the trigga man! PULL IT! They’d be so sweet. But not now, next year. The Mets and their travelling Short Bus Circus are so terrible this year, adding Dr. Halladay Attorney at Ball wouldn’t even make a diff. Not the slightest diff!

But let’s look ahead to next year, the future! The future is a scary place, especially without Roy Halladay. Let’s think…Would you rather have the four chumps rumored to have been asked for by the blue jay wussy birds, or would you rather have Professor Pitches? (editors Note: Trademark Pending on the phrase Professor Pitches). Lets break it down with surgeon like precision that would make Buster Olney second-guess his whole existence.

Jonathan Quiche- Chump

Ruben Tejada- Chump

Fernando Martinez- Injured Chump

Bobby Parnell- Pretty Sweet Dude, Badass Potential

No wonder I’m a writer. Concise. Accurate. Handsome. But let me explain my thoughts anyway cause I’m bored. Jonathan Niese will never even be better than Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey is basically a chump himself. Who needs 2 chumps? I certainly don't. Ruben Tejada is a SS. Now, there is a possibility Jose Reyes’ leg has fallen completely off, (as the Mets have hired a bunch of Dr. Nicks to take care of a 150+ milli payroll) but if his leg is stil attached, it could heal! Then, you have a SS! A sick one! Problem solved! Peace Rueben! Exclamation points!

Fernando can also heal, so while my Injured Chump description is acutely accurate, it is not fair. He’s young and he may end up being a balla balla, but as of now? Not at all a balla. He’s more likely to be Alex Escobar than Manny Ramirez, and probably even more likely to be some after thought like Nyjer Morgan. Fuhgetaboutit! And Parnell throws lavaheatrocks. I’ll give you that you internet swine! But come on. SRSLY? Come on. Its Dr. Roy Halladay, Ears Nose & Strikes Specialist. You gotta give to get in this world, and you gotta give a little back in trades that next year would make you the clear favorite to take advantage of all opponents in the butt. At least every 2 out of 5 games.

A Halladay Deal Makes No Sense

Whether the reports are true or not, Mets nation has become livid over the idea of the Mets turning down a Blue Jays offer of Roy Halladay for Jon Niese, Bobby Parnell, Fernando Martinez, and Ruben Tejada. If this ultimately turns out to be true, the New York sports media that recently lamented the Mets lack of structural depth will undoubtedly crucify Omar Minaya.

For the Blue Jays, selling high on Halladay allows them to retool their roster and reload with young, controlled talent at multiple positions. With no illusions about contending this year in a loaded AL East, they've decided to follow the example of the AL Champion Rays and the up and coming Baltimore Orioles and provide themselves with some much needed flexibility.

For years, the Mets strategy has been the exact opposite. In the franchise's 37 year history, not one homegrown position player has been enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and not one homegrown number sits retired on the left field wall; Over that same period, the Mets have dealt names like Nolan Ryan, Amos Otis, Lenny Dykstra, Kevin Mitchell, Rick Aguilera, Jeff Kent, Melvin Mora, Jason Bay, and Scott Kazmir.

As Mets fans, we've seen more press conferences than we could handle. Names like Vince Coleman, Bobby Bonilla, Brett Saberhagen, Carlos Baerga, and Frank Viola litter the landscape; We were sold on Kevin Appier, Mo Vaughn, and Juan Samuel. What we haven't seen is pennants.

Should the Mets fail to pursue Halladay or fail to agree to the large number of prospects the Jays are looking for, Omar Minaya will be crucified. To be sure, you will hear names like Alex Ochoa, Alex Escobar and L Millz. What you won't hear about is how all those big ticket acquisitions that produced press conferences never really lead to championships.

