There are a couple of quick links I wanted to put up today. I’m in Florida and being here really gets you in the spirit, even just walking out of the airport into the sunshine and warmth. More on that later…
Here are the links:
Today Dwight Gooden was busted for DUI, DWI, endangering the welfare of a minor, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident. Hey Dwight… Don’t pass go, go directly to jail!
This news was a trending topic on twitter in the NYC area. Crazy how fast news travels nowadays. Used to be Keith and Darryl would go on a drug fueled brawl and you wouldn’t hear about it for days. Within minutes Dwight’s Wikipedia page was updated!
Gooden was invited to be a spring training advisor for the Mets this year but turned down the offer because his wife is pregnant. This would have been great press for the team if he would have accepted. Another reason to believe the curse over the Mets might have been lifted.
Good job Dwight! What were you going to advise this year’s Mets to do?
Let this be a lesson to all you kids, stay away from drugs, alcohol and the Yankees!
I haven’t done a “Mets Links” post in a while so I decided to bring that back this weekend. There’s plenty going on in Port St. Lucie this week with only two weeks left before the regular season starts. I’ve got some good links for you so read up below.
There are few stories coming from Port St. Lucie this week other than Jose Reyes and his thyroid condition. The fact that he’ll join Carlos Beltran on the disabled list come opening day has led to thoughts of another lost season and Mets’ minor leaguers getting a shot at the big leagues. Some of the biggest names in sports journalism have gotten into the act including William C. Rhoden and Joe Posnanski.
Here are the links:
Image by penner42 via Flickr
It’s been a strange few days of Jose Reyes injury news. First, he went back to New York for tests but it was nothing serious. Then we find out today that it is serious enough to keep him out of the lineup and on the disabled list to start the season. You have to wonder how this story took such a dramatic turn for the worse for the Mets.
We’ll definitely be seeing too much of Alex Cora at shortstop… again. Don’t get me wrong. I like the guy and he must be tough as nails to play as long as he did with the thumb injuries that he had last year. I just don’t want to see him playing short every day. Ruben Tejada would be interesting to see, but at 20 years old he may not be up to the task.
Reyes is the most exciting player on the Mets team. The Mets are lucky that this injury announcement came after the big single game ticket sales date came and went. You have to wonder if there’s a correlation between the timing of those two events. It’ll be very interesting to see how many empty seats there are at Citi Field without Carlos Beltran and Reyes in the lineup every day for the first month or two.
This could have a big impact on the futures of Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya. The two seems to be clinging to their careers with the Mets by a thread as it is. It’s been pretty clear from their public statement that the Mets need a fast start for them to survive into the second half of the season. A fast start will be a lot more difficult now when they’re leaving spring training without their fastest player.
David Daniels writes that the Mets, despite the highest payroll in the National League, will continue to underachieve in 2010.
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by long-time Mets fan David Daniels. David is a Long Island native that gives his take on the state of the Mets in 2010. You can read David’s work at his site on Long Island life and tech.Baseball’s back! Let the season begin, but before it does here is where I think this Mets team will stand at the end of the year. Stock up on your Rolaids and Tums because we’re in for another wild ride and when the dust clears this team will be in 4th place and possibly fighting for the basement of this division.
Why? This team has entirely too many issues so I’m going to start at the top:
Management – A clown of a GM, two straight collapses, a ballpark dedicated to another team, a manager fired in the middle of the night, a beat writer blamed for the team’s troubles, not to mention the Madoff mess where the Wilpons may, or may not have, lost significant money – Mets Management has one debacle after another to their credit and, yes, we will get more of the same this year. I just don’t trust this management team with making any decision bigger that deciding if “Frankie should go back to glasses.”
From managing the media, to managing injuries to managing the farm system, the Mets have failed miserably at all three. The newest instances with Reyes’ and Beltran’s most recent injuries just reaffirms that management and the medical staff are still not on the same page. Expect more bad decisions by management regarding injuries. I just hope they don’t ruin any careers.
Having solid management from top to bottom is the foundation of a successful franchise. Another losing season and Omar’s gotta go. We’re stuck with the Wilpons because I really don’t think they will ever sell the team. The Mets need a new blueprint for success. Paying top dollar for free agents and plugging all your holes with retread players is a formula that Omar has proven does not work. Let’s cut our losses early this year. No waiting till 2012 when Omar’s contract expires. The Wilpons should have a replacement for him ready to go by the July trading deadline or there will be many empty seats after July. Except me. I enjoy buying $.99 seats on Stubhub. Really!
Continue reading “Highest Payroll in National League Should Be Good For Fourth Place”
I’m trying to be positive on the day that Mets single game tickets go on sale. It’s tough to do that after the team drove straight into a brick wall in 2009, but this is a new season. I’m ready for the Mets to start winning some games next month when the real games start. And I’m hoping that they can get some payback on some teams, especially in the division, that beat them down pretty badly last year.
The links below are pretty negative about the team, in general. I think that’s partially due to the news about the team but it’s also because it’s so much easier to write a negative story than a positive one. Negative stories seem to attract more attention than stories about how everything in great in Mets nation, if there is such a thing. I don’t think the Mets situation is ideal right now but I’m not completely down on them either.
How can you be completely down on the team with the highest payroll in the National League? The highest payroll certainly doesn’t guarantee wins as we saw last year. But it sure gives the Mets a chance to be in it to the end. This isn’t a Pirates situation going on here. There’s no rebuilding or looking forward to two or three years down the road. The Mets roster has a legitimate shot to be in the race late in the 2010 season.
Continue reading “Mets Links: Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, Jerry Manuel, More”
The Mets Report 