Crawford On The Block?

WOULD the Mets dare return to the scene of the crime? Would they consider trading another high-end young starter such as Phil Humber or Mike Pelfrey to the Devil Rays and risk a sequel to the Scott Kazmir blunder?

At the very least, they will get the chance to think about it since Tampa intends to dangle Carl Crawford in attempts to land a pitcher with top-of-the-rotation abilities.

Omar has cojones the size of Ramon Castro's head and he's not the one who dealt Kazmir for a damaged pitcher who never was anything. He would not hesitate to make a deal with the Devil Rays if he wanted to. However, it would cost more than just a Phil Humber or a Mike Pelfrey. For a team that is already rather offensively proficient, one has to wonder how much is too much? There will be plenty of teams that might be deeper in pitching willing to give up some players that are maybe more proven like the Angels were willing to give up Ervin Santana as pointed out by Sherman in his article. It would be naive to think that one arm and some mid level prospects would get it done.

Think Lastings Milledge and Mike Pelfrey or Phil Humber to start to even get the Mets into the running for Crawford should he be dealt. While Crawford is affordable for the next four years and is one of the best players in the league right now, the Mets would be giving up young and affordable pitching. They would have Reyes, Wright, and Crawford all coming up for big paydays in relative proximity to each other. While the Mets have spending power, it can certainly be debated where the Mets need to have their available resources targeted for.

With Carlos Beltran and Lastings Milledge in the bigs right now and slated to be around for a while with Fernando Martinez and Carlos Gomez on the near horizon, it would seem that the Mets should be looking to develop their young stud arms. The emergence of John Maine, the presence of Oliver Perez, the impressive start to his pro career by Kevin Mulvey, and Deolis Guerra certainly allows the Mets to entertain trading Humber or Pelfrey, but deep pitching is never a bad thing and the likelihood of all them panning out is slim. Safety in numbers, right?

With the Mets potentially having a nice, speedy compliment to Jose Reyes in Lastings Milledge able to hit in the two hole and play left while balancing the lineup out a bit better, Crawford may be a luxury the Mets do not need. Should Omar at least look into it? Of course, but Mets have a chance of their own to develop the type of rotation the Devil Rays are looking to put together and with solid the offensive product they should be putting out, a top notch rotation could be the key to a dynasty. I would approach dealing Phil Humber or Mike Pelfrey for anything other than a young stud arm in return with extreme caution.

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In case you missed it....

A drunken Chinese migrant worker jumped into a panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo, was bitten by the bear and retaliated by chomping down on the animal’s back, state media said Wednesday.

Zhang Xinyan, from the central province of Henan, drank four jugs of beer at a restaurant near the zoo before visiting Gu Gu the panda on Tuesday, the Beijing Morning Post said.

“He felt a sudden urge to touch the panda with his hand,” and jumped into the enclosure, the newspaper said.

This guy should be hung upside down by his toe-nails.

“I bit the fellow in the back,” Zhang was quoted as saying in the newspaper. “Its skin was quite thick.”

Depending upon Pedro's health, he might get get pushed back leaving game one to Tom Glavine most likely.

Randolph added that "depending on how [Martinez] comes out of his start, he might need to be pushed back."

After the game, Martinez said, "I don't know what's going to happen [Wednesday against Atlanta], so I can't say anything."

When asked if he could be pushed back from Game 1, Martinez responded, "There's always a chance."

Of course none of this matters as long as Pedro is healthy, but that seems to be up in the air though Rick Peterson is confident Pedro will be ready to go and cut loose in the post season. Hey, at least he is not shut down until the playoffs start.

Ramon Castro is getting the nod for the postseason as the backup catcher.

Randolph said Ramon Castro will be the Mets' backup catcher for the postseason. Castro could join the Mets during their three-game series in Atlanta, which begins tonight. ... The Mets' final home attendance was 3,379,535, setting a club record.

Carlos Beltran felt good in his return last night.

Neil Best takes in interesting look at the Mets and Yanks and who appeared more on the back pages.

It's close, probably closer than Mets fans who have complained to Newsday editors about perceived favoritism would expect. Still, those complaints got us wondering, so we counted:

From Opening Day through today, the Yankees have a 75-69 edge, all but locking up the regular-season title.

Of course he does go onto mention that the Yankees early struggles and everyone laughing at A-Rod provided a more compelling story for the writers early on, but the Mets did pretty good in getting their fair press this year.

Cha-fucking-ching....

The New York Mets tonight announced a final sale of 3,510,157 tickets for the 2006 regular season at Shea Stadium, which includes tickets sold for four rainouts (April 8 vs. Florida; June 2 vs. San Francisco; August 27 vs. Philadelphia; September 5 vs. Atlanta).

With tonight's crowd of 34,027, the Mets conclude their 2006 home schedule, attracting 3,379,535, including eight sellouts and 11 crowds in excess of 50,000 at Shea. This year's attendance is up 549,604 from last year's attendance of 2,829,931, a 19% increase.

Can the Mets hit 4,000,000 in 2007?

Emmanuel Garcia ranked #11 as the best prospect in the Appy League by Baseball America.

11. Emmanuel Garcia, ss, Kingsport (Mets)
B-T: L-R Ht: 6-2 Wt: 180 Age: 20 Drafted: Mets FA '04
Born in Montreal, Garcia went undrafted in 2004 because of baseball shortage of work visas. The Mets signed him as a free agent that winter and he made his pro debut by leading the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League in hits, runs and on-base percentage last year. He continued to impress in 2006, showing a complete package at shortstop.

Garcia's above-average speed might be his best tool, as he finished third in the league with 19 stolen bases, with his bat is a close second. Managers were uniformly impressed with his actions, range and body control at shortstop, but his arm is slightly below-average for the position.

Good stuff.

Overall as an organization, the Mets didn't have one person on the Baseball America All-Star teams for each level. Not a very good showing.