CC and JJ WooHoo!!

Wow! Bang! In comes K-Rod
Whoosh! In comes J.J. Putz, out goes Heilman.

Sitting here listening to Darryl Strawberry talking on the FAN with Francesa about his years with the ’86 World Champions New York Mets, and still basking in the knowledge that we’ll have some real relievers next year, what could be better?

Uh-oh, now he’s re-living his Yankees Days. Geez, even that’s OK now. Now that Omar and the Mets have done such a sterling job of operationalizing their priorities. The Yanks pay 61 mill for C.C and we get K-Rod for beans, relatively speaking, of course.

Then we get JJ Putz from Seattle, one of the premier relievers in the league for at least a few years now for Aaron Heilman and Endy Chavez. Some minor league players were also involved, but the crux of the deal is Putz for Chavez, Heilman and Joe Smith, who actually will wind up with the Indians. A lefthanded pitcher named Jason Vargas, who was hurt for all of last year, was also included in the deal.

The Mets also get a pretty fair right-handed middle-inning reliever named Sean Green, who may be better than anyone the Mets now have in that role. A utility outfielder named Jeremy Reed completes the 12-player mass juggle. The Mets are probably ten to 15 games better than they were last year, and that may be conservative if everyone stays healthy.

I don’t like some aspects of the huge trade, such as letting Joe Smith go. He was a tough pitcher in certain spots last year, and you had an overall good feeling about him. Sure, he may have messed up some, they all did, but not in the spots that Heilman did. Oh God, don’t make me re-live that all over again!

I understand they’ll be talking to Pedro again. While I don’t think they’ll work anything out with Mr. Martinez, I do relish the thought, just for fun rather than effectiveness necessarily.

And I hope they’ll get the crazy left-hander back too, Oliver Perez. If they can retain him for less than they can get for a free agent starter of the same quality, why not keep him? He’s at his best in big games, and more than ever, it looks as if the Mets may have some of those in 2009.

Just accomplishing this much would yield a starting rotation of Johan Santana, Oliver Perez, John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Pedro Martinez. Another lefthander with possibilities named Jonathon Niese makes for a pretty fair rotation. Compare it to that of the World Champ Phillies.

Maine and Pelfrey should be better than last year. So should Pedro, for that matter. If Santana can hold his form, what a year it could be. I’m sure crazy Ollie would provide some unwanted adventure, and Pedro usually provides just five or six good innings at this stage of his career, but three of five starters would be pretty consistent, providing mostly routine quality starts.

So there’d be quite a few instances of a need for good relief pitching with that rotation. But now the Mets have it. If they can just get to the eighth inning, they now have the best finishing tandem in either league, JJ Putz in the eighth and Francisco Rodriguez in the ninth.

With a finishing tandem such as that, the Mets really don’t need to do more in the pitching area than to just keep Perez and Pedro. They’d keep some of that crazy chemistry too. The lineup they have is strong enough to score runs, and that’s just by keeping the other Reyes (Argenis) at 2nd base and the Murphy/Evans combo in left field.

Keeping Damien Easley would be fine, and Fernando Tatis was no slouch either last year. Otherwise, I’d be happy with Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Delgado, Church, Murphy or Evans and Schneider/Castro.

The Yanks are talking with a lot of guys. They need a lot of guys. And maybe they’ll watch Teixeira go to Boston. Oh man! How good does it get? Imagine the joy of watching Teixeira hit 30 and 100 and lead the Sawx to one more title. Meanwhile, we Mets fans got what we needed all year.

The Yankees are figuring, I guess, they can throw just anybody into the first base position. Giambi, Damon, whatever…and I suppose they’re not that crazy about Bobby Abreu, which is hard to believe really, given that he hits .300 every year.

If I were a Yankee fan, I’d be worried big-time. Sabathia has always been one of my favorite fantasy-league pitchers and he’s been great, but he tends to start the season slowly and that just won’t do in the big town. He’ll be vilified on the rags’ back pages at least a few times before the beginning of June. How will that affect an easy-going guy?

