More Stuff

B-Mets:

THE SEASON SO FAR:

The Mets are off to a 13-15 start, currently tied with New Britain for fifth place in the Northern Division, three games behind New Hampshire.
WHO'S HOT: 3B Shawn Bowman ranked sixth among league batting leaders last week, hitting .448 (13-for-29) with two home runs and six RBIs in seven games. His 13 hits tied for the league lead. In 28 games this season, Bowman is batting .313 (36-for-115) with seven doubles, a triple, a team-best five home runs and 20 RBIs.

ALL-AROUND GOOD EFFORT:

The B-Mets offense scored a season-high nine runs in topping Portland, 9-7, on Thursday. LHP Mike Antonini picked up his fourth win of the season with his longest start to date, giving up only a run and striking out six batters in 6 2/3 innings.
DID YOU KNOW?: The B-Mets suffered their first series sweep this season, losing 4-3 on Sunday afternoon on a walk-off home run off Binghamton's closer, LHP Roy Merritt.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090511&content_id=582812&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp


Mets Alumni:

It's funny to include Brian Bannister in a list such as this, since he is well known in sabermetric circles for his attempts to exploit concepts like BABIP and DIPS. That being said, he is over his head in the early going, as he hasn't struck out nearly enough hitters to balance his walk rate—and that's before you add in his well below-average .237 BABIP. I think QERA may be undervaluing Bannister a bit here though, as one of the strengths he has shown early on—one that isn't reflected in QERA—is his low homer rate of 0.4 per nine. Before last season's rate of 1.4 HR/9, he had not given up very many homers in the majors, but 0.4 would be a career low for him. As long as his sub-90s stuff doesn't get knocked into the stands consistently as it did last season, he may be worth a look in deep leagues. You may want to trade him to someone who is going to overvalue him though, given his current ERA.

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8861


Draft:

He seems like any conscientious junior in college reaching the end of a semester, trying to pay attention in his government class at 9 a.m. on a Friday. He discusses his term paper on National Security Advisor James Jones with his professor. It all seems fairly typical, really, until a student sitting across from him makes a simple request.

"Hey, Stephen," he asks quietly. "After class, would you sign my ball?"

Welcome to the world of Stephen Strasburg, a well-meaning San Diego State University student, an almost certain No. 1 First-Year Player Draft pick and the young man some feel might be the greatest pitching prospect of all time.

Strasburg's pitching exploits have been well-documented by now. He was the lone amateur on the U.S. Olympic Team last summer after a dominant sophomore season, shutting out the Dutch Olympic squad and not allowing a hit until the seventh. The numbers this season are video-game quality: 11-0, 1.24 ERA, 164 strikeouts, 17 walks, 48 hits in 87 1/3 innings. He's struck out 16.9 per nine innings, on a pace to break the Division I record held by Ryan Wagner. He's reportedly hit triple digits on the radar gun with some regularity. The icing on the cake came on Friday when he tossed his first no-hitter, striking out 17 against Air Force with most of the Washington Nationals' brain trust in attendance at Tony Gwynn Stadium.
He's been the consensus No. 1 Draft pick for some time and with Scott Boras as his advisor, it's likely he's going to set another record, for the largest contract given to a Draft pick.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090512&content_id=4691596&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb