The word that David Wright was put on waivers and claimed by the Colorado Rockies is no big deal. For now.

Every team puts its players on waivers and when they are claimed either work out a deal or pull them back. Wright was pulled back but that doesn’t mean that Sandy Alderson won’t call Dan O’Dowd during the off season to talk trade.

Why not? Look, we all love D-Wright and this is no indictment on Wright but this team has some huge holes, pitching and defense to name two in general and these deficiencies  have to be address this off season or August/September 2012 will be a mirror image of August/September 2011.

The difference between the second half of this season as opposed to the last two seasons is this team still plays to win unlike the last two Mets teams of 2009 and 2010 and that is a compliment to the manager who deserves to have his 2013 option guaranteed after the season.

Sandy Alderson and his staff have a lot of work to do this off season with re-signing Jose Reyes a top priority. As we see, this is a much different team without Reyes not just his bat and defense but his personality as well ignites this team.

Alderson has no allegiance to any of the players on this roster but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know that Reyes and Wright are fan favorites same as he knew the venom the fan base spewed at Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez, which is why he will try very hard to sign Jose Reyes and I’m sure he doesn’t want to deal off Wright but he knows it’s his job to make this team better and if dealing Wright makes the team better then he’ll trade him.

This off season will be about acquiring pitching, pitching and more pitching as well as finding players who can play defense. You can be feisty and hustle and play balls to the wall baseball but if you can’t pitch or defend then you are a second division team and if dealing David Wright brings back some pitching I can see Alderson pulling the trigger.

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When I was first notified of this event I thought it was stupid. Why? Because it’s pretty obvious that Mets fans don’t want Reyes going anywhere and I don’t think Sandy Alderson wants him to go anywhere and no matter how much you stomp your feet and scream that won’t put funds in the in Mets empty coffers.

But my view of this event has changed and I now feel this is a great time an opportunity for Mets fans to show the new minority owner that Reyes (and David Wright) needs to be A Met 4 Life.  Frankly I would love to protest the keeping of Reyes by having a mass walkout of Citi Field during the bottom of the 5th inning of a game, just to show the Skill Sets and Minority Einhorn, what the ball park will look like next year without our beloved shortstop.

I know I’m putting too much faith in Minority Einhorn to stepped up and kick some Wilpon ass but I have to believe the Stealth Bomber GM (Sandy Alderson) will have a big say in this as well.  Alderson chucked Ollie Perez and Luis Castillo not only because they sucked but he felt negative fan sentiment was so strong, it was the right thing to do. Now with that same Mets fan passion in a positive way, Alderson seems to have gotten the message that he needs to be as creative as possible in keeping Reyes a Met. If he doesn’t then the message will be sent to the Mets fan base, WE DON”T WANT YOU EITHER!

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Don’t sleep in the subway, darling

Don’t stand in the pouring rain
Don’t sleep in the subway, darling
The night is long
Forget your foolish pride
Nothing is wrong
Now, you’re beside me again

So here we are arriving yet again for another Subway Series that has surpassed his expiration date a while ago.  As Mets fans, we have to endure anther three days of watching Luis Castillo drop a pop up and Rogers Clemens take off Mike Piazza’ head because we live in a city where the main stream media, both print and electronic have thrown in the towel on creativity and substance.

In reading some of these stories this morning about both teams you’d think the Highlanders were having some kind of special season, maybe they are in a negative kind of way. The Mets on the other hand are mocked because they have suffered a series of injuries that have forced the club to go with players summoned from their Triple A team in Buffalo. Why this is supposed to be embarrassing is beyond my comprehension, shouldn’t it be a positive that the club has lost Johan Santana and then Chris Young to shoulder surgery, Ike Davis to a sprained ankle, David Wright to a stress fracture in his back, Pedro Beato to tendonitis, and Angel Pagan to the chic aliment of sore oblique muscle and still play winning baseball (17-11) after a horrendous start of the season?  So the players that have been brought in to replace the injured have stepped up in such a way that the team is playing as good as any team in baseball. Isn’t the mark of a good team that they have guys who step up when other guys go down with injury?   

