FRED WILPON IS THE DEVIL

2008-04-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

For the Second Half

2005-07-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

Saving for posterity

2005-07-07T22:18:00.000-07:00

back on december 1, 2004, the new york mets management held a big powwow in westchester. i posted the following in serial form that day on the MSG messageboard. unfortunately that board scrolls off old posts and banishes them to the cornfields, never to be seen again, so i just want to save it here. it was pretty funny at the time, and maybe some of it still holds up.

first reports are filtering in... things got off to an awkward start when bill livesey, al goldis, sandy johnson and tony bernazard all attempted to sit in the two chairs labeled "SUPERSCOUTS" at the same time.

jeff: hmm, let's see. bill, you sit on sandy's lap. tony, you sit on al's lap.
fred: shut up, jeffy. no, bill and al are the superscouts. you other two. who are you? anyways, just stand behind them.
omar: wait a sec. i hired my own superscouts and i have full autonomy. i want them to sit.
fred: oh ****. yeah. okay, you two guys sit then, and bill and al, you can kneel on either side of my throne.
bruce: daddy, i thought jeffy and i kneel beside you?
fred: oh ****. let's take a two hour break and get briq to draw up a damn seating chart!
briq: i need a pen and some paper.

... two hours later. seating chart is made. more folding chairs are brought into the rooom. everyone's seated.

fred: okay, i want to welcome everyone to our annual organization braintrust powwow. where's mookie?
everyone: [blank faces]
fred: c'mon dammit! i wanted all the top people here. where's our new damn manager, mookie!?
briq: uh, sir, willie is his name.
fred: oh ****. willie, mookie. isn't willie short for wilson? same guy? different guy?
briq: different.
fred: dammit. erase that from the minutes.
briq: yessir.
fred: where's willie!? our new manager, willie! where is he?
omar: willie randolph isn't here.
fred: damn, i'd like to meet him. does he light up a room?
omar: oh yes. like a black light, he does. just beautiful.
fred: ah nice, i'd like to see that. call him up and get him here.
briq: he doesn't have phone privileges yet, sir.
jason phillips: damn, that's why he hasn't returned my call!

fred: i say, briq, this is some damn fine hot cocoa.
briq: i'm glad you like it, sir. i bought your favorite kind with the mini-marshmallows.
fred: i noticed. you get a star today. note that in the minutes.
briq: thank you, sir. noted.
fred: okay, got our seating chart. got our cocoa. i think we're done for the day. good job, everyone. goodbye. i'll see you in florida in march.
omar: wait!!! i thought we had a whole list of things to go through.
fred: is this right, briq?
briq: i've got the list here, sir. there's more to discuss.
fred: well, i'll be damned.

fred: well if we have a list, then let's get to it. what's next on the list?
briq: i have "sign phil humber - june, 2004" written here.
fred: what does that mean?
briq: i jotted it down so long ago, i don't remember. i think he was a player we were supposed to sign.
fred: hummer? hummer? anybody know who this person is?
everyone: [blank faces]
bruce & jeff: he said 'hummer,' hehehe
fred: what are you laughing at, jeffy? do you have your new supercomputer plugged in yet?
jeff: almost, daddy.
fred: well, when you get back to shea, search 'hummer' and see what pops up.
jeff: okay.
fred: all right, are we almost done with this damn list? what's next?
briq: agenda item #2 is assign duquette to a new position.
fred: who the hell is duquette?
briq: me.
fred: oh briq, you're the... um.... what the hell were you before?
briq: i was the autonomous general manager. then you hired autonomous omar to replace me.
fred: okay, so that makes you the assistant gm now. fine?
omar: wait a sec. i hired sandy and tony as assistant gms.
fred: who's sandy and tony?
sandy & tony: we're sandy and tony.
fred: huh? you guys are sitting in the SUPERSCOUTS seats. i thought we settled all this already. where's that damn seating chart, briq?
omar: i hired them as "superscouts - SLASH - assistant gm's."
fred: wtf? lookie here... um.
omar: omar.
fred: lookie here, omar, that's not how we run things here. it's one man for one job. none of this slash stuff. you look very familiar, omar. did we meet in brazil before? how do i know you?
omar: i'm your newly installed autonomous baseball overlord.
fred: doesn't ring a bell.
jeff: he worked here before, daddy. we used to hit the shea executive john the same time every morning.
omar: i was the assistant gm under steve phillips.
briq: so was i.
fred: wtf? we had 2 assistant gm's before, too? how many guys am i paying to do the same job?
omar: no, i was steve's first hire. remember, you sent me to japan to scout and sign shinjo.
fred: shinjo? bruce, you handled that one, didn't you?
bruce: yeah, i think so. little asian guy, right?
briq: no, that was kaz matsui last year. shinjo was from many years ago.
bruce: kaz? yeah, that's him. little asian guy.
fred: i like sushi. what the hell are we talking about again?
briq: i need a position, sir.
fred: well, just hand your resume to somebody here. i'm sure we'll find a spot for you somewhere.
briq: no, i'm already on the payroll. i thought i was the assistant gm again, but seems we have too many of those already.
fred: well kid, titles are overrated. you make damn fine cocoa and do well with lists and seating charts. that's good enough in my book. where's your office?
briq: you put me in the shea stadium basement custodian closet with jeff and the new supercomputer.
fred: how about we call you the "mets overlord of the underworld."
jeff: that's my title!

fred: okay, that's settled. jeffy, you remain the "overlord of the mets underworld." briq, you are the "king of the shea basement." okay, are we done? let's adjourn.
omar: no, we have to discuss sammy sosa, pedro martinez, mike piazza and lots of other stuff.
fred: is all this stuff really on the list, briq?
briq: yessir, and more. we've got another embarrassing scandal with anna benson.
fred: scandal? wtf!? again!? what's this about, horwitz?
jay: minor stuff, chief. nothing to worry about. she just said all players cheat on their wives and if she caught her husband cheating, she'll ***** everyone on the mets.
fred: what?! who's her husband.
omar: kris benson. just gave him $22.5m for 3 years plus an option.
fred: what?! my god, that's a lot of money. is his wife asian? god, we have trouble with asian women. who was that last year with that chick?
briq: bill singer. our 2 week superscout who got all drunk.
jay: we had that under control in a jiffy, chief.
fred: dammit. what about shinjo? does he have a wife? she's probably asian, and you know that spells danger.
bruce: right! he does have an asian wife. i took them out to dinner last year!
omar: no, i took the shinjos out to dinner years ago. he's not on the team anymore. you took out kaz matsui and his wife.
bruce: little asian guy? right.
fred: dammit, horwitz, you just keep this cheating kris benson away from mrs matsui, you hear!? this thing is going to blow up in our faces. i just know it. i just know it!

omar: can we finally talk about sammy sosa now?
fred: you know you look like sammy sosa.
omar: uh, okay.
fred: look, omar, you're the autonomous baseball overlord here. just make your decision and i'm fine with it. now what about sammy sosa?
omar: i want to trade for him.
fred: is he old and very expensive?
omar: yes.
fred: okay, he has two positives going for him. look, as i said, you're the man. make the call.
omar: i've been exchanging proposals with the cubs. we've finally hammered out a deal: cliff floyd for sosa + cash. i'm going to do it.
fred: fine. let's take a vote.
omar: what?
fred: all in favor of this trade, say 'aye!"
omar & sandy: aye!
fred: well, **** that. okay, briq, what's next on the list?

omar: wait one cotton-pickin' moment! i thought i was autonomous!
fred: sit down, son, and stop swearing. this is a family atmosphere powwow.
omar: i took this job because you promised autonomy!
fred: you are autonomous. english isn't your first language, is it? i told you exactly what i told the press. you will have the same autonomous powers as briq had. no more. no less.
everyone: he did say that.
fred: okay, briq, what's next on the list. let's get a move on.
briq: pedro martinez.
omar: i had dinner with him last week.
fred: what did you have?
omar: excuse me?
fred: i remember i took tommy glavine and his lovely wife to the four seasons. they were greatly impressed. even had mike richter stop by the table. you know him? hockey player. [points to his head]. tommy's crazy about hockey so i knew i sealed the deal with that. that glavine deal worked out well, didn't it?
everyone: YES!
fred: so tell me, did you wine and dine pedro? who did you introduce him to? that cha-cha-cha girl from the love boat?
omar: excuse me?
jeff: charo! i saw that episode, daddy!
omar: um, no. we just had a quiet dinner and i told him the mets were greatly interested in him.
fred: isn't that a little premature?
omar: i don't think so.
fred: you didn't offer a contract, did you?
omar: yes i did.
fred: what the hell is wrong with you? you can't go off willy-nilly without taking a vote first!!! let's vote! tommy boy?
glavine: i like him.
fred: steve?
trachsel: i like him.
fred: anyone else?
guru conti: i love him. he is like my son. i teach him english. he is our clemens.
fred: who the hell are you?
guru conti: bullpen coach
fred: is he on the seating chart, briq?
briq: he is now, sir.
fred: damn, you're good.

fred: well, it's been a long day. let's take a moment to stretch. how's the rehab going, jose?
reyes: i don't like it. shilstone is making me do exercises, changing my running style and says i will get hurt if i play winter ball. i want to quit seeing him and play ball immediately.
fred: okay jose. you know your body the best. try these little wieners wrapped in a roll. briq made them.
omar: fred, i'd really like to speak with you in private. i'm very confused.
fred: get in line, buddy. can't you see i'm having a wiener with jose?
jose: i want to sit out spring training and do rehab in my own way. then i'll be ready for opening day.
fred: sounds good, jose. i'll see you at shea in april.... or maybe not!
jose:
fred: hey briq! get over here!
briq: yessir.
fred: how much is left to go over on that damn list? that gold throne is killing my 'roids.
briq: well, some minor stuff. omar wants to talk about carlos beltran, mike piazza, carl pavano, matt clement...
fred: damn, where did we dig up this guy? i can't deal with all this crap. this guy is like phillips all over again. what about the non-tenders!? that's my bread-and-butter, baby!
briq: i had that near the top of the list, but omar crossed it off. he wants to concentrate on the big name free agents.
fred: arrrrgghhh... look briq. you keep your bags packed in that basement broom closet. i don't know how long i can live with this omar guy. he's got a serious attitude problem.
briq: yessir.
fred: and where's johnny?
briq: horwitz said we better let things cool down awhile with the, um, mafia thing being made public.
fred: ohh, damn shame. where's al?
briq: last i heard, he was dining with steinbrenner.
fred: wtf? sigh. now george knows how to wine and dine! i bet he brings out charo during dinner. things sure are changing with our powwows. i miss the old gang already. we had a lot of good laughs.
briq: at the fans' expense.
fred: of course!

fred: okay everyone, let's take our seats again. we've got some more important people here, so i have enough folding chairs for all. did you like the little wieners in a roll?
everyone: YES!
briq: that's my mom's pig a blanket recipe.
super joe: i helped with the rolling.
fred: excellent. okay, i'd like to wrap up the 2nd half of this powwow. let's make it tight. let's make things concise. nick & jessica's family christmas special is on tonite and you know how i'm big on family.
omar: i'd like to continue our discussion about sammy sosa...
fred: hold yer horses, charlie. let's follow protocol. we're professionals here. what's next, briq?
briq: we have a player grievance filed by jae seo that needs addressing.
fred: ah, jeezzzz. what happened already? kris benson fool around with his wife? dammit horwitz, you're supposed to keep an eye on that horndog. damn, what are we fixated on asians today? you know we called them 'orientals' in my day. actually, we called them a lot worse than that. well okay, so what's up with shinjo?
jae: i'm jae seo, not shinjo.
fred: my bad, jae seo. you know, you look just like shinjo? are you related?
jae: no, he's japanese. i'm korean.
fred: ah, opposite sides of the 38th parallel. that brings me back to my youth in brooklyn. we didn't have orientals back then, but we did have jackie. god, i sure loved jackie...
jae: sir, i demand a trade!
fred: what's this?
briq: jae wants to be traded back to korea, sir.
fred: are you mad!? don't you like electricity and indoor plumbing, son?
jae: i want to pitch! i'm not getting any respect here!
fred: well damn, we all want to pitch. i wanted to be like my childhood pal, sandy koufax, but i threw like a girl. anyway, i sure don't want to stand in the way of you going back to your country. do they have anything in korea of any value to give back to us?
jae: they have companies like hyundai and samsung and daewoo that make lots of products.
fred: you know what i need? one of them toasters that a bagel can fit into? do you make them?
jae: not me personally, but i can ask my cousin at samsung if they do.
fred: okay, please do. happy now?
jae: yes!
fred: goodie! i like to hear that. happy, happy. we're here to make everyone happy. i feel like santa. speaking of which, johnny's not going to be santa at the mets annual christmas thingy?
briq: um, probably not with the, um, mafia matter.
super joe: i'll do it! let me! let me!
fred: ah, beautiful. is super joe useful or what? okay, what's next on the list?
briq: cliff floyd wants to cast his vote on the sammy sosa trade.
fred: how do you vote, cliff?
cliff: i vote no.
omar: wait up here! cliff floyd gets to vote on a trade involving himself???
fred: certainly!
omar: c'mon now. cliff's all damaged and getting old and his contract is bad and his attitude is questionable. he said 'there's no light at the end of the tunnel' last year! that's practically quitting on the team!
fred: you said that, cliff?
cliff: i did, and i meant it, too. i came out of the shower and the light was out and i twisted my ankle stumbling to my locker. that was my good ankle too!
fred: is this true, vinny?
vinny greco: yessir. i fixed that light right away though.
fred: vinny, how do you vote on the sosa deal?
vinny greco: i vote no. cubs clubhouse attendant said sammy is a primadonna who demands a 1000 stitch count in his towels, and he wants his jockstrap washed only in dreft detergent because the regular stuff makes him itchy. i'm not going to deal with that crap.
fred: things don't look good on this sosa thing, omar. vinny and cliff are just pushing the electoral college way over the edge. let's just forget that one and move on.

fred: god, it's really getting late now. did you set up the tivo?
jeff: yes, daddy. nick & jessica will be taped.
fred: great. well, let's just wrap things up quickly now. i've never had such an exhausting corporate powwow in my life. usually we just look over x-rays and stuff and we're outta here in 30 minutes.
briq: there are still a bunch of free agents omar wants to discuss.
fred: zzzzzzz. look omar, why the obsession with free agents? we've got a thing going with our "younger and more athletic" plan.
omar: actually you gutted the minor leagues pretty good over the summer. i feel we'll have to look outside the organization if we wish to contend next year.
fred: excuse me? gutted? you want to say that to aaron heilman's face.
aaron: say it, omar.
omar: c'mon, this is silly.
aaron, say it, man! who you calling gutted, you rat turd!!!
omar: good lord, i didn't mean to offend you personally.
fred: aaron, how do you vote on sosa and pedro martinez.
aaron: i vote NO! anything this turd wants, i vote NO!
fred: word of advice, omar. don't offend the kids. god bless them. they're our future. okay, thank you, people! i love you! we got a lot done.
omar: but...
fred: omar, you're the man. you know this. i brought you back into the mets family because i believe in you. but remember... there is no OMAR in TEAM. from now on, any wacky idea that pops into your head, just run it through proper channels first. we've got jeff here, briq, guru peterson, vinny greco, etc. it'll get to me eventually and we'll take a vote, ya know? let's do it the mets way. no renegade heroes here.
omar: but...
fred: okay folks! meeting adjourned. briq, give mookie phone privileges pronto! our new manager needs a phone. jason phillips is awaiting a return call.
briq: yessir.

