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.

Random Pitching Thoughts

So here we are 43 games away from the end of the season. Only two teams in the NL have team ERAs under 4.00 and the Mets are one of them (heading into last night's action anyway). They are second to only the San Diego Padres. They Mets have not been a product of their homefield either as they still own a 4.00 on the road and a .251 BAA compared to a 3.87 ERA and a .239 BAA at home. The Padres on the other hand are sniffing 4.00 on the road and 3.12 at home which is just a huge disparity.

The Mets also have the second lowest OBPA behind San Diego with .317 and the third lowest SLGA with .395. They are ninth in the league in homers allowed, but that is not really a huge surprise with the flyball pitchers the Mets have in their rotation.

In regards to the rotation, the Mets are fourth in the leage in ERA with 4.17 and have a .245 BAA. More importantly though, their four main starters have a 3.62 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP with Glavine posting the highest in each category. If you look at the Mets top three starters, they have a 8.10 K/9, 1.18 WHIP, and a 3.38 ERA. If a team had one starter with that line, they would be happy. The Mets have three starters who have been extremely solid so far this season.

The New York bullpen is second with a 3.47 ERA behind only San Deigo's who has a 3.06 ERA. Of course in the playoffs, the top starters and the top relievers are most vital. The Mets top four relievers currently own a 1.04 WHIP, 8 k/9, and a 2.58 ERA. Heilman has worked his ERA down to 3.60 and Sosa has looked great out of the bullpen. Even if you add Mota into the mix, the WHIP is 1.10, the ERA is 3.10, and the K/9 is around 8.

Of course many people are down on Mota, but the guy still owns a 97 mph fastball and could still be useful. Homers kill relievers as they are in for such short amount of time and one homer has devastating results. Mota's HR/9 is 1.41 and if you compare that to his 0.93 career HR/9 rate of 1.00 last year, you'd have to think Mr. Sample Size is playing a part in Mota's horrendous showing. His walk rate is actually better than normal (however slightly) and I have to believe that he has not been as bad as his numbers dictate.

We've spoken about his approach and leaning on the change-up too much and I think there is still a shot the '06 Mota surfaces that helped out the Mets pen late last season. Also, I think it bears noting his .2 inning, six run outing and two three run outings when he first returned are heavily skewing his numbers. While that still shows he has the propensity to blow up, he still has the tools and with him it has always seemed like a mental thing. I'm still holding out hope the Mets will have five or six dependable relievers.

The Good

NAME               ERA   DIPS  ERA+
Billy Wagner       1.55  2.62  270
Pedro Feliciano    2.76  3.40  151
Joe Smith          3.03  3.73  138
Orlando Hernandez  3.12  4.22  134
Oliver Perez       3.46  4.19  121
John Maine         3.53  4.03  118
Aaron Heilman      3.60  3.99  116

The Mediocre

NAME             ERA   DIPS   ERA+
Brian Lawrence   4.09  3.55   102
Aaron Sele      4.12   4.34   101
Jorge Sosa      4.15   4.38   101

The Ugly

Name               ERA  DIPS  ERA+
Tom Glavine       4.25  4.92    98
Scott Schoeneweis 5.06  4.92    82
Guillermo Mota    5.40  4.11    77

What does all this mean? Well, it reinforces the belief that the guys we think we can feel comfortable in have performed well enough that should actually feel comfortable with them. With the Exception of The Duque, no one is really overachieving and The Duque isn't overachieving by all that much. He's been money for the Mets this year, but I think we all know he is not a 3.12 ERA guy and more of a 3.75 to 4.00 ERA guy, which is not a bad thing. I'll trust The Duque any day of the week.

As for Sele, the guy has been...well...average. He has actually been pretty good and has filled in his role as well as could have been expected (of course he had to blow up as I wrote this). Lawrence has also been a nice surprise in his two starts giving the Mets league average starts and a chance to win and that is all you can ask out of your fifth starter.

As for Glavine, he has been a below league average pitcher this year and you hate to rain on the 300 win parade, but he has been laboring. An ERA+ of 110 is nothing to really brag about and below 100 is pretty bad. $10 million could change one's mind rather quickly, but I think Glavine is going to retire gracefully this year. As for Mota, his DIPS ERA suggests he has not been as bad as his statline would seem to indicate and expect a better finish for him.

Overall, I feel pretty comfortable with this Met rotation if the bats can continue their resurgence.

* * *

ROTOwire news blurb of the day:

Lowry (forearm) had a successful return to the rotation Monday, holding the Pirates to two runs over seven innings to pick up win No. 13 on the season.
Spin: Lowry allowed six hits, walked five and struck out three after leaving his last start with forearm tightness last week. His 3.28 ERA despite a 1.46 WHIP and 79:77 K:BB ratio defies logic and explanation.

Eric Byrnes is awesome.

"Safe," Byrnes said, emphatically. ``But I would have called myself out. It's got to be a no-doubt, 110 percent safe at that point of the game if [the umpire is] going to call me safe.

"He pitched a no-hitter. He deserved it. He pitched his butt off. It would have been a shame if [the umpire] had called me safe on that play. But when I slowed it down [on tape] and looked at it, my foot was on the bag as the throw got there. That's the tie-goes-to-the-runner rule. If that's the rule, then I was safe. But as a baseball fan, I agree it was a no-hitter. He pitched a no-hitter."

