Mets News
RHP Rocky Cherry signed a minor-league deal with the Red Sox.
The Mets released Valerio De Los Santos
The sure things in the Met bullpen are Francisco Rodriguez, J.J. Putz, Sean Green and Pedro Feliciano; and - more and more - Bobby Parnell is making himself a lock. Brian Stokes is out of options and the Mets like him enough that he will make the team. That leaves one spot for Darren O'Day, Fernando Nieve, Carlos Muniz and Ron Villone. I keep hearing that this is still a real competition that could go down to the last day or two. If there is a leader, it is possibly O'Day because the Mets do like him and he is a Rule 5 pick who would have to be offered back to the Angels if he did not make the 25-man roster.
http://blogs.nypost.com/sports/st/ar...wang_cano.html
Bobby Parnell is a guy that came into camp with not a big chance to make the team. He is young, inexperienced, and he lacks the seasoning needed to be in a major league bullpen…or so we thought. As of today, Parnell stands an excellent chance of making the Mets’ opening day roster, and he may have the fun burden of handling the seventh inning and handing the baseball off to J.J. Putz and then K-Rod. But, does he have the ability to do it successfully? I think so. Do you remember a couple of years back when the Mets carried a kid out of camp who went by the name Joe Smith? He had no chance to make the team. Nobody had ever heard of him, and he made sure they did by the end of camp. Smith impressed the big club so much that they carried him to start the season, and he eventually would garner enough value to help the Mets land a proven closer named J.J. Putz.
http://dailystache.net/archives/1653
Frankie Rodriguez doesn't have a problem with four-out saves. Only answering questions about them. Apparently, it's a sensitive subject for K-Rod, who earned back-to-back four-out saves for Team Venezuela after he was not used at all in those situations during last season for the Angels. With Jerry Manuel looking to give his WBC players an extended breather upon their return to the Mets, Rodriguez was asked yesterday if he might need to recharge after his starring role for Team Venezuela. "Why should you tell me that I'm not ready to get back?" Rodriguez said. "I prepared myself really good before every game, so I don't think it's going to take me 10 days or two months to get my energy back. It's going to be right back the next day. "I don't know what you're honestly trying to tell me or what the point is you're trying to get at. A four-out save is like a three-out save. To me, it's the same. I know people have made a big deal about four-out saves. I want to have the same opportunity here, too. I don't know why it's such a big deal."
http://www.newsday.com/sports/ny-spm...0,769071.story
Here's the skinny. Ignoring or failing to secure other options the Mets just resigned a guy who: their own pitching coach had reservations about, came to camp out of shape and overweight after an off-season where as a free agent, he drew almost zero interest, and...apparently needs a babysitter. A real pro's pro. Inning one of today's spring game against the Tigers was pure Oliver Alchemy, the way Oliver Perez' inability to focus seems to combine with Mets fielding blunders to create some of the most unwatchable baseball possible. Today: Reyes looses ball in sun, Perez proceeds to attempt to walk the ballpark. I turn off TV set. My revulsion at watching Perez pitch is getting to Traschellistic proportions. How many times do you feel like you've seen that one before? Resigning this jokster was a big blunder on the Mets part, an incredible failure of imagination and planning and it will cost them. Mark my words
http://itsmetsforme.blogspot.com/200...signs-big.html
Among the New Yorkers who expressed interest in big-league baseball, more than half - 56% - pledged alliance to the Bronx Bombers and only a third said they root for the Mets, a Quinnipiac poll found. In a theoretical Subway Series, the Yanks are fan favorites, 55% to 42%, holding an edge in every borough but Queens, where the Amazin’s play.