Does trading Mike Cameron for Melky Cabrera really accomplish that much? For all anyone knows, Melky could come back from his down season, and he was never bad in that centerfield spot. It was his lack of presence in the lineup that was frustrating. Cameron has more power but he strikes out……a lot.

Maybe they’ll have some bulletins during the football game tonight letting us know what other moves the Yanks may be making. God knows they still need some pitching. C.C. may be able to pitch with three days rest but not even the big guy can pitch every day.

The Yanks too are allegedly bidding against the Phils for Derek Lowe. That would be just fine for Mets fans, robbing the Phillies of still another weapon that would soon turn on our boys in blue. Go get ‘em, Cash….

Anything can happen in baseball, of course. As Yogi was supposed to have said one day, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over” but Mets fans are a lot further along than they were a couple of days ago. That’s for sure. The beginning of the beginning is looking very good indeed.

Goats to Heroes

It was beginning to look like the same old script for the Mets yesterday afternoon. There was another great start by Johan Santana. But in the eighth inning, with the score 3-1 in favor of the Mets, Santana gave up two consecutive singles and Mets manager Jerry Manuel decided Santana had had enough. He had to go to the bullpen, a pen that had been producing more horrors than an Alfred Hitchcock flick. Surely the Mets would lose another.

But it was not to be on this day. Not this day. On this day, the Mets would FIGHT. On this day, Jerry Manuel would manage his behind off, Mets fielders would sparkle, and David Wright would finish off those tough Padres with a two-out walk-off home run.

Manuel was brilliant. Sometimes the things that work the best are the simplest. What Manuel did in those eighth and ninth innings was to simply remove his pitcher every time that hurler failed to produce...which was quite often, really, about as often as you might expect from a bullpen that had been rapidly becoming one of the worst in Major League Baseball.

The first pitcher Manuel called on was Duaner Sanchez, which made perfect sense to me at the time. After all, Sanchez, when he's on, can be brilliant and he probably has the best stuff of them all. He's used to pitching with men on base. But Duaner let Jerry down again, hitting the first batter he faced. Bases loaded. Jerry came out and immediately removed him from the game, a move not only simple but just.

Next he called on Pedro Feliciano, the lefty who had been relatively decent lately. Good move. Pedro induced a fielder's choice grounder out of the very dangerous Brian Giles; the Mets got the force at home. (They also got a totally unnecessary throw to second from the catcher on the play but why not be magnanimous today).

With one out now and the bases still loaded, Feliciano managed to get another ground ball to Jose Reyes's right that just managed to get by a diving Jose. The hard single produced just one run though, so the Mets retained the lead. But a hit is a hit, and Manuel removed Feliciano for Joe Smith, a right-hander who can get the double play on occasion.

And Joe did the job perfectly. What came next was the play of the day, and maybe a play that will live forever in my mind, the kind of play that showed how badly each Met wanted that win, wanted to get out of that inning. And get out of it they did.

Smith got the ground ball, but it was hit hard and well to second baseman Argenis Reyes's right. Argenis was beautiful, diving to snare the ball, quickly flipping to Jose, who had to hurry his throw to first. Jose's throw was in the dirt and to the outfield side of first. But Nick Evans stretched way to his right, grabbed that hard throw on the short hop, and hung on. Picture-perfect double play. The Mets survived the eighth, still holding on to the one run lead. One inning down, one to go.

The Mets would do nothing in their half of the eighth, a harbinger of worse things to come for Mets fans only too aware of what adventure this pen could dream up. And it was a sign of another failure of these Mets, their inability to add to a lead in the late innings. They would have to make that one run lead stand up.

Manuel went to lefty Scott Schoeneweis for the ninth. Schoeneweis had teamed with Smith to successfully close out the Padres in the series opener. In addition, although the first batter would be a switch-hitter, the second man up would be left-handed batter Jody Gerut, who had homered earlier off Santana.