It’s ok to say that Terry Collins is doing a fine job as manager. It’s ok to say that slowly but surely Sandy Alderson is changing the culture of the organization. It’s ok to go to Citi Field and root for this team.

Are there any Mets fans who feel the Highlanders are “rivals” to the Mets? Because they’re not. The Highlanders are more of a nuisance than anything and their fans a very good source of comedy relief. Yesterday after the Mets win, I left the radio when the Sports Bloviator came on. I was in the midst of writing up a bunch of paper work so I left him on. Boy, am I glad I did. When he went to the phones, he took calls from Highlander fans in a rage over Joe Girardi taking out Bartolo Colon and replacing him with Mariano Rivera.  I cannot believe I just typed that last sentence and Francesa couldn’t believe these callers were saying these words of blasphemy.  

It’s the same attitude many Highlander fans have with Derek Jeter. Mets fans have a higher regard for Frank Taveras than the Highlander fan has for El Capitan. Why? Beats me, some things just can’t be explained.

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It’s nice that the teammates Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez have left behind in the Mets clubhouse have nothing but high praise and fond memories of their released comrades but as has happened in the Mets clubhouse over the last few years, the big picture is out of focus, it is no longer business as usual as the new front office has made it known accountability is back in Flushing.

Maybe that’s why Jose Reyes is a bit stunned by the event of the past few days. He’s never seen anything like it before in his 8 years as a Met. There has never been accountability in the clubhouse, the former GM and managers made excuses the way parents do for their delinquent kids. Thankfully those days are over. Last year the Mets put up a sign in the clubhouse proclaiming Prevention and Recovery in dealing with injuries, this year’s motto should be “Produce or Get Cut Loose”

Enough of the negativity here are some positive vibes as we stand one week away from opening day 2011:

The Mets pitching staff overall has been terrific this spring, pitching to a 3.87 ERA (good for 5^th best in the NL) It helps that the defense has been tight, committing just 22 errors.

As a team,  the Mets have hit at a .267 clip, drilling 53 doubles and more importantly 83 walks good for 3^rd most in the NL.

Ike Davis and Daniel Murphy lead the team in Rib-Eye Steaks with 10 apiece

Scott Hairston is hitting a blistering .425/.500/.725

When Chin-Lung Hu was obtained from the Dodgers he was known as great glove shaky bat but so far this spring he’s gotten 10 hits in 34 AB’s of the 10 hits 3 were doubles plus he stolen 2 bases.

Chris Young and Chris Capuano have been more than effective this spring. Young has thrown 20.1 innings with a 1.33 ERA and a miniscule 0.89 WHIP. Capuano has pitched 10.2 innings with a tidy 1.03 WHIP and just two walks.  

Last night I was a guest on the Who’s On First: The Seamheads . Com Radio Hour for a panel discussion to make our picks for division winners, wild card, pennant and World Series winners along with league MVP’s and Cy Young Award winners. It’s would be well worth your while to check out the podcast as there were some real out on a limb picks by the panel with great  analysis to back them up.

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The best part of the early morning release of Oliver Perez is not just the fact that the ineffective pitcher is mercifully gone but what has to have the Mets fan base giddy on this rainy cold morning is Sandy Alderson is running the baseball operations of the NY Mets. He is the man calling the shots; he put Baby Jeffy in the corner.

For all the gloom and doom financial news about the Skill Sets, the head baseball man in charge went to them and said time to eat $18 mil in contract, and all the Skill Sets could do is stand at attention and say “Sir, yes sir” You can debate that this should have been done before spring training or earlier but the bottom line is the Faces of Failure of the Minaya regime are gone.

With the Phuck Phaces signing Luis Castillo to a minor league deal as insurance in case Chase Utley will not make it to opening day and beyond tells me the Phuck Phace’s may not be the lead pipe cinch to win the NL Pennant most thought they were this winter.

