So now Josh Thole is the apple of Mets fans eye as his call up last September was love at first sight. Because of the lack of any Mets news of substance, Mets fans and bloggers are left to play GM and try to find ways to improve a team that not only is short on talent but lacking in brains and brawn as well, so a young buck like Thole is the baseball equivalent to Megan Fox. At one time Daniel Murphy was the hottest piece of tail to hit Flushing in awhile but now Mets fans treat him like he’s a used up Swedish nanny.  You folks are real love ‘em and leave ‘em types.

Of all the talk of who should be the Mets catcher for 2010 until Thole morphs into Jerry Grote/Johnny Bench, the names of Bengi Molina, Rod Barajas and Jason Vartiek make Mets fans react like they found out Jeffey Skill Sets has a long lost twin brother.

Everything I ‘ve read focuses on the offensive production of the catching position when that’s the last aspect of the position I look at. Give me a guy who can call a game in concert with the pitcher, block balls in the dirt, and throw runners out to the point they think twice about running on them and I’ll say “name your price man”

I’m not saying that young Thole is not a blue ribbon farm hand but let’s let the kid learn the trade of the tools of ignorance first. Let him play as much as possible in Buffalo and as we all know you never get through a whole season with just two catchers, so you will see him at $iti Field in 2010. But the best thing to do for the Mets is go after a vet backstop to match up with Omir Santos to start the 2010 season.

With $6.25 mil due him in 2010, the White Sox AJ Pierzynski could be had for a song or Eddie Kunz, let Kenny Williams choose. Pierzynski, just for the entertainment factor alone is worth bringing here but he also brings a decent bat with some pop, he is an above average defender and he’s bat shit crazy with just one year left on his deal, what’s not to like?

Bengi Molina wants at least 2 years so that sends up a red flag right there. Same for Rod Barajas. If you can get either guy for a year or a year plus an option, I’m fine with that. Jason Varitek for a one year deal? I think I’d rather bring back Paul LoDuca for a year, that is if he can get away from hanging with the cast of High School Musical. Henry Blanco anyone? Anyone? No one? Oh well, he can still throw out runners at a single bound and sure he’s 38 years old (which is 25 in Omar years) and he is Venezuelan and I believe on page 147, Section 2,  paragraph 4, Line 7 of Johan Santana’s contract it states that when a Venezuelan catcher is available the Mets are obligated to sign him.

So you see there are options out there for a catcher while young Thole grazes on the farm for awhile long until he’s ready for slaughter, errrrr…………. I mean Flushing.

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One of the Mets sites I check on a regular basis is Mack’s Mets. I checked out his latest post today and I was relived to see I’m not the only one who feels helpless every day trying to write something about the Mets.

To tell you the truth, I pretty much sick and tired about reading about Matt Holiday, Roy Halladay , John Lackey and most of all Orlando Hudson. Let me say this if you think O-Hudson is the answer as an up grade at second base on as a so called leader in the words of Mike Francesa “Yer Lawst”

The more reports I read the more pessimistic I get about the 2010 season and it all comes back to the ownership/management of this team.  As Mets fans I feel we must get it through our heads that the Mets will not contend for a post season berth in 2010. You hear people in sports say that teams take on the persona of its manager or head coach, well the Mets have taken on the persona of its ownership, weak, clueless and a lack of guts.

You all know my distain for Jeffey Wilpon and after reading “The Road to Hockeytown” by Jimmy Devellano, my disgust about the ownership of the Mets has increased.

For those of you are not hockey fans, Jimmy D is one of the best scouts/ front office men in NHL history. He started out as an unpaid scout for the then expansion St Louis Blues and worked his way to head scout of the NY Islanders and worked with Bill Torrey to build the Islander dynasty and then went on to become the GM of the Detroit Red Wings and lead them back into NHL Stanley Cup Champions. In his career Jimmy D was responsible for the personnel of 7 Stanley Cup Winners.

The one place where Devellano felt was a lost opportunity to win was in St. Louis. The Blues at the time were managed by Lynn Partick  and Scotty Bowman, two hockey legends  but the reason why in Jimmy D’s view the Blues didn’t win the Cup was due to Sid Solomon III, the son of the Blues owner Sid Solomon. Here is Devellano’ view of life with a son who knows nothing about a sports team he inherited:

{When I first got to St. Louis in 1967 there were two pretty good hockey people already there, by the names of Lynn Patrick and Scotty Bowman.

That St. Louis Blues team might have one day become a great organization and the Blues might have eventually won Stanley Cups after starting with two fine hockey people like that. Who knows, they could have had a dynasty there after the great start they had in their first three seasons.

