A Second Baseman for Beltran?

Okay, so the Mets are still stinkin’ up the joint. Santana should’ve pitched a perfect game if he wanted to really win, so he’s got no one to blame but himself. Yeah, it was Pittsburgh and anyone would think somebody on that sorry Mets roster could hit a Pirates pitcher, even a promising one like Zach Duke.

But these are the Mets, featuring Carlos Beltran, who couldn’t be bothered to try to steal second when down a run in that late inning, I forget which, it’s not important. What is important is that he just stayed there. Yeah, I know, you go for the win on the road, yada yada, Jerry goes with the book all the time, and it says you don’t go for the tie on the road.

Screw that! Screw Beltran and screw Manuel and his book. This is supposed to be a team that feels it’s still in the race. This is a team that needs to scratch for runs. But if it’s best player is going to lollygag there on first base when the team desperately needs to score, why should anybody else do anything?

This is one sorry situation. Dump Beltran. I’m tired of this. Somebody’ll take him off our hands. And he’ll play great for them, no doubt, but he won’t play hard for these guys, Minaya and Manuel. And since those two are the management right now, and possibly into the future, let’s start thinking about what kind of player we want in his place.

What do we need? Let’s see….

A relief pitcher would be nice but that’s not the biggest problem right now. Geez, we could use a second baseman, especially if Castillo is going to go away. I’m willing to give Ike Davis another year at first base. I know he’s not absolutely killing the ball but he’s a player and it’s just his first year in the majors. That guy could become a star.

There’s Reyes at short, he’s a keeper as much as he drives everybody crazy. Then there’s sorry-butt Wright who tries to play third most of the time. In the outfield there is Bay, or will be, in left field once he gets his head right, and Pagan could play center and Francoeur, who’s beginning to try to have better at-bats at least, in right field. He’ll do for now.

Thole looks like a keeper at catcher and Blanco can back him up, that’s not optimal but Thole has done some things that show promise, a lot like Mr. Davis on first.

The starting pitching has been amazing, all things considered….Santana, Dickey, Niese, Pelfrey and take your pick, either Takahashi or Misch.

But we need a second baseman. Ruben Tejada is not the answer. Let’s take a look at what’s available. And who might need a centerfielder like Beltran when he’s playing hard, the way he used to when he was a happy camper.

First, let’s eliminate some. Cano, sure, he would ever play for the Mets, then there’s Prado in Atlanta, a hell of a player, and Phillips in Cinci. I don’t think the White Sox would part with Alexei Ramirez either. Polanco in Philly is getting older so might be available but that would be like bringing in another Castillo, only better. I can’t really see the Brewers getting rid of McGehee either, too much power, the same is probably true for Dan Uggla.

There could be some other untouchables too, like Pedroia for example, but consider that we’d be offering up Carlos Beltran.

I know everybody seemed to want Orlando Hudson. Whether Mr. Hudson agrees is my question, and that’s assuming the Twins would part with him. Their centerfielder is Denard Span though, and he’s pretty good, but doesn’t have much power. Beltran would be an upgrade but probably an upgrade not really required. The Twins have Morneau and Mauer already, and Kubel so…….forget Hudson.

Kelly Johnson in Arizona is a very nice player, good hitter, but the DBacks have Chris Young in center. But, looking over in their left field, there is only Gerardo Parra. There’s a possible deal in the making. The DBacks could use an experienced player like Beltran to round out the youth in Young and Justin Upton in right.

The White Sox have an interesting situation with infielders. In addition to Alexei Ramirez, who actually plays short most of the time, they have both Gordon Beckham and a youngster named Brent Lillibridge who has some good numbers in limited at-bats. As streaky as Beckham had been, they might consider a move for a Beltran. Their outfielders are Alex Rios, Carlos Ruiz and Juan Pierre. Juan Pierre especially could probably be replaced. I’d love to get Beckham. But Lillibridge too is an intriguing possibility.