Adam Rubin has a great Ollie Perez retrospective. It wasn’t  always days of suckitude with OP but his Mets career did end badly for all sides.

The feel good story of spring, the return of Izzy, has his a bump as Isringhausen is taking anti-inflamitories  for his surgically repaired elbow

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I’ve been away from the laptop most of the weekend as my wife and I took off to Atlantic City for the weekend to celebrate our 25^th Anniversary.  Before our kids were born, we would venture to AC quite often , we’d see a show, do some gambling, have a few cocktails and have quite a good time.

When our kids were born, that put a end to our weekend getaways alone and going out drinking ( my wife of course couldn’t drink while she was pregnant so when we’d go out during those nine months I felt guilty having a drink while she sipped ginger ale so I joined her in having a soft drink with dinner. Funny thing is after our son was born, neither one of us wanted to drink anymore, one more thing to thank my kids for) after our kids were born we traded trips to AC and Vegas for jaunts to Sesame Place and Disney World after spending our first weekend in AC in seventeen years, we had a great time (after 25 years of marriage we still love each other’s company )but I’ll tell you this, it’s amazing how you change when you have kids, we miss Sesame Place more than we miss Atlantic City.

On the way down the Garden State Parkway, I heard the news that Luis Castillo was released by the Mets, no shocker there. What was surprising was Sandy Alderson citing among other reasons for Castillo’s release, the fact that the fans detested him. Not that Alderson was wrong in that easement; it was just something I didn’t think I’d here from the GM.

Why did Mets fans root for the day that Castillo (and shortly, like tomorrow, the release of Oliver Perez)  would be an ex-Met? Because the feeling amongst the majority was LC was here due to the $6mil owed him on his contract. Alderson stated that contract status would not be what keeps a player on this Mets team, and he should be applauded for sticking to that promise. Mets fans also see that Castillo is nowhere close to the player who helped the Marlins win a World Series, he’s 34 years old, with sore feet and achy knees that have hampered his range in the field and has led him to become a hitting into the “6-4-3 DP” machine. His days as an everyday player are over. Even if the Mets kept him and played him at 2^nd base everyday to start the season, he’d be broken down by Memorial Day. It’s sad that age and history have caught up to Castillo that led to his demise and it also didn’t help that he has had a hard time coping with that reality.

Did the fact that Castillo is a Latino have anything to do with the fans wishing him gone? Perhaps. I’m sure there are some Mets fans that held his ethnicity against him but I would hope that they are in the minority. The Mets beat writer for the NY Daily News has this strange obsession with race and the Mets. Early in spring training he wrote about the lack of minorities on the Mets coaching staff. Then he tried to portray adding Mookie Wilson to the staff as a token gesture. All that did was solidify my thinking that the writer is a talentless hack, lacking knowledge of Mets history and Mets fans as Mookie Wilson is one of the most popular Mets of all time.

See the race card is like a fire alarm, use it too many times in situation where it’s not warranted, it acts like a false alarm, and people never know when it’s the real thing. The Daily News beat man has been irresponsible in his reporting and on Twitter when it comes to the Mets  and comes off as a guy who hates his job, which is for him to deal with just don’t drag Mets fans into your world of despair.

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No sports team in NYC has the amount of drama than the NY Mets.  Every statement or move made by the team is dissected and debated and met with skepticism. A simple report stating that shoulder surgery outpatient John Santana, has a bit of discomfort in his repaired shoulder is met with fans crying about the new front office covering up the severity of the pitchers injury and not being up front about his recovery. WHEW!!! And this is only March!!!! Hopefully this is just a symptom of the dog days of spring training as we near the two week mark to opening day when the real fun around here will start.

So with the Santana news subsiding a bit, another controversial story grabbed Mets fans by their blue and orange collar (this is why a day off in spring training is bad thing in St Lonesome) as the NY Post reports that Terry Collins will name Luis Hernandez the Mets opening day 2^nd baseman.