THE END

2005-05-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

Jose Reyes at 162 games

2005-05-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

i've been fairly harsh on jose reyes, mostly for the fact that he's been a sub .300 obp (what i've dubbed the "reyes line") leadoff man for the past 90+ games extending back to his return to action last summer. he's really degraded as a contact hitter, and his plate awareness and clue of what to do in the batter's box has worsened each year.

overall though, the 162 game numbers aren't that putrid at all for the now nearly 22 year old phenom.

i was planning this blog entry yesterday, and i think jose knew about it. going into the game, he had a .299 obp, .397 slg, and .695 ops. all numbers heavily carried by his 69 game rookie season. by going 3-5 today with 2 triples and 2 runs scored, jose really prettied up his career stats. he even stole a base to make it a nifty round 40 for his career.

so really, what's to make of this "rookie season" that spans parts of 3 years? offensively, 185 hits, 103 runs, 10 hrs, 36 doubles, 9 triples, 40 steals in 49 attempts. that's really quite impressive no matter how you slice it. yeah, i can nitpick (boy, can i!) about the atrocious 23 bb/96 k. that has to improve, and it should.

i think the biggest thing with him is i'm not waiting for his next hammy or back or ankle or whatever injury to strike him down out of the blue. hopefully, i haven't just jinxed him, but that's really been the source of most of my reyes angst. you just can't build your franchise relying on a perma-damaged kid. it'll take a couple healthy seasons (not a couple healthy months) to finally assure me this guy can stay in one piece.

perhaps, jose is still in "recovery" mode from all the injuries, rehabbing and time off. his overall game (offensively, defensively and on the basepaths) is clearly not at the 2003 level when he bid us all adieu at the end of august. i'm looking at the current level jose has been playing in 2005 as his floor and it must and will get better from here.

i've always said that for jose to play up to his potential, it's really a mind game. more so than with most others players. jose has been just as mentally fragile as physically fragile. he carries a heavy load of expectations here and he knows it. he's supposed to get on base, steal the next base, score runs, and win gold gloves, and he knows it. jose has to play his game, which means put his natural god-given aggressiveness ahead of trying to learn the unnatural skill of patience. jose plays the speed game and he plays it fast. that's what brought him to the majors at the age of 20 and it's what gave him his only 2 months of major league success that summer. hopefully, he recaptures that magic. i think he will. his next 162 game stats will be a level higher all around, and it won't take until late 2007 to accumulate them. (knock on wood)

The Kazes rock Asian Night

2005-05-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

when i was a kid, the mets had some great "giveaway" days. i went to the infamous "seat cushion" night, which became "projectile" night. the cheap-ass plastic covers ripped easily to expose the asbestos foam inside. i went to "bat" day. they gave out bats painted blue which looked cool, but the paint came off easily. no doubt that was a lead poison hazard. i went to "glove" night, which truly was the cheapest plastic, fake leather mitt. i went to "rain poncho" day. more cheap plastic, but i was actually able to use it for many years. i remember wearing it in washington square park the day hurricane gloria hit. i nearly blew away like a kite. i went to "helmet" day. who hasn't worn that cheap plastic helmet while playing hardball? i went to "photo album" day. that was a pretty cool giveaway. i went to a bunch of fan appreciation days, too. actually, the first game i ever went to was fan appreciation day in 1975 and i got a cool plastic zipper bag. i kept all my mets baseball cards in it.

the mets still have some giveaways, but their big thing recently have been these ethnic nights. today was asian night, so i guess they gave away asian people or autographed darth shinjo photos or maybe let asian people in half-price or probably none of the above.

ok, i have no idea what these ethnic celebratory games are all about. i went to a merengue night once and there was a lot of dancing going on in the stands, on the field, everywhere. they built up a lot of excitement and i was eagerly awaiting the free lemon cream pie, but it never came.

anyway, back to tonight's asian night at shea. manager willie got in the spirit by bumping victor zamboozled and putting kaz ishiity on the mound. ishiity was just taken off the DL. no doubt because he demanded to be out their on asian night. well, he must've been seriously pumped up because he was sharp. as sharp as robert guilleaume was last night.

the one thing about ishiity that separates him from tommy boy and zamboozled is he doesn't give up hits. yeah, he's a wild man and the walks will come usually, but he doesn't give up hits. glavine and zamboozled combine the batting practice stuff with the walks and thats why they average 2 baserunners an inning. ishiity has a much better opponents' oba, and that's what enables him to crank out some winnable outtings more often than the two bozos.

ishiity pitched into the 7th, only allowing 3 hits and 1 run, but left as the losing pitcher of record. the deadwood mets were being stifled by ramon ortiz until asian night fever struck him in the bottom of the 7th. mr. clutch, kazuo matsui, belted a two run shot into the mets bullpen to give the mets the lead.

willie pressed his luck by bringing out koo koo roo for the 2nd night in a row. well, it was asian night and there was surely some kind of magic in the air. if a korean lefty specialist can ever close out the 9th against 3 tough lefties (casey, griffey, dunn) for his first ever major league save, it would have to be on asian night in shea stadium in koreatown flushing by the bay. the stage was set for the asian trifecta, except mr. koo flubbed it. koo got casey, but gave up a single to griffey and a walk to dunn. poopy pooper became an honorary asian for the night by scooping koo's poop and saving the game.

but in the end, no one will remember the koo thing. it was all about the kazes tonight. kazuhisa and kazuo on asian night.

number nine, number nine, number nine...

2005-05-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

for your reference, here are all the past #9 overall draft picks:

2004: HS SS chris nelson (col)
2003: HS P john danks (tex)
2002: Col P jeff francis (col)
2001: HS P colt griffin (kc)
2000: HS P mark phillips (sd)
1999: Col P barry zito (oak)
1998: HS 3B sean burroughs (sd)
1997: HS SS michael cuddyer (minn)
1996: Col OF mark kotsay (fla)
1995: Col OF geoff jenkins (mil)
1994: Col P cj nitkowski (cinn)
1993: HS SS matt brunson (det)
1992: HS OF preston wilson (nym)
1991: Col OF mark smith (balt)
1990: HS P ron walden (la)
1989: Col P kyle abbott (cal)
1988: Col 2B ty griffin (cubs)
1987: Col P kevin appier (kc)
1986: HS OF derrick may (cubs)
1985: Col P mike poehl (cle)
1984: Col OF alan cockrell (sf)
1983: HS C matt stark (tor)
1982: HS P duane ward (atl)
1981: Col P ron darling (tex)
1980: Col SS ross jones (la)
1979: HS P steve buechele (wsox)
1978: Col SS glenn franklin (la)
1977: HS SS david hibner (tex)
1976: HS P bob james (mon)
1975: HS OF clint hurdle (kc)
1974: HS 3B ron sorey (mon)
1973: HS P lew olson (kc)
1972: HS OF steve englishbey (hou)
1971: Col P david sloan (clev)
1970: HS P jim haller (la)
1969: HS P don stanhouse (oak)
1968: HS OF dick sharon (pitt)
1967: HS C mike nunn (cal)
1966: HS P michael biko (phil)
1965: Col SS eddie leon (minn)

A laugher at Shea

2005-05-16T19:45:00.000-07:00

who remembers the sitcom "benson?" it went off the air in 1986 (the year the mets last won a championship), but for one night, benson reigned supreme again.

it was practically a perfect game for the mets as they disposed of the reds, 9-2, at shea. they played a bad team with a struggling pitcher, and they pummeled them. the 1986 #1 overall pick on the mound for the mets, anna benson's husband, was terrific in defeating the mets former #1 overall pick in 1984, paul wilson. benson turned back the clock to the mid-80s when he truly was a blue chip ace at clemson. i half-expected missy gold to pop out of the dugout for a curtain call.

the big mets machine got things started off in the game with a highly improbable jose reyes leadoff triple, and ended with the impossible: mr. koo koo roo wrapping things up with 4 straight outs, 3 by strike out. wow.

in between, there was fun for kids of all ages. cliff floyd hit homer #11 and walked twice, mikey piazza had 2 clutch hits and runs scored, doug mientkiewicz had 2 ribbies, david wright had 2 doubles and 2 runs, and kazuo matsui had 2 doubles and 2 ribbies. things were clicking so well, the team even had 3 sac flies. wow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

speaking of sitcoms, i want to say a public goodbye to one of the all-time greats, "everybody loves raymond." what other show had an episode with eddie kranepool, art shamsky, jerry grote, tug mcgraw, tommie agee, ron swoboda, cleon jones and buddy harrelson? that's right, none. their childhood dog was named shamsky, too.

thanks for the laughs, and cya in syndication.

Let's hear it for Maddux!

2005-05-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

i guess the only thing more improbable than tommy glavine pitching a 7 inning gem against the cardinals on this lovely friday the 13th evening would be if maddux had pitched such a gem against them.

there's no love for tommy, even after this rare "once a month" quality outing. the official mets site would rather give credit to "maddux." i'm guessing it's mike maddux, not greg, since at least mike is a former met.

The jingle is dead! Long live the jingle!

2005-05-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

OK, i finally reached the puke point and ditched the beloved Meet The Mets jingle on the blog. i think the most important thing is that this song remains beloved to all of us, and personally i was getting sick of it. if anyone has the dulcet tones of jane jarvis in mp3 or wav format, let me know and i'll think about reviving the tunes player. for now, enjoy the sweet "sounds of silence."

and with that, apologies to simon & garfunkel. here's some lyrics i came up with earlier today:

and here’s to you, felix heredia
omar loves you more than you will know (whoa whoa whoa)
god bless you, please, guru peterson
give him an hour, he'll fix the pen today (hey hey hey – hey hey hey)

we’d like to put some strobe lights on your arms, torso and legs
we’d like to help you learn to help yourself
let's change your arm angle twenty times a year
i'm a guru, son, there is nothing to fear

and here's to you, felix heredia
a busted thumb keeps you out of the show (whoa whoa whoa)
god bless you please, guru peterson
the bullpen is the place for those who pray (hey hey hey - hey hey hey)

ay caramba, manny's coming in the game again
take it to the bank, he's gonna get smacked
it's a little nightmare, another guru fix-it job
no more dejean mustard, let's call up the kids

koo koo pee you, felix heredia
jesus loves you more than mets fans do (boo hoo hoo)
god bless you please, manager willie
lock the bullpen up, don't let them play (hey hey hey - hey hey hey)

sitting in the bullpen on a sunday afternoon
tommy boy's down five-zip after three
cry about it, whine about it
when you’ve got to choose
every way you look at it you lose

where have you gone, jae weong seo?
mets fans turn their bleary eyes to you (woo woo woo)
what's that you say, guru peterson?
jae weong seo has left and gone away? (what the hey? F'n-A!)

Draft Profile: Craig Hansen

2005-05-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

craig hansen is a new york kid attending st. john's university. he's a big kid with what scouts call a "live" arm, which is probably the highest compliment for a prospect pitcher. heck, a "live" arm will still buy you hype when you're a mediocre minor league journeyman like tyler yates or a 30 year project like zambrano/benson.

he's the #1 closer in the draft and will certainly go in the first round even though he's being "advised" by the evil scott boras. right now, he's a two pitch specialist (mid 90's fastball - high 80's slider), plus he's working on a change-up.

the mets are one of the many teams eyeing this guy. in recent years, fast-tracking relievers to the majors has been in vogue (ryan wagner, chad cordero, huston street), and hansen certainly fits the bill as the next one to do it.

obviously with poopy pooper as their current closer, the mets could use a fast-tracked upgrade. hansen could conceivably be in the majors in september if rush-tracked. with boras attached, though, it's certainly going to be costly. after the #9 overall pick, the mets don't select again until the 4th round. they're not in a position to wait and scoop up guys that fall because of boras-fright. they'll have to make their first pick a doozy. hansen is certainly a viable option.

article links:

newsday.com

timesledger.com

baseballamerica.com

Darth Shinjo

2005-05-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

how about the mets trade kazuo for shinjo straight up? say what you want about shinjo's baseball skills (of lack thereof), but he was a cool guy to have around. cooler than pikachu. huh? cooler than ryoko hirosue. who? what? nevermind. cooler than keisuke hoashi? ok, that's going too far.

anyway, what the heck is he doing in this photo?

dig this google translation:

扮 to Shinjo and the dozen * ベイダー, it starts, sphere type professional baseball interchange game

6 when interchange game of the professional baseball starts, Shinjo of the Nippon Meat Packers, Inc. was removed from the forerunner member in the Osaka and Kobe game of the old home. Being because there is Hari in the abdominal muscles, taking important matter, must be.

Even then, those where fan service is not forgotten are Shinjo. " Therefore as for being able to appear in the tournament and or, it being possible this extent ". Before the playing movie the character of the " star * wars ", 扮 to the dozen * ベイダー, it started and did sphere ceremony, it made the fan enjoy which it visits.

Three swings of those which the request of the fan being transmitted, in 8 times appear with pinch-hitting, as for expectation reach to climax. Main part compared to one swift-footed it was and release " of episode 3 " was " the misfire "?

http://www.asahi.com/sports/update/0507/003.html?ts

Close your eyes tightly and make him go away

2005-05-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

how terrible is victor zamboozled? how many years has it been since he was converted from a terrible infielder to a terrible pitcher? when the hell is guru peterson gonna find 10 minutes to fix him? what's with all the questions anyway? enough already! send him immediately to norfolk. bring jae seo up here now.

enough of the charity projects. the mets were zamboozled. admit it. that's the first step. just admit it. giving up kazmir was grand larceny. getting damaged goods in zamboozled was just salt in the wound. being forced to give the arbitration eligible millions in the off-season was cruel and unusual punishment. now having to endure him in 2005 is just insane. stop it. it's not funny anymore. now that we've admitted the wrongdoing and the problem, fix it. obviously zamboozled is more of a 10 month or multi-year project, and nothing a stopwatch can time. he's the closest to rick ankiel in the majors. hit batters, walks, wild pitches, balks. WTF are the mets doing trotting this guy out and passing him off as a major league pitcher for?

it's already insulting enough with glavine shamelessly stealing fred wilpon's money and anna benson's husband doing his bad impersonation of a pitcher. this zamboozling thing is just way way way over the line. it's unconscionable to subject fans to him. get him out of here. is he salvagable? who knows? who cares?

2005-05-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

little known fact: the korean name, koo dae-sung, translated into english is "johnny fran-koo."

Cliff Floyd wins The Amazing Race!

2005-05-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

congratulations go out to new york mets outfielder, cliff floyd, and his wife, diana ross, who were the million dollar winners in the amazing race. who said nice guys finish last? well they do sometimes, but not this time. thank god somebody beat that annoying boston rob.

Anna Benson's husband

2005-05-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

anna benson's husband was the #4 starter in the pirates rotation behind oliver perez, josh fogg and kip wells. many moons ago, he was the #1 overall pick in the nation as a bluechip ace out of clemson university. that kind of hype will cut you a ton of slack in this business. it carried benson for a good number of years in pittsburgh, despite the fact that he was an underachieving sub-mediocrity with a high era and serious arm injuries. in the end, though, pirates fans tired of the bensons.

luckily, in new york city, anyone can blow into town and reinvent oneself. this is precisely what anna benson and her husband have done. anna has fashioned herself as some sort of pseudo-celebrity who'll flash her horseteeth and mother-of-three saggy funbags at any and all photographers. she's also been desperately trying to pitch a reality show idea to all 28 tv networks that air that stuff. for his part, anna benson's husband has miraculously reinvented himself as a 20 year old blue chip stud again. the mets made him priority #1 this winter and threw $22.5M at him without blinking. the mets dragged their asses and feet to give philip humber (a true young blue chip prospect) $5M so they couldn't fast track him last june at binghamton. however, there was no problem throwing tons more at a long ago failed prospect like benson to become another can't miss guru peterson miracle resurrection project. go figure.

my thought now is that benson, zambrano, and glavine would really bolster the norfolk tides rotation. they're already playing longtime major league vets: gerald williams, brian daubach, mike difelice and benji gil in the everyday lineup, so they'll fit in perfectly with the AAAA atmosphere.

am i being too harsh on anna benson's husband? maybe, but ask a pirates fan if i am.

Meet The Mets jingle

2005-05-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

are you getting sick of the Meet The Mets jingle that plays on this blog? i have to admit, i am. i have a little one here who loves it, though. everytime it plays, he starts dancing with the biggest smile you've ever seen. this is all part of brainwashing we must do to create the next generation of diehard mets fans.

