I don’t know if you heard but the Mets are rebuilding…………shhhhhhhhhhhhhh keep it on the downlow.

Rod Barajas has been emancipated and is on his way home to LA and the team he rooted for as a boy, the Hollywood Bums. This wavier deal works out for everyone as Barajas had a great month or two as a Met and Josh Thole has earned an everyday promotion with Hank White as the sage back up. Too bad Barajas couldn’t sneak Ollie Perez in his suitcase.

Apparently there is a bit of dissension in the Mets clubhouse. First, a few players were upset with HoJo taking them to task and now when Barajas was waving bye-bye, an unnamed Mets player wished he was joining him. When “One Met says” and “an unidentified player” show up, you know the end is near.

“Dant-dadant-dadant-dant-dant, dant-dadant-dan-da” (Flag of Victory) KINER’S KORNER is back!!!!!! Pay attention kids, pay attention!!!!!!

F-Mart is hurt again (you don’t say?) what makes me happy about this is at 52 years old, I’m in better shape than the 21 year old Martinez.

Good bye Sweet Lou, you had a great run.

Vin Scully will be back for another season so that means at least another year of late nights for me watching and listening to Dodgers games via Extra Innings.

Tired of railing against this organization, who again screwed over the Mets fans by playing last night’s game in the rain, which made the field conditions so dicey that even Joe Morgan could see it was stupid to play with puddles (which I named Lake Wilpon) in the infield. How about poor ol’ Luis Castillo? He thinks Jerry Manuel put him in the lineup last night to boost the offense, when in reality management forced Manuel to put Gimp in the game hoping he’d break an ankle on that marsh of an infield.

Joe DeMayo put on his investigative fedora and found out that word on the street is the Mets will sign Matt Harvey, Greg Peavey and Drew Martinez. It may take a lot of these to get the deals done though.

Why wouldn’t the Mets pick up Jose Reyes option for 2011? You’re not going to trade him off this season as his trade value is not very strong and you have no one to replace him at short stop. The guy that has me concerned is David Wright, whose roller-coaster season is the ultimate head scratcher.  When Wright is on, there aren’t many better than him in baseball but when he falls into these awful funks at the plate as he is now, (how far outside of home plate can you stand that you’re not out of the batter’s box?) and you fuse that with the general malaise over this team, it makes for a toxic stew that pushes the fan base over the edge. Part of Wright’s problem, in my view, is he tries to hard. It seems he takes it like if he doesn’t do it, no one else will. What he lacks is a mentor, and I’ve mentioned this numerous times, Wright still misses Cliff Floyd terribly. Wright needs a veteran player who has been around the block a time or two who he can talk to and who can be honest with him when he fucks up. HoJo is the favorite uncle who takes Wright to Nathan’s and a ride on the Cyclone and gets him a candy apple for the ride home. Maybe David needs some tough love to straighten himself out. I’d love to get inside his head for a moment to find out how he really feels about the direction of this organization and if he wants to be a long term member of the Mets family.

As a Mets fan and as someone who has watched him beat the Mets ass for years, I should hate Chipper Jones and not give a shit if he comes back from knee surgery. But I can’t. I admire the shit out of him as he took everything the Mets fans threw at him and gave it back. With a smile. He kicked our ass for years, but I still have to tip my Mets cap at him if this is Larry’s Last Stand.

Has there ever been two groups so closely aligned but such poplar opposites like Mets fans and Mets management? The one thing both groups have in common is they both root for the Mets to win (as inept as ownership is they want to win, they don’t have a clue as to how to accomplish that but they want to win) and that’s where the similarities end.

Mets fans are furious with the way this team has gone into the shitter on this past road trip. If your fans are going to stay up until 1AM then goddamnit we want a win. But with the anemic offense and the bumbling managerial tactics, this was one of the worst west cost trips ever for the Mets.

When the team left Flushing after losing four of six games to the Reds and Braves, we figured the All-Star break would be a good tonic for the club to recharge and get rested for the second half before the start of an 11 game West Coast road trip. I think we all felt if the Mets could go 6-5 on this trip that would be great. The road has been a house of horrors for the team all year but this would be a test for the team and a good trip would solidify the Mets as a true contender in the NL. Who knew that the 11 game trip would turn into Armageddon!  

So from optimism, we Mets fans have turned into an angry mob, something we’ve gotten very good at the last couple of seasons, and we want a body. Someone has to be sacrificed, but who?

There’s talk of Howard Johnson getting either fired or reassigned in the organization. HoJo is a Mets lifer but quite frankly firing HoJo is just window dressing. In fact firing any of the coaches makes no sense as it’s not coaches’ fault this team can’t hit. So that leaves the manager.

If any coach gets the boot, and Jerry Manuel gets to stay on then that is just an insult to Mets fans and a good reason for them to keep their credit cards in their pocket and to stay off Mets.com to but tickets. The news I would like to see today is Ken Oberkfell named as interim manager, then reassign HoJo to manage Buffalo and leave the rest of the staff intact.

