No one kills Mets management as much as I do, in fact I love calling out the clueless Jeffey Skill Sets and that shyster David Howard, but I’m kind of puzzled with the reaction of some Mets fans to the offers the club has made to Jason Bay and Bengi Molina.

Most of the criticism goes to the fact the Mets made just a $5 mil bump in monies to Bay. It’s a first offer, it’s a start, it now gets the negotiation going. The front office has concluded that Bay fits the club better than Matt Hoilday and I agree. The Mets even used (are you ready for this?) STATISTICAL  ANALYSIS to show how many fly balls Bay has hit last season would translate to $iti Field and it’s safe to say Bay would send many a souvenir baseball into the left field seats.

The big knock on Bay is his defense which I feel is a fallacy. The guy did have 15 outfield assists last year and his fielding number are better than league average plus with Carlos Beltran in CF I’m willing to bank on his ability to cover the ground that Bay can’t with the trade off of 30+HR and 100+ RBI.

So the Mets first offer is 4yr/$65mil. Bay’ counter off will be more years and of course more money. The thing to watch is who besides the Mets are in the running for Bay’s services. His former team the Red Sox are not known for giving out big deals to 30 year olds and have a track record of not getting personal with the help. Theo Epstein is all business. We’ve also seen that Bay is not giving the Sox a home team discount.

The Highlanders now with Curtis Granderson are not players for Bay. The Mariners? As bad as we feel the Mets are with dough they won’t be out spent by the M’s. The one team that could come in and make it interesting is the Angels.

It looks like the Mets want Bay and most likely will get him. For all the criticism of Omar he usually gets the guy he wants, it doesn’t always work out but count me as on board for Bay.

With all the jokes about the Mets cornering the market on backup catchers they still need a legit #1 backstop and if it takes 2yrs for Bengi Molina, then sign him. Sure he’s long in the tooth and as Joe Mc Donald said last night on our PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL show, you run the risk of Brian Schneider revisited but for 2yrs/$18 mil I’ll take a shot that Bengi is still on his game this year and is at worse a backup to Josh Thole in 2011. The one concern I have about Molina (and it’s not his speed on the bases ) is last year when the Giants brought up uber catching prospect Buster Posey to add some more pop in the G’ints flaccid offense, Bengi Baby didn’t ‘t respond well to having a pocket full of Posey, staring at him on the bench, so attitude is a bit of a red flag.

But like Casey Stengel said, You have to have a catcher because if you don’t you’re likely to have a lot of passed balls.”

Mets Police has a great post where Detective Dan had an actual conversation with an employee in the Mets office. Dan sent back his season ticket invoice, not with a check but with a “no thank you” note. It looks like the Mets are getting a lot of these no thanks notes from season ticket subscribers so they are now burning the phone lines to ask why and boy oh boy, did Dan tell them why.

Maybe, just maybe, there has been a revelation in management that the Mets fans are not mad anymore, but worse, they are apathetic. At least with hate there is still passion. Remember it’s a thin line between love and hate but once apathy sets in you’re fucked.

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Join Joe McDonald and Steve Keane  tonight at 9PM ET on Blog Talk Radio for another edition of PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL as we look at what has transpired at the MLB Winter Meetings in Indianapolis.

To join in the conversation you can reach us at (646) 595-4462.

If you can’t join us live, you can listen to the podcast at our PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL site or right here at Kranepool Society or on iTunes.

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Don’t know much about RHP Carlos Monasterios, who was plucked from the Phuck Phaces by the Mets in today’s Rule V Draft.

Monasterios pitched for Clearwater in High A and for Reading in Double A last season. He’s 23  years old, 6′ 2″ 175 lbs and hails from Venezuela. From looking at his numbers last year, Monasterios looks like a spot starter/long man out of the pen, so he could be another candidate for the 5^th starters spot with the Mets or at worse a middle reliever.

Monasterios pitched in 37 games combined last season complying a 5-6 3.73 ERA in 89.1 IP. Monasterios gave up 79 hits and walked 29 and K’d 75 with a 1.20 WHIP   

So it seems like Carlos Monasterios is the best acquisition of the off season so far.

