Nick Evans in all fairness made the club in spring training, but in a numbers oriented move the OF/1B was moved down to make room for the signing of Gary Sheffield. The question that remains is what the Mets will do when Livan Hernandez is needed as that fifth starter.

Matt Cerrone speculated today that the club could opt to move Darren O’Day out. I agree that this could be a smart play. The two games this weekend at Citi Field had to change quite a bit.

The new ballpark is big and likely to be bigger than anyone suspected. The gaps are much deeper than anticipated and ball that get to the wall may become triples more often than anyone would have liked. The high walls in the outfield seem to deaded the ball and there’s a difficult well to play in RF. You saw an accomplished major league outfielder in Ryan Church have trouble with it. Marlon Anderson showed that he won’t be very good at home in CF. It makes Jeremy Reed much more valuable that expected. Sheffield and Daniel Murphy could prove to be liablilities in the OF when the Mets play at home.

If Sheffield hits, he’ll stay. And if he does, he might replaced after his 3rd time at-bat by Church or Reed. Hopefully Murphy will be able to hold his own in the OF. If not, the Mets could find themselves with a team that does not match their own home stadium.

The Mets have a fly ball pitching staff and it will be a disaster if they find out they don’t have a fly ball outfield.

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Adam Rubin reports the Mets have cut seven – Ron Villone(released), Rene Rivera, Jose Valentin, Cory Sullivan, Nelson Figueroa, Carlos Muniz and Andy Green.

There’s some hidden good news in that its clear that the Mets will start the season with more depth in AAA than previous years. Its been a problem in previous seasons. Only the surprise emergences of Daniel Murphy, Nick Evans and Brian Stokes last season provided spark. This year’s AAA roster will have players who are major league ready and had good springs.

Manuel still has some tough choices. First in Nick Evans. He’s ceratainly earned a spot. But do they keep him for the number of at bats thats limited by Fernando Tatis? The smart play might be to option Evans and keep Bobby Kielty who’s much better suited for a bench role, and also has had a very good spring. Kielty is a switch hitter to. I predict that Evans will go north – a bit as a reward – until Livan Hernandez is needed to start a game. Unless a middle infielder or catcher is injured, Evans will be the first player recalled.

The Mets will probably have a short leash on both Tatis and Ryan Church. If either gets off to a slow start, they won’t hesitate to go to Kielty and or Evans.

Brian Stokes and Bobby Parnell will likely round out the bullpen and leave just one lefty-Pedro Felicaino. With JJ Putz and Francisco Rodriguez getting the last two innings, its understandable why the Mets feel they can get by with just one. Parnell did not allow a hit to a left-handed batter this spring. Stokes good finish to 2008 was backed up this spring. He can start or relieve.

Still, with all the talk of additions the Mets did not make, this club goes north with more depth – both of the major league roster and at AAA – than at any time of the Omar Minaya regime.

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Bart Hubbuch has a thoughtful piece to day on concerns about the manner in which the unusually high number of Mets have been utilized in the WBC. The stats that Hubburt supplies are telling:

Hubbuch is on to something and I can feel the “I really don’t like the way my guys are being used.”

Will the club be less willing next time? Yes. Especially with Mexico and Venezuela I think. But the Mets have alot of Latin players on their roster now and the nationalistic identity of baseball is stronger there than it is in the US. It will be hard to tell Johan Santana no in three years and the political considerations are potentialy messy with the strained relationship between the US and Venezuela.

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In an ESPN story today, former Yankee strength trainer Brian McNamee says two things that are puzzling. First that one of the injectables he used on Clemens was lidocaine with B-12.

It’s easy to envision how he got the B-12, but not so much with the lidocaine. The later is a anesthetic that’s promarily used as a numbing agent to apply stiches or in dental work. In athletics its easy to see why a physician would choose to add lidocaine with any steroid. Its a technique the pysician uses to see if they “hit the spot” with their injection into a shoulder, knee or elbow. It would never be added to steroid injection into a large muscle like that of the buttocks. Nonetheless its worth questioning McNamee where he got the vile of lidocaine as this is considered to be a narcotic.

Second, McNamee says he injected Clemens at Yankee Stadium in the area which the hot tub was located. Was this area in a place where long time Yankee atheltic trainers Gene Monohan and Steve Donahue were working? If So, McNamee’s claim is questionable as there is no way on this earth that either Monohan or Donahue would have allowed a layman like McNamee to give a shot to an athlete. Nor would have Clemen’s chanced it if he felt that either of the two would have discovered them. If the hot tub at Yankee Stadium was clearly seperate from the training room does it make McNamee’s statement’s questionable.