Schoeneweis got the dangerous Headley to pop out but he would leave a ball right over the plate for Gerut and he complied by knocking the ball over the right field wall for the game-tying home run. It was a shocker, although for this sorry bullpen, that statement is kind of difficult to defend. What it did was seemingly stop any momentum and erase any benefit the Mets had gained from that terrific double play they'd managed to eke out in the eighth.

Manuel stuck with his game plan for the night though, immediately coming out to take the ball from the grumbling Schoeneweis and hand it to Aaron Heilman, Heilman of the hard luck, Heilman, who had given up a 3-run homer two days earlier to these very same Padres.

But Heilman would not let Manuel down. Not this time. Heilman would calmly retire the next two batters in order, the first on a strikeout and the second on a harmless ground ball. Although somewhat sullied, the pen had managed to at least keep the game tied and give the locals a chance to take the game in the ninth.

Which is what they ultimately did, of course, but not without a little more angst. Former Met Heath Bell would pitch the ninth for the Padres and it seemed to me that he’d done more than his share against his former team in the past.

But Endy Chavez gave the Mets high hopes by singling to center, putting the winning run on first base with nobody out. But then things started looking bleak again. Jose Reyes failed in his bunt attempt, popping out to the pitcher. Then his namesake Argenis Reyes hit the ball solidly but lined out to left. Two outs.

So it was all up to David Wright, Wright who had made a critical error on a ground ball to help lose Tuesday’s game, Wright who had made bonehead mistakes on the bases, Wright who had insisted to Manuel that he wasn’t tired, that he didn’t need a break.

And he didn’t. Wright hit the ball over the left field wall.

Dog Days All Around

The Mets have taken it on the chin so often lately that it was almost shocking that they actually managed to win a game last night. Not that they made it easy on themselves. Fernando Tatis had the game-winner once again, but it almost wasn't. A 9th inning rally by the Padres fell one run short and the Mets finally won a game. And they did it without their closer, Billy Wagner.

Up and down relief pitcher Aaron Heilman was on a down cycle last night and tried his best to give the lead back to the Padres in the ninth but Jerry Manuel wouldn't let it happen. After giving up a run, a hit and a 3-run homer, Manuel had seen enough. He brought in Joe Smith and Scott Schoenweis to get one out apiece and the Mets hung on.

The Yankees didn't do nearly as well against a Texas team that seems like a Murderer's Row. Young phenom Josh Hamilton greeted Yanks starter Andy Pettite with a 2-run homer and it was all down hill from there. A rookie named Matt Harrison went 7 innings for the Rangers, while Ranger sluggers Chris Davis and David Murphy ensured the win despite some late-game heroics from another Yanks new guy, Richie Sexson, who banged a grand slam to deep centerfield in the 8th.

They don't call these the "dog days of August" for nothing. Major league players have all withstood the rigors of playing about 115 games and they're not that close to the end. Players start getting really tired. The weather is really hot, especially if you're playing in sun-baked Texas. And players start going down.

The Yankees have to hope Joba's shoulder is ok, because if it's not, they're in pretty bad shape overall, what with a 6 1/2 game deficit to the Rays and quite a few games on the road staring them right in the face. While all their trading deadline pickups are working out for them, Nady and now Sexson and Pudge Rodriguez, they never did get the pitcher they coveted, and now they may have lost another starter, maybe their best one.

And, of course, the Mets are going to have to tough it out without their closer. Billy Wagner has some forearm problems for which there was no forewarning. (Sorry). They surely missed him last night. No lead seems secure enough these days for the Mets as all their relievers seem worn out.

Manuel has had to abandon his plans for defining bullpen roles as one after another of them has failed him in big spots, Duaner Sanchez, Aaron Heilman, well, you get the idea. The Mets starting pitching will have to go deep into games for the next week anyway, or until Wagner returns. Hopefully, he'll be able to return.

