Some Bold Predictions

Norm just did his fearless predictions, and they are much better than mine, so feel free to skip all mine. Obviously if all these things happen, the Mets just may find themselves in the World Series, but they are not all going to happen and I’ll take just a few.

(Here was a Victor Zambrano prediction that I removed)

Pedro Martinez will put up better numbers than Tim Hudson (I'll bet the farm on this one) and win the CY Young award.

Quiznos will add a third sandwich to their menu in the right field concession stand.

Kris Benson will have the best year of his career under the tutelage of Rick Peterson and the spacious Shea outfield behind him and finally start to resemble the pitcher everyone thought he could be. Think 15 wins.

Yusmeiro Petit will be in the Majors after the All-Star break.

Jose Reyes and Cliff Floyd will be healthy this season and each log 140+ games.

Jose Reyes will steal at least fifty bases and Floyd will steal at least twenty bases.

Mike Piazza will top 400 homeruns for his career this season.

Art Howe will still be unemployed.

The Mets will have two position players make the All-Star team and one pitcher make the All-Star team.

Fred Wilpon's face will continue to appear like it is melting off his body.

Douggie Fresh will win a Gold Glove.

Felix Heredia will find himself unemployed by June.

Cliff Floyd will profess there is a actually some light at the end of the tunnel.

Willie make annoying comments related to the Yankees like, "I don't feel too good, but there aren't many Mariano Riveras around" way too many times.

Beltran will finish in the top five for MVP voting.

Kaz will have a fielding % of .980 or better.

I will find myself inebriated on many occasions at Shea Stadium.

The Mets will score over 750 runs for the first time since 2000.

The Mets will make the playoffs.

* * *

MinorLeagueBaseball.com does their review on the Florida State League. Looks like Kevin Czerwinski is moonlighting on our Mets.

Gabby, Ambiorix, Gomez, Durkin, etc. will be in New Jersey playing the Lakewood Blue Claws April 18th through the 20th, May 17th through the 20th, June 21st through the 24th, and more times that I do not feel like writing out. Get there and see a pretty damn good Low A team.

John Smoltz's ERA stands at 32.40 after getting knocked around on Tuesday. 'Tis a beautiful thing. Though I hate to see Delgado and Co. do good, this was somehow very, very satisfying.

More Cammy rumors are surfacing, but I hope Omar realizes that Cammy is worth a good amount in return. A Gold Glover, coming of a 30 homer season as a CFer is worth more than two relievers who's W/9 were over 5.00 in 2009. Imagine Parrish or Julio coming in after Ishii or Zambrano? Not that both do not have talent. They are 26 and 27 respectively and Parrish gets into the low 90's as a left and Julio gets into the high 90's. Does this move really make the Mets better when they have/will have some good in house options? I hope Omar sees how this plays out internally first. Hey, maybe Omar can admit that Heredia needs to go and Bell needs to come up sooner rather than later. To trade right now when all in house options were not looked into for people who are anything but sure things would be rash to say to the least.

FlushingFutures.com goes over the St. Lucie roster. There are some exciting players there (for now) and a really impressive outfield. Between Humber, Milledge, Bowman, and Hill, I'm sure a few of us will be following the St. Lucie squad.

Brian Bannister takes the hill against CC Sabathia tomorrow in Binghamton's opener.

"We're going to go as far as Jose takes us, for the most part," Doug Mientkiewicz said. "He has the ability to win games by himself. That's how much talent he has. He can beat you in so many ways."

Looks like Jose Santiago is in line to get tuned up by the Braves this Saturday. I guess they do not want to rush Petit, but is there any doubt he has the best chance out of the current options to be effective?

A career reliever -- no starts in 225 Major League appearances -- Santiago was "stretched out" during an afternoon session as preparation for the unassigned start against the Braves in Atlanta Saturday. He threw about 60 pitches, more than a pitcher usually throws in a relief appearance.

The 30-year-old right-hander has started merely six times as a professional and not once since making five Minor League starts in 1999.

Kazmir had a great debut this season, though it does not appear he dominated.

"If he throws strikes, he's awfully tough," said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons before the Blue Jays' 6-3 win in front of an announced crowd of 9,144 Tuesday night at Tropicana Field. "When we saw him last year, he was wild. If he pounds that strike zone, you don't want to wait around too long. But he's got to prove that to us first."

          IP   H   R   ER   SO    ERA
Kazmir   5.0   3   1    1    2   1.80
McClung  0.1   4   5    5    2 135.00

Seth McClung did not fare quite as well as Kazmir did.

Rick Ankiel was placed on waivers. He should pass through since he already said he is done as a pitcher and really does not have much value as a hitter at this point.

Steve Phillips was drinking the silly juice again.

He predicts Corey Patterson should hit close to 40 homers and steal close to 40 bases. He also says that it is not unrealistic for Sean Burroughs to hit 20 homers, 40 doubles, and 90 RBIs. For anyone keeping score at home, he has 55 doubles, 10 homers, and 116 RBIs in 340 games in his career.

Potentially, I could be wrong on some of these picks. Oh, there's that dirty word again. You know what that means for a general manager. The reality is that not all of these players will fulfill their potential this season. Some will be on next year's list, just as Beltre must have been an annual nominee.

The good news is that if these players don't reach their potential, it won't be my fault. Come on, what could possibly happen – I get fired?

What was the dirty little word? "Potentially", "I", "could", "be", "wrong", "on", "some", "of", "these", or "picks". I'm a bit lost. I also have a newsflash, you are not a general manager and you could get fired anyway. ESPN may wake up one day and realized you are nearly useless. How did you get a GM job again?