Luis Castillo

RA Dickey

Carlos Beltran

Angel Pagan

Edwin Rodriguez

Will Ohman

For More Info contact Bob at TrainorComm@gmail.com.

R.A Dickey

Mike Hessman

Carlos Beltran

Charlie Manuel

Cole Hamels

Brian Schneider

For More Info contact Bob at TrainorComm@gmail.com.

Johan Santana

Angel Pagan

Carlos Beltran

Jim Tracy

For More Info contact Bob at TrainorComm@gmail.com.

I agree here with Mathew Cerrone, Beltran needs to play but he needs to bat lower in the order and maybe move over to RF for now and let Angel Pagan play CF.

A fan is suing the Mets, MLB, Luis Castillo and just about anyone else he can fit on a legal brief for Castillo’s bat breaking and entering the stands and hitting this guy in the kisser. Who knew balsa wood could be so dangerous.  I bet this guy was either on his cell phone waving to a camera or just not paying attention. Sorry no litigation money for you!

Yesterday the Y-D Red Sox exploded for 11 runs in the bottom of the first inning against the Orleans Firebirds in the first game of the best of three East Semi-Finals on the way to an un Cape League 23-10 win. Red Sox first baseman Jordan Ribera who has a thick lower torso that generates a big power swing, homered twice in the bottom of the first and just missed a third home run in the eighth inning. I’m trying to finagle my way over to Orleans for game two tonight at 7PM

First up is Carlos Beltran who looked anything like the premier Gold Glove centerfielder and offensive force we’ve seen.  Beltran has been blamed for this mid summer collapse and the inability of the New York State Senate to pass a balanced budget  but lost in all the hyperbole is the fact the organization bungled the medical handleing of his leg injury to where he had to go outside the organization to get the treatment he needed.  This left a bitter Beltran and Omar Minaya once again having to use flash cards to explain the situation to Jeffey Skill Sets. The biggest mistake Beltran made was rushing his rehab to tru to help this mess of a baseball team he should have been selfish and thought of himself and stay out until September. When the organization fucks you over, and the fans and MSM can’t stand you, then it’s time to think of you and your future because no matter what Carlos Beltran does, he can’t win around here.  So the Mets front office needs to do anything it can to move Beltran to another team this offseason. It’s a move that benefits both sides.

The Klapper writes a column today saying what we all have been saying for about a year now that Jerry Manuel needs to be fired. If you need more proof of this, he and Jeff Francoeur had a sit down yesterday where Manuel retracted his stance that Frenchy and F-Mart would form a platoon in right field. The “Me First” Francoeur (funny how Francoeur is portrayed as this rah-rah team guy but in reality is a selfish prick and Beltran who is portrayed as the less than team guy, shows more of a team first attitude by coming back from serious injury to early to help the team) cmae out of the meeting laughing and back slapping with Manuel with the news that I won’t be a strict platoon, that Frenchy will play bulk of the time in RF. If Omar Minaya were a real GM after hearing this, he’d cut Francoeur on the spot.

Hey Mets are back home tomorrow night against the Rockies, I’m guessing there are seats available?

Want to feel old? Lee Mazzilli Jr. is playing for the Wareham Gatemen in the Cape League, so is Michael Yazstremski the GRAND SON of Carl Yazstremski

A must read for you today is Greg Prince’ piece on his Faith and Fear in Flushing site where he lays it all out about this season and about who we, as Mets fans are.   Remember Mets fans, “we’ve got no place else to go” Classic Greg, Classic!

I’m in the middle of Red Sox Nation here on Cape Cod as many Bostonians are here on vacation. They are all hopped up for the four game series this weekend with the Highlanders which as a Mets fan puts me at a big disadvantage. Just a about every  reastaurant here shows Red Sox games on tv and I mean from big formal places to the fish joints on the side of the road the “Sawx” are a way of life out here. I’ve been wearing my Mr. Cap and I get some looks, some head shakes and some “we’re sorry’s” as well. I’m thinking of sitting outside a store on Main St in Hyannis with a cardboard sign that says METS FAN PLEASE HELP with my Mr. Met cap on the ground and see how much money I can make.