Early thoughts on the draft

2005-05-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

back from 4 days in vegas. i'll have to catch up on the boxscores to see what i missed with the mets. all i know is cammy returned with a hot bat, mikey's had a couple sweet games to pretty up the stats a bit more, and tommy "the stopper" glavine brought all the momentum to a screeching halt again.

the amateur baseball draft is a month away. the mets'll be selecting #9 in the first round. they lost their 2nd & 3rd round picks to free agent compensation, so i'm looking for them to make an "impact" fast-track college selection that'll fill a team need in the next year or two.

i'm thinking stephen drew will be definitely be back in the draft. seems arizona will not budge from their final $7.5M offer which has been out there for awhile, and boras wants MORE MORE MORE. the dbacks also have the #1 overall pick and unless they pull a matt bush like the pads did last year, they'll have to sign consensus #1 justin upton to a monster deal and they just don't have this kind of money to spend. the thing is, upton is a shortstop like drew and a few years behind. why pay the same kind of money to a less sure thing like upton? it's a crazy, back to the wall dilemma for arizona and shows again that teams can be "punished" with top picks if they don't have the ability to trade them.

arte moreno has been spending since he bought the orange county angels of anaheim in the near proximity of los angeles, so it's been strange that he would agree to pick jered weaver and not meet his price. again, boras wants MORE MORE MORE, but because it's arte moreno, i'm leaning 50.1/49.9 that weaver is signed by the may 31st deadline.

boras is "advising" a lot more top rated draftees this year than last year. it's amazing that these kids still flock to him like flies on poop. the lure of money talks, even to the detriment to their careers. starting pitchers mike pelfrey, luke hochevar, mark mccormick, jason neighborgall, shortstop tyler greene, and this st john's kid, craig hansen are all with boras. add drew and weaver to the mix and this year's first rounds can be seriously screwed up as teams start going off the board early and often.

there's definitely a "search for southpaws" happening. the one lefty on the early draft board is ricky romero from cal st fullerton. he's flying up with a bullet because he's the ONLY power lefty teams have been keying on awhile. i'm sure the mets have been looking at him too. high school lefty mark pawelek (ba.com) throws mid-90s and is slotted as a mid-first rounder. i'm thinking if the boras effect hits, both could easily go in the top 10. cesar ramos - ex-long beach teammate of jered weaver, has never been projected as a first round pick, but he could easily be there. ryan mullins from vanderbilt hasn't had a great junior year and he's even picked up a DUI arrest and team suspension, but he too may find interest in the early rounds.

one guy i still like as much as last year is wade townsend, assuming he's been staying in playing shape the past year. he's a very possible elite closer kind of guy with the stuff and bulldog attitude. still, i'd keep him as a starter initially and make him prove that's not his strongest suit first. reuniting townsend and humber for the full summer at binghamton would be great.

drew would be a good signing too. it's a very unpopular belief, but i'm on the record as saying i'd love to see a drew-keppinger middle infield-top of the lineup in 2006. those are two college trained fundamentally sound hitters. if jose reyes can stay healthy the entire season and start filling out the stat sheets better, he can recoup his young stud trade value again and be the centerpiece in a deal to fill a key major league need elsewhere. alternatively, drew can probably be easily converted to a 2B without a delay in his fast-tracking, and a drew-reyes middle infield wouldn't be too shabby either.

catcher jeff clement out of usc will probably not drop to the mets. not much available as far as college power hitting outfielders or power hitters period, especially at the #9 slot where the mets will probably miss out on a clement or alex gordon from nebraska. seems every top college hitter that'll be there at #9 is a corner infielder which already is a logjam situation for the mets system. an exception is jeremy sladen from g tech who's a stud hitting RFer. he might be a top 10 pick, but he's got injury worries. he's coming off shoulder surgery and his arm rates very low. additionally, the mets should not, cannot and will not look lower on the board and take a flier on somebody like john mayberry, jr or stephen head and try to convert them to an OFer.

that's it for now. more draft crap to come in the future.

Good Grief, Jae Seo

2005-05-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

jae seo upped his record to 2-1 with 7 sparkling innings of 1-hit ball with 8 k's and 2 bb. then he was sent back down to norfolk.

such is life for jae seo.

such is life for the new york mets.

i could write a novel about this, but it's old territory. you know the story anyway.

jae won a rotation job in spring training 2003, but the mets were infatuated with the david cone fantasy, so seo had to wait his turn. then he had a solid rookie season, logging in over 180 innings. but he somehow lost his job and major league spot in spring training 2004 as the mets had some tyler yates/scott erickson fantasy they wanted to play out. it was a wasted year for the discouraged seo. again, in 2005, seo is the victim of inferior numbers as the mets have to figure out what to do with this "depth" they have. the mets are wading neck high in this rotation depth.

doesn't seem possible that seo has options left. seems he's been on the norfolk shuttle a bit too many times already, but i guess the mets know what they're doing right? hmmm.

yeah, seo's been treated like shit overall. it's a wonder he's still battling so hard after having his trade request back to korea or anywhere unfulfilled over the winter. i guess he's still hoping for a deal somewhere, and he's doing his best to impress for that purpose. personally, i hope the mets just figure out what to do with the logjam of crap and get him back up here in time for his next start. that's their thinking, right? it has to be.

Glavine's vesting option

2005-05-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

i'm getting this info from the st lucie mets site:

There are several ways that his contract would vest for the 2006 season. If he pitches a combined 600 innings in 2003-04-05, including 200 innings this season, his contract will automatically kick in at $10.5 million. If he pitches between 580 and 600 innings over the three-year period, including 200 or more innings this year his contract will vest at $9 million and include $1.5 million in incentive bonuses. If he pitches between 560 and 580 innings or 200 innings this season, his contract would vest at $8 million with $2.5 million in incentive bonuses.

There is also a mutual option that can be exercised by Nov. 1 if the vesting numbers haven't been reached. Glavine has the right to exercise the option and the club has until Nov. 10 to pick it up. If the Mets don't pick it up, they can exercise a buyout clause, but if both parties agree on it, Glavine will earn $6.5 million next year with the possibility of earning an additional $4 million in incentives.

tommy pitched 183.1 innings in 2003, 212.1 innings in 2004 (total = 395.2 ip). thus far in 2005, he's tacked on 30.2 ip. (total = 426.1 ip).

therefore, tommy is currently 133.2 innings away from triggering a guaranteed $8m (+ $2.5m incentives) contract year for 2006.

if tommy continues to average a putrid 5 innings or so per start, he will need 26 more starts to hit the magic number. as long as he stays healthy, this will be cutting it close (assuming he remains absolutely stinky), but it is very possible.

my contention is that the mets must make it impossible. if ever a starter deserved to be dropped from the rotation, on a strictly winning baseball decision, it's tom glavine right now.

2005-05-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

tommy glavine is another of the bad players on the mets you have to feel sorry for. here's a former all-star pitcher who was proceeding on his HOF-bound career when he signs a mega-contract to be the ace for the new york mets. then he crapped out on crappy teams. the only happy moment he can recall as a met was the game the mets let his brother play 1B two septembers back. that's sad. at this point though, the mets aren't as crappy as before, and if there is any familiar lingering crap smell, it's the likes of glavine that's producing it.

i do feel bad for him, but i feel a lot worse for the mets and for myself as a fan. the mets simply cannot allow this man to get his innings in and vest his option for a guaranteed $10.5 M next season.

how many innings does glavine need this season to get that guaranteed 4th year? well, that's not clear. i thought it was 200 ip for 2005 or 600 ip for 2003-2005, but now metsblog.com is mentioning that espn had an article saying glavine needed 560 ip. anyway, you slice it, glavine needs at least 25 more crummy starts and at least 150 or so innings more to go. this cannot happen. is it too transparent a ploy to drop glavine from the rotation at this point? maybe it is, but the mets just cannot let glavine return with a big sticker price next year.

anna benson's husband returns to the rotation in a couple days. we still have heilman and seo up here, and when i think of trotting tommy boy out there again and again and again and again for the post-pedro flop, it does make the phlegm come up, doesn't it? i'd much rather roll the dice with both aaron and jae. at least they're not mummified yet, and show some youthful effort each time out there in their desperate, last chance bids to finally stick for good here. tommy is playing out his string like the walking dead. he's walking everybody and the mets are dead with him pitching. stop the madness. stop the sadness. stop the badness.

tommy, thanks for trying. the bullpen is out there to your right. you can have a seat next to koo and the gang.

Down on the farm - 5/3

2005-05-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

this is a very semi-irregular minor leagues update i post on the MSG messageboard. i know there are some folks who appreciate it there, but on the whole, i don't think most fans follow the mets minor leagues that deeply. so whenever i post it there, i'll put here on the crappy blog too. maybe it'll reach more people who are interested in this stuff like me.

i'm actually a minor league and draft junkie, going back to when i was a little kid, reading all the minor league boxscores in The Sporting News and following guys like Dwight Gooden and Lenny Dykstra while they racked up incredible numbers in A ball. i guess when you follow a traditionally horrible major league team like the mets, you always have your eyes on the kids down below. the wilpon era record with draft picks, phenoms, can't miss blue chips and the sort has been atrocious, but ya still gotta believe.

AAA: norfolk edged durham, 8-7. tides starter jason scobie (4-0, 2.93) got banged around for the first time this year, giving up 5 er in 4.2 ip. cammy got his first rehab game in at AAA, had a single, run and two walks in 5 plate appearances. suddenly, it's become midnight for vic diaz and he's turned into a pumpkin, so cammy's return will be more welcomed than it seemed a short while ago. jeff keppinger remains en fuego, going 4-5 to raise his avg to .380. brian daubach is a triple crown god. he went 2-5 with a bases loaded clearing single for 3 ribbies. he now leads the IL with a .388 avg, 8 hr, and 28 rbis. too bad he only plays 1B. also too bad he's a 33 year old longtime major league vet, not a 23 year old prospect. anyway, daubach was originally a 17th round mets draft pick in 1990. other picks that year? jeromy burnitz (17th overall), aaron ledesma (2nd round), fernando vina (9th round), and darren dreifort (11th round - unsigned).

AA: kevin deaton (2-2, 1.65) looked sharp again, going 6 ip, 2 er, striking out 9, and walking only one for the win. binghamton topped akron, 9-3. permanent binghamton residents jeff duncan (3-4, triple, 2 runs, rbi, bb) and prentice redman (2-4, double, 2 runs, bb) had good nights. both 3B chase lambin (.382) and aarom baldiris (.308) went 2-3.

A: st lucie fell to jupiter, 4-3. starter vicent cordova (2-1, 3.09) didn't give up an earned run in 6.1 ip, but he did give up 3 unearned runs on 3 hits. he struck out 6, walked 2. brett harper (.291) went 2-4 and collected his 27th rbi.

A: gaby hernandez (2-1, 3.25) picked up the win in hagerstown's 11-4 victory over kannapolis. gaby only gave up 1 hit and 2 er in 5 ip, but he walked 5 and k'd 4. matt durkin (1-1, 2.55) followed for 3 innings of 1 hit relief, allowing 1 er, 3 walks, and striking out 2. mighty morphin ambiorex continues to turn the corner, going 2-4 to raise his avg above the mendoza line to .209. he hit homer #4, a double, scored twice and also picked up a walk. tyler davidson (.227) also had a homer (2) and double, collecting 4 rbis on the night.

NEWSFLASH: JOSE REYES WALKS!

2005-05-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

this is only a preliminary report. details will follow as they become available. all we know for sure right now is that jose reyes has drawn a bases on balls in tonight's game at shea. fans stormed the field immediately and bedlam broke loose.

apparently, fans dug up first base and stole it. jose reyes was hoisted atop the shoulders of the mob and carried off over the centerfield fence and not seen since. new york city detectives are baffled, but feel confident that both first base and jose reyes will eventually turn up on ebay.

NEWSFLASH: JOSE REYES HIT BY PITCH!

2005-04-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

at first blush, it seems just like any other mets game. victor zamboozled sucked mule ass again. the deadwood offense couldn't do shit against the opposing starter again. manny ay caramba came in and did his shit again. the mets mounted a late game rally against the opposing bullpen that came up short again. the mets lost... again.

the top of the lineup was hitless and walkless again. but wait a sec there.....

jose reyes got hit by a pitch!

i swear to god it's true. it's the first time ever in his major league career, so this is a gigantic whoop. i've seen him get hit twice before. once in his rookie summer, and once very early this year. both times he got hit in the foot. both times he swung at the pitch for a strike.

check the stats for jose now:

avg: .260
obp: .267

this is exciting stuff. mets fans are wetting themselves all over the world. i'm half moist, too.

So-so Seo and the Mets drop another

2005-04-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

jae seo's ultra rare run support dried up after one game, but he didn't do himself any favors either. nursing a 1-0 lead for 3 no-hit innings, the nats finally broke through in the 4th inning with a solo line drive homer from jose guillen to tie the game up. then in the 5th, seo gave up dingers to brian schneider and livan hernandez. that was unforgivable. you can't let the girly hitting catcher and opposing pitcher take you deep.

those were the only hits seo allowed in 5 innings, and it was enough to get him the loss. the mets brought the deadwood lumber to the park again. the hits were there, but never in the clutch. the late inning rally attempt was futile again.

same lousy themes as always to consider:

jose reyes is a pathetic major league leadoff hitter
mike piazza's descent down the slippery slope is nearly over as approaches rock bottom at the end of a HOF career
this bullpen is horrible and heath bell/royce ring are not short term saviors (believe me)
manager willie has stuck with the same dysfunctional lineup for a month now. is that enough time to gauge what the hell is wrong and finally mix things up?
vic diaz is starting to cool off in the 8th spot as teams wise up to the fact that the pitcher is on deck
this rotation is frightening beyond pedro. we need guys to stretch it out more so the frightening same crap from the bullpen isn't trotted out there everyday

and so with that, the mets look to finish april on a winning note and get out of the month with a .500 record. i said i'd be happy with a .500 april. of course, that was when the mets stumbled out of the starting gate and planted their face 5 feet deep in the mud. now, i'll still take .500, and hopefully a month under his belt is all willie needs to take this lifeless, inconsistent team by the neck and give it a damn good shaking for may and beyond.

the mets look to victor zamboozled tonight as the stopper. he's due for a quality outing. i hate him so. go zammy!

on the injuries front, both anna benson's husband and cammy are doing st lucie A ball rehab gigs and their returns are imminent. will that be a boost or a downer? beats me. you tell me.

on the minor league front, phil humber has also returned from injury to the st lucie mets. yusmeiro petit is having his pitch count increased at binghamton. brian bannister is 4-0 and virtually unhittable for the bingo mets. jason scobie is 4-0 for the tides. the prospect arms are all healthy and really looking tremendous on every level. can't say the same for the bats. the tides are being supported by major league vets. they have brian daubach, benji gil, gerald williams, and mike difelice in the everyday lineup. yeah, we know they can overmatch AAA pitching, but are they usable parts for the mets? i don't think so. jeff keppinger continues to impress though. his road is blocked by kazuo at the moment, though. at binghamton, there are legitimate prospects like aarom baldiris and mike jacobs who are working on position changes. then again, prentice redman is still there for what, his 12th year or does it just seem like it? at st lucie, lastings milledge is a real bust. he hit the wall there last year after a mid-season promotion, and he still can't adjust this year. he's also got his annual april hand injury. shawn bowman, the hyped up brooks robinson with the glove, also can't hit his way out of a wet paper bag. one step lower at hagerstown, superhype job, ambiorex concepcion, can't hit a breaking ball for his life.

