Bill Madden’s piece this morning illustrates the significant change in direction they took on this winter. Its becoming more and more clear that Tony Bernazard’s Rasputin-like hold was realized last year by Jeff Wilpon and he has quite frankly taken over on personnel matters. He’s done well.

Madden does a good job in pointing to the value and experience of newcomers like Wally Backman and Bob Melvin. Terry Collins has taken over as coordinator of minor league operations. Tim Teufel has been promoted to AA. What Madden left out were the intangibles, the most important of which is leadership and where it comes from.

Bernazard was a centralized control freak who had grasped control of far too many parts of the organization, including intricate on field details. As spring training unfolds, uniformed field managers and coaches will be providing the leadership. Motivation and instruction will come from them and not from someone like Bernazard. Players will rightfully feel that they are playing for a manager, not some omnipresent threatening force.

Posted under Uncategorized

The new car smell is long gone. The excitement of a new love has calmed to content. Or something like that. And Fernando Martinez comes to his third big league spring training.

For a change, timing couldn’t be any better for Martinez. Not only is he not supposed to make the club, the Mets don’t want him to. The departure of Tony Bernazard has allowed the Mets to put a more realistic spin and plan in place for their Latin prospects. One cannot discount the drama that surrounded the Mets since Bernazard’s ouster as over shadowing the slow progress and health concerns of the Mets’ top prospect.

But Martinez quietly went about having a very good winter and will arrive in Florida next week without either fanfare and questions about making the club. Let alone starting.

Maybe now Martinez gets to come to camp to just play. If his body is still maturing, we can hope that his injury troubles are behind him. Some things need to go well for Martinez, but he will be able to do so this spring without past expectations and fascination.

Posted under Uncategorized

Joe Janish does a good job in extending my own remarks. I agree with him that Putz probably should have been shut down when persistent pain surfaced in his elbow. I’m hesitant to comment in depth as I was not there to hear Putz’ own feedback of how he was feeling. There is no way of knowing what he was saying to the Mets staff as he was aware of his own contract situation.

Reagrding Putz further, a question should be asked at as to whether of not the Mariners were candid with the Mets about Putz’ health. That does not absolve the Mets, however, from doing their own physical exam like they did before signing Pedrom Martinez in 2004. Did they receive his medical records? If they recieved accurate ones, they should have been concerned as it would look much like Janish’s timeline. Putz was apparently hurting enough when he arrived in camp for it to be an issue during his spring training physical exam. Consideration via hindsight does not reflect well on the Mets. But the Mariners were indeed aware of Putz’ history and can be said to have knowingly traded damaged goods.

The rehabilitation for removal of foreign bodies from of the elbow is relatively short, and in hind sight a more prudent decision would have been for an arthroscopy when pain persisted. A noteworthy comparison is that a similarly injured Johan Santana is doing so well right now. I have no way of knowing why that decision was not made.

Dr. David Altcheck took over for Dr. James C. Parkes after the 1991 season. Altchek was a departure from the conservative Parkes in that he appeared to recommend surgery for players much quicker than would have Parkes. Whe Joe McIlvaine returned to the Mets as GM in 1993 he asked Altcheck why there appears to have been so many surguries. The Mets contracted their physician care out to a hospital that payed them a lot of money for a few years before they turned to Altcheck before the 2004 season.

In the cases of Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and Putz there seems to be a change in philosophy to opt for surgery. I doubt that that philosophy is driven by Altcheck. Last season the Mets also clearly displayed similar hesitancy in placing these same players on the disabled list. Observers are probably wondering outloud about how long Santana was hurting before it was decided to perform surgery on him.

Posted under Uncategorized

Joe Janish does a great job today of sifting through the story and asks all the right questions.

At any rate, my surprise begins with the news that the Mets never made any inquiries about Putz health prior to the trade and that the club trivialized his injury. Significant assets were committed to get Putz and now he is gone without anything resembling compensation.

A Mets statement somewhat contradicts Putz:

We were aware that [Putz] had a bone spur before the trade,” the statement said.

“He had the same condition in 2008 and was able to pitch with it. J.J. underwent an exam during spring training and an additional exam and MRI before he was cleared to play in last year’s WBC [World Baseball Classic]. Unfortunately, the spur did flare up again in May and he missed the rest of the season.”

Putz seems to be overatating his problems with the Mets as the Mets did an MRI on Putz before they let him go the the WBC. Putz said nothoing of this is his interview. To say the Mets mishandled or mistreated him is false. They took a chance on Putz elbow would be a non factor and probably relied on much of what they Mariners were telling them.

Pitchers frequently pitch with spurs or chips present within the elbow’s hinge joint. Unless problems begin – meaning pain – they are allowed to pitch. But when a pitcher begins hurting, it’s shut down time. As in Putz case and from the timeline that Janish provided, it appears that the bone spur that Putz developed is something we see quite frequently. To make a comparison, the development is similar to that of heal spurs after years of plantar fasciitis on the bottom of a foot. We often inject painful heal spurs with some success.

Unlike a shoulder where a bursa sack can be injected, the elbow does not provide such an effective target for costisone. Putz received and injection last year in May last year likely intended to decrease the spur.

