Mets’ Citi Field to become more homer-friendly next season; center-field wall gets chopped to 8 feet

Good...gives the Marlon Anderson Hernandez’s something to shoot for.

The height of Citi Field’s center-field wall will be sliced in half, making the ballpark more homer-friendly, the Daily News has learned.

Last season, the wall measured 16 feet in front of the sparsely used Home Run Apple. Now, with the second level of padding being removed, it will measure eight feet in the middle of the outfield.

Still, as the Daily News exclusively reported in September, the stadium’s spacious dimensions won’t be altered.

The Mets hit 95 homers last season, by far the fewest in the majors. San Francisco ranked 29th with 122.

Wright, whose home-run power is more to right-center than the left-field line, saw his power plummet as the Mets moved from Shea Stadium to Citi Field. He went from a career-high 33 homers in 2008 to 10 homers last season - five at home, and five on the road.

SNY: Megdal: Have Mets eschewed cheaper options?

Eschew readers...and other Voola from Howard!

But the two-part frustration Mets fans are justified in their anger comes from a sharp decline in salary spending relative to 2009—that team made $149 million—despite a clear understanding across baseball that this Mets roster, even should everyone return to good health, had a number of glaring holes.

The bigger irritant has to be the contracts signed recently by Erik Bedard, Yorvit Torrealba and Adam Kennedy, however. Bedard is guaranteed $1.5 million, Torrealba $1.25 million and Kennedy $1.25 million. In other words, for $4 million, the Mets could have upgraded their rotation options and at second base and catcher.

Now, it is important to point out, the Mets may not have gotten these players for the same money they signed for. But let’s unpack that a bit. Why should that be? Is it because the Mets have a poor reputation right now due to alack of success? Well, the only plausible way to combat that reputation is with, well, success.

In other words, spending a bit more to get these players would not only have helped with 2010 on the field, it likely would have aided the bottom line in 2011 and beyond, since the Mets wouldn’t be saddled with the failure handicap in free agency.

Padres, Torrealba agree on 1-year deal

Yorvit Torrealba, one of the few remaining free agent catchers, has agreed to a one-year, $1.25 million deal with the San Diego Padres…
Torrealba recently tried to engage the New York Mets in negotiations on a one-year deal for less than $2 million, but the Mets indicated that they had no interest, given financial restrictions.

FOX Sports: Klapisch: It’ll be Valentine’s day before you know it

(cue Paul Frees voice-over)

The most obvious next step, though, is Flushing, where Jerry Manuel is in the final year of his contract. With the anvil hanging over his head, Manuel has two months, at best, to prove he can reverse the Mets’ downward spiral which began all the way back in Game 7 of the 2006 NL Championship Series.

Manuel is counting on a healthy roster to keep his job, but he hasn’t gotten much help from the front office. With the exception of Jason Bay, Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya have otherwise made no upgrades to a team that lost 92 games last year.

So it wouldn’t take a full-blown dark age to oust Manuel; one long losing streak in late May would be enough. Question is, would ownership have the guts to re-hire Valentine?

It’s been eight years since he last managed the Mets, 10 since he took them to the World Series, although his empire came crashing down in 2002 when he was axed by then-GM Steve Phillips.

It was a brutal dispute — personal and petty, if not vicious — although one Met official admitted not long ago, “we fired the wrong guy.” Valentine found success in Japan, where he led the Chibba Lotte Marines to their first championship in 31 years, increasing attendance and team revenue by 400 percent.

Kannengieser: Jason Bay = Kevin McReynolds? We Should Be So Lucky

Or as my old bar buddy “Liverspot” Lattimore used to call McReynolds..."The Pulled a Rock from Little Rock”

I wasn’t self aware during most of McReynolds’s time with the Mets but have read enough about him to understand his storyline—talented player who didn’t have much passion for the game. Evidence suggests this might be true, but it’s the first part of the storyline that is most important. Pearlman might be right that Bay is not an “oomph” player, but who cares? You don’t pay for “oomph”; you pay for talent. And despite his defensive shortcomings and the fact that the Mets overpaid a bit, Bay has plenty of talent. Enough to post a .397 wOBA in the powerhouse AL East last season.

