213 Miles From Shea

The NL West was a major surprise last season. At the start of the season it looked like it would be a three team race of the Dodgers/Rockies/Giants with the Padres and Diamondbacks looking in from the outside. It also looked like it was the Dodgers who had the early advantage. Then the surprise of the year (that within one game reduced itself to nothing) was the Padres who led the division for the majority of the season, lost it towards to the end and got into a three team race with the Giants and the Rockies. The Giants would go on to win the division (and the World Series) and the Rockies would lose out in the playoff race to the Padres. The Padres would then lose the play in situation with the Braves who would go into the playoffs. The moral of the story is that surprises happen which is why we play the games.

Anyway, this year looks to be a three team race again with the Giants vs the Rockies, the Dodgers sitting on the periphery with the Padres and the Diamondbacks sitting on the outside.

San Francisco Giants:

The World Series champions have the best rotation int he division. Like all teams with a strong rotation, they need just enough offense to get them through the season. Last year it was easy to mock the lineup but the lineup showed last year that they could surprise people with offense. If Posey has a big season again, and they get consistent offense from somewhere else, this team will be in the race all season long.

Colorado Rockies:

The Rockies were handicapped by critical injuries last season which held them back from taking over the division. They also have a strong pitching staff, and they have a strong lineup, probably the second best lineup in the Division. If another pitcher outside of Jimenez and De La Rosa steps up, then the Rockies will be in the race all season long.

Los Angeles Dodgers:

The Dodgers probably have the best lineup in the division, the question for them will be the rotation. Billingsley and Kershaw will be reliable, but the rest of the rotation is questionable for how good they could be. Similar to the Rockies, if someone could step up, like Kuroda here, and carry over for the bats, then they will be able to make this division into a three team race, if not, this division will come down to the Rockies and Dodgers.

San Diego Padres:

The Padres could surprise again, however it is unlikely. The Padres have a lot of young players in the lineup and in the rotation that were good last year, but they all need to repeat that in order the team to be good again this year. In other words, they have to hope that the rest of the league hasn't figured them out yet. They started to run into this at the end of last season, and it could come again strong this year. If these players can rise above this, then they will contend. If not, then they won't. Not having Gonzalez also hurts.

Arizona Diamondbacks:

They made some good moves this offeseason, it just isn't their time yet. They brought in people that want to win and they unloaded risky players like Reynolds that were very all or nothing. The rotation isn't there this season so it will be really difficult for them to compete in this division.

Interesting news from MLB Trade Rumors yesterday that former Mets closer, Branden Looper retired.

Essentially, Looper was already retired. But the Cubs offered him a 1 million dollar contract if he made the major league club, so he came out of retirement to Spring Training. The Cubs told him yesterday that he wouldn't make the team, so he decided to actually retire. According to MLBTR, he had offers from other teams, but he only wanted to pitch with the Cubs to be close to his family.

The image of Lopper I have burned in my mind is him on the mound rubbing his pitching hand with a nervous grin on his face as he gives up a homer that allows the other team to get back in the game. Yep. That image will always be with me.

It's that time of year again when I get really hypocritical and do what I what I say other's shouldn't do: Try to predict the season without knowing other teams that well. Realizing that this is hypocritical, I'm not going to predict finishes like I have done in previous years. For me to predict finishes, especially in the AL West, my weakest division, would essentially be me saying “Hey, here's everything that is being talked about this division. I'm only going to extrapolate out of what is said nationally, and not spend the hours of research looking into every team and the histories of their players”. Instead what I will do, is talk about the odds of each team winning the division, what has to go right, and what could go wrong.

The AL West finds itself back in a familiar position with no one team coming off of a dominating off-season. The Rangers return with their powerful lineup, but shotty rotation. The Athletics return with their powerful rotation, and an average lineup. The Angels happen to be above average and both, and the Mariners have King Felix and Ichiro….and it starts to fall apart from there.

