Still Looking...

The Mets would still like to add a starter and not much has materialized so far. No one is all that interested in Met prospects but Jim Bowden and it is becoming increasingly clear that Bedard and Santana will probably be somewhere other than Queens and Carlos Silva is off the market. However, Kyle Lohse still remains on the market with his ridiculous contract demands. I think Silva is valuable, but four at $11 million is steep and Lohse is represented by Boras and is making noise about a five year deal.

It would be nice to see if the Mets can get Lohse down in years (and I’m not talking about the purported four year deal on the table), but that seems impossible at this point. He is the last guy to resemble a pitcher that might be able to drop a better than league average season on you. Of course, Silva has at least put up some of those seasons while Lohse has been pretty disappointing throughout his career. Neither guy can actually strike hitters out which is always a problem and will probably keep them both from being anything more than #3/#4 type guy at best. Silva is supposed to be a groundball pitcher, but he is only mildly so and probably better classified as a pitcher with groundball tendencies.

Stats Inc. on Lohse:

Pitching
Too often in 2004, Lohse left his fastball over the middle of the plate, nibbled with his breaking pitches and fell behind, or issued hurtful walks. While he has good stuff, he can't overpower hitters with a 93-94 MPH fastball. He must locate the ball to succeed. Lohse has a good slider and curveball, but needs to consistently execute his changeup with the same arm speed as his fastball. When in trouble, he has bad mound presence, looking disgusted by umpires' calls and teammates' mistakes. Near the end of the season, he began handling himself better. To his credit, he always has been durable and willing to take the ball under any circumstances.

While it is clear to me Carlos Silva is a better bet to be more productive, his demands scared the Mets away. The ironic thing is the Mets might end up paying just as much for less of a pitcher. Pitching is so scarce that any guy who makes 30 starts and hits free agency around 30 years old will net four years at $10+ million dollars per year. Regardless of projection and past performance, they are a valuable commodity by simply being alive. The Mets have set a cap of five years on any offer to free agent pitchers. However, that cap is presumably for top tier pitchers and they probably were not envisioning the Kyle Lohses of the world when they thought of guys that would actually get them to even pony up close to five years.

There have reportedly been reports of people reporting that Phillies are looking at Lohse for four years. It has also been reportedly reported that some reports had some misreporting on the topic. Interest in Lohse could be waning overall and for good reason. However, Lohse has Scott Boras as his agent and will wait until late January to make a decision if he has to in order to get someone to blink first. My only hope here is that the market for Lohse gets dryer than it already has now that Silva inked. Maybe Boras will do the one year deal route with a contender in a spacious park to see if he can bring in a bigger deal for Lohse in 2009. That is actually what I am hoping for at this point which is pretty sad.

* * *

The saga continues. If A-Rod is telling the truth, you almost have to respect him a bit more. Almost.

By way of Rob Neyer, a really great site. This is a black hole of sorts if you have not read it before and it will probably end up usurping a lot of your time.

Selig back in '05

"Did we have a major problem? No," Selig told Waxman's panel. "There is no concrete evidence of that, there is no testing evidence, there is no other kind of evidence."

It all depends on how your define the problem.

The Mets inked Matt Wise and it's a one year deal for peanuts....well peanuts in relative baseball terms. And how can you not like the move?

Does anyone actually believe any of this?

I'm not all that bothered by raising the tickets 20% per ticket if that is what they planned on raising the ticket prices to for comparable seats in the new stadium. We knew that was the case and maybe Fred just wanted to pocket a little extra cash this season since he is dishing up a lot of money for that new stadium.

However, I think we all know that is not the case. He was probably looking for a 40% price hike from 2007 to 2009 and decided it was best to do it in stages. The worst part is that it will not matter. He already has most of my money for my tickets because I had to buy the playoffs tickets. I could have gotten my money back I suppose, but sometime in mid 2008, which is way after the bill for the 2008 tickets are due, which leads me to the most ridiculous part. I already committed to buying these tickets a long time ago without any knowledge they were going to bend me over and abuse me.

Not that it would have mattered. I would have bought the tickets regardless, but it still should be mentioned that I had no choice. But isn't that the real problem here? Sure this is horrible PR move by the Mets being they just embarrassed themselves and broke the spirit of the Mets fan base, but we all keep going to the games. They will still break last year's attendance or at the very least get within 20% of it, which will enable them to still make a handsome draw off the gate receipts. I would love to say boycott going to the stadium, but what's the point? I am still going to go and that would be hypocritical of me to tell everyone else to take a stand while I go enjoy some beers at the stadium.

Either way, this is just another poorly timed statement that gives other people more reasons to laugh at the Mets. After undergoing a historic collapse in which the team sets their attendance record for the second year in a row with the help of their loyal fans, they do what? Raise prices. As if the 500,000 more in attendance was not enough....

The Yankees raised their tickets prices as well.

Doesn't Brian Roberts, Andy Pettite, etc. admitting that they did steroids give a ton of credence to the Mitchell Report? Sure we can argue the validity of their statements in regards to their usage, but it surely gives everyone a sense that maybe this thing is not as bogus as some would want us to believe.

The Mets are looking at Prior, but would the Mets be a wise choice? It would seem to make sense for him to go to some Midwest town like St. Louis where the fan base will cheer you on no matter what so he can make a less pressure filled attempt at a comeback.

A miserable life? Has it come to this? I thought these were supposed to be good times to be a Met fan.

Terrence (NYC): John!!! A Mets questions please. Only fair, I lead a miserable life. Can you tell me what I can expect from Fernando Martinez? What current player would you compare him to?

John Manuel: (2:51 PM ET ) Best-case, his career winds up a bit like Carlos Lee's--all the value in the bat but he mashes, hits for decent average, gets more disciplined as he advances . . . both players were pushed but even the White Sox let up a bit on Carlos, he was 18 in the SAL, not the EL. But that's my comp.

Back off my man? This is all getting odd.

Parcells to Miami? As a Dolphin fan, it is hard to be upset about that. I won’t expect him to be around in the organization for long, but I think he has a pretty good reputation for leaving a decent team behind.

From Jason Stark:

The Mets still seem like a hanger-on in the Johan Santana talks. But one AL front-office man isn't sure why that is.
For one thing, he said, the Mets can put together a package that would be attractive to the Twins -- in part because outfield prospect Fernando Martinez "has a higher ceiling than Jacoby Ellsbury."
The second reason, the exec said, is that the Twins should make it a priority to move Santana out of their league. "Remember, the Twins are looking to compete, too," he said. "They're gearing up with good young players, and they're going to be good. But if they trade him to the Red Sox or Yankees, those teams are so deep, it wouldn't even really take a chunk out of them, or not that much of a chunk, anyway.