Halladay's Cy Young numbers would undoubtedly be even better in the pitchers haven of CitiField and because he'd be throwing back to back with current ace Johan Santana. However the back end of the rotation would still be comprised of basketcase #1 Oliver Perez and basketcase #2 Mike Pelfrey. Every fifth day Tim Redding or Livan Hernandez would remind Mets fans why they have no business in the big leagues, and the lineup would still be devoid of anyone on pace for 20 home runs or 100 rbi's. Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya would certainly get a stay of execution, and that's probably not a good thing. Ultimately, it wouldn't be enough to close the 9 games that currently separate them and the World Series Champion Phillies. The same Phillies who rode a wave of homegrown talent to a championship and have the organizational depth to easily stomach a Halladay trade that is legitimately likely to put them over the top for this year and next.

The Mets would enter next season full of the same promise and optimism that greets the beginning of every Mets season I can ever remember, with two of baseball's best at the top of their rotation and a healthy core, and then the injuries would come; the losses would pile up and the same media hounds would be there, lamenting the Mets inability to build any kind of farm system or make a trade for the kind of big name players to support Johan and Halladay. Round and round it goes. Lots of press conferences, very few pennants. Same old Mets.

Whether it's simply because Bernie's left them busted or because the Mets have realized that the same old approach hasn't gotten them anywhere, kudos to Minaya for not mortgaging whatever is of any value in the organization for a 32 year old pitcher who won't solve many of the organization's myriad issues at the expense of their entire farm system.

Belivan or Not

Before the All-Star break, it was brought to everyone's attention that there might be some changes made to the Mets rotation come the second half. Livan Hernandez was coming off of two terrible starts against the Dodgers and Phillies in which he gave up a total of 15 earned runs in 7.0(!) innings. It was thought his goose was cooked and that the team would bring up pitching prospect Jonathan Niese, who was tearing it up in Buffalo (1.00 ERA 33K in 36.0IP in 5 starts prior to the break). Jerry Manuel however (despite how foolish it may have seemed at the time), decided to keep his rotation as it was allowing everyone not named Santana a chance to compete for their spot.

Livan Hernandez didn't disappoint his skipper last night, and did what he does best - beat up on bad, free-swinging teams. Against opponents with a losing record at the time he faces them (last night's game included) Livan is a pristine 6 - 0 in 10 starts with a 2.91 ERA. He maintains a solid 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio (42:21) and his WHIP is significantly lower holding at 1.26. Now of course it should go without saying that everyone should beat up on the bad teams. But unfortunately for the Mets the last few seasons (this year included cough Pirates cough), everyone doesn't.

Livan's next two starts project to be against Houston and Arizona, clubs he has had career success against and the latter of which is playing worse than our Mets. His third start however will be against the Cardinals, who have crushed him this season (0 - 2, 7.15ERA in 11.1 IP in his 2 starts against them). Until then though, it appears as though he will give our team a chance to win a couple of ballgames. As a fan that's all I can ask for anymore.

Everybody's Doing It

A few choice tweets from last night's thrashing courtesy of the Bravos:

@TheRopolitans Two hits? TWO! The pitching was terrible, but the bats were horrendous. #mets

@dailystache wow. mets really suck.

@TheRopolitans What an absolute massacre. So glad I didn't watch.

@mr_met ...incidentally do you think Omar is at the concert instead of watching this train wreck? #Mets

@metsjetsgirl I never used to turn off Mets games.

@ohmurph Someone needs to be fired tonight #mets

@MetsWFAN Home Depot Tool Race betw innings, Hammer, Paint Brush, Drill, one other. If they had a tool race at Citi...

@mr_met The wheels are coming off...

@NJ_StevePoliti To say the Mets are toast is an insult to toast.

@NYPost_Mets: This team is hideous.

and the winner @KBurkhardtSNY First episode Mets Hot Stove comes your way Nov 5! Yes, its come to that. This is rough to watch

The connecting factor to all of these? Mets fans love the elipse. ...thanks Cerrone...

Typical Turner Field Loss

I went into last night feeling fresh and rejuvenated. It was the start of the second leg for the Metropolitans, and for these 75 lengths we were to be coming up from the rear instead of falling back. I was excited. This was a new (well very old actually, but new for this group) approach to take on a season that never was to be. Quite fittingly it was a start against our old rivals in the house that Ted built, a place we never have had much success. Perfect setting for this new beginning.

