213 Miles From Shea

Now that a night has passed since the signing of the biggest free agent hitter on the market, the impact of the Yankees taking Tex has become more clear. First off, the Red Sox released a statement immediately that said that they will not step up their pursuit for any other free agent now that they lost out on Tex. I personally would take this saying with a grain of salt only because this what is supposed to be said in this situation, you have to keep your cards close to the chest. I am not worried about Lowe though because it does seem the Mets are in deep negotiations right now and we just have to keep our powerful position.

Another loser in the trade is Manny. Where does he go now? The Angels don't want him. There enough people on the Mets that do not want him for him not come here. The Yankees have no more moeny for him, and no real need in their lineup anymore for him, now that they have two power hitters in Arod and Tex. I guess he has to revisit the Dodgers, and maybe another surprise team pops into the mix. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised (and remember, you read it here first) if the Manny situations drags deep into January, that the Orioles make some form of offer. The Orioles are going to be ready real soon to win and even though their weakness is pitching, which they have not addressed at all this offseason and don't seem to be doing it, They could use a power hitter to protect Markakis in the lineup and their new star in Matt Weiters when he comes up. Also, signing a declining star is a very Orioles move to make, so it could very easily happen.

Speaking of the Orioles, they are the other big loser in the Tex signing. Peter Schmuck, a writer for the Baltimore Sun, said it best in his editorial this morning. The editorial takes the theme of Baltimor courting Tex, and Tex being polite, but not being into us. It really hits on important notes though that many in Baltimore, for years, have seen Tex as the next Cal and he he was going to be the next hometown star that would pick Baltimore over Home, but that just didn't happen. He will probably never get that warm welcome he always did at the ballpark now that he is coming in with pinstripes (or maybe he still will considering that the 99.99999 percent of the fans in the stadium are Yankee fans when the Yankees come). Its the end of another missed chapter in the story of the Baltimore Orioles.

My first reaction was fantastic, now I don't have to type about Teixeira anymore because I am one of those people that no matter how hard I try, I can never spell his name right.

That being said, I am shocked. I know I shouldn't be shocked, the Yankees said a long time ago that they wanted him, but I just thought that after CC and after AJ they wouldn't spend anymore. That they were done. After a 161 million dollar contract and after 82.5 million dollar contract, they couldn't afford another one of these contracts. Well they went out there and signed Teixeira for 8 years and 180 million bringing their offseason total to at least 423.5 million dollars. They have literally redefined what it means to spend money and rebuild a baseball team in one offseason (as opposed to the two offseason method the Mets did in 05 and 06 then again in 08 and 09).

The fallout for the Mets is now the Red Sox have lost their biggest target and now they need to respond, well, they “need” to respond. This is bad in the case for Derrick Lowe as the price tag on him will rise. I also wonder about if the Sox will now get involved with Perez or if they will start to inquire about Delgado (same goes for the Angels). More importantly, the offseason will now get moving again as the Tex signing will allow Boras to focus on his other clients. Remember that article I wrote a few days ago about the East Coast Lure, its starting to look more and more like a New York lure as now Krod, Putz, CC, AJ and Tex have all landed in the Big Apple, which is quickly become the center of the universe for Baseball.

I still wear my Jewish Heritage shirt that I got years ago at Shea Stadium (in fact, I wore it yesterday) It says Lets Go Mets at the top of the shirt, and then at the bottom it says Lets Go Mets in Hebrew Transliteration (Hebrew Letters that spell out Lets Go Mets in English). The other day I was wondering around the Brooklyn Cyclones website, and I came across some merchandise they sold for their Jewish Heritage Night, and its pretty impressive:

What is unusual about this Jersey, that all of the players wore on that night, is that instead of just saying Cyclones in Hebrew Transliteration, they actually tried to spell Cyclones in Hebrew. It roughly reads “Tzi-clo-niem” which sounds very similar to Clyclones (the root cyclone in hebrew is a cognate in English) and the suffix, niem, is the equivialent of us adding “s” to the end of the word to make word plural. Its just very unusual to see a team try to say something in actual Hebrew.

As a side note, there is also a Brooklyn Cyclones video game you can play on their website, where if you make contact with the ball, you hit a homerun and you can the pitches off of the Cyclone Scoreboard. They really have an involved site, and its always fun to drop by now and then.

