Have you come to grips with the fact the Mets will not make the post season? I have. I’m not happy about it but it is what it is, the Mets have a big fork sticking out their collective oblique muscle. So that’s why I have gone from being totally pissed off that a team that is in the throws of bankruptcy, the Texas Rangers, are wheelin’ and a dealin’ while the Mets front office is at Jeffey Skill Sets Hamptons beach house walking the shore line with metal detectors looking for loose change.

There isn’t a proposed deal mention about the Mets that makes any sense for Omar (or the Omar like figure running these things these days) to pull the trigger on.:

Octavio Dotel  for LHP Robert Carson. I would love to see Dotel in the Mets over worked and over used bullpen but not for Carson. Carson is just 22 years old and throws a fastball that cuts, slder and  a change up. His has the abilty to change speeds on his fastball from high 80’s to low-mid 90’s. Some scouting reports potray Carson a LOOGY in the bigs or if he continues to grow as a pitcher a back end starter. At this point, it’s a good thing for the Mets to hold on to Carson. If the Pirates would take Eddie Kunz then this would be a great deal for the Mets

Brett Myers for Josh Thole and Bobby Parnell. First off I want no part of Myers and his baggage not only that Ed Wade is out of his fuckng mind if he asked for Thole and Parnell for Myers after giving Lance Berkman to the Highlanders for nothing. If I were the Mets GM and Wade called me with that offer I’d slam the phone down on him.

Carlos Zambrano for Ollie Perez and Lusi Castillo. As per Jon Heyman, Jim Hendry won’t take Castillo in the deal. Even if the Cubs said yes to this it wouldn’t work out financially for the Mets. Z is owed about $55 mil for the next three years, OP and Looie have the Mets in an $18 mil hole for 2011. So as I’ve said many many times it cheaper to DFA both these slugs. If the Mets really wanted to get creative they should revist this deal in the winter and switch Castillo with Frankie Rodriguez and offer that to the Cubs. I guarantee Mets fans will be cursing the K-Rod deal (if they’re not already) starting next year.

I think where some Mets fans miss the point with Mets front office, it’s not that the Mets don’t spend money, they just don’t know how to spend it. That’s why the GM and Manager (because Omar has lost the right to sign another manager) need to be reassigned and younger, hipper more analytical baseball executive needs to be brought in. I would love to see Paul DePodesta brought in or someone like him to go with Omar in his new assignment as Senior of Scouting and Player Development.

Can someone with access to Jerry Manuel , please for the love of God, ask him why he plays Jeff Francoeur every day!

There is nothing easy with these Mets. Johan Santana was vintage Santana last night but no Mets game is complete until we have the late inning Relievers on Parade with your Grand Marshall Jerry Manuel. Instead of a warm up jacket and Mets cap, Manuel should wear blue and orange tuxedo with tails, a top hat and sash.

I won’t say J-Man manages scared but this is the problem when you have a lame duck manager, every game is a referendum on his job. Mets beat Highlanders and I expect Ryan Seacrest to pop up on SNY to say the “the votes are in, and Jerry you are safe to advance to the Phillies series” which of course is 100 times more important than the played out Subway Series . Sure it’s good to beat the Taliban of Baseball but the real enemy is making its way up the Jersey Turnpike for three big games.

You have to be encouraged by the pitching match up for the Mets in this up coming series. First, no John Maine or Ollie Perez as R.A. Dickey and Hisinori Takahashi are both upgrades over those two stumble bums, as Dickey will go against Jamie Moyer and Takahashi gets Joe Blanton, then on Wednesday Big Pelf takes on Sissy-Boy Hamels.

There’s no question the Mets need another starter (Mark Buehrle anyone?) but just the fact that Maine and Perez are out of the rotation is a plus as Dickey and Takahashi can not be as bad or worse than the later two.

I hate talking bad about Joe Morgan, as he is one of my favorite players of all time but between him, John Miller and Orel Hershiser they could make you hate watching baseball. Morgan with his “the more runs you score the better your odds of winning the game” analysis reminds me of Chauncey Gardiner. Maybe if John Miller took time away from looking in the mirror while working on his exaggerated pronunciation of Latin surnames (he had to bring up Carlos Beltran just so he could say Bel-TRAN) he’d have gotten the ground rule right on the overly annoying Francisco Cervelli’ 335 ft single, the orange line is just for show John Mi-LLER. The Bulldog doesn’t annoy me but after Morgan and Miller my head just goes numb.

