I will be a guest on Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest Live radio show tonight on Blogtalk Radio, talking Mets and John Franco’s Mets Hall of Fame induction.

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With the word that Cody Ross has signed with the Boston Red Sox with the Mets in contention for his services, the question of the day is whom would you rather  have as your 4^th outfielder, Cody Ross or Scott Hairston?

Ross put a .240/.325/.405/.730 line last season with the Giants in 461 plate appearances. Hairston, stepped into the batter’s box, a sporadic 145 times to fill a line of .235/.303/.470/.773. while Ross banged out 14 home runs last season Hairston put seven baseballs over the outfield walls in his limited action. When you look at FB/HR rate Hairston’s beats out Ross 13.0% to 9.3 %.

Ross hits lefties very well especially for power with a .912 lifetime OPS to Hairston’ .813 OPS which is impressive as well making it even more a head scratcher on why Terry Collins didn’t use Hairston more before a rib injury at the end of August ended his season.

I would bet that Hairston re-signed with the Mets with the promise of more playing time, especially in CF against RHP unless Andres Torres can repeat his 2010 season. But between CF and spelling Lucas Duda in RF and staying healthy, Hairston could be a very productive 4^th outfielder for the Mets.

Cody Ross would have been a nice choice as well for the Mets but with the Red Sox offer of $3mil plus incentives the Mets will get as much value from Hairston as they would from Ross and Hairston only cost $1.1 mil. No way Cody Ross is worth $2mil+ more than Jerry Hairston.

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Last night watching the Celtics-Thunder game, midway into the game during a break in the action, the Celtics gave tribute to Thunder center Kendrick Perkins, who was a major player in the C’s Championship run back in 2008. Perk wasn’t just a major part of the C’s on court rotation, he was a huge fan favorite for his toughness, hustle and desire and it was Perkins first game in the Garden since he was traded. Perk was clearly touched as his teammates stayed on the bench while he stood at center court thanking the Celtics and fans for a very classy tribute.

It got me to think, what will the Mets do for Jose Reyes when he makes his first appearance as a former Met with the Marlins on April 24^th.  They have to have some kind of Reyes career retrospective on the video board unlike the way they club never acknowledge the existence of Reyes during the video presentation at the new uniform unveilings a couple of months ago at Citi Field.

You have to figure, as Reyes comes up to lead off the game, there will be a raucous and long standing ovation so maybe when Reyes goes out to his shortstop position in the bottom of the first, before first pitch the Mets announce for everyone to turn their attention to video board for a tribute to Reyes.

You would think it’s a no brainer that the Mets honor Reyes some way but then again these are the Mets we’re talking about.

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I hope you all have been following R.A. Dickey’s climb up Mt Kilimanjaro via his blog post on the NY Times. Dickey and his group which contain Mets bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello and pitcher Kevin Slowey, were successful in reaching the summit of the mountain which is chronicled wonderfully by Dickey in his latest post.

Dickey has a book coming out in March and I must say after meeting Dickey and reading his dispatches from Mt. Kilimanjaro, this book will not only be a best seller but I bet it will be one of those must have in your library kind of book as well.

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For some reason, I have centerfielders on my mind

All’s quiet in Flushing and according to Adam Rubin, it will stay quiet until the team meets in Port St. Lonsome. Seems the Mets are close to reaching their budget ceiling of $90Mil

The only thing that has me thinking the signing of Yu Darvish is a good move is that Nolan Ryan is running the Rangers  and if he didn’t think Darvish was worth it, the Rangers would never have bid over $50 mil to obtain his rights. Imagine having $50 mil to throw around just for a bid on a player? SIGH!  I miss those big market days    

Happy Birthday to David Wright who is 29 years old today and still a Met.  Rumor is he wanted a strawberry shortcake birthday cake but got a cherry filled cake instead #BlameBeltran

Mets Police has his released his Airing of Grievances today after giving out his awards for 2011 (The Mazzilli’s)

Frank Fransisco is officially a Mets after passing his physical two weeks after agreeing to a deal. The hold up was the club was trying to scrape together the co-pay.

The Arizona Diamondbacks signed Jason Kubel to a 2yr/$15 mil contract yesterday. This relegates Gerardo Parra, the 2011 Gold Glove winner, to fourth outfielder status. If I’m the GM of the Mets ( I just play a GM here on the internet) I am on the phone right now with Kevin Towers trying to find a way get Parra to the Mets to play center field.

Finally Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate the holiday

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Well scratch Joe Nathan off my wish list for Mets closer. Nathan has signed a two year $14.5 mil deal with the Texas Rangers who will now move Netfli Perez back to the starting rotation.  I would have loved to have Nathan coming out to save games for the Mets, I really wanted Sandy Alderson to get both Nathan and Jonathan Broxton for the back end of the pen but that won’t happen.

I can’t blame Nathan for jumping on the Rangers offer as they are coming off two straight World Series appearances. I doubt the Mets would have made an offer so much better that Nathan would come to the Mets.

