2/10/12

I May Be Wrong, But…



·        There’s considerable chatter that Mets pitching “ace”, Johan Santana, will not be ready to throw his first in-game pitch until the end of June. He should have no problem cashing the check though. I said numerous times that Santana will never pitch in a major league game again and my statement is getting more traction every day. This could make the Mets the first team ever to have a knuckleball pitcher as their SP1, a perfect start to a flawed season.



·        Sandy Alderson said on Thursday morning that the Mets roster was “pretty much there”. As said in the past, no one new will be added to this team unless they agree to a one-year contract. The current 2012 payroll is projected to be far less than they had planned, which is just fine with me. I will approach this season as a Knicks fan; I don’t expect much so I might as well just lay back and enjoy it.



·        I had a great telephone conversation today with ex-Met Lance Broadway, who always was one of the real good guys with a Mets uniform on. Lance has baseball behind him and is forging out a new career in the great city of Dallas, Texas. Broadway was a 1st round pick in 2005 by the Chicago White Sox, who he pitched for from 2005-2009. He joined Buffalo in 2009 (5-7) and pitched in eight games in Queens that same season. I still remember that great last season for Texas Christian: 15-1, 1.62, 1.01, 151-K, 35-BB, 117.0-IP. That’ll get some bonus bucks!



·        This is part of a story that ran Thursday in the New York Post[i]:

The owners of the Mets want the Supreme Court to get involved in their attempt to recover money from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Sterling Equities Associates, which owns the Mets, appealed to the high court on February 3. It will likely take months before justices decide whether to hear the appeal.



Don’t you wish the Mets had all the money they are spending on lawyers so they can sign a left-handed bat?







6 comments:

Justin M. said...

Ugh. JUNE!?!?!?!

The starting pitching depth on this team is a major worry. It's going to be awful having to watch this team give starts early in the season to Batista, schwindin, etc. Maybe later in the season one of our blue choppers will be ready, but early in the season our options are scary bad.

Jarod said...

Keep in mind Santana pitched in a few Minor League games to finish out the season so it's not without reason that he could possibly be back close to the start of the season. Problem he is facing though is the rest that occurred during the off-season. Doctors told him that rest is part of the rehabilitation process and they'd have a better idea of where he is based on that. We're all more or less in the dark here but I agree with the sentiment that he is a definite worry at this point. Not an ideal situation considered he WAS our ace.

Mack Ade said...

He did pitch a game in Savannah, but velo was way off.

The success of Santana has always been the fact that his deliver for both his fastball and his change is the same. Exactly the same. Same angle, same speed. The difference is the ball travels to the plate at least 15 mph slower.

The go-to pitch is is change, but he needs to be 90 to set it up.

He no longer is.

Jarod said...

Yep, I agree. In the post I made above this one I touched upon that very sentiment. Pitch differential is Johan's bread and butter. If its lost so is he.

David Rubin said...

It's sad that the Mets have relied on Johan coming back, whether truly internally or externally as a marketing pitch, and haven't signed any cheap "horses" for the rotation. Granted, Joel Piniero and/or Jon Garland aren't going to win a pennant for you, but they will be, if healthy, someone to take the ball every 5th day. I have held out hope that Johan would somehow come back at some point, but from the day he arrived, my buddy and I suspected he wasn't the same pitcher, based on his prior season in Minnesota. This is one occasion where I am truly sad that we were right...and Chris Young, even if healthy, is not enough to keep the rotation going until/if Johan comes back- and even HE hasn't been signed yet...
GIANT OY!!!!!

Mack Ade said...

IMO, Sandy's dog has a better chance of starting opening day.

I'm sure the Mets are mentally operating that he won't be around.

I wouldn't be surprised if Batista doesn't stick on the back end.

He quietly did a very good job at the end of last season in Queens: 9-G, 4-ST, 2-0, 2.64