At any rate the whole episode sheds light on the surge of “personal trainers’ whom baseball let in without vetting. Too may of them – like McNamee – had far too many links to the community of body building and traditional power lifting. Barry Bonds now notorious strength trainer, Greg Anderson is another. They saw major league players as willing dupes who could deliver the kind of access they could never obtain by going through the front door.

Still responsibility lies with players who felt they were untouchable and the suits whom run the game. It unltimately is about sceeding power and influence – something the game’s executive branch often sought to supress in their ATCs . Ultimately their lack of professional respect for ones like Monohan and Donohue helped fuel the disaster. ATC’s have long since earned the respect and appreciation by players and might have been one group if respectfully empowered by management might have been able to raise the alarm against charlatans like Anderson and McNamee.

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Adam Rubin writes effectively this morning about the glaring concerns that exist in the Mets everyday line-up. Says Rubin of the corner outfield positions:

Manny Ramirez hit .396 with 17 homers and 53 RBI in 53 games as a Dodger while lifting L.A. into the postseason in ’08. There’s no way Daniel Murphy and Fernando Tatis can provide comparable production. Still, with the Mets looking to maintain a $147 million payroll, Citi Field will open with a platoon of Murphy and Tatis in left field and not Ramirez. Murphy, who has remarkable plate discipline for a young player, hit .313 in 131 at-bats, and no longer qualifies as a rookie.

Tatis, the NL Comeback Player of the Year, who didn’t even play baseball in 2004 and ’05, hit .297 with 11 homers and 47 RBI in 273 at-bats. He separated his right shoulder diving for a ball in Washington on Sept. 16 and missed the rest of the season. Tatis opted for rehab rather than surgery and ultimately played in 38 games in the Dominican Winter League.

Right field remains a modest question mark as well. While Ryan Church appears to have post-concussion syndrome behind him, he did hit just .219 over his final 33 games, albeit after returning from a seven-week absence. However, before suffering his second concussion in Atlanta on May 20, Church was arguably the team’s MVP.

The most likely of the three to produce the kind of numbers a team would need in the outfield is the youngest of the three. Daniel Murphy’s gap power and clutch hitting gave the only boost the club received in the second half. The Mets need Murphy to win this job outright at some point in the season and return Tatis to the bench. Tatis was one of baseball’s feel good stories yet its unlikely he can reproduce the same numbers. The Mets will be weak a void of any power. If Tatis is in the line-up, no real threat from the right side will be on the bench if Nick Evans does not make the club. We can only hope that Church post concussion syndrome is behind him, but I have my doubts. A failure of Church to regain his early 2008 form will be detrimental to the Mets season. By all reports Citi Field has a large outfield and none of these three – save perhaps Curch has the kind of range needed.

Rubin then covers the issue of second base:

It’s no secret the Mets would have traded Luis Castillo and signed Orlando Hudson had Castillo not still been owed $18 million over the next three seasons.

So how long will Manuel’s patience with Castillo last if he underperforms? Remember, the manager started journeyman Ramon Martinez over Castillo at the end of the season. Manuel also rode Argenis Reyes through an 0-for-25 skid at one point as well, all to keep Castillo on the bench. The first signal of Castillo’s commitment level will be determined by his shape when he arrives in Port St. Lucie. Randolph was disappointed by Castillo’s weight when he reported last spring, although Castillo was coming off surgeries to clean out both knees.

If Castillo falters, newcomer Alex Cora could chip away at his playing time. This much is certain: Mets officials won’t hesitate to part with Castillo next winter, when the amount he’s owed is down to $12 million. But it appears Castillo has gotten the message as the Mets say he has been working out at the team’s Dominican Republic complex.

Castillo has not played well as a Met and his long-term signing by Minaya is one of a handfull of disasterous contracts he’s given to aging Latin stars. Minaya may be self conscience of this perception and may explain his hesitancy to bring in a Manny Ramirez or Pudge Rodriguez.

At any rate, the Mets need a comeback year from Castillo. And they need him to be able to bat second behind Jose Reyes. If the current personnel reamains the same – and the Mets 2B has to bat 8th instead of the catcher – one third of the line-up are outs. And with a weak bench, this does not bode well at all for a team that expects to compete for a division.