The Rockies have Clint Barmes manning the keystone sack and have a nice guy at third base in Ian Stewart, who can also play second base. Stewart is backed up by Melvin Mora, an experienced hitter. I’d be interested in either Barmes or Stewart. The Rockies need help in the outfield. Seth Smith plays left and Ryan Spilborghs plays right field for them. Neither inspires any fear in opponents.

Stewart’s batting .267 but has belted 17 homers, with a goodly number of runs and rbi’s. Barmes isn’t the hitter Stewart is but plays hard all the time and adds to a lineup, at the very least. Luis Castillo can back him up but he won’t be around forever….or will he?

How about Rickie Weeks from Milwaukee? That would be a coup. The Brewers outfield could definitely use a Carlos Beltran. Although they are solid in left with Ryan Braun, their centerfielder is Lorenzo Cain. Their right fielder is Cory Hart. Maybe Beltran would be just what the Brewers need. Rickie Weeks is batting .274 with runs and rbi’s in the 80’s and 70’s respectively. That would be a pretty even trade, Weeks for Beltran, especially if the Mets picked up some of his salary.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Beltran leaving.

Nobody Saves the Closer

Well, it's Friday the 13th and that can't be good for anybody. But the Mets are coming off another Santana victory, one for which he thankfully needed not one bit of relief. And Beltran finally broke out for three hits or so. But in the long run, losing your closer is not good, especially if he takes himself out of the fray. I won't re-hash he finer details of his violent temper tantrum (which has been widely reported) but from a purely baseball standpoint, the whole thing really stinks.

That sense of entitlement can really screw a person up sometimes. We've seen it with Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger, Santana himself really and now K-Rod.

I remember being very angry at Pedro Martinez when he just shoved the elderly Yankees coach (his name is not coming to me just now) off his feet. So you can imagine how I'm feeling about K-Rod now. What a bum. I won't be wearing his shirt any longer. I don't care how many games he saves. When you beat up your girl friend's father for trying to protect his daughter, you're bad news. Go to jail. Stay there. But forfeit all your money too.

I feel the same about these rapists and all the habitual married womanizers. Get over yourselves. Join the human race.

All that behind me now. I don't know what the Mets'll do in the ninth inning now. They had enough trouble when they were just worried about how to get to K-Rod. Now there'll just be the big void. Oh, and Igarashi too. He may get through some situations but not the lion's share, that's pretty certain. Of course, anything can happen in baseball. I really believe that.

But percentages are against it. Unless he's one of those guys who gets way tougher when the chips are on the line, he just won't have the composure of a closer. I'm laughing as I write that last. How ironic that a guy who shows absolutely no composure in his personal dealings can keep his cool on the mound. Will his recommended anger management classes affect his mound performance negatively? You have to wonder.

But, even more significantly to me as a baseball fan, I won't really be able to even root for him anymore,. And since he is the closer, to root against him is to root against the Mets...very directly. More often than not, it's either K-Rod pumping his fist in the air or another Mets loss. Nobody saves the closer.

Just A Quickie

Baseball, it's funny. Last column, I blasted Jose Reyes, David Wright and Mike Pelfrey big-time. And I stand by that criticism. But last night, as the Mets "thrashed" the very tough Colorado Rockies, 1-0, Reyes got what turned out to be the game-winning sac fly and Pelfrey out-pitched the Rockies Ubaldo Jiminez, who has only been the best pitcher in baseball this season. Wright's frustrations continued from his vantage point on the very far side of the batters box.

But it was a great game. Pelfrey's stuff returned miraculously, everything was dipping down. Takahasi pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning and K-Rod closed it out, no problem at all. Beltran got a key intentional walk to give Reyes an opportunity to bat, proof that Rockies manager Tracy doesn't waste his time looking at box scores. Reputations are a wonderful thing.

Of course, the Braves won again but at least the Phillies lost. And I have no doubt that the blue and orange will continue to struggle. But Niese will be going tonight against the Rockies Francis and I'll take that matchup any day of the week.

