All Church, All The Time

I know the jury on the Milledge for Church/Schneider deal and this will be judged years down the line, but as of now, it is looking like Omar knew a little something. Yes, I know that I just posted about Church two days ago, but it is not easy to temper my excitement on the topic. Keith Law was asked in a chat if Milledge was just traded for a platoon player and a backup catcher and he agreed with that sentiment. Now, Church is looking like an All-Star and Milledge is barely holding onto his centerfield job.

Given the fact the Nationals are in last place with no hope of any meaningful baseball this year, he should take his lumps unless things get really, really, ugly. I guess his 68 OPS+ might mean things are already really, really ugly, but I think he should still be given a chance to catch fire.

As for Church, he just keeps on going and going and going and going. He leads the team in homers and batting average and is on pace to knock in well over 100 runs and score well over 100 runs. Toss in sparkling defense and you have a guy turning in a pretty tremendous season. I really thought he would be good for the Mets and he probably has a bit of cooling off to do, but he has far exceeded my expectations thus far.

As far as how much cooling off, he did have an OPS+ of 118, 131, and 114 over the past three seasons so it is quite possible he is can toss out a pretty impressive season and this is not a complete aberration. Just a slight aberration.

* * *

The Mets swept the -18 run differential Yankees and pushed them further down into last place. The Yankees are six games out of first place and looking pretty bad. Last year big time offense helped the Yankees overcome shitty pitching, but this year, the Yankees and their 10th place offense are not looking like they are up to the challenge. To further add to the hilarity of it all is that Johan, who they could have had if they just included Ian Kennedy, beat them in game one with a good performance.

Johan's eleven homers in nine games is a concern, but I think the Yankees would more than welcome his presence these days.

Manny rules.

By way of Rob Neyer...a book that every manager should read. That means you Willie.

Buster Olney has an interesting tidbit on on the Mets managerial situation.

An NL talent evaluator came up with an interesting name for the Mets, if they decide to change managers: Jim Fregosi. "He knows all about the bright-light and big-city stuff from his days in Philly and he would know how to handle New York, and he would be good with Jose Reyes," the evaluator said. "The veteran players would really like him. And his teams play hard."

Josh Hamilton is crazy good. He is leading the AL in homers and on pace for like 1,000,000 RBIs or something like that. He is obviously one of the most talented baseball players in the universe to be able to do what he is doing after his long road to the bigs. He has 37 career homers and could have easily logged over 100 if he was able to stay out of trouble. Scary to think how good he is going to become and how great he will end up despite losing so much time.

Not so much.

"They don't like me?" Randolph said. " 'We don't like Willie.' Wait a minute, why don't you like me? I don't get it. Did I do anything to you? If you look at what I've done for your club, you should like me a little bit."

You've done for the club? Wowee.

Randolph excluded Ozzie Guillen from the conversation, but wanted to know why the traits often admired in the calm, cool and collected likes of Joe Torre are portrayed as flaws in Torre's former third base coach.

"Is it racial?" Randolph asked. "Huh? It smells a little bit."

I can 100% say that my dislike of Willie as the manager of this team has nothing to do with race.

Jonah Keri thinks the Rays are for real while the Marlins are headed for a fall. That seems to be about right.

Oliver Perez was on point last night and continued to mow down lefties. His .094 BAA for lefties is just pure insanity.