Take 'Em To Chuuuuurchhh

Okay, it's official - Ryan Church and Brian Schneider for Lastings Milledge was a good move. No, let me rephrase that... it was a GREAT move.

It's no secret how I felt about the trade when it first went down. My initial question was "Why trade away a young guy with a high ceiling and room to grow for an older guy with essentially the same stats AND who would cost you more money?" I couldn't rationalize it at first.

And while I still think L-Millz has the goods to be an exceptional ballplayer, this year, Omar Minaya is making this deal look like a steal.

Mets fans ask yourself - who has been the most consistent offensive performer on the team this year? Beltran? No. Reyes? No. Wright? No. Delgado? Well, yes if what you mean by "consistent" is consistently bad lol.

Okay, seriously, who has been their most consistent offensive player all year? Without a doubt, Ryan Church.

Last night's line for Church: 2-4, 4 rbi, 1 run scored in the Mets 6-3 victory over the Nationals.

His stats for the season? .324 batting average, 8 HR, 30 rbi, 29 runs scored and a .561 slugging pct.

That's more runs scored than Jose Reyes, more home runs than David Wright, more rbi than Carlos Beltran, a better slugging pct. than Carlos Delgado... the list goes on and on.

And the best move Slick Willie has made all year is batting Church in the two hole.

Why is that? Well it's very simple. Church is a dead red fastball hitter. And hitting before the always dangerous David Wright almost assures that Church will see a ton more fastballs. Pitchers fear Wright so they'll rather take their chances with Church. And Chuuuuuurch has been taking full advantage.

Is it a fluke? Will he come back to reality? Who knows. But for now, Mets fans, let's just enjoy the ride.

As Jay-Z would say... "Take 'em to Church"

Holla Back.

Carlos Gomez > Jose Reyes (so far this year)

I always liked Carlos Go-go-gomez. Last night, Gomez hit for the cycle and showed the Twins fans exactly what us Mets fans had been wondering about the guy since he was called up from the minors. Did he have legit power? How fast is he? Can he dominate at the plate and on the basebaths? Last night he answered with a resounding YES.

What amazes me most about Gomez is how fast he gets out of the box and down to first from the right side of the plate. He doesn't look particularly fast but the kid has jets.

Now Reyes - he LOOKS fast. Like the roadrunner... cloud of dust, spinning feet, escaping Wile E. Coyote fast.

At this point in the season, however, it LOOKS like Carlos Gomez > Jose Reyes.

For those of you who skipped math class in elementary school, Gomez is greater than Reyes this season. It's close, but Gomez edges Hovito in a few categories. Let's check the stats:

Carlos Gomez: .282 BA, 2 HRs, 11 RBIs, .306 OBP, .427 SLG 13 SBs, 1 CS

Jose Reyes: .254 BA, 2 HRs, 13 RBIs, .324 OBP, .429 SLG, 10 SBs, 3 CS

These are the stats. Almost equal but Gomez has a better batting average and has been a more efficient base stealer.

Now don't get me wrong - I think Reyes is the better player. When hitting on all cylinders, Jose Jose Jose can look like the best player in all of baseball. But he hasn't been hitting on all cylinders since June of '07. Right now, Carlos Gomez is playing better.

You have to give up something to get something. So don't get me wrong, the Santana trade was the best deal the Mets have made in ages. But i must admit, Gomez looks like the real deal. Image Go Go as the leadoff man and Reyes hitting #2 in the Mets lineup this year. Damn that's some sick speed at the top of the lineup. Ahhh what if...

Holla Back

Glavine's Legacy

After the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, they let some key free agents sign elsewhere. They let Pedro come over to our Mets. They allowed Derek Lowe to sign with the Dodgers and Orlando Cabrera sign with the Angels. In returned they gained payroll flexibility and more importantly draft picks. This helped the Red Sox restock their farm system and help win the 2007 World Series. 

While the Mets are not in the same position, they will benefit from the same free agent rules. In return for not retaining Tom Glavine, the Mets will receive the Braves' first round draft pick (18th overall) and a sandwich pick in between the 1st and 2nd round (33rd overall). There is an added bonus for getting draft picks from a division rival. This along with their own pick, which is the 20th overall, give the Mets an opportunity to restock a farm system that many believe was decimated by the Santana trade. While Glavine did some good things for the Mets during his tenure, his most significant contribution could be turning a 40-plus pitcher into two young players with high potential. Lets hope Omar makes some good choices with those picks.

PATHETIC!!!

We take time from our daily DelgadoGate boo watch to bring you this breaking news. Guess what people? The Mets are a flawed team. Seriously flawed.

