They got Ron Karkovice to pose one time. Then they stopped.

They also got female athletes to pose nude. You have to take the bad with the good.

Finally, they've given Keving Garnett and Stephon Marbury editorial control.

Solo, you're my only hope!

Gretchen Blieler is ripped. A good photo set overall, athletic human bodies are pretty amazing in general, and even moreso with a good photographer.

Also, kudos to ESPN for including a paralympian.

Speaking of Reyes, anyone interested in talking about how the Mets 2010-11 offseason looks now that the season is done?

no bradley awesomeness. no matt kemp (although the wet shirt spread was seriously luscious)

sigh

lots and lots of FINE lookin males there though - can't complain real too much

Sweet "Marty Marion Life" tattoo he's got there.

Speaking of Reyes, anyone interested in talking about how the Mets 2010-11 offseason looks now that the season is done?

At this point, I think the way to go with Reyes is to make him the most competitive offer the team can - something like 6/100 - and be prepared to get two first rounders when he goes elsewhere. My main issue is that I don't feel comfortable giving Reyes more than 4 years, considering his injury history, age, and position. I just don't think a 34 year old Jose Reyes will be very good. I hope I'm surprised otherwise.

@9--sounds reasonable, though I was thinking of the 2010-11 offseason, to see how the new FO performed. Howard Megdal has some notes on it here, though I'm not comfortable with a few of his assertions, such as:

Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the arguments over how much the Mets have to spend. Whether payroll is at $200 million, $100 million or $50 million, the way to maximize it is to pay less for more production at every roster spot. That is intelligent operating, and it helps the Yankees as surely as it helps the Athletics, because it frees up other payroll for additional spending.

Sandy Alderson’s first year in charge was an absolute success because of these kinds of moves. From locking in RA Dickey at a below-market rate, to paying Chris Young and Chris Capuano less combined than most single starting pitchers would make (and receiving, for that money, a combined 210 innings of 4.24 ERA pitching), along with successful secondary parts like Scott Hairston and Tim Byrdak, Alderson took an awfully small number of lemons and produced a surprising amount of lemonade.

Lumping Young and Capuano together is... creative. Too creative for my tastes. Capuano had an ERA+ of 82 in 186 innings. With incentives the Mets paid $2.5m to Cappy. That's not, itself, emblematic--at all--of absolute success. The Mets did okay, finding a fifth starter for fifth starter money. Chris Young, of course, fizzled entirely. 24 innings, great ERA, $1.1m salary. I suppose if you can find forty guys like that you'll have a hell of a rotation but, c'mon. Alderson didn't have much money to work with in the offseason, and didn't get much back. As for the Dickey contract, the Mets needed to sign him, he was happy to return, the money seemed reasonable particularly for a guy looking for his first big contract at 36, and the 2013 option might turn out nicely in the team's favor. They didn't screw up what was in front of them to do. That's fine, but other than refusing to make an offer, or giving Dickey 3/36, an average GM gets this done the way the FO got it done.

It's hard to give the FO even a pat on the back for their handling of 2B. Their chosen starter, Emaus, couldn't cut it. They played Daniel Murphy out of position and his season ended as a result. They fell back on Turner, about the only option remaining to them, and Turner was at least a hair better than replacement level. It was an improvement of the fiasco Minaya gave us in 2010, but if that's the standard... ouch. There was nothing successful about the FO's handling of the position.

As for lauding Mr. Hairston, 145 PAs of 112 OPS+, mostly at the corners, for $1.1m with slightly below average defense, well, it's certainly okay. It's just as certainly no better than that.

Tim Byrdak? A nice pickup at his salary despite the 1.407 WHIP and an ERA+ a little below average. He's a LOOGY, of course. 72 games, 37 innings. I'll happily concede the Mets seem solid at the LOOGY spot for 2012.

What else? Nothing, really. What credit remains goes to the manager and coaching staff. Josh Thole hit a little better than we thought he would (94 OPS+). Certainly enough for the position that he'll hang around the league for some millions of dollars. Dillon Gee pitched as well as we could have hoped, though no better than that. When they ran out of options the Mets turned to Duda and Tejada, both of whom hit well by their standards, though Duda's D threatens to swallow his offense. As for the vets Alderson brought in, Ronny Paulino was an ok pickup, nothing more. Willie Harris was a little below replacement level. He couldn't hit enough to play five positions. DJ Carrasco was a fiasco (sorry). Who am I missing?

In sum, the FO wasn't successful, not by any meaningful standard. They didn't have much money to work with, and didn't get anything of note done with the team on the field in 2011.

The best I can say, and the reason they managed to win 77 games with an unimpressive group and despite trading their best player and best reliever, was that this FO didn't go the route Minaya did and hunt down the worst players in baseball and bring them aboard. Alderson and company didn't have any real successes, but the guys they picked up didn't hurt them, and in some cases put a useful floor under the performance the team got from several positions. A lot of what kept the Mets out of last place was the respectable performance of several youngsters already in the organization: Thole, Duda, Tejada, Gee, Ike Davis before he was hurt, Daniel Murphy before he was hurt. The FO doesn't get credit for that. As I noted above, if anything, that's on Collins and the coaching staff.

So what's the grade for nothing special, and nothing awful? A "C"? That no FA stood out in any way at all, and several were simply a few million flushed down the toilet? I can see a "D", too, and wouldn't argue against it. Cashman had a great year finding pitching for nothing. Alderson certainly didn't. However one slices it, the Mets FO was wholly unimpressive last offseason.