Other Writers

A couple of really nice pieces were posted on the internet about Mets players yesterday. In case you missed them, here's the information.

At Sports Illustrated's site, Tom Verducci writes a moving piece called "The Lost Slugger" about first baseman Carlos Delgado. Here's a snip:

Delgado has maintained a very reasoned position on what happened in the best years of his career. He doesn't want a do-over on the MVP award he didn't win. He is a happy man, content with his family, his decisions and his career. If he retired today, he would rank among the top 30 hitters all time in home runs, slugging, at-bats per home run and intentional walks. But he has plenty of baseball left in him. Last year, while turning 36, he played in 159 games, smashed 38 homers and racked up 310 total bases, his most since 2003. How much longer will he play?

"For sure, this year and another year," he said. "Then after that, I'll see where I am at. Then figure out what you want to do and take it from there."

He would like 1,700 RBIs, which would move him into the top 25. Already, he stands 50th on the RBI list. Already, he has Hall of Fame numbers.

"It would be a great honor," he said of enshrinement. "It would be flattering. It would be great recognition. But I catch myself if I start to think about it, because I can't control it and it's so far down the road. You start forcing yourself into doing this and that, instead of just going out and playing. At the end, somebody is going to decide anyway. I have no say. You just play the game, finish up strong, go home and hope five years later some people say, 'Hey, this guy has pretty good numbers.'"

At the New York Post, Joel Sherman penned an article called "Santana Overwhelming, Yet Somehow Under Radar" about Mets ace Johan Santana. Here's the money quote:

With his throwing complete, Santana spent 10 minutes talking with the teammate Warthen calls Santana's "special project." Santana was trying to impart to fellow lefty Oliver Perez how vital it is to concentrate on delivering fastballs with exactitude to the inner half. Santana, who turns 30 in two weeks, has that elder statesman quality, the gravitas and temperament to talk reasonably and be heard.

"A great teammate," Warthen said.

The conversation done, Santana headed toward the back fields for some hitting drills. Perhaps the best pitcher on the planet walked unhurried and in plain sight, and hardly anyone noticed. The stealth superstar.

Nice tributes to a pair of quality individuals.

Livan in the Mix

In what must be regarded as some kind of cruel practical joke, the Mets have signed Livan Hernandez as additional competition for the fifth starter's position, currently being contended for by Freddy Garcia, Tim Redding, and Jon Niese.

Livan's older half-brother Orlando Hernandez pitched for the Mets both brilliantly and sporadically for the last several seasons, and it was widely reported that the two longed for a major-league reunion. Now, El Duque is gone, all possibility of a New York reunion vanished forever, and Livan is welcomed aboard.

But the joke isn't only on the Brothers Hernandez--it's on the Mets fans, too. Livan's ERA+ for the last six seasons in order reads like this: 141, 126, 102, 91, 95, 69--a dizzying downward spiral. If Livan ever pitches for the Mets at all, it seems that he is destined to become another bleak footnote to recent Met history, along with James Baldwin, Jose Lima and Chan Ho Park, Brian Lawrence and Dave Williams.

Hope I'm wrong.

Will Work for Food

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Moises Alou, Gary Bennett, Ambiorix Burgos, Paul Byrd, Miguel Cairo, Damion Easley, Tom Glavine, Orlando Hernandez, Jason Isringhausen, Paul Lo Duca, Pedro Martinez, Ramon Martinez, Doug Mientkiewicz, Jay Payton, Ricardo Rincon, Kenny Rogers, and Matt Wise.

That's the list of players who have history with the Mets and are still out of work for 2009, as complete as I can figure it. Some of them will undoubtedly be forced into retirement; some will get minor-league deals and last-minute Spring Training invites. Ambiorix Burgos, of course, is a story unto himself, and will probably never play baseball in America again.

Anyway, I'm taking this opportunity to say goodbye to most of these guys, whose disappearances from the big leagues will come without press conferences, with no formal declarations of retirement. You were all Mets heroes for a moment or two (just one, in Gary Bennett's case).

***UPDATE***

Just a few moments after I made this post, I read on MetsBlog where Ramon Martinez is coming back to the Mets as a non-roster invitee for Spring Training. Ramon was actually fairly impressive for the Mets in a handful of September starts last year, and he is younger than Jose Valentin!

