Blogging Mets

As I’ve written before, I am trying to stay away from all of the Jose Reyes rumors for fear of driving myself and you readers crazy, and also because most of them will likely prove incorrect. But it is a fact that Reyes visited the Marlins this week.

Reyes took a tour of the Marlins new ballpark, complete with a hardhat emblazoned with “Marlins,” and there’s video to prove it:

But there is no proof to Friday’s rumor that the Marlins have made a “substantial” offer to Reyes (as well as Albert Pujols). Fortunately this “report” comes via a tweet from Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, whose track record for being right is about as high as his height, so it’s nothing much to worry about.

John Harper of the Daily News wrote earlier this week that the Marlins strategy could be to lure free agents to their new ballpark by offering shorter contracts at higher per-year salaries, “presumably more than $20 million a year” for Reyes. Matthew Cerrone of Mets Blog speculates the offers to Reyes, Pujols or Prince Fielder could be as high as $35 million per season over three years.

I don’t know about any of that, but if the Marlins offer Reyes some kind of crazy short-term contract he will likely take it because there is no way the Mets or anyone else would match it. As much as I want Reyes back on the Mets, they would be insane to pay him $20 million-$35 million per year. I think Mets fans would understand that and cancel plans for any revolt. But if he happens to sign a reasonable contract with anyone but the Mets there would be no way to hold back the fans from burning effigies of Sandy Alderson and the Wilpons, if not the real things.

It’s a simple question actually — what would you like to see the Mets do with Mike Pelfrey and Angel Pagan? There are multiple votes allowed on this so you can express your opinions about both players.

If there’s one thing all Mets fans can agree upon is that the team needs a change. Most fans would say that the change should not include allowing Jose Reyes to leave and trading David Wright. How would that make the team better? So what’s the best place to start? — cutting ties with Mike Pelfrey and Angel Pagan.

Unless it is just posturing to perhaps make them attractive in a trade, it appears Sandy Alderson intends on tendering both of them contracts.  I cannot understand why, as I’ve been writing about Pelfrey and Pagan since July.

Alderson is counting on growth from Jonathon Niese and Dillon Gee to help strengthen the rotation, which makes sense because they are both young and still learning how to pitch in the majors. But Pelfrey is done growing. What you see is what you get with Pelfrey, and what we’ve seen is not worth $6 million, which Pelfrey will likely get in arbitration. Just let him go — any minor leaguer or retread free agent will be able to offer the same things that Pelfrey will deliver at a fraction of the cost. If the Mets are not going to go out and get a much needed number two starter, better to put Pelfrey’s money into other parts of the team.

Like center field, where Pagan has proven to be mediocre at best. He will likely command $4 million in 2012, and like Pelfrey, he is just not worth it. If they really want to save money, stick Jason Pridie out there — he’s just as good as Pagan. But if the Mets want to be competitive, they will go out and find a proven guy. Grady Sizemore would be a huge upgrade at the right price, but it appears he wants upwards of $9 million — too much for a player coming off an injury. Rick Ankiel stopped hitting since they took his HGH away, but at least he can field and will come cheaply. Either way, Pagan should not be in a Mets uniform next season.

The Mets cannot have the same team in 2012 as they had in 2011. What kind of message does that send to fans, not to mention the rest of the league?

The resigning or not resigning of Jose Reyes is shaping up to be a seminal moment in the history of the Mets, or at least the history of the Wilpons ownership of the Mets. Whatever happens could shape the franchise for quite a long time to come.

First off, there are the on-field repercussions. The goal of management is to try to make the team better ever year. Well, if Reyes is not resigned, the Mets will be worse in 2012 than they were in 2011 (no offense to Ruben Tejada, who is a fine player but he is no Jose Reyes).

It’s not as though the Mets will use the money they would have spent on Reyes and use it on other players. If Reyes leaves and they go out and sign Roy Oswalt and Grady Sizemore, for example, then at least an effort was made to make the team better. But you know as well as I do that if Reyes does not resign, that money will remain in the Wilpons’s pockets.

And that is the second, and perhaps main issue — it will show just what direction the franchise is going. Sandy Alderson has said the payroll will be $100 million-$110 million in 2012. But I think that is WITH Reyes. Without him I bet the payroll will be in the $90 million-$100 million range. If this does indeed happen, it shows that the Wilpons are committed to running the Mets like a small-market franchise. That just won’t fly in New York. No one is saying the Wilpons have to run the Mets like the Steinbrenners run the Yankees, but fans will expect them to spend enough money to field a competitive team. If they refuse to do that, then maybe it is time to sell the team.

You could argue that they tried spending big money and that failed. Yes, but that was with a less-than-c0mpetent general manager making the decisions. Why not give a smart guy like Sandy Alderson a shot? The Mets don’t have to keep the payroll at the $14o million level they have been at for the past few seasons, but at least they should keep it at a level reasonable for a New York team — around $120 million, I say.