But unfortunately, the owners son, Sid Solomon III, while a very nice guy, was awfully involved with the hockey club and was an awful meddler. We couldn’t keep mangers and coaches like Scotty Bowman because of his constant meddling. Sid was a good but he wasn’t a hockey person. He just didn’t know hockey. How could he have? He made his money in the insurance business, not the hockey business. He didn’t have a feel for the game.

His interference caused a lot of turmoil in St. Louis. They couldn’t retain good people they had in place, like Bowman an (Al) Arbour and it cost them dearly. The Solomons eventually lost their team through bankruptcy and that didn’t need to happen}

Is that not the Mets? Is Jeffey not Sid the IV? It’s not just Jeffey, I am totally sick and tired of David Howard, who really needs a heaping plate full of Shut the Fuck Up.

The Skill Sets have been very successful in the real estate world that’s what they are good at but when it comes to running a baseball team they are an out and out disaster. They have no clue on how to build a team and they have absolutely no people skills (I should call them the Non-Skill Sets) in other words they are not the Mets but the Mess.

This Mets team has a ton of holes. Starting pitching is the biggest followed by a strong defensive catcher, a big corner bat and a solid second baseman. The injuries of last season are a smoke screen to what this team needs to get back to being a contender. Even with a healthy Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana and a rejuvenated David Wright, this team still has no grasp of the fundamentals of baseball and a lack of physical and metal toughness. If you were a major league free agent why would you want to play for the Mets?

Maybe the best move the Mets could make this winter is to put up a for sale sign.

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Not much to say today other than to thank the New York Football Giants for ending the NFL season for us Giants fans last night with that embarrassing display. For the first time in his Giants Head Coaching tenure, Tom Coughlin looked lost on the sidelines as he teams playoff hopes went down the drain. Not to worry Giants fans help on the offensive side is on the way as Charlie Weiss will be back in E. Rutherford as the OC.

Big tip of the Blue Mets Cap to Shannon Shark at Met Police for the first released pictures of the new, old, same Mets pinstriped jersey that looks exactly as the one I bought three years ago that hangs in my closet.

Hopefully some time today I will see this jersey up close and personnel as the plan was to up and out by 9AM for Christmas shopping but my daughter has decided to engage in a marathon sleeping session so our attack of the Paramus Mall is on hold.

Oh well, with the football season done here in NY , I guess all we can look forward to is the big Elmer Dessens press conference to announce his re-signing .

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Happy Thanksgiving to one and all and let me say how thankful I am to all of you who come to this site and read my posts and more important comment on them as well. I’m also thankful to the Mets bloggers who link to my site and also link to my posts, it’s so great to be a part of a passionate fan base that loves it’s team and doesn’t let inept management destroy their passion.

Andrew Vazzano of The Ropolitans has a posting that asks “What three Mets past or present would you invite to Thanksgiving dinner”? My three are Ed Kranepool (of course) Tom Seaver and Jerry Grote. After we got through discussing hitting and the art of pitching I’d unveil my plan to over throw the Skill Sets regime and save our Mets.

We’re so sorry but we haven’t heard a thing all day,
We’re so sorry, uncle albert, Elmer
But if anything should happen
We’ll be sure to give a ring.

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You can’t have have Thanksgiving without Alice’s Restaurant

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Kudos to Paul Lukas and the great Uni-Watch site for calling bullshit on these so called retro uni’s the Mets are hawking. As Lukas so eloquently states, these are the same pinstriped uniforms the Mets never wear only in a darker shade of white. Plus they still have the name on the back and of course the ugly ass black shadow. I guess the black is appropriate though as Mets fans we are always in mourning.

If the Blue Jays are dumb enough to trade Roy Halliday to either the Highlanders or Red Sox then Jeffey Skill Sets may have competition for the dopiest executive in baseball. Trading Halliday to their AL East biggest competitors would be like the Mets trading Johan Santana to the Phillies or Braves  Oh shit, I hope I didn’t give Jeffey an idea?

Even though this doesn’t make sense because it’s the right move to make and the Mets the last couple of years haven’t made many right moves, I still feel the Mets will be a major player in the Halladay Sweepstakes.

Mets Lifers are selling some great t-shirts that depict Keith Hernandez’ 17 and Mike Piazza’ 31 as retired numbers and shirts commemorating Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

The Mets made it official naming their new and improved coaching staff for 2010. Razor Shines leaves the third base coaches box after a horrendous season there and will be relegated to first base where we can do limited damage.