I can be thankful too that my thousand words of yesterday got lost in Microsoft Word somewhere. I won't be using that program anymore, thus saving me countless hours trying to figure out their new "intuitive" menus. I'll just chuck it all right into Netscape Composer (7.2) and hope for the best. I don't need no stinking spell check. I don't need no stinking word count. I'll just stop when I'm tired, which, today, might come any moment now. But it's a nice day, I won't think about the gigantic, unstoppable iceberg or the woes of the financial community, the worthlessness of the American dollar, general joblesness, or the lack of rain.

I won't worry about the Mets either. They'll do just fine without me, and Beltran too, for that matter. Beltran cleared waivers yesterday, no surprise.

At least the Yankees lost. That they lost to my second favorite team, the Texas Rangers (we don't need no stinking pitch counts) made it all the better. My third favorite team, the San Francisco Giants, lost to the Cubbies though and it wasn't that close. And Tim Lincecum got lit up pretty good, showing once again the frailties of pitchers, for anyone not named Ubaldo Jiminez.

I'm only now beginning to think about the football season. That the Jets didn't have the foresight to save enough money to sign the league's best cornerback, Darrelle Revis, is slightly disconcerting though. I guess I can't be surprised. They treat their own very shabbily and have since Tannenbaum took the helm. So there will be no Faneca, no Washington, no Revis maybe. They'll go forward with a rookie guard, LaDainian Tomlinson and whomever to man that corner slot. Good luck with that!

Rex Ryan and Woody Johnson are now assuming a "we don't need no stinking Revis" stance. And they've only offered him 5 million guaranteed. Shameful.

Just a word before I close re Isiah Thomas and his return to the Knicks. I've seen articles that absolutely kill him for a lot of different things. Everybody mentions the sexual harrassment, something I never believed, and everybody mentions Larry Brown getting fired. And I've even read what a fine evaluator of talent that he is! What a crock! Let me just say two words "Eddy Curry". Forget about the horrors of Jerome James, forget about Marbury and Hardaway, forget about everything else. Just the spectre of having the guy who picked up Eddy Curry, in the worst trade known to man, anywhere within ten feet of the owner is downright terrifying.

Okay, that's enough. Maybe if I stop when I'm tired, I'll write more often. (I think the Mets have finally begun to screw up my motivation....thank God for fantasy football).















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Beyond the Croaaroads

The Mets are scary bad. And the worst of it is that the guys who need to perform the best when it counts wind up doing the worst. I’m talking about Jose Reyes and David Wright especially but even Mike Pelfrey could qualify, depending upon your point of view.

Reyes was dreadful at shortstop. Wright was horrendous at third. (I know, I’m struggling for adjectives for bloody awful or, in Italian, “disgraziada”. Pelfrey hasn’t shown much for quite some time now but I was sure hoping it was a temporary thing, his lack of any stuff that can get outs.

So I’ve finally come down to earth. The Mets have some talent but they spit the bit when it counts, when the game is on the line. And you could say it was just one of those things, it was Atlanta where bad things always seem to haunt the Mets. But there is a pattern of failure among these “core” Mets. I miss Delgado….the Mets miss Delgado.

Delgado used to perform in the clutch, Delgado and his silly little notebook, recording the details of every single at-bat, scowling at his failures and lighting up the stadium with that wide smile of his….yeah, I think the Mets miss him too.

The most prestigious batter is now Beltran, Beltran, who hit all those homers for Houston way back before the Mets signed him, Beltran who could play center in his sleep, always gliding, moving fast but not really seeming to, and bangin’ the ball around the yard with pretty good regularity.

But there is that at-bat against Wainwright in his history too. And he was part of the collapses that mark this franchise. And let’s not forget his penchant for trying to steal third all the time, at the worst times, and almost always failing to do so.

Beltran went hitless yesterday. He’s now batting .215. You can’t really lead with numbers like that. He’ll come on eventually, it is to be hoped, but it’ll be too late. And I’m not even trying to pick on Beltran. But the Mets needed something last night.

