I’ve tossed around a few lineups and the problem I have is not who leads off as the Mets have three guys (Reyes, Castillo and Pagan) who are terrific leadoff men. They also have two nice #2 hitters in Castillo who gives you OBP and Daniel Murphy who hits with some pop. I’m intrigued about Reyes in the 3 spot because with Bay and Wright behind him you know he’s going to see strikes.

So if I were the manager I’d put this lineup out as much as I could this spring to see how it works.

Castillo

Murphy

Reyes

Bay

Wright

Francouer

Barajas/Blanco

Pagan

Pitcher

I’m a little concerned with the 7-8 spot. Barajas is feast or famine and Pagan is the square peg in the round hole I spoke about in the beginning. He’s more a 1-2 hitter but as we see without the potent bat of Carlos Beltran, there has to be some improvisation with this Mets lineup.

If you like coming to this site and root for the day that my head will explode, well this may be your lucky day. As the great Frank Costanza said “I HAVE A LOT OF ISSUES WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ISSUE 1: How the hell can any of you, my fellow Mets fans, see anything positive in acquiring Gary Mathews Jr. and don’t tell that I’m overacting negatively to this deal, if I want to fucking rant about a broken down valise of a ball player who sucks so badddddddddddddlllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyy the Angels lined is fucking pockets with $20 FUCKING million dollars to get rid of him, I’ll rant and I’ll rant hard and I’ll rant all night long. And of course the Mets were the only dumb ass’ in baseball that would take him on.

I’m not pissed with GMJ (as we Tiwits from the Twitterland call him) and yeah he’s just going to a spare part being paid spare change but don’t you Polly-Wilpons see that this guy is could be taking up one of 25 valuable roster spots on this team? I hate to wish bad on someone, as we all know God don’t like ugly, but you have to hope that GMJ sucks so bad in spring that the Mets release him.

And to all of “Angel Pagan is an All Star” worshipers you need to get over that as well. I don’t want to attack Pagan who is a good player but some of you Mets fans have built this guy up to the point if I were Pagan’s agent I’d bring in your Tweets and message boards posting to make his case in arbitration.

Back to GMJ (take a Dramamine because this is going to be one rocky post, I’m going all over the road here ) this poor bastard is not even an average Major player anymore. Check this out from Ball Busters blog:

{After the Mets completed their trade for Gary Matthews Jr. on Friday, committing about $2.5 million and a middle reliever to land him, one talent evaluator dug into his team’s scouting reports, wondering if maybe his general impression that Matthews was a player in decline was wrong.

The reports for his team were clear: Matthews is a player to be avoided. Slow bat. Declining range. And above all else, a player who wants to be a regular and will be an unhappy distraction in your clubhouse when he’s not in the lineup every day.

Said an executive with another team of the Mets’ efforts to acquire Matthews, which have been extensive, including the discussion of one possible four-team deal this winter: “Baffling.”

His OPS the past three seasons: .742, .675 and .697; the last number ranked 90th among 104 outfielders with at least 300 plate appearances. His slugging percentage of .361 ranked 96th among 104 outfielders with at least 300 plate appearances. He is now 35 years old.

I asked a scout with a team not involved in this deal for his observations on Matthews’ play. His response:

“I still see Matthews as an expensive extra outfielder. The Angels knew they were fooled by his Texas numbers before they went after Hunter. He should still be able to play center field while Beltran is out, but he hasn’t shown any sock since he was outed for receiving shipments of HGH a couple years ago. His bat has been dragging through the zone the last couple years. Nevertheless, he should benefit from getting more consistent at-bats in NY than he had been getting in Anaheim.”

His defense? Well, Mark Simon of ESPN Stats & Information sent along his year-by-year UZR/150 ratings from FanGraphs. Let’s just say there’s a trend in the numbers:

• 2002: 23.8 (1st among 107 outfielders with at least 500-plus innings)
• 2003: 6.6 (33rd of 105)
• 2004: 21.3 (9th of 107)
• 2005: 18.7 (15th of 112)
• 2006: 1.0 (46th of 108)
• 2007: -12.2 (88th of 108)
• 2008: -13.7 (94th of 112)
• 2009: -24.6 (109th of 115)

The winter’s market has had other guys who could have fit the role of extra outfielder. Randy Winn. Jeremy Reed. Endy Chavez, who reportedly is making progress in his rehabilitation.

To sum up the view of Matthews within the game: He can’t hit for average, can’t hit for power, his defense ranks statistically among the worst outfielders in the majors and, to top it off, rival scouts have been reporting that in recent years he has been a clubhouse negative.

If Matthews were a free agent, he would be a player who might get a $500,000 non-guaranteed minor league deal with an invitation to spring training. And yet the Mets opted to commit $2.5 million and to trade a serviceable pitcher in Brian Stokes to get a player whose effectiveness might have ended years ago.