Could the Mets being getting another break with Luis Castillo sore heel? With Ruben Tejada playing well at Buffalo, trip to the DL for Castillo could force a promotion of Tejada to step into the 2^nd base position and free up Alex Cora to do his leadership thing.

The big story coming out of last nights Mets game is what is the reaction of the other 24 players to the the handling of John Maine. After getting lifted last night after 5 pitches Maine looked like a guy praying for a life line. When the cavalry came to the rescue in the persons of Jerry Manuel and Old School Warthen, instead of being thankful for saving him, Maine gets all pissy with the manager.

After the game and let me say SNY you suck! Why can’t we see Jerry Manuel’s post game presser live? Why do I have to wait through the insufferable Garry Apple to hear the John Maine pitty party that you promoed as must see, if it’s must see then let me fucking see it! I’ll say this, it was worth my wait but I shouldn’t have to wait and after I see and hear Maine’ melt down,  I want to hear Bobby O break it down not Gary Fucking Apple!

Back to Maine, finally J-Man and Old School are starting to take no prisoners with this team and the pitching staff. If J-Man is going to get the boot he’s not going down without a fight. You, David Wright take the day off. What, you don’t agree with that? Too fucking bad, grab some pine.  John Maine, there is either something wrong with your arm or your head and since you couldn’t break a pane of glass in any of your last starts and your delivery was in slow motion so badly that  Old School Warthen asked you if your ok and  you say yeah even though your mechanics and body language say different. In other words John Maine your are a selfish prick. Your whole post game rant was me-me-me-me and that has been a problem around here for too long. Even the golden boy David Wright acted a like a me-me guy when Manuel told him he needed a day off. I think we can all thank Fredi Gonzalez for mangers finally standing up to players and setting them straight.

I also think that closed door meeting with the Mets brass had something to do with this as well. Maybe J-Man told Jeffey and Omar “look if I’m going down then I’m going down with a fight and I’ll do it by any means necessary”

First Manuel pulled Ollie Perez from the rotation then sat Wright down now he’s called out Maine and how about Old School with his quote on Maine being a “habitual liar” when it comes to his health? The gloves are off Mets fans, if J-Man and Warthen are going down then they going down fighting with bare knuckles. It’s about time.

Manuel and Old School know the next six games will decided their fate. 0-6 and it’s over, 4-2 their safe, 3-3 a toss up, 6-0 then we may look back at that meeting in Atlanta might as the turning point of the season .

Tonight the Mets will honor the 2000 NL Champs.  There will be a pre game ceremony attended by Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo, Turk Wendell, John Franco and Rick Reed. One other player will make an appearance, Mike Hampton. I’m just hoping the fans attending tonight’s game don’t embarrass themselves and the fan base by booing Hampton. I wasn’t happy when he decided to leave after one year as a Met but he was the MVP of the 2000 NLCS and by leaving the draft pick the Mets received was used to draft David Wright, so just for those two contributions he should get applause.  

How Bobby Valentine is not invited to tonight’s game is a disgrace and shows the short sightedness and pettiness of the Mets ownership. What are they afraid of Mets fans actually cheering at $iti Field?

Castillo to the Rox? Does that mean Daniel Murphy to second base? HELL YEAH!!!!

Yesterday I pulled a Mike Francesa as I was “In da cawh” listening to Howie and Wayne doing the Mets game on radio. I don’t listen to the Mets radio team very much as I’m either glued to the TV or at the game (I’m not one to listen to the game when I’m there I never understood that as everything you need to know is right in front of you) so I tend to forget how much Howie is one of us. Gary Cohen, of course is one of us as well and he sometime shows his frustration during a telecast or two but Howie was beside himself watching Ollie Perez throw a baseball yesterday (I refuse to call what he did pitching)

It was very cold and very windy yesterday and Howie and Wayne made a point to let us know how much the elements plus Perez’ inability to throw a strike, was putting the Mets defense in an uncomfortable spot. Howie painted a picture of infielders walking around the dirt between pitches to keep warm and to kill the boredom of long counts and walks, and of Ike Davis sticking both hands under his arms to stay warm. Both announcers made it known that the were fed up watching and detailing the play by play of another start of suckitude by Perez. From the derisive cheers when an actual strike was tossed by OP, I’d say the paying customers felt the same way. So what to do with Ollie Perez.

