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Could Beltran return as right fielder?

Jun 1, 2010 By Brian Miller 1 Comment

Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork gives us an update on the Carlos Beltran saga saying that Carlos hopes to play in actual baseball games within a week.  Real life baseball games.  Wow.  I will remain guarded until he has played in a few and has had no setbacks.

But assuming he does come back, does he come back to his natural center field postion or does he slide over to right?

Manuel also broached what could be a sticky situation regarding Beltran: Could he return as a right fielder if his mobility is reduced by an arthritic right knee? The Mets do have a quality center fielder in Angel Pagan, who was hitting .302 with four homers, 23 RBIs and nine steals through 179 at-bats.

This is an excellent question. It would seem to best help the team, and Beltran, if he did come back as the right fielder. As much as I absolutely love Jeff Francouer he’s killing us at the plate. It makes absolutely no sense to remove Pagan from the lineup given that he’s been playing great ball for us. Frenchy would also provide decent pop off the bench as well as a defensive replacement if needed late in games.

This would all hinge on Beltran agreeing to this and that’s where it gets tricky. Carlos takes a great amount of pride in his prowess in CF and moving him to RF might not be something he’s too keen on. His agent might not like it either given that he is looking for a new contract after next season. I say, propose it to Carlos as a solution for the rest of this season, to help him ease back into game-shape and minimize the wear and tear on his legs, and look to next year for a return to CF. It seems like it could be a mutually beneficial move.

Source: @AdamRubinESPN

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , , ,

Reyes cleared to begin swinging

Mar 28, 2010 By Brian Miller Leave a Comment

Mike Puma reported today for the NY Post that Jose Reyes is set to begin taking swings and other baseball activities. After 4 days of running and general conditioning, Jose feels his legs are back under him enough for him to start advancing to the next stage of his delayed spring training.

Reyes is expected to soon begin playing simulated games against Mets’ minor leaguers, giving him a chance to get several at-bats a day against live pitching. That could be the last step before making his Grapefruit League debut later this week.

But the Mets and Reyes are still playing it cool, saying there is no timetable in place, either for Reyes’ spring training or season debut. The Mets open the season a week from tomorrow, when they face the Marlins at Citi Field.
“We’ll continue to follow the program the physical therapy people have,” manager Jerry Manuel said. “Now we’re able to incorporate him into team activities, which is good.”

This is great news as it gives Jose about week to play in those simulated games and shake the rust off the rest of his game. As much as I want to see him in uniform on opening day, I really hope they do not rush him, nor do they allow him to rush himself. It’s much more important that he is there for play games 4-162 then it is for him to be in those first few games. A setback now could really crush morale.

Make sure you check out the NYPost Mets Blog as they do good work and it’s always informative.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets Tagged With: , , ,

Breaking News and Hopefully Happy…..

Mar 23, 2010 By discopauly Leave a Comment

The NY Daily News is reporting that doctors have cleared Jose Reyes to resume baseball activity.  This could be a very good sign for the Mets and hopefully Jose will have no further setbacks.  Check out the link here.

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Who is the Mets opening day shortstop?

Mar 15, 2010 By Brian Miller Leave a Comment

As you no doubt know by now the Mets will be without Jose Reyes until at least May. So that begs the question of just who will be the starting shortstop for the Mets on opening day?

Most people have just assumed that it will be Alex Cora. He filled in for Reyes last year for a while until he himself got hurt with some bad thumbs. Cora is highly regarded as a great student of the game and many have said he will be a coach in the future.

That’s all well and good but I am going to make a case that Ruben Tejada should be the Mets opening day starting shortstop. The 20-year-old shortstop hit .289 with five homers and 46 RBI in 488 at-bats with Double-A Binghamton last season. Those are decent stats, but it isn’t about that. The Mets need to put the best defensive option they have in the field on opening day.

Imagine having Alex Cora and Luis Castillo as your defensive pairing up the middle. Both are aging veterans and both have greatly reduced range because of it. Could you imagine poor Mike Pelfrey in that scenario? Pelf and his cutter getting ground ball after ground ball and watching them just go by our two old middle infielders. That’s not going to work. If it’s deemed that Tejada is much better then Cora in the field then he must play. I don’t really care if the kid hits .100 at the plate. There is no way we can have a double play pairing of Castillo and Cora. It just wont work.

I like Alex Cora and like him on the team, though I though it absurd what Minaya paid for him, but that’s more as a bench guy and a locker room type guy that can spell Reyes or Castillo here or there. He can not play extended time for this team.

So take the kid aside, tell him you don’t care what he does at the plate, focus on his fielding and lets see what he can do. Explain to him up front there is really no pressure on him, and he will be sent down when Reyes returns. This way you don’t have to worry about ruining the kid, and you get to take a look at what you have potentially.

Truth is, from where I am looking at it, the Mets don’t have any other options.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Sit down Mets fans, we need to have a talk

Mar 11, 2010 By Brian Miller 1 Comment

Please have a seat.  It’s time we talked man to man about our beloved Mets.  It’s spring training, for the other 29 teams it’s a great time of year.  As a fan your allowed to dream big, you can imagine your team playing important baseball in September, maybe it’s a playoff run your looking to, maybe it’s even getting all the way to the World Series.  It’s all possible in spring training, and that’s why it’s such a cool time of year.

Unless your a Mets fan.

