Why Waive Pat Misch?

In a move that few will mourn, the Mets placed pitcher LHP Pat Misch on waivers, according to mlb.com. Misch was acquired on waivers from the Giants during the 2009 season and performed credibly in his brief time with the Mets. Used first as a reliever, Misch eventually worked his way into a starting role, [...]

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Pitch Counts and John Maine

It may be late Spring but John Maine is in midseason form. In his last start Thursday against the Cardinals, Maine needed 88 pitches to complete five innings or an average of 17.6 pitches per inning. If this were the regular season, Maine might have completed one more inning. In his 15 starts last year, [...]

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Bullpen Options

Jon Niese seemingly has won the fifth starter’s job, which helps clear things up in the bullpen, too. Fernando Nieve and Hasanori Takahashi, both nominally in the mix for the rotation, now figure to be relievers. Two big questions remain for the pen – Will Jenrry Mejia make the club as a set-up man and [...]

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Comparing Francoeur and Murphy

Realistically, the Mets go into the 2010 season unsure of what they will get from either Jeff Francoeur or Daniel Murphy. Francoeur has much more of a track record in the majors than Murphy, but his production has been so inconsistent (WARs ranging from 3.7 to -1.2) that anyone who says they know what to [...]

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Giants v. Mets Offseason

When the off-season started, there was a lot of speculation about how much money the Mets had available for free agency and how they would choose to spend that cash. Many people looked at the various weaknesses of the team and advocated for a “spread the wealth” approach where the squad would seek to fill [...]

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The Fighting Whiteys

Since Omar Minaya took over as the Mets’ general manager, much has been made in the mainstream media about the team’s emphasis on Latin players. Everyone seems to harp on Los Mets and with the club importing top talents such as Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and Johan Santana under Minaya’s watch, it’s not [...]

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The six-arm solution

The starting rotation will go a long way towards determining how good of a season the 2010 Mets will have. Right now the best we can say about the rotation is we have no idea how good or bad it will be. Each of the five spots has question marks and to expect the majority [...]

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Reviewing Billy Wagner's Exit

My friend Matthew Artus over at the Always Amazin’ New York Mets Fan Blog on NJ.com wrote a piece entitled “Billy Wagner in Hindsight.” His point was that of all the different ways the Wagner scenario could have played out for the Mets, the actual transaction that did occur might have been the worst. It [...]

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2010 Top Prospects

General manager Omar Minaya has come under a lot of fire for not having more prospects in the farm system ready to step in and contribute when the Mets were hit by all of the injuries last year. There is some validity to that criticism. However, given the condition of the Mets farm system when [...]

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A Reason for Optimism

What do Carlos Beltran, Alex Cora, Carlos Delgado, Pedro Feliciano, Oliver Perez, J.J. Putz, Jose Reyes, Francisco Rodriguez and David Wright have in common? Besides the fact that talk radio hosts and callers want to send them out of town? All nine of those players participated in the WBC last season. Of those nine, seven [...]

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The language of leather

With Spring Training right around the corner, undoubtedly we will hear tons of stories about how the Mets are going to concentrate on fundamentals. It’s one of the rites of Spring. Included in fundamentals is defensive play. Most people think that the Mets did not have a very good defense last year. However, some people [...]

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