On the other hand, it seems the Mets are looking to sign Jack Wilson. Yes Jack Wilson <eyeroll>

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Today is holiday here at The Eddie Kranepool Society as we celebrate the birthday of Edward Emil Kranepool our favorite Mets player of all time.

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So Jose Reyes is nominated for the Hank Aaron Award which honors the best offensive player in both leagues. To vote for Reyes go here and remember if Reyes wins it means more leverage in his contract talk with the Mets. You’ve been warned!

MLB Trade Rumors has a list of players slated for free agency due to injury or plain old ineffectiveness. Two names on the list have future Mets written all over them, RHP Jonathan (Guns Of) Broxton  and RHP Joel Zumaya.

Toby Hyde has a detailed look at the Catcher position in the Mets farm system and as you can see, it’s slim pickins’ not only at the minor league level but with the big team as well. Josh Thole may be pretty good with a bat but his quite inadequate behind the plate. Ronnie Paulino I think looks better defensively than he really is because of how bad Thole is. So what to do? Trying to find a good receiving backstop is very tough and trading for one will be difficult, a guy like Chris Iannetta would look nice in a Mets retro 50^th Anniversary uniform but are the Rockies willing to deal him away? Hell I’d even go for Braves backup David Ross at this point. Omar Santos anyone?

The more I watch these post season games the more I side with letting Jose Reyes go elsewhere and invest in pitching, pitching and even more pitching.

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“Perception is reality in our game and the perception I have right now is we’ve folded it up,” Collins said in a passionate postgame news conference. “You want to see intenseness? You want to see me be intense? You guys are going to see it. I won’t play that game. You come and play the game right. I don’t care what the situation is. I don’t care about anything but playing the game correctly. That’s all I care about. Our fans should be upset. I don’t blame them one bit.”

Those are the words of Mets manager Terry Collins, who kind of erupted after the Mets latest loss yesterday. The Washington Nationals, a team that could become a big thorn in the Mets side the next few years, came into Citi Field with nothing to play for except that they are a professional baseball team that gets paid a lot of money to compete and they are managed by Davey Johnson, who actually won a championship in blue and orange clothing and was raised in Baltimore under Earl Weaver during the halcyon days of the Orioles of the 1970’s

As I was getting ready to do this post I read Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest and he hits on all the same points I was ready to lay out here so thank you Mike you’ve saved me from another 1,000 post on the demise of the Mets. Silva’s analysis of David Wright is 100 % spot on:

“Although David wants to win and tries hard, he continues to allow his surroundings to get the better of him. When the team goes bad he doesn’t rise above it; he becomes part of the problem instead of the solution. He needs to realize that behavior gets him the same treatment as the other 24 players; $14 million dollar salary and All Star resume be damned. I wouldn’t trade Wright coming off this type of season, but he needs to be told that 2012 is his last chance to turn his Mets career around and show the organization he is closer to the player we saw from 2005-2008.”

You know, we all killed Freddy Skill Sets when he said that Wright was a good kid and a good ballplayer but not a guy who carries the team, and guess what? Freddy was on target. Wright is a good baseball player who would thrive on a team that has outstanding players. He’s more a supporting actor than a leading man. Quite frankly, I don’t know what value he has in the trade market over the winter but I would think Sandy Alderson will find out.

Speaking of the GM, he’s been mighty quiet during this tailspin, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is he sitting back taking notes of who has “folded up” to decide who stays and who goes?  Most likely.

So tonight let’s see if the manager is serious or just giving lip service.  I’d sit Wright and Pagan and if Bay can’t go please, enough of Willie Harris all he’s good at is preparing whip cream pies, put Nick Evans in LF and let Josh Satin play 1B. I know there isn’t much to choose from but the mangers best friend is the bench when he wants to get his message across.

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I hope it will stop raining today for a couple of reason, I’d like to harvest the robust crop that has blossomed in the rice paddy that used to be my back yard lawn and I want to see Chris Schwinden pitch in game 1 of today’s Mets-Braves double header.

Schwinden is another of these out of nowhere Mets stories that have been making the team interesting to watch. Schwinden, drafted in 2008, has never been considered a prospect by those who follow and report on the Mets minor leaguers. Even though Schwinden has been a pitcher who throws strikes and rarely walks a batter, although this season with the Bison, his walks are up more than they have in his three year Minor League career (3 per 9IP from 2 per 9IP) but his hits to innings pitched was less for the first time in his career.

Schwinden has been compared closely to Dillion Gee as both have a pretty good grasp on how to pitch by staying ahead in counts and moving their pitches to different areas of the strike zone. Neither has a real out pitch but again Schwinden like Gee, seems to have a good head on his shoulder and a game plan going into each start.

Again it’s a great move by the front office promoting Schwinden and rewarding his outstanding season in Buffalo with a major league start. Knock ‘en dead Chris!      

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