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Manuel’s ‘ultimatum’

Manuel’s ‘ultimatum’ to the pitching staff is basically a case of buying low.

He knows they are better than this, and he also knows Redding could be pretty close to coming back and taking Livan’s spot anyway. So he makes this statement about one more time through the rotation and then there will be changes, but he’s really just stating the obvious. He’s taking a bet that the pitching will be better and/or Omar will make a change with the 5th starter. If the pitching gets better, he looks like he got them going, and if they don’t, likely a change will be happening anyway, and he can take credit for it. This is how he’s been winning people over since he’s been in charge.

Anyone watching these games can clearly see that the starting rotation is struggling, but also that they’re like to get better. Perez was reported to have not done what he was supposed to do in Spring Training while at the World Baseball Classic. So he wasn’t quite ‘ready’ when the season came. It’s now three starts later. He hasn’t looked real good, but there have been small signs between a raise in velocity to a couple of key strikeouts that could give you hope if you’re looking for it.

Maine was coming off an injury. I thought it would take him a couple of starts to get going, given the longer layoff from pitching in real games. He’s had some bad moments, but some good ones too. I suspect he’ll start giving some worthwhile performances soon.

Pelfrey is probably what I’d call the least worrisome. He had some tendinitis so they skipped a start, so he’s had even less. He really stepped it up last year, and It’ll probably take him a little while to start getting back to that point, and to adjust to any scouting adjustments made to him. He’s always shown promise, and I see no reason to think he won’t have a good year.

Livan however, might be more of an issue. Besides that Manuel routinely comes out and basically says he has no confidence in him, he doesn’t seem to have much left. He pitched well in the spring, but it looks like he’s getting by on a lot of trickery and smarts. Batters figure him out and he seems to crumble as he gets through the order a couple of times. Hopefully he can give us one more reasonable start, against the Marlins, and then maybe Redding will be available to get us a couple of good starts at least.

Another thing to note is Sheffield; he still appears to be done. We talked about how it was a win-win situation for the Mets, but it really isn’t. It took at-bats away from Church when he was hot. It’s taking at-bats away from Castillo when he’s hot by way of Tatis not having any fill-in time in the outfield and having to find him a place to play. Barring a sudden turn around, I think the Sheffield experiment should be terminated. However, Manuel is playing him again today. A day after getting swept, sitting Murphy another day. Who’s more likely to get a hit? Who’s more likely to score runs for Santana? Who’s more likely to benefit from a day in LF and will be here all year? Hint: It’s not Gary Sheffield.

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Fresh Ideas

The players are the players. Fundamentals are the result of practice and training. Look at how much better Jose Reyes has gotten at shortstop over the years. To me, this is on the coaches. They don’t seem to be doing proper base running drills, or proper training in general. Perez is what he is, but you know he has talent. It’s on the coaches to bring out that talent.

Between clutch hitting, stolen bases, good defense, and good pitching, this team has shown it all at times. These players have all show they’re capable of it. And you can’t fire the players. It’s time for a real change in management. Sometimes when you’re too close to the problem, you can’t see what needs to be done. It’s time for Howard Johnson, and Jerry Manuel, and probably Dan Warthen too, to get lost. I want some outside influence on this team. Some fresh ideas.

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Aggressive? Or Timid?

I’m not ready to jump off a ledge yet. Yes, we haven’t gotten many hits with runners in scoring position, but it is a small sample, and it is April. We’ve gotten a lot of guys on base.(Our on base percentage with runners on is a little better.) Sometimes we stage two out rallies where a guy or two gets a hit, and often guys like that get stranded. I’m not as worried about the number of guys left on, because you do get things like that when a team gets a lot of hits and never gives up even with two outs. Creating opportunities to score is the first part to having big games.
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Still, this team doesn’t feel right. Supposedly Manuel is preaching aggression, but I don’t see it. Other than trying to make Castillo swing at more pitches, I’d say this team is timid. Also, wasn’t the big plus with Dan Warthen and Oliver Perez is that he let Ollie be Ollie? Why is this not okay with Castillo? I worry that trying to make him into a hitter that he isn’t, could hurt. He’s been a successful player in his career, why mess with that? The Mets have way too little stolen base attempts for a team that is supposedly aggressive.

The Mets are on pace for 122 stolen base attempts, compared with 174 last year. Before that is was 246, 181, and 193 in 2005. This team is a team that’s always used it’s running game to it’s advantage. When was the last time you saw Reyes dancing off third trying to entice a balk? Putting the runners in motion, like yesterday with Omir Santos up, is not what I’d call aggression. It’s almost defeatist. Manuel seems to manage like he expects failure. He doesn’t think Santos, even though he’s two for three, or Reed as a pinch hitter are going to come through, so he tries to manufacture something. The same way he does when he goes matchup happy and starts pinch hitting for Church or Castro/Santos. Church has shown some ability to hit lefties, but if you keep taking him out against lefties, he’s going to have less practice at it, and you’ll start putting ideas in his head about failure. I brought up a similar thing about Feliciano. If you never let him pitch to righties, how is he supposed to figure out how to get them out? It’s not like he wasn’t a big pitcher for us in years past, so what happened? Actually, the data doesn’t look that horrible for Feliciano’s splits, and it also looks like that he pitches against as many righties and lefties. So if he’s really supposed to be a lefty specialist, he’s being used wrong.

Then again, the Mets won two of three. They dropped the ball on the third game, but you can’t actually win them all. (I’m assuming they can win 156 however) Beat the Cardinals, Beat the Nationals and maybe we can start putting this small sample size problems behind us.

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Game 3: Padres at Citi Field

Good Place to Watch a Game

From 041609_Padres

The energy of Citi Field was amazing. Even for this cold lackluster game in April. The game sucked. I thought we were finally going to get that blow out, getting three on Peavy early and I figured we’d chase him early and then beat up on the bullpen. It didn’t work out, and the fan down the line that interfered with the ball may have cost them the game. Continue reading “Game 3: Padres at Citi Field”

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First Regular Season Trip to Citi Field

I’d have hoped the Mets would get off to a better start, but they had some bad breaks. Hopefully Pelfrey’s tendinitis isn’t a big deal. Once the weather warms up, and they shake off this spring rust, I’m expecting them to put together a nice little run.

Thursday I’m going to my first regular season game at Citi, since I couldn’t find even scalped tickets to the opener for less than $250. I’m going to go for batting practice, and roam around like crazy. I plan to check out views, and bounces, and try to catch a bp home run. Here’s a quick run down of some things I plan on doing. Feel free to comment/email me if you think of other things I should check out.

1.Views from all the seats I currently have tickets to.

2.Other views, last row behind the plate. Last sections in the promenade on both sides. View from the Left Field Landing under the Promenade. Many others.

3.See what type of ‘club access’ is available well before the game. Are all the clubs already locked down and checking tickets, or am I able to go inside and look at them?

4.Someone asked me about the veggie options at Citi Field. So I’m going to keep an eye out for that stuff. I know they have salads and such in the Worlds Fare Market. Veggie burgers?

5.If I’m feeling ambitious, maybe I’ll try to time how long it takes to get up from high in the promenade after an inning, walk down, go to the bathroom, and get a hot dog, and get back.

6.Shea always had ‘hidden’ food items, especially in the later years. Where were the knishes? You can get Killian’s and Blue Moon on the Mezz? Really? I’m going to keep an eye out for the odd kiosk that might be serving something less standard at Citi.

7.I really want to check out the standing room options from around the park. I know there are some amazing standing views up on the Promenade that are close, block no one’s view and block no one’s path.

8.How tight is security for the ‘roamers’. I’m planning on buying a cheap seat, but not sitting in it. Am I going to get harassed for grabbing a seat here and there during the game? Only on the field level? What about the Big Apple seats?

9.Of course I’m going to have a beer or two, to continue the Citi Field Beer Review.  First will be the exclusive Brooklyn Sabroso Ale.

I’m looking forward to a fun six hour day at the ballpark.

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Our Final Offseason Acquisition

Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for! The day our final off-season acquisition comes into play; Citi Field. Starting today, the Mets and Yankees no longer share the same “Place we played before this one.”

 

From Citifield

Just like a new player, we’ll be watching the game tonight to see how Citi does. We’ll want to watch balls off the walls, wind, home runs, foul territory, and many other things. We’ll be curious how “Lets Go Mets!” chants resonate. We’ll be curious how well we can hear Cow Bell Man.

 

We’ll be curious how the Mets in the Citi look on tv. How the cameras are set up, if we can see everything properly, including replays. We’ll also be looking for how the field plays, the balls in the gaps, how it plays to lefties and righties.

 

Opening Day should be a metro area-wide holiday, and even if schools are open or you have to work, today is a special day. There has only been one day like today in the last 85 years, a day when a New York baseball team moves into their very own stadium, and starts making memories there.

 

This will be our home for many years to come. Pop open a beer, pull up a chair, head to the park, flip on the tv, and take in the game, the park, the team. Let’s go Mets!

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First Thoughts

Thoughts after the first series.

 

I like how this team looks, even if Oliver Perez seems to still be three weeks behind and in Spring Training mode. They really lit him up by the second time through the lineup. I’m not worried though, I just think he really did get behind by pitching in the WBC without the oversight to stay in shape. Give him another three weeks with the Mets and I think we’ll see a pretty impressive post-April record for Perez.

 

The offense looks good, despite people trying to read into every failed opportunity with runners in scoring position. It’s going to be an awfully long season if you expect the Mets to hit .350 in those situations, every game. Sometimes it’ll be worse, and sometimes it’ll be better, but by the end of the season I suspect the numbers will be right around career averages and what not. Don’t worry about it right now, I’ve seen more good signs in this regard than bad ones.

 

The bullpen does in fact look revamped, and I’m happy for that. It’s still early though, and our bullpen was fairly decent in April last year too, behind Billy Wagner’s scoreless inning streak.

 

Since Manuel vocalizes every fleeting though, it’s necessary to analyze actions to try to get an understanding of how he feels about players. So far I get the feeling he doesn’t like Castillo much, because if it were me, I’d get Castillo as many at-bats and as many opportunities to succeed prior to coming home, not sit him yesterday. I think he buys into the Church can’t hit lefties thing, since he pinch hit for him yesterday when he was 2/3. I’m not sure if he likes Anderson too much, or is trying to give him every opportunity to come through and prove he could deserve to stay prior to his impending release. I just can’t believe they’d get rid of O’Day instead, because that just doesn’t make sense. Quality, or at least performing, relief help is a lot harder to come by than what Marlon brings to the table.

 

I’m happy with 2-1 for now, but I think it’s important they win this series from the Marlins and come home above .500 with the clubhouse smelling of wins, not of mediocrity.

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Worst Day of the Year

Today is the worst day of the baseball season. We get that teaser game yesterday, only to be followed by a day off and no baseball. So I’ll bore you with the bets I made this off season. Feel free to mock and ridicule.

 

2009 MLB Regular Season Wins – Team Must Play 160 Games

Atlanta Braves

Over 84.5

 

I think the Braves are more talented than people think. Barring injury.

 

2009 MLB Regular Season Wins – Team Must Play 160 Games

New York Mets

Over 89.5

 

This should be an easy one. The Mets are obviously seriously talented.

 

2009 MLB Regular Season Wins – Team Must Play 160 Games

New York Yankees

Under 95.5

 

I think the Yankees have a lot of issues, especially if Pettitte is old and wears down, Joba is restricted, Wang is not quite back to form and A.J. Is the new Pavano. Especially if A-Rod isn’t fully recovered.

 

2009 MLB Regular Season Wins – Team Must Play 160 Games

Philadelphia Phillies

Under 88.5

 

The Phillies got lucky with their bullpen and had a dozen guys over perform last year. They’re a pretty soft team in general and I think they mail it in early this year.

 

Cole Hamels – Total Regular Season Wins

Regular Season Wins

Under 15.5 (-135)

 

Hamels has already started injured. 16 is a lot of wins, especially for a team that won’t top 85 wins.

 

Jose Reyes – Total Regular Season Hits

Regular Season Hits

Over 188.5 (-115)

 

This might be the easiest bet. Reyes is only getting better.

