I don’t know maybe I think a little differently than some folks. If me and my family were embroiled in a fight to save everything we’ve worked for and the embarrassment we’ve faced due to either stupidity, nativity or out right lying and I owned a baseball team in the biggest media market in the world, I’d kind of lay low for a while and not want to have to answer questions about an on going court case that I really can’t answer or baseball questions that I don’t know how to answer. I’d stay out of the public eye. Unfortunately Jeffey Skill Sets doesn’t think like that.  Here was Jeffey in all his glory and bad hair cut meeting the media at St. Lonesome.

Wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the organization to not have a side show on the day pitchers and catchers report? Especially when you are having a tough time selling tickets? Wouldn’t be in the best interest of the organization to just let Sandy Alderson do the talking this spring and season as well?

Just when I’m getting stoked for Mets baseball and decided to purchase a flex pack ticket plan, I see this video and think hummmmmmmmmm is buying a ticket plan a wise choice? I’m sure I’m not they only one who is thinking this way as well.

Besides Jeffey being there do I have to hear about our domestic violence abuser having his Lamborghini shipped down on a flat bed truck to spring training?  Then hear how great it was that he spoke to the media and a couple of day time yackers on radio? Why is it the guys I want to hear from the least I hear from the most?

The beat guy at the Daily Lupica likes to break Mets fans balls with some stupid Tweets. During last season I guess I tweeted him to many times telling him what a hack he was and how he seemed upset he wasn’t covering the Phillies anymore so he blocked me from his Twitter account which is no big deal to me but I would think it would be a big deal to his bosses at the Daily Lupica since I stopped buying the paper and I never link a story from their site. From the tweets I’ve read today it seems this beat guy has taken to calling Jose Reyes (Michael our resident Highlander fan, you better sit down for this one) a “future Yankee”. Mets tweeters have been outraged and have started a campaign on Twitter to unfollow him. That’s great but take it a step further, don’t link any stories of his or anything in the Daily Lupica on your sites or on Twitter. I ‘m sure Daily Lupica Sports Editor Teri Thompson will not be happy about that.

Ed Marcus/Rusty Jr. has number 21 in his list of the Top 50 Mets of All Time and this one is a bit of a controversial choice as he didn’t spend many years with the Mets and the years he did while showing flashes of brilliance from time to time didn’t exactly make a great contribution. But when he left he was legendary.

I had a great time conversing with Joe Demayo of  PSL to Flushing on the THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN podcast today. Check it out here or on iTunes

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Joe Demayo of the site St Lucie to Flushing will join me on the THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN podcast today at 12PM ET on Blog Talk Radio.

Joe and I will be talking Mets baseball specifically the Mets Minor League system.

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My God, it’s day one of pitchers and catcher reporting to St Lonesome and I’m already sick of the Ollie Perez stories.

Perez came to camp and proclaimed he wanted to compete for a starting spot in the Mets rotation.  The Mets plan for Perez was to compete with Tim Byrdak, Mike O’Conner, and Taylor Tankersley for the role of LOOGY in the Alderson/Collins production. But OP had other plans when he had his sit down with the GM and manager letting them know he wants a shot at the two spots up for grabs.

Odds are long that Perez is going to out pitch Chris Capuano, Dillon Gee or Chris Young and Terry Collins is concerned about his mind set which shows some nativity on Collins part as no one, not even Perez  knows what’s going on in that noggin.

What hurts Perez is of course his inability to throw strikes and that’s due to some of the worst mechanics this side of the constantly out of service escalator at the South Ferry subway station.  Perez is full of bad habits, awful arm angle on release, bad balance in his delivery and not really understanding how to pitch. Perez is a classic thrower. Add in two straight years of constant nagging injuries and hard headedness you wonder, why bother with this guy? All these deficiencies lead to the bane of Perez’ problem,  his command and control is awful  which lead to base on balls which lead to loads of base runners, base runners who wind up touching home plate at an alarming rate.

 The fans can’t stand the sight of him and they’re not wrong. If OP would have taken management’s advice and agreed to accept a minor league assignment to work out his problems, the fan base would be much more sympathetic and in fact I bet those fans who are repulsed by Perez would rally behind him.  But Perez in essence told the Mets management and fans “Fuck You” and the fans responded with “Fuck Me”? No. “Fuck You”

It would a major upset and disappointment if Perez makes the 25 man roster. I don’t think he will, in fact he’ s only around because he’s not drawing a paycheck yet for 2011 (players don’t start getting paid until opening day they get per diem during spring) as once he does I’m sure it will be as a former Met.