It was 40 years ago.... in August

2005-04-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

you hear the words "shea stadium" and we naturally think of our beloved new york mets. others may think about bouncing seats at new york jets games. for many people who have no idea what baseball or american football is about, they hear "shea stadium" and they think of the beatles.

august 15th will be the 40th anniversary of the beatles playing shea stadium. since this current shea probably won't be around for the 50th anniversary, i think it'd be a cool thing to have some sort of commemoration. that was a huge deal then. imagine a rock and roll band doing a show in a state of the art baseball stadium seating over 55,000. i wasn't born yet and the only concert i ever saw at shea was the pruny rolling stones in one of their 17 farewell tours. the beatles are the beatles though, and this was 1965. being as big a beatles fan as i am a mets fan, this is some pretty big shit, imo. so do a bunch of other people, too.

contact: customer_relations@NYMets.com

the mets are have a day off on august 15, so i guess nothing will be happening then. they do return from a west coast swing though on august 16th. the only thing the mets have planned around that time is another kind of meringue night concert deal and nothing beatles related. so tell them you think it'd be cool to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the beatles rocking shea in some way.

the beatles also appeared at shea in 1966 (see below):

glavine + braves = met killer

2005-04-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

maybe you're figuring tommy boy glavine is a better fit for a parody on "tommy - the rock opera" than kaz. nah. except for the name, tommy, what else fits about glavine. he's not deaf, dumb or blind. he's just old and over-the-hill. his act has long grown stale here. i actually thought the mets were fortunate when he squirmed his way out of jams in the first couple innings. "hmm," i thought, "maybe these are the NEW mets. glavine and the old mets would be down 5-0 right now and never come back."

unfortunately, it all caved in quickly soon after that. glavine, again, did not have anything resembling major league quality pitching. he was hittable and tossing meatballs up there. it seemed as if he were yelling out to the batters and asking where they wanted it. andruw jones broke out of his season slump, thanks to tommy boy. mike hampton looked good with his usual slop crap, thanks to tommy boy. eddie perez and wilson betemitavegamin added insult to injury by hitting back-to-back jacks. that's humiliating. who the fuck is wilson betemitavegamin anyway?

it was a disgusting affair and there's really not much to dwell on. it's never nice to lose another series to atlanta, but it's old hat, isn't it?

non-interesting tidbits:

mr. electricity, jose reyes, stunned the shea crowd with a strike out, no walks, and a 1-5 effort. that pretty much sums up his season at shea so far: a .200 avg/obp.
vic diaz ended the inning 4 times batting 8th. that meant the mets had the pitcher's spot, jose reyes and kaz matsui due up 4 times to start an inning. needless to say, they were all scoreless innings.
after going 2-5, kaz matsui has the same batting avg as jose reyes now: .271. kaz's obp is .329. jose's obp is... well, you know.
the mets had their best rally chance in the bottom of the 8th, loading the bases with no outs. a wild pitch scored piazza. floyd advanced from 2nd to 3rd. for some unknown reason, david wright remained on 1B. a possible linedrive sac fly to RF followed, but floyd wasn't near the bag and ready to tag. then the inning ended on a 6-3-4 double play because wright was on 1B and not 2B. it was all too bizarre, and all too typical of the mets total retarded lack of fundamental skills.

i said to watch and see if the mets showed any fatigue after playing their 15th game in 15 days. well, they came out braindead. it's a day off tomorrow and off to DC for four.

2005-04-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

poor kazu "0 for 4" matsui can't play baseball that well (at least not in this hemisphere). he's blind. just can't see. that goes a long way in explaining why his reactions are so slow in the field, in the batter's box, and why he doesn't attempt steals that much. last night, he didn't hear willie calling out to him that he was being pinch-hit for by mikey piazza. jeez, kaz is deaf too? worst of all, despite all the problems fans might still have a chance to like him if they could communicate with him. alas, kaz only speaks japanese. his "personality" is non-existent for mets fans. he botches up things and we get dry patter thru a translator or curt excuses from the manager. essentially, for english speaking fans, kaz is dumb (as in mute).

i feel for him. the expectations were high. his cost is high. he's been as disappointing as carlos baerga and roberto alomar. just a complete reverse of what was advertised. he's still in the lineup everyday, so i root hard for him, but unfortunately at this point, my pity and hope don't equal my disgust. he just a deaf, dumb, blind guy. but he sure plays a mean pinball.

Rally falls short. Mets fall 4-3.

2005-04-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

ouch, this one hurts.

it was a pedro vs smoltz rematch tonight. the first one back on april 10th lived up to all the billing as pedro won a complete game 2 hitter for the first victory of the season for the mets. smoltz wasn't too shabby either that afternoon with 15 K's and looking unbeatable until the mets offense finally came to life in the 8th and 9th for 6 runs to snap that opening 5 game losing streak. that was the first of many late inning blitzes by the mets against the opposing bullpen.

pedro didn't bring the A game tonight. he allowed 3 er in the first and another in the 3rd. it was a 4-1 hole the mets would never get out of. smoltz didn't have his A stuff either, but he was getting by. the mets offense woke up late in the bottom of the 9th and tried valiently for some more late inning heroics against the braves pen. after plating 2 runs, cliff floyd popped out for the final out with piazza on 3B and beltran on 1B.

it never feels good to lose with pedro on the mound. we follow up now with tommy boy against his beloved braves, and that's never a pretty sight. then we go through with whatever until it's finally pedro's turn again. one more game against the braves, then a day off, then off to DC for 3 against the nats, then back home for 4 against philly, then onto milwaukee and chicago. it's a criss-crossy schedule up ahead with little time to catch their breath. they're now finishing a stretch of 15 games in 15 days and 21 games in 22 days. gotta wonder if some april fatigue is hitting them yet.

i guess we'll be finding out.

It's Pedro time! All your base belong to us.

2005-04-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

yay! we made it to pedro again!

navigating through the mets rotation is like being a kid again and playing tag. except this is scarier. pedro is base. base is good. it's safe. the rest of the rotation is havoc and chaos, running around, being chased, hiding, trying desperately to get back to base.

tommy boy got us off to a great start. jae seo continued it. we were chilling. we had a comfy hiding spot behind a large rock. base wasn't in sight, but the guy who was "IT" was busy chasing somebody else so there was nothing to sweat. then it was zamboozled's turn. "IT" spotted us! we had to make a dash for base, but it was too far away. "IT" was chasing us through the sandbox. our feet weren't moving. it was like quicksand. "IT" tagged us! argghhhhhhhhhhhh! we're IT!!!!!! damn damn damn. now we have to start running around, rotating our heads 360 degrees to spot somebody to tag. everyone's coming out of the woodwork to reach base easily. now they're calling "electricity!" and forming a human chain to reach other guys off base. they're killing us! they're ridiculing us!

now base is jammed. there's only one guy hiding out there somewhere. it's futile. "flowers for algernon" heilman takes the mound, and it's seemingly hopeless. heilman is always "IT." well, there was that one time last week, when some miracle happened, but who can expect a miracle to repeat so soon?

suddenly, there's a flash in the corner of our eye. somebody's darting out from behind a tree and making a dash for base! we react like a rabbit, instinctively reaching out to make the swipe tag. gotcha! you're IT!!!!

whewwwww!!!

somebody else is "IT!" we hide behind that same nearby tree. "IT" starts running off in the other direction, and we skip merrily to base.

"base!"

it's pedro time!

Matinee weekend wrapup

2005-04-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

I thought I had the trend figured out for the Mets this year. Pedro is awesome, then four lousy starts by the mutts of the rotation, then Pedro is awesome, followed by four surprising winnable quality efforts, then Pedro is awesome, followed by four crappy starts, then Pedro is awesome, so we're supposed to get the four surprisingly good starts by the rest of the rotation now.

Well, Tommy Boy held up his end, pitching a gem under the Friday Night Lights. Glavine rolled for 7 innings, only allowing 1 er and 2 hits, striking out 7. Mets beat the Nats, 3-1. Then with Ishiity biting it and hitting the DL, the Mets were facing a possible Dog Day Afternoon with Jae Seo called up from Norfolk to pinch-pitch. Well, I'm a Jae fan. He's a battler, whether he's got his stuff or not, and thank god, he had it on Saturday. Seo cruised for 6 innings and probably should've gone at least one more to rest the pen some. Willie yanked him though. Seo gave up only 1 er, struck out 4 and walked none. Strangest of all, he actually got a shitload of run support. That's something he's not used to. Seo left winning 10-1. The pen made it scary, and I'm sure Jae had a sick feeling he might actually not get the win. The Mets held on 10-5.

Then the Mets got Zamboozled on Bloody Sunday. Last time out, it was Zamboozled who got the ridiculous run support when the Mets slugged those 7 homers. He gave up 4 runs in the first 3 innings of that game in Philly, and he did the same thing today against the Nationals. Then he gave up 2 in the 4th and 2 more in the 6th. 8 runs in all, though only 7 were earned. The Mets bats didn't bail out Zammy this time. It's never Any Given Sunday with Victor Zamboozled on the mound. What a piece of crap he is. The Mets lost 11-4.

2005-04-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

2005-04-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

edit: some folks are asking what the hell this one means. was reyes really born on the 4th of july? no, actually he was born on june 11th. you see, in the movie, tom cruise is this kid who gets blown up in vietnam and confined to a wheelchair. he can't walk anymore. get it? like jose reyes doesn't walk? see? ah, nevermind.

On a Leiter note: Mets & Pedro enjoy laugher

2005-04-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

aloquacious leiter had to have been speechless and shellshocked after getting bombarded by the big mets machine tonight in miami. in short, leiter had zippo as he imploded and was torched 8 er in 3 painful innings. it was leiter at his worst, tossing 82 pitches, yielding 5 walks and 6 hits. the biggest blow was dougie mientkiewicz's grand salami in the 7 run 2nd inning.

on the flipside, the mets brand new real ace, pedro martinez was sterling once again. pedro cruised for 7 innings, giving up only 1 er on 3 hits, 0 walks and striking out 8. pedro is now 2-0 with a 2.17 era.

the sadass tablesetters did contribute tonight. jose reyes raised his avg/obp to .278 with a couple clutch hits, scoring a run and driving in 2. clearly, his aggressive hack-at-will plate aggression is better suited when he can come to the plate in possible rally situations, and not as a bases empty firestarter. kaz matsui reached safely 3 times, via hit, walk and hit by pitch. anyway you can, kaz, is appreciated.

carlos beltran has been in a mini-slump. he's striking out on a pretty horrific pace and the avg is starting to fall. he got off the snide with a 3 run dinger tonight that'll hopefully get him going. of course, having 2 regular outs batting in front of you doesn't help things, but that's no excuse for making it 3 regular outs in a row.

the good:

the mets drew 9 walks tonight, only striking out 3 times
mike dejean and heath bell each got a scoreless inning in. not clean innings, but why quibble?
cliffy floyd dipped into the flaxseed elixir and pulled 2 stolen bases out of the miracle bag. now he only trails jose reyes by one.
amazing vic diaz has suddenly transformed into the most patient player in the lineup. maybe hanging with wright and dougie at the bottom of the lineup is rubbing off good stuff. vic drew 3 more walks in the game. wright and dougie drew 2 each.
in the fundamental hitting dept: beltran had a sac fly and pedro had a successful sac bunt.

the bad:

not much, except pedro won't be starting the next four games.

the ugly:

aloquacious leiter, but that's not our problem anymore.

Mets Flaccid The Night After

2005-04-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

change your arm angle all you want, aaron. it ain't working.

guru peterson telling heilman he'll write recommendations for him for his graduate school applications. piazza says he'll write a couple, too.

worries of the mets blowing their wad last night against the phillies turned out legitimate. last night, they crushed a team record 7 homeruns in the williamsport, pennsylvania little league stadium. they returned to a major league park in miami tonight and could only scratch out 2 runs and 4 hits, falling to the marlins 9-2.

pitching-wise, it was the return match-up of "flowers for algernon" heilman and josh beckett. could heilman pull another one-hit wonder? c'mon, this isn't fairytale land. heilman returned back to the form we know so well -- as the sucky guy we dread rolling out there for the automatic loss. four innings, 11 hits and 7 er later, heilman returned to the clubhouse to continue studying for his graduate school entrance exams.

josh beckett rolled through 7 innings, allowing 2 er. the bullpen mopped it up, and that's was all she wrote.

mets highlights:

vic diaz went 1-3 with an rbi triple and run scored.
david wright went 1-2 with a bb and run scored.
roberto hernandez pitched out of trouble in a scoreless 8th, keeping his era at 0.00 through 6 innings.
manny ay caramba and poopy pooper also notched scoreless innings for their tiny collections

mets woelights:

jose reyes lowered his avg/obp to .269. reyes now has 0 bb/14 k in 15 games.
kazu "o for 4" matsui got his "0 for 4"
"flowers for algernon" heilman (see above)
mike matthews inexplicably still remains in the major leagues
mike matthews inexplicably remains a new york met
mike matthews is still inexplicably seeing action for the mets

No smoking, just en fuego.

2005-04-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

sweet jesus alou! a new pope was elected earlier today and in celebration, the mets may have performed a mini-miracle. the slumbering lumber woke up. the deadwood came to life like pinocchio. the mets busted out the whupping sticks in a 16-4 victory over philly.

this team that seemingly can only score against the opponent's bullpen from the 7th inning on, took a group pre-game drink from the flaxseed oil elixir punchbowl, and bombarded the phillies for 16 runs in the first 6 innings. in fact, the mets scored in every inning, first through sixth. jose reyes hit two solo jacks. vic diaz smacked two 2-run dingers. david wright hit a grand slam. mike piazza hit a solo bomb that's still going, and dougie mientkiewiez whacked a 2-run smack. that's a team record 7 homeruns.

the mets offense was in full attack. even victor zamboozled had a 2-run triple. and speaking of zamboozled, while the mets were kicking vicente padilla and gavin floyd like rented mules, zammy was controlling chaos. if the mets weren't making a mockery of the game, zamboozled's performance on the mound would be more in the spotlight. it wasn't good. the phillies got 4 runs in the first 3 innings, and zammy had to wiggle out of bases loaded jams in the 1st and 3rd to escape real serious damage.

other game notes:

this new phillies stadium doesn't have the dimensions of the williamsport little league ballpark, but the ball jumps out of there just as fast.

the mets struck out 9 times, but they drew an impressive 6 walks.

victor diaz is making cammy look like wally pipp. diaz's glove is atrocious, but can the the mets really take his bat out of the lineup?

speaking of wally pipp, felix heredia was placed on the 15 day DL with a banged up thumb. heath bell was called up and pitched a scoreless 9th inning tonight. can the mets really bring heredia back?

coup d'etat and manny ay caramba each pitched a scoreless inning and have now pitched in every single game this year. ok, that's not true. but it seems like it.

the mets are now 7-7. the entire nl east is within 1 game of each other.

Ishii ishiity as the Mets drop another

2005-04-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

i'm not going to say the "pedro and four days of prayers" rotation looks to be kicking into full gear now, but there are signs to be concerned about.

kaz "the girl with a twirl" ishii was very, very bad tonight. the plate was moving on him from the get-go, and the usual recipe for a mets loss was established:

1) the mets were buried immediately in the 1st inning (down a quick 2-0).

2) the opposing starter (randy wolf) kept the mets bats in slumber.

3) ishii burned through his pitches in 5 innings, giving up the requisite 5 earned runs (on 6 hits and 6 walks) before hitting the showers.

4) wolf pitched deep into the game, not letting the mets tee off against the phils bullpen until it was too late.

the phils tried to nail the coffin shut by letting wolf complete the 9th, but the comeback mets eventually did get to him to make it interesting. the big shot came once wolf was finally knocked out of the game. cliffy floyd decided to play tonight and hit a 3-run homer off todd worrell to get the mets within 1 run, 5-4. that's how it ended.

so where are we?

the mets record fell to 6-7.

jose reyes continues to show he is not a major league leadoff hitter. his obp is now down to .276. he is now walkless in 58 at bats.

the entire team struck out 7 times vs. 0 walks tonight. the season's totals so far is 100 k's/35 bb's. the mets obp is .312. they are batting 34 points higher as a team than their opponents, but are getting on base at a lower clip. they have 18 more hits and 26 more total bases, but have scored 3 less runs.

kaz matsui and mike piazza both went 2-4 to raise their averages a bit. cliffy leads the team in ribbies with 9. carlos beltran added one tonight to raise his season total to 8.

felix heredia hurt his hand again and left the game.

Tin Man Glavine = Stopper

2005-04-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

call him tommy boy, the torch, or the tin man. he's also the stopper in the mets rotation. tommy has his eyes on 200 career losses. i don't know if he has enough time left, but he's certainly been doing his best to get there as a met. it was another vintage first inning disaster for tommy. he buried the mets early and this time, aj burnett wasn't going to let the mets crawl back out.

the florida marlins finally figured out how to beat the mets: never yank your starter. as has been the trend, the mets bats went to sleep against the starter. what differed in this game from the usual winning recipe was the mets never got to face the bullpen late in the game. burnett went the distance, downing the mets 5-2, only allowing 2 runs on 5 hits.

the mets offensive hero was victor diaz who hit a solo homer (1st of the year).

jose and kaz took 0'fers and are shaping up as the worst 1-2 tablesetters in baseball. blind kazuo is also getting a major case of the clanky glove that dogged him at SS last year. the guy just cannot field. being blind doesn't help matters, i guess. mikey sat out his usual sunday afternoon. not that his dead bat and sad defense was missed much. cliffy has gone from day-to-day to "let's just pretend i don't exist" mode. david wright is looking as if he's trying to replicate mike schmidt's 2nd year in the majors. i could go on and on. why am i such a wet blanket?

hey, the mets are boxcars. 6-6. that's awesome. they've had a great homestand. it's time to regroup, head out on the road and get another winning streak started.

Breakup the Mets?

