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IMAGE: MICHAEL G. BARON FROM FLICKR
I have elected not to go with the frequent spring updates so far, mostly due to other life obligations, although I fully intend to submit game by game posts come the regular season.
Spring Training is about halfway through, at least the part of Spring Training that I feel you can really put any kind of stock in, that being March. I've grouped all of the players invited to PS Lucie that are worth mentioning into categories according to grade.
HONOR ROLL: Angel Pagan--Hitting to a line of .377/.400/.528, Pagan has been the surprise star of spring so far, and has made an argument for consideration in the absence of Moises Alou.
John Maine--The Maine Man has struck out 14 batters in 13 1/3 innings pitched while only walking 3, and in the mean time dropped his spring ERA to 2.63 during a streak of 10 scoreless innings. Maine's continued growth could give the Mets a historically good 1-2-3 in the rotation. I am higher than high on him, and expect a fantastic year.
The Bullpen--There are a few notable exceptions, but for the most part expected core of the 2008 bullpen has been outstanding. Wagner, Heilman, Feliciano, Wise, Schoenweis, Sanchez, Register and Sosa have combined for 55 innings and only surrendered 9 total earned runs. Of the bunch, Sanchez remains the major question mark, with only 3 IP logged to date as he works towards getting his strength back. All in all, there's a lot of depth to this pen, and it could turn out to be a major point of strength on this team.
A: Fernando Martinez--The jewel of the farm system is hitting .357 in 39 spring AB's, and while plan A would have him tuning his skills in the minors, OF injuries could see him up at the big club this year. Lest I forget, he's racked up a few web gems in the OF.
Robinson Cancel--Though he is 32 years of age, the Puerto Rican catcher only has a small chunk of one season in the majors on his resume. With Castro and Schneider both battling injuries, Cancel's .286/.400/.524 line is encouraging for some insurance.
Raul Casanova--Casanova is another name in the mix for depth at catcher, and has had a solid spring as well, hitting .294 with a homer. Not sure how much stock you can give this, as the 36 year old has never performed well at the major league level.
Argenis Reyes--25 year old OF has spent his career in the Indians farm system to this point, and performed passably well as high as AA. Hitting .481/.481/.703 in 27 spring AB's.
Pedro Martinez--Granted, Pedro has only one start (today) under his belt this spring, but in that start he went 4 innings, striking out 4, only walking 1, and giving up no runs on 4 hits. One of those hits was a broken bat single, and another an infield single. This start coupled with all of the positive reports about the kind of shape he's in gives me a lot of confidence in the greatest pitcher who ever lived, in my eyes.
B:Brady Clark--Let's throw in as many hats as we can in this OF pot, can we? The veteran has played pretty well so far, hitting just over .270 and playing a solid OF.
Johan Santana--The superstar acquisition has 4 games behind him, 2 not so good, 2 very good, at times has looked shaky and at times has looked his dominant self. He's only just really starting to throw now, and until I see him trying to win a game that counts I ain't sweatin'. His K/BB is right where it should be, as is his velocity and stamina. Johan will be Johan.
Nelson Figueroa--We like him over here at the harbor, as he's a Brooklyn native. He's given up 5 ER over 13 1/3 IP and looked very good at times. He'll add some nice insurance for the pitching staff down in AAA.
C: Jose Reyes--Reyes has hit only slightly under .250 so far, but has scattered in a couple XBH and his approach has looked fine. Evaluating spring training for everyday players, especially stars, is pretty tough anyhow, but is hardly relevant in until late March.
David Wright--Ditto. Not hitting much, but he's David Wright.
Mike Pelfrey--Pelf has a not so nice 5.54 ERA this spring, but to be fair 7 of his 8 allowed runs came in one rough start. Otherwise he's looked very good. His role this year is entirely contingent on El Duque.
D/F:Anderson Hernandez--Continues to prove he just can't hit Major League pitching.
Oliver Perez--Looked good a couple days ago in his most recent start, but was knocked around hard in the two starts prior. Right now OP sits with a 7.27 ERA, but he is certainly the sort of pitcher who will go through March growing pains.
Endy Chavez--Only hitting .227 so far. As always, has played well defensively.