UPDATE: Mets selected RHP John Lujan from the Chicago White Sox with their next pick in the RULE V draft. Lujan is 6′ 1″ 200 25 yrs old relief pitcher who went 3-5 4.45 ERA in 37 games for Brimingham Double A. In 58.2 IP Lujan walked 28 and K’d 51

One more arm in the pen I guess

UPDATE 10:02 AM Forget Monasterios the Mets just dealt him to Dodgers

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Motivation to blog about the Mets is a real challenge today. Everyday at the Winter Meetings is Groundhog Day. But I guess there are a few moves that need to be addressed so here we go:

Scott Boras has entered the building and I agree with Mike Silva, Boras needs the Mets to get in the mix for Matt Holiday just to drive the price up. The Mets, Cardinals, Red Sox and maybe the Angels are Holiday’s best bets and with Boras blowing smoke up Mets managements ass about having the wherewith all to sign Holiday it’s quite clear that playing for a winning team is not paramount to Holiday signing a contract.

“The Mets have a network and they have an infrastructure there that is, I mean, it’s a juggernaut economically,” Boras said at the winter meetings Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve seen what NESN has done and they’ve become if not a multi-billion, over a billion-dollar franchise. The YES Network is a multi-billion dollar network and franchise. The infrastructure that they’ve built with the SNY network follows. They’ve got a brand new ballpark. They’re in New York City. Their revenues are in the top three or four in baseball. I mean, the New York Mets have a lot of choices. And the Wilpon family is very successful. Sure, the Mets can sign any player they want to if they so choose to.”

There is nothing in that statement that you can argue with. If you are a Mets fan, Scott Boras just did you the biggest favor of the off season by calling bullshit on the Mets inactivity. Of course he doesn’t give a shit about you or me or any Mets fan but by calling out the ownership to get in the game, we owe him some gratitude.

The piece of baseball news I’ve heard so far these winter meetings was that Peter Gammons has left the WWL and will join MLB.com and the MLB Network. I have had the pleasure of watching the Cape Cod League All Star game with Gammons a few years ago in Orleans and he was a real gentleman. We not just talked baseball but he is a real encyclopedia of Rock and Roll history as well. Congratulations Pete!

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The Mets have signed Mike Hessman. Who? Mike Hessman. Remember? Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP IN CINCINNATI

Think I might go get drunk at lunchtime

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I don’t know about you but I’m getting a massive headache trying to decipher what the hell the Mets plan is for the off season.

Omar has gone on TV and print preaching pitching and defense and I scream at the TV YES OMAR YES! !!!  then I read the tons of minutia coming out of Indianapolis and everything about the Mets is contradictory.

The Mets are hot for Matt Holiday and John Lackey,

Then we hear, the Mets won’t be spending on big ticket free agents.

Luis Castillo has been offered to every team but Miguel’s Taqueria softball team. If you can’t move Castillo then you have to buy out his contract. I’m not a big Castillo fan and I would love to see him moved but you have to admit the way the Mets are treating him sucks. If my job treated me like this I’d at the union hall filing a fucking grievance. Either trade the man or grow a pair of balls Jeffey and buy him out you little shit.

Last night I watched Mets Hot Stove and the great Bobby Ojeda when asked by Kevin Burkhart what the Mets biggest need is this off season, Bobby O said “pitching, pitching and more pitching. Then when the cut to Indianapolis, and Chris Carlin interviewed Bobby Cox who was asked about his suplus of starting pitching. Cox said “you hate to move a starter because you never have enough pitching” Now they know that, I know that, you know that, all of baseball knows that. Do the Mets know that?

The last time I was this discouraged as a Mets fan, Lorinda de Roulet were trying to figure out how to clean baseballs and Bebe and Whitney de Roulet were strutting their debutant ass’s through out Shea trying out as ball washers.

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Good to see the Mets have Gil Meche on their radar, as the stories are flying fast and furious tha the Mets and Royals are looking to become trade partners at the winter Meetings.

I like Meche as a pitcher to fill the 3 or 4 spot in the rotation. He throws a heavy fastball and a nice curve that induces a lot of ground ball outs. His biggest draw back is his walk rate. His BB/9 rate last year was 4.5 with a career mark of 3.65, which if he stays at is tolerable. Meche also had some health issues with his back and shoulder fatigue.

