Tools Abound

Carlos Gomez continues to hit well of late as he is recovering from a slow start for the second season in a row. Gomez's promotion of AA and having him skip St. Lucie was looking like a big mistake, but it is starting to not looking quite as bad these days with a .313 average over the last two months up through yesterday's game. He is still not walking much and his walks have decreased from eight in April to four in May to one in June to none in July, but he is actually walking with more frequency in 2006 than in 2005. His SB% is 70% which is down from 73% in 2005 and that is one are he needs to drastically improve on being that speed is such a large part of his game.

        BA  OBP  SLG    OPS
April .205 .301 .261   .562
May   .219 .278 .370   .648
June  .250 .316 .404   .720
July  .410 .442 .590  1.032

Back in 2004, an Eastern Division manager of the Gulf Coast League called him the total package. He likened him to Raul Mondesi and said he was the number one prospect in the league in his eyes. He is still only 20 years old and young for AA, but at some point he will start to have to put up numbers consistently to back up his expectations and prospect status. He can supposedly put on a show in batting practice in regards to hitting with power but only has fourteen homeruns in his career which is good for one homer in every 65.86 at-bats.

He has all the tools and we've heard the stories about some scouts liking his tools better than Milledge's, but Milledge is only eight months older and commands them much better, though he could stand to work on a few things himself. For all of Gomez's tools, he still has trouble actually using them. He is erratic in the field, needs to become more deft at stealing bases, figure out how to harness his power during actual games, and gain more control of the strike zone. Does that really sound like a guy who should be skipping levels? Probably not and while the experiment with Gomez in AA is far from a failure, it is hard to think that Gomez is really even close to the bigs without showing a marked improvement to justify the Mets trying to shoot him through the system. Maybe the Mets were trying to up his value via a trade or maybe they thought they saw something in his thirteen at-bats with the big club this spring, but Gomez needs to start showing substantial improvement or else people will start to sour on him he will not be much value to the Mets at all.

* * *

This is one of the funniest and scariest things I have ever seen. Wow....just wow.

Not be outdone in the weird category...

"Hi, I'm David Wright. I invite you to the 'Salvation Miracles Revival Crusade' with Dr. Jaerock Lee, at Madison Square Garden, July 27, 28 and 29."

The Mets had a fucking swell sixth inning in which two grand slams were hit and a David Wright two run homer despite a severe SUCK ME candidate in Sean Marshall on the mound. It was the most runs scored by any Met team in one inning and the most runs scored in an inning this year by any team. And of course, Xavier Nady is on my fantasy team and the Mets score thirteen runs while Nady only goes 1 for 3 with a run scored. Thanks.

In a great moment during the game, the Cubbie fans got sick of throwing the balls back on the field and started throwing garbage.

The fans in the sun-drenched bleachers at Wrigley Field warmed up, tossing back one ball after another onto the field as the Mets pelted home run after home run. Eventually, running out of ammunition and tiring of their hometown team, the fans started littering the field with bottles.

First a few fell and then an avalanche of trash descended from every part of the bleachers, which is how the game must have felt to the Cubs.

John Maine will start for Pedro if he cannot make his next start and it looks like he probably will not as Peterson wants him to get two bullpen sessions and a simulated game before returning.

Jose Reyes is ready for his return and should be back in the lineup when the Mets face the Cincinnati Reds.

Bell in...Owens out...Bannister still MIA...

Reliever Heath Bell rejoined the team after Henry Owens was sent back to Double-A Binghamton. Bell had been at Triple-A Norfolk since just before the All-Star break. ... Brian Bannister, who has been out since late April with a hamstring injury, threw 79 pitches in a simulated game at Port St. Lucie, Fla. The Mets said they will see how Bannister gets through that before deciding on his next move....

Strangely enough, Owens was placed back in Binghamton as opposed to Norfolk.

On Saturday, Lastings Milledge went 2 for 3 with two runs scored, a homer, an RBI, and a walk in Norfolk's 9-1 victory over the Louisville Bats. Also, Tagg Bozied went deep twice and went 2 for 4 with four RBIs.

On Sunday, the Tides lost despite a strong outing from Jose Lima and another homer from Lastings Milledge which was his seventh of the year. Milledge was 1 for 3 with a walk, a homer, and two RBIs.

Jesus Flores went 0 for 4 with four strikeouts in St. Lucie's 7-2 win over the Jupiter Hammerheads on Saturday.

Phil Humber had a solid outing on Friday for St. Lucie as the Mets beat Brevard County 4-2. Humber went six innings and gave up three hits, two runs, no earned runs, and two walks while striking out two. Overall for St. Lucie he is 1-1 with a 3.86 ERA.

Jon Niese got roughed up on Friday in Hagerstown's 7-3 loss to Hickory. Niese went six innings and gave up seven hits, seven earned runs, three homers, and one walk while striking out two.

Joe Smith keeps on rolling and picked up two saves this weekend with two scoreless innings. So far, he has six saves in twelve innings with a 0.75 ERA. Joe has given up seven hits and two walks to his fifteen strikeouts.

Third round pick John Holdzkom continues to get lit up for the GCL Mets and gave up four runs in one inning in the GCL Mets loss to the GCL Nationals. He has now given up sixteen runs and nine walks in nine innings.

There was a Matt Durkin sighting on Saturday as he threw 2.2 innings for the GCL Mets. He still has control issues as he walked four while striking out four but lets see if the Mets can get anything resembling a return on their $1,000,000 investment yet.

Baseball Prospecutus continues to pour salt into out wounds...

"What people haven't really focused on a lot is that at the time the Mets were in a transition and the projected payroll for the next year was in the $80 million range, about what it was that year. And the feeling was, with the pressure to win in New York and the payroll projected as what it would be, we had to do some creative things. Our evaluations on Zambrano were very high. Our feelings on Kazmir also were very high, but we thought at the time it would take a couple years to see him at the major-league level. Our opinion at the time was he was another year-and-a-half away."
--former Mets GM Jim Duquette, defending the Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano trade (Tampa Tribune)

From SI.com by way of Benny...

The White Sox asked the Mets for Duaner Sanchez and Mike Pelfrey for Freddy Garcia. No go. The Sox have spoken to several clubs about Garcia and Javier Vazquez but prefer to keep Vazquez since he's contractually tied to the team for three more years. Garcia has told people he wouldn't be devastated to go to New York.

Ha! First, why can't people learn that Mike Pelfrey cannot be traded right now due to him needing to be in the organization for a year. Second, HA! again. Not happening. Not happening for Dirty straight up much less Dirty and an uber prospect. Kenny Williams is smart. He was probably just throwing out a feeler and I expect him to come down to earth at some point if he wants to make a deal.

Shawn Chacon for Jake Peavy in a second? According to a Yankee fan who just called WFAN, it can happen. Way to go dipshit.