For purposes of the following comparison, let’s assume Bay’s option vests and he plays five years with the Mets, just as McReynolds did. Listed are McReynolds’s Mets season-by-season WAR per Baseball Projection and Bay’s projected WAR, starting with the CHONE projected 4.0 for 2010 and knocking 0.5 off each year:

...That 4.0 starting point might be a bit generous, but even so McReynolds outperforms the hypothetical Bay performance. WAR isn’t infallible but it’s not as if McReynolds’s totals were inflated by fluky defensive stats—he posted wRC+’s of 149, 128, 122, 120 and 106 with the Mets and played nearly every game. Give me a durable power hitting corner outfielder over a spark-filled dynamo who is only on the leaderboards for dirtiest uniform and most buffet tables flipped. Bay is the next McReynolds? Awesome!

NYT: Steve Phillips to Appear on ‘Today’

The Gentle Path? Wasn’t that the title of the 12th or 13th sub-worthless Mylon LeFevre LP?

Steve Phillips, who was fired by ESPN last year as a baseball analyst after his affair with a network production assistant became public knowledge, will be interviewed Monday by Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show.

His agent, Steve Lefkowitz, said in an interview that Phillips spent 45 days in Hattiesburg, Miss., at the Gentle Path sex addiction clinic, the same one that Tiger Woods reportedly attended. Phillips, a former Mets’ general manager, is attending after-care therapy. His wife, Marni, is also in therapy in Arizona, Lefkowitz said.

“He’s coming back with hat in hand, and he’s trying to fix his marriage,” Lefkowitz said.

He added that Phillips expects to discuss the affair, his therapy and his perspective on Woods’s infidelities.

“He’s not scared, but he’s apprehensive,” Lefkowitz said. “But I told him, ‘If you want to get back into the media, you have to talk to the media.

Murray Chass on Baseball: MEET THE MESS

Leave the labor and carting to us!

The agents who spoke about the Mets all spoke off the record, except the one agent who wouldn’t say anything on or off the record. They chose not to be quoted by name because they expect to do business with the Mets in the future and didn’t want to alienate them.

But more than one agent cited the Mets’ inability to deal with more than one free agent at a time as the primary reason they lost out on free agents. “We’re interested in your guy,” more than one agent recalled the Mets saying, “but we have to deal with this other guy first.”

In one instance, the Mets were a player’s first choice, an agent said, but he was one or two down on the Mets’ pecking order – a phrase used by another agent – and the player and the agent weren’t going to wait for the Mets to deal with them. They went elsewhere.

Another agent said that Omar Minaya, the Mets’ general manager, told him at the winter meetings in December that the Mets would address their catching need in January. “How can they wait and be sure what will be there?” the agent asked.

Another agent called the process frustrating. I have other names for it: foolish, wasteful, destructive, irresponsible, to suggest a few. Surely, a general manager is capable of talking to more than one agent simultaneously, working on parallel tracks, even if one signing depends on another.

The travails of J.J. Putz and the Mets

Putz has dropped a bombshell with an interview he conducted this week with Comcast Chicago (he recently signed with the White Sox). Putz makes a couple of inflammatory charges: One, that the Mets never gave him a physical after the trade with Seattle, and two, they told him not to mention his arm problems to the media. Putz underwent surgery to remove the spur in June. He returned in August, but experienced forearm discomfort and was eventually shut down for good.

Here are the key quotes:

Kernan: Rehabbing Reyes ‘100 percent,’ ready to roar

Guess he’s reddy.

Jose Reyes ran like the wind yesterday. Then ran some more.

For two hours, I watched the Mets shortstop work, testing his surgically repaired right leg time and again during the strenuous workout. There were 90-foot dashes; explosive 10-yard sprints, on which Reyes would grab a tennis ball on one bounce; ground balls hit to his left and right; high choppers where he had to fly across the diamond; weight-lifting; dynamic stretching; core exercises and hitting.