The Oakland Athletics:

They have the pitching. The question for them is if the lineup can score runs. Mets fans from last year will remember that for the better part of the season, the starting pitching on the Mets was phenomenal. The bats just didn't hit enough to back up the pitching (nothing hurts more losing a game 1-0, 2-1, because the offense couldn't get it done at the plate). If the A's get some offense surprises (Willingham anyone?) during the season, look for them to have a legitimate shot at the title. If not, it will be a frustrating season, because that pitching should carry them.

The Texas Rangers:

A big part of the Ranger push last season was Wilson and Lee at the top of that rotation, and then the Texas bats just bruising everyone up. Now with Lee gone, and no one really to replace him, the Rangers will have to rely on the rest of that rotation to make it through the season. The Rangers remind me a bit of the Phillies before they got dominating with pitching, in that the Rangers have enough offense that they just need quality starts out of their pitchers, and they will win ball games. So for Texas, if the rest of the rotation (Lewis, Hunter, Holland, Harrison) can get those QS's, then this team will play deep into September. If not, or if the offense doesn't click, the team will disappear quick.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:

As for balance in the division, the Angels win. Between Santana, Weaver and Haren, they have a solid starting of the rotation. That type of rotation becomes more dangerous in the post-season, when 4 and 5 don't matter much. Their lineup isn't bad, but it isn't great. They will need one or two guys in the lineup to have a surprise season. If their forth starter, Kazmir, has an old style Kazmir season, then this team suddenly starts to look a lot better. The other problem for the Angels is the bullpen is a bit of a question mark.

The Seattle Mariners:

They have Felix Hernandez. Outside of that there are a lot of questions. Can Bedard come back? Can the lineup hit for power? Can the lineup score runs? The Mariners didn't bring a whole lot in this off-season in terms of position players, and they were one of the teams that needed to to have a good shot. What is working for the Mariners is that this division is essentially open, so as long as they don't allow themselves to be the punching bag, like how they are projected to be, then they could make noise. I just really doubt it.

In conclusion:

This division has three teams in it that can make a run. Because of that, plus the division only having 4 teams, this division is prime for any one of these teams that get off to a hot stretch at the end of summer to swoop in and take the division.

Just Kidding.

Yesterday was an offensive explosion for the Mets. It brought on that awkward feeling of “I'm so excited we are scoring runs right now but please save this for the regular season.” The Mets walloped the Cards by the score of 16-3, with the majority of the scoring done by starters against starters early in the game. The Mets had 23 hits to back up those 16 runs. There are so many notable tidbits from this game that it is hard to distinguish what stats are the most important stats going forward, so here are a bunch of statements about the game, in no particular order of importance.

1) There were five Mets players who hit homers yesterday. David Wright (2). Angel Pagan (3). Brad Emaus (1). Josh Thole (3 – Also it was a PH). Den Dekker (the Upper Decker, not my nickname for him, but quite funny) (1). Thole has flashed some power this spring and now I am really curious to see how that aspect of his game carries over to the regular season.

2) The Mets had two players go 4-4: David Wright and Emaus. It is always good to see Wright go 4-4 because it reminds us that he is the cornerstone of the team. It was really nice though to see Emaus with the big day as he showed that hey, he can be starting second basemen, and the offense won't totally suck because of it. He showed some power, but that OBP in the 8th spot would be really nice in the regular season (to help turn that almost automatic out in the 9th spot into a productive out).

3) The pitching was good too! Capuano allowed 3 runs, 2 earned in 5 innings of work. Then everyone else pitched a scoreless inning (Boyer, Krod, Buchholz, Parnell). For the most part, the pen is looking pretty good.

Well one week left of Spring, and my optimism is rising. Is yours?

EDIT:

I forgot to include a Castillo update. Castillo had another 0-4 day with the Phillies yesterday, bringing his totals in his first two days to be 0-8.

“When the best thing about a team is the hamburger available at its stadium, it’s bad.”