The easiest path has been to jump in another public Mets beat down and I would have if the medical staff hadn’t done an MRI prior to Putz going off to the WBC. A larger issue that provides much more interesting dynamics comes up when one notes the large number of Mets whom participated in the WBC suffered season ending injuries last season. The list include Putz, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Johan Santana, and Oliver Perez. All of these injuries can be categorized as being of the over use variety.

The Mets don’t seemed to have publically advanced this theory as it could cause them considerable political problems within the industry. Having said this, it will intersting to see how the Mets handle the issue in the run up to the next one in 2013.

Posted under Uncategorized

Dave Murray takes a look at some old baseball card follies.

Toby Hyde’s got a new job and is blogging his excellent road trip.

I wonder where Steve Keane got that autographed card of Ron Gardenhire. Bot Gardy looks thin. Keane is alos posting a countdown to days until spring training begins.

Mets Fever’s Ed Ryan give his take on the Frank Catalanotto signing.

The Real Dirty Mets Blog has today in Mets infamy. Happy birthday to Bob Apodaca and Rafael Santana. No way Santana’s only 52 though.

Only the mad genius that is Metstradamus can channel the Mets via the Twilight Zone.

Anthony De Rosa of Hot Foot takes down Jerry Manuel’s interview.

Posted under Uncategorized

The Post’s Kevin Kernan is one of my favorite NY sports writers and has a nice piece this morning in the Post about Gregg Jefferies.

Jefferies is candid about his Mets days, but I don’t believe that there was as much resent for him replacing Wally Backman amongst the team as is indicated in Kernan’s piece. Much of the problems that Jefferies and the Mets suffered occured as a result of the organization’s plans for him. After Jeffereries extremely successful late season stint in 1988, the plan was to have him play third base. Who can blame them? He was that good and it was while he was playing 3B.

Howard Johnson was long rumored to be traded during the off-season in a deal which would bring lefthander Mark Langston to the Mets. The trade would allow Jefferies to play third. Talk continued during the spring, but the deal never materialized. The Mets made the decision during spring training to make Jefferies a second baseman – a position for which he was never suited for and had played only a handful of games. .

It was a disaster and Jefferies stuggled terribly in 1989, proving to be a drag on the entire team. The club’s energy slowly bleed. Looking for a boost, on June 18th the Mets traded Roger McDowell and Lenny Dykstra to the Phillies for Juan Samuel. A career second baseman, Samuel had been moved to centerfield by the Phillies before the start of the season. When Jefferies poor season continued, many were calling for Jefferies to be optioned to AAA Tidewater. Davey Johnson was the lone voice in the organization that desired keeping him and ended up being one of Johnson’s rare faulty assessments.

While Jefferies was a recluse and had no friends on the club, players were sympathetic of the situation he’d been put into. The club was in second place and many wanted the Mets to send Jefferies down, to bring Samuel in from center to play second and for Mookie Wilson be inserted into centerfield everyday.

It never happened. Wilson was dealt to Toronto on the same day Frank Viola was acquired and Samuel was sent to the Dodgers that winter. The Cubs won the division by six games and the Mets did not appear in the post-season again for another decade.

With Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter at the end of their careers and soon be gone, the Mets looked to build their everyday line-up around Johnson, Darryl Strawberry and Jefferies. Frank Cashen’s momentous decision to low-ball Strawberry in contract negotiations during the 1989 season sent the vulnerable gifted star into a personal tailspin. He would leave after the 1990 season for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Realizing that Jefferries was not a player they could not build around he was traded along with Keven McReynolds after the 1991 season for Brett Saberhagen. Bobby Bonilla was signed the same winter. The Mets slid into mediocrity finishing 5th in 1992 and last in 1993.

One can easily hypothisize that the Mets fall in the later half of the 1980′s and into the early 1990′s can be traced to the organization’s handling of Jefferies. If Jefferies had been sent down during the 1989 season, it would have served to alleviate the tremendous pressure that had been put on him. His presence had almost become cancer, not all of his own doing. The drama palyed out daily on WFAN and in the newspapers. Page Six fodder came from the Mets’ clubhouse. Optioning Jefferies would have been the most prudent decision. If the Mets – sans Jefferies had rebounded and wrested the division from the Cubs in 1989, the club’s legacy and direction would have been far different.

A great might have been to be sure, but it could have been the same for Jefferies.

Posted under Uncategorized

Numerous sources over the past few days have reported that the Mets are considering bringing back Fernando Tatis. Fine, but he’ll have to compete with Nick Evans and Mike Hessman for a strict platoon situation with Daniel Murphy. The Mets need Murphy to win the job outright as it would mean his upside is starting to come through. I’m betting that Daniel Murphy will have a good spring and win the job outright. So if the Mets bring in Tatis – and I think they will – he’ll have to show that he can hit during spring training. Otherwise he can be beaten out by either Evans or Hessman. Tatis has his own upside that serves roster and depth interest in that he can also play third and in the outfield.

Posted under Uncategorized

Jason Bay’s statement that the Mets were the first team to contact him reveals that the Mets were serious about getting better this off-season. Despite significant criticism there has been no panic as evidenced by not bidding against themselves on Bay and apparently on the catcher they want in Bengie Molina. The market has come back to them and the free agents they still desire have come back to them in potential costs. If Minaya upgrades the starting staff before spring training and brings in Orlando Hudson (no matter if he has traded Luis Castillo or not) it will have been a successful winter. Best of all is that the perception in camp will be one of hope and not of a organization in dysfunction.

Posted under Uncategorized