It’s time we took a look at our beloved Mets.  We need to realistically start to come to terms that this season is much more likely to be a train-wreck then it is to end in any semblance of pride.  The news about Beltran first and now Jose Reyes is like going to a five year old on Christmas eve and telling him Santa doesn’t exist.  I feel robbed of my spring dreaming.  I knew it was a long shot trust me, but I allowed myself to have hope.  To imagine everything actually going right like Omar and the Wilpons have cooked up.  It’s time to burst that bubble.

When a guy knows his best-friend’s girlfriend is cheating on him, he doesn’t just sit there and listen to him croon about how in love he is, he sits him down and tells him.  It’s to protect him from great pain in the future.  Consider this your warning folks.  Put down the blue and orange Kool-Aid and listen to me.

Lower your expectations.  A lot.  We haven’t even had one meaningful pitch yet this season and we have lost arguably our 2 most important players for a long period of time.  The Mets are saying Reyes is out for 2-8 weeks.  This is a bit misleading  from my point of view.  The way I read it is he is restricted from physical activities for 2-8 weeks.  What are they going to do just toss him back onto Citi Field the day he is cleared?  No, he’s going to need at the least a mini-spring training to get into shape.  Remember this is a guy coming off leg issues that sidelined him for most of last year, so you absolutely can not rush him.  If Reyes is back before June 1st I think we should consider ourselves lucky.

Run through a scenario with me.  Lets say Reyes is cleared and good to go by opening day, that’s less then 3 weeks away.  He’s now ready to do an extended spring training down in Port St. Lucie to work back into game shape.  Jose is the type of guy that wants to get back as soon as possible and want to prove people wrong.  Not to mention he’s playing for a contract mind you.  Tell me you can’t see the reports now of Jose suffered a setback to his hamstrings because he was working too hard too fast?  Remember that Omar and Jerry don’t have the liberty of patience.  They absolutely need to be off to a good start, anything less and they could be, should be, gone.  There are no excuses this year.

Call me a pessimist but this season is quickly unraveling before our eyes.  We are supposed to believe that things can go completely right and we can compete and make the playoffs.  Unfortuantely wheels are already flying off!  Things are already NOT going right.  Now we are expected to compete with Pagan and Cora playing long stints?   How long till Cora’s thumbs fall off again?  It’s gonna be like domino’s.  And that’s not even considering any setbacks by Beltran.

It’s time for us to open our eyes and take a good raw look at this team, even if the management wont.  Let them continue to count their billion dollar business on “hopes” and “maybes.”  I am starting to feel like we used up all our baseball karma in that Game 6 so many years ago and we have been repaying a deal with the devil ever since.

Filed Under: 2010 Mets, Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Amazin Circus still in town

Mar 10, 2010 By Brian Miller 1 Comment

I was really hoping that the Mets Amazin Circus had left town this year.  

Unfortunately it really seems this clown show is here to stay.

Yesterday the Mets made the announcement that tests from yesterday confirm short stop Jose Reyes has an overactive thyroid.  That’s what we all figured of course after the earlier reports from last week.  For most professional sports teams this would be followed by how they plan to treat it and when we could expect them back in action and that would be the end of that.  Unfortunately for the Mets this is just when the saga begins.

Yesterday it was also reported that Reyes told Enrique Rojas from ESPNDeportes.com that:

The specialists who took care of me in New York have told me that I’m fine and that there’s nothing wrong with my thyroid. The test [taken to follow one conducted during his physical] showed that I’m fine. We just have to wait for the results of the additional test. The [doctors] found inflammation in my throat and no medicine to treat the thyroid or any other condition has been prescribed.

So according to Reyes he only has a sore throat. What the hell is going on over there folks?  It’s obvious there is a failure to communicate with the Mets management and the players.  If my employer made a statement about my health that I did not agree with I would be very angry.  I have to think the first step you take before making a public announcement about a personal health issue is to, you know, make sure your on the same page with the patient.  It would take five minutes to call him on the phone and say: “Ok Jose we have to make a statement, what do you want to say?  What do you not want to disclose?”

I tend to think that Jose is in a bit of denial or just plain ignorant to what’s going on.  Yes there is a chance he is going into denial mode because there are some darker reasons lurking, but I wont touch on that until I have to.  The fact that Jose thinks he has no issue and everything is fine is alarming for several reasons.  The issue is either a failure to communicate or general ineptitude.  Or both.  Either the Mets management has failed to communicate with one of it’s most important players, again.  Or the medical staff has done a very bad job explaining to Reyes what is going on.

All of us fools were waiting for mid-week to hear what was going on, how it gets fix, and when we can get Jose and his energy back on the field.  Stupid us for thinking it would be that easy.  Instead the circus that is the Mets completely embarrass us again.  Enough is enough.  Why is it that every single issue that surfaces with this team turns into a complete debacle?  This question needs to be answered.  It’s gotten well past the point that the off field operations are far more embarrassing then the on field failures and that’s just crazy.

I am so fed up with this regime and it’s failure to operate a good, effective business.  Many teams fail to field a good team, just look around the leagues, but when you are a billion dollar business you’d think the top priority would be the health of your talent.  I have seen horse stables that handle medical scenarios better then the Mets do.

Lets hope the Mets are right now sitting down face to face with Jose and the medical staff and getting down to the bottom line.  If they can’t even get the diagnosis correct, how in the hell can we expect them to get the treatment right?

Filed Under: Blogging, Breaking News Tagged With: , , , ,