I think at that level the Mets can field a very good team. But what are the odds the Wilpons will allow that?

The 2011 free agency period is only in its first few days and we’ve already been bombarded with wild speculation about where Jose Reyes might end up. We hear the Brewers and Nationals are the front runners in bidding that hasn’t even started. We hear that the Mets are less optimistic about signing him. We hear Reyes won’t give the Mets a hometown discount. This is liable to go on for a couple of months. It’s enough to drive a Mets fan even crazier (because you’ve got to be crazy to be a Mets fan in the first place!). My advice for surviving this trying time without a bullet to the brain — ignore it all.

These reports mean nothing. In some cases they come from the player’s agent, trying to scare one team or get another team to up the bidding. Sometimes they come from a team, trying to scare a player. But most times they come from sportswriters who are desperate to write something when nothing is going on, so they cling to any bit of information they can wring from even the lowest of club “officials.”

In these days of Twitter and online publications, any speculation gets out into the public — no time to investigate if the information is actually true. That comes later, after everybody already knows about it. In the old days of daily newspapers, writers had time to really look into things before publishing them. Now they are so afraid of being scooped they quickly and recklessly tweet the story. If it turns out not to be true? Who cares, it was just a tweet!

Thus we are bound to hear wild and crazy rumors disguised as “reports” about where Reyes will sign. It is easy for me to tell you to ignore such reports, but you know you will be reading them, as will I. But I would just say take each story with a grain of salt and consider what the source might be. Just don’t take any of them too seriously until there is a news conference with Jose Reyes holding up a jersey with his name on it.

Former legendary Mets manager Gil Hodges is among 10 candidates who are on the Veterans Committee ballot for the Hall of Fame that was released on Thursday. Once and for all, let’s get him in there.

It’s well known that Hodges has received more votes than anyone who is not in the Hall. His 63.4% in 1983 is the highest total for anyone who didn’t get in the following year. Of course, Hodges did not have a following year — that was his 15th and final time on the ballot. Veterans Committees have ignored him since, but this is the first time the committee will consider his candidacy after getting revamped a second time (the first revamping led to no one getting elected).

Hodges is certainly a worthy candidate. He hit 370 home runs, which may not seem like a lot now, but when he retired he was in or near the top 10 all-time. He had 30+ home runs in five consecutive seasons when hitting 30 homers was an accomplishment. He drove in 100+ runs seven straight times. He was an eight-time All-Star. He was a career .273 batter — not great, but on par with such recent inductees as Andre Dawson. Defensively, Hodges was the best first baseman of his day. The Gold Glove wasn’t introduced until 1957, 10 years after his career began. Hodges won it the first three seasons when he was already in his mid 30s (one of them was on display at his bowling alley in Brooklyn — I used to marvel at it and his other baseball mementos when I was a kid). He was also a leader of those great Brooklyn Dodgers teams.

Then there is his managerial record. He struggled in his first five years at the helm of terrible Washington Senators teams, but he found his way in New York, of course leading the Miracle Mets to the 1969 World Series championship. He was developing into an excellent manager when a heart attack killed him days before the 1972 season was about to start.

Hodges was also by all accounts a great man. Of course, there of lots of great men who are not in the Hall of Fame (and some rotten ones who are), but his solid character should be enough to push him through. He was widely respected throughout the league. Tom Seaver, for example, cannot say enough nice things about him.

Among the 16 people on the committee are Ralph Kiner, Tommy Lasorda and Don Sutton. Kiner always spoke highly of Hodges, and Lasorda and Sutton are Dodgers, the former a huge booster for his team. Perhaps the three of them can convince the other members (unless Kiner is upset that Hodges had one more homer than him!). Hodges needs 75% of the vote when the committee marks its ballots on December 5 at the winter meetings — that’s 12 votes.

It’s about time Gil Hodges took his rightful place in Cooperstown.

So let’s see, you lead the league in hitting, so of course you will win the Silver Slugger. Not so for Jose Reyes. Troy Tulowitzki is your 2011 Silver Slugger winner at shortstop in the National League.

While it is disappointing for Mets fans and for Reyes, I think it is the proper choice. Reyes did hit .337, but Tulowitzki hit .302 with 30 home runs and 105 RBIs. Those are great stats for any player, let alone a shortstop. Had Reyes played a full season and hit .350 with 230 hits he might have won, but the time he missed because of injury cost him.

Reyes has company. Miguel Cabrera won the AL batting title and he lost the first base Silver Slugger to Adrian Gonzalez. Cabrera, though, was robbed. Gonzalez had a great year, batting .338 with 27 homers and 117 RBIs. But Cabrera was arguably better — .344, 30 home runs, 105 RBIs. And for those who care about these things, Cabrera’s OPS was better than Gonzalez’s — 1.033 to .957. Gonzalez did tie for league lead in hits with 213, but Cabrera had 197, which is not too shabby.

Anyway, the Mets are shut out in post-season awards, as usual.