Test after test, and each time Reyes came through with a huge smile.

That smile was all you had to see to know this was not the same Reyes who suffered through an injury-plagued season last year. In mid-October he had surgery to repair a torn right hamstring tendon.

Reyes is back in a big way, and confidently told The Post: “I’ll be ready in 2010. Be there, it’s going to be a show.”

Fry: When Your Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’ll Be the Mets

Pulling a Sarge rock.

Our team’s problem this off-season hasn’t necessarily been being outbid, though there are questions there, too. Rather, it sounds like it’s been basic communication and organization. Which is where Gary Matthews becomes an interesting bellwether.

No, not Junior, back for second tour of Met duty. I’m thinking about his dad, the Sarge — the ruthless outfielder who helped sink the 1984 Mets and liked slamming into Gary Carter at the plate and ripping him in national magazines.

Matthews has another infamous distinction in Mets history. He was one of the members of the inaugural free-agent class, post-McNally and Messersmith, and the player who seemed to interest the Mets the most. So in late 1976 Joe McDonald and M. Donald Grant made that interest plain — by sending Matthews a telegram asking him to contact the team. (He wound up signing with the Atlanta Braves.)

Another offseason, another front office that appears not to know what it’s doing, calls that don’t get made, players who move on. And the exact same name in the middle of it. Then it was the father, now it’s the son. I’m not much for superstition, but that doesn’t strike me as a good omen.

Active leader in minor-league home runs, Mike Hessman, signs with New York Mets farm system

As God is my witness, I thought Hessman could hit!!!

The active leader in minor-league home runs has heard all the Crash Davis comparisons. He’s been asked repeatedly if it’s a sore point that he’s knocked 311 balls over fences from Macon to Myrtle Beach to Toledo and beyond but has only played 77 games in the majors.

But Mike Hessman prefers to view it another way. “To have been around this long, I’ve been blessed,” says the 31-year-old, who signed a minor-league contract with the Mets earlier this month. “It’s not a touchy subject; it’s nice that people bring it up.”

..."We were attracted to him because he’s proven he can hit home runs and we feel he can be an emergency guy off the bench,” Mets GM Omar Minaya said. “If he doesn’t make the team, he can help (Triple-A) Buffalo and work with younger players.”

Kernan: Gregg Jefferies leaves embattled Mets past far behind

No young ballplayer ever came to New York with the weight of expectations like Gregg Jefferies did when he first arrived with the Mets in 1987.

“Being compared to Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest players ever, when I heard that comparison, I just laughed to myself,” Jefferies said from his home in California. “The only thing Mickey and I had in common is that we both were switch-hitters and we both were male.”

...He’s had offers to return to the big leagues as a coach but for now, he is staying home. He has four children, the two oldest are from a previous marriage. His oldest, Jake, is a sophomore on the team. Jefferies was watching TV with him one day several years ago when the names of steroid-linked players’ rolled across the screen.

“My son turned to me and said, ‘Dad, your name wasn’t on there,’” Jefferies recalled. “I can’t tell you the pride that I felt right there. He knew it was hard work for me, what I did, what I accomplished.”

...Much was made of Jefferies extensive training routine, including a drill where he stood in his pool and swung a bat under water.

“To me it just seemed harmless,” said Jefferies, who starred at legendary Serra High in San Mateo, Calif. “Other guys have strange drills, too. I didn’t know it was going to be like it was in Sports Illustrated. It was like, ‘Holy Moly, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.’ I was very na*ve.

“Holy Moly”? I haven’t heard Holy Moly used since the last Steve Franken Film Fest!

NYT: Jane Jarvis, Player of Jazz and Mets Music, Dies at 94

The drawbar is now closed. RIP Jane Jarvis.

