Top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler tweeted this morning that he’s going to begin the 2012 season with the Binghamton Mets. Of course, he was the prospect acquired from the Giants last year in the Carlos Beltran trade.
He spent last season with the St. Lucie Mets after coming over from San Jose. Between both stops, he was 9-7 with a 3.52 ERA in 115 innings of work over 22 starts. Expect his innings to increase this season on his way to building strength to pitch a completed big league season.
If he’s successful at Binghamton we may see Wheeler in Flushing by September.
R.A. Dickey has a new book coming out this week called “Wherever I Wind Up”. Some excerpts hit the Internet today to generate buzz for the book. The two revelations that came out today were:
Dickey found a syringe on the locker room floor when he played for Texas in 2001. He suspected steroids but didn’t know for sure.
Dickey was sexually abused as a child.
There have been several professional athletes in recent years that have publicly discussed being sexually abused as children. It’s incredibly courageous to come out publicly with such a painful memory.
It sounds like the book is going to be a good read. And Dickey is a real literary type from all accounts so I’m sure the book is well written and insightful.
Here’s some video of Dickey talking about the book to the media today.
Johan Santana didn’t start well for the Mets yesterday but his line didn’t end up looking too bad. He started the game by walking three of the first four batters he faced and giving up a hit. But he regained control and ended up pitching 5 complete innings and giving up 2 runs. More importantly, he threw 88 pitches.
Yesterday was Santana’s fifth start of the spring and he’s been throwing regular bullpen sessions in between. And there haven’t been any reports of pain or stiffness in his surgically repaired left shoulder.
Barring a setback, I would think that Santana will on the Mets opening day roster next week. He certainly appears ready for game action if he’s been stretched out to 88 pitches. Maybe the Mets will want to be extra careful and have him make a start or two at Buffalo. But the cold weather in April in Buffalo might not be the best place for him to be.
Now that the Madoff lawsuit is behind the Mets and their secret loan to MLB is paid off, it’s time to extend David Wright’s contract and make sure that he’s a Met for his entire career. The Mets paid off their bridge loan last week after the Madoff lawsuit settlement and closed on the sale of 12 shares of the team. So the financial “uncertainty”, as we’ve heard it referred to by the Mets, has been removed. They’ve started to settle their debts but they haven’t paid us back yet. The fans. They owe it to us to keep Wright with the Mets for a long, long time.
The Mets let Jose Reyes walk away for nothing because of that financial “uncertainty”. And they can’t let that happen again to Wright.
Wright deserves a similar extension to the one that Ryan Zimmerman signed with the Nationals last month. The former youth teammates should play with their respective teams for years to come. Zimmerman’s extension added 6 years/$100 million to the two years he already had left on his contract. The Nationals did the right thing with Zimmerman. Coincidentally, Wright has one year and a team option left now. Continue reading “Mets Should Extend David Wright’s Contract”
This year Forbes has the Mets down 4% to $719 million in value, just behind the Phillies at $723 million. The Mets and the Rays are the only teams to lose value since last year, mostly due to the Mets massive operating loss of $40.8 million. Only three teams had operating losses (Phillies and Angels were the others) and neither were anywhere close to the Mets loss.
The Mets are now MLB’s sixth most valuable franchise far behind the Yankees in the top spot valued at over a billion dollars MORE than the Mets. It’s incredible how much more valuable the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers are than the Mets. All are listed at or over $1 billion.
It’s likely going to take years for the Mets to gain value back and it’ll have to be done on the field. Most experts (and sane people everywhere) are predicting the Mets will finish at or near the bottom of the NL East this season. Based on the current roster, I agree with that opinion.
The Wilpon/Katz ownership group may have settled the Madoff lawsuit and put that financial problem behind them. But the value of their team is sinking and likely won’t increase this year unless there are some miraculous occurances on the field. Maybe the Jets can loan Tim Tebow to the Mets until the NFL season starts.
I had a good chat with Kerel Cooper from On The Black about the Mets 50th anniversary this year. You can check it out in the video below. We talked about whether we liked the promotions that the Mets are running this year to celebrate the milestone in team history. And without giving too much away about the video, I have to say that the Mets seem to be getting it right this year. Although, we did discuss the Mets motivation for running so many promotions this year.
Watch the video to see the one thing that I’d like to see the Mets do this year to celebrate their 50th anniversary!
The Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz were dealt a huge blow today in a New York court. The judge in the Madoff case against Wilpon and Katz agreed with the Madoff trustee and issued a partial summary judgement against the Mets owners. The judgement is for up to $83 million with the exact amount to be determined in the near future.
A trial will begin on March 19th if there isn’t a settlement before then. The trial will be over an additional $303 million that the trustee is going after based on his contention that the Mets owners willfully ignored information indicating that Madoff was running a shady operation.
There’s been a lot of speculation about whether Wilpon and Katz will be able to withstand this judgement and trial to hold onto ownership of the Mets. They’ve been cutting spending on the team drastically in an attempt to align spending with revenue in the last two years. Some might speculate that they’re reducing spending to stockpile cash in case of a negative outcome of the trial. Well, that first negative outcome happened today.
It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a settlement in the next couple of weeks or if this case goes to trial. Either way, I think Wilpon and Katz are on the run and trying to keep ownership of the Mets in any way possible. But it might not be enough. And that would probably be a good thing for fans at this point.
I had a good chat with Kerel Cooper from 
The Mets Report 