Well, forget about The Skill Sets releasing OP, not with a $12 mil salary for this season and (GULP!) next and there is no one in the baseball world stupid enough to take on that contract since the only dumb ass that would pay Perez that kind of money is already his employer. The easiest move is to replace OP with either Hisanori Takahashi or Raul Valdes in the rotation and move OP to the pen. The best move would be to just put Perez on waivers, let him go unclaimed and then assign him to Buffalo. That move would work if we knew when Ryota Igarhashi is coming back from a hammy strain but there’s been no info on his progress.

Whatever way it’s handled, nothing with Perez falls in the Mets favor. Management talks about “it’s all about winning” well, if that’s the case prove it, put Perez on waivers, when he clears, assign him to Buffalo. It’s the only way, Perez just sucks the life out of the team, the fans and the announcers. He has GOT TO GO!!!!!!

I wonder who Mother Nature was more sick of, home plate umpire Mike Esterbrook or the inane droning of Joe Morgan but whoever it was, Mets fans thank her for the heavy rain that ended last nights Mets game and Big Plef’ heavy lifting pitching performance with a rain shortened win over the struggling Braves. For the Mets it’s about time they got a positive break and lost in this awful game was the fact the Mets swept the Braves, which should be big time news around these parts.

Pelfrey was not as bad as his line indicates; he was mostly the victim of Esterbrook’s tight as a fly’s asshole strike zone. If the game was on SNY instead of the steady in decline WWL (ESPN’s 2010 NFL Draft wasn’t even public access quality) we would have gotten the overhead view of home plate to see just where Pelf was missing. On the ESPN telecast it looked to me he was hitting the corners consistently.  

Of his 106 pitches, Pelf threw 61 of them in the first two innings, from the third to fifth it took him only 45 pitches to get through those frames. The ability to locate his fastball low in the strike zone and mix in the slider as well has been key for Pelf in getting ground ball out after ground ball out.

I haven’t verified this yet, but the rumor is when the game was called last night, Jerry Manuel sent Fernando Nieve to the bullpen to throw a simulated game. J-Man said he wanted to keep Nieve “sharp”.

A tip of the solid blue Mets cap to Caryn Rose (a/k/a Metsgrrl) for not only going to the game last night but for letting us know though her Tweets on Twitter, that the game was well attended even though on TV it looked like there was a major evacuation in Flushing. Seems now that we have a new fancy pants ball park, there are plenty of places to get high and stay dry. Whereas Shea, during a game in the rain your choice was get wet sitting in your seat or get wet standing in the concourse. I give anyone who went to the game last night a ton of credit as it was so cold and misserable last night in NYC, that I broke down and put the heat back on last night.  

The Hollywood Bums come to town starting tonight and the very hittable Hiroki Kuroda will start the first game of the series tonight against Ollie Perez. This game has the potential for both teams to hit double digits.  The Dodgers are statistically the best team in the NL but fall to the bottom in just about every pitching category in the league. The Mets have smacked around Kuroda every time they’ve faced him (0-2 one no-decision 10.1IP 23H 10.45 ERA) Ollie Perez has been OK Ollie so far this season but lets hope the outstanding pitching the starters have shown this past week or so rubs off on OP.

I hope you can join me tomorrow night at 10PM ET for THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN on BLOG TALK RADIO. My guest will be Steve Slowinski of the DRAYSBAY site as we talk about the Tampa Bay Rays and their surge to the top on the AL East. I’ll have a recap of the Mets-Dodgers game as well and a look ahead to what is now a big weekend series with the Phillies. If you can’t join me live you can hear a replay of the show right here at Kranepool Society or at my show page on BLOG TALK RADIO.   

