What About Ryan Church?

According to Dayn Perry over at FoxSports the Mets couldn't even make the top 5 trade candidates for Johan Santana.

No team could use Santana more than the Mets, but they don't have the tempting young arms needed to get something done. Also, now that Lastings Milledge has been jettisoned, they can't even assemble an attractive package of position players...

There's nothing like reading for a week about how L-Millz's stock had dropped so low that the only possible deal was for him to him being turned around for Brian Schneider, Ryan Church, and Youppi - and then hearing that if Omar had kept him the Mets could be in the mix for say, the greatest LHP of the past 4 years.

So who do we believe? Dayn Perry, Metstradamus, and the 16 fans who sat along the right field line that fateful day - or Wally Matthews (wait...never believe Wally Matthews) and those who told us that Lastings had gone from the man who the Mets wouldn't trade for Manny into Youppi bait?


I'm beginning to think the only memories of Santana at Shea will be from the random interleague game I managed to attend on June 18th, 2002 when an unknown Twins reliever put up 6 innings of 3 hit, 1 run baseball to become what Mets fans believed would be another name on the long list of "nobodies" who shut down the awe-inspiring offensive juggernaut that was Vaughn, Alomar, and Burnitz.

Quote of the Day 12/8/07

"In [Guillermo] Mota, Riske and Torres, we've picked up three relievers who are used to pitching at the end of games, and they're used to pitching multiple innings, too," Melvin said. "We think that's important." - Brewers GM Doug Melvin

Well I guess if you want to play with semantics everytime Mota came into the game it turned into the end of the game...but still.

Brew Crew fans, I offer my condolences 4 months in advance.

Hope Springs...

All the thanks to Riding with Rickey for this...If he makes them, I'll place my order. Kinkos won't give me a reasonable price for blowing up the "Choked to Death" NY Post cover - featuring the unluckiest non-devastated taxi rider in the city.

Lastly, someone needs to get on the Lastings Milledge Facts and re-coordinate the color scheme...navy and red perhaps? I'm sure Metstradamus would be up to the task.

In other news concerning the still Victor Zambrano-less Metropolitans, Omar is upbeat and confident something will get done...to improve the team that is.

From David Lennon in Newsday:

"The fact that we are having dialogue, you know you're in the game," Minaya said. "But it's really hard to tell. I can tell you when these things develop, they develop quickly. There's a lot of back-and-forth going on and we're pretty much in the back-and-forth area."

Minaya found Aaron Heilman to be in great demand, and a National League official confirmed that there was talk about swapping him for Rockies lefthanded reliever Brian Fuentes, as first reported by Foxsports.com. Minaya is likely to need Heilman, however, in a bigger deal for the top starters on the market.

Now pay attention here: Lennon throws some of those scented wood shavings on the pile of vomit that was the Bartolo Colon/Livan Hernandez rumors. Is everyone paying attention? You can come in off the ledge now. Yes, I'm talking to you 'Damus, Rickey, and just about every other Met fan with half a brain.

If the Mets are unable to do that, Minaya did not sound very enthusiastic about the free-agent market, so it doesn't appear that adding Livan Hernandez, Bartolo Colon or the rehabbing Freddy Garcia is an appetizing fallback position. Rather than package pitching prospect Kevin Mulvey, the Mets could always give him the chance to win a rotation spot and skip the free agents.

Annnndddd...We're Back!

Well, it's been quite a hiatus with law school and whatnot. We're back now, and prepping for what promises to be a FANtastic 2008 farewell to Shea - complete with washed up cuban defectees in the starting rotation and a team that is marginally worse than the one that giftwrapped and delivered the division to Chateau Rollins only 2.5 short months ago.

Either way, here's the link to why the Mets won't be landing an O's pitcher - courtesy of Metstradamus and all of his (perfectly acceptable) pessimism. Well, there go the dreams of the Victor Zambrano reunion.

Full Circle

At 8:34 this evening Keith Hernandez repeated The Professor's immortal words on the CW11 broadcast of Mets-Marlins. The ketchup on your ice cream analogy has finally made it big time.

Oh, Mets up 7-1 in the 5th on Delgado's 2 mammoth blasts. Slump? What slump?

Back regularly starting tomorrow.

Exhale Slowly

Jose Reyes will play today. After a scare in a meaningless AB last night (this morning) against the Cubs and Bobby Howry, Reyes slapped an opposite-field single and seemed to limp to first base. He was immediately taken out of the game and replaced by Ruben Gotay. As Keith, Ron, and Gary speculated, Mets fans across the country held their collective breath.