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/...ueens_poll_fin
4. Have the Mets addressed their bullpen problem?
Ummm, ya' think? With last year's bullpen meltdown undoubtedly still fresh in the minds of management, the Mets pulled out the stops in going after top-shelf relievers this offseason. Francisco Rodriguez, one of the elite closers in the game and the owner of the single-season save record, was signed to a three-year deal worth $37 million. A few hours later the Mets acquired another top-notch reliever, J.J. Putz of the Mariners, who came over in a head-spinning three-team trade that involved approximately 37 players. When the dust settled, the Mets also had acquired side-arming reliever Sean Green, while bidding adios to relievers Aaron Heilman and Joe Smith. The end result looks pretty darn good, not that last year's bullpen looked bad on paper. As I wrote in The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009, the Mets bullpen projected to be better than the Phillies relief corps, but it simply didn't work out that way. That can always happen, of course—players don't always meet their projections. This is especially true for relief pitchers, whose projections are necessarily based on relatively few innings pitched. But the Mets must feel pretty happy with their new relievers. There are still a couple tweaks left to make: Duaner Sanchez was recently released after the Mets concluded he would never get back the stuff he had prior to his 2006 auto accident. So there is an opening or two in the 'pen and much of the current discussion revolves around the possibility of adding a left-handed arm, since there is currently only one (belonging to Pedro Feliciano) in the bullpen.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/ar...new-york-mets4
WBC Leaders: Kevin Youkilis was tied for the tournament lead in runs with 9 despite only a .182 average. He did have an OBP of .357. Yoennis Cespedes had three triples in six games…Gift Ngoepe (South Africa) was second in slugging with a 1.200, but he only got five at bats…Brett Roneberg (Australia) was tops in slugging (1.286) and OPS (2.036) but he only got seven at bats…Greg hallman struck out 9 times in 11 at bats, but the strikeout leaders were Adam Dunn and Michihiro Ogasawara with 10…Iwakuma’s 20 innings pitched was the most by a pitcher in the WBC…Darvish led the WBC in K’s with 20. Iwakuma was second with 15…Oliver Perez gave up 5 homeruns in a little over six innings of work for a 9.45 ERA…Francisco Rodriguez was the save leader with three, so if they wanted to name a closer to the tournament team he would be the logical selection
http://myworldofbaseball.com/wordpress/?m=200903
Mets Alumni:
LHP Royce Ring was placed on waivers by St. Louis
P Danny Graves was released by the Astros
Beyond that, Mike Piazza recently announced that he's writing his autobiography. When the news of that broke, I opined that there aren't many superstars blander than Piazza, and that guys like him don't really make for riveting reading. One has to wonder now whether the pitch to his publisher involved a promise to be the first megastar -- non-Canseco division -- to come completely clean on PEDs in print.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/sh...up-mike-piazza
Fantasy:
MVN’s Top 150 Fantasy Players:
3. David Wright, 3B-NYM
4. Jose Reyes, SS-NYM
17. Johan Santana, SP-NYM
18. Carlos Beltran, OF-NYM
59. Francisco Rodriguez, RP-NYM
108. Carlos Delgado, 1B-NYM
http://mvn.com/outsider/2009/03/fant...l-top-120.html
General:
Johnny Blanchard, a Yankee from 1955-65, passed away today. He was 76. Blanchard played in five World Series, helping the Yankees win two of them. He was an outfielder and catcher.
The West Michigan Whitecaps, a minor-league baseball team, will be offering up major league cholesterol, carbohydrates and calories in an enormous hamburger being added to the menu this year at the Fifth Third Ballpark. The 1.8-kilogram, US$20 burger features five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips, all on an 20-centimetre sesame-seed bun.... The Grand Rapids Press reports that anyone who eats the entire 4,800-calorie behemoth in one sitting will receive a special T-shirt. Saner fans can divide it up with a pizza cutter and share.
http://xmmlbchat.blogspot.com/2009/0...am-offers.html
Perhaps that will be the case, but it's clear that many major league clubs and American players simply aren't interested. The US roster was so thinned by a lack of talent and injuries that Indians third baseman Mark DeRosa was forced to start at first base in the semifinal loss. Many clubs, though not admitting so publicly, discourage their star players from participating because they fear potential injuries to their major investments. "The clubs hear this all the time, but I'm going to say this to you as directly as I can: This is a time in life where I know how important your individual club is, this is a time to put the best interests of the game ahead of your own provincial self-interest," Selig said. "Everything we have ever tried to do, whether it was the wild cards or whatever, there was always some criticism. I accept it, and I understand that, but the clubs themselves years ago took a vote on this. They agreed that we had to do something internationally, that we needed to go to China, and we decided that this was the vehicle we were going to use to do that. Now we've got to cooperate with that vehicle."
http://baseballprospectus.com/articl...articleid=8657
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