This makes Carlos Delgado a major key to success. Delgado clearly thrived under Jerry Manuel. And as Rubin says, Delgado hit .313 with 24 homeruns and had 70 RBI over his final 300 ABs. If the Mets can get these numbers over a season – and Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran stay healthy and have what can fairly be considered an average career seasons – it might be enough if the starters can get the game to JJ Putz and Francisco Rodriguez.

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It took less than a week before Barack Obama showed weakness. By evoking the name of radio icon Rush Limbaugh to Republican congressional members, the new president displayed not only a lack of sophistication in philosophy but also in personal weakness.

To play the Limbaugh card to the face of Republican legislators demonstrates just how little he respects and understands positions contrary to his own. Its one thing to associate the radio giant with voters but quite another to believe that seasoned and hardened pols march in lock step to what Limbaugh says on the radio. This was a disturbing lack of savvy in this demonstration and revealed desperation when faced with anything but adulation.

Those GOP members of congress must have left unimpressed, but also concerned that the new president has a tendency to see things through an extremely narrow set of core perceptions. It signals that he will seek out the extreme left of his party at signs of pressure. But it indicates, too, that he may also lash out unnecessarily in a manner which favors our enemies. The later should be of the greatest concern to the people of our nation no matter their political leanings.

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It might be.

Yeterday’s in-your-face confrontation by a Politico reporter coupled with this evening’s post by Jonathan Martin have demonstrated that it is the online poltical magazine is the first to play gothcya.

Politico – if it has made a beheind the scenes decision to be tough on Obama – may have made a shrewd move. And may represent the first example of a media outlet that will actually do some reporting about Obama.

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The addition of the one-time ace to the Mets rotation is suddenly taking on an intensity than either the Derek Lowe affair and the emerging dance with Scott Boras and Ollie Perez. Sheets is cheaper and may be worthy of the gamble with potential upsides off-the charts. A near top form Sheets provides the club almost a co-number one with Santana and puts less pressure of a recovering John Maine and maturing Mike Pelfrey. The potential drama of Perez is eliminated and a seasoned Tim Redding is the 5th starter. Jon Niese gets to start at Buffalo alongside Bobby Parnell. Maybe Parnell gets some bullpen time.

The capital saved from a Sheets signing may allow the club a wack at Pudge Rodriguez and another deal to alter the lineup like for Orlando Hudson.

There’s less money being spent this off-season and slowing things down. Maybe the Mets see that Niese can replace Perez’s work soon enough and Sheets is well worth the chance.

Sheets over Perez for me.

lowe

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From Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News:

The US yesterday pushed for the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire in the widening Caucasus conflict as it accused Moscow of seeking regime change in Tbilisi.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he would meet his Western colleagues to finalise a draft resolution that would call for “an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of all forces to the status quo in the breakaway Georgian enclave of South Ossetia. He particularly stressed the need for Moscow to withdraw the combat forces it sent to South Ossetia in the past week.

And in highly contentious exchanges with his Russian counterpart Vietaly Churkin reminiscent of the Cold War, Khalilzad accused Moscow of seeking “regime change in Tbilisi” and of waging “a campaign of terror” in Georgia.

He said Churkin cited comments made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a confidential telephone conversation with his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice suggesting that the president of Georgia “must go”.

“This is completely unacceptable and crosses the line,” the US ambassador said. “Russia must affirm that its aim is not to change the democratically elected government of Georgia and that it accepts that territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia.”.

Nice to know that when the Dems ran off John Bolton, Bush installed another hardass in Ambassador Khalilzad.

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Barack Obama surrogate Bill Richardson shamefully prostituted his foreign policy street cred today by both hitting at John McCain and blamming President Bush for the Russian invasion of Georgia.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said McCain’s campaign “is run by lobbyists that represent Georgia and other countries.”

“He takes huge amounts of money from oil companies that are profiting in the (former) Soviet Union and many parts of the world,” the Democrat told ABC News, attempting to depict a conflict of interest for McCain.

Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, said the crisis vindicated Obama’s pledge to rebuild US alliances in Europe that were strained under President George W. Bush.

“This has been one of the failures of the Bush administration, failing to build a strong relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, so we’d have the kind of influence to persuade them to stop some of these very, very dangerous efforts within their territory,” he said.

Richardson really ought to be embarassed at this awful display of political posturing such a fuid foreign policy and security issue. Georgia is an ally of the US and our other allies whom Richardson spins to suit his own political objectives. Of little matter to Richardson is the fact that Georgia is both a democracy and who’s troops serve alongside US troops in Iraq.

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