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Looks like you take a day off around here; it takes a while to catch up. Yesterday my wife and I renewed our wedding vows, as the church we were married in Regina Pacis in Bensonhurst, held a day for all couples married at that church to come back and renew their vows with a football wedding reception to follow.  It was a load of fun and we met people we hadn’t seen in a while and my kids were subjected to “Brooklyn is the greatest place on earth” stories for the millionth time. By the way, that’s how I get my kids to do their homework, when they are watching TV I go into the living room and say “You know when I was a kid……………..” and they run to their rooms. Works every time.

After a terrific weekend I turn on my computer and I see this:

What I read was “The Mets today Released Ollie Perez” not “all stories talking about Perez MUST CEASE UNTIL OLLIE IS RELEASED.”

This was my response to Sherman’s tweet.

By the way, Ollie is in camp and by the look on Terry Collins from this post from Adam Rubin it looks like he saying “Shit, I thought I locked all the doors”

Daniel Murphy is in camp and has told Terry Collins he is here to do whatever is asked from him to help this team win. Get ready for a lot of Murphy love from me.

I’m being very cautious on Terry Collins. I’ve spoken to him twice this post season and he’s intense and comes off as a real live and die by baseball, kind of guy.  He has spoken extensively about preparation all winter and running his camp with order and efficiency. When I spoke to young guys like Josh Thole, Bobby Parnell and Dillion Gee they all dealt with Collins as Mets Minor League Coordinator and they all are glad he is their manager at the big league level. R.A. Dickey and Mike Pelfrey both mentioned “energy” when asked about Collins. Pelf told us that even during lunch with Collins, that the manager spent the whole time diagraming defensive positioning on cut off throws from the outfield and on what pitchers are responsible for on defense and where they should be in different situations. Pelfrey marveled at Collins’ energy and passion. All that is great but the fact is he quit two of the three managerial jobs he had and that’s a huge caveat to me.

After reading Andy Martino’s terrific piece in the NY Daily News yesterday, I’m hoping Collins is right that he has learned from all the stops and has changed for the better. Collins mentor is Jim Leyland and he realizes he made some bad mistakes in communication with his players, that times have changed and he needed to change with the times and that this is his last shot at managerial redemption.

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This past Saturday I spent the afternoon at Bloomberg Headquarters watching a demonstration of the Bloomberg Sports launch of Front Office 2011. There are two forms of Front Office, one for the fan/fantasy player and the Pro application that is becoming a staple in MLB front offices for its “leave no pitch or hit behind” usage of the application. Before we look at the Pro version of Front Office, let’s look what this application has for the fantasy baseball owner’.

The Draft Kit

With the Draft Kit gives you the ability to draft the strongest possible fantasy team by using what Bloomberg Sports calls its “B-Rank” which is a statistical secret sauce that ranks players based on the scoring system used by your league. You set up your draft list by best players available, by position or by more intense, players you should be targeting and the one’s you need to pass by.

There is also a Fantasy Factor section that list pros and cons of all players to help to make the right choice for your team. Target Round gives you Bloomberg’s take on what round players in your draft should go. This again is based on your leagues scoring system.  

What Front Office does as well is, it integrates your fantasy league (Yahoo, MLB, ESPN, CBS etc.) into the application.

So now your draft is over and you look over the team you’ve assembled and you’re not happy, you shorted yourself on pitching or a day after the draft you read the middle infielder you draft has a torn ACL and is gone for the season, what do you do, besides bang your head against the wall? You go to Front Office Free Agent finder and you look for the middle infielders  still out there who can give you some power numbers you need or if stolen bases are used as a scoring category, you can find that as a specific stat as well. You can also find that diamond in the rough you’ve read about and no one in your league pounced on yet.

Front Office also has a Lineup Manager to help with suggestions on who to start and who needs to grab some pine. Whether it’s a starting pitcher on his off day or the outfielder that is slumping, Lineup Manager gives the statistical information you need to make the lineup switch to up your league point total. You can also match your lineup with your opponents and Front Office will compare the two as your league can be synched into Front Office.