After the season, then it will be time for an organization wide colonic. Reassign Omar Minaya to head of scouting, in fact give his a fancy title like Czar of Player Development and Scouting and make it like it’s a real important high fluent position that will shape the feature of the franchise and then go out find a GM who is not locked in the dark ages. A guy who understands that statistical analysis is a must for success but can also meld that in with good old fashion boots on the ground scouting.    

Seems to me, Bobby Valentine is kind of forcing the Mets hand to make some sort of move by throwing his hat in the ring to succeed Lou Pinella in Chicago.  Most Mets fans are split between Bobby V and Wally Backman as to who they’d like see manage the Mets and with BV open politicking for the Cubs job he’s let it be known he’s more than ready for a high profile managing position.

I work in a satellite office of the Agency I work for so when the big brass come for a visit it’s not to see if we have enough Deer Park for our water cooler no, it’s usually for something we fucked up because when you do something right, it never gets acknowledged, but when they do come a callin’ they always bring coffee and donuts. It kind of softens the blow of getting our ass reamed out. Yesterday the Mets Brass led by the biggest Ass decided to go to Atlanta to tear the manger, coaches and players a new asshole but not only did those folks mentioned leave with their rectums intact, the cheap fuck Jeffey didn’t even bring donuts.

Speculation ran rampant through the Land of Blue and Orange that Jerry Manuel, HoJo and Old School Werthen were ready to get pink slipped because why else would the Little Shithead make a trip down South right. Well, not only did no one lose their job, the manager displayed what he thinks of the owner and baseball ops when he came out of his office after the 90 minute meeting and was as asked if he still had a job by replying “I still got my uniform on right” and then gave that laugh that only J-Man can. Right there an owner with balls would have said to take the fucking uni off and go home.

Not only that, Jeffey Skill Sets didn’t even address the team. It seem most players either didn’t know or care that the owner, the GM and Asst’ GM (John Rico) were in the house. It would have made a huge statement if Jeffey called Oliver Perez out in the clubhouse and handed him his unconditional release and then look a GMJ and tell him “Oh and here is one for you too” and then give Jeff Francouer a look and say “you’re lucky that F-Mart kid is made of paper mache or I’d have one for you too” but again that would take a man with balls, with conviction, with leadership three things non-existent in the Mets organization. By the way, good seats still available for this weekends Subway Series at $iti Field

One good thing came out the pow-wow was sending Jenry Mejia down to the minors to stretch out his arm to join the starting rotation sometime this summer. Another experiment gone wrong.

Want a job at WFAN ? Requirments are you must have absolutely no knowledge of sports. Last night on Twitter, Sal Licatta, who’s job it is to fetch Mike Francesa his Diet Cokes, Tweeted that the Mets and Highlanders should make a deal, the Mets send Vitamin Pedro to the Bronx for Ramiro Pena. This caused quite the shitstorm as Mets fans gave Licatta a verbal beat down, and unlike his Pompus Ass Boss, Licatta could not hand wave them away. Stick to being Francesa’ toady Sal.

Less than three weeks to go before opening day and we can only hope the baseball gods gives weather like today. How does 70 degrees sound ? So today seemed like a good day to take a look at what the 25 man roster for the Mets could look like on April 5^th.

1^st base

Daniel Murphy is making Omar’ job very difficult by having a lousy spring, while Ike Davis has done everything short of healing Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran of their woes. With both those bats out of the lineup to start the year, it will be very interesting to see if the club is bold enough to give Davis the opening day start.  If Davis does make the big club does Murphy stay as a lefty bat off the bench over Mike Jacobs?

2^nd base

For all the shit I give Luis Castillo he is producing offensively, Alex Cora will be his understudy

3^rd base

D-Wright. ‘Nuff said

Shortstop

Just give the damn job to Ruben Tejada already. Let him play as much as possible at the position to be ready for opening day. Alex Cora is what he is a backup. Between Tejada and Castillo, Cora will get enough playing time to be effective.

Catcher

Barajas/Blanco.

LF

Jason Bay

CF

Here is where it get interesting again. As great as Fernando Martinez has played this spring and by the way, if there is any positives coming out of St. Lonesome it’s we have discovers life on the farm. The death of the Mets minor league system has been greatly exaggerated. Maybe this is F-Marts coming out party but with his history of injury as much as the Mets would love to give him the CF job until Carlos B comes back, it may be better for him to go to Buffalo and get 400 AB’s. It’s also easier to send Martinez down as both Angel Pagan and Gary Mathews Jr are producing this spring. 

RF

For all the positive influence stories about Frenchie so far this spring has anyone noticed he’s been awful at the plate? Good thing he has endeared himself with Wright and HOJO otherwise the discussion would be keeping F-Mart over Frenchie in right.

Tomorrow I’ll look at the pitching and bench. Busy day today.

Lot’s of noise over Jose Reyes being interrogated by the FBI, concerning Dr. Tony Galea , performance enhancer pusher to the stars, who is under investigation for trying to smuggle HGH into the U.S.

