213 Miles From Shea

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.

Fernando Martinez has impressed me this Spring. Meija has impressed me this Spring. GMJ has suprised me this Spring. All of these good things for the Mets fail in comparison to Takahashi. From his attitutude to performance so far, he has proved that the Mets NEED him on the roster.

The statistics are startling, in 6 innings, he has allowed only 2 hits, no runs, no walks and has struck out 9. That would be a K/9 of 13.5. He is having this success because of his impecable control. He doesn't over power pitchers but he hits all of the spots that he is given. Another fun fact, he is here on a Minor League contract. This is why I like his attitude. He has been quoted saying that he came here on the minor league contract because it was going to be a challenge, because it was going to be hard.

Before I make too many bold predictions and opinions, this is contignent of course of him keeping up his work this Spring. Let him start a game, let's see him pitch 4 innings against major league hitters. If he can handle that, then he needs to be seriously considered for the the fifth starter spot. If he gets that, and Figgy gets the longman in the pen (but honestly they can be flipped) then the Mets can send Nieve down and Niese (who has options and contract wise, this may be a wise move).

Keep up the good work Takahashi, hope to see you in Queens.

The Mets beat the Cards today thanks to a walkoff homer from Pagan this afternoon. In the bottom of the ninth, with a runner on first, Pagan powered one out of park as he hit his first homer of the Spring. Side note, Gary Cohen predicted apparently inbetween the two halves of the ninth inning today that the game would end on a homerun. Anyway, the Mets have now hit 21 homers this Spring and lead the majors (bizzzzarrrrrre). Chris Carter has lived up to his MO hitting three homers already this spring and David Wright in his first 19 AB this Spring has hit 3 homers (not including today's AB's).

The other big story for the Mets today was K-rod. In his spring debut he got a quick ground out, a quick fly out and then finished off the side with a great looking strikeout. This was a performance the Mets really needed to help show that their bullpen can be a force. If you remember, K-rod had a record breaking year with the Angels before coming over to the Amazin's where he was good until he started to stumble towards the end of the season. Lets hope this trend continues. Lets Go Mets!

Yesterday I was watching the Pirates and Yankees Spring Training Game on MLBN and honestly it felt like a PBS special for the Pirates to get their viewers to purchase season tickets and season tickets. The game would constantly cut into the Pirates' offices showing people on the phones buying plans and they would have interviews with personnel about why this is a good time to purchase season tickets. The tone of the announcers during the game also felt like a PBS special, it was very weird.

However the season ticket plans they were offering were incredible:

20 Game Pack – $140 (13 Saturday Games, 6 Friday Games, Opening Day)
20 Game Pack – $140 (13 Sunday Games, 6 Friday Games, Opening Day)
Half Season Pack – Starting at $246
Single game for $18 including a Pirates Hat
Single game for $21 included a Replica Clemente Jersey
81 Games – $999 or $12 a seat
81 Games – $399 or $5 a seat

Also all season ticket purchases yesterday received a free Bill Mazeroski autographed baseball.

For those prices, if you are marginally a Pirates fans living in the area, it may be time to splurge a little. 

I was working in a computer lab where I saw a friend of mine. Both of us being baseball fans the conversation naturally went towards baseball. He revealed to me a major news story that I completely missed from last summer. Apparently Topps has an exclusive license to use MLB logos now. This of course confused me because I new that Upper Deck was releasing baseball cards this year.

The folks at Upper Deck have been able to make a complete card set where they do not show MLB logos at all. The hats and helmets are at angles where the logos are not visible, or the pictures show the player making a play from back. If the picture is of the player from the front, the action shot has either an arm or an object partially blocking the name of the team on the front of the Jersey. On the bottom of the car, the city of where the player is from is shown instead of the team name. The result is a card set, in my opinion, that actually looks better than the Topps set.

From The View From Arizona

From Wax Heaven

The first picture is from Upper Deck while the second one is from Topps. Like I said before, I really like the design of the Topps one better.

The Mets have a handful of prospects that everyone has been talking about all Winter and Spring. These are players like Ike Davis, Jenry Meija and even Josh Thole. Oh yeah, and we had this prospect that we all talked about a lot last year. Fernando Martinez? Do you recall? He had a swing like Sosa apparently, power potential. He got injured a lot if I remember correctly.

Well today was the Fmart Show. He went 4-4, 3 R, 2 RBI, 2 HR. Thats right. TWO homers. By the way, he is getting hits 2 out of 3 trips now to the plate. Coming into this Spring he was a real outside shot for the CF position, especially with the GMJ trade. He was vocally upset about that trade. Now he is using his bat to make a statement. Ultimately, I think another year in the minors would do him good, so he could play everyday and concentrate on his health, but he is another young player making things very difficult for the Amazin's.

Another player who needed a big day was Jacobs who went 1-2, 2 R, 2 BB and his first hit this spring was a homer. With Murphy not playing amazingly out of the gate this Spring, Jacobs has an opportunity to turn heads, and maybe he will be able to do that starting now.

Also as a side note, in the first 6 games this Spring for the Mets, the Mets players have 7 homers. Nice.

On the other side of the ball today, Pelfrey didn't fair so well giving up 3 earned runs over 7 hits and over 3.0 innings. Hopefully he will be better next time out. Green bounced back in his outing today going 1.1 innings allowing only hit, and Kunz also had a much better performance pitching a clean no walk no hit inning.

This game featured the other two pitchers trying to get into the starting rotation and they made some strong cases. For Nieve, he went 3.0 innings, allowed a run, walked two and struck out two. Figueora went 4.0 innings allowing only one hit, and struck out 5. Before this week a lot of people basically had Figueora in the deep three spot for trying to get the fifth stater position, but you have to think now with two impressive performances he is making that race a tight one.

General offense notes:

GMJ went 1-3 as he continues to tear up Spring pitching with a .375 BA
Jacobs went 0-2 still looking for his first spring hit.
Fmart had a great day going 2-4, R, RBI
Tejeda 2-4, R

Another good day for the Mets, lets hope today is the same.

The most important note about the Mets home game yesterday was Meija. He really impressed a lot of people yesterday. He went out and pitched 2.1 innings of no hit ball while striking out 4 and walking none. A lot of people are now talking about if he could pitch himself into a position to make the team this season. Personally, I would like to see him in the minors for another season to develop his stuff but he is exciting and a lot of fun to watch.

Another pitcher with a lot of eyes on him also did well yesterday. Niese pitched 2.2 innings and allowed a run, walked two and struck out 5 in a pretty good performance. So far all of the Fifth starter hopefuls have had good outings, so its going to be an interesting race.

Only two offense notes: