You can learn a lot about a baseball team from its locker room. The clubhouse is where relationships form, character is revealed and leaders speak out (or not). For the major league rookie, clubhouse real estate is valuable — sometimes priceless. Imagine being the rookie who spent eight months out of the year next to Sandy Koufax? Roberto Clemente? Lou Gehrig? Tom Seaver? These were model athletes, wise and humble men, who used their talent [...]

A year ago, all the talk surrounding David Wright involved his long-term future with the club. A few down years in a row made people start to wonder if we would ever see the David Wright of old (circa 2006) ever again. Would the Mets re-sign him? Would they sell low and flip him for prospects? Well, a year later, he not only had a bounce-back season, but also secured his long-term future in New York by [...]

All is right with the world… Pitchers and catchers report to Port St. Lucie today and Spring Training games are right around the corner. It’s been a tough offseason weather-wise where I live. Superstorm Sandy kicked our butts in October, and this past weekend Nemo dumped about two feet of snow on my house. But no worries, baseball is back. In this edition of 3 & 3, the first of 2013, some thoughts on the [...]

I am so excited to receive my copy of Mike Piazza’s autobiography, Long Shot, which I pre-ordered several weeks ago. But of course, I can’t control myself in reading all the news stories about what is actually in the book before I read it for myself. So that leads me to a very intriguing discussion. Piazza admitted in his book to using androstenedione and Ephedra before the substances were banned, according to the New York [...]

A major league source revealed the details of Brandon Lyon‘s contract to ESPN New York. Lyon can earn as much as $2.3 million broken down as follows: $650,000 maximum in appearance bonuses $100,000 for reaching 40, 45, 50 and 55 games $125,000 for reaching 60 and 65 games. $250,000 maximum in games-finished bonuses $50,000 apiece for finishing 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50 games. $650,000 maximum in days-on-major-league-roster bonuses (based on a 183-day season) $100,000 [...]

Adam Rubin of ESPN New York gets the scoop on what uniform numbers all the players in camp will be wearing this Spring. 1. Jordany Valdespin, if/of 2. Justin Turner, if/of 3. Omar Quintanilla, ss 4. Collin Cowgill, of 5. David Wright, 3b 6. Marlon Byrd, of 9. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, of 11. Ruben Tejada, ss 12. Brandon Hicks, if 15. Travid d’Arnaud, c 16. Brian Bixler, if/of 19. Zach Lutz, if/of 20. Anthony Recker, c 21. Lucas Duda, lf 22. Landon Powell, c 23. Mike Baxter, of 27. Jeurys Familia, rhp [...]

Updated at 3:30 PM by Joe D. Following up on the tiny bit of updates coming in today on the Mets and their pursuit of Michael Bourn, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, believes the Mets’ path is still cloudy. Maybe the New York Mets can pull the whole thing off and sign free-agent center fielder Michael Bourn without losing their first-round pick, Rosenthal says. ”But he Mets’ path to Bourn still might not be clear.” Other clubs might have greater [...]

This article which was originally published on January 25th by Mitch Petanick, is worth a second look in light of recent events. Mark Simon did a piece on ESPN New York yesterday which ranked the top five infields in the team’s history, as well as the top five outfields. His rankings were pretty solid, although he had the 1999 Mets outfield ranked as No. 5 snubbing a very solid 2006 outfield.  Let’s be honest, 2006 was [...]

Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year.  As over one billion members of the Chinese community prepare to usher in the year of the snake, baseball enthusiast in Miami is pumped about 2013 – the year of the Marlin.  Before you assume there was a typo in that last sentence with me not pluralizing the word “enthusiast”, take a look at this tweet by Marlins beat writer Joe Capozzi. Of course, I [...]

In 1966, in the days before Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry, and Nolan Ryan, when the Mets’ young pitchers were named Dick Selma, Dick Rusteck, Darrell Sutherland, and Rob Gardner, the Mets tried to provide some veteran presence on the staff to help carry the team to respectability while the young pitchers developed. In the early sixties, you could make up a pretty good core for your major league rotation with the likes of [...]

It’s no secret the Mets have concerns in their rotation, but that doesn’t mean they should rush Zack Wheeler, regardless of how good a spring training he has. The Mets tooker a somewhat patient approach with Matt Harvey, waited to bring him up last summer and gave him ten starts in which he showed his potential. The Mets need to do the same with Wheeler. I still maintain the Mets rushed former first-round pick Mike [...]