You want proof? Check out the stats from yesterday's game:

Oliver Perez: 1.2 IP, 7 runs, 5 walks
Jorge Sosa: 1.0 IP, 5 runs

Jose Reyes: 0-4, K (.250 BA)
Luis Castillo: 0-5, K (.259 BA), 2 errors
Carlos Beltran: 0-2 (.211 BA)
Carlos Delgado: 1-3 (.198 BA)
Gustavo Molina: 0-4, 7 LOB

Mets as a team: 4 errors and 2 hits total off of an anemic Pirates pitching staff. They made Tom Gorzelanny look like Sandy Koufax. It was embarassing.

The stats don't lie folks. And what the stats from yesterday's game are trying to tell us is that this team was unprepared, lacked focus and flat out gave up. Maybe Billy Wagner was right when he threw Ollie P. under the bus and called out the team. Someone had to do it.

And as much as I like Willie Randolph, something is just not clicking right now. I'm not one of those wacko fans who wants Willie tossed to the wolves everytime the Mets have a bad game, but I do expect the team to be prepared and ready. To quote Barack Obama, the Mets were far from being "fired up and ready to go" yesterday.

Honestly, what the Mets need is an authoratative veteran figure (not named Billy Wagner) who will keep them on their toes, but who will also keep things fun and lively in the clubhouse. The Mets are a much better team when they are having fun.

So Pedro Martinez, if you are listening, hurry up. Right now you may be the Pepto-Bismol for this stomach-ache known as the Mets. For real.

Holla back.

I Come Back... To This???

So I was away on a much-deserved vacation last week and in my attempt to forget the world and clear my thoughts, I was unable to follow the Mets. Other than the game scores, I didn't have much to go by in terms of how the team was performing.

So I was pleased to see that the Mets handled the Braves this weekend and that the team seems to be gettin their act together.

I WAS pleased. Until I saw this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/sports/baseball/29shea.html?ref=baseball

and this...

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ny-spmets295667293apr29,0,1444171.story

and this...

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spjim0428,0,5079737.column

I just got back so I'll give my thoughts on this shortly. But damn. DelgadoGate? Oh boy...

Holla back.

Beltran The Leader... Who Knew?

Mets fans have been knocking Carlos Beltran's leadership abilities (or lack thereof) ever since he first arrived at Shea 3 years ago. Soft, unemotional, lazy... fairly or unfairly, these are adjectives that are frequently thrown around when discussing Beltran. And who can ever forget Carlos frozen at the plate like a stale TV dinner after a nasty hook from Adam Wainwright sent the underdog Cards to the World Series over the favored Mets? That's not what you want to see from a leader.

What you do want to see, however, is this:

Beltran's biggest assist might have happened before the 6-0 Mets' win in Tuesday's series opener. Beltran noticed a moping, more quiet Reyes. And that, to Beltran, needed to be fixed.

"I had a conversation with Reyes. I said, 'Don't change.' When he's doing that, jumping around, we like it. We're happy," Beltran said at his locker last night. "He's a fun guy."

Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that after Reyes celebrated his homer to start the fifth, Beltran followed with a three-run shot to left off losing pitcher Matt Chico (0-3). Beltran knocked in Ryan Church and David Wright, who hit consecutive singles after the Reyes blast. Beltran finished 1-for-3 with a walk and three RBI. As soon as Beltran's drive cleared the left field fence, Reyes was sprinting across the dugout to be the first to meet Beltran at the railing.

"Carlos Beltran, he's the guy, kind of quiet in the dugout," Reyes said. "He needs that, he needs the thing I do in the dugout. That's why he come to me and talk to me." Asked if he would help Beltran learn how to be more of an extrovert, Reyes smiled.

"He's not going to jump at all. He's not like that," said Reyes.

There are two things that stand out about this exchange. One is that Beltran, a noted intravert, took it upon himself to tell Reyes to loosen up and be true to himself. Beltran recognizes that when Jose "The Most Electrifying Player In Baseball" Reyes is doing his thing, it lifts up the entire club. Jose is the $3.43 per gallon unleaded gasolina for the carro better known as Los Mets. As long as the tank stays closer to full than empty the Mets will be fine. Don't believe me? Since Beltran's pep talk, Reyes has been absolutely insane at the plate.

The second thing that stands out is a noticable change in Carlos Beltran himself. I don't know what happened over the summer, but Bel-Train has come into the season looking to be more vocal and looking to take some responsibility on his $18,622,809 shoulders. The most obvious example of this is his channeling of Jimmy Rollins and proclaiming that the Mets are the team to beat this year. This is simply something the old Carlos would not have said and if you ask me, it's a welcomed sign that Beltran is focused this year and that last year really really bothered the guy... which is good since Beltran's demeanor would sometimes make it seem as if he didn't care.

I know, I know... hitting .241 with only 7 RBI isn't anything to write home about. But right now, I'm not worried about the stats with Beltran. I like his attitude and approach to the season. Now if he could just change his approach at the plate...

Holla back.

Ace High

I'm not a big fan of Jason Stark. Especially after his nonsensical defense of Roger Clemens. What a sellout.

