Mets Merized Online

As most of us Mets fans know by now, Jose Reyes is expected to start the season on the disabled list due to an overactive thyroid. He is expected to cease all activities for 2-8 weeks.

Both Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya have said that Reyes will most likely be replaced with 20-year old Ruben Tejada, who played in Double-A last year, this according to the New York Daily News.

Tejada batted .289 last season and hit five homers in 488 at-bats in the minors, and claims he’ll be ready to play in the bigs.

“It’s baseball,” Tejada told the Daily News. “Everywhere I play the game normal. I’m ready for everything.”

The Mets could also use Alex Cora, who was re-signed for $2MM in the offseason, but manager Jerry Manuel seems to prefer Tejada.

To me, Alex Cora seems like the better bet because of his experience and all the hard work he put into last season when Reyes first went down, but Manuel is prepared to bypass the steady Cora for the light hitting untested youngster.

According to Yahoo! Sports, All-Star closer Francisco Rodriguez returned to New York Mets camp on Monday after being hampered by conjunctivitis for more than two weeks. He also threw a very successful bullpen session this morning at Port St. Lucie.

Rodriguez had been told to stay away from the team until the pink eye cleared, but the contagious infection took longer than expected to improve. He was sick when he reported to New York’s spring facility, but his eye went undiagnosed until just before full-squad workouts began on February 25th.

The right-hander said he went to the doctor on Friday and was cleared to return Monday, although he still is infected. He continues to take eye drops and isn’t allowed to wear contacts yet.

“It feels much better,” Rodriguez said. “It’s still a little uncomfortable, but it’s good to be around. I was cleared to be around the guys, so it’s fine.”

While away from the team, Rodriguez found anyway he could to throw and was limited to playing catch with his brother, Edward, in the driveway of his home, but Rodriguez said he is not worried about his progress. He told reporters that he probably only needs one bullpen session before pitching in a game, and is looking forward to getting back into a regular routine.

Rodriguez last stepped on a mound about a week ago when he emerged from hiding for a light bullpen session.

“It’s not the same thing playing catch as doing bullpens, being on the field and doing field drills,” Rodriguez said. “It’s completely different, but the good thing is I played winter ball and I am good.”

Rodriguez first had conjunctivitis in his left eye but it quickly spread to the right eye. He said his entire family back in Venezuela has conjunctivitis as well, and now his brother has it in both eyes.

Rodriguez plans to wear prescription sunglasses for a few weeks until his eyes feel completely healthy.

“The first couple days the infection was really strong, and I kind of lost the vision,” Rodriguez said. “It made it a little blurry, but right now I don’t have that, so it’s good.”

Good to know that K-Rod is back to camp and is slowly feeling better. Hopefully we will be able to get a look at him soon in a spring training game once he feels comfortable on the mound once again.

If first impressions are important to baseball fans in Philadelphia, new Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay aced his entry exam.

Halladay got the Grapefruit League schedule unde way with two near-perfect innings in the Phillies’ 3-2 win over the New York Yankees on Thursday.

The 32-year-old Halladay threw a pair of  innings while striking out three. As we all know, Halladay was at the front of a blockbuster four-team set of trades in December between the Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics.

“I was excited for it,” said Halladay, “You anticipate it, but once you get into the game, the game is always the same. Your approach is the same. I looked forward to it, especially early on. It’s as much fun for me as it is for everyone else.”

Halladay allowed just one baserunner in his first outing with the Phillies. New York’s Jamie Hoffmann, playing first base after Nick Johnson was scratched before the game with a back ailment, reached on an error by Philadelphia third baseman Placido Polanco with one out in the first.

Halladay struck out the next batter, Jorge Posada, before getting Robinson Cano out on a fly ball to end the inning. Halladay struck out Nick Swisher and Randy Winn to begin a 1-2-3 inning.

“He’s filthy,” said New York ace CC Sabathia.

I realize that this was Halladay’s first game of the spring and that he only pitched two innings so I’m not going to jump the gun and say that Halladay is going to pitch well when he plays the Mets, or that he will even have a good season because we don’t know that yet, but what I will say is that the Mets and the rest of the National League East will have their hands full with Roy Halladay, especially when the game is on the line.

The New York Mets currently have four catchers on their 40-man roster with Chris Coste, Omir Santos, Henry Blanco, and Josh Thole, but apparently the Mets are still interested in yet another catcher.

According to MetsBlog the Mets appear to be interested in former Toronto Blue Jays backstop Rod Barajas, who hit 19 home runs and had 71 RBIs last year.

Barajas is, of course, the backup plan to Yorvit Torrealba, who ended up signing with the San Diego Padres after the Mets supposedly couldn’t come up with the right amount of cash to convince Torrealba to come to the Big Apple for two years.

Hall of Fame writer Murray Chass, is saying that Mets GM Omar Minaya and his employees apparently couldn’t deal with more than one free agent at a time this offseason, telling agents that they were interested in players but needed to deal with other players first. No agents were willing to wait for the Mets to finish up things with the people in front of them. One agent said his client had the Mets at the top of his list but didn’t want to wait and see if it worked out.