Jane Jarvis, who brought a jazz sensibility to unlikely places as an organist for the New York Mets and a programmer for Muzak, died on Monday at the Lillian Booth Actors’ Home in Englewood, N.J. She was 94.

Her death was confirmed by her son, Brian. She had lived at the actors’ home since shortly after being forced out of her Upper East Side apartment, the result of an adjacent building’s destruction in a crane collapse in 2008.

Ms. Jarvis’s career was bracketed by jazz, which she considered her first love: she formed a jazz band in her native Indiana as a teenager, and she worked steadily as a jazz pianist, mostly in New York, from her mid-60s into her 90s. But for more than two decades she was best known as a ballpark organist.

After eight years playing for the Braves at County Stadium in Milwaukee, she was a fixture at Shea Stadium from 1964 to 1979, performing a repertory that mixed jazz staples like Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple From the Apple” with more conventional fare like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and “Meet the Mets.”

SNY: Salfino: Is Minaya too optimistic?

As Oscar Villarreal Wilde Child once said..."The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole...at 2B and C and Bench and...”

Of course, any positive scenario necessarily assumes a healthy Johan Santana, who had elbow chips cleaned out. That doesn’t appear to be a big deal judging by his history and the history of many pitchers. You should not be shocked if Mike Pelfrey is league average next year. The fifth-starter slot is a mess, but it’s not as if the Mets can’t make any moves come the regular season.The objective with your fifth starter is not finding quality but merely avoiding disaster.

If things don’t break right with the staff and that $15 million left in the budget isn’t just public relations spin, the team can use near the trade deadline to take on high-salaried guys who will be free agents at the end of 2010—the Reds Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo top that list.

The offense has four possible All-Star caliber players—Jason Bay, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes. “Possible” is conservative, as all have been All-Stars in the last two seasons and are in their playing primes. I know everyone wants to act like Carlos Beltran is dead right now, but he’s likely (said Minaya yesterday) to be back with a fixed knee by about May 4.

I understand the skepticism regarding the rest of the lineup. I root for Daniel Murphy, but he projects as a weak-hitting first baseman. The catchers are a joke. The bench is barren. (Gary Matthews, Alex Cora, Henry Blanco? Please.) Yes, Luis Castillo is likely to be a disaster. I, too, wish Minaya, our ####-eyed optimist, would for once not whistle through the graveyard seemingly oblivious to something this obvious.

General manager Omar Minaya: I’m in charge of New York Mets’ moves

Autonomy.
It leaves us all wondering...and it friggin’ should!

Omar Minaya tried to lay to rest scuttlebutt that he’s not calling all the shots in the Mets’ baseball operations department, saying on SNY’s “Hot Stove” show Thursday night that he has “full autonomy.”

“Yes, I do,” Minaya told host Kevin Burkhardt. “I know there’s been some talk about that, but I have full autonomy.” He added, “We feel good about working together and we’ll continue to work together (in the front office).”

The general manager added that the Mets have not had financial restrictions this winter.

Meanwhile, the Mets continue to court John Smoltz and his former Atlanta teammate, Jeff Francoeur, has been recruiting the pitcher. Smoltz, who turns 43 in May, is considering waiting until midseason to pitch.

NYBD: Megdal: Mets Deserve Praise For Tatis

2B in the wry...(sobs)

One more idea, probably hypothetical: Fernando Tatis would be a far better option than Luis Castillo at 2B. As previously mentioned, Tatis in 2008-2009 has an OPS+ of 113. Castillo, over that same period, has an OPS+ of 90. So Luis Castillo would need to be a much better defender than Tatis at 2B to make up that massive gap offensively.

Thing is, Castillo would likely be massively worse than Tatis defensively. He was the worst everyday defensive second baseman in baseball last year and is a year older in 2010. While Tatis’ 2B defensive sample is way too small to draw any conclusions from it, his mobility and defensive range lead me to believe he is unlikely to be even as terrible as Castillo in the field, let alone worse enough to make up for the 23 points of OPS+ between them.

