213 Miles From Shea

Today's profile is the last of the non-roster invitees players to go through this series, and for some reason it seems fitting to give that honor to former – Mets killer, Willie Harris. Harris was essentially the 4th OF for the Nationals but for some reason every time he played the Mets he became Willie Mays with his defense and his bat. If the minor league signing of Harris has been good for anything, at least he will not be able to play against us in the regular season.

And we are talking a Met killer here. There have been multiple times were the Mets were trailing the Nationals late in a game, and who ever the Mets batter would hit a line drive, a line drive that could put the Mets ahead, and some how every time Willie Harris was there to make a Sports Center-esque catch. This year he will be battling in camp to make it on the 40 man and then to Queens. The main obstacle in his path is Scott Hairston, who is a similar player to Harris, and has a major league contract. Here are some Harris stats:

2010 – 224 AB, 132 G, 25 R, 41 H, 6 2B, 2 3B, 10 HR, 32 RBI, .183 BA, .291 OBP, .362 SLG

Career – .239 AB, .327 OBP, .357 SLG

Here's a surprising nugget of information. Since Harris has been in the bigs (2001), he has hit only 37 homers, and 10 of them came last year. Aside from his small power boost last season, his numbers are pretty much inline with what we expect from him. If he does make the team, it will really be by glove alone because he does not bring much game with his bat. Personally, I feel the Mets have a lot more options than Willie Harris to turn to, so unless he has an amazing Spring Training, I don't see him going north with the team (that is not a bold prediction at all) but I wouldn't rule out a midseason call-up if necessary.

Russ Adams makes another return to Mets Spring Training this year, this time around with some “connections” that he didn't have before. He was a member of the Blue Jays organization a few years back when new Mets Front Office Member Ricciardi was the GM when he informed Adams in 2007 that he would have to work his way back to the Major League Roster. Another fun fact about Adams is he hit a grand slam (his first one) against Jonathan Papelbon.

Career Majors – 884 AB, .247 BA, .313 OBP, .372 SLG

2010 Minors – 383 AB, 58 R, 101 H, 28 2B, 2 3B, 16 HR, 58 RBI

Russ Adams fits in the Mets plans essentially in the same place as he did last season. He is a back up infielder looking to break on to the team to provide some help on the bench or in an injury situation. However he is also blocked by a good amount of players, so similar to Dusty Ryan, it is difficult to see how Adams, as a non-roster player, will be able to make it on to the team, or even the 40 man.

I guess what I am getting at is right now he projects as a less talented, low ceiling, decade older Ruben Tejada, in terms of the rolls he can play. Since Tejada will be starting in AAA in order to gain experience, I just don't see in the long term where Adams fits in, other than more depth for this team.

14 Days Until Spring Training!

We are down to only two weeks to go! Anyway yesterday we met one of the options for back up back up catcher the Mets have in Raul Chavez, who is probably the leading player for that position. He also has competition from a new acquisition the Mets made in November, Dusty Ryan. Ryan will be 25 this year and has logged 70 major league AB's in his two seasons in the majors (2008-09). In his first major league AB he hit a homer. Anyway here are some statistics:

Career Majors – 70 AB, .257 BA, .338 OBP, .386 SLG, 7 R, 18 H, 3 2B, 2 HR, 11 RBI

2010 Minors – 261 AB, .199 BA, .333 OBP, .349 SLG, 52 H, 18 2B, 7 HR, 30 RBI, 50 BB

There is an interesting trend that is popping up in his stats is his OBP tends to be way up compared to his BA, he seems to walk a lot. It is nice to see a batter with patience, but one would hope that his batting average would be better. I don't really see a scenario that Dusty comes up over Chavez (unless of course Chavez gets injured or something). He would also have to step over Nickeas who is on the 40 man. I just don't see Ryan as really making the team, unless of course he becomes Ted Williams during Spring Training.

