The Mets get hammered in this town for a multitude of offenses and in most instances, the bludgeoning is warranted but when it comes to the decision by J-Man to work Jose Reyes into the 3 spot of the lineup, the criticism is not only unwarranted but it’s also senseless.

In today’s NY Post, avid Mets hater Joel Sherman (there are lot’s of Mets haters in MSM, Jon Heyman, Bill Madden, Tom Verducci and of course their Emperor Mike Francesa) has a full page column today take the Met to task for batting Reyes third, even though he admits it’s out of necessity and just something Manuel pulled out of his ass:

 The shift is a reaction to Carlos Beltran’s knee surgery, which will cost him at least a month of the season. Without Beltran to hit third, Manuel fears the lineup lacks length if he simply has David Wright bat third and Jason Bay fourth. The order would dip precipitously at No. 5, likely with Daniel Murphy. In addition, Manuel wants to preserve Reyes’ legs and feels batting him third will translate to fewer steal attempts to limit the risk of having runners thrown out in front of your best RBI men, Wright and Bay.

Sherman goes on in the article to give his hypothesis on why this is bad idea, but gives no solution, which of course there isn’t any. If Carlos Beltran were of sound mind and knee, this would not even be an issue but as we know the best laid plans of mice and Mets never go as planed and so they have this situation to make the best of the lineup until Beltran gets back.

Sherman lays out the answer to the why part of Reyes hitting third when he mentions Daniel Murphy hitting fifth. Murphy is not a #5 hitter. He’s a perfect #2 but the problem is Luis Castillo is also a perfect #2. And there is the problem; the Mets have two #2 and two #1 in Reyes and Angel Pagan.

From the rumbling’s from St. Lonesome, Beltran is progressing nicely and should just miss just the first month of the season (I know, I know you’ll believe it when you see it) so when he comes back Reyes moves back to the #1 spot and Beltran back to #3 and the team will live happily ever after. I hope.

3 days ’till pitchers and catchers

So how did you spend your Valentine’s  Day ? Me? I spent mine at Madison Square Garden with my three Valentines watching the NY Rangers play their last game before the Olympic break.

Needless to say, I had a better Valentines Day than this guy, who supposedly was proposing to his girlfriend. I’ve read where this may have been hoax, but I can tell you at the time it happened The Garden was buzzing for awhile over this rejection. Hoax or not it boosted my standing at home as my wife said to me “As bad as you are at least you proposed that right way”

In case you were wondering it was New Year’s Eve 1984 at a restaurant at the stroke of midnight on my knee in front of a bunch of strangers.

Some things  just amaze me like who gets a job sticking pimentos into olives, or how can people sit for hours watching cars make continuous left turns but what has me stuns me the most is Bob Raissman actually gets paid to write the crap he does. I’d call Raissman a horse’s but that would an insult to the horse and it’s ass.

After seeing that Forbes has ranked the Mets as the 9^th most valuable brand in sports and the 2^nd most valuable in MLB (guess who’s 1^st ?) it makes it tough to take those “the Mets are broke” stories “ seriously.

So let me get this straight, the first base job is an open competition but Luis Castillo has a strangle hold on 2^nd base. I need to lie down.

MetsGrrl makes the point that the Mets do not need some schlock character race to enthuse the Mets faithful. Of course I agree 100 % and her take on the whole $iti Field experience is right on, especially the playing of Sweet Caroline in the 8th inning, which to the Mets fans credit is booed lustfully when it’s played. If I had a say in it, I’d play Kick Out The Jams by The MC-5 as the 8^th inning song.

Last night’s hour long PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL show, went by in a flash thanks our own Yankee-Doodle, Michael calling in and Matt Silverman coming on to talk about the ’69 Mets. Some of the topics I wanted to get to in the opening of the show got pushed back as I went on a bit of a Fernando Martinez rant, so I guess I’ll touch on those here.

By the way I got to see F-Mart’s AB last night with the bases loaded and two out in the Dominican Republic v. Venezuela Caribbean World Series game. Martinez did not get a hit in the AB but it was an impressive turn at the plate that lasted 10 pitches until he hit a foul pop that was caught by the Venezuelan right fielder.

I’m not anti-Fernando in any way; I just want the kid to stop acing like he’s a 27 year old journeyman who has never gotten a chance and be the 20 year old who plays so well this spring that he beats out Angel Pagan to be Carlos Beltran’s understudy.

