1/12/12

Mets: Aderlin Rodriguez, Johan Santana, NL East, Pedro Martinez, Fernando Martinez






1-11-12 -  metsmerizedonline  41.  Aderlin Rodriguez (3B) I have listed Rodriguez as a third baseman, because he has played only that position thus far in his career. It is widely speculated however, that the Mets are going to move him to another position as soon as this coming season, with the obvious choice: first base. His foot speed is not so great and his range is not real good, so the corner outfield isn’t really in the cards. Hopefully Rodriguez can play 1B without committing as many errors as he did across the diamond. Last season in 361 chances at 3B, Rodriguez made a whopping 44 errors, for an abysmal Fld% of .878. Yuck! That’s one problem. The other is he batted only .221 last season at Savannah, in 516 AB’s. He also struck out 106 times while walking 29 times. Rodriguez needs to eliminate the holes in his swing and must be more selective at the plate, if he intends to keep moving up the organizational ladder. The good news is his power potential and that he is still young, he was only 19 years-old last year while playing in the SAL, and he managed to hit 17 HR’s and totaled 78 RBI’s. So there are some promising signs. Next year the cautious move would be for him to start the season at Savannah again, this time as their first-baseman, but he must show some significant development with the bat in order to stay on this list.

A $55 million investment requires the utmost upkeep. So about two weeks ago, Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen placed a call to the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala. Together with the scientists of the acclaimed bio-mechanics laboratory, Warthen discussed a topic on the minds of the team’s fans, coaches and executives: Johan Santana’s surgically repaired left shoulder, the joint upon which the Mets’ hopes of playoff contention in 2012 rest. http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2012/01/johan_santana_faces_longs_odds.html

As one of my coworkers put the Mets chances in the National League East, “The Phillies and the Braves haven’t gotten worse, while the Marlins and Nationals have gotten better.”  So where does that leave the Mets? If they want to make any noise this year, a lot of things are going to have to go right.  But it will take more than that for the Amazins to have any chance at a playoff berth-they are going to need things to go wrong for other teams in the NL East.  While it may seem like the Mets might be destined to finish in the division cellar, each team does have a flaw or two that could come back to bite them.  I am not wishing injury upon any team or player (nor would I ever), but if the Mets are going to be competitive, here is what might have to go wrong with their division rivals: http://risingapple.com/2012/01/11/the-nl-east-what-needs-to-go-wrong-for-the-mets-to-contend/

Former Red Sox great Pedro Martinez joined The Big Show on Tuesday to discuss his career in Boston, which featured what some consider to be the most dominant stretch by a pitcher in major league history. In seven years with the Sox, Martinez was 117-37 with a 2.52 ERA while averaging 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings, averaging a shade under 200 innings a year. Martinez won two Cy Young awards while a member of the Red Sox (in 1999 and 2000). Still, the fact that Tigers ace Justin Verlander was named the AL MVP re-opened an apparent wound for Martinez about his distress in being snubbed in the 1999 MVP voting, a year when Martinez went 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts but was left off the ballots of two writers (George King of the New York Post and LaVelle Neal III of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune), resulting in Martinez finishing second to Ivan Rodriguez in the race. Martinez also rankled at the memory of finishing second to Barry Zito in the 2002 AL Cy Young race  http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2012/01/10/pedro-martinez-on-the-big-show-of-mvp-and-cy-young-snubs-the-steroid-era-and-bostons-everlasting-place-in-his-heart/

Martinez is still only 23, so in all likelihood there’s plenty of time for him in baseball and everything. Maybe he gets an opportunity in Houston and hits like Ted Williams, or at least like Carlos Lee, and enjoys a long, successful career in the Majors. Or maybe he doesn’t, but he’s smart and resourceful enough to find a gainful and satisfying way to occupy the rest of his years, inside or outside the game. And though I’d be hard-pressed to argue there are many better ways to spend your late teens and early 20s than playing baseball — or more accurately, in Martinez’s case, rehabbing for baseball and “resuming baseball activities” — even with all the long bus rides and crappy hotel rooms and cheap meals intrinsic to Minor League life, you’ll never convince me it can’t be strange and at least a little bit sad to wake up at 23 facing the real possibility that the goal you’ve been pursuing since 16 may be unobtainable due in part to physical factors largely beyond your control, and that all you’ve heard about your potential from the crowds gathering around your batting-practice sessions could very well amount to little more than 131 Major League at-bats and a hell of a lot of fuss http://www.tedquarters.net/2012/01/11/exit-the-fernanchise/

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