The sun is a risin/most definitely  

Maybe all those who jumped off the Mets bandwagon will end up like a European tourist stuck at JFK, while those of us who stick by our team, through good times and bad, in pulled hamstrings and very rare good health till death or utter disgust do us part, can feel a little better about our favorite baseball team. It was more than the debut of Ike Davis that has put a spring in my Mets fan step this morning, maybe it was the opponent, the Cubbies, Sweet Lou Pinella, whose every day personality was similar to an Icelandic volcano has turned docile. This is Pinella’ last season on his managerial contract and he’s acting like a guy who is ready to go back to Florida and hit the Golden Corral for the 4PM early bird special. It’s kind of sad to see the man who once as a player for the Highlanders challenged Earl Weaver and the whole Baltimore Oriole dugout to a fist fight turn into a guy hoping Walgreen’s is open late so he can pick up his Flomax prescription.

Sure the marquee story today is Ike Davis and how nice is it to see a Met on the back page of the newspaper this morning and word to the Highlander fan, your team did not invent the shaving cream pie to the face, that ritual is as old as Yogi Berra’s tired stupid sayings, and besides A.J. Burnett started his pro baseball career with the Mets so he could have learned that skill way back then. I know most of you Highlander fans didn’t know Burnett was once a Mets farmhand. Most self-centered blowhards never look beyond what’s in front of them. (as I type this I’m listening to Beningno and Roberts first call they take is a Highlander fan who went to the Mets game last night and claimed he wore his Highlander cap to the game and was impressed by Ike. It just proves my theory that Highlander fans will drop their allegiance to their team in a Manhattan minute when things go sour and jump on the Mets bandwagon.  You Highlander fans who troll this site know I’m right. The Highlanders biggest fear is not the Red Sox, it’s the Mets. That’s why that fan base loves to ridicule us and act the fools that they are because of fear, they fear that someday the light switch in Flushing will go on and the Mets will become a contending team and take over the town. It will happen. There are far more Highlander fans that go to Mets game than vice versa and you don’t need to interrogate  them a la Jack Bauer for them to tell you our ball park is where the cool kids hang out unlike their shrine to pomposity)

Jon Niese showed what the “spit tobacco juice in a cup” baseball guys like to say, a lot of bulldog. When a pitcher has all his pitches working and is in command for most of the games, fans go overboard with praise but for me when a youngster like Niese pitches a game where he gets into jams, doesn’t panic and gets out of those situation more on the plus side and not, that is the true test of a big league pitcher. Niese threw a lot of pitches in a limited amount of innings but he threw strikes, got more ground balls than fly balls and only three line drives.

Angel Pagan has done the only thing that could stop J-Man from using GMJ, he has produced at a high level. Hopefully it continues as Carlos Beltran is off to Colorado to get his knee checked and even if he comes back with a positive report I doubt we’ll see him back until after the All-Star break.

Welcome back Jason Bay

Sure I’m overly giddy today after last night’s game, I don’t apologize for it and your right it most likely is a premature ejaculation of optimism but I just hope our baseball season started last night. Mets fans just want to have fun!!!!!

 

So the Skill Sets have sent out invoices to their loyal season ticket holders and some of these customers it seemed got bigger decreases in the invoice than others. If you’re a fat cat who buys tickets in the Metropolitan section you get a bigger break than the guy who buys tickets in the Promenade. It seems the less you know or care about the Mets, the better the Mets organization takes care of you.  Oh yeah, the Skill Sets need a partial payment by December 4^th so they can pay Bobby Bonillia’ his yearly stipend from his buyout.

 

 

I’m a fan of Carlos Beltran as he is a great player and is a very charitable man, but as a GM he leaves a lot to be desired. Beltran stated yesterday he’d love for the Mets to bring back Carlos Delgado for next season. I’m glad Beltran is so fond of Delgado, but the next time I see Delgado at a Mets game it should be for Old Timers Day.

 

Who wouldn’t want a stud pitcher like Roy Halladay? But does it make sense for the Mets to get involved in a trade for the Blue Jay ace? Word is the Highlanders and BOSOX are ready to talk turkey with the Jay-Birds but who knows how much of this is fact or bullshit and if the Mets were to get involved do the Mets have the pieces to make it happen? It seems the Jay want quality over quantity so if you’re the Mets do you have anything that the Jays would want? If you take Vernon Wells of their hands you could get Halladay for nothing but do who wants to saddle themselves with $98.5 mil in contract? As you can see I have a lot of questions but no answers.