But Tatis doesn’t need to supplant Castillo as the 2B starter- something the Mets are unlikely to to anyway- to be valuable as a bench player. He’s a strong addition, and frankly, if the Mets aren’t willing to acknowledge that Luis Castillo is a sunk cost and just go sign Orlando Hudson, he’s a nice insurance policy at 2B, and many other positions as well. 

NESN: Canty: Rays Moving to Southern CT or NJ?

The Tampa Bay Rays may not be able to afford staying in Florida much longer. NESN baseball analyst Peter Gammons reports on MLB.com that the Rays eventually could be forced to move to a more profitable market.

With spring training drawing closer and teams putting the finishing touches on rosters, Tampa Bay faces a bigger challenge than filling in its second-base hole. While the Rays have enjoyed success against big-market teams such as New York (Yankees), Philadelphia and Boston, their on-field success has not translated into revenue.

“There are smart people in the Major League Baseball offices wondering if there’s hope of even discussing a potential move of the Rays to New Jersey or Southern Connecticut over certain protests from the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Phillies,” writes Gammons on MLB.com.

Keith Law: Top 100 prospects

NO.  PLAYER
1 Jason Heyward, OF, ATL
2 Stephen Strasburg, RHP, WAS
3 Carlos Santana, C, CLE
4 Buster Posey, C, SFO
5 Mike Stanton, OF, FLA
6 Desmond Jennings, OF, TAM
7 Martin Perez, LHP, TEX
8 Dustin Ackley, CF, SEA
9 Justin Smoak, 1B, TEX
10 Jesus Montero, C, NYY
11 Brian Matusz, LHP, BAL
12 Starlin Castro, SS, CHC
13 Neftali Feliz, RHP, TEX
14 Domonic Brown, RF, PHI
15 Wade Davis, RHP, TAM
16 Aroldis Chapman, LHP, CIN
17 Jeremy Hellickson, RHP, TAM
18 Casey Kelly, RHP, BOS
19 Aaron Hicks, RHP, MIN
20 Brett Wallace, 1B, TOR
21 Logan Morrison, 1B, FLA
22 Tyler Matzek, LHP, COL
23 Jenrry Mejia, RHP, NYM
24 Michael Taylor, OF, OAK
25 Zach Britton, LHP, BAL

Scouting reports for the top 25 should be free, I think.

MLB: Beat reporter Marty Noble answers fans’ questions

And once you get past the Noble Piazza prize, you end up with.....

After hearing your reasoning for not voting for Roberto Alomar for the Hall of Fame, I’m shocked that you hold yourself to such a high standard. Alomar’s unprofessional attitude toward an umpire—spitting on John Hirschbeck—was without a doubt wrong, but his apology and acceptance by that umpire should be kept within the two of them.

Your withholding his name from the ballot is unacceptable. I don’t know what gives you or any other sportswriter the right to vote someone into the Hall of Fame when you have never stepped onto a professional baseball diamond. Maybe when voting next year you’ll take the time to put your personal thoughts aside and vote for the player with the credentials to enter the Hall on baseball terms.
-- Ralph G., Bronx, N.Y.

...As for not having played the game; someone suggested you needn’t have walked on the moon to recognize it as a momentous occasion. That concept applies here. And for that matter, how are you qualified to cast an unofficial ballot unless you are Ralph Gagliano (1965, Indians), Ralph Garcia (1972-74, Padres) or Ralph Garr (1968-80, Braves, White Sox and Angels)?

How many movie critics have acted or directed? How many food critics have been chefs? And I ask this question again. How do you think the Baseball Hall of Fame became the most prestigious Hall in sports? By its electorate voting with intelligence, regard for the game and a discriminating eye.

I’ve had players and fans contend that Roger Maris deserved election; likewise Don Larsen. I asked whether Maris would be on their “must” lists if he had hit 59 home runs 50 years ago. Would he? If Larsen had pitched a one-hit shutout in the 1956 World Series, would he still warrant their votes?