 

2009 World Series Championship

New York Mets

6 – 1

 

Because I had to.

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Opening Day

Opening Day.

The day we’ve all been waiting for.

It’s such a relief to see the Mets finally playing meaningful baseball again, and finally it’s time to put aside conjecture and projections for real stats and concrete results. Citi Field is nice and all, but now the focus can be on David Wright’s batting average, Jose Reyes’ range, or Beltran’s shear awesomeness instead of tacos or exclusive beers (as great as those things may be).

I seem to get more and more excited for baseball every spring, and this year was no exception. I even went to seven baseball games already. Four spring training games plus an exhibition as well as the St. Johns game at Citi Field and a World Baseball Classic match-up. It’ll be nice to sit down, crack open a beer, and root for the Mets on the same team and really care about the outcome.

Thanks to the Braves, the Mets are already a half game ahead of the Phillies (one in the loss column.) However, they’re behind the Braves by a half game(tied in the loss column.) There is a lot to look forward to this year, and it all starts today. It’s great that the Phillies lost, but you can’t scoreboard watch in April anyway(I won’t tell you that the Phillies elimination number is 162). It’s about the Mets going out there, game after game, and taking care of business. Putting up Ws.

You can find something to complain about and be nervous about later. For now, let’s sit down with our empty slate and enjoy some baseball. Collapses or Championships from last year don’t count in this years win total. Let’s Go Mets!

 

Edit:  And the Mets win! Good Start to the Season.  Woo!

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More From Citi Field

Citi Field is still very much a work in progress. They’ve already changed the green to black around the Apple, for batter’s eye reasons. I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far, and I can’t wait to get there when it counts. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that went wrong, or that don’t seem quite right. I’m not going to whine and cry and count Mets banners and complain when it doesn’t meet my internalized quota, but I’ll point out my observations from my second trip. (Read about my first trip)

 

From Citifield

While some people working their did seem friendlier, I did nearly get into a fight with the woman checking tickets at the Caesar’s club door. Stupidly of me, I let my hat blow off my head from the Promenade, and it landed one level down. I raced down the stairs to try to retrieve it, basically begged this woman to let me just grab my hat, and all she could do was utter variations of ‘No, go upstairs’. Eventually someone tossed the hat down the the field level, where the ushers were actually helpful.

 

Look! a Bottlecap!
From Citifield

Since the concourses are set back under the seats Cow-Bell Man’s normal style of walking around the stadium would keep him away from the action and mostly unheard.

 

I had to sign for my $23 purchase at Box Frites. At least the line moved, and they’re slowly learning how to swipe, fill up sodas, find the buttons on the register and move a line.

 

The Promenade Club is too low down/embedded into the stands, so that the rows of seats just in front of it actually blocks the view of home plate from inside. I don’t know if there is anything to be done about it though.

 

The Mets really should reconsider the contract with whatever escalator company they use.

From Citifield

There are more seats at Citi with small obstructions here and there. (Although none as bad as back rows of the Loge) I had to stand to see Wright make any catches along the dugout. It’s one of the drawbacks of not building huge dizzying grandstands and keeping fans closer to the field.

 

Some people expressed dislike for the black and orange walls and the green seats. I don’t think any choice would’ve made me unhappy here so I may be biased, but I kind of like that the Mets stadium is built on top of a Polo Grounds look, with a Ebbetts Field entrance. It’s certainly not any of those parks in any way, and it is where we came from. Especially the Polo Grounds. The line? I’m curious how it will play out. It might just work.

 

I’m suspecting ceremony the 13th, when I’m not there, with putting the flags up.

 

From Citifield

Blanche de Queens, one of the exclusive Citi Field beers out in the Taste of New York center field concourse, is excellent. As it’s name suggests, it’s kind of a white ale, similar to a Blue Moon. It was a full-bodied beer with plenty of flavor, while still being light and smooth. It was by far the best beer I’ve ever had at a sporting event. I can’t wait to try the Brooklyn Sabroso Ale next time. I tip my hat to Garrett Oliver and Brooklyn Brewery.

From Citifield