Looks like me and Orlando Hudson have something in common; we both will never play second base for the Mets. So after all the debate about second base for the Mets what’s done is done, Luis Castillo is the Mets second baseman for better or worse till death due us part (or until Reese Havens can prove he can play at the big league level) for 2010.

What is the under/over on how many times Gary Cohen or Howie Rose say “Just out of the reach of Castillo, for a base hit” this season? Let’s set the number at 75.

The last place in the world I thought I’d ever see the name Municipal Credit Union would be on a ball park marquee.  I wonder if those of us with accounts at MCU will get a discount on Cyclones tickets.

I’m very happy for Nelly Figs and his great performance the other day for DR in the Caribbean Series but it wasn’t like he was pitching against the Phillies or Highlanders, it was against Mexico and 45 year old  270 lb Vinny Castila, The Big Fajita!

Maybe things are not as bleak for the Mets as we think. FOX has the Amazin’s scheduled for broadcast 8 times this coming season and one of the games is a prime timer versus the Bronx Bastards.

Maple Street Press is coming out with it’s Mets Annual in a few weeks and there will be a section on the Mets Blogosphere, that will include yours truly.

Matt Silverman is putting out a revised paperback version of his book “100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die” 

Listening to Jon Heyman on WFAN he says the Angels will pick up close to $20 mil of the $23 mil owed to Mathews but Luis Castillo is NOT part of the deal. 

The only thing that sucks more than Mathews Jr coming here is that Castillo is not going to Anaheim.

Much a fucking do about nothing.

I have a nasty chest cold today and feel like shit so I’m hoping the Mets keep their trade hand pat as I’d hate for them to pull off a blockbuster today like getting Albert Puljos and Adam Wainright for Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez and Tony Bernazard’s wife beater, as my energy level as now at dragging ass.

One announcement before I mainline Vick’s Vapor Rub, the Mets signed Japanese RHP and Tommy John surgery survivor Ryota Igarashi. Igarashi, 30 will be given the set up tole to Frankie Rodz to lose this spring as he possesses a 90+ FB and a killer spilt/sinker (or so they say)

Igarashi will also represent the Mets at the Nathans’ Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island on July 4th.

I really need to lay down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know about you but I’m getting a massive headache trying to decipher what the hell the Mets plan is for the off season.

Omar has gone on TV and print preaching pitching and defense and I scream at the TV YES OMAR YES! !!!  then I read the tons of minutia coming out of Indianapolis and everything about the Mets is contradictory.

The Mets are hot for Matt Holiday and John Lackey,

Then we hear, the Mets won’t be spending on big ticket free agents.

Luis Castillo has been offered to every team but Miguel’s Taqueria softball team. If you can’t move Castillo then you have to buy out his contract. I’m not a big Castillo fan and I would love to see him moved but you have to admit the way the Mets are treating him sucks. If my job treated me like this I’d at the union hall filing a fucking grievance. Either trade the man or grow a pair of balls Jeffey and buy him out you little shit.

Last night I watched Mets Hot Stove and the great Bobby Ojeda when asked by Kevin Burkhart what the Mets biggest need is this off season, Bobby O said “pitching, pitching and more pitching. Then when the cut to Indianapolis, and Chris Carlin interviewed Bobby Cox who was asked about his suplus of starting pitching. Cox said “you hate to move a starter because you never have enough pitching” Now they know that, I know that, you know that, all of baseball knows that. Do the Mets know that?

The last time I was this discouraged as a Mets fan, Lorinda de Roulet were trying to figure out how to clean baseballs and Bebe and Whitney de Roulet were strutting their debutant ass’s through out Shea trying out as ball washers.

Who knew Omar Minaya was a fan of Gossip Girl ? Reports say (and get ready to hear all kinds of bullshit moves bandied about from the MSM as they justify why they are sitting in a hotel airport in Chicago for the next few days ) that the Mets will move Luis Castillo to the Cubs, for Milton “Yahtzee” Bradley who the Mets would flip to Toronto for 1B Lyle Overbay.

Sure looks good here as Overbay has some pop and he can play 1B until the next great Mets Prospect, Ike Davis is ready to take over 1^st base for the next 15 yrs but the problem is it’s such a good trade for the Mets it won’t happen.  Yahtzee is owed $21 mil over the next two seasons while Castillo is owed $12 mil the only bargain here is Overbay at the one year price of $7mil, so either the Mets or Cubbies will have to stuff a lot of Dead President into one or both player’s pockets to make the deal. So is it worth it to have Overbay play over Daniel Murphy at 1B at the cost (with Overbay’s salary and at least half of Castillo contract) $13 mil? I think you know my answer.