The Mets seem to enjoy their position just short of the division lead. Much as Big Brown, that magnificent thoroughbred of Derby and Preakness fame, who won the Haskell Stakes Sunday, likes to just hover on the outside shoulder of whatever nag happens to take the lead, so the Mets seem to be just hanging around.

But will the Mets have anywhere near the finishing kick needed to outlast the Phillies or Marlins? I guess we’ll see, but they surely haven’t gone out of their way to improve their situation.

While the Yankees and other teams such as the Dodgers and Brewers made some moves, the Mets have stayed pat. One wonders whether Minaya is on a strong hold from the ownership, once again, much as Big Brown’s jockey practically strangled his mount in the Belmont.

It’ll be nice to get a reprieve from baseball for a while, as the Olympics will take center stage for a couple of weeks. The Games should also give us all a break from the baloney Bret Favre has been dishing out. Can there be a “dog days” of football’s exhibition season? If I read one more thing about the phony “quarterback battle” between Pennington, the clear starter and leader of the Jets, and second-year guy Clemens, I think I’ll be sick.

There is no joy from this corner of the world as this football season kicks off. I cringe at the piracy being foisted on Giants and Jets fans as the Maras and Woody’s of the world cry the blues as to the cost of building a new stadium, THEIR new stadium.

Oh well, at least the taxpayers of New Jersey will be getting a break. The stadium costs will be borne directly by the users. Although there is justice in that, I do hate to see football becoming only a rich man’s game. And, how near is the day when professional football becomes pay-per-view only?

It’s ironic that all this spending on stadiums is happening precisely at the juncture of what may become a very serious recession. And maybe a long-lived one. While I can see the Super Bowl Champion Giants surviving while the rest of the world goes to hell, it’s a little more difficult to say the same about that team with the ugly green uniforms.

Will the Jets be playing before a crowd of 25,000 a year from now? It’s possible. While I can see that a Giants season ticket could be considered an asset, the cost of which could later be transferred to a new owner, will Jets fans feel the same way about their ducats? How much risk will they be willing to assume? Isn’t it easier to just watch from home?

But enough doom and gloom. I guess these really are dog days. I should be looking forward to finally being able to watch Olympic weightlifting on TV, or, at the very least, on my PC. I love all the track and field events. Gymnastics can be interesting, and then there will be soccer and basketball. And, of course, the whole extravaganza of the opening ceremonies coming to us from Beijing.

But will anybody be able to breathe?

Better Late Than Never

Well, the timing was horrible, but then it would have been bad whenever the final decision on Willie finally came in. That the decision followed a great team performance is ironic at the very least. That it came at about 3 AM in the morning smells funny, like those stories of the Colts and Irsay leaving Baltimore in the middle of the night.

But they finally ANNOUNCED a decision. That they made the decision a week ago is perhaps indicative of what really ails these Mets, unprofessional management. To keep a good man hanging that long is despicable. While I'm sure there were reasons for the delay, they would seem to pale compared with the indignity they inflicted on a guy who did his best for them for three years.

Incredibly enough, some of the very players most responsible for Willie's demise were great last night. Aaron Heilman was especially good, getting two outs while leaving two Angels on the bases. Reyes was mercurial, scoring the first run virtually unassisted. Beltran, although he has been fine in other ways all year, smacked two home runs last night, helping cement his place in the Mets batting order. Sanchez and Wagner showed how to close things out.

This is a group that apparently needs constant pressure to bring the best out of them. Of course, that’s at odds with the reality of their fall from grace last year. The pressure of having a seemingly insurmountable lead in a pennant race didn’t prevent their 2007 disintegration. Maybe they just wanted to do something nice for their longtime mentor. I prefer to think of it that way.

And if they were feeling guilty, it was late in coming. Without singling out any individuals, their team performance was always just short of a win. And just unremarkable enough to send their fans off to the bar for a stiff one.

