Help preserve the honor and dignity (*coughcough*) of the All-Star Game.  Manny Ramirez is a close fourth in the NL OF voting.  There's only one way to prevent the worst voting travesty since Ruben beat Clay -- Vote for Carlos Beltran!

Manny an all-star?

Ramirez is fourth among outfielders, with 442,763 votes in the first round of National League balloting, which was released today. He is only 34,080 votes behind third-place Carlos Beltran, who is in line for the final starting outfield spot.

Who has more RBI than:

• Miguel Tejada
• Carlos Beltran
• Albert Pujols
• Mike Jacobs :)
• Ryan Howard
• Big Papi and Manny
• Vlad Guerrero

Ryan Church.   I know it won't last, but I love it when players surprise you.  I'm so used to having players come in with big expecations, only to disappoint.   So here's one that goes the other way, change.   It will be interested to see how he looks over the full year.

Breaking news from The Onion:

"NEW YORK--Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez, who will miss the next eight months with an arm injury, showed no loss of morale or confidence as he performed his own rotator-cuff surgery last week. "My original plan was to make a minor incision in the shoulder and conduct an arthroscopy to examine the torn labrum," Martinez told reporters at the Mets training facility while outlining his method on the photos he took during the procedure. "However, the damage was extensive enough to necessitate me detaching my entire deltoid muscle and performing a thorough acromioplasty to remove bone spurs in my shoulder." Martinez said he expected himself to recover well enough to perform surgery on his calf in three to five months and begin throwing off the mound in eight."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/53701

Continue reading this post »

...According to SI.

"The New York Mets are engaged in serious talks for two superb starting pitchers who carry the potential to stamp them as a World Series favorite -- Giants right-hander Jason Schmidt and, in something of a shocker, the Astros' Roy Oswalt -- league sources told SI.com.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya was debating late Sunday night whether to surrender one of the biggest pieces of the Mets' future to acquire either Schmidt or Oswalt and greatly enhance his team's immediate chances. The asking price for both Schmidt and Oswalt is believed to revolve around multi-talented young outfielder Lastings Milledge."

In my opinion, I hope they go for Oswalt.

Continue reading this post »

Four games to go and David Wright and Cliff Floyd both have 97 RBI.  Who's going to win this meaningless race?

Continue reading this post »

Rather than show "at this pace" projections, I thought I'd list some of the individual stats I'm interested in and what I'm wondering about...

Will Floyd have a 40 HR, 100 RBI year?  (He is projected to)

Will Beltran have a 30 HR, 90 RBI year? (He'll have to pick up the pace).

Will Piazza break 20 HR?  Will he get his average up to .280?

Will Pedro win 20? Will he lead the league in strikeouts?  (C. Carpenter is gaining on him)

Will any regular Met hit .300?

Will Jose score 100 runs?  (Also, he had an outside shot at 700 ABs, but that's shot with him batting 7th.)

Will Benson win 17 games? (he's on pace for 15.)

Will Glavine have a winning record?

Did you know, despite a pretty dominating start to the season by Martinez, the Mets are only 8-6 in Pedro's starts?  By no means, an automatic win.  Contrast that with the fact that we're 8-2 in Kris Benson's starts.  Maybe Carlos Beltran loves Pedro, but I guess our bullpen does not.

Continue reading this post »

This is semi-off-topic, but I love talking about fantasy baseball.  How are you doing this year?  What Mets are helping you?  Who's hurt you?

I've have several teams and only one is doing well (lineup after the bump).  I dropped Glavine (whom I picked up for almost nothing) off one team already.  I managed to pick up Cameron on waiver on the same team, which was nice.

Continue reading this post »

The Mets finally meet the West, but they do so back East, er, at home that is.  We've looked like a decent team at home, but we haven't faced many world beaters.  The next twelve games looks like we'll be facing the good, the bad, and the unpredictable.

Continue reading this post »

This next stretch of ten games in a row is really going to show us what this team is (or isn't).  The Yankees series is probably a circus where anything could happen -- it's hard to tell how good or bad the Yankees are right now.  But then you know what we're getting with the Braves and Marlins.

Continue reading this post »