15 Days Until Spring Training!

On today's continuing tour of non roster invitees, we take a break from pitchers and look at a catcher. Raul Chavez was a recent signing for the Mets to add some depth in the catching position. Going into 2011, it looks like right now that Thole will be the main catcher with Paulino getting some back up time. That being said, the nature of the position is prone to injuries and back ups in the catcher position are always needed. Generally this is a position (the back up back up catcher) that turns over in each organization quite frequency and this year it falls on Chavez.

Chavez will 38 this season and in his time in the majors (11 seasons) he has played major leagues with the Expos, Mariners, Astros, Orioles, Pirates and the Blue Jays. According to his wiki page, Chavez is a defense catcher with a good arm, and not exactly the best bat (but honestly, there are very few good hitting catchers). Here are some useful stats.

Career- .231 BA, .266 OBP, .304 SLG, .570 OPS

2009 (Majors) – 51 G, 159 AB, .258 BA, 10 R, 41 H, 8 2B, 2 HR, 15 RBI

2010 (Minors) – 55 G, 200 AB, .210 BA, 18 R, 42 H, 13 2B, 3 HR, 24 RBI

So, like hinted to earlier, not a lot of offense, but that isn't what Chavez is supposed to be bring to the table. He brings his arm and his glove, and hopefully we wont have to see it, but if we do, there are worst players to come up and provide back up support for the back up.

Somewhere along the line I forgot to analyze the new Washington Set. Washington has been plagued by an Identity crisis since its inception. They list different establishment years (is the Senators? the Expos? the most current team). Do they use the DC logo or the W? This current uniform set try to reconcile the latter issue by completely switching the Nationals to the “W”. They no longer have the DC logo on the uniforms, on the hats, and on the blue jerseys. All of the home jerseys look like copies of their old red, “softball” style uniforms. You can look at the old uniform set here.

Anyway they kept the road uniform the same and they kept the Red Alternate uniform the same. The change now occurs in the White Home Uniform and the Blue Home Uniform. So they lost the script on the White uniforms that was always getting misspelled and they replaced the DC with a W on the Blue uniforms. Also if you look at the sleeves, the main logo patch also has the W on it now.

Look the Nationals set was pretty bad to begin with. The best upgrade they ever did was to the road uniforms last year. There was a prototype for a new home uniform that I wrote about earlier, that had a script Nationals plate that looked pretty nice. I will come off as highly critical of this new set because I don't like softball style jerseys.

The positives of the new set is they have unifying theme now, an identity, and the Red that DC loves to show off has a strong placehold.

The negatives are first, the Blue shouldn't exist, it doesn't fit in with the culture they are trying to develop between all the sport teams in DC. Second, the softball style uniforms is a little much every night, which they will now have for at least 81 games this year. Overall, the new set is an upgrade of what they used to have, but not an overall upgrade to what they could have had.

16 Days Until Spring Training!

A few weeks ago we discussed the importance of the Tankersley signing for memorable facial hair on the team, but we didn't really get into who Taylor is, or the merits he brings as a non-roster invitee to camp this year.

Taylor was a very good player in high school (Vicksburgh, Mississippi) and had success in college (three years at the University of Alabama). His strengths and talents were the reasons why the Marlins selected him in the first round of the 2004 draft. He made his debut when he was 23 years old in what was his best season as a pitcher in the majors recording a 2-1 record and a 2.85 ERA in 49 games and 41 innings pitched. His second season wasn't as good as his first, but was still pretty good with a 3.99 ERA (also as a side note, in his second season he had a 6-1 record, which is fantastic for a reliever, you normally don't think of a reliever picking up that many wins or having that type of spread of wins and losses in a season). From 2008 on he has been bounced around the Marlins organization levels as he struggles with various arm injuries.

Last season in the minors he posted a 3.42 ERA in 26.1 innings of work while striking out 22 batters in the AAA level. The Mets are looking for Taylor to factor in at the battle to be left handed specialist (ie Feliciano's replacement). He will be 28 this upcoming season, and could be a valuable part of the Mets and at least adds an interesting piece of depth to the roster.