2005-04-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

last weekend, i figured the mets would be in good shape if they hung tough and somehow battled back to .500 by the end of april. that would've been a good goal in light of the disasterous opening to the season. if they could just stop the bleeding, get everyone on the same page again, maintain the health of the everyday lineup... get back cammy, get back benson, get willie to master the double switch, get mikey some flaxseed oil elixir, start getting some wins under the belt, then perhaps everything would smooth out and the team could start anew around .500 in may.

things have gone a bit differently, as the mets have put the losing in the rearview mirror and reeled off a very impressive winning streak. they are now amazingly 6-5 and a crow's hop behind the top of the division.

they've had an amazing week, and the real incredible part of it is the team has been playing broken, so no need to break up what's already busted. the starting perma-damaged RFer hasn't played a game yet, and now our perma-damaged LFer has been out. our rotation is missing 2 starters. our perma-blind 2B has been out with a bad eye. the closer is poopy pooper. manny ay caramba pitches in every game. the leadoff hitter has a .300 obp with zero walks and is averaging 1 k/game. the cleanup hitting HOF catcher has degraded into the 2nd coming of junior ortiz offensively. the phenom young 3B stud has shown an amazing knack of killing potential rallies.

how's the team winning?

pitching. the starters have had a tremendous run from pedro to pedro. six effective starts in a row. as a team the past 7 days, the pitchers have a 1.77 era and .165 oba. they allowed 11 runs in 56 ip. toss out ay caramba and the #s get really mind boggling.

late clutch hitting. the team's not getting much done against the opponent's starters, but bring in the bullpen, and the mets bats wake up. they've scored 27 runs overall the past week, and 18 runs have come from the 7th inning on.

Ramon's revenge makes it 6 in a row

2005-04-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

pedro vs leiter

you know it's usually pretty rare that a much anticipated pitching matchup lives up to its billing, but so far this year, they've been spot-on. a lot of that has to do with pedro continuing to fulfill the promise of returning ace-like pitching to the mets at the top of the rotation. he brought the A game once again this afternoon at shea.

for the bad guys in black, it was the return of aloquacious to flushing, the mouth that roared, and the arm that sometimes soared. the man who never knew how to shut up as a met, and continued to never shut up during the off-season was uncharacteristically silent in the leadup to today's game. duct tape works wonders. to leiter's credit, he did his speaking on the mound, and he gave the marlins a tidy, effective effort, stifling the mets for 7 innings (using up only 104 pitches!) for 1 run on 3 hits. that wouldn't prove to be good enough though.

the mets followed their unfailing winning formula. they had the starting pitching power to match the opponent's and to keep the mets close. that's all the mets need. if they're close, and they can get a crack at the enemy's bullpen, it's been lights out. pedro also went 7 innings with a stellar line: 2 er, 3 hits, 9 k's, 1 bb.

as per script, the mets bats heated up in the 8th as soon as they smelled a reliever out there. the victim this time was veteran todd jones, who got dinged by beltran for the game tying single, and mikey piazza for the go-ahead ground-rule double.

speaking of smelly, poopy pooper came in to protect the lead in the 9th for the winning pitcher of record, mike dejean. pooper came in and did his shit again, blowing the save, but was rescued in the bottom of the 9th. victor "all hit, no field" diaz came through in the clutch again with a 2-out double. ramon castro followed with the game winning single to drive in diaz against his former marlin teammates.

does poopy get awarded the win? he certainly shouldn't. i haven't seen the official box score yet, but the official scorer does have the discretion to award the win to a more deserving pitcher.

continuing sign of caution: jose reyes went 0-4, lowering his avg (and of course his obp) to .300. he got his usual strikeout, and now has 11 k's this year (and no walks). some folks want to know why i "dislike" reyes so much. i don't dislike him. i like him and root for him as hard as any mets fan. i just point out his flaws, as i do to every player (be it piazza or glavine or cammy or any "star"). reyes has to learn to get on base aside from a basehit. all his speed and electricity is useless if he's just trotting back into the dugout so much. now he can go 5-for-5 tomorrow and raise his april avg back to .400 and people can throw that in my face, but it wouldn't change my opinion at all.

jose's not going to hit .400 this year or any year. he's not even going to have a .400 obp ever in his career unless he pulls a miracle out of his sleeve. but if he is a .300 hitter, which is probably what he is, then he can't also be a .300 obp guy who strikes out 100+ times a year and never walks. that's all. i don't think that's a good pace for my leadoff/tablesetting guy who i want on base as much as possible. that's not good for a season, for a 2 months stretch or a 2 week stretch. jose has to fix that.

i saw kaz learn to take more walks instantly last april and i'm seeing vic diaz do it this april so far. it's possible. i don't expect miracles and for jose to develop rickey henderson's plate awareness overnight, but there has to be some near instant improvement in approach. there hasn't even been the slightest hint of it. in fact, he's regressing. he can change that if he wants. it's always about what jose wants, and for the most part, it's debilitated his rehab approach and time schedule. it's now debilitating his progress as a player.

More Anatomy 101

2005-04-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

kaz matsui has now missed a couple games with a scratched cornea. known medically as a corneal abrasion, this is a scratch on the clear outer layer on the front of the eye. matsui has been wearing special contact lenses since february, and the abrasion may have occurred either from wearing them too long or from one accidentally slipping out while sleeping.

the mets discovered that kaz had eye problems in the middle of last season. clues such as his inability to pick up the ball quickly in the field, his errant throws to 1B and his frequent swings and misses at the plate led to an eye exam which diagnosed him as blind as a bat. matsui and the team then did a delicate tango as he basically refused to wear the team recommended corrective goggles for the rest of the season, citing "discomfort."

luckily, kaz had a back injury which basically waylaid him for the rest of the summer, so the idiotic goggles issue was pushed aside and ignored until this february. kaz was fitted for longterm contact lenses. the kind you keep in overnight, except for this particular one which somehow must've sneaked out and damaged his eyeball further.

the japanese ironman is once again missing games in america. we shall be following this saga with interest.

Ya Gotta Believe!

2005-04-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

what can i say? seaveresque? bobby jonesesque? heilman rules.

Mets brace themselves for another Heilman start

2005-04-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

well, the season's truly come full circle and we've yet to play 10 games. just last week, the mets were attempting to "lose one for the thumb." they lost their 5th straight game with aaron heilman on the mound. now, it's "win one for the thumb" as the mets go for their 5th straight win... and yes, aaron heilman will be on the mound.

heilman is bad. he's downright dreadful. i know that. you know that. but what can we do? this is the hand dealt us, so no whining about "i rather have seo" or "even jose santiago would be better" or "why not promote petit?" we've got to root for heilman and just hope for the best. hey, i'm shocked we've had decent to good enough outings from glavine, ishii and zamboozled all in a row. that's pretty amazing. why can't tack on another good enough outing from our "pedro and four days of prayer" rotation? it's possible. not probable, but certainly in the realm of possibility. i think.

it could be worse. we could have alec porzel or steve szczepanski pitching.

Franco goes out like a Lamb

2005-04-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

wouldn't it be cool if the mets could face john franco every game?

the mets completed a three game sweep over the 'stros with a tough 4-3 victory. the game mirrored last night's game in many ways and showed the same mets grit. as clemens did yesterday, brandon backe was doing a pretty good job at making the mets offense look feeble. backe held a 3-1 lead through 6 innings. victor zamboozled was the mets starter, and he was chomping through pitches again, giving up hits, giving up walks, but in all he kept the mets in the game. the mets bullpen came through again to hold houston scoreless the rest of the way. manny ay caramba was scary again, but no damage was done. that was a big key. getting at their bullpen was equally huge, as it was the previous night.

the final similarity was jose reyes and his healthy legs. he got on with an infield hit that got the tying run in. he stole 2B. then he scored the go ahead and eventual winning run on a booted grounder.

what can you say about jose reyes? he's on pace for a 0 bb/162 k season and he's a remarkable presence that's helped sparked the mets to wins.

Today's anatomy lesson

2005-04-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

cliff floyd slightly pulled his rib cage during batting practice yesterday. the rib cage is part of the body's skeletal system. it is the bony shield that protects the heart and lungs. men have 12 ribs. believe it or not, women have 12 ribs too.

cliffy is listed as day-to-day. this means that he may or may not play today or tomorrow or whenever. this also means cliffy will have rib cage pain, to some degree, for the rest of the season. this pain may or may not spread to his neck, hips, legs and arms. it's all very unpredictable and modern medicine still cannot accurate gauge the way cliff floyd's body falls apart every season.

please check in on this blog often for more exciting cliff floyd anatomy lessons.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

2005-04-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

shea hey! the streaking mets have made it 3 straight wins now defeating the astros 1-0 on a game winning rbi single by jose reyes in the bottom of the 11th inning.

the good: kaz ishii really pitched a stunner, matching roger clemens, and keeping the game deadlocked at naught for 7 innings. both ishii and mr cy young pitched 2-hit ball before turning it over the bullpens. speaking of which, let's hear it for the mets bullpen! they kept the clownsuits in the lockerroom. aged roberto hernandez pitched another shutout inning. poopy pooper... well, the poopman always keeps it interesting, getting out of a bases loaded jam, but hey, 2 scoreless innings is 2 scoreless innings, so good for him. mike dejean pitched the 11th inning to get the win, so let's hope that starts to right his ship too.

the not so good: the bats were asleep tonite. it was clemens, so that's an acceptable excuse. wright, valent and diaz were overwhelmed at the bottom of the lineup, combining for an 0-11 with 8 k's. diaz did salvage his night by getting on base via walk in the 11th and scoring the game winner.

the continued cause for concern: mike piazza -- ugh. another 0'fer tonight, and down to a .130 avg and .259 obp. hey, what's so bad about being dropped in the order? the yankees had giambi, tino and bernie batting 7, 8, 9 tonite against the bosox. that's over 860 hr's. what's this about? pride? winning and helping the team anyway possible gives you pride. period.

An off-day Mets IQ test question

2005-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

1.012
0.957
0.903
0.860
0.806
?????

what's the next number in the series?

the numbers you are looking at are mike piazza's OPS from 2000-2004. seven games into the 2005 season, mikey's OPS is 0.611. a favorite axiom in the financial world is "the trend is your friend." well, this trend is no friend to mikey. father time is the enemy, and it's especially cruel to 36 year old major league catchers.

while piazza is surely free-falling down the slippery slope at a steady pace, it's really shocking how many mets fans live in denial and still think he can miraculously turn back the clock 5 years. this rapid decline is no recent freaky phenoma, folks, so let's get real. god willing, mikey will stay healthy this year, be able to squat behind the plate for 100-110 games and DH in a bunch more, downing enough magical flaxseed oil elixir to send him off respectively. sure, it's possible to end on a nice note and reverse the OPS trend, finishing above .806.

send him off? what's that? yes, mets fans. this will be, for better or worse, the final hurrah for mike piazza, the god, the man, the myth, the met, the professional baseball player. how do i know for sure? how do i know freddie wilpon won't extend him 2 years/$18M to stay a marquee attraction on the NEW mets? how do i know mikey piazza won't jump to the AL to be a 30 hr DH for 3 or 4 more years? because i live on planet earth in a dimension called "reality." so does piazza. he'll bow out gracefully on his own terms, and go lead a spectacular life off the field.

for this season though, how about we end this charade and move mikey out of the cleanup spot? if freddie weren't the devil, piazza would've moved into a more natural and appropriate "supporting" role after the subway series when we signed AROD to be the new centerpiece foundation player of the franchise. that wasn't meant to be as freddie was more concerned about keeping the value of the mets down so he could pull a fast one with a quickie buyout of partner, nelson doubleday.

anyway, the point is mike piazza has been unfairly kept in the spotlight as the centerpiece stud in the lineup since 2001. to have him there eons later in 2005 is beyond ridiculous. i'm not saying piazza can't be a dangerous hitter anymore and strike fear in a pitcher. the moments are just getting much further apart and we have other players who can do the job better batting cleanup, so try it.

Finally getting a chance to hit against Capo Franco, as he wears his signature smirk in a different team's uniform at Shea Stadium: Priceless

2005-04-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

Shea is falling apart, but the Mets win again!

2005-04-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

the NEW mets were overly generous in giving their division and the rest of baseball a head start in 2005, but look out! the streaking mets, aka the comeback kids, have upped their winning streak to two. that's dos, for all our spanish readers (as in "uno, dos, tres, catorce" made famous by the latin crooner, el bono).

first of all, let's give it up for our #2 guy, tommy boy, who did indeed step it up to pitch a tidy "winnable" effort. as usual, he did get tagged early, allowing a run in the 1st inning. just as yesterday, the mets teased everyone by making it look like a 1 run deficit was insurmountable for awhile, but tommy held strong, keeping the mets within striking distance. he even toughed out of a bases loaded jam, which showed the heart and cojones i've been looking for from him.

the mets bullpen clown show showed up again. willie is evidentally hellbent on making manny ay caramba and coup d'etat the weathers/stanton tandem that appears in every damn game to stooge it up on the mound. ay caramba was friggin' lost today and gave up the mets first comeback 3-1 lead. thank god, the mets have sprinkled the rest of the league with a bunch of their clown outcasts. the astros have a bunch of them and displayed them all today. we got to see dan "the runners on the bases go round and round" wheeler, ancient russ springer, and everybody's favorite, the most ancientest of them all, capo johnny. wheeler's been doing a pretty good job as an astro and he continued to do so today. springer and franco were a mess, thank god. the mets scored 5 runs to take the lead and win, 8-4. roberto hernandez pitched a scoreless inning for the win and braden looper got some confidence back, pitching an eventless 9th to wrap it up.

speaking of wraps, shea stadium came undone during the game. the rotating ad in CF got messy. they covered with black tarps that fluttered like donald trump's combover in a tornado. they'll have to fix that.

Willie embraces the devil

2005-04-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

this is just terrible. did he used to hug darth steinbrenner, too? damn willie. stop that.

No heart, no good

2005-04-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

how great has it been to see pedro start his mets career with two wonderful ace-like outings? the mets have gone with pretend aces for so long. chief among them is tommy boy glavine.

tommy took his first year as a met off to nurse his atlanta-loving heart. he was truly disgraceful. he reported to spring training last year a new man. he said he finally made the mental adjustment and was on board with the mets. his first half was stellar. vintage glavine. then he unravelled, the team sputtered, then nosedived as did tommy boy's production. he was giving heilman-like performances every single damn time out there, digging a 4 or 5 run lead in the first couple innings then settling down for a useless stretch since the game was long over.

ok, i admit to omitting the handful of "decent" outings he had last summer in the above statsheet. four of them were against the expos. pffffftttt.

can tommy boy make up for his hideous mets career so far? no. he's sucked so badly at such high expectations and pocketted so much money, short of suddenly miraculously carrying the mets to a division title this year, glavine is officially a certifiable mets bust.

tommy's a fiasco. freddie wilpon singlehanded wooed this chump as a free agent, wining and dining him, and showing the love with followup phonecalls. remember all that? steve phillips was on a vacation cruise and out of the loop. have you ever heard of a gm going on vacation during the hot stove season? well, that's mets baseball.

i haven't lost all hope for tommy, though. he has sucked. he's been an immense disappointment. he was a career met-killer for atlanta, and he's never stopped killing the mets. i hope to hell that he doesn't reach the 200 innings necessary for his 2006 option to click in. i'll gladly welcome yusmeiro petit or phil humber or any hungry, talented youngster over this aged, heartless, costly carcass.

it's a tightrope. gotta keep rooting for tommy boy each time he takes the mound on the one hand. gotta hope he doesn't threaten that 200 inning threshold. something has to happen for that. either his old body breaks down and he misses time, or he just continues to rack up the awful low inning performances. i guess the former is preferable, though freddie may do something truly idiotic in that case and decide to pick up the option anyway. we'll have to see.

let's go mets. let's go tommy. earn that money.

Thank you, Big Guy!