The best player for the Mets yesterday was Luis Castillo. He managed 2 of the 6 hits they got and didn’t make any critical errors, as did Wright and Reyes twice. Josh Thole, the new catcher, got a big hit in a big situation. That’s just two of the eight positions in the lineup though.

Everybody picks on Castillo. I even belittled him mercilessly when he dropped that third out popup by Arod last year. And maybe he doesn’t have the range that you’d like to see. But he’s a pretty nifty second baseman more often than not. He’s usually doing the right thing at the right time, something you can’t really say about Reyes, most notably, but also Wright and Beltran.

The future of this franchise looks good though. Ike Davis, for example, has been remarkably clutch this year despite his miscue last night. Josh Thole looks very promising at the all-important catcher position. And they look to be guys who’ll lift their game when it counts.

But, for now, it’s just Reyes and Wright and Beltran. Jason Bay is hiding out somewhere and I don’t think any of the Mets are sorry about that. He almost never delivered of his promise either. He wasn’t the spectacular failure of an Ollie Perez but he was more of a quietly consistent one. And his DL stint makes it easier to field 3 pretty good outfielders. That’s assuming Francoeur is good, of course, but he’s dangerous only if he gets a fastball over the plate. Great arm though.

As a team, these guys just don’t measure up. When the chips are down, when they find themselves in Atlanta or Philadelphia or Florida, or when they’re playing another determined team, they come out second best.

When your stars fold up their tents, when they keep swinging over any pitch that breaks, when they fail to make the big double play because they don’t feel like making that tough throw to first with a guy in their face, when they make side-arm throws that go astray or make throws without setting themselves because it looks so good when it works, that’s when the game is over.

Much as the game was over last night. Maybe they just don’t like Takahashi. God knows that Japanese fellow was trying his best. But his teammates let him down, time after time after time. It became difficult to watch. It was that ugly.

I’d sit Reyes for a while. He looks like a guy who’s tired, who’s not having fun, who’s a little tired of playing the game. Wright was never a slick third baseman but it seems to me that he’s getting worse. I’d sit him more often. But there isn’t even a backup for third base on the roster, as unbelievable as that might seem.

I’ll be looking to the future now. I’m guessing Omar Minaya will be gone and I suppose the broom, when it comes on by, will take Jerry Manuel right along with him. That move seems inevitable, although the GM Minaya has a couple of years left on his contract. If the 16 mill Ollie Perez situation doesn’t take him out, it’ll be the 16 mill Jason Bay mistake.

I think some trades of any of these “core” guys are warranted. There have just been too many failures. I would trade Reyes in a minute. He doesn’t even steal bases anymore. Then I’d look to unload Bay and then Beltran. They’d have to be more successful somewhere else. I’d trade them while their residual value is still pretty high. Bay’s fortunes especially could reasonably be expected to soar in another city. Boston comes immediately to mind.

The Mets are beyond the crossroads. There have been several of them actually. The Mets missed the right path every time. It’ll be no different in Philadelphia.

The Mets need a drastic change.

An Ankle and an Ankiel?

t was Jonathan Niese’s turn to stink up the joint and he took full advantage of his opportunity. I didn’t get to watch today’s game, busily translating old 8 mm films to DVD’s (which is a whole story in itself) but I did turn on the old transistor radio on my kitchen shelf to get little snippets and updates and they were the most depressing little clips imaginable, putting just another aura of gloom on an already dim day.

First snippet…Niese has been pitching well but there’re men on first and second and up steps Adam LaRoche…and it’s a home run, a 3-run homer for Adam LaRoche….second snippet….and up to the plate steps Adam LaRoche, Adam smacked a 3-run homer in his first at-bat, and the pitch…and it’s another 3-run homer for Adam LaRoche, Diamondbacks lead 6 to nothing.

