213 Miles From Shea

Every once in a while I write an article over at Fan Huddle and I forget to tell you fine folks over here about it, and that was the case on Wednesday when I wrote this piece.

It was about how I am glad that the Mets “missed out” on Molina. My opinion was further solidified later in the week when we traded for Matthews (a line up with Matthews and Molina would be way to slow) and then even further solidified when Molina came out with a statement saying that he would have signed with the Mets only if they guranteed two years. So check out the article if you want to.

The title probably is a good explanation of how you feel at this point in the offseason if you still have hope in the front office to make competent decisions. If you are more cynical than your response was probably more like “Oh, that makes sense for the Mets, because it doesn't.”

Alright, so I'm being a little too harsh on the Mets but seriously Gary Matthews Jr? At least it is only for 1.25 million a year. The Mets management made this move as back up for Pagan as a back up for Beltran. The only way this move will make sense for the Mets is if Pagan, and lets hope not, gets injured, which can easily happen. But the part of this move that is puzzling is that it cost the Mets one of their suprisingly more effective pitchers from the pen.

I liked Stokes. The Mets however do not like Stokes. He could go long periods of time without seeing action, and taking that into his account his 3.97 ERA from the pen is better than it actually is. But the part of this move that is really just strange is that we still need pitching, and we have a lot of players that we could have signed to minor league deals that would probably give us the same production in the outfield that Gary Matthews will.

Compounding the disapointment in the Mets making this move is that they still have not been able to accomplish two of their main goals for this offseason. Sign/Trade a Starting pitcher to help out Johan and crew. Trade Castillo away (and sign Hudson). If those two things happen then this move will be able to be over looked, but until then this is just a frustrating move from an offseason of frustrating moves.

I received an email a few days ago from Cynthia Marrero talking about the Chase Community Giving. Its a contest where non-profit organizations of 10 million or less (budgets) can win via Facebook a 1 million dollar grant.

Here's the email:

Hello,

        My name is
Cynthia Marrero, and I work with the Nephcure Foundation. We have a video
featuring Ed Hearn that you might be interested in. Ed is leading the charge
for Nephcure in the Chase Community Giving Facebook Contest. Nephcure is among
100 non-profit organizations with budgets of 10,000,000 dollars or less, who
are competing for a 1 million dollar grant. Here is the youtube link to
Ed’s video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoeuz2fVHGU

Other relevant links are:

www.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving

www.nephcure.org

Thanks so much for your time!

Voting Just closed, so I'm sorry that this is coming a little late. But its nice to see former Mets helping out in the community.

If you ever want uniform news, I really hope you use uniwatchblog.com because it is an unbelievable site. Anyway, they announced that New Era has released new BP hats for every MLB team (and this explains why the old BP hats are only $10 on the official online shops right now).

The main complaint for these hats, at least asthetically, are the inappropriate amount of piping. Below is a photo of the BP hat that Mets wore last year:

(Image from the USA Today Sports Store)

And Here is the new hat:
(From the New Era Online Store)

Before we explain the differences you can see, there is one that you can't see in the photos which is on the back of the new hat, the MLB logo is surrounded by a half circle of piping and is inset I believe in black fabric.

I have two main problems with the new hat design. The first is I am not a fan of hats that have different color piping that runs up along the top of the hat, especially when the hat is not a pinwheel design (meaning that in a pinwheel, the hat top itself, not including the bill, is several different colors). With this, I am not a fan of when official hats have multi-colored bills, its fine for hats that fans where, but looks kinda silly for MLB teams.

The second main problem I have with that hat is the colors they decided. The orange outnline along the old BP hat was really nice. Once again with this new hat, Orange takes a a back seat as a New York Mets color, which is sad.

Just a quick note:

It was revealed today that Beltran had some sort of knee surgery and the Mets are claiming that they didn't know that this was going to happen and didn't know that this was even a problem. (although there are some who say the Mets did know and didn't give permission for the surgery). Right now there are conflicting reports on whether this was routine or not.

As details come out, more conclusions will be able to be made. Right now it looks like that Beltran could be out up to 12 weeks (or more or less, things are very unclear). Personally, I feel this means the Mets will now have serious problems moving Angel Pagan because CF will either be Pagan or Fmart for at least the start of the season.

Oh boy, this is just bad.

Delgado hit a homerun a few nights ago. You probably already heard this. I wrote an article immediately after it happened, but I never linked it to here.

So you can find that article here.

The article contains his winter stats and some opinions of why it would be appropriate to bring Delgado back, why it wouldn't be, and how he would affect the lineup.

2003 Draft

                In
part three of this series, we look at the 2003 draft and more memories of this
decade begin to emerge as we get a chance to remember our fun times with the
first round pick, Lastings Milledge. Overall, the Mets drafted three players in
2003 that would eventually play in the majors and several players that would
later lead to trades to get more major league talent.

Lastings Milledge: We all remember Lastings. He was a big, big deal
when he came up. He was also the first of a series of highly touted outfielders
from the Farm System. His reputation as a lose cannon was cemented early on as
he high fived fans after a home run and released a rap album with some
questionable lyrics. He had a short temper and later was traded to the
Nationals. He was traded for Schneider and Church in a trade that many opposed
at first. After some short success in Washington, Lastings tailed off, as
Church played well in New York. Milledge was then traded to the Pirates,
Schneider has signed with the Phillies and Church has been traded for
Francoeur. In some respect, the Mets turned Milledge into Francouer.

