Jehrico

Something really bad will have to happen before they put an end to this silly practice. But, as unfortunate as that is, something really bad will likely happen sooner rather than later. Don't you mean later than sooner? Hopefully I'm wrong, as I want to see them ended as well, but I'm doubtful we'll see anything soon that will cause MLB to cancel the rivalry series. They bring in more money, esp to KC when the Cards are in town.

Now let's see if Hill can pull a Marshall tonight.

Cards just swept at home by KC. Is this the beginning of their long-expected slide?

I think that after Minaya gets fired and the next GM puts his own guy in as manager, that Manuel gets a job as the next Toronoto manager working for JP.

this was too bad for everyone involved. He'd be the worst GM in club history if it wasn't for Larry Himes. And even then, I'm not convinced he's not the worst. That's two ex-Cubs managers in a year to get another gig managing. When was the last time that a former Cubs manager got another managing job after being fired from the Cubs (okay, I know Dusty wasn't technically fired...)? I can't think of any in my lifetime. Some have been coaches, but I can't think of any other managers.

Link Read between the lines and it's clear Riccardi was onto something. Adam Dunn does not care about baseball. He also hates Canada. Hopefully other clubs get scared off of him, we aquire him cheap, move Kosuke to CF and Sori to right. I'd take that OF, even with Dunn's lackluster defense, in a heartbeat. Okay, I'll stop dreaming now.

All of those guys have enough value to net some decent players like Raul Ibanez or so. If you want to go after an ace like CC, then you need one of baseball's top prospects as a centerpiece for a package. Very few GMs will trade a star for a quantify of good, but not great, players. It's too bad that we can't trade future draft picks like in the NBA, that would certainly help us this year.

yes Then, in that case, the DH could easily be called a designated fielder instead. You could have a slick fielding SS (or slick throwing pitcher) field for someone else who can't field (or, of course, pitch). Same thing. I might just start messing with some AL fans I know by calling their pitchers "designated fielders" instead.

Cabrera and Willis sparked the Marlins, not McKeon. He did slow the rate of caught stealing, I believe, but it wasn't his spark that led to that team improving. Nor will it be the spark of Jerry Manuel that turns the Mets around. I agree. What I meant, and didn't word so well, is that the Minaya may be looking at it from that perspective.

Here's a question for the masses...if we still had Neifi as our starting SS, would the AL rules allow us to use the DH to bat for him instead of Z during road interleague games? Or does it absolutely have to be the pitcher? Here's another one...you can move guys from one defensive position to another throughout a game. Can you move the DH into the field and have a fielder DH the next inning? If so, I'm surprised no one rotates catchers between DH and the field between innings to keep them fresh (assuming you had two catchers that are worth keeping both of their bats in there, of course).

Haha. "The poor play isn't his fault. But uh, I'm firing him anyway at 3am." This is the guy that was once called one of the 5 best GMs in baseball. I'm guessing that this wasn't Omar's call. Bad execution but for the right reasons though. What are the reasons though? The Mets biggest problem is that all their very old injury prone players are either injured or completely not performing. A team cannot fire the players. I don't think Willie is a particularly good manager. You can trade or release them. I don't think he's particularly good or bad. But I think the GM made some really bad decisions with some really old and injury prone players. I don't see Willie abusing talented young arms. The only argument I have heard is that the team looks flat or dysfunctional. I think they just look old and injured. The free Metro paper listed 3 mistakes by Willie and Omar. They are: Willie - slow start to season because they "lacked energy to start season". Race comments. And "his young team lacked leadership last September and Randolph did nothing to push them into performing better." That's gibberish, and that's the excuses I've been hearing as the reasons for his firing. He can't push them to perform better or add energy. He's a freaking manager. Agreed. Omar is the one who gave Pedro a contract two years too long, and expected a mummy like Alou to actually play the field. I don't remember Randolph making the same egregious mistakes like I see Guillen or Baker make on an everyday basis. He was scapegoated, pure and simple. I don't know if I'd say he was scapegoated, but I would agree that I wouldn't put this all on him. I think his firing is kind of like Scott Skiles. He hasn't done anything really wrong, but the players aren't performing for him like they have in the past and are capable of. It's an old roster and he's not responsible for that, but it's time for the Mets to put someone else in charge to see if they can spark the team, like with Florida in '03. It was his time to go, but for reasons above and beyond how competently he performed his job.

You've convinced me. From here on out, I'm never referring to anyone from that family as anything other than Winebrenner.I like Whinebrenner better.Good catch. Same pronunciation though.

Damned. Okay, I'm over it now.

When you consider that the Red Sox couldn't even give Manny away on his contract, there is not a chance in hell that anyone takes that horrendous monstrosity of a contract we gave Soriano off our hands, unless we eat a significant chunk. There were teams that would have taken Manny's contract if it weren't for "Manny being Manny." He's expensive, but he's not signed for that long, he'd bring in some more fans (and revenue), and would have been a great pick up for a short term situation. Manny's antics were what people didn't want to pay 20mil for, not his bat.

Hank Steinbrenner is WHY MLB doesn't want a clown like Cuban running a team. They already have to deal with Hank Steinbrenner and Jeffrrey Loria as it is. Not really. They had their shot at getting Loria out of the league. Instead, they handed him another team. Contraction was taken off the table so no there wasn't an option but to let him keep the Expos in a move to DC OR to let him take over the Marlins where they felt he would do little damage and let Henry join the Red Sox group. I don't think they thought he would win a WS in a million years after what he did to the Expo franchise. I also think they figured contraction could come up again and the Marlins and their poor attendance, etc would be a likely candidate. I think they could have bought him out in Montreal without giving him the Marlins if they really wanted to. Only Selig and Loria know for sure though.

Do you really want to encourage increased prominence for the Neifis of the world? I would be pretty funny to see Dusty using his designated fielders as pinch hitters every time he fails to properly manage his bench.

Borowski had 3 games where he gave up 14 runs. Take those out and his ERA was around 3. Sure those 3 games blew his teams chance of winning but those 3 games over inflated his performance last year. It really wasnt that bad. 4% of his games pitched throws his entire season off. So he lost his team 3 games before you even start counting, then proceded to put up maybe an average ERA for a closer. Still not interested.

Hank Steinbrenner is WHY MLB doesn't want a clown like Cuban running a team. They already have to deal with Hank Steinbrenner and Jeffrrey Loria as it is. Not really. They had their shot at getting Loria out of the league. Instead, they handed him another team.

You've convinced me. From here on out, I'm never referring to anyone from that family as anything other than Winebrenner.

The more appearances he makes, the more he's getting up and warming up and throwing hard pitches once he's about warm. Those take a toll too, so there's the total # of pitches thrown in the game, plus a few more per appearance for that. Guys with more pitches per outing but fewer outings could have more overall gametime pitches but be putting less overall mileage on their arms.

Vance, I'm hoping you didn't mean Beltran for Pie even up. I'm sure they would want Pie plus a few more prospects. If they get more prospects I would want them to eat probably 4 million a year or so. You can't expect the Mets to trade an All Star CF for a prospect that has struggled in the majors. How many more prospects and the quality of the prospects might cause them to eat some salary. If the Mets are willing to trade Beltran for Pie (or Pie plus one prospect) then do it and don't worry about the contract. This is the team that traded Kazmir for Victor Zambrano. What did they get in return for Milledge? If you even want to make a move, strike now while Minaya is on the hot seat and pressure is on the organization to do something this year. If not Beltran then someone else, the Mets over everyone else are ripe to be ripped off. The question is, do they have any other realistic pieces that would fit with us that we could get them to move?

I really doubt we can take on that much salary at this time. I bet we could. If the new owner doesn't want to keep him at that rate, then spin him back off to another team and restock the farm.

Who would have thought that Zambrano would be off to his best start in years, and Dempster would have better stats nonetheless?

Back to Winebrenner's comments...regardless of whether you like the DH or not, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a pitcher to be able to run the bases. ARod could get hurt running the bases, it happens. If it wasn't Wang, it could have been anyone else. He wouldn't be whining if he had a decent staff and didn't just lose his only good pitcher. Learn to build a good team first, Winebrenner, then you can endure these types of things when they happen.

Don't get mad just because you don't get it.