I (for Incomplete and Injured): Carlos Delgado--The latest twist in his injury saga came today, when after roping an RBI double the other way Delgado too a broken bat to the forearm and began gushing blood. One would assume this injury isn't too bad, and in the last couple games he's seemed to be rediscovering his stroke, with two opposite field XBH.
Carlos Beltran--If I was advanced enough as a programmer, I'd have a "Beltran's health %" meter on the blog. His legs are starting to get there, though he looked ugly in CF yesterday and hasn't hit much yet.
The Catchers--Schneider has been MIA all spring almost, but is reportedly almost ready and maybe will play Wednesday. Castro hasn't played very well, but has an ongoing hammy problem.
Ryan Church and Marlon Anderson--I put them together because they have both missed significant time due to the same collision. Church has looked up and down when he's been in there, and Marlon just doesn't have enough of a sample size to discuss.
Luis Castillo--Has looked pretty decent in only a couple of games.
Damion Easley--The Sleaze hasn't really hit anything, but only has 16 AB's behind him. Hopefully he's healthy, as the only real insurance to Jose Reyes, who figures to get some more rest this season.
Ruben Gotay--Big Fly Gotay is hitting .309 this spring, but has yet to fully recover from an ankle injury. He's day-to-day.
Moises Alou--Out at least 4-6 weeks, and with Alou, the assumption always leans toward the long side of things. How this OF question will be dealt with has been the subject for a lot of speculation. Internal or External? Trade or Free Agent? My guess is Omar, Willie and Co. wait out the rest of spring, and if no one emerges as a real passable option in LF, they try to make a move then. I'd love to see Nady back, but for what? This was the one caveat with the Santana trade: if any holes open up, there's not much left to deal.
The most telling weeks of spring are the two left to come. We'll see all the regulars play a lot more, the pitchers will go deeper and actually pitch, rather than throw, more, and, knock on wood, many of the injured players will be back in action. To me the biggest story this spring has been how great the bullpen has looked, and in today's game, that is HUGE.
IMAGE: CDOGZILLA FROM FLICKR
And we finally get our first visual taste of the possibility that is the 2008 New York Metropolitans. The first few games in this first week always come across somehow as unreal; we paddle through, or rather, shovel through months of winter, unceasingly awaiting the arrival of Spring. Every columnist and amateur blogger makes allusions to the beaten down metaphor of the real world's natural cycles as it couples with the going and coming of baseball, and then SPRING HITS, BASEBALL IS PLAYED, and no one really notices for a week or so. So it goes.
I woke up today looking forward to the early highlight of my day being Johan Santana's Met debut, and indeed it was the highlight, Juan-gone homer or not. The first inning was shaky, as our ace allowed two iffy singles and then a deep fly to the sprightly Juan Gonzalez, but the second went by without any bumps, and for anyone who is concerned about the first inning, let it be. Johan went out there today to work his arm up. How do you do that? Throw some fastballs, not too hard. If anything, it's a good sign that Johan's heater is lively enough to stir up a home run out of the old man's bat, right? The whole experience of the two innings was fantastic, just to see #57 in uniform.
Additionally, Reyes did a little swinging and a little scampering, picking up 2 hits and a RBI. Wright and Alou each knocked one in to boot. F-Mart, the favorite son Omar worked so hard to keep, made a web gem of a catch on a foul ball late in the game, Ryan Church lined a hard single against a lefty and Duaner Sanchez got in the game and looked OK, despite getting taken very deep by Albert Pujols leading off the 6th. Final score: 5-4 Cards, who I have picked as 75-game winners. It's just nice to see some baseball, eh?
Oh, and the forums are full of people ready to dive off of the Verrazano based on Santana's 3 ER and the Mets' 0-3-1 ST record so far. Especially because that one tie was to a college team. OH NO! WE'RE ALREADY TWO GAMES BEHIND PHILLY! THEY MUST BE THE TEAM TO BEAT! But I doubt anyone will actually jump, because anyone who takes February baseball results seriously hasn't followed the sport enough to care that deeply.