But I must admit, in his latest column he makes a great point in regards to the Mets and Johan Santana. Simply put, Santana takes a team that won 185 games the last 2 years to an EVEN HIGHER level:

As you watched Johan Santana overmatch the Phillies on Friday in his first visit to Philadelphia as a Met, it was hard to resist asking this question:

What if he'd been a Met last year?

Suppose the Mets could have sent Santana out there to save the season on the last Sunday of regular play. Or to prevent one of those seven straight losses to the Phillies down the stretch.

How different could things have been?

Unfortunately, Jason, we were stuck with another lefty named Tom "I still love Atlanta" Glavine. And we see what happened.

He continues by stating:

How much of a difference might Santana make this season in the life of the NL East? Well, it's still about five months too soon to answer that one. But Santana gave quite the spectacular sneak preview Friday in the 6-4 Mets victory. The score -- and his final pitching line -- bore no relationship to how dominating he actually was. For seven innings, Santana carved up the Phillies, dialing up a 10-strikeout, zero-walk two-hitter that was ridiculously efficient.

No Philly hitter went to the plate with a runner in scoring position. The only three-ball count was against the first hitter of the game. And among the 24 hitters who arrived at home plate and the 96 pitches they saw whooshing their way, it was hard to count more than five good swings.

Exactly. Every 5th day the Mets will send someone to the mound who can win the game all by himself. A true stopper.

And that's all this team needs. There will be no epic collapses as long as Santana is in the rotation. He neutralizes the lefty-heavy Phillies lineup. He stops the Braves in there tracks. That's all the team needs. A true ace.

How stupid do those Mets fans that booed him look now. Idiots. Holla back.

Tragic...

From ESPN.com:

A fan died at Shea Stadium on Tuesday night when he plunged from the railing of an escalator, the New York Post reported for Wednesday's editions.

Antonio Narainasami, 36, of Brooklyn was sliding down the railing when he lost his balance and fell two stories to the concrete on the loge level, sources told the Post. His two daughters were with him at the time of the accident.

Narainasami was taken to New York Hospital Queens, where he was pronounced dead.

"We have been advised of a tragic accident that resulted in the death of a fan attending tonight's game," said a statement from the Mets, according to the Post. "The Mets, the City Parks Department and the New York Police Department are investigating the incident. Our deepest and heartfelt condolences go out to the fan's family."

The accident reportedly happened at 10 p.m., after the Mets beat the Nationals.

A cousin, Vinnie Narainasami, told the newspaper that Antonio Narainasami was a huge Mets fan.

"Even his kids were into them -- they all went to see the game," he said, according to the newspaper. "He was really excited. It's his favorite team, basically."

Just sad.

Big Mike

Great game for the Mets. I think we are in for a roller coaster of a year. Today we saw a lot of good. The return of Jose Reyes (in terms of being a spark plug) , the flashes from Wright's ability to carry a team, the return from Sanchez for the first time in 21 months, and the encouraging start from Big Mike Pelfrey.

He had possibly his best game to date. Granted it was against one of the weakest teams in baseball, but lets hope that this will be a sign of things to come. He looked like he was much more relaxed and seemed to trust his stuff. He has the goods to be in the mold of a Roy Halladay, Brandon Webb or even Chien-Ming Wang, which is the type of pitcher that gets outs by generating weak contact from batters. He will never be a big strikeout pitcher. But he can definitely be the kind the pitcher that pounds the strikezone and creates groundball contact. Lets hope he continues his growth this year, especially with the news that Pedro may be out until mid-June. You can navigate the season with one weak 5th starter, but you can't with two. Big Mike may hold the key to a successful season.

Jackie Robinson Day

On this day 61 years ago, Jackie Robinson stepped on the field and forever changed to face of baseball and the face of a nation. It took a lot of courage on the part of Branch Rickey, the Dodgers and Jackie Robinson to defy the collective conscious of the country and bring to a crashing fall the color barrier that divided a sport and a country.

Click here for coverage of Jackie Robinson Day.

Jackie Robinson became a symbol of all that was right and wrong with America at that time in history. He gave black people like my uncle and grandfather a reason to cheer for a team and a renewed hope that things would change. It is no coincidence that most of the elders in my family are/were Dodger fans. It is also no coincidence they they all hate the Red Sox (last team with a black player) and the Yankees (who thought black players could not meet the high "Yankee standard").

I asked my grandmother a while back why she became a Mets fan. And her answer was, "Well there's no way in hell I can be a Yankees with their racism against black players. The Giants and the Dodgers moved. Then the Mets came and I used to go to the games at the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field and the Mets were so bad. But I liked them anyway. So I kept following them after that."

In some strange way I think my grandmother's hatred for the Yankees was genetically passed down to me. Made me into Mets Brotha. And while I don't HATE the Yankees, I do have issues with this whole idea of "Yankee standards" and the "Yankee way of doing things." The higher the horse, the harder the fall I guess. I can't wait for that fall, it's going to be a doozy lol.

Holla back