If their answers were “yes,” then what about Brady Anderson and Harvey Haddix? If the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame worked that way, it would have inducted Jerry Samuels AKA Napoleon IV, who wrote and recorded “They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!” in 1966. It was No. 1. How about Richard Harris for “MacArthur Park”?

VC Star: Ex-baseball player Lenny Dykstra tries to cope with personal, professional losses

Once a Major League Baseball All-Star, who was living in a multimillion-dollar Lake Sherwood estate last year, Lenny Dykstra now claims he is homeless. Sitting in a rumpled suit in a lounge at a Beverly Hills hotel — with his longtime bookkeeper on hand to pay for his drinks, food and room — he describes the past 11 months as a “nightmare.” “I’ve been fighting for my life,” Dykstra said. “I’m not the kind of person to go to people and ask for money. You have some loyal friends that help, but they can only do so much because each day comes by and it’s another day you wonder what you’re going to do, and where you’re going to sleep, and how you’re going to eat.”

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose....

Klapisch: Same old Mets even with Johan Santana

A Holland-Lament Doozier-Holland Production.

None of this is good news for the Mets’ fans, who are wondering what, exactly, Minaya has done to improve the team this winter. The signing of Jason Bay has been virtually negated by the GM’s inertia: Besides passing on John Lackey and moving too slowly on Randy Wolf, the Mets whiffed altogether on Bengie Molina and Joel Pineiro (who said the Mets were his No. 1 choice), then allowed themselves to be outbid for Sheets by the penniless A’s.

Unless Smoltz changes his mind, the Mets likely will begin the season with journeyman Fernando Nieve as their No. 5 starter. He lines up behind Perez, John Maine and Mike Pelfrey, all of whom will come to camp with health issues and emotional baggage.

The gap between the Mets and Phillies has never been wider than it is today. So unless Santana can pitch three times a week, Jerry Manuel will have to rely on tightly crossed fingers to keep his job beyond June 1.

Minaya is on the hot seat, too, despite a three-year contract extension that begins in 2010. But he’s quickly using up political capital by handing Alex Cora, 33, a $2 million deal, and by similarly saddling the roster with Gary Mathews Jr. — a washed up, 35-year-old outfielder who has no business being on a team that once set youth and athleticism as a corporate goal.

Fox: Rosenthal:  Mets’ problems go deeper than GM Minaya

The Mets, multiple industry sources say, do not function like most clubs. Their unique style would be fine if they were building championship teams. Instead, they’re coming off a 70-win season and
losing out on free agent after free agent—except for one, left fielder Jason Bay, who seemingly lacked a better option.

Ownership, rather than giving Minaya a set budget, weighs the finances of each acquisition separately, forcing the team to run down its priority list one move at a time. The paint-by-numbers approach, which inhibits multitasking and creativity, would work against any GM.

...

Yet, even in an offseason in which the Mets signed Bay to a four-year, $66 million contract, their front office has committed one misstep after another, from its squabble with center fielder Carlos
Beltran over his knee surgery to its botched courtship of free-agent catcher Bengie Molina to its failure to address the team’s biggest area of need — starting pitching.

It’s Jan. 27. The Mets’ rotation ranked 12th in the NL last season with a 4.77 ERA. But free-agent targets Randy Wolf, Joel Pineiro and Ben Sheets signed with other teams, and the Mets never even figured in trade discussions for Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Javier Vazquez.

SNY: Megdal: Mets: Another word for nothing left to lose

And other pearls from Megdal…

The problem is two-fold, of course. For one thing, it is increasingly coming into focus just how far $4.5 million, which is roughly what the Mets are paying for two years of Matthews and one year of Cora, would have gone to improve the 2010 team.

It represents what Adam LaRoche, who had an OPS+ 27 points higher than Daniel Murphy in 2009, will make to play first base for the Diamondbacks in 2010. It represents more than Orlando Hudson or Felipe Lopez is likely to make to dramatically upgrade second base from the coming Luis Castillo catastrophe. And it represents what the Mets would have had to spend, precisely, for a catching tandem of Gregg Zaun and Miguel Olivo.