2005-04-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

And on the 7th day, the Lord took pity on the meek and cursed, and let them sample the sweet taste of victory.

it was a beautiful sunday. i could've spent the time more productively outdoors with the family. i was regretting it more and more as each inning sped by and john smoltz continued to mow down the mets at will. it seemed like a typical mets game... the choking wastes of clutch opportunities, the bonehead moments like when third base coach manny acta tried to snap off jose reyes's legs with a stupid and costly last second stop sign, the futile swings of the entire lineup against a dominating smoltz.

something was a bit different though. for one, the mets had their own ace pitching ace-like. pedro was again in top form. he wasn't ringing up the K's like opening day and like smoltz was doing, but he was in full command and had the necessary pitch count to go deep today. also, for as dominant as smoltz was, he was the guy with the mounting pitch count and who knew how long he could go since he was still a closer trying to stretch his game out? most importantly, the mets remained only a run down. that seems insurmountable in many mets games, but just maybe on this day they could finally catch a break.

then it happened. in the 8th inning, the mets gushed out 5 runs like a premature teenaged boy with blue balls. beltran, floyd and wright (a monster shot to dead center) all smacked their 2nd homers of the young season. an insurance spurt run in the 9th sealed the deal and the mets had won 6-1. pedro got the complete game 2-hitter with 9 K's, and it was all done in a tidy 101 pitches.

so the mets can finally celebrate and fly home with smiles on their faces. it might've been a chilly reception at the shea opener if they came home winless and started off with the losing crap once again. this win changes that. the fans are happy too. nobody's elated. we're just not suicidal anymore.

willie finally can smoke his rancid cigar. i think i'll have one too.

here's to the first win of the year, the first pedro win as a met, the first win for willie as a manager, the first win for the NEW mets. here's to the start of a winning streak!

0-5

2005-04-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

the losing isn't so bad by itself. afterall, this is the 5th game of the season. everyone would agree the "it's still early" cliche is applicable. the thing i don't like is the mets, as a team, look like they're beaten. the team is dead inside like it's the 155th game of the season and they just want to go home already. that's intolerable.

last year, the mets got so bad that it forced "affable" art howe to tear up the clubhouse. that's a hard thing to believe, even now, long after it actually happened. did it light a fire under the mets? no. a harder thing to believe is that willie randolph can tear up the clubhouse this year. not that it would do anything.

hell, it's early, but it's still getting mighty pathetic already. i don't know what willie can or can't do that bobby valentine and art howe could and couldn't do before they lost control. as always, it's ultimately up to the players to get it done.

tonight was the perfect setup for an "automatic loss." aaron "automatic loss" heilman was taking the mound. it was such a perfect loss setup that you had to figure maybe a fluky thing would happen, and heilman would pull a "phenom first round draft pick" miracle to help the mets get off this snide. i guess that's fairy tale thinking. the harsh mets reality is that met-killer, brian jordan, killed them again. this cripple, who should be 3 years retired, turned back the clock and hit a 2nd inning grand slam. the mets didn't even have a chance to celebrate that they finally escaped the first inning 0-0 before the earth caved in on them again.

could the "new" mets offense claw their way back into the game? are you kidding. again, the chances for rallies were frittered away.

the bullpen saw plenty of action again. heilman only went 5. his pitch count was low, since atlanta was very good at letting him conserve his pitches while tattooing him. i thought willie should've let heilman take one for the team and pitch his rotten arm off. are we saving it for anything? anyway, tonight we were treated to heredia, dejean and the poopman out of the clown circus bullpen. all pitched scary innings. heredia got bailed out by a throwout at homeplate (cliffy's 2nd multiple bounce assist at home plate in the game). dejean didn't have his good stuff (surprise, surprise), but survived loading the bases. poopy pooper was seeing his first work since the opening day mega-fiasco and only had a mini-fiasco this time. he sucked.

my personal highlight of the night was seeing willie successfully pull off a doubleswitch in the middle of the 8th inning. willie gets the gameball. do losers get a gameball? anyway, smoke that goddamn cigar you've been saving for your first victory. that must smell rancid already.

Hello Willie, I own you.

2005-04-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

bobby cox started winning division titles with atlanta back in 1991. how long ago was that? i was 24 years old. i had a macintosh LC. it cost over $2500 with a printer. there was no internet... at least that i was aware of. there were only two NL divisions back then. atlanta was in the west, if you can believe it. they should've stayed there. for the mets, the davey johnson era was over. heck, the buddy harrelson era was over, too, as mike cubbage finished off the season. the '91 mets would wind up in familiar disappointing territory, under .500, and only above montreal in the standings.

actually things would get worse. much worse. bobby cox has seen it from his high perch with the braves. the mets managers have come and gone. torborg, green, bobby v, art howe and now willie. that's 7 different mets managers in all. also 6 different gm's. well, make that 7 since frank cashen had to return to fill in a little while for steve phillips during his rehab for being a sexual perv.

a lot has happened during this braves division dynasty. the mets fully demolished their own never-to-be dynasty, bought the worst team money could buy (part I), scrapped that and built the best youth movement to ever implode, scrapped that and just went cheap. lo and behold that throwaway franchise suddenly started winning on its own. the mets secured piazza and entered a wildcard level of greatness that was always a step behind atlanta. luckily, we even missed them one year and made it to the world series. then it got nutty again as the worst team money could buy (part II) and the worst extreme makeover money could buy disasters rocked the team in quick succession. managerial and gm changes came. another cheapening era hit, followed quickly by another managerial and gm change and the money flowed again.

like i said, a lot has happened with the mets. atlanta has gone through a ton of on the field changes. their roster has evolved a lot, especially in recent years. they just win, though. at least in the regular season, and that's an incredible feat no matter how you slice it. their consistency is with the gm, manager and pitching coach. it's beyond ridiculous how they keep winning. it's been like that for at least 4 or 5 years as their roster has turned more and more into crap on paper, but they still make mincemeat out of the division when it's all said and done.

the mets have been in the same division as atlanta, but hardly in the same league. the mets could never get it done head to head with them. cox owns the mets.

so how was game 4 of the 2005 regular season? don't ask. victor zamboozled did the expected right off the bat, and the mets were in their customary 2-0 hole before the national anthem ended. and that was the ballgame. mets only run came via a homerun, of course. solo jack, of course. it was mike piazza's first of the year. let's hear it for flaxseed oil. yay! the mets got some hits and stranded everybody, of course. manny ay caramba and coup d'etat saw action again, of course. they teamed up to give atlanta an unneeded insurance run. it was just another of those mets-braves games where the mets basically needn't have bothered to suit up.

hopefully willie has thrown out that stale cigar he was saving for his first managerial victory. aaron heilman starts for the mets tomorrow. it's set up perfectly for another loss. too perfect, in fact.

Two Kazes make a wrong

2005-04-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

kazuhisa didn't do himself any favors doing his "ankiel" act by walking a couple batters in the first inning yesterday, and kazuo didn't help matters by ole-ing a ball. bottomline is the mets buried themselves in another 1st inning hole and never saw daylight again.

willie joins casey stengel in the el stinko starto department with this 0-3 start. the mets haven't done that since 1964. ya gotta believe the team won't end up with a 1964-ish record. who knows, though. people have complained that willie doesn't even have any minor league managing experience. perhaps they won't be saying that after his tenure with the mets is done. if he hasn't gotten any other thing from the series against cincinnati, let's hope he at least figured out how to pull off the double switch now.

so it's off to atlanta. mets fans always delusionally regard the braves as hated "division rivals." they may be hated, but the mets haven't rivalled the braves for anything in a long time. only mikey piazza remains from any hint of competitiveness here, and he's too dog-tired already to remember anything. get that man some flaxseed elixir NOW! where's anderson bourell when you need him?

well, i'm sure in a week or so, while the mets are cruising juggernaut-style, we'll all be laughing about this slow start and the chicken little worries of so many fans. right?

This "NEW" Mets Ishiit is getting old

2005-04-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

a glaringly old thing i'm still seeing with these new mets is their killer habit of stumbling out of the blocks. they dig a hole for themselves in most games early on. pedro gave up a 3 spot on opening day. tommy boy gave up a deuce in the first frame yesterday. ishiit gave up another deuce in game 3, and the mets trail 3-0 early on as i write this.

now, unlike last year, this year's healthy (so far) lineup should be able to work their way back into the game IF the starter can settle down and shutdown the opponent afterwards, like pedro did. then it's all about the offense outhitting what our bullpen is sure to give up. it's a horrific roadmap to be following game after game though. the mets have done this for years and the losses pile up rapidly and seasons are kissed goodbye early.

weaknesses feed off of each other on a team. these new mets have a crippling bullpen -- that's old ishiit. the starting rotation (with or without trax and anna benson's husband) is shaky and inconsistent -- that's old ishiit. the offense seems to be heavily reliant on the long ball and cannot manufacture runs in any fundamental sense -- that's old ishiit. we're already getting a taste of the 100 different lineups willie will be employing this season -- that's old ishiit.

i could go on, but i want to stay optimistic this early in the season. :)

Second verse, same as the first

2005-04-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

it would've been nice to see some bounceback in the mets after the crushing loss on opening day. alas, like all mets teams of recent years, there wasn't any heart, no guts, no soul to be found. game two ended just as the first, as a disappointing loss.

tommy boy glavine, the 3 month ace for the mets (in two full seasons of service), came out of the gates crappy again. just as he seemingly did every game last summer, he wound up giving up 5 earned runs and the mets had to reach into their godawful bullpen way too early. blame the umps for some balls and strikes calls, if you must, but the glavine was also the recipient of a 25 inch wide plate for most of his career. his first season here was a massacre, and some folks can blame that on questec. his second season was only a half season of good production, and maybe that can be partly blamed on a taxi accident. there's always blame to go around, but as a fan, i just care about results, and tommy boy's haven't passed muster.

manny ay caramba and coup d'etat saw middle relief action for the 2nd straight day and though both were shaky, they escaped unscathed. old relic roberto hernandez actually struck out3 of the 4 batters he faced in a stellar outing. that left mike dejean. mets fans have high hopes for this piece of crap because after he bombed out in baltimore last year he actually gave the mets a month or so of half-decent pitching before getting injured and missing the rest of the year. well, truth be told, he kinda stinks, as he mostly has for his whole career. he got touched up for a grand slam that sealed the deal.

the mets offense did get 12 hits, but as usual, the big inning alluded them. always a clutch hit shy, always too many runners LOB. it's a curse, i tell ya. dougie and david wright got their first homers of the year. both solo jacks. other offensive highlights were kaz matsui with a double, two ribbies, a SB and walk. vic diaz got the start in RF this time and took advantage of it, going 3-4 with a run scored.

the umps ruled that manager willie muffed a double switch in the 8th inning, keeping mike dejean in the lineup for the 9th inning. never saw clueless art howe do that.

crappy 0-2 start for the metsies. the rest of the division is at 1-1. at least it's too early for the mets to have buried themselves.

Cammy's Blog

2005-04-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

once upon a time, mike cameron had a blog. just like you. just like me. as you can see, it's not there anymore. for whatever reason, cammy stopped updating it last january soon after signing with the mets. i guess he's been busy. most probably, he just cut ties with the website that hosted his journal. though, maybe we can blame it on his perma-damaged wrist. not only has it affected his production on the field, but it's robbed us of his sharing his most inner thoughts. damn. the little he did write pretty much shows he's really a nice, down to earth guy. he'd really be a fan favorite here if he could just stay healthy and on the field... and he didn't whine and flip-flop so damn much. being injured, non-productive and on a losing team would make a guy ornery though..

get healthy and play a productive RF, cammy. we need you. start blogging again, too. you can vent online, then edit and delete it. when you blurt out shit to nyc reporters, they'll print that and hound you with it for life.

i dredged up parts of his last two entries:

January 29, 2004
I just spent a week in New York trying to get my living situation set up. I thought housing prices in Seattle were high. New York is the very different. It's the craziest thing I've seen.

There is another thing crazy about New York Mets fans. Not bad crazy, good crazy. Mets fans are passionate! I love it. I'm passionate, too, about baseball. The only thing I can promise about 2004 is I'll give everything I have to turn help the team turn over a new leaf and start winning. I've seen it happen before in Cincinnati.
Why The Mets

One of the reasons I picked the Mets was I wanted to be back in the National League. I wanted to play in Atlanta so my family can come and watch. While in Seattle, I used to rent a bus and load my extended family for a road trip to one of our East Coast games. Now that I'll be coming through Atlanta, they are own their own. But they have already started asking me about tickets.
What I'll Miss

One thing I'll miss most about playing for Seattle is spring training in Arizona. I loved it there. You never had to worry about the off time there was always something to do.
My biggest Worry

The one thing that worried me the most about playing for the Mets was could I handle playing in New York. Could I handle the stress. I stared thinking about all the things I've been through and I came the conclusion that I'm ready for it. I feel I'm ready to handle it.
More Hitting

I've changed my offseason routine some. I've been hitting and throwing more rather than lifting weights. I'm working out on a day-to-day basis with three or four guys in batting cages.

Dec. 11, 2003

A Mariner No More
It's official. I'm no longer a Seattle Mariner. The M's let the Sunday deadline slip by without offering me arbitration, making me a free agent. I saw it coming, but it's still kind of a shock. It's like dad telling you it is time to go you have to get out of the house and move on with your life.

I want to thank everyone for a great ride in Seattle. It was a warm welcome from day one, from my teammates, management, the fans, and the region. With he exception of a few nay sayers, almost everyone has been warm for me and my family, and I always will have a sweet spot in my heart for Seattle.

Despite some newspaper reports, I did want to come back, under the right terms. One of the hardest parts was telling my kids we weren't going back. "Daddy, we want to go back to Seattle," they said. They really liked the Northwest.

I appreciate everyone's emails we've received and all the support at the games. Whether I was hot or not, I felt positive energy at Safeco. The ovation at the last game was very special, too. I know fans appreciated that every time I stepped on the field I put my body on the line and gave everything I had.

I wish the M's and their fans the best.

Anna Benson is fuming

2005-04-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

word on the street is anna benson, the ample wife of mets disabled underachiever, kris benson, was seen throwing a hissy fit after being informed UPN will be airing a britney spears reality show.

witnesses say anna benson was in a mid-town carvel's store screaming "what does that skank have that i don't have?!" while downing a fudgie the whale cake.

benson claims to have been in active negotiations with UPN after pitching her own reality show to them six months ago. however, dawn ostroff, the president of UPN denies there was any negotiations with benson. "i don't know who anna benson is. some crazy lady has been offering herself to the security guard and elevator man, trying to get upstairs into our office. we've called the police several times. is that anna benson?"

apparently, mrs benson is no stranger to the police. our anonymous spring training source tell us there was an altercation at a panda's express in st lucie a couple weeks ago. "the bensons were there. only anna was eating. she had a gigantic platter of orange chicken and kung pao shrimp while her husband and the kids were sitting separately sharing a cup of ice water," says the source. "suddenly, kris benson reached over to his wife's plate and tried to get a piece of orange chicken. anna benson went berserk and stabbed him in the pectoral muscle with a plastic fork."

anna benson in happier times, modelling her fashion line of breathable burlap bags at shea stadium.

Bullpen Clowns

2005-04-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

to nobody's surprise, the mets bullpen sucks mule balls.

pedro did his part on opening day. after a shaky 3 run first inning, he settled down and turned into the terminator. overall, he struck out 12 in 6 innings. the mets offense sputtered here and there in clutch opportunities with RISP, but got some long ball from kaz matsui (the opening day home run king), carlos beltran, and cliff floyd.

the bullpen came in for a routine workout. the mission was to protect a 3 run lead with 3 innings to go. they couldn't do it. manny ay caramba got a tough break when beltran ran full speed towards the centerfield warning track to drop a double, but with 2 outs, instead of slamming the door, he allowed another double to narrow the lead to 6-4.

coup d'etat, the import from korea via the japanese league, came in and worked the afternoon shadows to perfection with his hidden sideways lefty deliver. piazza couldn't catch the ball, but the reds couldn't hit it either, as he pitched a scoreless 8th.

then we come to the 9th. braden pooper came in to protect a 2 run lead and pick up the easy save. basehit to kearns, homerun by dunn (2nd of the game), homerun by randa (walkoff winner), and that's the ballgame.

disgusting. predictable, yet disgusting. somewhere out there, matt ginter is having a good laugh. where's ugie? bring up bell. bring up seo.

MLB Steroids Policy -- 1st Victim is ?????

2005-04-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

tough guy bud selig got his first man --> alex sanchez. who? WTF?

the scrawny, punch and judy hitting sanchez tested positive for juice. of course, he's denying it and he'll fight it. that 10 game suspension and loss of salary slap on the wrist is a real killer. he should fight it. in the real world, it's a felony. in baseball, it's a damn outrage to the player nailed and you can bet the player's association will be backing up sanchez to the fullest extent of their powers.

