Mets:
This year Baseball Prospectus ranked the Mets farm system 18th out of all of the 30 MLB clubs, despite the fact that they traded away four of their top prospects the previous year. Many of these prospects won’t see major league time for years to come, however there are a select few that could make it to the majors within the next year or two. Nick Evans was called up in the middle of last season to replace the injured Marlon Anderson. After getting off to a relatively quick start Evans cooled off and was eventually sent back down to the minor leagues.
http://www.ddmetsfanblog.com/2009/04/mets-prospects-to-watch-nick-evans.html
-Mack: Nick will only be valuable to the Mets if he plays every day this
year at first base for Buffalo. It’s time to cut the chord with Michal Abreu and forget about bringing Evans up this year. Let him mature and keep playing an excellent defensive first base.
Jose Reyes, running off the field after a great play with a grin on his face that makes Tom Sawyer look like Mickey Rourke, seems to have no idea of the burden he carries around. Major League Baseball has become, largely, a Latin game. Other great Latin players came here after All-Star careers on other teams, but we’ve had Jose since age 20. Dominican-born Reyes is the first great Latin superstar to begin his career with the Mets. He’s ours, and with any luck he will never wear anything but orange and blue.
http://www.observer.com/2009/year-jose-reyes
It's hear folks. Like the season premiere of your favorite TV drama, the Mets are about to start the 2009 season, and like any good drama there are several interesting plotlines and story arcs for you to follow. The main storyline which will become increasingly annoying as the season goes on is will the Mets collapse in September...again. You'll hear it on every Mets game they play on ESPN and you're bound to hear it on SportCenter and Baseball Tonight at least 83 times during the course of the season. The bullpen is your second major plotline as the Mets basically cleaned house and just kept Feliciano and Brian Stokes. Will the money spent on Putz & K-Rod be worth the investment? I think so, but time will tell.
http://metslifers.blogspot.com/2009/04/2009-mets-we-know-drama.html
-Mack: They’re starting early this year…
Yesterday, I had the good fortune to go to the second of two exhibition games between the Red Sox and the Mets at Citi Field (thanks, Mike!). Though the regulars were all out of the lineup by the fourth inning, I don’t think anyone was really there to watch the game anyway - the real star was the stadium. My photo essay of 9 innings at Citi follows: Approaching the stadium along the Whitestone Expressway. I can already tell it’s going to be an Amazin’ time:
http://umpbump.com/press/2009/04/05/citi-field-a-first-ok-second-look
-Mack: check out the pics here… they’re great…
New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel doesn't believe the players should forget the shortcomings of the past two seasons or the label of chokers placed on them by Philadelphia Phillies ace Cole Hamels. The only way to rid themselves of the tag and the bad memories is to win, according to the New York Daily News. "I think we'll always be reminded of that until the end of the season. That's just what you carry when you're with the Mets. And that's OK. If you can handle it, we'll be OK," Manuel said Sunday during the final workout before Opening Day. "I really think it's something we'll carry until we win a championship. And that's OK. "It's not that it's unfair. That's who we are."
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/rumors/post/Mets-want-to-remember-failures-of-past-two-seaso?urn=mlb,153082
It's Opening Day and I'm revved up. There's all the usual Christmas-in-April stuff, complete with a sleepless Sunday night spent wondering what the 2009 baseball season has in store for my Flushing Nine and all the anxiousness that anticipates the first real pitch of the year. And it's augmented this time around by the opening of the team's new home, Citi Field, because I'm excited to familiarize myself with the ins and outs of a new ballpark. But this year, there's more to it than that. There's that young man hitting second, Daniel Murphy, who needed merely 131 Major League at-bats to establish himself as a folk hero in 2008. Murphy, celebrated for his businesslike approach at the plate and his awkward contortions just about everywhere else, has emerged as a divisive figure this offseason, and to be honest, I have no idea what this season or future ones hold for the third baseman left fielder second baseman hitter. I'm not necessarily excited by what Murphy will do, I'm excited by what Murphy has the opportunity to do, and (fingers crossed) I'm mostly amped that we could be witnessing a small but significant change in organizational philosophy
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/sny_berg_is_faith_in_murphy_a_sign_of_organizational_enlightenment
Bisons:
After inking a new two-year player development contract with the New York Mets following three separate runs with the Cleveland Indians -- the last of which ran from 1995-2008 -- Buffalo hired Ken Oberkfell to manage the team. Oberkfell is entering his 13th season as a Minor League skipper and his fifth at the helm of a Mets' Triple-A affiliate. ... The Bisons also revealed that Dunn Tire Park will be called Coca-Cola Field for the next 10 years after reaching a naming rights agreement with the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in January. ... While change has been the major theme of the offseason, some things will remain the same for the 2009 Bisons. Namely, OF Jason Cooper. The 28-year-old fan favorite holds the Bisons' modern-era record for games played with 410, a mark he set last season. He also ranks in the top 10 in virtually every offensive category in team history. ...Players you're likely to see with the Herd this season include highly touted Mets OF prospect Fernando Martinez and LHP Jonathon Niese. Martinez, heralded as one of the Mets' stars of the future, has struggled through injuries the past several seasons. "He has to play. He needs to stay healthy before we can know (what we have in him)," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said of Martinez. ... Niese, 21, went 1-1 with a 7.07 ERA in three starts for the parent club last year in his first taste of big league action. ... The Bisons also revealed new road, home and alternate uniforms for the upcoming campaign. ... An offseason loss of note took place on Dec. 27, when Buffalo's long-time official scorer Mike Kelly lost a 10-year battle with prostate cancer at age 62.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090318&content_id=526293&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp
Mets Alumni:
Arizona acquired 3B Ruben Gotay for future considerations.
The Orioles released 1B Craig Brazell.
Milwaukee signed C Sean McCraw
Washington released P Steve Schmoll
General:
Walter O’Malley isn’t the villain he has been portrayed as being over the last half century for moving our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1957.
He had to do it. There was no other choice. He was pushed by New York City’s landlord, Robert Moses, gutless politicians, confused thinkers, ego centrists, selfish real estate moguls and ambitious frauds. Writers Pete Hamill and Jack Newfield linked O’Malley, the owner of the Dodgers from 1943 until his death in 1979, with Hitler and Stalin as the baddest guys in the 20th century. O’Malley was elected to baseball’s Valhalla, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in 2008 and Hamill wrote about his election, “Never forgive, never forget,” and declared the Hall of Fame took all morality out of the honor with the award of a Cooperstown plaque to O’Malley. My change of heart comes from a new book, the first detailed biography of the powerful baseball magnate, called “Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles" (Riverhead Books, $25.95).
http://www.thecolumnists.com/allen/allen180.html
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