Adam Rubin on ESPN NY has a fine column today that sums up the State of the  Mets organization and the non-moves at the trade deadline to a tee. Some excerpts that intrigued me are:

The reality is the Mets are not legitimately in a race right now. They entered Saturday trailing the division-leading Atlanta Braves by 7½ games and trailing the wild card-leading San Francisco Giants by 6½ games. Fifty-nine games remain on the schedule. Four teams, including the hard-charging Philadelphia Phillies, who acquired Roy Oswalt this week, are between the Mets and Giants.

Management can’t come out and say it but they know the Mets have no shot at the post season.  The Mets are what they are, a .500 team that plays like the best team in baseball at home but then plays like the Mets of 1962 on the road, hence the .500 record. Their play this season is a big improvement over last year’s crew who mailed in around this time last year at least this Mets team plays hard.

You can clumsily cite principal owner Fred Wilpon and his family supposedly being stingy for such a deal not materializing, but that would be misguided — even if ownership isn’t blameless. The bottom line is the payroll is still hovering around $130 million this season.

The better answer: If GM Omar Minaya had shown restraint in his other salary commitments — say, not giving Luis Castillo four years and $25 million or Oliver Perez three years and $36 million or guaranteeing seven years to Carlos Beltran — he likely would have had the flexibility to pull off an Oswalt-type trade now.

It’s far more about no discipline than no money.

That does not absolve the Wilpons.

Forget the Perez and Castillo contracts, the one deal Mets will be screaming about will be the Francisco Rodriguez deal, look it over if you dare but I must put a disclaimer that if you are pegnant suffer from high blood pressure or have a sleeping disorder, check with your doctor before viewing the details of K-Rod’s deal

Minaya’s stated plan when he took over as GM in September 2004 was to offset the draft picks forfeited for signing free agents by owning the international market. It sounded good, too. After all, how could a Dominican-born GM walk into any household in that country, throw around dollars and fail to persuade the teenager to sign with the Mets?

The problem? Ownership never threw around the money. After signing Martinez for $1.3 million in 2005, Minaya’s first full season as Mets GM, the organization did not have another seven-figure signing bonus for an international teenager until signing 16-year-old pitcher Juan Urbina, Ugueth’s son, last year.

The Mets knew Venezuelan Jesus Montero, who was coveted in trade proposals involving the Yankees in recent days, was a superior catching prospect to Francisco Peña, Tony’s son. Yet the Mets signed Peña in 2006 because he cost $750,000. The Yankees paid $2 million for Montero.

My question here is whose fault is it? Omar’s or the Skill Sets for the inability to not get any thing done in the International market? You would think having a Latino GM would place the Mets way ahead of other teams but as we learned when they were in pursuit of Carlos Delgado as a free agent, Scareface Bernazard was a little to “street” for Delgado so  I wonder how many more families were turnoff by the Mets resident hoodlum?

The Mets have not been blame-free in their draft conduct from an ownership perspective, either. With apologies to Chris Carter, the Mets essentially gave Billy Wagner  to the Red Sox last season for nothing, in essence to save $3.3 million (Wagner’s $2.3 million remaining salary and a $1 million buyout). As a result, when Wagner signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Braves last offseason, the Red Sox — not the Mets — got two first-round picks as compensation for losing Wagner, which they used on Ball State’s Kolbrin Vitek and Middle Tennessee State’s Bryce Brentz. (Remember those names a few years from now.

This is why Omar needs to be relived of his GM duties and the baseball ops needs a complete overhaul. Unlike any time in baseball, teams a coveting receiving draft picks for aging ball players. The new wave in baseball is to get younger and more athletic as the ban on PED’s is changing the game back to where pitching, defense and youth as the way to go. That’s not Omar’s bag, he’s still into old and ineffective which unfortunately describes Omar himself.

(Fred) Wilpon was sued Friday by the widow of a former employee of Wilpon-owned Sterling Equities. The federal suit alleges Wilpon bears fiduciary responsibility for investing his employees’ 401(k) funds in Bernard Madoff-operated funds. Sterling Equities called the suit baseless, but the potential liability — coupled with the Wilpon family’s own losses in the Ponzi scheme — has to create some hesitance to freely spend.