Wednesday Morning Quick Hits

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40-year-old Jose Valentin is back, according to multiple sources, getting $800,000 if he makes the big-league squad. For me, this is kind of a head-scratcher. He was a surprisingly wonderful player three years ago, not very good two years ago, and couldn't play at all last year, because of creaking old age. I appreciate the idea that he's a good teammate and a valuable clubhouse presence, but why didn't they make him the first-base coach then (apologies to Razor Shines)? With Luis Castillo and Alex Cora nearly guaranteed to have roster spots, I just don't see any room for old 'Stache.

In other very sad news, the New York Post is reporting that one-time second baseman Roberto Alomar has been afflicted with AIDS. No commentary here; just sorrow for Robbie and his family--two of whom are current Met coaches.

Everybody Wins

Ah, the Good Old Days when the Mets never went to arbitration with anybody. Could it be that those halcyon days are ours once again?

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Lefty reliever Pedro Feliciano has agreed to a 2009 contract, leaving a grand total of zero arbitration cases before the Metsies. Everybody wins! The player gets more than the team originally offered, the team pays less than the player asked for, and they don't need to go through the potentially-damaging scenario of actually pleading their cases before the arbitrator.

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Actual transcript of an arbitration hearing*:

Agent: "My player is great."

Team: "No, he really kind of stinks."

Player: "I don't stink!"

Arbitrator: "Sure you do."

Agent: "Oh, yeah? Well, you stink!"

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* Note: Not an actual transcript of an arbitration hearing.

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Feliciano signed for a little more than $1.6 million, including a couple of small incentive bonuses. The last three seasons his ERA has gone from 2.09 to 3.09 to 4.05--a trend that hopefully will not continue. He led the club with 86 appearances in relief last year, setting the Mets' all-time record in the process.

Friday Morning Tidbits

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The Mets have signed veteran right-hander Elmer Dessens to a minor-league contract. Don't panic, Met fans! They didn't sign him to be the Opening Day starter--if he throws a pitch for the Mets at all, I'll be a little bit surprised. Buffalo needs pitchers, too; for that matter, so does Binghamton. I don't think Elmer will wind up on the B-Mets--I just wanted to write "Binghamton" for the first time on this blog. The Binghamton Mets are, I'm pretty sure, the closest professional baseball team to my home in Corning. How did I get here? Oh, yes ... Elmer Dessens. I'm not sure I have anything more to say about him, except that he's 38 years old, and he had three pretty good seasons for Cincinnati a long time ago.

And here's an ex-Mets transaction I missed (hat tip to Hot Foot): David Newhan has signed a minor-league deal with the Houston Astros. I thought David was going to be a pretty good utility man for New York a couple of years ago; he had a very strong training camp. Regular season came ... not so much.

Speaking of Spring Training ... it's only a week away, boys and girls!

At Last We Can Exhale

The Mets and Oliver Perez are on the verge of completing a three-year, $36 million contract, thus probably finalizing the initial 2009 starting rotation.

At last we can exhale. Which is a good thing, because if Ollie pitches in 2009 like he did in 2008, we will be holding our breath plenty this season.

There's a lot to like about this deal, though. The dollar value isn't outrageous, at least according to baseball economics. And now we have Perez sewn up for his age-27, -28, and -29 seasons, which are often the most productive years of a player's career. Ollie doesn't seem to be the faintest bit intimidated by toiling in New York, either--it remains to be seen if the same holds true for, say, Tim Redding, whose only start for the Yankees proved to be an unqualified disaster.

Some memorably wild flamethrowers have historically developed better control when they were around Ollie's present age, among them Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, and Sandy Koufax. Now, I'm definitely not saying Ollie is in that class. For one thing, he's never pitched as many as 200 innings in a season, and those other three were all notable workhorses. But if Oliver Perez can become a poor man's Koufax (like Rick Reed was a poor man's Greg Maddux), you know what? That's not too bad for twelve million per. Again, I'm not sayin' he's going to ... but no one has ever denied the raw talent is there.

Some bloggers have bemoaned the idea that our rotation is basically the same one as last year's second-place staff, but that's not totally true. The bottom end of the rotation looks noticeably stronger than last year's. If Freddy Garcia can make any kind of a significant comeback, there really isn't any bottom end. It's Johan Santana at the top, and then Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, John Maine, Garcia, and Redding in any order you like, with the number six starter filling the long man's role in the bullpen or waiting behind the curtain in Buffalo.

