Tuesday Tidbits

The Mets took one out of two in yesterday's double header. Hell froze over and Aaron Heilman won a game despite giving up four runs in six innings. He won thanks to a five run bottom of the sixth by the Mets. In all seriousness, Heilman actually looked OK. In six innings he struck out six while walking two. He gave up seven hits and five of those seven hits were surrendered in the fourth when he gave up all four of his runs. Heilman could be successful, but he needs to be more aggressive in attacking hitters. Piazza, Wright, and Hidalgo each had two hits and accounted for five RBIs. The big hit was a pinch hit two run scoring double by Craig Brazell. Bartolome Fortunado also looked good in his one inning of relief.

In game two, Jae Seo was reluctant to stray away from his fastball/change up repertoire. He did not want to mix in any breaking stuff and he was throwing BP. He gave up five runs in four innings and there is not much good to say about this game besides Cameron's leadoff homerun for his 29th on the season in the first inning.

Just side note, it is utterly ridiculous that Victor Diaz did not start one game of the double dip or even register an at bat. Glass could have sat down for the second game. I also think Brazell should have started at least one of these games as well.

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I bet everyone is just really curious to see who got the most out of their money in 2003. So wonder no more which baseball teams got the most bang for their buck and which did not.

Most money per win:
New York Mets - $1.77M
New York Yankees - $1.48M
Texas Rangers - $1.47M
Los Angeles Dodger - $1.25M
Detroit Tigers - $1.14M

Least money per win:
Kansas City Royals - $490K
Oakland Athletics - $520K
Florida Marlins - $530K
Chicago White Sox - $590K
Toronto Blue Jays - $600K

Over very own New York Mets ranked as the most underproductive and overpaid team in the majors in 2003, but I think we already knew that.

Check out this mumbo jumbo from Duquette on Howe's status with the club:

"When we decide, when there's a decision to be made, obviously he'd be the first one to know," Duquette said of Howe. "All I can tell you is that it continues to be evaluated."

Sadly enough, this is true.

Everything they seem to do has the air of indecisiveness about it - from the hiring of Duquette as GM, to Mike Piazza's job designation, to the Vladimir Guerrero bidding - and this is the product of not having one firm hand on the steering wheel of the ship. For this reason, it is going to be very difficult to lure the kind of accomplished manager - not to mention the necessary players - to Shea.

In my opinion, the entire point to the season was to take a step forward and create and atmosphere that people want to come play in. At this point, I just cannot see top tier talent saying "I want to go play for the Mets". The front office looks completely incompetent and players are not stupid. If we can see it, they can obviously see it.

For some more depressing reading material, just read this. Just let the GM do what he was hired to do. The owner's are supposed to collect the paycheck. Leave baseball to the baseball people...except those 'super scouts', they suck. In a related article, Shaun Powell thinks Wilpon should sell the team if he actually cares about the Mets franchise. His reason why he should sell?

Wilpon's son Jeff has a big voice in the organization, especially the baseball operation, even though Jeff brings only two qualifications: He's a member of the lucky sperm club and once played Class A ball for five seconds.

The lucky sperm club line is too classic.

Vance Wilson on his injury:

"The Mets' Curse," he joked, referring to the rash of injuries the last two years. "I'm glad I can be a part of the whole thing."

When Eric Chavez can figure out how to terrorize both lefties and righties in the same season, he'll be putting up MVP numbers. In 2002, Eric went .209/.362/.623 against lefties with six homers and 27 RBIs in 163 at bats and .301/.571/.950 against righties with 28 homers and 82 RBIs in 422 at bats. In 2003, he went .220/.403/.674 against lefties 9 homers and 29 RBIs in 191 at bats and went .312/.567/.954 against righties with 20 homers and 72 RBIs. Until this year, the only chink in his armor was hit play hitting against lefties. What does he do in 2004? Destroy lefties to the tune of .327/.536/.964 with 9 homers and 24 RBIs while hitting only .240/.516/.897 against righties with 19 homers and 44 RBIs. If he puts it together in 2005 Billy Beane will not regret that big contract that was awarded to Chavez. Eric could be a year in year out MVP candidate being able to smash pitchers no matter what arm they throw with combined with gold glove defense at third. He is definitely a franchise player, but the Mets have a certain guy that reminds me a whole lot of Chavez but from the other side of the plate that has franchise player written all over him.

Ichiro's second half average is a ridiculous .453.

Jaime Moyer has given up an astounding 41 homers and 104 RBIs with only 338 total opponents at bats. Those are some Bonds-ian numbers, but the most astounding part of that is 19 of those homeruns allowed were in the pitcher’s haven known as SafeCo. Milton checks in at number two with 38, Colon checks in next with 35, and Darrel May and Matt Morris check in at number four with 32 homeruns allowed. Steve Trachsel is the first Met pitcher at #30 in the league with 24 homeruns surrendered. Overall Met pitchers have allowed only 137 homeruns in the league which is fifth least in the majors. You know what that tells me? It has been slow and painful watching the Mets lose. If there were more homers, it would be quicker and less pain.

In 2005 we should see a Met milestone. Mike Piazza should take down Ed Kranepool as the Met player with most double plays in the team's history. Way to go Mike.

I flipped on the football game last night really quick between the Packers and the Panthers. They have this new feature that clocks the speed of the football. I only had the game on for a second but they had a Brett Favre pass get clocked at 70 mph while he was falling backwards and he was not even set. If this guy wants to play baseball I'm pretty sure he would be a pretty dominating closer with some serious heat. With an arm like Favre's he probably would have the best fastball in the majors. Madden was saying that was the equivalent of a 92 mph fastball, but he wasn't too sure of that exact figure.

We haven't had a good fight with a player and the fans in a bit. Luckily the Rangers players and A's fans were more than happy to oblige. The end of it is a woman with a broken nose and lacerated head thanks to a chair to the temple by Rangers Frank Francisco, who has been arrested. Obviously he forgot the entire sticks and stones thing.

Frank now joins the likes of Jeff Nelson and Karim Garcia as being players arrested for assaulting fans.

One classic thing from night’s broadcast of the Mets game #1 was Keith Hernandez talking about Wilson Delgado taking a third strike on the inside corner. Keith was remarking how it was too close to take. I don’t know the exact dialogue, but it is something like this:

Keith “You cannot take that pitch with two strikes. If you are Barry Bonds, you get the call, if you are (forgot who it was, but insert big name slugger) you get the call, if you are Fran Healy, you don’t get the call”

Fran “Keith, I’m sitting right here”

Keith and Fran not getting along is sometimes pretty damn funny. Can someone please explain why Healy has a job?