The Mets are talking to the Brewers about a swap of starter John Maine for left fielder Corey Hart, The Post has learned. A big motivating force behind the trade is new Brewers pitching coach Rick Peterson. Maine had his best season in 2007 (15-10, 3.91 ERA) with Peterson as his Mets pitching coach, and Peterson has told friends he believes he can keep the oft-injured Maine healthy and productive. The Mets want a left fielder with power, but Hart’s homers have dropped from 24 to 20 to 12 last year.
“It’s not that we have to do a total revamping,” Minaya said. “It’s not like we have to fill in a whole bunch of guys when we get our core guys back healthy. That being said, I’m of the belief that it’s 162 games. Whether you do things in the winter or do things in season, at the end of the day, we do have to improve our club. But if the players are not there in the free-agent market, you just can’t force it.” “This year it’s not as clear as it was last year,” Minaya said. “Last year we needed a closer and we ended up getting two closers. This year we have more pieces that we have to fill in. Are we going to be able to fill them all in? I don’t know that. - mets today
David Wright and Daniel Murphy each spent a week living at hitting coach Howard Johnson’s house and training at the Mets facility in Port St. Lucie. Jeff Francoeur was supposed to join them, but he isn’t fully healed from his surgery yet, according to Adam Rubin. Wright is focusing on increasing his power stroke for next year, according to the article. - theropolitans
Plenty of smoke, but not much fire for the Mets on Day 1 of the winter meetings, with Omar Minaya holing up in his suite at the Marriott here and entertaining visits from GMs and agents. Despite arriving with a "wish list," Minaya seems to be all over the board in his plans to fix the Mets, with a preponderance of mid-level players and no real push for the big-ticket free agents,... newsday
There’s no shame in admitting you got fleeced in the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Plenty of honest, well-meaning people lost their life savings, so the Wilpons aren’t alone. The difference is that the Mets still are asking their fans to believe in them – to buy their tickets, pay for their Shake Shack Burgers, tune into SNY. In return, the fans are entitled to an honest accounting of where this team is headed. It was obvious in ’04, when Minaya flew to the Dominican Republic to wine and dine Pedro. It was just as plain in ’06, when Billy Wagner was given a goodwill tour of New York City. And in ’07, when Santana was willing to walk away from a $140 million contract over a mere $5 million, so Jeff Wilpon wisely caved in and decided to pay in full. - mets police
Licey Tigres (23-17) - Timo Perez is leading the league in hitting with a .352 average. He’s hitting .409 but hasn’t played in the last couple days.
Tobi Stoner got banged around his last start for seven runs in a little over four innings of work to raise his ERA to 3.10. It may be the last time you see Tobi in the Dominican this year. He’s had 9 starts and 52 innings after 154 innings of minor league work. That’s over 200 innings for the year.
Escogido Leones (25-15) - Prospects Fernando Martinez (.185) and Starlin Castro (.182) are struggling and losing playing time to veterans who can produce.
More and more, the Mets believe they will not play for one of the big free-agent outfielders, Jason Bay or Matt Holliday. So they also are looking into trades for Washington’s Josh Willingham and the Angels’ Juan Rivera. Rivera has two years at $9.5 million left on his contract, and has long been an Omar Minaya favorite; Minaya obtained him from the Yanks when he was the Expos GM as part of a trade for Javier Vazquez. Willingham should about double his $2.95 million 2009 salary after hitting 24 homers last year. He is, however, a woeful left fielder and a free agent after the 2011 season. - nY Post
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