Third base will be manned by Chip Hale who worked for the Minnesota Twins during the successful Tom Kelly era. (How great would it be to have Tom Kelly step in as Mets manager? In fact I may post Kelly’s picture and managerial stats once a week to get the drums beating)

Dave Jauss will be Jerry Manuel’ new bench coach but his real claim to fame is he is the son of legendary Chicago sporst writer Bill Jauss. Papa Jauss was a member of one of favorite all time TV shows The Sportswriters on TV which used to play here on the old SportsChannel network.

Back and hopefully better are Old School Dan Warthen and Randy Niemann  and of course HoJo .

The most important and some what puzzling hire was that of Terry Collins as the Minor League Field Coordinator. From reading his resume I can’t figure out what Collins qualifications are to get such an important job? It’s not like he is coming in with and championship pelts on his belt or a list of players that were developed under his rein plus last year he was managing in something called the Northwoods Summer League. When you look at his body of work hw sure has held a lot of jobs in baseball and not too many with success. I guess as long as he doesn’t curse out the bushers and take his shirt off he’ll be ok.

{UPDATE: Mark Harrington of The Buffalo News thinks Collins is not only a great hire but the guy to step in if (when) J-Man gets the ax this season.}

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I’m in the middle of reading a terrific book about the careers of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson called ‘When The Game Was Ours” that was written with Jackie Mac Mullan, the book chronicles the careers of Magic and Bird as they rejuvenated the game of basketball as both collegiate  and pro players.

The book explores just how similar both players were not just in talent but in mindset, that the team comes first.   One of my favorite parts of the book is the great Celtics-Lakers rivalry that Bird and Magic revived from the days of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. As with Russell and Chamberlain, Bird and Magic both held each other in high regard as men and as basketball players. But when it was game time, the friendship was put on hold and it was all about winning and about the team. A couple of quotes in the book really stood out to me. The first one was from Kevin McHale, the Hall of Fame forward who when asked about his days as a Celtic in the 80’s he said:

“It was the best time of my life”.

“Of all the things we did, what stands out is how naturally we gave of ourselves to the team. No person was bigger than the rest of us”

What struck me about that quote was, here was a team that not only had All-Stars in its lineup, but three Hall of Famers as well. What they all had in common was they bought in to the Celtic way and played for the front of the jersey not the back. All three had the talent to go off and do their own thing but Bird was the leader and lead by example.

Magic Johnson was the same way with the Lakers. His mission was to make everyone around him better and to put up championship banners. He also had the motivation of Larry Bird and vice versa as both men thrived off each others performance.

The other quote that got me thinking was this one by Mychal Thompson who was traded from the San Antonio Spurs to the Lakers and was taken aback by the intensity of the Lakers locker room before a Celtic-Lakers regular season game:

“You couldn’t cut the tension with a chain saw”, Thompson said. The jovial big man, who hammed it up with Magic many time before, was surprised to see that even Johnson was grimfaced. Thompson asked Byron Scott, “So why is everyone so serious around here”? “Because we hate the Celtics”, Scott replied.

I bring all this up as a long segue into what the Mets really need to do this off season, beside getting some decent pitching and a big bat, they need to find out who gives a shit and who doesn’t. Not just players but front office people the manage, coaches fans broadcasters everyone associated with this team. Do you think anyone in the Mets clubhouse when asked about playing the Phillies would say they’d want to beat them because they hate them? Are you kidding most players on this Mets team need double doses of Imodium AD when they hit Philly.

The Mets are in dire need of a guy whether he be a front office type, or manager, who just doesn’t give a fuck who gets mad at him to work at getting this team to play not only good smart fundamental baseball but to be a team. The best place for it to come would be from the players side but who on this roster right now has that ability to step up and lead?

The only name that pops into my head is Johan Santana, he has that Magic-Bird mentality but he is not an everyday player and that hinders his ability a bit to be “the guy”. Guys like Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes like to talk the talk but they don’t back it up. They are like me when I say I’m going to drop 10 pounds then I go and eat a half of Entermanns Crumb Cake and wash it down worth a couple of Yoo-Hoo’s.  Its one thing to say what you’re going to do it’s another to go out and do it.

