Jon Niese pitched seven-plus innings, but the Met offense was stopped by Bronson Arroyo to give the Amazins their first home series loss since May.

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Jerry Manuel

Jason Bay

Jon Niese

Alex Cora

Dusty Baker

Bronson Arroyo

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The Mets front office is trying to put a happy face on this team of theirs but deep down I’m sure they’re doing shots of Maalox over the pitching staff.

Big Pelf’ Long Balls on Parade has to be alarming to Mets decision makers so much so that the name Bronson Arroyo has come up again as a Mets trade target. A deal for Arroyo or any real life honest to goodness starting pitcher should have been done this off season but either money issued or stupidity prevented any such deal from happening.

The old saw is “don’t put too much stock in spring training” and that’s fine when your names is Santana, or Lincicum or Seaver. But when you are a struggling starter like Big Pelf, OP and Maine Man, you need to show me why I should have confidence in you on the mound and so far as we get to a week before opening day my confidence in this pitching staff on a scale of 1-10 is about a 3.

Am I being overly pessimistic? You tell me. Let’s play the Mike Francesa Approved “Unnda/Ovah Game with the pitching staff. Please go to the comments and leave your picks.

Number of games Johan Santana will win in 2010? Unnda/Ovah 14

Number of wins combined for Big Pelf/OP/Maine Man? Unnda/Ovah 27

Number of innings combined for Big Pelf/OP/Maine Man? Unnda/Ovah 450

Number of different starting pitchers the Mets will use in 2010? Unnda/Ovah 8

Number of appearances by Vitamin Pedro in 2010? Unnda?Ovah 75

Number of saves for Frankie Rodz in 2010? Unnda/Ovah 33

Number of pitchers total used by the Mets in 2010? Unnda/Ovah 21

8 days until pitchers and catchers

If you haven’t seen the video of Keith Hernandez working with Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans at first base, click here. Again my opinion on Murphy is certainly biased but if the other 24 players on the Mets roster that comes North has the same desire and work ethic as Murph, things may be a lot better than we think this summer at $iti Field. At the end of the video Hernandez tells Murphy and Evans that if they ever need him for anything to tell Jay Horowitz and he will drive up to St Lonesome to lend a hand.

Two things here, one what the hell took so long for the Mets to utilize Mex in this capacity and two, if Mike Piazza never asked Hernandez’ advice when the Mets were looking for him to make the transition for catcher to first baseman, then he’s a bigger asshole than I think he is.

Nice to see Mike Jacobs back in the org. I hope he likes chicken wings.

The biggest problem I have with Mets management is not so much with it’s ineptness of its baseball ops but more with its dishonestly. When it comes to the teams finances someone is lying  either the media or the team and most likely it’s the team.  With the management not being aggressive on free agents and not making deals that would make the team better by taking on pitchers like Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo, or Gil Meche, who have big contracts that teams would love to get out from under, it proves that the coffers of the Skill Sets are not as robust as they claim.

It seems that’s the only reason Omar and Jerry Manuel are still here, it’s more of a “it’s cheaper to keep ‘em” scenario than a performance  factor. The Skill Sets can’t afford to pay Minaya and go out and hire a top of the line GM, so what we get is lots of layers of front office types that makes dealing with the Mets tedious and exhausting.

Everyday there are more and more stories about the teams finances and I’m sure there will be more and more of the cash flow stories throughout the season.  All it will take is for one snitch to blab the inside scoop on what’s going on in the back rooms of $iti Field to bring this to light.

Perfect example of the Mets money woes, Chein- Ming Wang is ready to sign with the Washington Nationals who are putting together a nice team for 2010.

Just sit back and listen to this song and enjoy your snow day!

As you know I made reference to Joe Mc Donald proclaiming on PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL last Thursday that the Mets will be a 90+ win team in 2010. His reasoning was that Oliver Perez will revert to his Good Ollie personality. I did say, it was encouraging news that OP, under the urging of both Scott Boras and Carlos Beltran, has spent the off season in Arizona, training hard to lose both the stigma of bring mentality and physically inept to pitch in the big leagues.

