Murph Rules!
Right after the Kevin Burkhardt/Omar Minaya interview on SNY, I caught 1984 edition of Mets Yearbook. If you haven’t checked out these fantastic documentary style treats yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. I strongly urge you to try and catch them whenever they’re on. In this particular edition, longtime Mets broadcaster Bob Murphy was doing an interesting profile on Keith Hernandez, when all of a sudden he said something that completely surprised me,
“Not only does Keith Hernandez lead the Mets in batting going into the All Star break, but he’s the league leader in on-base percentage”.
Wow, who knew? How many of the fans that were originally tuned in over 25 years ago, even knew what Murph meant? It goes without saying that in addition to being the most awesomest Mets broadcaster ever, Bob Murphy was truly a man ahead of his time.
Say Cheese!
Incidentally, what was up with Omar Minaya’s glistening white smile during his interview with KB on Thursday? It kind of creeped me out and after about ten minutes into it, I found that my eyes were completely glued to his shiny white teeth. It brought this classic “Friends” episode to mind.
Healthy Or Not, Here They Come!
Omar Minaya said something about Mets starters John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez that was either ridiculously over the top or just an indication that his meds were winding down.
He said that in this years free agent market, John Lackey was a ‘difference maker, but as for the rest of the free agent starters,
“I believe that John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez, when healthy, are just as good, if not better, than some of the other starting pitchers that are or were on the free-agent market.”
So assuming everyone is “healthy”, which is exactly how he put it, Perez, Maine & Pelf are as good or better than Ben Sheets, Rich Harden, Eric Bedard, Randy Wolf and Chien-Ming Wang? Really?
Someone should tell Omar that if the Mets had “healthy” years from the five guys I mentioned the Mets would win 100 games with or without Johan. If Omar continues to make embarrassing comments like that, I’m just gonna have to lobby Jeff Wilpon for the GM job.
There’s a fly in my Veal PECOTA…
Will Leitch of New York Magazine made ten predictions based on the latest PECOTA projections on Friday. Needless to say, I have issues with Mr. Leitch and his off the wall predictions. Damn you PECOTA!
The Jason Bay signing is going to be a disaster for the Mets. His counting stats will be decent — 27 homers, 94 RBIs — but his defensive deficiencies and his low OBP (lower than Gardner’s, if you can believe that) will make him dramatically overpaid in the first year of his contract, before he starts the downward slope.
Jose Reyes will be healthy, but the Mets will still be lousy. Reyes makes a projected 640 plate appearances, hits thirteen homers, and steals 45 bases. The Mets lineup, one through four, is solid, but after Bay, the drop-off is dramatic. The best VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) from spots 5–8 is posted by Luis Castillo. Also, the third-best pitcher will be Kelvin Escobar.
Fuhgeddaboutit!
According to Jon Heyman, the Mets are interested in native New Yorker Frank Catalanotto. The 35 year old Catalanotto, batted .278 with one homerun and nine RBIs in 77 games with the Brewers, while playing left field, right field and second base. With Blanco, Cora, Matthews and Tatis already on board, Catalanotto should fit right in. In fact the Mets may win the prestigious AARP Award given each year to the team with the oldest bench in the majors. Each member receives a years supply of Centrum Silver and $25 dollars worth of valuable coupons they could use on great products like Depends, Ensure, Polident and Metamucil.