But the Mets are on the right track here as they look like they’d love to move Castillo but instead of the O-Dog I’d set my sites on signing Placido Polanaco myself.

I did not get to hear Omar, Jeffey and Dave The Lawyer on with the Sports Bloviator last night and I can’t listen to the replay at work because of the filters on our computers, so I am relying on Mathew Cerrone’s recap which is court stenographer accurate.

The first thought in my mind when I heard the Gang of Three were going on ‘FAN with Francesa was how could I get some C5 explosive into that studio. The only nit wits missing from that group were Glen Beck, Momar Kadafi, and Vince the ShamWow guy for it to be a true Carnival of Douchebags.  

So let’s look at some of the highlights of this day of damage control Skill Sets style:

Only two coaches got whacked, Alomar Sr. and Luis Alicea and they were the only two who didn’t have anything to do with the season of suck. Razor Shines, the most inept third base coach since Wendel Kim, not only stays but he becomes Manuel’s confidant. But according to J-Man, Shines was responsible for the awful base running and for not making Daniel Murphy into an acceptable outfielder, but he’s a good baseball man so he gets to stay. Alomar Sr. gets the boot because it’s his fault that Luis Castillo is a broken down pedestrian second baseman. Christ, my head hurts already! As for Alicea , I wouldn’t know Alicea if he were sitting here next to me. So much for flying under the radar.

Jeffey apologized up and down for the awful season and said time and again that injuries were not to blame and that the lack of fundamentals were front and center a huge problem. He also said that the problem stems from the minor league system and the organization has to do a much better job of preparing the players on the farm so they can step in when the big league team calls them up. Well, knock me over with a Wilson Valdez’ bat. It’s good to see that Jeffey is reading the blogs and finally getting reliable information, especially the soon to be hiring of Wally Backman, to manage Binghamton.

The money issue came up and Jeffey claims the Mets will have plenty of bucks this off season to tantalize free agents. That’s great, but just because you have money doesn’t means you know what to do with it.  I give you Mets fan exhibit A, the Oliver Perez contract. Jeffey also was proud to say the Mets went over slot with first round pick Steve Matz by giving him a bonus of $895K. That’s great, but now with the 7^th pick in this years draft I want to see if the Skill Sets go over slot as they are sure to get a top talent to drop in their lap due to signabilty. It will be put up or shut up time next summer.

I’ll give Jeffey and his stooges this much, they learned the lesson from 2007 when they left Willie Randolph hanging in the wind for a couple of days before the came out and said he’d be back and addressed the collapse. This year they were out in force and addressed everything that needed to be addressed. The key is money talks and bullshit walks and with all the bullshit that comes from the Mets corporate office, the stuffed shirts in charge must go thru a lot of shoes.

The plan sounds good but it will take a big time move to prove to me they Skill Sets are sincere and intelligent enough to pull this off. Bring me Roy Halliday and I’ll be conveniced.

Watching Jeffey on SNY during his presser and with Chris Carlin, I’m pretty certain he never took a public speaking course in college. The guy is soooooo uncomfortable in front of the camera and reading his prepared statement was as painful to watch as it was for him to give it.. He has the personality of stale Wonder Bread. Crack a fucking smile will ya ! and stop the Elmer Fudd impersonation. Besides the on field work that needs to be done, the organization needs to hire a front man with some personality, some pizzaz. Not only would hiring Bobby Valentine bring that but he also brings a brilliant baseball mind as well. Sure the Skill Sets love Jay Horowitz like a son but it’s time to get someone in here who will push the Mets agenda a little more forceful. If you have seen Giants mouth piece Pat Hanlon on Giants All Access, that’s the kind of PR flack the Mets need.

The amazing thing about the 2009 Mets is, as bad as they are, they’re down right fascinating. There are Mets stories today dealing with the off the field machinations of the ball club that  make the loss to the Curly W’s in DC last night an after thought. But this much is true after last night, as much as Luis Castillo has vindicated himself this year by staying healthy and producing offensively he has to go and go soon. Castillo’ defense is embarrassingly bad, he has the range of an oak tree and moves to his left less than Fox News. No matter how much is left on his contract he either has to be traded and have the Mets eat some money or just buy him out altogether.

