Friday, July 29, 2005

Random Rants

Nice to see that fans outside of the northeast can show some passion. The Astros fans at Minute Maid Park booed Carlos Beltran during every at-bat and every fly ball last night. It sounded like a playoff crowd...heck it sounded like a hockey crowd! Misguided though it may seem, good for them. Expect the Shea crowd to follow suit soon.

The Andy Fletcher call on Mike Cameron dropping the fly ball after he caught it and was exchanging it from glove to hand was preposterous. But in another example of guts and soul, Pedro Martinez didn't allow it to get to him, and he got out of the eighth inning without a scratch. There are a couple of Met pitchers who could learn from that performance...I won't mention Kaz Ishii by name.

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Sports Illustrated uses a pictorial essay to run down the worst ever deadline deals. Four of them involve the Mets. Three of them involved aren't good.

Jacob Luft of Sports Illustrated is for the Soriano trade. But according to various New York Post scribes, Soriano talks have cooled, Manny Ramirez has been discussed but is unlikely to happen, and Rays closer Danys Baez has become the focus (and Chuck Lamar apparently isn't asking for Jeff Wilpon's first born this time.) Also, Mike Cameron is very tradeable.

Editor's note: Scratch the notion that Chuck Lamar has found his marbles. According to the Daily News, Lamar has asked for either Jose Reyes or David Wright for Baez.

Thank you Jim Duquette and Jeff Wilpon, for creating this monster at the trading deadline last year. Good grief.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Metsradamus, you are like the inner voice of the Mets fan: always passionate, always on the ball, and always thinking the worst case scenario. i love it. Do you think the offensive woes (which began circa 2001) could be traced to hitting coaches? Maybe we need a shakeup from within? Promote HoJO!! Send Rick Down to the Social Security office.

Metstradamus said...

Thanks to you. And I think you're on the right track with hitting coaches. Don't forget, Rick Down was exiled from the Yankees when they had their slumps so I don't know what the Mets brass was thinking when they brought him in. In terms of pure physical appearance, he reminds me of the trainer in "The Junction Boys" that treated everything with aspirin and booze.

I thought, and you might disagree, getting rid of Don Baylor was a mistake...he was the only guy that was able to get any success out of that lineup last season. This season, the only guy making visible improvements from the start of the season has been Reyes. And you never hear any quotes from players which start with "Well, I've been working hard in the cage with Rick and it's really helped", have you?