This afternoon, Mets GM Sandy Alderson spoke with reporters as he and his team readies themselves for the Winter Meetings which begin on Monday. Regarding the Winter Meetings, Alderson said the following: “I can guarantee you, we’ll come back with some good players. I can’t guarantee how high-profile they will be. Or how many. If nothing else, we’ll pick in the Rule 5 draft, just to say we brought a player back.” Alderson also touched [...]

On Tuesday, the New York Mets announced that they had re-signed lefty reliever Mike O’Connor to a minor league contract with an invite to major league spring training. According to Bisons.com, O’Connor, 30, spent the entire 2010 season with the Bisons and was the club’s most used reliever. In a team-high 51 appearances, O’Connor was 5-2 with a 2.67 ERA and six saves (70.2 IP, 65 H, 25 R, 21 ER, 17 BB, 70 K). He ranked [...]

Today is ”Non-Tender Day,” and by midnight tonight, the free agent pool is expected to get a little bigger. Here is an interesting spattering of players who are each expected to be non-tendered by Thursday’s deadline as presented by Doug Miller of MLB.com. J.J. Hardy, SS, Twins: Rumored to be a non-tender candidate all season, Hardy’s prospects of being offered a 2011 contract by Minnesota seemed to take a hit when it was revealed last week that the Twins [...]

Isn’t it amazing how quickly October has turned to November, and now November turns to December? Believe it or not, just one week from today, the 2010 Winter Meetings will commence in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. and run from December 6-9. By then, we’ll know whether Pedro Feliciano will still be toiling in our bullpen in 2011, or if we need to add a lefty specialist to our very long offseason shopping list. Using the [...]

Javier Vazquez is returning back to the National League. According to Jon Morosi of FOX Sports, Vazquez has agreed to terms on a one-year deal with the Marlins, pending a physical. The Marlins were considered favorites to sign Vasquez after he reportedly had lunch with Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez last week in Puerto Rico. The Marlins have made adding a starter a high priority. He went 10-10 with a 5.32 ERA for the Yankees in [...]

The free agent market and the hot stove season seems like it’s dragging for a lot of teams, but certainly not for the Los Angeles Dodgers who continue to act fast and make solid moves. Two weeks after they made the first splash in this year’s free agent market by signing free agent Ted Lilly to a three-year $33 million dollar contract, they made another move to bolster their rotation by signing starting pitcher Jon [...]

In a series of tweets, Andy Martino of the Daily News revealed that a Mets insider is suggesting that the team should give embattled starting pitcher, Oliver Perez, a shot at filling a situational lefty role in the bullpen next season. Not saying he’ll succeed, but there’s absolutely no reason not to bring Oliver Perez to ST as a situational lefty, and see what happens. I also know this: at least some Mets decision-makers feel the [...]

For those of you who were curious as to why Sandy Alderson decided against Wally Backman as a manager, he spoke to Kevin Burkhardt and shed some light on why he decided to go in another direction. “I enjoyed meeting Wally,” Alderson said. “We had, of course, long discussions with him over two occasions. One was just myself. And I can understand why the fans were so supportive of Wally. Wally is going to be [...]

According to Andy Martino of the Daily News, “Hitting coach Howard Johnson is unlikely to remain in that role, but will be employed by the organization in some capacity.” Nothing unexpected here, but I am curious as to who his replacement will be. Many of the Mets hitters regressed under Howard Johnson’s watch, so I’m hoping the right hitting coach can get Reyes to be a premier leadoff hitter again and hopefully gettting Jason Bay [...]

A couple of days ago I pondered the wisdom of the Mets pursuing Justin Upton after coming across the post below from Bob Nightengale. Well what first seemed like just a rumor or speculation, has now grown into a MLB-wide hysteria as there’s no shortage of offers being tossed around complete with quotes from several general managers including one from Kevin Towers who not only confirms that he could trade Upton, but even leaked it [...]

Yesterday, I was quite surprised by the trade that sent Dan Uggla to the Braves for utility infielder Omar Infante and reliever Mike Dunn. The fact that he was traded isn’t what surprised me. We all knew the writing was on the wall once Uggla turned down a four-year deal worth $48 million dollars from the Marlins last week, but what I couldn’t grasp was how little the Marlins got in return for trading away one of the most popular [...]