Duaner is done for the season. A great trade turned into a blah trade in which neither side won. Of course the bright side to this is that the Mets retain control of him at this point through the 2009 season.

Draft pick deadline madness...

Mike (Queens): Will the Mets sign Brandon Efferson?

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:07 PM ET ) Not sure, because the Mets are staunch believers in sticking to slot. It's silly . . . I think they could get Efferson for under $500,000 and they have the money. And that might seem like a lot, but it's not. If you believe in your scouts, and you find talented players, the signing bonus is a pittance compared to what they can be worth.

$500,000 for Efferson would be a steal and not a ridiculous sum of money. I truly hope the Mets do not drop the ball on this one.

Jack (Clarinda, Iowa): Let me get this straight: the MLB -- in an effort to help small-market teams -- implemented these slot prices, and instead of helping, it has actually made things worse? That is funny, really.

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:35 PM ET ) Exactly. Except no one is laughing. MLB is angry that teams are breaking slot. Clubs are angry that the draft has become a hugely unlevel playing field. Agents are angry that the slots were arbitrarily reduced 10 percent this year.

Which is sort of the point. The guys who were busting through MLB's wishes are the teams who have money and who are on top and a lot of the guys who were trying to behave were the teams in need.

Jake (Baltimore, MD): What is the problem with MLB being mad at you? What can they actually do to punish you for going over slot?

SportsNation Jim Callis: (2:43 PM ET ) Very little. Yell and scream. Threaten to hold back a perk like hosting an All-Star Game, but that happens once every 20-30 years for a club. Maybe give you less money from revenue sharing or the central fund. But nothing significant.

It is entirely possible the Mets feel the need to be on the commissioner's side with their bid to host the All-Star game, but this is about winning games and not about hosting All-Star games, right? I mean the Yankees surely don't care and will flex their muscle to get everything they want. Sign Efferson over slot, leave a flaming bag of poo on MLB's Park Ave doorstep, and get ready to have the All-Star game.

Pedro update:

For three innings, he looked like the Pedro Martinez of old. He had good velocity, solid command, and according to one observer, Martinez was "making them look like A-ballers." Which, in fact, his opposition was. Martinez's second start in went relatively well, despite losing his perfect outing in the fourth when he started "playing around." Martinez had upper 80's velocity in the first inning, and went to 80 pitches if you include the ones he threw on the side after coming out. One noticeable thing is that he appears to have shortened his motion. If so, it's likely that he's still a bit tentative. The outing was a big positive for Martinez and the Mets, one that should put him on track to move up for his next start, probably to Double-A, and probably this weekend. Coming up with a real timeframe for his return to the Mets is still unclear, but it looks like it should happen during August. From what we saw today, Martinez can help the Mets, but I'm less sure that he can be a difference maker.

While there are some that fret about Milledge's miscues in the field and what would happen to him in the playoffs, I would just point to Shawn Green and his fielding mishap against the Cardinals and a horrific play on a Scott Spezio triple. Of course Scott Spiezio and triple should never be in the same sentence so if you are a bit hazy on the play itself, that should paint a picture for you.

The bottom line is the more he plays the more he gets comfortable and the better he will be. It seems as though he will be getting more playing time which is definitely a good thing as it is plain to see he adds a spark to this club. What is weird about Milledge is he looked smooth out in center but tends to be a bit bad with his reads on the corners and more so in right field.

Milledge has the ability to cover up the mistakes he does make with his speed and for what it's worth, these are the types of things that will help Milledge later. A ball slicing into the corner is not something he normally sees in center and the more exposure he has to those types of hits the better he'll be. The balls come off the bat differently when you are in right, center, or left, but it is certainly something that he should be able to adjust to which basically tells me it is about just getting more time to get comfortable and nothing to get truly alarmed about.

Within the above link it says that Burgos is starting to toss the ball. Not that I think he will give the Mets much this season since they just did not see enough of him to entrust him in vital spots, but it is worth noting. As long as he is on the DL come September 1st, he is eligible for the post-season roster should they actually need to use him.

The Yankees lost a tough one against the Orioles 6-3 in ten innings. A few thoughts on the game:

1) Eric Bedard is rather nasty. Not that you needed me to tell you that, but I'm just sayin'...
2) Shelly Duncan should hold off on the curtain call thing if he ties the game up. Hitting the go ahead run? Maybe. The tie run? No...does this kid curtain call on grounders in which he moves people over too?
3) Michael Kay's head is still extremely scary and I applaud his mom for being able to pass that head through her birth canal.
4) Mo left some fat pitches over the plate in the tenth and did not look sharp at all. The Yankees need him to be on point as they have little room for failure.
5) Phil Hughes looks hittable right now, but showed flashes of being sick. His curveball is extremely good and he just looks like the throws the baseball with no effort.
6) Joe Torre is still an ugly man.

How far were the Orioles and Wieters apart? About $5 million. I was shocked the deal got done for $6 million and the Orioles were dangerously close to not signing their second first round pick in four drafts.

Good win by the Mets and it is good to see their bats finally waking up. They weren't the cleanest two games I have ever seen, but the Mets are up 2-0 and are going for the sweep tomorrow with Big Brian on the mound and with the Braves matching the Mets win for win, they need to just keep pounding on this very bad Pirate team.