It’s getting close to deciding the winner of our March Baseball Movie Madness Tournament.   By the looks of the voting so far, Field of Dreams has a tiny lead over The Natural. To help all of you decide between the two, enjoy these two clips that feature the signature moments in each classic movie.     The Natural – 348 Votes     Field of Dreams – 372 votes   Enjoy these clips and [...]

John Maine hasn’t exactly wowed anyone this spring, on the contrary he’s left many of us wondering if and when we’ll ever see the pre-surgery John Maine again. Today, Maine took a small step forward as reported by Steve Popper. John Maine just finished off his five inning outing and the first bit of good news is that he made it through five innings. After that 26-pitch first inning I wouldn’t have bet on that. [...]

Everyone knows how hot Nick Evans has been this spring as he leads the Mets in homers and RBI’s, but there is another righthanded bat on this team that is scorching the ball at the plate; Fernando Tatis. I heard a lot of moaning and groaning this off season when the Mets re-signed Tatis and said he would be the lefthanded side of a platoon in leftfield with Daniel Murphy. Truth be told, I had some [...]

Adam Rubin of the Daily News is reporting that the Mets have released lefthanded reliever Valerio de los Santos. The veteran reliever, who was in major-league camp at the start of the spring, had drawn positive reviews, including for his willingness to help young players, but he got caught up in a numbers game. This probably bodes well for Ron Villone more than anyone else. (He just got tagged for 4 runs as I write [...]

Joel Sherman of the NY Post believes that the bench is all but finalized except for the very last spot. He surmises, and correctly I might add, that Ramon Castro, Fernando Tatis, Alex Cora and Jeremy Reed have all secured spots on the Opening Day roster. He further believes that the last spot will come down to either Nick Evans or Marlon Anderson. He writes… The Mets owe Anderson $1.15 million this year and he [...]

So here we are just 12 days away from Opening Day and despite my optimism, enthusiasm and excitement, I can’t shake these starting rotation jitters. Until I actually see John Maine pitch like his former self, I must admit I’m beginning to worry about him. And the thing of it is, that the old standby excuse of “it’s only March”, runs out of gas in six days. Aside from Johan Santana, the one other constant [...]

Okay, like 15 minutes ago I posted… Get ready for an announcement soon on who the fifth starter will be. (psst… it’s Livan). Jerry Manuel hinted that a decision is as close as the next turn in the rotation for Livan and Garcia. The only real question is if the Mets can convince Freddy Garcia to accept a minor league assignment so they can keep him as an emergency starter. Umm, the Mets have just [...]

Last week I was a little surprised when the Mets reassigned Robinson Cancel to Minor League camp. Given how difficult it is for Ramon Castro to stay healthy for an entire season, I thought Cancel would be one of the last guys to go this spring. Cancel did a decent job filling in last year and actually had a couple of big hits for us including down the stretch on September 25th when his RBI [...]

I came across an interesting interview by our friends at Baseball Prospectus with Nate McLouth of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was conducted by David Laurila McLouth recently became the first Pirates center fielder to win a Gold Glove since Andy Van Slyke. Here is the first part of the interview. Check out the complete interview at BP. David Laurila: You won a Gold Glove last year. What does that mean to you? Nate McLouth: It [...]