Very strange.}

I threw up twice while reading that.  I don’t care if GMJ was PAYING the Mets to let him play, the guy is 35 years old, not very productive on offense and his defense has decline sharply every year. Yes, I know this just a temporary move until Carlos Beltran comes back and you may be right that I should save my anger with the Mets for more important fuck ups (I’ll get to one more in a sec) but I’m mad because is GMJ the only type of player the Mets can attract ? Think about it, they have tried to give away Luis Castillo who is ten times a better player than GMJ but with a $12 million dollar nut,  they can’t find a taker. The mere fact that the Artie Moreno would pay over $20 million dollars (just about the Pirates and Marlins total payrolls) to ship Mathews sorry ass out of Anaheim should have all Mets fans up in arms.

The one bright spot in this muck is Omar Minaya coming out and saying that the centerfield job is not Angel Pagans it’s an open competition, which of course I applaud. But it better not be just a two man event with Pagan and GMJ.

Issue 2:  First let me clean the spittle off my screen here as I was screaming as I wrote that last section of this post.

As you know I’ve been clamoring for the Mets to host a Fan Fest during the winter at $iti Field. I bring this up today for two reasons one, the Baltimore Orioles are having theirs today at Camden Yards and from reading the tweets from Orioles Prospects, the place is full of fans and players signing autographs and spreading good cheer. So on a beautiful sunny day in NYC what am I doing? Ranting like a fucking lunatic when I’d rather be at $iti Field and a Mets Fan Fest, which is where all of us Mets fans should be. But you’d have to have forward thinking management to do this instead of the Skill Sets whose version of customer service is out of the Henry Hill School of Business Management : “FUCK YOU, PAY ME!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Another reason why today would have been a great day for Mets-Fest is you could have tied in raising money for Haiti along with pushing your product. Charge everyone 20 bucks to come to the ball park with proceeds going to UNICEF for relief aid to Haiti. I bet there are tons of giveaways that weren’t distributed during the season, you could sell raffle tickets for them and for other used items like bats, batting gloves and the like and use that money for charity as well. I’m not saying the Mets are not charitable, in fact one of Freddy Skill Sets admirable traits is his generosity to charities but  not only would a Mets-Fest raise a ton of money for a good cause, it would also give the Mets some badly needed positive press.

End of rant……….a Jehovah’s Witness is ringing my bell time for an ass kicking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All hell is breaking with the Mets as we have learned that Carlos Beltran has undergone arthroscopic surgery on his right knee to relieve osteoarthritis. From reports it looks like Beltran has been working out to be in shape for spring training and started to feel pain in his knee.

The biggest story is not just the surgery but it seems Beltran did this on his own going to his own doctor, Dr Richard Stedman in Colorado. It’s unacceptable for a player to not let the team know he’s going for surgery and to make it worse, he doesn’t use the team’s physician. This just cements the feeling that the Mets players have no faith in the Mets medical staff.

Now this is not end of the world news as Beltran will be out about 3 months so for the first month of the season Angel Pagan can handle centerfield, so there is no need for the organization to make a panic move for a centerfielder.

What this does though is make you question how the organization looks at Beltran in regard to not coming to the team about his knee and using an outside doctor to perform the surgery and how does this effect Beltran to getting an extension of his contract, something he has been hinting at.

Since this news is still breaking, I’ll have some more on it tomorrow

Seems Ken Davidoff agrees with me about Johnny Damon and it seems that Davidoff and I are the only ones’ who think it’s a good idea, even Matthew Cerone, who I hold in high esteem said he’d rather have Angel Pagan over Damon YIKES!!!!

From reading some of the comments here and on Metsblog I’m kind of shocked at the level of disrespect towards Damon. Yes he has a rag arm and his power that he displayed as a Highlander most likely won’t play the same at $iti Field but he walks into your clubhouse a two time World Champion a high profile player on two of the highest profile teams and matching him with Frenchy would finally turnaround the Mets Clubhouse.

This would not be a long term deal, 2 yrs at most. The bottom line here Mets fans is Jason Bay doesn’t love you or your team, in fact he can’t stand your losing ass’ even for 4yrs/$60 mil

Now if you excuse me I have to baste myself in Ben-Gay after shoveling my driveway and sidewalk

Now that we amateur GM’s are ready to get down to business fortifying the Mets roster for 2010, the one item that is marked ESSENTIAL is The Bill James Handbook for 2010 (published by ACTA Sports). The Handbook is loaded with stats and leader boards that you would hope the front office is studying like it was the college boards.

As bad as the Mets season has been there were a few (surprise) Amazin’s who were ranked in the top 10 in some important categories for the 2009 season like Angel Pagan:

Angel Pagan-4^th in the NL for most Triples (11)

                      9^th in NL Leadoff Hitters OBP (.358)

                      4^th in NL OPS by CF’er

If Pagan had some semblance of baseball instinct and the ability to stay healthy the search for the everyday LF’er would be a moot point.

