Or they could have followed Ryan's advice from a few years ago and gone after Petagine.

Billy, here's the dope defensive stat you requested:
Based on his UZR from 2000-2003 (they aren't published for 2004), Mientkiewicz was the second best defensive 1B (behind Helton), and saved 17 runs per season over an average fielder.
Here are some relevant players:
Mientkiewicz 17
Tino 15
Travis Lee 13
Olerud 1
Delgado -2
Galarraga -12
Mo Vaughn -27

It's well known that I wanted Delgado, but since we didn't get him, it makes sense to get either Mientkiewicz or Lee. If Phillips is hitting well, maybe he can platoon with one of them. I think I'd go with Lee if he's 100% because he won't cost a prospect and will probably be cheaper, but I'm not really sure what his health status is.

Unless Ryan can provide some dope defensive stat, I am appalled by the Mientkiewicz signing. For stats like that, we could have thrown Phillips out there, or the huge dude from the end of last season, or even the kid we just traded (don't care if he's single A! bring 'im up!)

If he ever gets a hit, what are the odds the scoreboard would say "met-kiewicz"? Very good, I say.

To reiterate Chump's "wow", the 'stros had the balls to say they signed franco because "the postseason showed that we needed relief help". should have just said "we wanted an old, terrible pitcher."

D'oh!
Delgado signs with Marlins.
Paging Travis Lee.


Is he being over paid?
Is he unlikely to still be performing well in the final year of the deal?
Probably yes to both, but the same thing can be said for Pedro and Beltran. I've been saying all along that if the Mets are going to make these moves, they have to go all the way. As things stand now, they're probably the 4th best team in the division.

john franco signed with the astros for 700 g's.

wow.

sports illustrated also has an article this week about omar minaya and how his ethnicity is wooing marquee players to the mets and how, overall, the mets are becoming "latinized."
the article gives scant attention to the real reason pedro and beltran came here, and why delgado would come here if he does, dinero. plain and simple.
furthermore, I would say the mets have long been a 'latin' team, as have many other teams in beisbol. the late 90's mets, alfonzo, ordonez, mo-ti, harmando, cedeno, etc. i mean, i guess we now have our first 'latino' superstar (does kieth count? el sid?), but i think it discredits latinos as a whole to still view them as this cliquey, insular minority rather than a diverse force fast approaching majority status in los grandes ligues.

Good article by SI's Tom Verducci about amphetamines in baseball. My personal take on both steroids and amphetamines is that the issue should be the health of players. If a large percentage of players are using a drug to enhance their performance, it puts pressure on everybody else to do it. And it's unfair to the rest of the players to give them the choice of (1) not perform as well as all the enhanced players or (2) suffer short-term or long-term medical problems. I haven't really been convinced that either steroids or amphetamines are all that dangerous if done in a controlled manner, but I think that should be the issue: how damaging are these drugs.

Anyway, here are some excerpts from the article:

Caminiti: "I would say there are only a couple of guys on a team that don't take greenies before a game. One or two guys. That's called going out there naked. And you hear it all the time from teammates, 'You're not going to play naked, are you?'

Former outfielder Chad Curtis agreed with Caminiti: "You might have one team where eight guys play naked and another team where nobody does, but that sounds about right. Steroids are popular, but quite a lot more guys take [amphetamines] than steroids. I'm talking about illegal stuff. Speed ... ritalin, which is legal only with a doctor's prescription ... sometimes guys don't even know what they're taking. One guy will take some pills out of his locker and tell somebody else, 'Here, take one of these. You'll feel better.' And the other guy will take it and not even know what it is."

"Curtis added that amphetamine use is so prevalent that non-users are sometimes ostracized as slackers."

Is anyone really surprised that Cameron doesn't want to shift to RF now? He probably figured there was no way the Mets were getting Beltran and wanted to look good. Asshole.

Also, why isn't Blyleven in the HOF? Seriously, his stats stack up pretty well against most other players. Almost 300 wins, 3700 K's, a pretty decent career ERA (3.31). I mean, he lost 250 games, but still, I think he should be in.