Those of you who have read this blog for four years now (officially today! really!) know that one concept I struggle with is who is the Mets rival. Is it the Braves? Is it the Phillies? At what point does being competitive with a team mean that we are rivals? When does the length of a “hatred” make it a rivalry?

Well I've had a change of heart now. With the consumer consumption culture associated with major sport leagues in the United States, I feel it is appropriate to declare a team is our rival when makers of products declare that we have a rival and we need to spend money to punctuate it (yes this oozes with cynicism). Anyway, feast your eyes on the crowning item that declares the rival of the New York Mets:

Source

Yeah. I'll admit. I'm completely fine with the Phillies being our rival, because now their is a knockoff of a childhood favorite board game declaring it (sarcasm again, but on another point, I will admit now that I do see Philly as a rival). It's a bit of a ridiculous item, but with all of the other ridiculous items out their in the world, for baseball and for board games, this product fits in, and has brethren.

Dear Readers,

Thank you for another great year! It was four years ago today that I decided to start blogging about the New York Mets, a team where misery somehow equals a good time, some of the time.

Anyway, it has been a really big year for this website as we partnered up here with Yard Barker which has caused a boom in traffic. We started to do some reoccurring series like Memorabilia Monday, Facial Hair Friday etc. Hopefully they will start up again with this upcoming season. This year my goal is to double the readership. In the last four years there have been about 56,000 visitors to this website, with around 20 K from last year. Knowing that, I would love this year to have 50 K, making the total over 100 K. This is a difficult goal, but maybe it can be reached, only with your help of course.

Speaking of this season. There is a lot to be excited about! The team is a bit of a mystery, there are no expectations, yet on paper we don't seem terrible. Let's just have a good time this year, win some games, make some noise, and do something great.

Lets Go Mets!

And Thanks For Reading –

Elliot Teichman

17 Days Until Spring Training!

We continue down a list of non-roster invitee Pitchers to Spring Training with Mike O'Connor. Mike is a 30 year old pitcher who made his debut with the Washington Nationals is 2006. Since the 2006 season, where he had 105 innings logged, he hasn't really pitched at all except for 9 innings with Nationals in 2008. He has also bounced all over the place in the last few years as he was traded from the Nationals to the Padres in 2009 midseason. Later that same season he was released and then picked up by the Royals to finish the season. The Mets signed before the start of the 2010 season.

Looking at his 2010 numbers with Bisons, it is easy to see why the Mets want to at least look at him this Spring before setting rosters. This past season he pitched in 51 games totaling 70.2 innings with a 2.67 ERA where he also recorded 6 saves. The most striking statistics for Mike last season was his K/BB ratio which was at 4.12. He struck out 70 batters while only walking 17. So he strikes out one batter per inning, on average and his ratio is fantastic.

It is players like O'Connor that get me very frustrated with Perez. Can you image if O'Connor was given a chance last season? His numbers in the minors were fantastic and he is also a left handed tosser.

If he has a strong start to Spring Training, one that reflects his numbers from last season, expect him to stay in camp longer than people originally expected (if they expected anything).

Get Excited For This One.

On Friday, Uni Watch Blog had a link in their main article that showed the new uniform for the Oakland Athletics.

But before we discuss the uniform, we need to have some back story. The Athletics are one of those teams, like the Mets, who have black jerseys for really no reason. They have no black in their color scheme, yet the jerseys exist. The difference though is, unlike the Mets, the Athletics other home alternate is Forest Green (which makes sense cause that is one of their two colors) and Forest Green is rather dark, so the Athletics have had two dark uniforms.

The advantage to this gold uniforms is that punctuates the other main color of the Athletics, and, like their Forest Green Uniforms, is also unusual when compared to other teams, which is always a plus (the more variety across the league the better). So they will stop having a uniform like everyone else, and now will be more unique.

I am surprised to some degree that I like the uniforms, because I normally do not like uniforms with a team logo on one side of the front of Jersey, but the A looks so classy, it is really hard not to like this new uniform.

So upgrade to the Athletics, who now may have one of the best overall uniform sets in the majors.