Mets WBC Returns: Wright, Putz, And K-Rod

David WrightThe World Baseball Classic has mercifully come to an end for the United States team at the hands of the Japanese team. The U.S. suffered a 9-4 loss last night at Dodgers Stadium. So we can finally get the whole team together for the Mets spring training.

The Mets are expecting Francisco Rodriguez, David Wright, and J.J. Putz back to the team to resume preparing for the 2009 season. The farce of a tournament is over. We don’t have to suffer through anymore 4-out saves for K-Rod or broken toe nails for David Wright.

Although the players got a few games played in for the tournament, it certainly wasn’t the same as playing five or six games a week in preperation for the season. There were a lot of days off between games as Chipper Jones complained about publicly to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Mets have serious business ahead of them this season. Specifically, they need to redeem themselves for two late season collapses in a row. Playing in a silly exhibition tournament was poorly timed for Mets players that need to get ready for a fast start this year. There’s no room for error.

Contest Results: Mets 2009 NL East Finish

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We had some great entries for this contest. I really appreciate the time that everyone took to write about where the Mets will finish in the NL East this season and why they believe that. First, I want to tell you that every entry had the Mets finishing first in the NL East. I guess since this is a Mets fan site I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I thought that the last two seasons would have left a bitter taste for some fans and they would’ve picked the Phillies to finish first. That didn’t happen.

Here are the winning entries:

(From MetsStatHead)– Projection for Season

National League East W L GB Winning %

New York Mets 95 67 – 0.599

Philadelphia Phillies 92 70 3 0.568

Florida Marlins 83 79 12 0.512

Atlanta Braves 81 81 14 0.500

Washington Nationals 74 88 21 0.457

This will not be a smooth ride for the Mets. The winners of last year’s World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies return with another very strong team. The loss of Pat Burrell is minimal after the signing of Raul Ibanez. Cole Hamels now has confidence only a World Series ring can give a pitcher. Chase Utley is one of the best hitters in the game as he showed last year. The Atlanta Braves have improved by adding Derek Lowe to their pitching staff, and the growth of one of the up and coming stars, Kelly Johnson. As always they still have Chipper Jones who is a nightmare for the Mets. The Florida Marlins might have one of the best young teams in all of baseball. Hanley Ramirez, Jorge Cantu, Dan Uggla, Jeremy Hermida, and Cameron Maybin are all under the age of 29 and all but Uggla are under the age of 26. The Washington Nationals are beginning to stake their claim as a team to watch with the signing of slugger Adam Dunn. Dunn joins some young and very talented hitters; Ryan Zimmerman, Lastings Milledge, Elijah Dukes, and Austin Kearns. Already the Mets players are calling themselves “The Team to Beat,” and we all know how well that turned out the past two years.

(From Smoov1)-

I believe the Mets (97-65) will finish first in the NL East division. The schedule the Mets will have this year lacks strong competition outside of the NL East regulars,Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox, and Tampa Bay being the strongest teams on the schedule. Unless you consider St. Louis a team of force, which seems like we play almost as much this year as any other team in the NL East (9), three out of the four strongest teams are in the American League and the cubs only come around 6x late in the schedule when the Mets bats should be in their prime. The NL East competitors all boosted their rosters in the off-season, but the Mets have given away the division the last 2 years and seem poised to not let a third one slip away. With the back end of the bullpen solidified and 4 potential All-Star caliber position players they should finish what they start this year. Though the Phillies offensive strength might have increased a bit, the pick up of Ibanez only offset the production of Pat Burrell and made their team considerably one-sided. The pitching staff is not strong, in my opinion, and lack bullpen stability. (Don’t expect another Lidge performance equal to last year). The Braves, good or not, always have the Mets number. If i would guess which team we would lose to the most this year in the NL East my guess would most likely be the Braves. The addition of Lowe did bolster their rotation along side Vazquez and Jurrjens but they still lack bullpen depth and we all saw what happened to the Mets inability to close out games. There are still a few holes in the offense that lack the power to get them to the top, but expect the Braves to start showing flashes of their previous dominance of the NL East as their prospects begin to develop. The Marlins, looking like this years “Netherlands” squad of the NL East have potential to make an early run at the top of the division but lack the experience and probably “gas” to finish strong in this division. They are getting better and better ‘fishing’ from within not spending big time money on big time players although breeding big time players for small time money. Great trade bait for prospects but lack the “Bait” to catch the Biggest Fish (Division Title). This is my take on how the NL East division will ride out and in the end i hope,excuse me, expect the Mets to be on top of the division once and for all !

Congratulations to MetsStatHead and Smoov1 for winning a copy of the Maple Street Press Mets 2009 Annual season preview magazine. And thanks again to everyone that entered the contest.

Mets Oliver Perez Due Back In PSL Today

Oliver PerezStarting pitcher Oliver Perez is due back at Mets spring training today from his short sting with the Mexican team in the World Baseball Classic. Perez was pretty bad for the Mexican team, pitching 6.2 innings and giving up eight runs ( seven earned) on 13 hits including five home runs.

We can thank the folks at Major League Baseball, the WBC, and Mexico team manager Vinnie Castilla for abusing Perez while he was there. Perez threw 85 pitches in his final game against Cuba on Monday.

At this point in the spring no starting pitchers are throwing 85 pitches in a game. In my mind, this is an outrage. And if Oliver Perez starts out the regular season poorly for the Mets there will be questions all season long about what could have been if Perez avoided the WBC exhibition games.

I won’t even get into how disgusted I am about Venezuelan team manger Luis Sojo abusing our new closer Francisco Rodriguez with 4-out saves. K-Rod hasn’t thrown a 4-out save in MLB in two years. And Sojo is doing it in an exhibition game? The Mets ownership and management have every right to be appalled by what’s happening to their players in this ludicrous WBC exhibition event.

Mets P Tim Redding Injured

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Tim Redding’s spring training hasn’t started very well. He’s been shelled pretty much every time out so far. And now we have word from Mets GM Omar Minaya that Redding is suffering from “weakness” in his right shoulder. Now some would say that his right arm has always been pretty weak but this time its an actual injury.

Redding will be on the disabled list when opening day rolls around on April 6 and he won’t pitch anymore this spring. Normally, this wouldn’t be very significant for the Mets. But the fifth starter situation has become so dubious over the past three weeks that this does now impact the team.

Remember that the Mets won’t need a fifth starter for the first two or three weeks of the season anyway. So there isn’t an immediate need to sort out the situation. And we also have to remember that we are talking about the fifth starter. We’ve seen some awful pitching from Redding, Freddy Garcia, and decent work from Livan Hernandez this spring.

There are still some alternate options like Brian Stokes and Nelson Figueroa when he gets back from the Puerto Rican team in the World Baseball Classic. So I’m not that worried about this issue now, and I’m certainly not advocating signing Pedro Martinez. I saw enough of him the last three years to know that he just doesn’t have it anymore.