 

I saw this last night on via Twitter on the Tirico Suave site and like I said there, this is Gold PURE GOLD. Mike Francesa never looked so hip!

 

I saw a bunch of guys stand around Port Richmond Ave on Staten Island this morning looking for day labor work and I swear one of them was Lou Dobbs.

 

Seems that Chuckie Gruden could be the next head football coach at Norte Dame. I think it’s a foregone conclusion that Charlie Weis is the lamest of ducks at ND and the list of names will be filled with names like Chuckie, Urban Myer, and Skip Holtz to name three but the bottom line is Weis has not only been a coaching disaster but a prick as well. The funny thing about Weis and Eric Manasshole in Cleveland is they want to be like Billy B up in Foxboro but they forget if you want to be a first class asshole you better be a successful first class asshole.

 

There used to be a homeless guy who hung out in front of Shea Stadium who had a sign that read “No need to lie, I need a beer”. I loved the honesty of that guy so much that I always threw a buck in his cardboard box. I bring this up because like my man who can’t lie about wanting a brewski, I feel the same way about the Mets.

 

I could have my own sign “No need to lie, I love the Mets and will buy tickets next year”. The Mets have announced they will cut the price of ticket to season ticket holders by 10-20 % it’s a nice gesture but they could do more. Of course they could out and bring back Roy Halladay and Adrian Gonzalez in a trade and make us all forget the stink of this season. Now I know that’s a tall order and if either one came back in a trade  I’d be more than happy, but the one thing that management can do that doesn’t cost a dime and would go a long way towards making being a Mets fan more enjoyable would be to be honest with it’s fan base.

 

Sure cutting ticket prices is a start but I’ve gone over a litany of requests I’ve made to make going to a Mets game (more polite stadium workers, more accessibility to players, bringing back former Mets for autograph sessions not just the stars, letting the Triple A and Double A team play a weekend at $iti while the Mets are on the road to name a few) a more pleasurable experience but being honest with the fan base cold go a long way to cull the anger that Mets fans have toward the team and the organization.

 

In John Harper’s column in this morning Daily News, he rehashes all the blunders from this season. At the end of the column he called on the Skill Sets to go into the clubhouse and rip his paid employees a new asshole. From your mouth to Freddy Skill Sets ears John.

 

Last night on PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL, Joe McDonald and I had the pleasure of talking to former Met, Art Shamsky. We spoke about Shamsky coming over to the Mets via trade from the Reds and about the 69 Champions and we discussed Shamsky’s book “The Magnificent Seasons” which is about NY sports in 1969 when the Mets, Jets and Knicks all were champs. Also on the podcast is my rant about not trusting the Skill Sets and a spirted discussion between Joe and I over Daniel Murphy (what you’ve had enough Daniel Murphy talk?) so check out the podcast here on the upper right of this page or go to PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL and download the show on iTunes.

 

I’m going to $iti tomorrow for my last game of the season. It’s not just the game before the last game of the year for the Mets but it’s also Gary, Keith and Ron Event Day as well. This should be the best day in the history of $iti Field.

If you’re a FOO (Friend Of Omar’s) it would be a good idea to hide in one of the many  nooks and crannies of $iti Field. The Skill Sets have taken out the chopping block and let’s hope the ax keeps swinging.

The Mets have fired Ramon Pena the guy in charge of Latin American Talent and Luis Aguayo the Minor League on field coordinator and have let Sandy Johnson the VP of Scouting file retirement papers. Finally something productive is coming out of the Skill Sets Ivory Tower with these moves. But the cleansing of the front office and on field staff has to continue before a turnaround can get under way in Flushing for next season.

I get the feeling more of these moves are coming. Next should be an overhaul of the coaching staff it’s time for some fresh faces and a different way of teaching and it would not be a shock that Omar gets reassigned to a new position and John Ricco takes over as the GM/Point man/Face of the Mets.

