213 Miles From Shea

While a lot of the attention over the next few days will be rightfully on Jose Reyes, this could be a very busy few days for the Mets bullpen. MLB Trade Rumors is reporting there has already been a lot of activity with teams trying to go bargain hunting. Extrapolating that statement, bargain hunting a lot of times ends up in the pen, and that is an area the Mets need at least two new pitchers, including a closer.

The following players are pitchers that the Mets have been linked to:

– Luis Ayala

– Octavio Dotel

– Andrew Bailey

– Jon Rauch

– Frank Francisco

– Brad Lidge

– Matt Capps

Let's break down that list:

Ayala and Dotel are both being pursued as 8th inning guys, and they both have garnered a lot of attention. Including the Mets, Ayala has 6 teams hunting him and Dotel has 4 teams. Both players would be nice additions to the Mets pen. Dotel is more reliable, and is stikeout machine. If I had to pick a pitcher, I would pick Dotel. If Ayala's name sounds familiar to you, well you follow the Mets. Luis was with the Nationals and then also spent some time with the Mets where he was not a good option to come into the game (5.50 ERA). Last year he had a strong campaign with the Yankees with a 2.20 ERA.

The next player on the list is the only one who is not a free agent. The Mets would love to trade for Bailey as a closer, as he would be a better option than any of the closers on the market. However, a trade is fairly unlikely. If the Mets were to spend on a closer, it would be on Frank Francisco. The remaining options would be bargain closers where the Mets would be getting better talent than what they currently have on their team, and would also open up some money for other areas of the team.

Hopefully the Mets make a move in the bullpen area this week at the Winter Meetings. This could be arguably the weakest area of this team.

The Marlins made one of the first major free agent signings of the off season this week by signing Heath Bell to a three year deal for about 27 million. This deal shows a few things:

1) The Marlins are Serious

2) The Marlins aren't done.

This signing shows how serious the Marlins are because of the length and money of the deal. That is a risky deal! The only way that makes logical sense is if you are going to surround Bell with other key pieces in order to win games. The Marlins already have a few big bats, probably only need one more, and they could use another starter. By going after Bell, they are starting to set themselves up for a big change in their starting players (and in my mind brings me back to the 05 and 06 Mets where they brought in Beltran, Pedro, Wagner and Delgado).

So what is next?

All signs point to the Mets and Marlins being in a the final run down for Reyes. It is unclear when the signing will happen, if Reyes wants to leave New York, if another team gets involved, and how far each team is willing to go. THe Marlins seemed enamored by Reyes. To Reyes, it seems like the Marlins are that risky decision that seems fun but not sure yet if it's right.

Here's the kicker. The Marlins need another bat, and they need it at 3B. If they signed Aramis Ramirez, they would achieve the same goal. Ramirez is not the same player as Reyes at all, but they would get another bat, and they wouldn't have to move Hanely. This is, of course, the lesser option since the Marlins are looking for a lead off hitter, something that Reyes is, and Aramis is clearly not.

Finally, the Marlins are trying to round of their rotation with another big star, Buehrle. The obstacle doesn't seem to be the money, for any of these players, (which honestly still shocks me, where we these Marlins the last several years) but rather is the no-trade clause, which goes back to this win now scenario. If they sign him without that clause, then they can win, and do a firesale, like they always seem to do. Obviously, signing a free agent these days without that clause is quite tricky.

It should be an interesting Winter Meetings with the Marlins trying to change their look.

A lot has gone on today in the World of baseball, let's take a look:

The Red Sox hire Bobby Valentine to be their Manager

I'll miss Bobby V in the booth on ESPN. It was nice for a change having a pro Mets voice up there. For the Red Sox, right now, after a collapse, this is the type of manager they need right now. He has the ability to navigate big personalities and he has the ability deal with the media.

The Phillies signed Pat Misch

I always had high hopes for Misch with the Mets, but he never really fully made it. For the Mets, its probably good that he's not around to fall back on.

Nick Evans signs with the Pirates

See Previous Post dedicated to Evans

Royals to Sign Broxton

He would have been interesting to see in a Mets uniform, but a more reliable option would probably work better with the Mets.

Teams that seem to be in on Albert Pujols now: Cardinals, Cubs, Marlins

Teams that seem to be on Fielder: Cubs, Marlins, Mariners

Teams in on Dotel: Mets, Reds, Tigers, Cardinals

Nick Evans is gone. Off to Pittsburgh.

Evans was the type of player who always seemed always “just about ready” who always seemed like a go to option from the minors to fill in a hole in the majors.

The problem was there was always a player who seemed more attractive, more interesting than Evans. A player we wanted to see more of, when compared to Evans. So, constantly in his Mets career, Evans would be called up after a good minor league campaign, and then just ride the bench at the Major League level.

