Blogging Mets

First David Wright was robbed of being the National League starter at third base in the All-Star game; now he’s been robbed of the Gold Glove at the position. Chase Headley won the award.

David Wright doesn’t win Gold Glove.

This was by far Wright’s best defensive season. He made several sensational plays, and made virtually all of the routine ones. He has fixed the problem of making poor throws on easy plays when he had too much time. In last years he dropped his arm down, resulting in throws tailing away from the first baseman. He’s won the award twice before.

The awards were announced during an odd ESPN show Tuesday night. They had former Gold Glove winners there announcing the awards, but not the winners themselves. A couple of them appeared via satellite.

Strangely, R.A. Dickey was not one of the three announced finalists. He was excellent in the field and at least should have been one of the finalists, if not the winner.

Then again, many Gold Glove winners are oddities. Players often get by on reputation rather than who was the best fielder that particular season. No offense to Headley, who I’m sure is very good, but David Wright certainly deserved the award this year.

When Dwight Gooden burst onto the scene in 1984, he rocked Shea Stadium like no other player in Mets history — and that included Tom Seaver. From his very first game, we all knew we were watching someone special. The story did not exactly play out the way it was supposed to, but Gooden left Mets fans with plenty of memories.

Here is the very first memory — his first strikeout.

And here is video of Dwight Gooden breaking the rookie strikeout record of 245. He went onto whiff 276 batters that season — a record that still stands:

So you may have noticed I’ve been running polls, which one loyal reader called “stupid,” over the past few weeks about who you think the Mets should trade. Well, the polling is done so now it is time to render a verdict.

You are overwhelmingly against trading Ike Davis, Jonathon Niese and R.A. Dickey. You are split on Daniel Murphy and want to show Lucas Duda the door.

I agree with most of you. Trading Davis would just be asinine — who else on the team can hit 30+ home runs? Duda? There is no guarantee there. Duda has shown time and time again that he is not an outfielder. He needs to play first base, and since that won’t happen in Flushing, he needs to go.

Even though the Mets have strength in young starting pitching, dealing Niese makes no sense. Unlike the other young pitchers, Niese has proven that he can succeed at the big league level. You can’t give that up.

However, I think the Mets should trade Murphy. His best position is first or third base, and he is blocked at both of those positions with the Mets. He made strides at second this season, but he is just not a second baseman. Murphy can hit and has value that could bring promising players in return.

Now to Dickey — as hard as it is to write, I would trade him. I don’t like the idea of committing big dollars to players over 35 years old, even if they are knuckleballers who can allegedly pitch forever. I think Dickey can bring back at least two major league-ready players from a team which thinks it is one pitcher away from a championship.

The Mat Latos deal is one the Mets should emulate. The Reds sent a solid major league pitcher (Edinson Volquez), two very promising prospects who contributed this season and look like the real deal (Yonder Alonso and Yasmani Grandal) and another player to the Padres. The trade worked for both teams — Latos helped lead the Reds to the NL Central crown and the Padres filled several holes with quality players.

The Mets won’t get the same haul because Dickey is nearly 38 and Latos is 24, but they can still get a couple of good players.

Dealing from strength, I would also trade either Jenrry Mejia or Jeurys Familia. There really is not room on the Mets for all of their young starters, so why not trade one of them to improve the rest of the team? I would also consider trading Bobby Parnell in the right deal.

I think if the Mets trade Dickey, Murphy, Duda and one of the pitchers, they will be able to get two corner outfielders, a catcher and at least a couple of relievers, solving multiple problems on the team. Jordany Valdespin takes over at second and Kirk Nieuwenhuis roams center field. There will be growing pains with both of them, but they both showed that that they have plenty of pop in their bats and can play the field.

As far as the starting rotation, it should be Johan Santana, Niese, Matt Harvey, Dillion Gee and Zack Wheeler. The Mets seem inclined to start Wheeler in Triple-A, but if he pitches well in spring training he should make the team. I’d like to see the Mets get one of two more starters just to add depth in the likely event that one or more of the starters falters or gets injured.