Digits like this and much more are in the Handbook. You can get your copy by going to Acta Sports or at the book store or online vendor of your choice. When you’re curled up by the hot stove this winter, your 2010 Bill James Handbook will leave you with that toasty feeling.

There are still plentyof seats on the Daniel Murphy bandwaggon for all of you who jumpped off after his rough start.

Lastings Millidges is hitting .325/.374/.442 since he joined the Pirates. I’m just sayin’. Why do get the feeling the Pirates will see a post seaon before the Mets.

Big Pelf was fantastic yesterday and watching him pitch like that verifies why I love the big lug. What drives me nuts though is his next start he could tank just as easily and that’s is the madness that is Mike Pelfrey.

How can the Mets bring Carlos Beltran back now? Who is going to lead Brooklyn to a NY-PENN League championship?

Maybe John Maine can start the first game for Brooklyn against Mahoning Valley instead of against Philly?

If you put Corey Sullivan’s brain with Angel Pagan’s ability you’d have a solid ML player. Pagan has talent but on the baseball field he’s dumber than a sack of rocks.

I see where SNY is going to add a couple of gimmicks to their game telecasts next week. One game there will be a silent inning where Gary, Keith and Ron will not speak for a full inning. Another game, SNY will let Gary stay home and allow Ron and Keith handle the play by play. Now that should be fun.  What would be even better is having bloggers do commentary during a game like a Mystery Theatre 3000 sceanrio, that would bring the network an Emmy.  

Enjoy you Labor Day

My in-laws have a time share in the Poconos so they invited us up for a couple of days and the only place with WiFi is the lobby of the main buliding so I had a choice, write about the latest Mets loss or hit the water park with the kids. Guess what won?

Last night we took a ride to Mount Airy lodge. This used to be the home of the heart shaped tub and mirrors on the bedroom ceiling. Now that’s all gone (which when you reach 50 is a good thing as I don’t even like mirors in the bathroom ) and the big thing now is video gaming machines. After 20 minutes and 40 bucks lost I had enough and luckily there were TV’s by a bar that had the Mets-Marlins game so I watched another Big Pelf inconsistent start. As bad as the loss was, I was pissed that I lost 40 bucks. My wife finds it very funny since oneof our favortie vaction spots before we had kids was Las Vegas. I loved to play cards, bet sports, shoot craps now I’m like a guy on a pension getting all pissed off losing 40 bucks.

I see the Mets won today in Miami by the way how do you schedule a day game in Miami in August? Good to see Tim Redding step up as well as Fernado Tatis and Angel Pagan but the guy who is coming around is Daniel Murphy. Sorry all you Murph haters!!!!!!

Enough Mets, there is a water slide waiting for my middle aged ass to hit

Later!

I see I struck a nerve with my Billy Joel comments but like I say his is not the kind of music I listen to and it’s pretty weak to plat th elast concert at Shea and be a New Yorker and give in to Phillyfans by wearing thier colors.

Speaking of Philly fans there were a lot of them in the Magic Kingdom all of them in thier new Phillies cap andnew shirts all bandwaggon jumpers.

Tons of Rays fans as you wouls suspect and many Cardinal fans but the biggest group here are the English soccer fans with Everton the team most fancy.

GTG later

I wish I had some kind of good Mets news today besides Ryan Church signing for 1yr/$2.8 mil and Angel Pagan signing for $575K (how great a job is it being a fridge player on a ML team? Pagan was hurt nearly all season. When he was getting back in shape he got to play in Brooklyn, then his shoulder was still sore and he shut it down for the season for all that he gets a raise of a little less than $175K.) So now here is what the Mets outfield looks like:

Manny Ramirez (Ah, I’m just fucking with ya head!)

Really here are the outfielders:

Tatis, Murphy, Beltran, Church, Reed, Sullivan, Pagan.

If you take out Beltran you would have a real 1962 throw back kind of outfield. The lone true right handed hitter is Tatis with Beltran and Pagan going from both sides of the plate but Beltran hits all pitching but Pagan is a much better hitter  from where else but the left side of home plate. Hey it’s all right with the exception of Beltran they all work cheap. Oh and don’t forget The Teen-Aged Hitting Machine who hits (what else?) left handed.

  I’m at the point now where I want Omar to sign Ben Sheets and Randy Wolf and kick Oliver Perez to the curb. If by some outlandish way the Mets would over pay in years and money to OP it would have disaster written all over it. The longer OP holds out for a Mets contract the more pressure he puts on himself and the first game his gets his ass handed to him in the first inning and the $iti Field crowd boos him and calls him an over paid piece of shit it will be uglier than Amy Winehouse the morning after and all night bender.