On to the Mets news of the day:

Matt Pignataro of Seven Train To Shea spoke to an unnamed NL West exec who claims the Mets problem is they have too many Latin coaches. Now to me, the exec who said that should be fired as the team that is paying him has more problems that Mets have right now. If the exec said that the Mets minor league coaches were awful instructors and do a poor job of  preparing the farm hands to excel and move up the organization system and make a contribution to the big league team, he’d have my full endorsement. To bring up the ethnicity of the coaches is flat out ignorant. Omar Minaya and his staff has not failed because they are Latinos, it’s more the fact that don’t have a grasp for how to build a team and an inability to teach the proper fundamentals of baseball to the farm hands. What we are seeing now with the recent firings of minor league managers and instructors, is the organization admitting that the system is broke and needs a be repaired. That is a step in the right direction. I don’t care if your from Mars, if you can teach guys to go from first to third  on a hit RF and to hit cut off men you’re my guy.

How great would have been if instead of announcing his new gig at ESPN Bobby Valentine was brought out at $iti Field this weekend as the new manager of the NY Mets? BV’s is great on TV and by joining Baseball Tonight, he just might save that sinking ship but his real talent is turning underachievers into winners and he’s not afraid to call guys out and to remove the malingers who just take up valuable space on a 25 man roster. One of Bobby’s favorite sayings and one I use constantly is “Proper Preparation, Prevents Piss Poor Performance” and if that doesn’t sum up the 2009 Mets nothing does.

If you’re a football fan check out NY Football where I will be posting a couple of times a week on the Giants and happenings around the NFL.

I can not wait until Friday night!!!!!!

After giving up a double and a walk, Parnell found himself in a world of trouble. Sam Fuld fouled off two bunt attempts trying to move the runners over. With a two strike count, Fuld then hit away and got a ground ball past the range challenged Luis Castillo to load the bases.

Here Lou Pinella blundered by taking Carlos Zambrano out of the game. Not only was Z pitching a fine game, from hearing the list of proposed pinch hitters on the Cubs bench by Gary Cohen, Zambrano is arguably a better choice with the stick. But Sweet Lou, who looks like he can’t wait to go home to Tampa and the racetrack, chose Mike Fontenot to pinch hit.  Parnell got behind 2-1 on Fontenot and here to me was the most impressive part of Parnell’ start last night, it was the seventh inning and he was still throwing gas, hard enough gas that hitter were not getting around on his fastball. After fouling off a pitch to even the count at 2-2, Parnell threw a beautiful slider that Fontenot chased and swung and missed for strike three and a huge first out K.

Up stepped Fukudome, who would end a tough night going 0 for 5. Now Fukudome had seen Parnell three times prior to this at bat and Parnell had gotten him out on a K, bunt 1-3, and a line out so again the advantage here was to Fukudome with the bags juiced, 1 out and having seen the whole Parnell repertoire of pitches. Again, to Jerry Manuel’ credit, he did not budge from the dugout as he left his young righty who has struggled as a starter try to find a way to get out of this jam.

Fukudome took no time it showing his hand in this at bat as he was aggressive from the first pitch, swinging his home run swing on a fastball but he missed for strike one, which as we all know the most important pitch of an at bat. Parnell then missed with a couple of breaking balls down and in for balls to fall behind 2-1, by the way an outstanding job by Omir Santos after getting crossed up setting up outside and Parnell delivering inside making a backhand block of a pitch that would have scored a run. The 2-1 pitch was Parnell doing what all great pitchers do, he challenged the hitter with his best pitch, the fastball at 97 mph and Fukudome could not catch up with it, and fouled it off to even the count 2-2. Parnell then came back with a pitch down and in again and Fukudome who was looking fastball got all messed up, swung and missed for strike three.

Parnell was one out away from getting out a big league jam. The next batter Ryan Theriot hit a liner right back to Parnell that hit his glove and fell to his feet. Parnell picked it coolly and calmly and threw to first base for the third out leaving to a huge ovation from the $iti Field fans.

In a September of playing out the string this is why we watch Mets baseball. So during the cold winter we can ponder if the Bobby Parnell of the top of the seventh inning on September 4^th can be that Bobby Parnell all season in 2010. As much as we bitch and moan Mets fans about our team, our management, our ownership one thing never waivers, our belief that one day it will all change and turnaround and we will celebrate a championship team. You Gotta Believe? As bad as things are WE ALWAYS BELIEVE!!!!