Big Game Ollie P was on the mound for the occasion and frankly he didn't exactly show up. He was neither Good Oliver nor Bad Oliver either. I suppose we could refer to him as Mediocre Oliver (Medioliver?) in such an instance. He got hit hard, though those hard hits were generally falling into the gloves of our outfielders. There were two that were hit too hard and "too high" in the 2nd, and they happened to be back to back. Oliver rebounded. Through six he struck out six and walked four (though one of those was intentional) while allowing three earned. Not Good Oliver, not Bad Oliver, but Hey I Kept You in the Game Oliver. Quality Start Oliver.

The offense hit a groove in the fourth off of a seemingly flat Derek Lowe. They even managed to put a crooked number on the board for the inning with three runs scored on hits by Castillo, Wright, Sheffield, and Murphy. That was all they could muster though, as they could only manage 2 singles off of the Braves bullpen the rest of the game.

Our bullpen however did not get the job done and Chipper Jones put the nail in the coffin (as he always does) to seal the deal for the Bravos in the 8th. I wanted to shut the game off after that. Once Larry shows up in such a fashion the remainder of the game is irrelevant. But my new found excitement kept me watching through the scoreless top of the 9th to put another hash mark in the L column for our Metsies. New attitude, same result.

Much Ado About Nothing

Avid readers of this blog -- raise your hands, both of you -- will recall that, in the wake of the Metsies' monumentally ignominious defeat to the Yankees in the first Subway Series game of the year, I swore that my days writing about the team were over.
Technically, since the piece below is about the All-Star Game, I am not reneging on that promise -- yet. Stay tuned, boys and girls...

In any case, after sitting through the three-and-a-half-hour tedium of the Fox broadcast, I cannot help but raise the question of whether the game as such has outlived itself as a viable and relevant spectacle. In my opinion, as a sporting event, Major League Baseball's yearly celebration of excellence is only marginally more interesting than the Pro Bowl, which is not very high praise at all.

This year, Bud Selig and his public relations minions had gone all out, and commissioned a bloated, never-ending pre-game show of almost Super Bowlian proportions, featuring the usual parade of geriatric ballplayers, accompanied as ever by the solemnly quivering baritone of the Master of Hyperbole himself, Joe Buck. Yet, despite all the earnest flag-waving, which included a well-intentioned salute to "Everyday All-Stars" by all five living presidents, the whole thing just came off as a huge Potemkin Village, an overly flashy undercard designed to mask the all-too-apparent shortcomings of the main event.

Which brings me to the game itself. Since 2003, the slogan for the "Midsummer Classic" has been "this one matters." Well, the fact that the winning league assures its future champion of home-field advantage in the World Series does not detract from the fact that the game itself is managed much like a mid-March Spring Training game.

In what has now become an unwritten rule, virtually every single player on the roster must be used, damn the torpedoes. Pitchers go an inning, two at the most, as double-switches are executed at a furious pace. Thus, the game is stripped of any semblance of continuity and edge, reducing it to a fragmented, haphazard (yes, I am aware that the American League has won the last 13 times -- this is what scientists refer to as a "probability anomaly") and decidedly lacklustre affair.

I realize, of course, that the All-Star Game is not going anywhere -- it is much too lucrative to do away with. Neither I am advocating its demise; however, MLB's potentates should take heed and allow the chosen managers to manage the thing much more like an actual competitive game, lest future All-Star Games fade into obscurity and end up taking place on scalding hot AstroTurf somewhere on the Hawaiian islands in November.

Oliver 2.0

108 Pitches, 53 balls, 7 walks, 2 ER, over 5 innings. This line, this..."performance" from Oliver Perez kept the Metropolitans in the game enough to give them their first win in five chances. A much needed victory it was for the players and the fan base.

I'm a big Perez fan. I used to write that "we're big Perez fans here at Priced Out of the Citi," but I believe if I said that now at least one member of my team would feel the need to castrate me for expressing such a sentiment on their behalf. So I'll just continue speaking for one in this case. It felt good watching Ollie last night. Yes he walked 7(!), including one to start the game off and 3 with 2 out in the third. He was visibly nervous while simultaneously being visibly Oliver.