It’s going to be a very interesting winter around here.

Seriously, can we all just leave Daniel Murphy alone? The kid will be a solid ML’er and decent first baseman. Take all your ‘We need a first baseman” energy and move it toward the starting pitching where the team is really hurting. Remember if you ain’t got pitching, you ain’t got shit”

Just when I thought I was done watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN (MLB Network blows that amateur production out of the water) they go and drag me back in by signing Bobby Valentine to work the panel. Damn you ESPN!!!!

Jon Niese says don’t blame the Mets for his hammy ripping apart that it was his own fault. He made this statement while blindfolded and Jerry Manuel holding a rifle at his head.

I must head to downtown Brooklyn and make friends with Mikhail Prokhorov and see if he’d liked to go to a Mets game. Maybe my dream of becoming the Mets GM could come true More borscht? More Vodka? Comrade!

 

 

I must admit, I didn’t watch much of the Mets-Giants game last night and from the looks of things I didn’t miss much. One thing I did notice and I kind of noticed this on Saturday, $iti Field is not exactly packed and jammed.

 

Remember back when the plans for $iti came out and it was announced that the seating capacity would be about 15,000 less than Shea and the outcry that fans would be shut out of games? Now there are tickets a plenty even in the beginning of the season the secondary markets were awash in Mets tickets. I’ve been to 10 games so far this season and I plan on going to at least 5 more. Sure it bothers me that the team is awful but what bothers me even more is winter. As bad as the Mets are right now, just think what it’s like in the middle of January with the snow, wind and cold and you have to wear three layers of clothes and a coat, hat and gloves. I can’t get enough days at the ball park to suit me. Besides the way the team is constructed right now, it has a nostalgic feel to going to a Mets game, very 1975-ish.

 

Is there a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel? First, the team started to listen to the fan base and has made improvements to $iti Field. The video screen in the RF corner came in handy on Saturday and the montage of Gooden, Straw and Hernandez looked great along with the banners on the outfield wall and even the cow in the promenade was cute. The place had a Mets feel to it, finally.

 

Then there were the Throwback uni’s paying tribute to the our NL heritage that the Skill Sets are finally embracing and maybe, just maybe the organization is realizing that blue and orange are our colors and the uniform we all grew up with is what we want. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that after this season the dreaded black uniforms will be no more.

 

But last night was the topper in this starting to feel better about my team. The Skill Sets actually went over slot money to sign their top draft pick RHP Steven Matz, by close to 400K. Now we’re talking here, let me give Jeffey and Freddy an ‘Atta Boy for that. See it’s not hard fellas.

 

Let me send out my hopes for a speedy recovery to Alex Cora who is having both thumbs operated on and is down for the season. The Mets should have let Cora take one more at bat so the fans could give him the ovation he deserves. Cora should have had his thumb surgery back in June but put it off due to the dearth of infielders to step up and play. Alex Cora is a gamer.

 

To fill Cora’s spot on the roster the Mets have resigned Teddy Martinez

 

At this point in the season, it isn’t really worth getting worked up over, but enough of Livan Hernandez already.

 

The Mets fan version of the Weather Underground will meet again a week from tonight at Two Boots Tavern 384 Grand St on the glorious Lower East Side. Come one come all we all need the therapy.

 

Highlander fans are starting to bloom in all their glorious doucheness over their teams recent run of good fortune. As I stated to my colleague who sits next to me at work, you can break balls all you want right now Highlander fans, but keep this in the back of your small minds, if you want to belittle the Mets and Mets fans and stick out your chests and walk around like it’s a foregone conclusion that World Series title 27 will come this late October you better hope it does, because if your Bronx Bastards fall short this post season. I WILL MAKE YOUR LIVES A LIVING HELL!!!!! Believe me it is very tough for me to hold my tongue when I wear my Mets shirts, shorts, cap, watch, and sling bag and get a bunch of shit from Highlander fans so you know I’m just waiting to attack and when I do it won’t be pretty. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

Memo to Adam “The Bull”

 

You can kill the Mets all you want but remember your place at WFAN, you’re a benchwarmer . Come September you’ll be back in your proper place taking phone calls from Jerome in Manhattan at 2 AM.