Some of you may recall Sparky Anderson’s style in leading one of those Reds teams to the pennant many years ago. Sparky was infamous for his pitching changes; he’d flash the hook with just the slightest provocation, sometimes just on a whim. But the quick hook worked for that team.

That’s what Willie could have used – a quick hook. And not just with the pitching staff. I really feel the Mets could have won ten games more this year if Willie just moved a little faster, faster to get a non-performer out of the lineup, faster to pull his relievers when it was obviously not their day.

Willie’s style would work only with a team that was solid, top to bottom. Willie constantly challenged each of his players to be champions. These Mets just weren’t. These Mets needed a riverboat gambler, someone who could maneuver a way to finish ahead, even with a bad hand.

Early reports seem to point to Bobby Valentine. While that would be nice, I don’t expect that to happen. But he’d be just the guy to revive this moribund group. This is a group that sits on its laurels, they win one or two games and think they’re world-beaters, then they revert to their old ways, the full swings when just a hit would do nicely, the stupid base-running when nothing fancy was required, the lack of focus in the field.

I hope the players don’t start thinking the pressure is off now. They need to start winning two out of three, and three out of four, to have a chance of making the playoffs at this juncture of the season. They have to climb over some good teams, Philly and Florida and Atlanta all present their special challenges.

Judging by management’s incredible bungling of the Randolph affair, I’d hope the new manager, eventually, is a strong personality, someone who can roll over obstacles coming from the front office. For now, we have a temporary fill-in, Jerry Manuel. It’s doubtful he can materially change anything unless the players buy in and start performing as they never did for Willie.

For now, it’s Omar’s show. Omar Minaya brought this group together and will be judged at the end of this season. We won’t see a permanent manager until a decision is made on whether a new general manager is needed. The new GM can then hire a permanent manager. The only thing this Wilpon Group has done right so far has been their decision to defer the naming of a new permanent manager.

Omar’s another one of those “good guys” whose force of personality alone brought the Mets players they otherwise would not have gotten, Carlos Delgado and Pedro Martinez for sure, and maybe a host of others.

This was a Mets team built to win a World Series, one that eliminated the risk of having any unproven players in the lineup or in the field. The only risk not eliminated was age. And age reared its ugly head. Just look around the clubhouse and see who’s missing, or who’s hurt again, or who’s too old to get motivated by a young upstart manager.

For this Mets fan, this firing is the beginning of payback, not for Willie really at all, but for all those players who wouldn’t perform for him. You can count on one hand the players who really did try their hardest all the time, or at least gave the appearance of doing so.

And, just maybe, these players were indeed trying their hardest and performing near the top of their capabilities. And, if so, then look to October and a new GM, a GM who’ll need a very large broom indeed.

Sometimes things just don’t work out. Look at the recent firing of Bavasi in Seattle. He had a team that won 88 games, so he brought in Richie Sexson and Carlos Silva. Any fantasy player could have told him those two wouldn’t have a positive effect. The good GM’s manage risk more evenly and don’t take huge risks unnecessarily.

The Mets risks know who they are. Hope they’re tuned in.

No Stuff Is No Stuff

Andy Pettite said it best, I think. When asked about Joba Chamberlain and his thoughts regarding Joba's start tonight, Andy said "...But stuff is stuff, and he's got great stuff. So he should be successful." Now turn that around for a second and you get "no stuff is no stuff and he's got bad stuff. So he should fall on his face."

All of which brings me around to the case of the Yankees Kyle Farnsworth . He is a perfect example of a pitcher with no stuff. Farnsworth is fast. He's been as fast for the Yankees as he was for Atlanta, Detroit and the Cubs before that. He's got a career ERA of 4.47 with a 1.40 WHIP, certainly nothing to write home about. The only things that come home are opposing batters, who seem to do it with alarming regularity, and very frequently at the worst possible moments.

