CBS Sports’ Scott Miller profiles the Mets for the upcoming season here.
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Category: General
Milwaukee Brewers Release RHP Claudio Vargas
Claudio Vargas was released and received termination pay today by the Brewers. He might be an option for the fifth starter for the Mets if he would agree to a minor league contract. Omar Minaya know him from Montreal where he pitched from 2003-2004. Last season Vargas pitched in 29 games, 23 of which were starts. He’s not going to light the world on fire but he may be able to compete for the fifth starter in the rotation. Certainly, Mike Pelfrey and Orlando Hernandez haven’t sewn that position up.
Vargas is 30 years old, 6’3″, 220 lbs. For his 5 year major league career he’s 43-38 5.09 ERA.
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Moises Alou Back in Port St. Lucie
Moises Alou came back to the team today after his hernia surgery. He says that he’s looking to get back on the field before the end of April. That would be tremendous news for the Mets. Reed Johnson signed with the Cubs today, so there’s no quick fix for Alou’s absence.
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Alou has a recent history riddled with injuries but there’s nothing you could do about a hernia. He looks like he’s in great shape. As a matter of fact he told Marty Noble from MLB.com:
“I came to camp in the best shape of my life,” he said. “Since November, I was in great shape. I never lost my playing shape … I never got fat or had a beer belly. Whether I was going to come back to play or look good in the beach, I was in shape. … And I had to pop off about getting 500 at-bats. It wasn’t popping off. I was serious.”
It’s not like he showed up looking like David Wells or Bartolo Colon and got hurt. Sometimes these things just happen. Alou’s been riding a stationary bike and can start light running soon.
New York Mets Season Preview Worth Reading
Over the last month or so I’ve read so many team previews that my eyes are bleary. I’ve read previews of the Mets and all of the other National League East teams. Most of the previews take some unoriginal tact along the lines of “Five Burning Mets Questions”. Enough already! I don’t want to read about five questions. I want a straight position by position overview with some league perspective and management commentary.
I finally found it… Fox Sports put together a great preview of the upcoming season. This is the preview to read if you want a positional description as a scout would write. Thanks Fox for getting it right.
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Phillies News: Brad Lidge on 15 Day DL
ESPN reports that Brad Lidge will start the season on the disabled list. Last month he had arthroscopic surgery on his knee. The Mets won’t see Lidge in their home opening series at Shea April 8-10. The news is disappointing to Mets fans. We can’t wait to see him implode and lose a game for the Phils. Read the full article here.
The Mets Report Site Improvements
You may have noticed some changes to The Mets Report site over the past few days. I’ve been working very hard since I put this site up last month to make it the best possible source for Mets news and information. Thank you to everyone that has supported me by reading the posts and providing words of encouragement. I’d like to address some of the improvements that I’ve made recently:
- New Page- I added a new page called “Ask A Question“. You can see it on the left side navigation menu. The intent of this is for readers to ask a question or make a comment that I can respond to in a post on the site. I hope that this leads to a higher level of engagement and interaction with the readers. It’s still okay to leave comments but you’ll get a response from me when you ask a question. Comments are for the reader community discussion.
- PayPal Donation- Obviously, I have advertising on my site so it’s clear that this is a commercial entity. I use the funds generated from this site to pay for the upkeep of the site and the server host that I use. The PayPal donation is another forum to assist with this effort. I don’t host the site on my own and I pay for the server, database, and bandwidth that I use. The Mets Report is a part-time thing that I do because I enjoy it and Mets fans deserve the best site possible.
- New Photos- I’m now utilizing photos from PicApp. They provide the highest quality Getty Images and other photos that are now used on The Mets Report site. I’m a firm believer that photos add greatly to the experience of a web site. Since I don’t have the budget (yet) for a team of photographers to scour the country covering every MLB team I have to look for alternative sources. Many of the blogs I see are grabbing copyrighted photos without attribution. I won’t engage in that practice. I believe that everyone has a right to get compensated for their hard work. That’s why you see a brief advertisement in each photo.
Thanks again to the loyal readers of this new Mets fan site and blog. I hope you enjoy the new improvements to the site and please feel free to comment or email me. You can find my email address on the About page.
Let’s go Mets!
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Breaking News: Blue Jays Release Reed Johnson
This morning the Toronto Blue Jays announced the release of Reed Johnson. It’s been reported over the last few weeks that Omar Minaya had spoken to the Blue Jays about a trade for Johnson or Shannon Stewart. The Jays just didn’t have room on their roster for both players. From Fox Sports:
“I don’t have any hard feelings,” Johnson said. “I don’t have much of a choice right now except to move on. It’s really all I can say.”
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Minaya doesn’t have to trade anything for Johnson now. He’s on waivers as of this morning. His current contract runs through the end of this season for $3.275 million. I’m surprised that J.P. Ricciardi wouldn’t have taken some minor leaguers from the Mets for him. He’s known as a pretty shrewd GM.Reed plays all three outfield positions and DH in the American League. Bill James has him listed as an excellent left fielder defensively. He ranks as the fourth best left fielder in baseball over the last three seasons behind only Scott Podsednik, Eric Byrnes, and Carl Crawford.
He only played in 79 games last year because of a herniated disk, and he throws right and bats right. He’s 31 years old and his career offensive stats are:
.281/.342/.410 42 HR 234 RBI 28 SB 16 CS 2083 AB 382 SO
I’ll be shocked if the Mets don’t pick him up off waivers considering the need for a right-handed bat to get through Moises Alou’s injury.
The Mets Report 