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Kerel Cooper of On The Black and I address the Johan Santana rumors about him not pitching in 2011 in this week’s video on the state of the Mets. We also talk about Carlos Beltran and his current status and the Oliver Perez move to the bullpen.
We talk about the effects on the team that the Santana and Beltran injuries could have for the season. Check out the video and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
In this week’s video I did with Kerel Cooper on On The Black we talk about the spring training position battles at second base and starting pitcher. Specifically, we talk about Justin Turner and Chris Young. We also talk about what could happen to Oliver Perez this year and Nick Evans if he doesn’t make the opening day roster.
I’m hoping that Evans gets a shot at Major League playing time this season, I’m just not sure how that could happen with the Mets barring an injury. Since he’s out of options, I don’t think he’ll make it through waivers unclaimed.
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Jim Bowden previews the 2011 Mets for Fox Sports in the video below. I think he pretty much nailed it. 2011 probably isn’t going to be a great year for the Mets. The finances appear to be a problem and it led to little offseason activity. The Mets have a few valuable pieces, notably David Wright and Jose Reyes, that can deliver production for the team or return value in a trade.
The prediction is for the Mets to finish fourth in the NL East and I think that’s a pretty fair assessment. You could make an argument for a third place finish, but I think it would be difficult to predict that the Mets will finish with a better record than the Phillies or Braves.
As Bowden mentioned, with about $60 million coming off the books in 2012, next year’s team will look a lot different than what we’re watching this season. http://img.widgets.video.s-msn.com/flash/customplayer/1_0/customplayer.swf
Video: First Pitch: Mets
Kerel Cooper of the On The Black and I got together again to talk about the state of the Mets. This week we cover spring training games starting, MLB issuing a secret loan to the Mets, the bullpen, and the candidates for the bench in 2011.
A couple of issues we talked about that are worth discussion are that I love Jenrry Mejia in the bullpen and hate Nick Evans coming off the bench. Check out the video below to see why.
Kerel Cooper of On The Black and I got together for another weekly video to talk about the state of the Mets as the team begins their first full squad workouts. The hot topics of the week are Luis Castillo reporting on time but not early, Carlos Beltran in center field, and K-Rod showing up and apologizing again for assaulting someone at Citi Field last year.
The good news is that we don’t have to talk about the Bernie Madoff lawsuit this week!
http://blip.tv/play/guougqXYHwI%2Em4v
This is the video that aired Sunday morning from ESPN’s Outside the Lines show on the Mets relationship to Madoff. Much of the segment is conducted with Larry King, who was introduced to Bernie Madoff by Fred Wilpon. The piece is well done, as most of the ESPN segments are, but there really isn’t any groundbreaking material here that you probably don’t already know.
http://espn.go.com/videohub/player/embed.swf
http://espn.go.com/videohub/player/embed.swf
Jayson Stark and Karl Ravech bring up some good points about the whole Madoff mess that the Wilpons are in. Why would anybody want to buy into a minority share of the team with the controlling partner in such a dire predicament? That’s the thing that doesn’t make sense to me. I suppose that a minority owner could have a stipulation in their agreement to purchase the team from the Wilpons at some point. Other than that, I can’t think of a reason that someone would want to buy a stake in this team right now.
Another good point they brought up in the video was about the settlement talks. Why would the Wilpons be so adamant about losing money to Madoff and then entertain the idea of settling the case? A losing investor shouldn’t be talking about settling the case!
I have to say that I agree with a lot of the opinions that I’ve read about the future of the Wilpons owning this team. I believe, at some point, that the Madoff lawsuit is going to force the Wilpons to sell all or most of the Mets and SNY. How about you?
The Mets Report 