Double A This

I'm done focusing on the negatives and I will only focus on the positives, however little positives there are, from here on out.

- Every Met starter last night had at least one hit.
- Mike Piazza came back tonight and hit his 376th career homerun.
- David Wright hit is 7th homerun this year.
- Jason Phillips hit a homerun and made a great play in the ninth to save Stanton's stupid ass. LoDuca fouled one backwards and Phillips made a falling catch with his bare hands. Very, very nice.
- Cliffy picked up two hits, hopefully that will get him going.
- The Mets DFA'd Brian Buchanan. What a worthless move that was when they picked him up. I could have told them that.
- Stanton managed to not give up any runs.
- No one got injured in the game.

From the Post:

As Phillips ran to first after his homer, he had an exchange with a rowdy fan. According to Phillips, "It was a guy above the dugout that's been riding me, not just this game."

After Phillips popped out in his first at-bat last night, the fan called him a Triple-A player. After Phillips grounded out in his second at-bat, the fan lowered his value to a Double-A player. So when Phillips homered in the sixth, he yelled at the fan, "Double-A this!"

Can a modern day Mario Mendoza's really talk shit?


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Click here for joyous news. Benson is to miss a start and Kaz possibly out for the remainder of the season. Those trades that the Mets pulled are officially a disaster of epic proportions. Also, how the hell does Kaz play in like 1,100 straight games and becomes a Met and suddenly has back spasms. He has not played since mid-August. If this is not proof positive that the Mets are cursed, I'm not sure what is. I think it is the curse of Bobby V.

The Mets will send superscouts Al Goldis and Bill Livesey to the Dominican Republic today and tomorrow to watch Cuban free agent Kendry Morales' showcase. This will be some happy news if they decide to gift wrap a 21 year old (maybe) OF/1B who is a switch hitter.

Mike DeJean is the latest Met on the DL.

Mets maybe passing on Benson's extension? Unreal, this team is way out of control. Yes, there are better free agent pitchers than him in the off season, but they knew that before the deal too. This proves that this team approaches their day to day operations with no clue on how to manage this team and it's roster.

You can't make this stuff up.

The D-Backs sweeten their offer to Drew and they will be making a push for him and things are looking a bit more optimistic.

"This is an awfully big commitment to a player who, quite frankly, has never seen a major league at-bat," Garagiola said. "Eventually, you get to the point where you can't go any higher. But we've all worked extremely hard on this, and we feel we've been very creative with things."

Ichiro is on track for 260 hits this season. Barry is going for 700 homers and Ichiro going for an record that is over 80 years old in the same season. This is something for any baseball fan to get excited about.

Tim Kukjan has a nice little article on Barry Lamar Bonds.

It seems we were just talking about Bonds' 500th because we WERE. He will go from 500 home runs to 700 in less than 3½ years: the time it used to take sluggers to hit 100, he will hit 200. It took The Babe just under five years to go from 500 to 700. It took Aaron just over five years.

I had predicted that Rolen would take the NL MVP, but I admit, I was once again wrong. It is Bonds all the way. He should wrap up his 7th MVP award this year.

While I'm on the topic of Bonds, Baseball Prospectus breaks down the odds of him hitting .400 this year. The odds of Bonds hitting .400 are the same odds of the Mets front office making an intelligent move.

From Baseball America's new Dish Pieces:

Petit, who began the year at low Class A Capital City, is 12-5, 2.01 with 194 strikeouts in 134 innings at three different levels this season overall.

Unreal. His is Billy Beane's wet dream in terms of the numbers he is putting up. Billy, we might consider working a deal out for Zito and sending him your way in a package.

News on the Rick Ankiel from Dish Pieces as well.

A report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had Ankiel throwing 44 strikes during his 53-pitch outing.

Good to see him finally coming back and looking sharp. This guy has oodles of talent on the mound and with the bat. People forget just how good he was looking when he first came up. He broke into the majors at 19 years old in 1999 and posted a 3.27 ERA in 33 innings of work. In 2000, he went 11-7 with a 3.50 ERA while striking out 194 in 175 innings. He allowed a measly 137 hits in those innings. He did have a bit of a control problem and gave up a few long balls, but a wildly successful season for a 20 year old. Oh, and he is a lefty to boot. Then it all came apart in the game against the Mets in the playoffs and after he peppered the backstop with fastball after fastball, he was never the same. Hopefully he can resurect his still young career.

Baseball Prospectus' This Week in Quotes article has a little bit from the Shea spin machine.

"This is not a three-week trade...It's a deal that can't be evaluated for three years."
--Rick Peterson, Mets pitching coach, on former Met farmhand Scott Kazmir (N.Y. Post)

"You have to look at at the marketplace.... We needed rotation guys for next year. Where we feel the time it would take (for Kazmir), especially in this market the fans would not be patient."
--Peterson

"This is no different from that trade."
--Peterson, referring to the A's trading Jeremy Bonderman for Ted Lilly in 2002

"The real reality of it is that nobody would care (about the deal) if we were close to first or in first like we all expected to be. Within an organization, (Kazmir) won't be the first super prospect to be traded and he won't be the last."
--Al Leiter, Mets pitcher (N.Y. Post)

Jeez, while I'm biting off of Baseball Prospectus so much, I may as well add a little more. They evaluate the Olympic baseball talent. The result? A truly depressing reminder of how the USA got screwed. They should have been there.

The big mashers were out in Norfolk in their 9-6 loss the Charlotte. Victor Diaz went 2 for 4 with one run scored, a homerun, and FIVE RBIs. Oh yeah, and he drew a walk. The other run was off of a Craig Brazell homer. It is kind of easy to forget that Victor does not turn 23 until December of this year. He is 22 and tearing up AAA. He could be a young Manny Ramirez type guy. I do not think there is any question he will eventually rake in the majors.

Scottie Strickland got touched up for two runs in 1.1 innings of work in St. Lucie’s 4-2 loss to Vero Beach.

Ambiorix Concepcion continues to move up the charts in the Mets minor league system. Last night he went 3 for 4 with one run scored and one RBI. He is now hitting .321.