...So the Mets arguably need more than their fair share of luck, as long as decisions like this are made on the field, and blunders like the Beltran situation mean that the one advantage the team has—more money due to market size—is blunted somewhat. Winning will eliminate some of that bad publicity, and while it will likely provide positive reinforcement for a situation that cries out for change, things could be a lot worse.

After all, Mets fans, your worst-case scenario is a winning season like the Jets just had. Any more losing means the Mets will clean house. How’s that for a win-win year?

CStB: On Overreaction: What We Scream About When We Scream About Gary Matthews Jr.

With Deitch heading to MOCA, where will be Omar display his “art”?

No one involved involved with the Mets can seem to explain anything that the team does in a way that seems compelling or honest or even coherent; the bits of what-were-they-thinking reportage that leak out of the front office suggest nothing so much as the astrology-fixated Burmese junta, abruptly deciding to relocate the nation’s capital or undertake a purge because of what house Jupiter’s in. Players play well or don’t; executives make good decisions or they don’t; but the whole goofy enterprise of caring about baseball is somehow being laid bare in a deeper way by the hilariously inscrutable “triumphs” of this baffled, baffling organization.

Fans put themselves in a vulnerable position when they decide to cheer for a team — I’ve written about this before as regards the Mets, and there’s nothing in this post that really improves on what I wrote previously. But the Matthews trade — Omar getting “his guy” in a deal that everyone else in the entire freaking world thinks is incomprehensible and ridiculous — is a reminder of how bizarrely bleak it is to be a Mets fan right now. The moves arrive out of nowhere, reflect no philosophy beyond an anarchically da-da absence of internal logic, and allow almost no commentary but this. That is, maundering, meandering wonderment. That is, bafflement, more than any sort of disagreement or — because it’s not 2005, and I’m not 26 anymore — aggrieved grief.

There is, in me, the hope that Omar has gone crazy and is kind of Putting the System On Trial — that he’s going to sign Todd Hollandsworth to a $155 million deal next month, and then trade Johan Santana for a 1991 Eagle Talon and a bunch of yarn, and then reveal the whole thing as a conceptual art piece, at which point we will all applaud and he’ll sell the last three years of baseball at the Gagosian Gallery. But the one thing that all this is not is conceptual, art-wise or otherwise. It’s just ####### Gary Matthews Jr., somehow. It’s just business — inexplicable business — as usual. It just kind of sucks, if you can bother to care about it.

CStB: Put It In The Books : Howie Rose Is The Only Person Who Still Accepts Unsolicited Demos

Largeteethed boy rocks!

I’m not sure which is more amazing, that someone thought it acceptable to make an (innocuous) voice message from WFAN’s Howie Rose available to the public (he’s no Pat O’Brien, that’s for sure), or that Howie is so thoroughly gracious about receiving CD’s from these guys.  I’ve been sending Suzyn Waldman Air Traffic Controllers CD’s for years, and they come back marked “return to sender” each time. Talk about holding a grudge.

Play a Hard Nine: Hall of Excellentitude: Keith Hernandez

HOE on Keith. I know, shocking.

A few things pop to my mind when I think of Hernandez. Whitey Herzog just said no to drugs (and still adamantly does) and traded the coke-loving Hernandez for two nobodies. Bad decision. While Hernandez is remembered as a Met, his best days actually were in St. Louis: 35.1 WAR compared to 26.5 in New York. What also comes to mind are those ridiculously cheesy Just for Men ads, and my two favorite episodes of Seinfeld, ever.

Then there’s the fact that Keith Hernandez was a tremendously talented baseball player, one who I think is worthy of Cooperstown. His J-Hoffa scores rightly predicted him falling far short of reaching the Hall, but his WAR numbers tell a different and more accurate story of his worthiness.