Reyes went to Dr. Galea to take part in his experimental procedure of plasma replacement therapy, hoping it would cure his leg problems last season. Reyes was accompanying by his agent Peter Greenberg and the Mets, even if they weren’t exactly on board with Reyes heading north for this treatment, stand by their player.

Of course the fact that Dr. Galea was trying to smuggle HGH into the country using his assistant as a mule is a big story but because it’s Jose Reyes and Legion of Idiots (a/k/a the Mets front office) it becomes a bigger story.

We’re starting to see that Tony Bernazard had more influence in the organization than he had any right to have. From John Harpers Daily News column today it seems Tony B strong armed his hitting philosophy of having Mets hitters concentrate on hitting to the opposite field, a philosophy that worked as well as his motivational speeches. When the season ended, it looks like Howard Johnson flexed his mussels a bit (it helps that HOJO and D-Wright are joined at the hip) and has pushed his way of hitting on the Mets as a more aggressive type of hitting. Wright of course is on board with this as is Frenchie who let Jerry Manuel know that if he had to hit 80 pitches a day to RF he won’t be coming into camp until the mandatory date of March 2. The revelation of the Bernazard way of hitting, is one more indictment of Omar Minaya’ reign of error. 

It’s March 1^st Do you know who your set up man is?

 

The one ray of sunshine in this period of bad baseball the Mets have played is the emergence of Bobby Ojeda finally telling it like it is.

 

I wrote back in the winter when Ojeda was hired as the pre and post game analyst on SNY that it would be one more strong voice n Mets telecasts. Ojeda was a bit shaky in the beginning and then he went into shill mode for awhile with his candy coating of the the constant losing and bad baseball we’ve seen this summer by chirping the company line “but the injuries it’s all the injuries fault” but the last month or so something happened to Bobby O, something good. He got fed up like the rest of us with the piss poor performance of this team.

 

This reach a point after the game Angel Pagan forgot how many out there were and got his sorry ass picked off base. Ojeda for the first time this season, took off the velvet gloves and tore into the team they way I knew he could. Ojeda’s best line of the night was “If I were the manager I’d tell this team, don’t bother bringing your golf clubs to St Lucie next spring”

 

In order for this team to really show a turnaround there has to be a purge of the coaching staff, even the beloved HoJo needs to go. It’s not all the coach’s fault but this coaching staff has been here for the past years of suckitude and just to change things up they need to go. J-Man it looks like will be back next season for the most part due to he works cheap, but he must instill into the heads of his knucklehead players they better be ready for boot camp next March. What this team needs is a training camp that would make John Torterella’ Rangers camp look like ballet school.     

 

Maybe management lets John Ricco get more of his input into building the roster for next year as he is at least a guy you would take a new approach to adding to the roster and let Omar go and do some scouting. Some folks in the know say the Skill Sets love that Rico is more of a new wave front office type who uses stats and charts to compare players so if you can meld Rico’ way with the old school way of Omar Minaya maybe this train wreck can get back on track.   

 

I agree with most that Kayne West is a first class douchebag but if the Highlanders or Phucking Phillies win the World Series I might pull a “Kayne” when they have the trophy ceremony complete with a bottle of Hennesey in my hand and my jeans pulled down to my knee:

 

“Y’all aint shit my boyz in Queens be hurtin like a muther fucker. When we get healthy we gunna pay back all y’all sorry ass’s PEACE OUT! SHOUT OUT TO THE SKILL SETS!!!!! JEFFY BBBBBBBOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY  J-GANGSTA and OMAR M!!!!!!!!”

 

I feel bad for the younger Mets fans, you kids in your twenties and thirties because you have heard about the losing and the angst and the despair of Metsfandom and I’m sure in all your smart ass way you all thought back in the beginning of the millennium  “that was the past old man, these Mets will be different” Well to that I say,  Welcome to the 70’s. If you make a trip to $iti Field before the end of the season, look around at all the empty seats, the shuttered concession stands, the fans sitting one per section, that’s how I and most of us middle aged Mets fan grew up. The only difference we walked around in stagnant puddles of water and over flowing toilets of Shea Stadium, ahhhhhh those were the days. But through all that we stayed loyal and stuck with our team. Now it’s easy for you youngsters to look to the Northern boro and see Paradise, but I tell you this, the team in the Bronx once went through a stretch in the mid-1960 to the mid-1970’s where they sucked and as bad as you can suck and still have people care about you. They had such hard times times drawing people to there stadium that did not seem very Cathedral like in thelate 60’s- early 70’s in fact it was more of run down tenement. Now you won’t hear these stories on Highlander run television or radio but it’s all true I tell ya, it‘s all true, back then the Mets were all that and a bag of chips. Now I’d like to say the tide will turn once again but I don’t have that much faith in ownership of this team to turn it around but I do hold out hope they will surprise me. I saw this organization win a World Series 40 years ago and at the age of 11 I thought that was the start of something great and as bad as some years have been in Flushing, when things are good here there is nothing better, and that’s what keeps me keeping on rooting for the New York Mets.

 

Don’t forget Amazin’ Tuesday tonight at 7PM at Two Boots Tavern   384 Grand St NYC