– Jeff Passan

The upsides of the internet are huge. With instant connections and the ability to get essentially an infinite amount of information, people can become educated on a wide range of topics very quickly. At the same time, when people don't look fully into a situation (and I am guilty of this as well, you are probably too) the same information gets repeated and repeated. A small slice of the story gets re-articulated so much that it becomes the whole story. This is not exclusive to sports as it happens in every field. For example, why do people believe that the Health Care Policy that was passed a year ago has “Death Panels”? Well one news network started saying it, it was then repeated by all of the people that watch that news network, it was then blogged about by people who used that news network to get their information, assuming they were getting the whole picture then people read those blogs and watched that news network. Suddenly, people's second sources are just rehashing the material of the first source, and that diverse view an individual thinks they are getting on a topic is really just a microscopic narrow issue made to mask the rest of the story.

What does this have to do with the New York Mets?

Since the end of last season, when the Mets are talked about on a national level, there were two stories. They either A) talked about ownership issues and borrowing money (which is important to talk about) or B) Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez.

The problem then arises when people want to talk about the Mets, that are only getting their information from those two stories. If those two stories were the limit of our team, then yes, I would agree with the quote and the article from Jeff Passan, that the best thing going for the Mets is the food at our ballpark. There is a lot in his article I agree with. I just don't agree with the scope of it.

If you talk to a Mets fan, they can tell you tons of things that are positive about the team. We have a young first basemen who is posed to have a big sophomore year and show the league his skills with the glove. His rookie year was shadowed by the rookie year of Heyward, Posey and others, so he isn't a national name yet. He's an asset to this team. Ike Davis could vary will be a future cornerstone to this team. That's exciting. In addition to Ike Davis, the Mets have the blooming career to Angel Pagan who is also poised for a break out year. Pagan has that exciting mix of speed, glove ability, hitting and occasional power that brings hope to the season.

Finally, the Mets have Sandy Alderson, who has worked with a tight budget before, and so far in spring, has seemed to bring the right people aboard the Mets.

I'm not entirely angry with Jeff's article. I'm upset with the proposed scope of the article, and it what it represents to the outside-Mets-baseball-world. What Jeff says about the Mets ownership troubles are true and worrisome. However, the paint the picture this bleak for the entire Mets organization really does a disservice for anyone wanting to get a full picture of what the Mets have in their immediate future.

Oliver Perez has a new minor league contract with the Washington Nationals. According to MLB Trade Rumors, Perez will start the season in Triple A while Burnett and Slaten go north with the team. So as pitchers start to get injured or ineffective in during the season. Perez may get an opportunity to move up. When that happens, he will have to be paid the league minimum from the Nationals, so the Mets will save that little bite out of the 12 million left on his contract.

The interesting theme that has developed this week is that this is the second player to be released with from the Mets and then go to an NL East team. The first was Casillo who made his debut for the Phillies, going 0-4 at the plate.

If you remember, last year this occurred with Nelson Figueroa, who went on to struggle with the Phillies and the Astros.

The Mets finally got rid of two players over the last several days that have had the writing on the wall for a while now in Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo. To be fair, the Mets did what any group of people with a lot invested in these players would do. They gave them each a chance to earn their spot on the roster. That's prudent. That's baseball smart. That's acceptable…..or not:

Given this bleak scenario, you sometimes got the feeling this winter that Luis Castillo and Perez were just being kept around for the inevitable sighs of relief that would come with the good riddances. Nobody took seriously these last-gasp auditions, particularly in the case of Perez. – Flip Bondy, New York Daily News

And the New York Post wasn't that much better as they ran article with the headline With Perez gone, Mets Fans Need New Scapegoats. (Full Disclosure: I recognize that this headline for the article is a lot worse than the actual article. The article actually doesn't make Mets fans out to be these desperate creatures that need to blame something, or need to have someone orchestrated into the position of blame, to satisfy our dark human needs).

So what did the Mets really accomplish with regards to Oliver and Luis this Spring?