And lest I forget, today marked the triumphant return of none other than Joselo Diaz...crickets...the other piece in the, ahem, K*zmir deal, who pitched a flawless inning. Always nice to see AAAA middle relievers. Speaking of that, what little respect I ever had for the Redbirds is now gone, as I have discovered that they let mediocre RP Brian Falkenborg go to the Dodgers. Late at night last September 18, my friend Scott and I watched, huddled together, on MLB.TV as Falkenborg hurled 2 heroic scoreless frames for the Cards in extra innings against the Phillies, who we obviously wanted to see lose. Despite the herculean efforts of Brian Falkenborg, Philly pulled the victory out after he left the game, but he left us with an inside joke that will never die. You gotta admit that "Falkenborg" sounds like some sort of Transformer... If only everybody pitched like him, we coulda had a one-game playoff down in Philly last year...
Anyone see Torre in Dodger Blue against Larry and the Bravos? Strange. He's a lot easier to like, though.
IMAGE: ALPINEINC FROM FLICKR
So Barry Bonds failed a drug test back in '01.
I haven't posted in a few days, mostly because I'm bored as hell with all of the 'roid stuff.
I watched the entire congressional when Mark McGwire got amnesia and Sammy Sosa flunked ESL, and have followed suit with every other major happening in the whole saga, including the Clemens show two days ago, and it's really gotten old.
The last hearing, in my eyes, didn't accomplish much beyond what we already knew, and I doubt at this point that Clemens will be further prosecuted. The overall summation: Clemens is lying, McNamee isn't the greatest guy on earth, and Pettitte is right there with them. It really frustrates me that Pettitte appears to be getting such a pass on all of this, as there is really no reason to assume that what he has already conceded to doing isn't just the tip of the iceberg. He was deeply immersed in a group of characters that were all clearly juicers, and went from initially saying he never used, to saying he did one time, to admitting one MORE time. Why on earth shouldn't anyone think he was doing it just as much as the rest of them, the whole time? Even if "Mac" doesn't recall other juicing by Pettitte, Andy could have easily acquired the stuff elsewhere. It looks like selective judgment by a bunch of people who don't want to group a "true Yankee" in with the mercenary Clemens and the yippy Knoblauch.
Anyhow, a lot of guys did this, they'll never catch all of them, and it is what it is, but what struck me today were the comments of Pedro Martinez, proud to have notched such slimmed-down ERA's in such a beefed-up era. More power to Petey for coming out and saying that, and it's certainly worth recognizing. He is in my book the best we've seen in decades and the best we will see for a long time, which leads me to a larger point:
The zeitgeist of the day has dictated that the bulk of the 1990's and the early 2000's be labeled the "Steroid Era", and I think that's unfair. Take the other major "eras" that have been labeled in baseball history. There is the dead-ball era vs. the post-dead-ball era, and there is the modern era vs. the era between dead-ball and the lowering of the pitcher's mound. There is the integration era, the expansion era, and the post-free agency era. Now, folks want add the steroid era to that list, but it is decidedly different. In the dead-ball era, the strategy of play was universally more geared towards small ball. The material of the ball itself was less live, and the same ball would be used for nearly an entire game. At most one would see 4-5 balls in 9 innings, creating dirty, lumpy balls that severely handicapped hitters. Thus, this effects of this era were ubiquitous, affecting all players and teams. The same can be said for the periods before and after the lowering of the mound, and further for the rest of the periods I listed above.
The "steroid era" is different because it was NOT universal, and that is why I see the term itself to be wholly unfair. It is unfair because while so many cheated, so many did not. The lead example is Pedro Martinez, but the list goes on: The entire Braves pitching staff during their run, Griffey, Gwynn, Puckett, I would hope Piazza, and on and on. Heck, I'll even give credit to someone I truly can't stand, Captain Smug himself, Derek Jeter. The whole strech of time can't have a vernacular asterisk attached, because it does not apply to so many who deserve appreciation in their own rite. some would say let the good ones be held up as becaons of light in the overall dark era, but I watched too much great baseball in that time to cast it away and make exceptions. Let the users be blacklisted, but let the rest of the game stay, I say.
After all of this, however, we have pitchers and catchers in Port St. Lucie, and I'll be thrilled to get past the reruns of baseball Law & Order and back to live, old-fashioned ball. I want to hate the Phillies, not criminals.
Next up: Preseason previews/picks.
IMAGE: MICHAEL G. BARON FROM FLICKR