David Wright announced today that he will be playing on Team USA in the
2009 World Baseball Classic. In 2006, Arod and Chipper Jones took over
the third base for USA but this year, Arod will be playing for the
Dominican Republic and now Wright will take that spot. Wright joins
Sizemore, Braun, Pedroria among others who announced over the last week
that they will play on Team USA.

There are many other Mets who
are planning on playing for other WBC teams. Beltran, Delgado, and
Feliciano all look to return to the Puerto Rico team, which they all
played for in 2006. Reyes looks to do the same for the Dominican
Republic team and Johan Santana and Krod look to return to Venezuela.

While
the WBC is slightly controversial, I have always been a fan because
there are several teams that basically run like All Star teams, and
they don't always win (Japan is the perfect example). The main
criticism of the WBC is that it screws with a teams ability to get
ready for the season. However, for the Mets, while it does cut down on
the time for the players to learn to play with eachother, the main
players that will be in the WBC already have set roles on the Mets and
now the Mets can spend more time looking at the young players in the
system and to see who could come up during the season or get a spot on
the team from the start.

Earlier today MLB.com was showing the 1969 clinching game live and free. I watched a few minutes and its very interesting to see how baseball has changed so much, yet it hasn't changed at all. Which of course is the charm and a major part of the appeal of America's pastime. The part of the game I caught was when Frank Robinson was hit by a pitch from Koosman, but he wasn't, it was called foul, then Weaver came out to argue.

One thing that hasn't changed about baseball is commentary still sounds like it can belong on the radio more than the TV set, which is fantastic because baseball is the only game you can watch by listening to it. When the whole arguement about the hit by pitch was going down on the field, the Mets fans were letting the Orioles have it which led one of the announcers to say, “As long as Mets fans are concerned, Baseball is a particpating sport.” Its nice to know that our passion goes through generations.

The ondeck circle is one thing that has changed over the years. Back then, if you watch any game from back then, no one really stands at the circle. They almost take a knee, and they might move the bat a little, but are looking more at the pitcher. Boog Powell was on deck and he was actually the only left handed batter in the game at the moment because of the pitchers. The biggest difference was advertising. There was very little of it being said by the announcers. The commericialism in the sport of baseball really has grown a lot in baseball and thats really a testament to how much commericialism has grown in America and part of American culture over the last 40 years.

The Nationals signed Daniel Cabrera yesterday to a one year, 2.6 million dollar deal where it seems that they beat out the Pirates and the Mets among others to get the big pitcher. How big is this signing? Well right now it seems pretty small. Living in Baltimore, I am very familiar with Cabrera's stuff. He is a big guy, really he's huge not only is he tall he has a big frame as well, and he is also a very nice guy (I've met him at a fan event several years ago).

Cabrera's weakness over his career has been his control. At sometimes he is dominant, shutting down every batter he faces and not walking anyone. He also has had games where he has walked five batters in the first inning. The signing with the Nationals had to come down to a guranteed roster spot. If he gets a spark this year at the Nationals, he could be a real force in the NL. He can however just as easily be a scrub in the NL. He is one of those players that I will be rooting for even though he is not on the Mets because I really want him to succeed.

That being said, I am glad he is not a Met. As much as I would love to see him get a great level of success in a Mets uniform, I feel that New York would eat him alive while he tries to find his way.

This offseason, the signings, the trades, they all seem to be heading over to the east coast. When you think about it, all of the big moves, or the trades for All-Stars, have been heading over the East Coast, and its been happening all offseason. Here is just a few of the players that already have found themselves in new East Coast homes::
    1. Krod
    2. Putz
    3. CC Sabbathia
    4. Burnett
    5. Javier Vasquez
    6. Raul Ibanez
Now that list might look small but think about it this way too; the other big names, Manny, Tex, Lowe, all might be ending up in the East Coast by the time the offseason is done. Another way to think about this is that there have only been two big names that have landed on teams not on the East Coast and that would be Kerry Wood and Furcal.
To see if there is an East Coast Lure, we will have to wait for the end of the offseason and see what other big names fall and where they land.