Farnsworth's career won-loss record may characterize his career a little better. He's 28-47. While a won-loss record for a reliever is usually not indicative of a reliever's performance, in Farnsworth's case, I think it is. He has 26 career saves in 11 seasons. He's surrendered 105 home runs in 701 career innings. It seems to me I've seen at least half of them.

Farnsworth throws hard. When in trouble, he tries to throw even harder. His temperament's not really suited to that of a reliever either. He can't seem to maintain an even enough temperament to simply answer a question. When asked about Chamberlain and possible added pressure, he snapped "It hasn't done anything to me like that."

All this comes to mind as Joba prepares for his first major league start. It bothers me that the man is being held accountable for relinquishing his 8th-inning assignment to pitchers such as Farnsworth. How long will it take the Yankees to realize what any baseball fan could have told them a long time ago? Farnsworth is not a closer, he's not a holder, at best he's a guy to throw in there with an eight or nine run lead.

It's not as if there's nobody else. Without going into specifics, there's Hawkins who's been in similar roles and well, I just can't imagine anyone else being a worse choice. Why does it take so long for the Yankees to realize it?

Slow to change....the Yankees certainly aren't the only team in New York about which the same thing could be said. The Mets have a similar problem but one with entirely different characteristics. They have an eighth-inning guy they'll only use once in a while. His name is Duaner Sanchez. But the Mets choose to keep throwing Aaron Heilman in there.

Heilman's career numbers as a reliever aren't bad, especially if one chooses to ignore the fact that it was Heilman who lost that 7th game in 2006 to the Cardinals. But a 4.21 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP compare favorably with Farnsworth's career numbers. For example, Heilman's given up only 41 home runs in 404 innings pitched, about a 1 in 10 compared to Farnsworth's 1 in 7.

But Heilman's numbers this year are horrible. His ERA is 6.37 with a WHIP of 1.58. Without a big story, the Mets have lost 16 of the 26 games in which Heilman has appeared. Heilman is 0-2 with just two blown saves but also has only 5 "holds" in those same 26 appearances. And, while he may not have blown the rest of his opportunities, he has sure come close to it.

Slow to change...Willie Randolph is probably the best example of this in the entire league. Even more so than Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi because Willie exhibits that same ridiculous persistence with Delgado and Castillo, and seemingly any and every veteran player on the roster.

That persistence, some would say stubbornness (I certainly would), is the reason the Mets are looking up at the rest of the division. Is it surprising to anyone that Delgado and Castillo began to turn things around after riding the pine for a little while? Or that Heilman did enjoy a couple of good outings after being taken out of the relieving rotation for a spell?

Supposedly, Heilman’s problem is one of location. And, while that is undoubtedly partly true, I doubt that a pitch of Joba’s, in precisely the same location, would travel quite as far into the stands. Because the pitch would have either arrived in that spot a lot sooner, or would have dived into that spot, or backed up into that spot.

You get the picture. Joba has stuff. He doesn’t always have to hit the perfect spot. The only things that Joba has not been able to overcome have been Cleveland bugs, about 20 million of them, most of which seemed to favor Joba’s face for “location.”

Yes, stuff is stuff and vice-versa. Some have it and some don’t. And, especially with relievers, there is one other crucial ingredient required to be truly successful. And that is confidence or temperament.

Joe Borowski is usually named as the quintessential example of a reliever who, inexplicably, gets batters out in the ninth inning with amazing frequency, and yet has no stuff. What Borowski does have, beyond shoulder problems this year, is guile and moxie, and maybe the confidence of having been there, done that.

But, when Borowski experienced trouble this year, Cleveland got him on the disabled list where he belonged. And, their closer by committee approach, while not 100%, worked better than would have a Borowski with just one good wing.

Slow to change…we see way too much of that in New York. That’s why we are seeing such consternation that Joba will be changing roles. He was great in that eighth inning role. Why change?

A legitimate starter is harder to find than an eighth-inning guy. The Yanks just need to find one. His name isn’t Farnsworth. But there are probably hundreds of them. The Joba’s can be counted on one hand.