So welcome home, Ollie. It's good to have you back. I just wish you hadn't kept us waiting so long.

Maine Signs

The Mets and John Maine avoided an arbitration hearing by agreeing on a contract for 2009. Maine had submitted an arbitration figure of $3 million and the Mets had offered $2.2 million. The perfectly reasonable settlement split the gap right down the middle at $2.6 million, plus the Mets dusted it with sugar by adding an innings-pitched incentive bonus.

The fact that John was going to be a Met for '09 was never really in question ... still, it's nice that they were able to avoid the arb hearing. Only Pedro Feliciano remains eligible for arbitration this winter.

Four More Minor Signings

The Mets continue to stockpile minor leaguers with a smattering of major-league experience. Today's herd includes right-hander Tony Armas, who pitched in three games for the Mets last year, and two other pitchers—Valerio de los Santos and former Yankee Matt DeSalvo. I would be a little surprised if any of them threw an inning for the big-league club this year—maybe Armas if there's an emergency.

Also signed was outfielder Bobby Kielty, who joins the Pagan-Reed-Mackowiak-Sullivan cadre of potential spare outfielders. Kielty hasn't had a terrible career; he has an OPS+ of 99 in 599 games for the Twins, Athletics, and Red Sox. He's a switch-hitter, which is a point in his favor, I suppose, and by all reports, has fiery red hair. But he didn't play in the majors at all in 2008, and his numbers in the minors were not pretty. I mean, why not Timo Perez?

Rickey in the Hall

In the winter of 1998, my soon-to-be wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I replied with all of the conviction of my blue-and-orange-beating heart, "Rickey Henderson." Sure enough, Rickey signed with the Mets that December, and he was even better than I had hoped he would be; he was a leading contributor to the Mets' successful '99 campaign with 89 runs scored in just 121 games, a dozen homers, 37 steals, 82 walks, and a team-high .315 batting average--the only time in the last eight years of Rickey's career that he would bat over .250.

1999 was in many ways the last hurrah for Rickey, even though he continued to play in the big leagues until 2003, and even beyond that in the independent leagues. But Mr. Henderson had had plenty of hurrahs before that!

He is, of course, MLB's all-time leading base stealer by an almost impossible-to-fathom margin. He is also the all-time leader in runs scored and unintentional walks. He was MVP of the American League in 1990, a ten-time All-Star. He won Silver Slugger awards as well as a Gold Glove. He led his league in steals a dozen times and had a career OBP of over .400. He was almost universally regarded as the greatest leadoff hitter to ever play the game.

And now he is a Hall of Famer. Congratulations, Rickey, on your well-deserved election to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, but you already had a better place than that in my heart … you were a Met.

A footnote on asking for players to be added to the Mets for Christmas: There have been three that I recall; Rickey was the first, and that worked out just fine. A couple of years ago, I decided to try again, and I asked for Barry Zito. That worked out well, too, when he signed with the Giants instead and flamed out to the tune of more than a hundred million dollars. Then, just this past winter, I really kind of wanted Derek Lowe, and once again came up empty. I can only hope that I will be as pleased this time, when it turns out that Oliver Perez or Freddy Garcia was really the better choice after all!

Anyway, congratulations, Rickey Henderson!

Yet More Minor Signings

Shame on me! How could I have missed the return of Argenis Reyes? I must have forgotten about that one extra-base hit in 110 at-bats, those three runs batted in, that OPS+ of 34. I don't mean to mock; I hope he has a nice season for Buffalo.

Two other possibilities were added for the bullpen mix, too: 31-year-old Kyle Snyder and his career ERA of 5.57 in 93 games, and 29-year-old Jon Switzer and his career ERA of 6.11 in 68 games. More depth at Buffalo, I'm sure, if they survive Spring Training intact.

More Minor Signings

(originally posted 1/24/09 on Preaching to the Choir)

Just when you thought the Mets had cornered the market on fifth outfielders, they prove you wrong by signing yet another one. This time it's Rob Mackowiak, who has actually had a better career than Pagan, Sullivan, and/or Reed--at least so far--but is on the gray side of thirty, and coming off an injury-marred season that saw him bat only .132 in 53 at-bats for Washington last year.

The chances of any of the Mets' fifth outfield crew being significant contributors at the big-league level shrink with each new addition to the competition ... but the starting outfield for Buffalo this year might be pretty good.