And it was back to the old birthday parties, Communions and Confirmations featuring old people suddenly young again, smiling and dancing and all shielding their eyes from the glare of the lights, those incredible lights that could put halogen to shame.

There’s nothing bright about the Mets right now. Win a game, lose a game, not even a Jason Bay to be mad at, just another day at CitiField, except this time they got totally blown out so there would be no big comebacks on this day. And all the tomorrows for this team will depend upon the farm and whatever this sometimes tired-looking bunch can muster.

Not the Yankees though. With no salary cap to speak of, the Yanks went merrily on their way picking up one aging star, one big bopper and a once-terrific pitcher who now appears third on their depth chart in the latest Yankees roster report, right after Mariano Rivera and Joba Chamberlain.

So now an avowed Yankee-hater such as myself can just hope against hope that percentages don’t carry the day for those guys in pinstripes, that Austin Kearns won’t hit dinger after dinger into that right field porch, that Lance Berkman won’t come through some night with a big hit in a crucial spot, and that Kerry Wood won’t become re-invigorated in front of big crowds at Yankee Stadium.

But what am I complaining about? The Mets got new players too. That they haven’t contributed as much as these Yankee pickups doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t add an un-definable something, maybe a hard-hit ball from the redoubtable Mike Hessman or a nice catch from Jesus Feliciano, maybe some Chris Carter or Josh Thole odd contributions along the line.

The good pitching had to end sometime. I was beginning to think Dickey and Niese were going to keep on rolling, but only Dickey kept it going for one more game. Niese didn’t come through today but, then again, Takahashi did his part yesterday so things haven’t been all bad. Even Pelfrey pitched a little credibly before that and Santana, well, he got rocked but how often can that happen?

We’ll all find out tomorrow when Johan faces the Braves Tim Hudson in Atlanta. A win in that first game could surely pick up my hopes. If all those young guys could just pretend they’re really still in the friendly confines of the Citi, who knows what could happen?

Lowered expectations of this young team could help them play more loosely, to just go out and have some fun. I know I’ll be happy if they can just be competitive more days than not. And really, that’s something they’ve been able to do. Not today, of course, today they got blown out but, for the most part, they’re almost always in games to their last dying breath.

And the transition pains are over. Beltran’s been back some time now as has been Castillo. Jason Bay’s been out for a few games now too and stands to miss several more now that he’s been put on the DL. So, although there are some new faces, those faces are at least all in the same organization. That alone should promote some esprit de corps among the troops, some spirit that won’t show in the box score necessarily but could translate into W’s rather than L’s down the stretch.

Interestingly enough, the Mets are still just 6 ½ games behind the Braves but are 7 ½ behind in the wildcard standings, the Giants, Phils and Reds all seemingly getting tougher in the last ten games or so. But all those teams seem beatable, despite their own recent acquisitions. Those additions might help but some won’t. Percentages tell me so.

The Braves for example picked up Kyle Farnsworth for their pen and Rick Ankiel, that former Cardinal quasi-star, somebody who could just as easily be bad as good. The Phils big splash was getting Roy Oswalt from the Houston Astros but he managed to get shelled by the lowly Nationals in his Phils debut the other day. And Ryan Howard just sprained his ankle.

So, while I’m no longer expecting some kind of post-season activity, unless it’s just the announcement of a new management team, I am expecting some inspired play from these guys. Just hearing Dickey talk about how happy he was to be part of this Mets team picked up my spirits. Conversations with Ike Davis seem to have the same effect. There seems to be a genuinely good feeling for one another in that Mets clubhouse.

If I’m disappointed about anything, it’s those relievers. The likes of Valdez and Acosta are not the answer to anything, except maybe “name two Mets pitchers who have no stuff.” Elmer Dessens and crazy Ollie don’t exactly inspire confidence either. I think even the most understanding of Mets fans could have expected a little help in the pen, even if it were to bring back a Mejia of Igarashi.

But they don’t call this time we’re in the “dog days of August” for nothing. A bunch of guys trying to make their bones might weather such times better than would veterans.