Specifically, there were a ton of 1B-OF players in the Mets farm system. Evans came up in the same time of Murphy, Duda, and Captain Kirk. Murphy's bat got him a sorta starting job, even if it was almost at a different position every day. Duda's upside may keep him around as a starter next year and who really knows what the future holds for Kirk. It's a very crowded picture for Evans.

In the end, Evans was a good at what we needed him to be good at, but wasn't good enough to start, or change the Mets. I hope nothing but the best for Evans as he joins the Pirates on a minor league deal. According to sources in the know, the Mets were in on bringing Evans back but the Pirates really wanted him.

So what about the Mets?

I'm actually really happy this happened for Nick. He did not have a future with the Mets, and maybe he will have one with the Pirates. As for the Mets, they needed to move on from Evans and take a risk on another player in the system, to see if he can be a surprise.

As stated before, part of the problem for Evans in the Mets system is that there were so many “Nick Evans” 1B-OF type players. Hopefully one of them will step up and overtake Evans place, or maybe we find one on the market. Change is good, and maybe we need change.

The internet is good at a lot of things, and one area where the internet has excelled is blending different cultural memes into ridiculous jokes and extrapolations. Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard about the UC Davis protesters who were were pepper sprayed at point blank range during an act of civil disobedience. If you don't know, students at UC Davis were practicing their right to peaceful protest in an act of civil disobedience by sitting on the ground and linking arms. The police force decided that the best way to deal with the protesters was to spray pepper spray at the students at point blank range.

As one would imagine, there has been a lot of fallout from the event, specifically about appropriate force and Police Brutality. The internet joins in the conversation because of how cultural events, such as a cop casually spraying a dangerous substance on peaceful protester, become much more. Pepper Spraying Cop has turned into a meme where people essentially show how ridiculous the actions of the officer was by photoshopping him into other famous images of history. Thus one cultural event gets combined with another cultural event.

Which leads us to this:

That would be the cop, Pepper Spraying Buckner, thus not making the play and helping the Mets get to game 7. (Image from Pepper Spraying Cop Tumblr, linked to earlier)

The West has been changing this past week, and it may only continue to change.

Last week it became official that in 2013 that the Houston Astros would change divisions and join the AL West, making each league have 15 teams, and each division have 5 teams. When this happens, it will cause another major change to the MLB with an interleague game almost every day (So we can probably assume that those Interleague weekends are gone, unless they want to manufacture a weekend when everyone plays interleague, which could still happen).

The second major change that came out of the MLB this week is the playoff system, which may change in 2012, but definitely by 2013, where each league has 2 Wild Card and those two teams will play in a one game play off before the start of the Division Series. As Metsblog pointed out this week, if that rule was around in 2007 and 2008, the Mets would have made the playoff's.

The third change that the MLB made was CBA rules, which we'll look more at later.

Finally, the last change is going back to the AL West. Oakland is really trying to relocate to San Jose. I don't follow the AL West, so this is news to me. I knew that the A's were trying to get a new stadium in Fremont, I guess that fell through and they could get one in San Jose. The advantage of moving South would be they would split the market, the disadvantage is that it is hard to to think about Oakland without the A's and the Raiders, or moreover, it is difficult to think of A fans being ok with rooting for San Francisco.

There you go, your ever changing MLB, in short note form.

According to MLB Trade Rumors and Drayton McLane today, the Astros will be moving to the AL West in 2013. This obviously means that the Astros will be out of the National League and probably means that the MLB will be moving, like many sources have been loudly whispering all summer, to a new playoff system next summer.

Even if a new playoff system does not happen in 2013, and it probably will, this does mean that league play will have to change in 2013. The two leagues will be balanced, with 15 teams in each league, meaning in order for there to be a full slate of games on the weekend, at least one team in each league will need to play interleague, so Baseball will be joining the ranks of every other major sport (although the other sports have the numbers that they don't need to do this).

I really don't have a comment about this, but just wanted to share it in case you were unaware. With all of the player rumors over the last few days, I didn't want this story to get lost in the shuffle.

The Marlins want Jose Reyes.

In order to get him though, the will need Hanley to move positions. While Ramirez is a better than average shortstop, that adjective there is really carried by his bat. On his bat alone he is a tremendous player but Jose would be a much better fielding short stop. So if both were on the same team, Ramirez would have to move somewhere. Most people say 3B, mainly because that is the more natural move, and there have been some whispers of CF, which I'll be honest sounded odd to me.

However MLB Trade Rumors (and I'm sorry I don't have time to put the link code in right now, maybe later today) is reporting that Ramirez does not want to change positions, and that could be a big problem. The source goes on to say that the two players, Hanley Ramirez and Jose Reyes, may not have as good as a relationship as the media puts on.

If this is true, this could be a major problem in the Marlins plans.

Also, the Mets leaked their 2012 uniforms yesterday, which you can see on Metsblog. I'll have more that later today.