This report has been met with a collective head scratching by the fan base as the move to Hernandez really makes no sense except when you really think about it, the message being sent is the Mets have no second baseman.

While Hernandez is a fine glove man he possesses none of the characteristics of an Alderson player by getting on base via walks or having some power, so his being ordained the 2^nd baseman is hard to swallow.

Daniel Murphy, works his ass off trying to play whatever position he’s asked to by the organization. Unfortunately, that hard work on defense has not translated into Murph being a very good 2^nd baseman. Murph will make the team as a super sub/lefty bat off the bench.

Justin Turner has the Scarlet letter “O” planted on him the “O” standing for options to the minors. Turner  and Brad Emaus fit the mold of the player this front offices fancies solid on base numbers, pop in the bat as well and ready and able to field the position.

That leaves Luis Castillo last and least as the second sack option.  As much as Castillo has hit very well this spring, the manager is fed up with his piss poor attitude in the clubhouse. Instead of sulking like the overpaid has been that he is, if Castillo embraced the competition at the position and fought for his job, most likely it would have been his but at this point in his Mets career he has earned the right to be known as an ex-Met.

Who knows maybe the opening day  2^nd baseman isn’t even in Mets camp ?

My guess is Brad Emaus gets the opening day job with Murphy playing when fly ball pitcher takes the mound. Justin Turner gets optioned to Buffalo, Luis Hernandez goes on waivers and does not get claimed and is signed by Mets to minor league deal. Castillo gets his $6 mil severance pay and sits on his front porch sulking when the mail man is late with the check.

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It seems that the second base position for the Mets has become the black hole 3^rd base had once been. None of the four competitors for the job have stepped up to make it clear he is worthy of the job. Brad Emaus has yet to hit this spring but has shown a pretty good glove. Justin Turner seems to be the odd man out due to his two minor league options in his pocket  (I don’t see Turner’s name on either travel list for today) and Daniel Murphy has hit and shown some decent footwork at 2^nd base but turning the double play has been what Terry Collins wants to see before he anoints Murph the opening day Mets second sacker.  That leaves the incumbent at the spot, Luis Castillo and from reading John Harper’s piece in the Daily News today, I sure if it were up to Terry Collins he would love to rid himself of Slappy :

Furthermore, Castillo, the incumbent of sorts, has annoyed Terry Collins by moping around in apparent protest of being forced to compete for the job, to the point where the manager called him into his office a couple of days ago to tell him he better start working harder if he wanted any shot at all.

Castillo didn’t even take pregame ground balls one day last week when he was in the lineup as the DH, as Collins has had to juggle playing time to get looks at all four second-base candidates. And that didn’t sit well with the new manager, who is not going to tolerate the laissez-faire attitude that permeated the clubhouse in recent years.

Since meeting with Collins, who promised to try to get him more playing time, Castillo seems to have raised his energy level, and he had a solid game Wednesday with two walks, a bloop single to left, and a nice play going toward the hole on a ball that went off Ike Davis’ glove.

This is the Castillo M.O. when things don’t go his way or the way he wants it to, he mopes, in fact is there a bigger mope than Castillo? His attitude has sucked for a couple of years now and unless he is the starting 2^nd baseman Luis will mope and be an all-out fucking malcontent.  Why keep him around? Like Oliver Perez, he’s more trouble than he’s worth.

Just by looking at the starting lineups for today’s spilt squad games you can see the manager wants no part of this slap hitting, diminished range, piss poor attitude has been. Castillo will start today in Viera against the Nats but as the DH. Murphy will start at 2^nd base. Over in Jupiter, Brad Emaus will start against the Fish and with Luis Hernandez on the roster in Jupiter he will most likely spell Emaus at 2nd as Hernandez has made himself a dark horse candidate in the this position race.

Meanwhile over in the minor league backfields of St. Lonesome , Reese Havens works out and hopes he can stay healthy because if he does he will be the Mets 2^nd baseman by Memorial Day.   