Also, a great job by Kevin Burkhardt to get some insider info from the clubhouse and ease the feeling of dread before any official reports were published or announced.

It also looks like Carlos Gomez will get some more playing time as Moises Alou was placed on the 15-day DL to make room for today's starter Jason Vargas.

On a side note, Gary noted that the Mets starting lineup last night (this morning) was the first ever in MLB history to feature three players named Carlos. Quite an honor for the ballclub.

As Long As He's Ready For Subway Series II

It's just not baseball season until the greatest Blue Jays pitcher ever signs for a ridiculous amount of money and works out in Kentucky...oh wait, that's old news?

Well this coming week and a half should be a fun stretch. The best team in baseball comes into Shea to see if they're anything outside the NL Central, followed by the Cubbies and Sweet Lou, and then of course, Roger and A-Rod's boys continuing scramble to .500 ball.

Let the 9 game winning streak commence.

The Immortal Keith Hernandez

Keith: "I was in the clubhouse having my first Michelob in the third inning."

Gary: Back when you could have a beer in the clubhouse."

Keith: (longingly) Yes.

Reyes, Wright, and Beltran doubled in succession to lead off the game and get the Mets out to a 3-0 lead against Matt Cain and the Giants, Reyes added a triple and a RBI in the 2nd to make it 4-0.

Oliver Perez > Barry Zito?

(Not only is he rich, he also fights terrorism.)

While you can't say that Oliver Perez is a better pitcher than Barry Zito...the early going has seen Ollie be more consistent and pitch to a better record than his 7 Year/$126 million counterpart for tonight's matchup in whatever they call Pac Bell Park these days.

And while I'm glad the Mets' didn't go above five years for Zito, I think there's a part of every Mets fan that wishes we had landed the crown jewel of the 06'/07' offseason. You can't deny that he would look nice at the top of the rotation with Pelfrey morphing into the 2003 Aaron Heilman and El Duque's 72 years finally catching up to him.

Around the talk circuit:

• F&F's Jason has a nice blurb about Mike Pelfrey.
• Ryan at Always Amazin' again linked to a Neyer blog posting, and I am forever grateful:
  

  When you read about Julio Franco vs. Randy Johnson last night, you don't know where to pause for healthy reflection.

  Do you pause (and reflect) upon learning this was "the oldest hitter-pitcher matchup in Major League Baseball history"?

  Do you pause upon learning that Franco is going to turn 49 in a few months?

  Do you pause upon learning that a (nearly) 49-year-old man can hit a good fastball 418 feet? Upon learning the same man stole a base? Upon learning that after the game, he lifted weights for 20 minutes?

  Take a moment, and make a short list of the greatest players in the game's long history. Now circle the names of the ones who were still playing when they were 48.

  Right. No circles. In 1982, Julio Franco played with Pete Rose and Steve Carlton and Tug McGraw. In 2006, he's playing with Jose Reyes and David Wright and Lastings Milledge. You want to make sense of it all? You'll need a scientist, and a good one.

• Finally, Brian Lawrence signed with the Mets on Sunday, and is expected to make some minor league starts to "rebuild his arm strength." He can't be worse than Chan Ho can he?
  

Imagine If He Had Kazmir!

Courtesy of Always Amazin', here's a link to a 2003 interview with Rick Peterson. Ketchup on ice cream and comparing Mike Pelfrey to red wine aside, you can't argue the fact that The Professor knows his shit up, down, and sideways.

For all you practical, self-motivated thinkers out there, they're having open tryouts at Shea right after the Senior Stroll:

RP: We did personality factor tests to learn more about each player. When we first rolled out these tests, there were norms for people like teachers and lawyers, but not for professional baseball players. For example one test measures whether a person is self-motivated or works better through instruction. What we found is that self-motivated, practical thinkers tend to fare well in baseball. By keeping your motivation up, you overcome the fear, worry, and doubt which can hurt performance. Then we look at an umbrella of skills in 12 major areas. Those include: keeping things in perspective, self-knowledge of strong points and limits, discipline, and ability to learn.

We want to quantify as much of the process as possible, whether it's mechanical or psychological. The expression I like to use is: In God we trust, all others must have data.

And when you're done chewing that, you can thank It's Mets For Me, for the classic page of Jacket truths.