I’ve been looking around at the team as it now is constructed and have tried to make the case for 90 wins. It all starts of course with the pitching staff:

#1 Santana 15-17 wins

#2 Pelf/Joel Piniero/Bronson Arroyo/Aaron Harang/Gil Meche 10-12 wins

#3 Pelf/OP/Maine/Doug Davis/Jon Garland 8-10 wins

#4 one of the above at #3  8-10 wins

#5 Maine/Neise/Neve/Holt/Stoner/(Gulp!) Smoltz 8-10 wins

That comes to 49-59 wins from your starting rotation

Now from the seven relievers you figure will be in the pen:

Frankie Rodz

Ryoto Igarashi

Bobby Parnell

Kelvin Escobar

Sean Green

Pedro Feliciano

Lefty to be named later

You figure you can and average of 4 wins from each. That’s an additional 28 wins, brining my projection to 77 to 87 wins.

Now say I leave the bullpen projection alone but I up the ante on the #2 pitcher to 12-14 wins and the #3 to 10-12 wins, that would put the team’ record between 81-91 wins. Of course all this is predicated on the Mets signing one of the remaining free agent pitchers, of which just Joel Piniero is desirable if he comes cheap or can trade for the one of the Arroyo/Harang/Meche troika.

So what do you think? Am I out of mind thinking there is a way the Mets could be a 90 win team and contend? Am I drinking the Omar/Jeffey Kool Aid? Has Joe Mac brainwashed me?  Or am I just tired of freezing my ass off this winter and dying for spring and summer and baseball season? Could be the cold has made me delirious.

After waking up from a Nyquil stupor I was perusing the ‘net for Mets stories and of course my first stop was Mathew Cerrone’s Metsblog, in which a few posts had me thinking:

It’s about time for the Mets and Omar Minaya to call Jason Bay’ bluff. Tell him and his agent “here’s the deal 4yrs/$68-70mil take it or leave it” then give him 48 hrs to decide. If he can get more from this mystery team that’s out there, so be it. Time for the Mets to man up and let Bay take them for assholes.

Same thing with Bengi Molina. There is no team in any baseball league-MLB, Japanese League, Little League, or Men’s Sunday softball league , that will give Bengi a 3 yr deal. Again Omar needs to make a take it or leave it 2yr deal an if Molina balks then go to Rod Barajas or Miguel Olivo (two better choices ) or go with the Blanco/Santos later in the year Josh Thole catching troika. 3 yrs for Bengi Moilina? Keep dreaming

Good to see that the Mets are taking my advice and speaking to the Cincinnati Red Stockings about Aaron Harang and or Bronson Arroyo. This wanna be GM’ing is tough so how about a finders fee to me Jeffey?

It’s amazing that the Jose Reyes/Mike Francesa sit down from Wednesday is still getting so much buzz. Reyes handled himself beautifully with the FAN Bloviator as he let his personality and passion show thru. Instead of hearing from second and third sources we heard right from the shortstops mouth that he never had a problem with Willie Randolph and understood full why he was benched for non-hustle and the fact that he wanted to come back to play so badly last year that he injured himself more. Reyes also said his personality is what it is and he’s not about to change and he told it like it is about the handshakes and celebrating, how what he does is tame to what other teams do. The sad part of the interview was Francesa telling the audience that he had to plead with the Mets to let Reyes come on with him. It just shows how out of touch management is. Reyes and Jeff Francouer have done more for goodwill amongst the fan base this week that even the incompetent Jeffey Skill Sets should be able to see that but I may be asking for too much.

METS SET SIGHTS ON STARTING PITCHING

Music to my ears. I know most of you have a deep respect for wood a la Larry David, but without pitching you can have all the ash, maple and old hickory you want, you won’t win. Pitching wins period.