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Mets stay home in St. Lonesome to play the Tigers at 1:10PM with R.A. Dickey making his second spring start.  Bobby Parnell, Tim Byrdak, Ryaota Igarashi, Mike O’Connor and Jason Isringhausen will pitch today and tomorrow as Terry Collins and Dan Werthen try to formulate the Mets bullpen. Ollie Perez will be on the bus to Kissimmee to face the Astros in what could (should) be his last appearance as a Met.

Luis Castillo will start at 2^nd base today but it looks more and more that his days a Met are numbered. Collins loves Daniel Murphy and more and more it looks like Murph is the leader in the 2^nd base starter’s competition.

F Mart gets the start in RF and is hoping to add to his en fuego spring as does Jason Bay in LF. Carlos Beltran was thought to have been in the lineup today as DH but he reported to DDP and told Terry Collins he’s sore, so Willie Harris starts as DH. Too early to panic on Beltran but it seems he if he’s ready for opening day, he won’t be in the lineup every day.  Scott Hairston will play a big role early in the season for the Mets.

I wonder if Nick Evans getting the start at 1B is to let him show his stuff against the Tigers as a possible landing spot for Evans?

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I have to say as much as I was looking forward to the start of spring training, I’ve got a bad case of “workout fatigue” from all the reporting going on from St. Lonesome.  There is only so much I can read about players having catch and throwing batting practice or bullpen sessions. I can only look at so many pictures of players stretching where it starts to become as annoying as when you’re cornered by a co-worker and forced you to look at pictures of the latest birthday party they had for their 3 year old.

It’s gotten to the point I sit at the keyboard and try to figure out what the hell can I come up with that’s new and fresh. I’m still staring. I can’t wait until Saturday when I can at least see players in game action. It’s nice to read about pitchers throwing outstanding bullpens and hitters ripping the cover off a batting practice fastball but when it’s put in real live action then we’ll find out just what we have with this Mets team.

And no I’m not jealous of everyone down in Florida in their shorts and t-shirts enjoying the warm sun, I’d much rather be here in NYC with four layers of clothes and being stuffed into a subway car like a sardine.

When I look over how the makeup of the Mets roster could be constructed I cannot fathom how either Oliver Perez or Luis Castillo makes this team (ok I admit I’m a bit obsessed with these two faces of failure and I see what Sandy Alderson is doing by keeping them as long as can until he either trades them or releases them)

For Castillo it’s either start or bust, he is no use to the team off the bench. From many indications, both Daniel Murphy and Brad Emaus will make the team, most likely as a platoon at second base unless one guy break out big at the start of the season.  Between Murph and Emaus you have a shot at 60+ xbh  from second base. It would take Castillo three season to do that.

Ollie Perez has become the Mets square peg on the round hole. What a misfit. Looking at pitching staff it looks like a 12 man staff of five starters and seven relievers. From the early results, Chris Capuano and Chris Young should fill out the bottom two fifths of the rotation. From listening to Terry Collins, the men in the pen who will have locker space in Queens are Frankie Rodriguez, Bobby Parnell, D.J. Carrasco. Pedro Beato has made a big impression on Collins and with his Rule 5 label attached to him he’d have to get hit from stem to stern to not make the team.  Now it gets a bit complicated. Jason Issringhausen has surprised everyone by showing up in Mets camp and looking impressive in his workouts. Izzy does just bring back some nostalgic memories, he also brings an impressive closers resume as well.  That leaves two spots and one has to be filled by a LOOGY, so Tim Byrdak and Taylor Tankersley will fight for that spot or would they both make the team? What about Pat Misch? Another lefty who could be LOOGY-ish or Darren Oliver-ish as a long man.  I haven’t even mentioned Mike O’Connor or two righties, Manny Acosta and Manny Alvarez who could make the final bullpen decision difficult for Alderson and Collins.

Am I missing anyone? I don’t think so, hummmm let me see…………ahhh yeah, Mr. Square Peg. Sorry Ollie you don’t fit here anymore.

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