Yet even if the Madoff ordeal never occurred, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect the Mets to act conservatively from a financial perspective. Attendance is likely to plummet at Citi Field the rest of the season. A further erosion in the season-ticket base is expected heading into 2011.

You knew this was coming and the question is if Freddy Skill Sets loses this suit, which I believe is a class action suit among the Sterling Equities employees, and it cost him hundreds of million’s of dollars to pay, will he have to sell the Mets? I believe Freddy when he says he wants the Mets to be in his family for generations to come, but it may come to a head when he has to either sell or take on a partner. The Mara family owned the NY Football Giants on their own for years and years but when Tim Mara died his estate put his shares up for bid, that’s when the Tisch family got their half, so it’s possible the Skill Sets sell 49% of the team and keep the other 51 % controlling interest for as long as they can.

Yet even if the Madoff ordeal never occurred, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect the Mets to act conservatively from a financial perspective. Attendance is likely to plummet at Citi Field the rest of the season. A further erosion in the season-ticket base is expected heading into 2011.

The one MAJOR move the Skill Sets must make for next season is dropping the ridiculous pricing tiers that are an extreme point of contention with Mets fans. The whole Platinum, Gold, Silver, Value scale would work if the team was a contender every year and seats at Citi Field were in demand but the organization has none of these going for them. They tried going the corporate route and it hasn’t worked. Now they need to try and win back the fan base, the blue collar core who frequented Shea Stadium who stick by you through thick and thin. The Skill Sets have had their fling with the Metro area elite and must now realize it’s time to get the REAL Mets fan back to support the team.  The Mets fan has the upper hand here and now Freddy, Jeffey and Uncle Saul have to come to us with hat in hand, and ask for our hard earned dough. They have never gotten it though their thick skulls that Mets fans are not about the Championships (although we all want to win one or ten of them) but we’re all about playing hard and playing with pride. That’s the one saving grace with the 2010 Mets team they have that quality.

Next year the Skill Sets need to let fans pick their own ticket packages and also set aside seats in the promenade for 5 bucks a piece. They could also sell a “roaming ticket” no seat but you can walk around and stand in centerfield or down each base line sort of a standing room ticket, they need to be creative to win fans back in 2011, time to turn on the Skill Sets charm fella’s

Manager Jerry Manuel, asked if the inaction was a signal the front office was content with the team as presently constituted or if it was an indication the team is not really in the race, wisely did not want to touch the issue.

“That’s a tricky question,” Manuel said. “Trying to catch me, huh?”

Minaya did acknowledge the standings were a factor.

“That played something into it,” the GM said. “When you look at the standings, you just have to be careful.”

I can’t wait until October 4^th for the press conference announcing Wally Backman as the Mets manager for 2011

This team is only acts as  a cohesive bunch when they win, once adversity hits and that by the way is how you measure this worn out word chemistry, the NY Mets turn into the French Army. After wining games, especially at home, shirts are flying out of pants, hats are tilted to the side, players are jumping up and “high fiving” it’s quite the spectacle. But when they lose, and they do this with regularity on the road, their heads are down, shirts stay neatly in their pants, blank stares into space replace high jumping hand slaps. No team in sports acts in such a bi-polar way than the NY Mets.

Now the fans are starting to get like that. Beltran is a “clubhouse cancer” they say, huh, if anything Beltran is a low flame kind of guy, but he produces both with the bat and the glove. He has looked very rusty with both so far since his return from knee surgery but it’s such a small sampling but who knows, maybe he will never regain his old form. The same fans that hate Beltran, have fallen in love with Jeff Francoeur and seem to think he was a big reason the Mets went on a nice run in June, I guess an OPS of .845 is impressive to some. If Beltran had a month like that he’d be an underachiever.

I really don’t get it. The Mets right now are playing their three best outfielders in Bay, Beltran and Pagan. Unfortunately, Bay and Beltran are struggling but what both have over Francoeur is they have a body of work that is All Star caliber, whereas Frenchy has a strong right arm and a great smile. I’d rather take the proven All Stars myself.