Brian Bannister: Bannister had a pretty good first stint in the
majors as he pitched a 4.48 ERA over 38.0 innings. In a bad trade for the Mets,
they sent this starter from the 2003 draft over to the Royals where has had
success. The player the Mets received Burgos, has never really had success so
far with the Mets.

Carlos Muniz: Muniz has bounced between the minors and the majors
since his debuted in 2007. He didn’t impress much in 07 but he was better in
2008. He doesn’t factor to be a major part of the Mets plans in the near
future.

Bonus: The Mets fifth round pick Corey Coles has played a role for
the Mets in the last few years as the Mets traded him to the Cubs in 2007 and
received Angel Pagan in return. Coles has yet to make the Majors, but his trade
to the Cubs led to a very exciting player for our team. One would have to
imagine though, that the way injuries to the outfield core went 07-09, if Coles
was still in the system, he probably would have played.

For those of you who are new to this site, I am a Mets fan that grew up in Baltimore (and now live outside of DC), so for the majority of my life I have been an away fan. I have never met a group of fans though like Mets fans. While I don't always agree with some of views as fellow Mets fans (a friend of mine and I constantly argue over Dan Murphy. I'm for him, he's not), Mets fans always seem educated in what is going on with the team. They know the recent moves. They have opinions. They know the recent story lines.

I was walking to work yesterday and I hear a car honk. I look around and someone was waving at me. He asked me where I got my jacket (I was wearing a Mets winter jacket that I got for $90 off a few years ago because I bought it in Baltimore, seriously if you want cheap Mets gear, Baltimore has it cause stores stock it and then they can't sell it). So I told him and he told me he was from Queens and has been a Mets fan his entire life.

We then started a five minute discussion where he asked me my opinon about Jason Bay (without saying Bay, we both knew who we were talking about) and then I asked him about the rotation where he stated his opinion about the quality of pitchers after Johan. After this we parted ways (and I forgot to tell him about this website, which happens a lot. If you ever meet me in real life, there is a 90% chance I will forget to mention this site).

I'm sure there are Mets fans that don't represent this mold that I'm talking about here, but I haven't met them yet, and I go to a good number of games and talk to people in the street if I see them wearing Mets stuff. Lets Go Mets! Come on Spring, get here sooner.

2002 Draft

                The
Mets drafted two major leagues in 2002, one who we later flipped for a few
players that ended up benefiting the other team slightly more than it helped
us. The other player we drafted in 2002 became an icon for entire front office
organization.

Scott Kazmir: This lefty was drafted as the fifteenth overall draft
pick and was supposed to change face of the Mets rotation. He had major league
talent and was ready to shine in New York. Then, in one of the most infamous
moves in the history of the Mets and one of the most infamous moves in the
majors (for this decade) Kazmir was traded to the Rays for Victor Zambrano.
Kazmir has since been an All-Star twice, 
has played with the historic Rays and now is an Angel. Kazmir defines
this draft for sure as he is an All-Star (the second straight year the Mets
drafted a later All-Star) and his move to the Rays defined the pre-Minaya
front-office.

Matt Lindstrom:  Lindstrom
was drafted in the tenth round and was later traded with Owens for Vargas and
Bostick. Lindstrom broke into the majors in 2007 and had two very successful
years with the Marlins in 2007 and 2008. He had a so-so year last year. His
mild success makes two major leaguers from this draft for the Mets.

Bonus: The Mets also drafted the
recently praised Shawn Bowman in this draft.

As time has transpired so far,
this draft has proved to be the best for the Mets in the decade (which is hard
to say since 2008 and 2009 draftees are still very young). In a draft, when you
get one player who can play at the major league level either as a bench player
or platoon (or more) its considered an average draft. When you get one who is a
starter, it is considered an good draft. When you get an All-Star, it is
considered a great draft. When you get a player who is consistently an All-Star
and a leader, it is considered an amazing draft. By now you figured out who the
Mets drafted in 2001, David Wright. The Mets over all had 5 members of their
2001 draft class play in the majors. Overall for the Mets, this was a very
solid draft class that produced three solid major league players.

Aaron Heilman: A player who has a lot of history with Mets fans,
especially after the 2006 and 2007 seasons was drafted 18 overall by the
Amazin’s. Despite his struggles at the end of his tenure with the Mets, he was
a good selection by the Mets. Originally slated to be a starter, he ended up
being a set-up man who went through highs, and recently lows. His last
contribution to the Mets was when he was traded as part of the three way trade
that brought JJ Putz to New York.

David Wright: Selected as the supplemental pick for losing Hampton,
Wright has quickly become the face of the franchise for the New York Mets.
There is not much to say here about Wright as his successes are pretty well.
The future of the team depends on Wright and he is the type of player that not
only makes the 2001 draft but makes up for a decade worth of drafts.

Lenny DiNardo: Drafted in the third round by the Mets, DiNardo was
originally drafted in 1998 but didn’t sign. He was then drafted by the Red Sox
in 2003 in the Rule Five draft and debuted with the Red Sox in 2004. He has
played in every season since then playing for the Red Sox until 2006, Oakland
in 2007-2008, and the Royals last season. His best season was in 2007 where he
posted a 4.11 ERA over 131.1 innings pitched.

Denny Garcia: Garcia was drafted in the fifth round and played for
the Mets in 2003 and 2004 before being released (and being signed by two other
teams, and not making the majors with either team). In 2003 Garcia batted .214
for the Mets and batted .232 in 2004.

Joe Hietpas:  The 16^th
round pick for the Mets in 2001. His inclusion on this list at this point is
just a formality because he made the majors, but he didn’t even have an AB in
his debut in 2004.