Another day, another catcher for the New York Mets. I don’t see the logic with yet another move to obtain another catcher that we obviously do not need.

Although I do like Barajas’ hitting ability in a park such as Citi Field, I still don’t feel as though he should be a priority. We need pitching, pitching, and more pitching!

Even if we do get Barajas’ you wouldn’t be able to throw him into a trade later in the season, because if he’s still available at this point in the off-season, than nobody cares too much about his services anyway.

The New York Mets continue to scour the pitching market and have recently been in touch with Ben Sheets ever since his throwing session last week in Louisiana. Another possible starting option for the Mets could be ex-Yankee pitcher Chien-Ming Wang who could be pitching in the majors by May 1.

The Mets are among 15 teams that are expressing great interest in Wang, according to Alan Nero, who represents the former Yankee.

Wang, who won 19 games in 2006 and 2007, is coming back from shoulder surgery and since was non-tendered by the Yankees. Nero says that Wang has been working extremely hard and is in the best shape of his life.

Wang has been under the watchful eye of Doctor James Andrews who is a widely noted orthopedist. Once a month, Wang spends a week with Andrews. Wang has been throwing for almost seven weeks and according to sources the response of his arm has been awesome.

Wang will be training at Fischer Sports which is a conditioning center in Phoenix, Arizona until a team steps in and gives him a contract.

“We’re so confident and optimistic about his progress that we’re not in a hurry to enter into an agreement just to have it,” Nero said.

While most baseball fans would think that signing Wang would be a bad idea, Mets fans such as myself look at each pitcher the Mets go after as another step to solve the pitching woes. Wang does seem like a bit of a risk due to his injury, but if he keeps improving with his training and conditioning, why not?

As most of you already know, Ben Sheets spent the 2009 season recovering from surgery to fix up his torn flexor tendon, but now he seems to be recovering pretty good. A slew of teams will be showing up later today to see Sheets pitch for the first time in almost a year. Then soon after, the bidding will begin for the 31 year-old right hander.

Sheets has a lifetime ERA of 3.72 and 1,206 strikeouts over eight seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers to only 313 walks.

According to Yahoo! Sports, the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, St. Louis Cardinals, Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets will be on hand today to see Sheets pitch.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will apparently not be present at Sheets throwing session, but the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, and Baltimore Orioles could possibly get involved in any bidding that occurs.

Ben Sheets has not been the least bit silent about his arm either. Sheets told reporters that his arm feels brand new and that he can easily be a number one starting pitcher again.

If Sheets throws well today, I really hope that the New York Mets will win any bidding war that takes place. The Mets are in dire need of a third pitcher in the rotation, and he could be a solid number two depending on his performance going forward.

The one team that could give the Mets plenty of competition for the pitcher, could be the Toronto Blue Jays who just lost their ace Roy Halladay to the Phillies.

The Associated Press reports that the Florida Marlins have reached an agreement with the MLB Players Union to increase spending after complaints were filed that the Marlins payroll has been so small that it violated baseball’s revenue sharing provisions.

The deal was announced today in a joint statement by the Marlins, the players union and Major League Baseball. Beyond the statement made, the parties did not comment on the matter. It is currently unclear how much the Marlins’ payroll might increase.

The agreement runs through 2012, when the Marlins’ new ballpark is scheduled to open.

“In response to our concerns that revenue sharing proceeds have not been used as required, the Marlins have assured the union and the commissioner’s office that they plan to use such proceeds to increase player payroll annually as they move toward the opening of their new ballpark,” said Michael Weiner, executive director of the players’ association.

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According to Mark Miller from Yahoo! Sports, the Los Angeles Dodgers are close to a two-year deal with outfielder Matt Kemp.

You can be sure that the Dodgers want to lock up Kemp for a reasonable amount of time. He won both a Silver Slugger and a Gold Glove award after he batted .297 with 26 homeruns and 101 runs batted in. The 25-year-old Kemp is likely to be signed by the beginning of next week.

“The negotiations are going smoothly,” says Kemp’s agent.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers are apparently competing with the New York Mets for free agent pitcher Joel Pineiro, who I reported about earlier in the week. Although, sources say that the Dodgers have a backup plan of bringing back Vincente Padilla if they can not acquire Pineiro.

At the moment it looks like the Dodgers will miss out on Pineiro due to the pending divorce of team owner Frank McCourt which is still causing major financial issues for the club.

According to Ed Price of AOL Fanhouse, the Mets are having in-depth talks with right hander Joel Pineiro about a contract that is worth around 2 years and $15 million.

Pineiro reportedly received a much similar offer from the Washington Nationals earlier this off-season, but he may be leaning toward signing with a contender like the Mets.

Last year the 31 year old right hander was 15-12 with an ERA of 3.49 in 32 starts. Pineiro also has a ground ball rate of 60.2% which led the major leagues.

I really hope Omar is looking closely at Pineiro, especially his ground ball rate which will only help him at Citi Field. The Mets could really use another arm in the starting rotation and there are few healthy options left out there.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are also engaged with Pineiro, but it is not known what the length of contract is being discussed.

We shall see where this latest development will takes us.