Front Office 2011 goes on sale in a week for $19.95 for the season. Besides all the stats and graphs you get baseball news on your favorite team and players on your fantasy team as well. It’s your one stop for all you baseball news and needs.

As impressive as the Fantasy version of Front Office 2011 is, the Pro version was close to jaw dropping. One of the informative and entertaining portions of the presentation was when former Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson, now a consultant of Bloomberg Sports as well as his own 3Psports pitching site, gave a mesmerizing demonstration on the use of the pitch f/x of the Pro Front Office. One of the pitchers that Peterson used was John Axford who Peterson mentored as pitching coach of the Milwaukee Brewers last season.

After bringing up Axford’s pitch f/x numbers on the screen, Peterson then clicked on from the drop to show the type of pitches that Axford threw during the season, the location of the pitches, what pitches were balls, strikes taken and swinging. If that wasn’t enough info for you, you can click on the pitches and you get game video of the pitcher/hitter confrontation. Peterson also pointed out to us how he used the data and video from Front Office to fix a defect in Axford’s delivery. From watching his delivery, Peterson had Axford move slightly to the right of the pitching rubber as he saw his arm angle was not where it should be when his front foot lands. By going over this video with Axford he saw the problem, made the adjustment and was successful in getting Axford to be a very effective closer.  

As If that wasn’t enough to impress you there was a “but wait there’s more” moment when the demonstration turned to having the Front Office App on an iPad.

All game information can be downloaded into this program 20 minutes after the last out of a game.  So say the Mets have just finished a game at Citi Field and are enroute to St. Louis to face the Cardinals the next day. By the time the players have given post game comments, get showered and dressed and board the bus for LaGuardia, the next days starting pitcher can load his iPad with video of the Cardinals game that night and get a detailed statistical analysis of his history versus Cardinal hitters complete with video of the at bats. The same holds for the hitters. They can get analysis right at their fingertips as to how they hit the next days starting pitchers or how he got them out.

If you are a fantasy baseball player or even if you’re just an ordinary everyday baseball fan, this application is well worth the $19.95 investment. Take a brown bag lunch to work for a couple three days to defray the cost if you have to.

By the way, Sandy Alderson should be proud, the Mets bloggers were in full force at this event as I was honored to share a table with Kerel Cooper of On The Black (Kerel has video of Peterson’s presentation) Mike Silva of NY Baseball Digest, Jon Levin of Subway Squawkers, Mark Healy of Gotham Baseball. I also got to chat with Ted Berg and James Kannengieser of Amazin’ Avenue who heard my distinct Brooklynese over the speakers when I had the floor to ask Rick Peterson a question, and at the break located me  and said “I heard that voice and I knew who it was”  it was a fun and informative day at Bloomberg Sports.

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I’ve been invited to Bloomberg Sports launch of their Front Office 2011 baseball analytical application. Former Mets pitching coach is here as well and will be one the featured speakers at the event.

I will be on Twititer throughout the event with updates of all the features Front Office 2011 has for you to win your fantasy league

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Not for anything but as long as Mike Bloomberg has been Mayor of NYC, the town ran like Swiss clock. Crime dropped, tourism rose, snow was removed in a timely fashion and there was never much controversy, until he told the voters of NYC to shove their term limits referendum up their ass, ”I want to be King of NYC forever”

Unfortunately, like a  rotting fish or a visting relative who over stays his welcome, Bloomy is starting to stink. Whether it’s his appointment of Cathie Black as President of Board of Education, whose solution to over crowding in NYC public schools is to tell people to practice birth control and then at a meeting of parents of children who will be displaced by their school closing, ignores them as she falls into a Blackberry induced stupor. Of course there is his cluster fuck of snow removal, his annoyance with cops and firefighters who after pulling out bodies and trying to save lives on September 1tth 2001, have developed illnesses that have rendered them disabled and are collecting pensions. Pensions that were earned from blood, sweat, tears and collective bargaining.

Now to add to his tarnished legacy he is failed attempted at a joke against the Irish  while speaking at the Irish Historical Center in Manhattan has solidified to me that Bloomy has lost his mind and this city.

Bloomberg own the NY Mets? HA! He can kiss my narrow back Irish-American ass.