They first made sure they gave them their course due. To give credit to what Bondy wrote, no one really thought either player was going to break Spring up north with the Mets. At the same time, Bondy is probably too cynical in his statement that the two players were only around to produce positive news for the Mets fan base at the end of Spring. That type of statement falls into the Carl Sagan's “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence Box”. To claim the Mets were in some form of Front Office conspiracy is a little far fetched (at least in this case). It really is possible that the Mets just wanted to make sure, one final time that they weren't going to eat the cost and regret it more. Also it is very plausible that part of the tone of camp Collins was showing is that everyone, no matter paycheck or media hatred, gets a fair shot at making the team. These claims are more likely than Sandy Alderson led conspiracy.

The Mets in turn this Spring fostered competition and hopefully the best players in the organization. This spring showed that especially for Oliver, the Mets want to head north with the best 25, and these two were not in the top 25 in camp.

Finally, New York papers, Mets fans do not need a scapegoat. With evidence on playing field, the players who don't perform will get ridiculed, but it isn't like we actually need a scapegoat in order to survive. This Mets fan base, although it won't sell papers to acknowledge this fact, is actually filled with logical, rational people, who aren't as brash and trashy as we are portrayed.

The NY Post didn't devote its back page to Castillo, but the Daily News. With the release of Castillo, they decided to post one of the most iconic images of his tenure with the Mets:

You can extrapolate meaning from that image and choosing that image as you wish.

In the beginning of February with Felipe Lopez signing a Minor League deal, the draft order for 2011 was set. This year the first round will consist of 33 picks, and the first compensation round will have 27 picks. One way to think about that is there are so many compensation picks this draft that the supplemental round this year is almost as long as a normal round. The only difference is not everyone is invited to the supplemental round and some teams will be there multiple times (Rays – 6, Blue Jays – 4, Padres – 3, etc.)

The big story will be the Rays in the draft. We all know how the Rays essentially lost their entire team this offseason, however they have a very good minor league system filled with a lot of talent, and they will have 9 picks between the first round of the draft and the supplemental round. If they do their scouting right, they could get big rewards out of this year's draft.

The Mets will have the 13th overall pick this year and then they will get the 44th pick in the supplemental round (followed by pick 71 in the second round. In other words, the Mets will have a normal draft. We don't have an incredible amount of first year picks, and thanks to limited spending/losing, we don't have a lower amount of picks. (The Mets first round pick was actually protected this year, so we would have lost a later pick, but thanks to the amount of Supplemental picks this year, losing a pick would not have been good, but not terrible in an overall sense of things).

You know who I feel bad for though? And by feel bad I mean I feel not bad at all. The Phillies will get the supplemental pick #39 for Jason Werth signing with the Nationals and then pick #66, since the Nationals first round pick is protected.

According to Metsblog, Andy Martino, Adam Rubin, and Brian Costa, the Mets have released Castillo.

This is breaking news, so I don't have a lot of details yet, but if you have been following the Mets this Spring this has been set up the inevitable. If the reports are true, it is the end of the Castillo era, which is one of the most psychologically interesting era's in Mets history. Castillo was a player who did hustle, and at least one good season with the Mets (2009) and yet represented so much that was wrong with the Mets at the same time.

The negative representation wasn't fully Castillo's fault. Yes he struggled, and he did hamper the lineup. But in someways he became the physical embodiment of everything that was and is wrong with the Mets. Castillo came over in the latter half of 2007, right before the collapse. He then later got a massive three year contract, which was a perfect example of the Omar administration trying to win now by over compensating players that had readily available WARP players on the market. He later would become one of Omar's guys, thus giving him an additional stigma. Luis was then the victim of Jerry's horrible lineup construction, especially last season, where he was given the 2nd spot, when in reality, it was time to drop him in the lineup.

At the same time, releasing him is completely necessary. He isn't what he used to be, and the Mets have better options, at least offensively, then Luis Castillo. It is better to lose with younger players still climbing to their ceilings, than it is to lose with an aging former star that is overpaid. Or in other words, to be real, the Mets are going to need luck to be good this year. It is worth the gamble on unknown talent, rather than dwindling, consistent talent.

Luis Castillo faced a lot of criticism, from people including myself. He deserved some, not all. Good luck with whatever life brings next.

Now the Mets have to figure out their 2B issues.