Again it comes down to what has been a problem in Flushing for the past couple or three years, this team is made up of some very fragile folks who turn to over cooked spaghetti when times get tough. See,  a guy like Jason Bay has surprised me as he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t make a lot of noise with his mouth and has proven to be capable of stepping up and performing when the spotlight is blinding as we saw when he went to Boston to replace Manny Ramirez. But then again when you have guys like Big Papi, Mike Lowell, Youk and Dustin Pedrioa it helps. The Mets don’t have anyone close to those guys on their team. Sure you have a  fake tough guy like Leader of Men, Alex Cora but there is no one (sadly David Wright isn’t one either) who says” jump on my back boys and I’ll carry you” the closet guy like that amongst the everyday players right now is Angel Pagan. It’s not the loudest guy or the rah-rah guy who fits the leader mold, it’s the guy who knows when to take pitches to get on base, who gets the big base hit with two out man in scoring position but Mets fans seem to think the louder you shout the more productive you are, that’s a fallacy. The People’s Cherce, Jeff Francoeur with all his personality had never carried a team but the guy Mets fans love to hate, Carlos Beltran has.

I can’t figure you people out sometimes.

Since that time, little has changed.

The Mets have remained pretty strong at Citi Field, while cooling off just a bit there, going 11-7 since May 27th, to maintain one of MLB’s better home records at 30-16.

The road however, has continued to be unkind to the Mets, as evidenced by a disastrous west coast trip during which the Mets limped home with just a pair of wins in eleven games.

Since that earlier article, the Mets have improved — but only slightly — away from home, going 14-19, putting them at a still dismal 20-33 on the road, overall.

More importantly, the Mets now find themselves in third place in the National League East, looking up at Philadelphia (2½ games ahead of New York) and Atlanta, which now leads the Mets by 7½ games; and, even fourth-place Florida is breathing down the Mets’ necks, sitting just a half-game back.

While the Mets’ pitching has continued to be as consistent as their good play at home, their offense this month has been as promising as their ability to post road wins. Neither can be relied upon.

Even including a six-game homestand prior to the all-star break, the Mets have won just 4 of their past 17 games, scoring more than three runs just four times (three times not counting a bad call in San Francisco) while getting shut out five times over that stretch.

Most of that damage was out west, where if not for a missed call in the ninth inning of what should have been a Met loss to the Giants, the Mets would have won just a single game during their crucial eleven-game swing that saw the Mets score under three runs in seven games.

Not even the return of Carlos Beltran from the disabled list to start that trip nor Jose Reyes’ “re-return” to the top of the batting order could spark the Mets’ silent bats as they wasted several fine pitching performances. The Mets ended the trip without a run over the past 16 innings in Los Angeles, failing to score after the sixth inning in Saturday’s 3-2, 13-inning loss to the Dodgers before getting blanked 1-0 on Sunday.

It was such a poor road trip that it raises several legitimate questions:

At just a game over .500 (50-49), could the Mets, whose season was fairly solid before the all-star break, but which suddenly appears to be on the brink, be sellers instead of buyers this week, as the July 31st trading deadline fast approaches?

Could and should hitting coach Howard Johnson’s job be in jeopardy? At this point, the former Met slugger who had some nice moments as a player, did after all, hit only .249 over his career, and with the Mets in a deep and prolonged team-wide slump, Johnson has failed to get the Mets’ free-swinging and light-hitting offense to change its approach at the plate, as the strikeouts continue to mount at an alarming rate while being offset by far too few walks.

If the Mets don’t start winning soon, how much long might manager Jerry Manuel stay at the helm of his sinking ship? It’s difficult to blame a manger when players can’t hit. Or, is it? It took Alex Cora -– not Manuel -– to lay into the Mets after a loss in Arizona last week after Cora saw his teammates taking on Manuel’s easy-going persona, literally laughing off another loss as if the losing hasn’t been affecting the team much. Fiery managers win, and guys like Manuel win. So, there’s no right or wrong in terms of style, but it’s become clear that Manuel’s style with this Mets team, isn’t working right now.