Watching him out there brought out the ol' soft spot in me again. Yes I wanted to pull my hair out with the walks, but seeing some swings and misses on that snapping slider, that was nice. That gave me hope that maybe he can make up for the beginning of this season and turn himself around. Maybe he will earn at least half his yearly paycheck with some fine performances. No I'm not calling last night a fine one by any means (hell I put performance in quotes to start this post off). But it was an Oliver performance and a win. As it stands today, I'm just fine with that.

TKO

It can't be stopped. All I see in my head is this scene (which is appropriate enough given Rocky's geographical locale). This fan is ready folks. I've seen enough.

It's time we all stop giving it "until the All-Star break." It's time we all stop waiting for the cavalry to arrive. The backup, which is essentially the front line, doesn't appear to be on it's way in any time soon. The few soldiers left fighting may even be on their way to triage (note - I have been informed by a trusted source the linked information is untrue. Not that I said it was, but just to avoid any confusion). There is no point in mortgaging the future either. Let's just call it quits for 2009. Let's plan for the future.

I'll never stop rooting for this team. I'll never stop watching. I will however, quit with the hope of any "meaningful baseball in October" - at least for this season as it stands now. If it happens, great. I want nothing more than a championship in Queens again. My mindset has officially shifted though. From now on the thought process is catalyzed by those things that happen or occur with a team that doesn't have a chance. I'm fine with it. I've done it for the majority of my life as a fan of the New York Metropolitans. Take the positives out of what we've got...which isn't much.

2010, the team, the time.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2009 All-Stars

During this crash and burn skid our Metropolitans have been on (losing 8 of the last 10), at least we can find solace in our 4 All-Stars that were officially announced today - David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana, and Francisco Rodriguez. Right? I'm not so sure about that. Let's take a look at how they've fared of late.

Let's kick things off with the poster boy. Sunday's glaring GIDP in the 6th and Saturday's failed attempt at a pop-up are just two of the clips that will be played in David Wright's highlight reel. Over the last 10 games and 43 PA, Mr. Wright is batting a cool .125. He has only hit 1 home run in that span, but we know the power has been down this season. The main problem though is that he hasn't kept up the production that has warranted his power outage tolerable. David has only driven in 3 and stolen 1 base over the same period. He has managed to keep that strike out total up though, fanning a total of 14 times. Granted it's a 10 game sample size, but if he kept up the K's at that pace over the course of an entire season, that would be 227 strikeouts. Yes, our all-star.

At least Johan Santana can say he's actually getting decisions this year (though they aren't the kind he wants). Over his last 10 starts, Johan has been sub-par to say the least. His 5 - 5 record almost seems like a blessing in disguise considering his 5.12 ERA. He has allowed 13 home runs to the opposition and has seen his K/9 rate decline dramatically from the 11.7 it was to start the season, to the 6.7 it's been over these last 10 starts. We can't even talk sample size here - that is one third of a season from arguably the best pitcher in the game. One third of a season from our all-star.

Frankie Rodriguez had a .59 ERA and was 16 - 16 in save opportunities heading into June 12th's match-up against the Yankees. He was summoned to close that game, and well...I think we all remember what happened. He has appeared in 10 games up until yesterday including that fateful night. How has he fared? A 4.50 ERA, 5 SV, 3 BS. What is even more alarming in that span is the control. He has walked 10 compared to his 9K's in that span and only thrown 55% of his 220 pitches for strikes. Add in the 9 hits our all-star has also allowed and it's no wonder things have even seemed a bit dicey in the 9th as of late.

Last but not least Mr. Beltran...what's that? Oh he hasn't played in the last 10 days. Well nothing to say is better than bad things to say I suppose. Thank goodness for the DL. So then I guess there you have it folks - your 2009 New York Metropolitan All-Stars. Quite the deserving bunch aren't they?