With Prince Fielder taking off for the Motor City, he becomes yet another premiere first baseman to leave the National League. Fielder now joins the likes of Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez –to name a few– to leave for the AL in recent years. This leaves only Joey Votto, Lance Berkman and Ryan Howard as proven elite first baseman in the NL. Now 2012 will give this crop of young, talented men patrolling first, a [...]

With the hot stove season nearing its end, I’ll be chipping in a lot less on Mets news, and focus more on the upcoming First Year Player Draft in June, as I did last year. I’m currently working on my own “Top 15 Draft Prospects” list and a “Five Players To Watch” piece for the Mets top selections in 2012. Both will be ready in early February. I’m not going to do any mock drafts [...]

  Just want to say thanks again to Joe D. for posting on my blog as I go through some things. Going in today for a procedure. Have been in a lot of discomfort lately and hoping this will help. I will keep trying to post whenever I can. In the interim, some thoughts have been going through my mind I’d like to share with you. 1) I understand selling bricks on the walk ways [...]

When things are going bad with a franchise, there are times when fans will look at every decision made and search for the negatives. Recently, it seemed as though some hysteria erupted at the fact that Mike Pelfrey signed a 1 year deal worth $5.7 million to avoid arbitration. Sometimes I find that people comment on things they either do not understand or refuse to understand. For me, if I don’t understand a process, I [...]

It is almost a given the Miami Marlins will finish ahead of the Mets this season, and that was even before the acquisition of Carlos Zambrano. If Zambrano is in shape, physically, mentally and emotionally, he’ll make the Marlins better. But, I’m not ready to put a Dream Team label on the Marlins. We’ve seen how well that works before. However, the Marlins have made significant upgrades and you can guess the level of enthusiasm. [...]

With the current direction of the NY Mets, it seems there has been a lot of talk here about how much weight to put into Baseball America’s Prospect Rankings. First, let me explain what BA actually does with regards to these rankings to avoid any assumptions. From their own website, “Our prospect ratings are based on our own research and conversations with scouts, managers, instructors, front-office personnel and others in the game. Obviously all of [...]

I had the chance to meet the authors of a children’s book that takes a different look at the famous poem “Casey at the Bat.” In “The Deal is on Strike Three: The Story Mudville Never Knew,” Long Islanders Peter Fertig and Rudy Saviano explore the story behind Casey and the Mudville nine. Hall of Famer and Mets legend Tom Seaver was so inspired by the book that he voluntarily wrote the foreword. Cal Ripken Jr. [...]

Good afternoon folks. I don’t like going this long without posting for you, but have been away. I drove to Ohio Sunday to visit my father, but the visit was unfortunately extended for a funeral. Everybody loves their father for their own reasons and I am no different. There are some I can’t share and others I do so openly and proudly. The most important was his love for his family and the moral principles [...]

Here are some blogger’s and journalist’s reactions to the Jose Reyes saga. None are as rosy as the reactions I saw posted somewhere else the other day, so I thought I’d bring some balance to the Force. What follows is a perplexing thought that slapped me in the face this morning. Bob Klapisch, The Record Jose Reyes is neither a whiner nor a crybaby, a fact that bears repeating after what became an ugly day [...]

Last night it became official, the Mets, a baseball team playing in the sports capital that is New York, lost the best shortstop they ever had to the small market Miami Marlins. The Miami Marlins as we all know signed the National League Batting Champion to a six-ear deal worth $102 million dollars with a team option for a 7th year which is a great deal for both sides. I know some bloggers and authors [...]