Baseball America released their top 10 prospects for the Mets in 2009 today, and I think its worth it to also review the 2008 list at the same time to really get the full picture of what is going on with the Mets in terms of prospects and the farm system. In 2008 the Mets system looked like this, 1 through 10:
     1. Fmart
     2. Deolis Guerra
     3. Carlos Gomez
     4. Kevin Mulvey
     5. Eddie Kunz
     6. Brant Rustich
     7. Phil Humber
     8. John Niese
     9. Nathan Vineyard
     10. Rob Parnell
      Best Avg Hitter: Fmart
      Best Power Hitter: Fmart
      Best Fastball: Brant Rustich
      Best Curveball: Phil Humber
      Best Changeup: Deolis Guerra
We all know the story with this group of prospects. Soon after this article was published, Deolis Guerra, Carlos Gomez, Kevin Mulvey, and Phil Humber were all traded to the Twins. So the Mets system looked prety depleted. Then injuries hit and the Mets had to start diving into the system to get help, which they found in Nick Evans and Dan Murphy, both not on this list. With all of the shakeups and trades, how does the list look now? Here is the 2009, the current, list:
     1. Fmart
     2. Wilmur Flores
     3. Jon Niese
     4. Brad Holt
     5. Rob Parnell
     6. Jefry Marte
     7. Jenrry Mejia
     8. Reese Havens
     9. Nick Evans
    10. Eddie Kunz
     Best Average Hitter: Wilmur Flores
     Best Power Hitter: Fmart
     Best Fastball: Brad Holt
     Best Curveball: Jon Niese
     Best Changeup: Dillon Gee
As you can see, there are a lot of differences on this list compared to the old one, and thats a good thing. The Mets system has really developed a lot in the past year, but the bad thing is many of these players, like Fmart, Niese, and Flores are all very young. Flores I believe recently turned 18. There si a lot stuff being passed around about him, and he could be very special. If Fmart can stay healthy, he too will be very special. These could be the guys of the future for the Mets, we need to wait and see. Murphy is not on this list because of his success last year, he isn't considered a prospect anymore. I was going to critize the ordering of this list, but now that I look at, I really do agree with this list and its very exciting. Prospects are always very exciting.

Seeing Krod and Putz get introduced over the past two days, it has really hit me how great of a situation are pen is in. Granted, two players doesn't make the pen, we need more pitchers, but its the first time in a while that we have a setup man and a closer. More importantly, they both are determined to win and this is going to be great.

Also, having both Krod and Putz adds so much dimension to the pen because both can be closers. If one is having a bad game, the other can come in. Several games in a row that are close and need a closer? Don't worry about a closer getting tired, we have two! We are covered. The 2006 Mets were good because not only did they have a closer and setup man the entire year, but their record in one run games was fantastic, that hasn't been true for the last two years.

The other thing they both add, that the Mets didn't have with Wagner/Sanchez and Wagner/Heilman is they both have swagger. Krod is firey out there and Putz, although quieter, also has a lot of passion when he pitches. This could be the beginning of a great thing for the Mets. Having confidence in the back of the pen means that there is not only less pressure on the starters but there is less stress on the batters. The batters no longer have to score often and a lot because a lead late in the game is going to hold up and is going to translate into a win. These are the advantages that we have been missing for two seasons and think how great we can be with these guys in the back of the pen and our line up without stress. Its go time. I'm ready for spring.

I love a lot of things about Minor League Baseball (I am actually in the second year right now of a two year research project about minor league baseball and how it relates to the communities that they are in) and one of my favorite tings about MiLB is their plethora of logos. Sports logos are fascinating and with over 160 Minor League and Independent League teams, the amount of baseball logos are incredible. Naturally, the first thing I looked at when I found the Mets were sending their AAA team to Buffalo was their logo.

Now, in my opinion, this logo is pretty weak. Its an entertaining picture but as a logo its pretty lacking. However, they recently revealed their new logo:

This logo is just awesome. That Bison looks incredible and it really plays well to New York with the not only the city skyline, but its on a baseball, just like the Mets. This is the attitude I like to see in a logo. Usually new logos leave something to be desired because they do not have that classic feal but this logo just sends off energy, a lot more than the previous logo.