...While his batting is not in the elite of the elite, Hernandez has better per season numbers than Murray and the overrated Sisler. (We’ll talk about Sisler in a future post). Mex had six seasons where he posted an OPS+ of 140 or better.

I have to say, I’m a little surprised that Hernandez received such little support for his Hall of Fame candidacy. You would think that he would have got at least some of the backing Don Mattingly has received.

SI.com: Mets have deal for Matthews Jr.

Sarge Lite reporting for duty!

The Mets have a deal to acquire Gary Matthews Jr. from the Los Angeles Angels according to an American League source. Matthews has two years and $23 million remaining on his contract and the Angels will be paying the vast portion of that money. Matthews also gets $500,000 for being traded.

Rehabbing Sheets works out for scouts

Is Ben in the best shape of his life?

Sheets, who had surgery on the flexor tendon in his right elbow last February, went 86-83 with a 3.72 ERA in his first eight seasons in the Major Leagues, notching double-digit wins seven times and finishing with an ERA under 4.00 in each of his past five seasons. In ‘08, he went 13-9 with a 3.09 ERA in 31 starts for the Brewers.

According to a report on AOL Fanhouse, Sheets first threw 20 fastballs in the workout, topping out at 91 mph. He then threw another 20 pitches, half of them curveballs. In his third session, Sheets’ fastball topped out at 88 mph and the pitcher looked “gassed,” the report said. Sheets is believed to be seeking a two-year deal.

The Village Voice: Barra: Was Missing Bengie Molina the Mets’ First Error of the Season?

Yeah, and if Bengie Molina was my Village Voice delivery kid...I’d just be receiving Pazz & Jop #1!

Can we stop talking about Carlos Beltran’s knee surgery for just a minute? Bengie Molina is far from the best catcher in baseball, but he was clearly the best on the free agent market. And with 20 home runs and 80 RBIs last season, he was a significant upgrade from anyone the Mets had or were likely to get.

For weeks now, it’s practically been assumed that Bengie was going to be a Met. Now he’s re-signed with his old team, the San Francisco Giants, who flat out said just a few short months ago that they didn’t want him back. ("That ship has sailed,” Giants GM Brian Sabean told reporters during the winter meetings.)

...The only report that really matters, though, is the one that will explain to us how Omar Minaya could have let this debacle happen. Molina was dissatisfied with the Giants and was there to be had. How is it possible that the Mets, so desperate to acquire first rate free agents, would not have given a potential starting catcher a multi-year contract and a significant pay raise? Actually, there is one more significant question to be asked: does the failure to land Molina halt the momentum the Mets gained by signing Jason Bay? Only if they fail to come up with someone else as good or better as Molina, and right now there’s no indication of where such a catcher will come from.

NYBD: Megdal: Molina Rejection Is Windfall Income

This was hailed by many as a victory for Mets fans who are sabermetrically-inclined, and it is, to an extent- Molina’s negatives include such things as poor defensive metrics and a putrid on-base percentage. But it is hardly takes a sophisticated statistical bent to be happy that the Mets didn’t sign a 35-year-old with bad knees to a one-year deal, let alone the multi-year deal it would have taken to actually land the S.S. Molina.

So what now? Well, the Mets suddenly have an extra $5 million to spend that they didn’t think they’d have. And that is tremendous news, since that money was going to go to a player who doesn’t help them- and now the remaining options are players who actually can.

If the money goes toward signing an upgrade at second base- think Orlando Hudson or Felipe Lopez- suddenly the Mets have done their young pitcher Mike Pelfrey a tremendous favor, not to mention helping any other pitcher on the staff who induces at least some ground balls (in other words, all of them).

If it goes toward Carlos Delgado at first base, the Mets have added a potentially significant bat to a lineup that could use it, particularly during the time Carlos Beltran misses. I guess it goes without saying, though, that if Delgado is at first defensively, improving from Castillo at second base becomes that much more important.

...When Molina signed with the San Francisco Giants, the Mets won the lottery.

MUSL Beach Party!