"I know I did nothing incorrect. ... I take stuff I buy over the counter. Multivitamins, protein shakes, muscle relaxants. That kind of stuff," Sanchez said.

"I'm surprised because look at what kind of player I am. I'm a leadoff hitter. I never hit any home runs."

Sanchez did not identify any of the products he purchased over the counter, but described them as "something to give me energy, put a little muscle on my body. That's it."

Goodbye Ginter

2005-04-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

matt ginter couldn't have had a better spring training. unfortunately, that failed to earn him a rotation spot when steve trachsel went down. the mets chose instead to go out and trade for kaz ishii. still, a bullpen slot as the long man looked promising. alas, it wasn't to be. ginter was out of options, and minayacal omar wasn't going to just give him away for nothing on waivers, so he did something worse. he traded him to detroit for a piece of utter shit in steve colyer.

colyer is, yet again, another of the innumerable "great stuff, just can't pitch to save his life" kind of guys that a dozen teams eventually take fliers on before the guy's finally out of baseball. there isn't even any need to make a guru peterson joke about fixing him, because colyer and peterson will probably never meet... unless the guru is demoted to norfolk.

Extreme Blog Makeover

2005-04-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

to celebrate the "new" mets as they are set to embark on a "new"season, i have given the blog a "new" look.

Not a good sign: the spring injuries continue

2005-04-01T19:49:00.000-08:00

my biggest worry about the "new" mets is that they have a lot of key guys with "old, broken" bodyparts. the mets have had a difficult time staying healthy for many years now. their "A" lineups lasted about a month before we started seeing the "B" and "C" lineups. by the summer, it was "D" lineups as the team did their annual freefall in the standings. it didn't help that they also had an incompetent medical staff under contract for awhile.

so far this spring, steve trachsel has been lost for at least half a year, mike cameron has only just returned after rehabbing from wrist surgery, kaz matsui has had brand new back problems plague him, and pedro has had some back worries. that's a handful of key starters, and we're not even mentioning the perma-injured players like reyes, floyd and piazza who are always ticking timebombs waiting to implode at the most inopportune time.

the latest worry is anna benson's husband. apparently he strained his right tit somehow and his first start is being pushed back. also, cameron (who's never been healthy as a met) is already feeling new pain in his surgically repaired wrist. superduper.

The Mets take a walk on the wild side

2005-03-31T13:02:00.000-08:00

baseballprospectus.com:

Cardiac: Legend has it that when George Stallings, who managed the Miracle Braves of 1914, baseball’s original worst-to-first story, was on his deathbed, the doctor asked him why his heart was so bad. "Oh, those bases on balls!" Stallings allegedly shot back, and died.

It’s probably apocryphal, but the point holds: walks can drive a manager’s blood pressure through the roof. That being the case, Willie Randolph may wonder what he’s gotten into in the pressure cooker that is New York. Whether due to Rick Peterson’s "I Can Fix It" approach or simply a coincidence, the Mets have brought in two starting pitchers over the past year who are most famous for their excessive walk totals: first Victor Zambrano, and now Kazuhisa Ishii. (Well, not really...now, Zambrano is most famous as the answer to the question, "For whom did the Mets trade Scott Kazmir?")

In 2004, Ishii and Zambrano combined for 22 games in which they walked more batters than they struck out. Ishii’s 13 were more than any pitcher except Kirk Rueter and Shawn Estes (14) and Daniel Cabrera (15). Since 2002, Rueter and Estes lead this statistic with 36 and 31 respectively. Ishii ranks seventh, with 27. Of course, the recently departed Al Leiter comes in at 25 (12 in 2004), and Steve Trachsel, whose injury opened the door for Ishii, performed the feat 24 times in those three years, with eight coming in ’04.

Players like Rueter and Leiter are on this list not because they’re lousy but because they are control artists who don’t strike guys out. Not so with Zambrano, who throws very hard but has no idea where the ball is going, or with Ishii, who doesn’t throw all that hard but still has no idea.

If you’re wondering, by the way, who lies between Estes and Ishii on the leaderboard, take a look…


Kirk Rueter       36
Shawn Estes       31
Aaron Sele        30
Jon Garland       29
Josh Fogg         28
Mike Hampton      28
KAZUHISA ISHII    27
Kenny Rogers      26
Damian Moss       25
Miguel Batista    25
AL LEITER         25
Russ Ortiz        25
TOM GLAVINE       24
STEVE TRACHSEL    24
Jason Jennings    24

It should come as no surprise that the 2004 Mets were 26th out of 30 teams in both strikeouts per nine innings and strikeout-to-walk ratio. (Conversely, they walked the fifth most batters in the league.) They were also fifth worst in pitches per plate appearance, meaning that when batting against the Mets one would have longer at-bats than against all but four other teams. That by itself isn’t bad: there are some good staffs (the Mets, Astros and Cubs) near the top of that list, and some poor ones (Colorado, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Detroit) near the bottom. But the Astros and Cubs, who throw a lot of pitches, were also 1-2 in strikeouts per nine. They provided plenty of George Stallings moments for Art Howe in 2004.

That shouldn’t change in 2005. If anything, the changes they have made, not only to the pitching staff but to their defense, portend even more of the same.

Rotten spring for Kazu "O for 4" again

2005-03-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

last spring training, kaz matsui looked like shit. then suddenly on opening day, he led off the game with a shot over the centerfield fence and magically transformed into what mets fans were privately expecting him to be: the combination of the best of ichiro and hideki matsui.

that fantasy vanished quickly. it turns out that kaz's power failed to translate in america. there was a brouhaha over whether he needed glasses and whether he would ever wear them during an actual game. on the basepaths, he seemed very speedy but just didn't attempt stolen bases. defensively, this gold glove shortstop in japan was ridiculously flawed. finally, to top it all off, this japanese ironman fell to a back injury and basically missed the 2nd half of the season.

that was 2004.

this is 2005. this is the "new" mets. this will be a "new" kazuo matsui, right?

well, kaz is having a shitty spring training again. he looks like he's made the switch to 2B without a hitch, but he can't hit his weight (maybe he can in kilograms, but not in pounds). he's also having brand new back problems. the new york times wants to dump him into the 8th spot in the lineup. should he be buried down there?

maybe. gotta admit EVERY other everyday starter has been a ton more impressive with the bat this spring, fwiw. then again, i don't really think it's that important who's batting where on opening day. call me crazy, but i'm sure manager willie will wind up having tons of different lineups this year. maybe kaz bats 8th in some of them, maybe not. hopefully it all sorts itself out for the best with everyone healthy and productive. more likely, though, and what i'm fully anticipating is that certain players will fall to injuries (probably kaz himself) and the bench will be shuffled in and out and all around as the lineup changes infinitely. that's the same movie we've seen for a long time now.

nothing "new" about that, except this is 2005. so, we'll see.

Zamboozled still Zambroken

2005-03-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

victor zamboozled, the once and future 10 minute fix-it project, was supposed to be getting some work in during an organized, modified rules outting against minor leaguer scrubs. it turned into a train wreck as zamboozled got ripped for 11 hits and 5 runs. guru peterson was very encouraged after the outting because the usually wild zamby didn't give up a single walk. the great guru said, "nobody got on base without swinging a bat, which is huge."

shut up, peterson. that's what happens when you're pitching meatballs over the plate that are getting smacked by the scrubbies.

in other news, the mets signed crappy infielder, benji gil. gil was a hot stud prospect a decade ago that minayacal omar was responsible for back in his texas rangers days. he seriously sucks.

the mets also signed sucky wilson valdez as more minor league fodder.

and in yet another sucky signing, the mets also signed fernando lunar. lunar's job will be to rotate around alay soler.

phil humber will be getting the opening day nod for the st lucie mets. he should be at AA as soon as possible, but with st lucie being nice and warm and binghamton being cold as hell, i have no problem waiting until mid-may to early june for the promotion.

apparently, scotts strickland and stewart are not going to make the mets opening day roster. both are free to leave the mets if that's the case, but for now, both are sticking around in st lucie trying to figure out what to do. the former expos teammates are concocting a scheme to hitch hike up to montreal in a couple months and see if they can attract any attention by barnstorming the baseball-abandoned city with former expos mascot, youpi. they'll be taking on all comers in some serious 3-on-3 slow-pitch softball action in the parking lot of olympic stadium.

Goodbye, Big Cat

2005-03-29T18:27:00.000-08:00

andres galarraga's time in a met uniform amounted to less than a full spring training. the big cat announced his retirement this afternoon. he'll end his career one homer shy of the 400 mark. that's a nice number, but better yet, he leaves as one of the game's "good guys," who left a positive impact on many players, including everyone in the current mets camp.

galarraga hasn't made any immediate future plans. he'll go home, spend time with the family and think about it. mets gm minayacal omar is openly hoping that the big cat chooses to rejoin the mets in some capacity. possibly as omar's body double.

in other news, the mets have signed kelly stinnett. why stinnett? "we couldn't locate mackey sasser or barry lyons," explained minayacal omar.

What the Buck?

2005-03-26T11:59:00.000-08:00

here's a little time-killer for those who wish to kill a little time.

You are Buck Russell (from Uncle Buck)! Your
relationships aren't the greatest (mostly by
your own accord), but if anyone has a huge
heart, it's you.

Which John Hughes Character Are You?

While I'm not paying attention...

2005-03-24T03:43:00.000-08:00

it's been a long time since i took spring training seriously, and i haven't done so this year. however, we're now in the meaty games where the starting pitchers are getting serious work in, and the expected everyday players are in the lineup more as everybody gets their final tuning in as opening day approaches.

the mets have had a great winning stretch this spring. they're 12-6. offensively, the starters (outside of matsui and cameron) have looked good with the bat. they've also stayed healthy (outside of matsui and cameron). from everything we hear, cammy is making great rehab progress and kazuo should be back soon.

on the pitching side, trax's hole was quickly filled by the addition of ishii. this is a calculated risk, with the emphasis on risk. jphill was pencilled in to start at least 50 games this year as the #2 catcher. matt ginter has been lights out this spring (as had been phillips). now jphill is gone and ginter will have to wait for the next rotation opening. we replace both with a mysterious ishii, who at his worst is a lefty zamboozled.

all in all, it's been a very smooth camp for rookie manager willie. he's facing some tough decisions now as the roster is pared down as a bunch of players are jockeying for final bench and bullpen spots. there'll be some interesting moves, for sure.

as you see, i'm still talking in generalities. that's because this is spring training and it all counts for naught. things are revving up though, and we'll soon have tons to really talk about.

Ishii a Met?

2005-03-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

various sources are reporting that the mets and dodgers are working on a deal that would send kaz ishii to shea in exchange for jason phillips. ishii, whose first name is kazuhisa (not to be confused with kazu "o for 4" matsui), would fill the rotation spot emptied by steve traction.

now, i've seen kaz ishii up close for a couple years. this guy can be downright 1986 bobby ojeda brilliant at times, and downright frighteningly bad. before we get to the obligatory joke cliche ("let's see what guru peterson can do with him"), let's consider a few important points. first of all, he can be very wild. i'm talking zamboozled wild. do the mets want two potential ankiels in the rotation? secondly, the guy will probably have less strikeouts than kaz matsui. i'm not saying a high walks/low strikeouts pitcher can't succeed with the goofy mets, but... what the hell. yes, i am saying he can't succeed here. thirdly, and most important, the guy is very lackadaisical in his shaving habits. most of the time, he's got that drunken master stubble shit happening. mikey piazza can get away with that 10 am shadow of his, because he's promised to leave the mets after this year without a big stink, but kazuhisa? no way. that ain't gonna fly with willie.

as for jphill, i always liked him. he would be returning to a servicable role as the main backup catcher and (hopefully) get to start 50 games maximum this year. he can be great in that role. he's busting out in spring training so far. take that with a grain of salt, but he surely isn't as bad as he showed last year. losing him on top of the trade of vance wilson earlier, and we're stuck with the likes of ramon castro as the most likely backup. that's not good. if mikey starts missing games left and right as i'm sorta expecting, that's really no good.

Steroidsgate: Continued

2005-03-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

how the mighty have fallen. has the SI curse stuck these former gods, mcgwire and sosa? once they were on cloud 9, now they're in hell. mcgwire is long gone from baseball, shrinking the body down, trying to get the peanut testicles reinflated, rubbing cream on his male pattern baldness and pock marks. sosa has been shrinking in public and been banished to baltimore courtesy of the cubbies.

what a sad show on capitol hill.

mcgwire had a tiny crib sheet up his sleeve to deliver his only lines:

"i'm not here to talk about the past."

"i'm retired."

"i want to turn a negative into a positive."

even his biggest apologist in the world, attorney tony larussa, was flabbergasted at big mac's clam up job.

as for sosa, it was pretty wild to see the man suddenly feign non-comprehension of the english language.

canseco and palmeiro were the only entertaining ones there. canseco threatened to plead the 5th on certain questions because of his lack of immunity, but the house committee wasn't there to expose anybody, so he was forthcoming. palmeiro was doing an angry "i'm innocent and pissed to even be here" indignation act which was funny.

curt schilling came off bad. dude has been the most outspoken guy in baseball against steroids for years, and now he backtracked from his past and kowtowed to the current ridiculously soft baseball agreement in every aspect. he's a gutless "schill" for the player's association.

Steroidsgate: How Sad It Is

2005-03-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

Trachsel in traction?

2005-03-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

things are getting a little more scary for the allegedly solid mets rotation. not only has vic zamboozled been showing off his rick ankiel tendencies, but now trax is feeling lower back pain and in nyc getting an MRI.

trax has been somewhat of a workhorse for the mets, and a very important standout, mediocre cog in the mets rotation since he's been here. he shows up at the gate, usually bringing his mediocre stuff. sometimes he gets in sub-mediocre stretches, as he did for long parts last year. sometimes he gets in pretty good swings, like he did two summers ago. it all balances out to the mediocrity he is. he's also the world's slowest working pitcher, and he makes bad mets games pretty much unbearable if he's pitching on the losing end of a game.

still, trax is needed here. the mets have pedro with his slight labrum problem. they have old man glavine who has given mets fans 1 1/2 years of crap pitching in 2 years. they've got zamboozled, and they've got anna benson's husband. throw in trax, and this is the allegedly solid rotation. take out trax, and then we go into the alleged rotation backup depth, and you DO NOT want to see me rant about that.

feel better, trax.

Zamboozled

2005-03-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

it's annual rite of spring training for the mets to get the snot kicked out of them by the dodgers, so i'm not concerned about the latest 16-5 whacking. one thing that does concern me, though, is the continued ineptness of victor "10 minute fix-it" zamboozled. as if you didn't know, zamboozled was the damaged piece of shit the mets picked up last year for their spectacular playoff run in reverse. oh yeah, had to give up scott kazmir, too.

zamboozled is another of the "great stuff" throwers who can't pitch consistently to save his life. much is made of his winning record with the devil rays, but that doesn't hide the fact that he's been a physical wreck and he has no control. he led the AL in walks, wild pitches and hit batters in his last full season. that's the triple crown of cluelessness.

after hearing how his elbow is 100% now and how his ankle is 100% now, this guy is already slotted as an allegedly solid guy in an allegedly solid rotation. piece of crap guy like this has to impress in spring training, not just go through the motions and get his work in like pedro. he sucks, he's always sucked, and he better stop sucking soon.

Cammy cools off

2005-03-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

after steaming about it for a couple months or so, mike cameron has finally concluded he wants to remain a met. his agent has begged minayacal omar to stop fielding offers for him, so he can concentrate on recovering and playing.

apparently, omar didn't have the heart to tell cammy and his agent that there were zero attractive offers made, and cammy's value on the free market is somewhere between randy winn and a game worn jock strap.

Lay off the wacky weed, Cliffy

2005-03-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

remember when cliff floyd had hops? neither do i, but once upon a time he was a heralded 5-tool blue chip prospect with the expos. in the annual rite of spring training, when the aches aren't so achy yet, perma-damaged damaged players like cliffy start talking big, pretending they are what they once were.

cliff's talking big in early march about stealing 25 bases this year. easy there, dog. first things first. let's concentrate on playing 25 games this year without a strain, sprain, deep bruise, pull and, or fracture. i know you're anxious to turn around your negative big mouth image by doing the positive big mouth routine. that's fine. this team needs all the cheerleaders it can find, but let's keep it real, too.