The Royals are looking to dump Jose Guillen and his $12 mil salary. The interesting thing with Guillen is how does it affect Fernando Martinez ? F-Mart is again sitting out time from his Winter League team, due to blisters on his hands. His manager is no other than Moises Alou who of course advocates giving your hands a golden shower to toughen them up. I bet Tiger Woods has hands like tree bark, who knew Eldrick Woods was such a freak? But, I digess…. 

What does Mets management think of F-Mart? Do they still hold him in high esteem as a top prospect and the LF of the future or do they look at them as a talent that will never reach full potential? If he still in the Mets plans as a big leaguer the could go with Guillen and allow F-Mart to finally show he can play a full baseball season without getting hurt where he loses large chuck of playing time. With the names we’ve been hearing, Guillen and Pat Burrell it looks as if the Mets are still looking at F-Mart as the long term LF option. If it comes down to either Guillen or Burrell I’d rather keep Angel Pagan. 

Of course it all goes out the window if Matt Holiday becomes signable but I doubt that will happen.

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If what I’m reading in the local fish wraps is correct, it seems the Mets have been mathematically eliminated (Hey Kathy and Joe is it time for a sequel? ) for the 2010 season.

It doesn’t look like any big ticket items will be on Jeffey’s credit card this winter, so the question is why go half assed? Why not just blow the whole team up?

As it stands now, only the Nationals stand in the way of the Mets of the Mets hitting rock bottom in the NL East (for the first Stephen Strasburg-Big Pelf match up, I will be going into solitary confinement) so unless Jeffey (Omar is GM emeritus by the way, as he is earning his million a year as being the Skill Sets “Spider”) decides to empty the more bountiful than they lead us to believe, Mets coffers, the only thing we’ll have to look forward to is Alex Cora  player/interim manager bobble head day.

I leave you with this from Bill Madden’ Daily News column:

Mets? Did somebody say the Mets? They won’t spend the money for Holliday, Bay or Lackey and apparently, they’re only interested in signing low-budget Latin players, having shown little or no interest in Byrd, Figgins, DeRosa, Wolf or even Staten Island’s Jason Marquis, while waiting for their markets to come to them. At the same time, the Phillies and Braves wasted no time in addressing their needs. Sad.

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Now that the site is up and running again and that fact that I’m jonesing for a  posting, lets call this a late night lighting round:

Once upon a time, Marco Scutaro was Mets bloggers favorite player, mostly due to his success in Triple A. I wish I had the posts I wrote from back then as I was calling for Scutaro to be brought up from Norfolk to play 2B for the Mets and when was called up, I thought I had some juice. It was my Big Balls moment.

But Scutaro played sparingly for two not very good Mets teams and it was about that time we were fed up with Robbie Alomar and felt Scutaro had the tools to takeover at 2B. But the Mets but him on waivers after the 2003 season and Billy Beane claimed him for the A’s and it set off a bit of a bloggers firestorm around these parts. Ahhhhhhhh good times!

Now Scutaro has signed with the Red Sox, a move made by” cut from the same Billy Beane cloth”, Theo Epstein  to play shortstop for the Old Town Team.  It’s good to see both me and Scutaro are still kicking around.

In another move to kick Omar Minaya in the nuts, the Mets have signed former Reds GM Wayne Kivsky to be an Asst’ GM. If you listened to our PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL show last week, Joe McDonald said he had info that the Mets have a plan in place if (when?) the Mets get off to a bad start, to ax Omar and J-Man and put a new GM and Mgr. in there place. Looks like the GM part of Plan B is in place.

First, Placido Polanco goes back to the Phuck-Phaces and now Chone Figgins signs with the Mariners. And Rogers Castillo sighs in relief.

The news I’ve been waiting to hear, the KC Royals are looking to move RHP Gil Meche and LF David DeJesus and both would look great on the Mets. Then I’d go trade for Aaron Harang and sign either Joel Pinerio or Jason Marquis to give myself a fighting chance to be a contender in 2010.

That’ it for now but I will leave you with something I posted on Facebook:

“Why do I have a feeling that the NY Mets will start the 2010 season like the NJ Nets? If there was a stock called “The Mets will suck in 2010″ I’d empty my bank account to buy it”

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We’ve had some technical difficulties but thanks to Joe MacDonald we are back on line and not a moment too soon as the Winter Meetings are ready to begin .

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