213 Miles From Shea

Earlier this past week we looked at all of the promotions from the New York Mets for the month of April. I have gone through all 30 major league teams, and I have found some interesting promotions from other teams to share. First off, (interesting fact) the only teams that are not advertising a schedule magnet as a promotion are the Red Sox, the Jays and the Phillies. Some trends to look at in this list include the amount of teams that are giving out “sluggies” or the baseball version of the Snuggie (as seen on TV). Anyway, here are some promotional highlights:

4/6 – LAA: Matsui Blankee (a red blanket covered with the number 55 on it, and I am pretty sure this blanket has sleeves)
4/7 – Tampa Bay: You know those really cool glasses that their manager wears? Yeah they are giving away those.
4/7 – Cinncinnatti: Their version of the snuggie.
4/8 – LAA: Manager of the Year Bust
4/10 – Kansas City: A beautiful Replica Blue Royal Jersey
4/10 – Houston: A fantastic Astros' throwback jersey 
4/12 – Minnesota: An Opening Day Certificate for Target Field
4/15 – Oakland: Team “Sluggie”
4/16 – Seattle: Ken “The Kid” Griffy Jr Bobblehead. It features him as a young kid, with his old uniform, says “The Kid” and has the old stadium in the background.
4/17 – Seattle: Seattle Mariners military coins
4/17 – Oakland: Roy Steele (announcer) bobblehead. What is neat here is Steel is sitting at his desk.
4/22 – Pittsburgh: They really want to go green. Fans will get a green hat AND a green shirt at this game.
4/23 – San Francisco: Their version of a snuggie.
4/24 – Cinncinnatti: Reds' Turf Grower
4/25 – Texas: Andrus Jersey and it looks really nice.
4/30 – Cubs: The “W” Banner
4/30 – St. Louis: They also have a snuggie.
4/30 – Detroit: Justin Verlander Bobblehead, where the base is a counter to keep track of Verlander's strikeouts

Fantastic read from the New York Times today. Its about how Krod is helping Juan Urbina, and other Mets minor leaguers, adjust to baseball and life in America. I really don't want to give too much away, but this was a really nice read (Its from the Times, so that's expected).

Last night Jon Stewart on the Daily Show wanted to see what would happen if people had the rights as corporations. During which he takes a swipe at Citi Group and then the Mets (a team he is a big fan of). I thought the clip was pretty funny.

(Disclaimer: The Mets reference occurs about 8 minutes, maybe 8 and half minutes into the video, and its a really quick.)

Check it for yourself:

Recently we took a look at David Wright and what ESPN and CBS concluded would be his statistic outlook for the upcoming season. Let's do the same thing for Reyes, Bay and Francoeur. With Reyes, lets not even look at what he did last year and just look at what the two websites concluded for 2010:

One thing these two projections got correct would be the power numbers. I think those are right around where they should be (but could turn out a smidge higher). I thought it was also funny the discrepancy of stolen bases between the two sites. This shows everyone's uncertainty about where his speed will be once he comes back (the difference in the batting averages is also due to a question of where his hitting will be). The one stat that can be really picked apart is the RBI's. Ultimately, this will depend on how long or if it all Reyes's bats third. If he doesn't at all, his RBI numbers will be close to these projections, if he bats third, then it should be higher.

Jason Bay is a player who's numbers have been picked apart all off season, and now its time to do it again with is 2009 numbers, ESPN and CBS projections:

Ready for this rant? ESPN says the drop in power will be due to Citi Field. Honestly I am sick of this at this point. First off, if you want to use statistics, they all show that hitting a homerun is not that difficult at Citi Field. Not only did the Mets hit more homers at Citi than on the road, but the Phillies hit more homers against the Mets last year in Queens than when the played the Mets at Philly! Also, ITS ONE YEAR. We do not have the stats yet to truely know what the effects of Citi Field are (and honestly you do not want to hear my rant about how the media in general, especially in politics, misuse statistics).

Finally there is Jeff Francoeur. Honestly I think he's a good player, and I know people have think that he isn't. He is decent. The Mets do not need everyone to be awesome and hopefully this year the Mets will not (knock on wood), need him to bat cleanup. Anyway here are his stats (for the ESPN one, the numbers in parethesis are the stats related to what he hit last year):

If Franceour hits these numbers in the sixth spot, that will be very productive for the Amazin's this year. Its also always funny to see how many walks people expect Frenchy to get.

Finally, because its always fun to compare, here are the numbers from ESPN on how Pujols and Hanely Ramirez expect to perform this year, written in the same system as Frenchy above:

The Mets got some really great news yesterday. Jose Reyes was cleared to return to baseball activities. It is unclear if he will resume today and it is still unclear if he will be ready for Openning Day but it is so good to just have Reyes back. Before we get to what this means for the Mets, here is the back of the New York Post:
(From the NY Post)

And the New York Daily News:
(From the NY Daily News)

In terms of the lineup (without getting into the whole batting leadoff vs batting 3rd arguement), this will most likely put a damper on the whole Tejada vs Cora arguement. That debate was more relavent when it seemed like the Mets could go possibly through May without Reyes. Before the news of Reyes returning, I was for Tejada because he is a better defensive player than Cora. However now that the time without Reyes has been severely shortened I am for Cora to fill in any time in the regular season that Reyes will miss because now the Mets will not have to waste options on Tejada (in other words, now my decision is soley based from an adminstration point of view).

Just an all around good day for the Amazin's.