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For your listening pleasure check out the podcast from The Kult of Mets Perosnalites on Blog Tak Radio. Last night Mike Silva of NY Baseball baseball Digest was their guest.

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So neither Mayor Moneybags or Jerry Seinfled are interested in buying the Mets. That’s fine by me because I am very much interested in buying the Mets

 (first thing I’d do is redesign Citi Field and make it like Cameron Indoor Stadium where all the seats in the field level of the stadium would be for Mets fans only and by fans I mean in order to sit there you would have to take a 10 question quiz on Mets history. For every question you get right I deduct a dollar off the already low 20 bucks I’d charge for the seat. Then I’d move all the club seats holders to the Promenade and make up the difference in my new ticket price plan on them. Oh and I enclose the whole promenade as so not to disturb the high rollers with our screaming and yelling of LET’S GO METS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)   

Except I lack the one thing that would make that happen. MONEY, but both Bloomy and Seinfeld are filthy rich so if they front me the cash, I would be happy to take ownership over from the Skill Sets.

Alex Remington on FanGraphs puts out the theory of the Mets going with a public sale of stock in the team as a way to raise capital and keep control of the franchise. If this happened I would definitely buy in. Remington mentions the Boston Celtics in his piece as a team that stock was available in back in the mid late 90’s. Being a Celtics fan, I bought 100 shares of Celtics stock for 8 buck a share. When the current management took over control of the team they wanted make them private, so they offered the shareholders $35 a share so my $800 investment brought me back $3500 and the right to say I once was a part owner of the Boston Celtics.  

Ed Marcus’ Top 50 Mets of all time checks today with #27 Jesse Orosco. Of course we can never forget Orosco on the mound for the NLCS and World Series clinchers and of course coming to the Mets from the Twins for Jerry Koosman but the game that stands out to me is July 22, 1986 in a 6-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds. Davey Johnson had both Orosco and his tag team partner Roger McDowell stay in the game by rotating them from the outfield to the pitcher’s mound.

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Most jobs are not that much different from sports teams when it comes to problem players/workers. There are always coaches/supervisors who feel they can take someone else’s problem or malcontent and turn them into a productive member of the organization.  But then there are exceptions and if this case with the Mets that exception is Oliver Perez.

In today’s NY Post, Kevin Kernan writes about OP not joining the early campers club in St Lonesome. So here we are on the eve of the official opening of camp and Oliver Perez is the lead in a Mets story and of course it’s of a negative nature. Everything  is of a negative nature when it comes to Perez.

It all started on July 30,2006. The Mets had just finished a sweep of the Atlanta Braves on the road to bring their record to 63-41 and a hard to believe 13 ½ game lead in the NL East. Mets management and fans had visions of the post season and of parades and tons of World Series memorabilia for us to waste our discretionary income on.  Man, we Mets fans were living the high baseball life until Duaner Sanchez decided he just HAD to have some rice and beans when he hit Miami, so he hopped in a cab with some friends and a drunk driver crashed into the cab and Dirty Duaner wrecked his shoulder and the Mets season. With the trade deadline that day, Omar Minaya in a state of panic dealt of productive Xavier Nady to the Pirates for Roberto Hernandez who would fill nicely in the bullpen. In order to get Hernandez though, the Mets had to take Perez as well.

Perez had his good moments like game 4 of the 2006 NLCS and was very good in 2007 but injuries and ineffectiveness took it’s toll on Perez’ velocity on his fastball and the bad Ollie from Pittsburgh came back to haunt the Mets.  The big debate after the 2008 season was should the Mets re-sign Perez or go for Derek Lowe.  Another deal gone wrong.

Perez, as well as Luis Castillo, are the remains of the failure of Omar Minaya. The more Mets fans see both these players the more they are reminded of the failures of the last administration.  If the Alderson regime is serious about a change in philosophy and in restoring responsibility and accountability back to the franchise, they need to give both Perez and Castillo their release. Both players are untradeable and there is no way in the world either player is making this team.

The organization is having a tough time business wise. Even without the Wilponzi scandal, the Mets would have a tough time selling tickets and finding people to believe the organization is moving forward.  The Mets can come up with exotic ticket plans but the bottom line is if you want the fans believe that winning is paramount and that is not business as usual when it comes to player development and competing for jobs, send them a sign, tell Ollie and Luis to stay home and let them know check is in the mail.

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