The Strawman Returneth

2005-03-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

i don't care how much you hate darryl's guts for jumping ship to the dodgers or fucking up his career or winding up winning rings with the yankees and being employed by george, you gotta admit it feels good to see the man all happy and in a mets uniform again. thank god the mets switched away from their orange spring training uni's this year. that would've been too much like the strawman's last uniform in the penitentiary.

darryl's been understandably nostalgic with the press the past week. he's been thinking what we've all thought for so long, that he could've been so much better, done so much more here.

2005-03-08T19:46:00.000-08:00

another magazine cover. the "free-agent signings" part is correct. so is the "rookie manager." don't know where the "sky-high expectations" thing is coming from though. honestly, everyone is so whipped by the mo, burnie, alomar, cedeno, etc beatdown era and nasty aftermath, that you'd have to travel far and wide to find any baseball "expert" out there that has sky-high expectations for the 2005 mets. what's sky-high? predicting 3rd place "if everything goes right?" that's about it.

most sane mets fans i know (including myself) aren't ready to reserve playoff tickets, either.

THIS TIME, there's a lot more hope than hype for the mets. as it should be.

2005-03-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

how important is pedro martinez to the mets? he's the ace of the staff. without him, the mets have the same faulty rotation that helped bury the team in the 2nd half last season. so when i hear that pedro threw 60 pitches in the team's second spring training game, that gets me twitching nervously.

by all accounts, pedro pitched well. two runs scored on a passed ball by mike piazza. you know the history between pedro and mikey. for all the lovey-dovey things they've been saying as new teammates this spring, pedro has always thought mikey is a sucky defensive catcher. his opinion probably hasn't changed much after today's game.

Pay attention, Jose

2005-03-03T18:57:00.000-08:00

not sure what willie is saying to jose right here. hopefully he's stressing the importance of plate awareness and having a high on base percentage. willie knows about that. jose doesn't. back in 1992, 37 year old willie first experienced mets baseball. he was brought over here to play for jeff torborg after batting .327 (.424 obp) the year before for the brewers. like everyone on that team, willie disappointed. that ugly season at shea was enough to make him retire as a player. still, willie churned out a .352 obp for the season. jose reyes would give his left nut to have a .352 obp. willie had a career .373 obp, so when he speaks about getting on base, let's hope jose is paying attention.

Did I pass the audition?

2005-03-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

you get so revved up for the 1st televised spring training game, then less than 5 minutes into it, you suddenly rediscover how boring it is to watch spring training games. today's game sucked. tommy boy glavine got a couple innings in. five other starters were in the lineup and got some at bats in. nobody got hurt. that was about it.

kazuo at 2B was one of the few curiosities going into the game. he was all right. started a smooth DP in the 1st, and had two nice plays in the 3rd, a barehanded pickup and a charging short hop scoop. he and jose reyes looked tentative on an infield chopper over the mound that neither got. probably no chance to get the runner unless reyes took charge immediately and made a perfect scoop and throw on the run.

the espn crew was godawful. an overstuffed 3 man crew with jeff brantley and steve phillips doing the color (and off-color) stuff. brantley started talking about kaz and other "oriental" ballplayers. that perked my attention during a dull broadcast. i thought he was going to start talking about guinea and negro players next.

didn't brantley watch The Real World, season 3 in san francisco with the bastard, scab picking puck and pedro the AIDS guy? There was the chinese-american medical doctor resident, pam (who later married judd, the weeny cartoonist). She explained for the entire enlightened world to hear that people from asia are ASIANS. things from asia can be described as oriental, like art or food or express trains. dumb fuck brantley talking about oriental ballplayers. go back to the stone age, you politically incorrect prick.

sorry for the rant. i'll get back to my mike piazza homo stuff.

Uh oh, Willie sees stubble

2005-03-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

willie: mikey, when's the last time you shaved?
mikey: uh, about 3 hours ago.
willie: wow, you are a manly man, aren't you?
mikey: i think so.
willie: you know you can't skirt my rules by flaunting your stubble around the rest of the team. they'll think i'm playing favorites.
mikey: well, gee whiz. what do you want me to do? shave every 2 hours? shave in between innings?
willie: let's just take care of that stubble, mike.
mikey: skip?
willie: yes, mike?
mikey: you have your hand on my knee.
willie: oh, my bad.
mikey: no, keep it there.

Pedro, do I look gay?

2005-03-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

Taser them biotches

2005-02-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

gm minayacal omar has purchased a taser gun for franchise player, carlos beltran. citing concern that beltran might fall prey to the "bad influences" surrounding him in the outfield, omar has decided that the best defense is a 50,000 watts of offense.

"only the best for carlos," said omar. "this gun has a laser sight and a 250 foot range, so floyd and cameron can't hide in the corners of the outfield or jump in the stands to escape.

1st Sighting: Philip Humber

2005-02-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

gotta admit the thought of philip humber in uniform and airing it out has me a bit amped up this spring. this kid hasn't thrown a single pitch that counts in professional baseball yet, but i know he's a legitimate prospect with legitimate stuff, unlike the pretend blue chips the mets have made a habit of hyping over the past 20 years or so.

i just wished this dumb OLD organization of last year (to differentiate them from the NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW mets of today) had the foresight and brains to ink him quickly after the draft last june. can you imagine having humber, kazmir, peterson and joselo diaz in the binghamton starting rotation for the summer last year (and as the norfolk rotation this spring)? that would've been a sight to see, and a taste of that might've made the dumb OLD mets forego the moronic "fake pennant race" deadline deals for anna benson's husband and damaged goods victor "you've been" zamboozled. oh well.

the one silver lining about signing humber so late is that the NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW mets can't deal him until a year from his signing date. so relax, mets fans, guru peterson won't be twisting minayacal omar's arm to trade humber for sidney ponson this summer deadline. we might trade lastings milledge and yusmeiro petit for ponson, but them's the breaks.

Sweatin' to the Oldies... Big Cat style

2005-02-26T17:44:00.000-08:00

the mets have made the most of the rain in florida by moving under cover for strenuous off-the-field workouts. among the many changes within the organization this winter has been a hiring of a new fitness guru, richard simmons. this is the first time simmons has worked with a professional sports team and he was "tickled pink." simmons, whose previous work has only been with sobbing, obese middle-aged women, may have seemed like an odd choice for the mets, but count andres galarraga as a true believer.

"i've got all his stuff," admitted the big cat, "the videos, the slimaway everyday deluxe program, all of it." asked how the first workout with simmons went, galarraga said, "actually in the first five minutes, we were just in awe that it was really him. he was glistening just like the way he does on TV. then he moved right behind me, and i didn't have time to be in awe anymore. i was just afraid Big Dickie was sneaking up on my ass."

"yes, i told them to call me "Big Dickie," said simmons. "that's what all my friends call me, and i want them to feel comfortable with me."

so how exactly is an infomercial fitness guru going to change the admittedly weak fitness level of the team? "i'm going to do the same thing with the boys as i do with everyone i help," said simmons. "today, we worked with the rubbers and all the guys got a kick out of that. it's fun! then we'll hit the showers."

but are rubbers a cure-all for perma-damaged players like jose reyes, mike piazza and cliff floyd? "i pull out the rubbers as a warm-up. obviously, i plan to work one-on-one in intensive sessions with mike piazza. i've already brought out my blow-up dolls to camp, which are a big hit with the boys. mike and i will do some blow-up doll action. i understand he tore his groin very badly a couple years ago, so i'll have to examine that."

sounds like piazza and the mets are in good hands this year.

5 o' clock shadow

2005-02-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

briquette: psst, mikey. just look straight ahead. i don't want willie and omar to think we're having a "golf chat."
mikey: yeah, what's up?
briquette: just wanted to let you know, your stubble is getting noticeable.
mikey: oh shit. you think willie will see it?
briquette: i don't know. he's been sorta occupied riding cammy and cliffy's ass in the sinbin.
mikey: yeah, thank god for that.
briquette: thank god my foot. omar makes me sit in the sinbin for 30 minutes everyday after those two biotches get out.
mikey: damn, say it ain't so.
briquette: it's a different world here, mikey.
mikey: i know. hey briq.
briquette: what?
mikey: don't look at me. look straight ahead.
briquette: oh yeah. what?
mikey: those little scraggly hairs on the top of your head are getting noticeable.
briquette: oh shit.

Whining biotches sent to sinbin

2005-02-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

all's fine and dandy in mets spring training camp... or so they would want us to believe. my private sources have informed me that manager willie, who's laid down more rules this spring than abner doubleday did in cooperstown, has been extra tough on two notorious malcontents.

i'm talking about cammy and cliffy, of course. first of all, willie has gone one step further with these two, going beyond the normal "no hair below the lip" rule as applied to the rest of the team and instituted a special "no hair above the eyebrows" rule to these two. cammy misunderstood the rule and shaved off his eyebrows too, so he's going around with a headband to hide the bald patches.

secondly, there is a special "sinbin" for only cammy and cliffy to remain in 30 minutes every morning. they have to stay in there while suffering the humiliation of watching kerry robinson and ron calloway shagging flyballs in their place.

the photo above was taken just moments before willie caught cammy donning the earring stud. that's a no-no. unfortunately, as willie was walking over to the pair in the sinbin, he overheard cliffy muttering to cammy, "here comes 'massa willie.'" damn, was there extra hell to pay for that. the pair haven't been seen since. god help them.

Nothing like being healthy in February

2005-02-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

you know it's very early in spring training when you see a healthy and happy jose reyes and cliffy floyd frollicking together. that's the magic of spring training. unfortunately in recent years, this magic has turned tragic when the games start counting for real.

reyes and floyd have been two huge reasons why the mets have sucked. they've been perma-damaged carcasses out there who've given the mets woefully incomplete seasons. as long as they've been relied upon as vital starting cogs on this team, there was no way the team could have adequate backups to play big chunks of the season. this problem remains.

maybe, by some miracle, both of them are going to pull a 150+ game season out of their asses. i don't think so. well, maybe one of them can. seriously doubt that. oh well. it's still february. let's just enjoy this meaningless time as much as possible and not dwell on the future gloom these guys will bring. okay.

EXCLUSIVE: Piazza ordered to divorce his beard!

2005-02-19T18:49:00.000-08:00

mikey and willie were all smiles as they greeted each other for the first time on the field at port st lucie. things then turned ugly as willie informed mikey of the new mandatory no hair below the lip rule for the ballclub.

for mikey, who's just back from honeymooning after his marriage to baywatch and playboy babe, alicia richter, the "no beards" rule has more meaning than shaving the old goatee. what a mess. hopefully the pope will understand.

Jose Reyes is retarded

2005-02-16T22:40:00.000-08:00

i've said it before, and i'll say it again: jose reyes is one dumb lump of shit. the mets organization is a bunch of buffoons, too.

i'm not miss cleo (though i pretend to be her when telemarketers call me), but i really don't think i'm going too far on a limb when i say:

1) jose reyes will get hurt again in 2005.
2) jose reyes will play hurt and play badly while hurt in 2005.
3) jose reyes will miss playing time in 2005 due to injury and his inability to recover in normal human time.

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY does jose reyes never follow medical advice fully? WHY WHY WHY does he never rehab properly? WHY WHY WHY FUCKIN' WHY do the mets allow this stupid punk to continually fuck up?

here's the latest jose shit from the nytimes:

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Shilstone said he examined the 21-year-old Reyes for three days last October and determined "in no uncertain terms" the root of Reyes's problems, which in addition to his hamstring woes included a stress fracture of his fibula that kept him out of the lineup for most of August and September. Shilstone said he advised Reyes to visit him for two more weeks before playing in the Dominican Winter League and to see him for two weeks after the league ended to make any necessary adjustments to his conditioning regimen.

"He chose none of the above," Shilstone said. "We didn't get to put all the pieces together. So I can't sit here and tell you the deficits are gone. I think the jury's out."

Shilstone said he gave Reyes a "partial plan," about a fourth of an overall regimen that Shilstone feels is necessary to really put Reyes on safe ground. Shilstone surmised that Reyes, following his plan, began feeling better and thus assumed he was healthy. His strong and injury-free play for the Gigantes team in the Dominican league this winter probably fortified that feeling.

"I played the whole season in winter ball with no problem," Reyes, who had reported to camp early, said. "I do a lot of different things - running, fielding, stretching - and I no feel nothing. So I can't wait to get started in spring training."

Reyes acknowledged Shilstone's role in helping him feel better.

"He taught me a lot of good things," Reyes said. "I feel better about my body now. He taught me a lot of different things." Yet he added that he does only some of the exercises that Shilstone recommended because there were so many of them.

Oh lookie here! It's Omar!

2005-02-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

oh my bad. i didn't have my kazuo goggles on. it's actually the omar-lookalike, the buffed up senior citizen, andres galarraga! take a look at those guns! wow, how the hell did he get his arm stuck in that position. ouch. medic! medic!

2005-02-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

now what the hell is happening? andres just got his arm untangled and now he's got one of the godawful calf cramps. OUCH! take a deep breath, big cat! medic! medic!

2005-02-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

i'm just joshing about galarraga. actually, how can you not be an admirer of this guy? he's old as petrified shit, battled back from cancer twice, and he's one of the few guys in the majors who always looks as if he truly appreciates how blessed he is to be a major league ballplayer. i don't know how much is left in the tank, but i hope he makes the club, he gets his 400th homerun soon, gives the team a lesson in professionalism and having a good time, and i hope he sticks around long enough to contribute on the field too. good luck, big cat!

Coup d'etat

2005-02-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

the first glimspe at korean and japanese league veteran, coup d'etat. the grimace is good. he's got that half-face paralysis look on the follow-thru that i like to see. it's very glavine-like. i'm also looking forward to seeing if he's perfected the hands-on-hips posture with the smirk that all mets fans are used to seeing from our veteran lefty bullpen crapolas.

Juice or no juice?

2005-02-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

BEFORE

2005-02-08T11:27:00.000-08:00

DURING

2005-02-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

AFTER

the steroids issue has reared its ugly head in major league baseball with jose canseco naming names in his new book. i didn't see any shocking names mentioned: giambi, mcgwire, pudge, juan gone. somebody write a book about jason tyner on steroids and you'll have yourself a story to tell .

unfortunately with MLB shamefully ignoring the steroids issue for so long, the only way we'll be able to see if our suspicions over past player juice-use hold any water is to follow along with them as they enter the stricter testing stage of their careers and beyond.

you know it's been a long time in between the deaths of lyle alzado and now ken caminiti. you'd think there would be a slew of big sports stars being hooked to organ machines or dropping dead. maybe we're still expecting the other shoe to drop for these cheating stars. they may cheat serious health woes and death for awhile, but one certain thing to watch for is "shrinkage." on the juice, they have nutbag shrinkage. off the juice, they'll just have overall deflating body shrinkage. jason giambi has shrunken nearly back to "normal." sammy sosa has shrunk. mark mcgwire (if you ever see him) is apparently a shadow of his former comic book superhero self.

it used to be baseball players just got fat after they retired like don zimmer and tommy lasorda and matt galante. the new thing will be extreme shrinkage. a whole generation of guys will look like jason tyner when at cooperstown to give their induction speeches.

NEW faces, NEW attitude for NEW Mets

2005-02-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

the obvious buzzword being thrown about is NEW.

this is to differentiate the NEW mets from the OLD, SHITTY, BAD, LAST PLACE CALIBER mets. there's nothing NEW about changing over the mets roster with NEW faces, a NEW gm, a NEW manager, NEW coaches, a NEW attitude. it's downright OLD as far as the mets are concerned. the only thing NEW about it is it's a group of different players this time with a first time manager in willie.

i'm not excited about NEW. art howe was NEW once. guru peterson was NEW last year. big whoop. i want to keep this entry short, so let's not get into the big NEW roster changes of OLD that were supposed to be great.

the only thing NEW i want to see this year is the same NEW thing i was looking forward to seeing last year, and the year before, and that was seeing OLD players rejuvenate their decaying careers. i wanted to see certain players avoid their OLD injury-prone ways. i want to see a team that can pull off fundamental, situation baseball. that'd be NEW. i want to see a clutch hit, especially with the bases loaded and less than two outs. that'd be really NEW. how about some defense that doesn't give the other team 4 or 5 outs an inning? how about a bullpen that doesn't allow every inherited runner to score? how about some damn WINS? that'd be really NEW. that's what i want to see.... again.