It's no secret that David Wright had a rough year last year. It can be contributed to a lot of things (trying to the pull the ball too much, no lineup protection, etc) and it is also no secret that Wright has worked really hard over the offseason to improve his swing, balance, hitting spread (I didn't know how to say using the whole field in a few words), power, etc. Many fantasy pundits have concluded that Wright will have a bounce back year because, well its a safe bet. And Wright will have a bounce back year. Here are David Wright's stats from 2009 and 2008:

And now stat projections for 2010:

From the above projections, I think the ESPN one is closer to what it actually will be, and its not just because its better. Even though the Mets are not starting the year with Beltran and Reyes, you would have to think with Bay, Wright will score more runs and will hit more often with players on base. What I don't agree with is ESPN's K's stats. That seems to be a direct correlation only using last years stats, and not previous years. Of course, I am also hoping that his year is bigger than what both sites are projecting, and I feel that it will be.

The June 2010 draft will be here soon and its time to start to look at the draft order. Because of the nature of the baseball draft with compensation picks, the order actually was just finished with the signing of Rod Barajas (although if another Type A or B agent signs then the draft order will change again). From the Mets perspective, since we performed so poorly last year, even though we signed Jason Bay, a Type A agent, our first round pick is actually protected. However, we lose our second round pick. There are also a lot of compensation picks this year in the supplemental round, so our next pick, in the third round, is actually pick 89 (or 82 picks later).

In a way this is exciting for the Mets because of the high pick we have, on the other side, we will have to wait a while to get another pick. What's more interesting though is the amount of first round picks that other teams have. The first number represents total first round picks, the second number represents the amount of picks in the supplemental round.

Looks like the Angels loosing Figgins and Lackey will have a huge benefit for the Angels' farm system, although they would probably would like to have Figgins and Lackey back so they could win now. Next MLB Draft Preview will be about the Mets recent draft successes and who they could be picking with the seventh pick.

Here's a site with an updated draft order:
http://mlbbonusbaby.com/category/2010-draft-order/

With baseball comes marketing and promotions. Some teams do it well, some don't do it well at all, and there are some who don't even try. While for the most part the minors do the best promotions, there are some good ones in the majors. Historically in my opinion, the Mets tend to walk the line with average promotions. For April, I believe the Mets are slightly above average. They will have 4 promotional item giveaways:

1. 4/5 Opening Day: This is by far the best promotion of the bunch, and probably why the Mets will have a slightly above average month in terms of giveaways. It's a model of the homerun Apple, which is awesome (and already on ebay):
(Image from Mets.com)

4/9 : The dullest giveaway of them all, and just about every team does it. The Magnetic Calendar giveaway. Dull Dull Dull. However, you can create a fridge wallpaper with them if you collect enough of them from multiple teams for many years.

4/10: Mets Scarf! You can wear for winter protection or like Futbol Soccer Fans.

4/23: Ski Cap. Looks pretty good. I picked one of these up at a late April Orioles game, if the Mets make them at the same quality the Orioles, did, this should be a pretty solid pick up.

Get that free Mets stuff!

This season hasn't even started yet and there is already talk with the National Media about next year's offseason, and the big prize for next year, Carl Crawford. The Yankees have not hidden their interest very well for the Centerfield, and any team interested in Carl will have a lot to compete with because the Yankees are expected to overbid for Crawford (but you don't need any knowledge of baseball to figure that one out).

This will serve the Mets well because Crawford is a player the Mets really do not need. He is a fantastic player, but the Mets already have a crowded outfield and its only going to get more crowded next season. Crawford is the type of player that can make any team better, but the problem is the Mets have a lot of talent already in the outfield. As of right now, the three outfielders could easily be back next season (Bay, Beltran, Francoeur), and then their is a phenom who should be ready to go (F-mart), and probably some fringe contenders (Dan Murphy, who will probably be out of a job via Ike Davis). Unless Francoeur has a fantastic season, which is very possible, he seems to be the odd man out for Fmart, but at the same time, his mere existence on the roster could be very useful. This means that finding space for Crawford would be a problem, and honestly, a team like the Mets has so many core players (Wright, Reyes, Santana, etc) adding Crawford would be adding another core player. If the Mets didn't sign Bay last offseason, then the Mets should be going after Crawford, but we did get Bay, so now the focus should be on pitching and other gaps, not outfielders.

Oddly enough, the Mets find themselves in a position where they have a lot of internal options for the outfield meaning they will be able to concentrate on other areas next offseason. We all know the media circus that follows the Mets whenever they try to do anything in the offseason, to no have to deal with that with the Yankees, a media superstorm if you will, will be a good thing for this Mets team.

With Opening Day about 17 days away now, this is the time in Spring when pitchers start to show how they will perform over the course of the season. The first two weeks or so of Spring are about getting your arm strength back and just throwing pitches. These two weeks are about getting batters out and getting into game frame of mind. In other words, this is the time we should be critically looking at pitchers, as they are facing actual starting position players longer into games. Lucky for us, the Mets fans, this is when the Mets pitchers have actually started to look good.

Two pitchers who have been questioned (and rightfully so) over the winter have been Pelfrey and Perez. Pelfrey had a tremendous outing two days ago, and Perez had an average outing yesterday (4.50 ERA for that game). Of course we want above average, but with Perez, average is a great place to be right now.

Takahashi, the pitcher I was prasing in yesterday's article, had a fantastic outing last night, going for 2.1 innings, getting the save and continuing his scoreless streak. Seriously, start this guy, see what he has against the majors.

Another pitcher with a big outing yesterday was Krod. It wasn't as pretty as his first outing, this time he allowed two hits and didn't strike out anyone, but he still got through it without giving up a run in his second appearence this Spring. His possible set up man, Igarashi, also had a scoreless inning yesterday.

To add to the good feelings, Bay and Frenchy both hit two run homers yesterday, to continue to show how the Mets are flexing their power out there. There's a good feeling in the air now, and the Mets just need to take it with them to New York.