David Wright should be “the guy” and the Mets should have made it know by now the he “is the guy” but the problem with Wright is he is not a Type –A personality guy. I’m not mad at Wright for the season he had, it was good by most standards except for his low HR total, what I’m sad about is that Wright quit on the team. Yes that play where he failed to score before Jeff Francouer was thrown out at 2^nd base for the third out in a game against the Marlins in September. Wright is the face of the franchise he is the guy on all the adds and who makes all the appearances he is the METS. So here it is two months after that blunder and I’m still steaming from that. Sure, Jerry Manuel called him out and benched him the next day but what does that say when the guy who is your franchise player quits? What message does that send to the other 24 players? We saw it with Fernando Martinez when he failed to run out a pop up, not to mention the awful baseball judgment by Angel Pagan, there is a reason why not only the major league team are a bunch of losers but the top two farm teams are losers as well.

Here it is the hot stove season and a lot of the talk is about who will take over for Jerry Manuel when this team hits the skids again. The Mets are run worse than the Knicks, or Nets in fact they’re more like the Fucking LA Clippers.

With all this talk about free agents and all, the best money the Mets could have spent this off season would have been paying off Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel and revamp the whole philosophy of how this franchise does business.  The Mets are said to be going abck to the old style Mets uniform with the cream color and thin pinstripe, they need to go back to the no name on the back of the jersey as well. Nothing will change in Flushing until someone in that clubhouse steps up and challeges his teammates or a manager is brought in to hold players accountable. Hopefully Jerry Manuel will look a this spring training as a way to get that message across. What has J-Man got to lose? He is on the tissue thin ice so if it were me I’d make it known to the players don’t be making to many plans to socialize this spring as they will be working until exhaustion hits.  Let the players know now that this is the policy and if you don’t like or feel you’re up to let us know and we will send you some place else, no matter who you are or how much you make” Time for some tough love.

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of supporting a team that doesn’t give a shit. I know the players don’t take the losses as hard as the fans but Jesus H Christ can’t you act like you actually give a shit? I’ve said the difference between Mets fans and Highlander fans is we root for the team they root for the Championships. But what we also root for is hustle and desire as well.

Maybe Larry Bird and Magic Johnson would like to run a MLB team?

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Time again for Mets News and Views:

METS SET SIGHTS ON STARTING PITCHING

Music to my ears. I know most of you have a deep respect for wood a la Larry David, but without pitching you can have all the ash, maple and old hickory you want, you won’t win. Pitching wins period.

The top pitcher around that the Mets could get is Roy Halliday but the cost both player/prospect wise and money wise makes Halliday a dream that won’t come true. The next on the list is John Lackey, who is doable. Contract wise that is. If it takes an AJ Burnett 5yr/$82 mil deal to get Lackey here so be it. Sure he comes with a warning label as he hasn’t made over 30 starts in the last two seasons but the Mets are dessssssssssssperate for a #2 to Santana’s #1 and the they can piece together the rest of the rotation by adding two of the usual suspects from Jason Marquis, Joel Piniero, Randy Wolf, Jon Garland, and the coming off injuries, Ben Sheets, Erik Benard, and Noah Lowry, and my trade up specials Aaron Harang, Bronson Arroyo and Gil Meche to go with Mike Pelfrey as the 4^th or 5^th starter then and only then will progress be made in Flushing.

By the way I agree with this from Mack’s Mets to make John Maine the 8^th inning set up man to Frankie Rodz and I would also make Ollie P a reliever as well and have Bobby Parnell and Perpetual Pedro Feliciano as my 7^th inning mix and match set and throw Sean Green in for shits and giggles.

Nothing gets accomplished here until the pitching is squared away.

“WHAT THEY ACTUALLY LIKE THAT BLUE AND ORANGE STUFF”?

Can’t you just imagine, Jeffey Skill Set saying that? How out of touch can you be about your fan base and the history of the close to <places right pinky to right corner of mouth> $1 billion dollar baseball franchise he and his family own?

The Skill Sets had to be hit over the head by their fan base to paint the walls blue and orange, add a Mets Hall of Fame that even the great unwashed can gain entrance to, and go back to the uniform that the vast majority of Mets fans revere.

METS-MARLINS IN SAN JUAN, WHO NEEDS TWO?

So MLB wants the Mets and Marlins to play a series in San Juan which would be taken from the Marlins home schedule. Now how does this help the Marlins? The only time they get big crowds at Your Name Here Stadium is when the Mets come to town, plus with the construction of a new ball park shouldn’t the Marlins be trying build a better relationship with their fan base so they fill the new place once it’s up? The weird thing about the Marlins fans is they support the team very heavily through TV and Radio so maybe it doesn’t matter if they play in San Juan or San Quentin.

Also in this story there is a blurb about the Mets looking at signing Jack Cust. Hopefully it’s for a bartender’s job at the Acela Club.

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