I neglected to mention a couple of other minor signings earlier this week; might as well acknowledge them now: catcher Omir Santos, who got one hit in ten at-bats for the Orioles last year, and former Met Tom Martin, who will attempt to join the bullpen as a lefty specialist. I may have missed a couple, but they would be of only marginal import anyway.

Less than three weeks now until pitchers and catchers report to Port St. Lucie!

Three Signings of Greater or Lesser Significance

(originally posted 1/23/09 on Preaching to the Choir)

This week the Mets signed three players who might or might not even appear for them this year.

First there was the perpetually underachieving lefty Casey Fossum, a former first-round draft pick by the Red Sox about a decade ago. Despite a decent strikeout rate, the Blade has given up nearly 5½ runs per game throughout his career. Knowing the Mets' recent history, he'll probably show up in the bullpen sometime during the season, or perhaps make an emergency start if he's doing tolerably well for Buffalo.

Next there was outfielder Cory Sullivan. One wonders why? It's not that he's a terrible player; it's just that the Mets already had two of him on the roster, in Jeremy Reed and Angel Pagan. Now, three of the same outfielders on one team would be a great thing if we're talking about three Carlos Beltrans; less so if we're talking about three Cory Sullivans.

Finally, just last night, there was the announcement that the Mets had reached a deal with former stud pitcher Freddy Garcia, who has been destudified by injuries for the past couple of years. Early reports say it's a minor-league deal that could be worth up to nine million dollars if incentives are reached. I am intrigued by the possibilities here. If the Chief can regain his former studliness and earn that nine mil, he would be a formidable Number Two indeed; his career ERA+ of 111 is more impressive than I had anticipated, and his most comparable pitchers on Baseball-Reference.com were all decent pitchers in their day.

GM Omar Minaya continues to reshape the club with mostly solid moves, despite the impatience and dissatisfaction of many fans. Here's hoping he still has one big trick left up his sleeve this winter. Personally, I would prefer Ben Sheets over Oliver Perez, but I would quite likely be wrong. In the meantime, I am practicing patience, and trying to celebrate the Casey Fossums and Cory Sullivans along the way.

Welcome, Alex Cora

(originally posted 1/14/09 on Preaching to the Choir)

The Mets are apparently on the verge of adding utility infielder Alex Cora to their 2009 ballclub.

Here's a fact you probably didn't know: As soon as Alex takes the field for the Mets, he will immediately zoom into the Top 15 All Time List for anybody who's ever appeared for the Mets in that all-important category of Times Hit by Pitch, joining such notably bruised luminaries as Don Baylor, Ron Hunt, and Fernando Vina.

Other than that, he's a utility infielder. How much harm can he do?

Welcome, Tim Redding

(originally posted 1/10/09 on Preaching to the Choir)

In what is actually a rather astute move by the Mets, New York is set to add right-handed starter Tim Redding to the mix for the 2009 rotation.

Tim's record of ten wins and a 4.95 ERA for the Nationals in 2008 was not overly impressive ... until you consider what the Mets have been using for fifth starters the past few years.

In 2006, Mike Pelfrey, Dave Williams, Alay Soler, Oliver Perez, Victor Zambrano, Jeremi Gonzalez, and Jose Lima combined to make a whopping 36 starts for the Mets covering almost 185 innings, resulting in a 9-14 record and a bloated ERA of 6.53.

In '07, the fifth starter slot was even worse (if you can imagine that), featuring such luminaries as Pelfrey again, Brian Lawrence, Philip Humber, Jason Vargas, Chan Ho Park, and Dave Williams again. That group made a total of 24 starts--more than 125 innings--going 4-13 with an astonishingly bad ERA of 7.42.

In 2008 it wasn't quite so bad ... not quite. Nelson Figueroa, Claudio Vargas, Brandon Knight, a depleted Pedro Martinez, Jonathon Niese, and Tony Armas tallied 36 starts covering more than 225 innings. The 14-12 record and 5.38 ERA weren't too terrible for fifth starters, at least by 2008 standards. But remember, the Mets lost out on a playoff spot by just one game.

Tim Redding's ten wins for the last-place Nationals don't look too shabby in comparison now, do they? A performance like that from the fifth rotation spot may have provided a substantial improvement over the disappointing finishes of the past three years. Decide now that you're going to cheer him, Mets fans!