If the season doesn’t turn around, will the Wilpons consider moving on from the Omar Minaya regime? After falling short in the 2006 NLCS when they should have probably won the World Series that year, the successive September collapses to blow the NL East each of the next two years, and the injury-plagued and poor season both on the field and from a public relations standpoint last year (right, Adam Rubin?), should Minaya be given yet another reprieve if the Mets aren’t at least playing meaningful games during the file week of the season, let alone if the Mets miss the playoffs for a fourth straight season? Minaya has made plenty of good moves, but he’s also left too many holes in the roster, and the underachieving results –- despite having one of the highest annual payrolls in MLB –- speak for themselves.

And, finally, although there have been several different pieces in the past few years placed around the core that has remained, are that core, along with the accompanying compliments simply a mentally fragile team? We’ve seen the Mets produce over the past five seasons when the pressure hasn’t been great. But, when the pressure’s been on, we’ve seen the Mets play tighter than a drum and thus become their own biggest obstacle to achieving success. Game 7 against St. Louis in the 2006 NLCS, and letting the Phillies catch them twice the next two Septembers. Folding like a house of cards instead of at least trying to fight through their myriad of injuries last year. And, now this year, playing well at the friendly confines of Citi Field, yet playing poorly on the road, to the tune of just two series wins (against two last-place American League teams) in 17 road series.

And, let’s throw in one more while we’re at it… how do the Mets’ medical and training staffs remain employed? With all of the misdiagnosing and mishandling of injuries last year, Beltran and Reyes, among others, again missed significant time this year, and now John Maine is out for the season. The only groups who are wrong more often while still keeping their jobs are weather people and at least this year, several MLB umpires.

After a horrid western trip, the Mets will be happy to get back home, but it won’t get a lot easier, as they’ll host the first-place Cardinals on Tuesday. After Arizona then visits Flushing, it’s back on the road to Atlanta and Philadelphia for a couple of three-game sets.

Unless the Mets can bring their Citi Field game to places like that, they’ll continue to travel on a literal road to nowhere and raise a lot of questions as to where others in the organization might be headed.

About last night:

So how many folks suffered a sprain or broken leg jumping back on the Johan Santana bandwagon?  I guess he’s back to being the Ace of the staff eh?

Funny I’m hearing any of the Carlos Beltran’ range is shot talk either ?

And how about Angel Pagan playing a mean right field? Let me help you with those bags Mr. Francoeur!

Even though Jerry Manuel was tossed from the game in the second inning, we still were treated to some “Jerry Ball” in the 8^th inning. With the Mets up 2-1, Jose Reyes leads off with a walk off Vicente (Jimmy “Super Fly” Snuka look a like) Padillia. Reyes procedes to steal 2^nd base. Luis Castillo then walks as well, so maybe the Mets are getting set for that elusive big inning we al have been waiting for. But hold on there you Earl Waever devotees, J-Man will have none of that big inning stuff, no way. From the bowels of Dodger Stadium, the Gansta’ sends word to Dave Jauss the pretend manager, to have Angel Pagan sacrifice the runners over. Pagan by the way has a .940 OPS with runners on base and an even more impressive 1.072 OPS with runners in scoring position. Some where in a retirement home in Florida, Earl Weaver lit up a Raleigh and muttered, “what a fuckin’ moron”

Not to be outdone, St Joseph of Torre decided to go reliever for batter in the inning helping the Mets and the struggling Jason Bay break the game open via Bay’s three run double. My eyes were bleeding after that inning.

Darryl Strawberry wants this current Mets team to turn back the clock and play like the 86ers. It’s a nice thought but it’ll never happen. This group is too fragile psychologically. When the going is good, they are all smiles and back slaps, but as soon as adversity rears it’s ugly head, they dive under the bed instead of meeting it head on. Part of it is the makeup of the team and part of it is the manager who plays not to lose (as we saw in last nights 8^th inning) Players are too cautious especially the relievers as the slightest slip could cost you a job. The front office takes a big brunt of this as well by telling the world that the team is solvent but still won’t pay off  or trade off non productive players. A big move for this organization is to DFA Fernando Nieve and bring up Manny Acosta. Then when Nieve clears waivers, they will resign him and send him to Buffalo and bring him back up sometime in August. So predictable.  The team mirrors it’s owner, it talks a good fight but lacks the balls to back it up.

Let’s hope Big Pelf fixed whatever was broken and pitches a gem today in LA LA Land