Mets make a trade. So Long Milledge

The Mets officially announced that they have acquired OF Ryan Church and C Brian Schneider from the Nationals for OF Lastings Milledge. Originally I was disappointed and thought this was a bad trade. However, it's grown on me and I'm going to present it optimistically.

Obviously we needed pitching, but it seems like Milledge wasn't going to get us that. His value seems to have been down leaguewide, and that includes with the Mets as a right fielder. Maybe he'll turn out well, but with Gomez and Martinez in the minors also projected to be good outfielders, it's not like we're lacking outfield prospects, and it's probably the easiest position to fill.

Brian Schneider, Paul Lo Duca.. They're probably not going to be much different in 2008. Schneider is probably cheaper, and more expendible which gives the Mets more flexibility to make a change later in the year/decade. Church is a decent player, and he'll definitely be serviceable for us. It's likely he'll be better than Milledge, but you never know either way. Between him and Alou, players like Endy Chavez and even Gomez and Martinez may be able to get some playing time.

Another thing is that after the disasterous end to 2007, the Mets desparately needed a new look. With certain obvious exceptions, I wasn't really looking for anyone's head afterwards though, so where would this fresh look come from? This should help with that new look.

And, on a different note, Ryan Church has a cool personal chant. When he got up last year, the Nationals fans chanted "hallelujah" which I thought was cool.

Mets Tickets, Saturday Plan

I currently own 4 saturday plan tickets for the Mets. Next year one of my friends has decided to pass on this. 3 seats just seems a weird number, so rather than trying to condense my plan, I'm looking for a 4th person that wants to buy the seat. I figured it's always fun to meet new people, and maybe there's someone out there that always wants to go to games but never has anyone to go with.

If anyone out there is actually interested in this and/or wants more details feel free to email me at ceetarsnose@gmail.com. Last year are seats were UR section 15, row G. which were decent seats.

Mota..oh, and Estrada

I think the best part of this deal was ditching Mota. and that the Brewers are paying him.

Estrada looks fine to me as a catcher, but the Mets could even ditch him and not pay him via arbitration. woo. It's time to focus on pitching, but I know that the Mets just improved the bullpen in this trade

Classless organizations

Enough with A-Rod. I actually like A-Rod while he's not currently employed by those people, but I'm tired of the crazy rumors and speculation. Would he just sign somewhere already?

As for the Yankees supposedly willing to talk again? It's such a joke.

They've gone back on their word.
They're staging a one-man boycott of an agent, which will only hurt them in the end. You can't arbitrarily not deal with players because of who their agent is.
They expending quite a bit of effort and attention on basically keeping together a team that won one postseason game last year. They're putting an awful lot of faith in those young pitchers, which is the only real area you could expect improvement.
They just barely stopped short of asking A-Rod to crawl back to them, beg for his money, and apologize for opting out. Real classy.

As for the Mets, It's still a long offseason, but I'm getting antsy for some sort of real move, involving hopefully a bullpen guy or a starting pitcher.

Rumor Mill

Rumors abound!

I like all the rumors, because it keeps baseball talk alive, and I can only take so much of the same football stories all week since nothing happens between Monday night and Sunday afternoon, but I do hate chasing around rumors. There are so much unsubstantiated stuff, so many halfway-educated writers decided what the Mets just HAVE to do to be good next year, and so many little things to keep track of.

I'm happy with what the Mets have done so far. I don't think we needed Easley, but I like Anderson and Alou. Let's see what happens for the rest, but I don't know that I'll have a good sense until April, after I've seen and heard about all the bullpen prospects the Mets have for the season. Because I think the bullpen is the biggest issue, as much as I would like another starter. I wouldn't be panicing with Pedro, Maine, Perez and Humber, Pelfrey and El Duque. Maybe pick up a marginal guy now or later or both and see what happens. I want them to resign Lo Duca, and Castillo, and I think they will.

So let's see where this goes, I just can't take real interest in the zillion of rumors and trades that are suggested every day. Too many writers, not enough stuff to write about.