The top pitcher around that the Mets could get is Roy Halliday but the cost both player/prospect wise and money wise makes Halliday a dream that won’t come true. The next on the list is John Lackey, who is doable. Contract wise that is. If it takes an AJ Burnett 5yr/$82 mil deal to get Lackey here so be it. Sure he comes with a warning label as he hasn’t made over 30 starts in the last two seasons but the Mets are dessssssssssssperate for a #2 to Santana’s #1 and the they can piece together the rest of the rotation by adding two of the usual suspects from Jason Marquis, Joel Piniero, Randy Wolf, Jon Garland, and the coming off injuries, Ben Sheets, Erik Benard, and Noah Lowry, and my trade up specials Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo and Gil Meche to go with Mike Pelfrey as the 4^th or 5^th starter then and only then will progress be made in Flushing.

By the way I agree with this from Mack’s Mets to make John Maine the 8^th inning set up man to Frankie Rodz and I would also make Ollie P a reliever as well and have Bobby Parnell and Perpetual Pedro Feliciano as my 7^th inning mix and match set and throw Sean Green in for shits and giggles.

Nothing gets accomplished here until the pitching is squared away.

“WHAT THEY ACTUALLY LIKE THAT BLUE AND ORANGE STUFF”?

Can’t you just imagine, Jeffey Skill Set saying that? How out of touch can you be about your fan base and the history of the close to <places right pinky to right corner of mouth> $1 billion dollar baseball franchise he and his family own?

The Skill Sets had to be hit over the head by their fan base to paint the walls blue and orange, add a Mets Hall of Fame that even the great unwashed can gain entrance to, and go back to the uniform that the vast majority of Mets fans revere.

METS-MARLINS IN SAN JUAN, WHO NEEDS TWO?

So MLB wants the Mets and Marlins to play a series in San Juan which would be taken from the Marlins home schedule. Now how does this help the Marlins? The only time they get big crowds at Your Name Here Stadium is when the Mets come to town, plus with the construction of a new ball park shouldn’t the Marlins be trying build a better relationship with their fan base so they fill the new place once it’s up? The weird thing about the Marlins fans is they support the team very heavily through TV and Radio so maybe it doesn’t matter if they play in San Juan or San Quentin.

Also in this story there is a blurb about the Mets looking at signing Jack Cust. Hopefully it’s for a bartender’s job at the Acela Club.

 

 

All this talk about Matt Holiday, Jason Bay, Curtis Granderson and Brandon Philips has me totally baffled. You could bring in all four of these guys in and it still doesn’t solve the Mets biggest off season problem PITCHING!!!!!

 

Of course the Mets need help in the corners of 1^st base,(I’m not abandoning my boy Murphy but I will concede a righty hitting dance partner would be nice)  LF and catcher both power wise and defensively but right now the Mets have one solid starter in Johan Santana .

 

The Reds are just about begging for teams with deep pockets to give them salary relief and with Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo and Brandon Phillips sitting there for the taking, there is no reason for the Mets not to go full bore in making a deal for this troika.

 

Ah, but who is in charge? As I linked yesterday to Joel Sherman’s story in the Post, Omar looks to be a dead GM walking. So who is in charge? Is it John Ricco? Sandy Johnson? Little Shit? Who damn it, Who is calling the shot out there?

 

If there were ever an off season where the Mets organization could really fortify the team it’s this one. So many teams are looking to either dump players with high salary or are arbitration eligible ready to cash in on a big raise or they are a year away for free agency and ready to be moved for cheaper labor. And here sit the Skill Sets who told us the money is not a problem so fuck that Bernie Madoff as he didn’t hurt this franchise because the Mets are truly solvent. Between being, what the second or third most valuable franchise according to Forbes and don’t forget the close to $20 mil a year coming in from those crooked bastards at $iti Group plus the ownership of SNY, there is no excuse for the team not to as aggressive as a Cougar at a frat party.

 

But who is in charge of the baseball decisions, inquiring minds want to know?

 

by the way can you spot the ex-Met in that picture?