The bullpen needs help, as always. Unlike last off season, the Mets do have some young arms who look promising (Josh Edgin, Robert Carson), but a couple of veterans should be added to round out the pen.

So overall, the Mets need help in virtually every area. They might have to give up some fan favorites in order to make the team better. Standing pat the last couple of years didn’t work — it’s time to make some bold moves.

Now the big question — should the Mets trade R.A. Dickey? There are two schools of thoughts on this. The first one is that he just won 20 games and will likely win the Cy Young Award. He is a knuckleballer who can pitch well into his 40s. Why would you trade him?

The other thinking is that R.A. Dickey is a soon-to-be 38-year-old pitcher who had something of a fluke season. He only started throwing the knuckleball a few years ago, which means he has considerably more mileage in his arm than a career knuckler. Trade him now while his value is high and fill several holes on the team.

What do you think?

Take other polls in this series here.

A report in the New York Post quotes a Mets source as saying the team is still “up in the air” about whether to tender Andres Torres a contract for 2013. Let me bring them down to earth — the answer is no.

Hopefully we will not see Andres Torres in a Mets uniform ever again.

Torres was terrible for the Mets in 2012, batting just .230 with three homers and 35 RBIs. The alleged speedster managed to accumulate only 13 stolen bases. He also struck out 90 times in just 374 at bats, often times looking clueless on the field of play.

The Mets paid Torres $2.7 million for that putrid performance. Do they really think he is worth the upwards of $3 million he would likely get if they resigned him?

Torres is nothing more than a fourth outfielder, and the Mets have plenty of backup options at the major league minimum.

Cutting Torres loose should be the easiest decision the Mets will make this off season. If the Mets do indeed bring back Torres, the only conclusion to make is that something is seriously wrong with Sandy Alderson’s brain.

The same article says the Mets will not tender Mike Pelfrey, but they still might sign him to a cheaper free agent deal. I think it is time to end the Mike Pelfrey era in Flushing, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to sign him to a minor league deal and hope he can come back from surgery and give the Mets depth in the starting rotation.

There has been a lot of talk about the Mets trading Jonathon Niese. On one hand, it makes sense — it continues the trend of teams trading young, established pitchers to fill several holes (the A’s with Gio Gonzalez and the Padres with Mat Latos). And the Mets certainly have several holes to fill in their lineup.

On the other hand, why in the world would you trade a young, established pitcher, especially one already signed to a team-friendly contract? We’ve seen that pitching wins championships. Why trade the most valuable commodity in the game?

So what do you think. Should the Mets trade Jonathon Niese?

See more polls in this series here.

If you’ve never been to the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows Park next to Citi Field, you are missing one of the hidden jewels of the city — the Panorama of New York City.

Built for the 1964 World’s Fair, it is a massive scale model of all five boroughs, complete with every bridge, building and house in town. The funds are not there to update every change in the city’s landscape (the World Trade Center still stands, for example), but the Mets were nice enough to build a model of Citi Field to replace Shea Stadium:

Here is a photo I took back in the mid-90s showing good old Shea:

It is no secret that the Mets would love to find someone else to pay the $31 million (salary plus $5.5 million buyout) Johan Santana is owed for 2013. It would seem impossible, but then again the Red Sox were able to unload about $2 billion in salary on the Dodgers, so clearly nothing is impossible. But did the Mets squander their best chance to deal Santana during the season?

Johan Santana will be a Met for the duration.

Obviously Santana’s value was never higher than on June 1, when he threw his no-hitter and lowered his ERA to 2.38. However Sandy Alderson would have had a fan mutiny on his hands if he sent Santana away at that point. Also, the Mets were still in the thick of the Wild Card chase — they could not trade their ace.

Santana stumbled a bit after his big game, but he ended June with three solid starts. Still viable Wild Card contenders, there was no way Alderson could trade him then.

Then came July. As the Mets tumbled out of contention, Santana made three awful starts, allowing seven, six and six runs and finally landing on the disabled list on July 20. Now that the Mets were out of the race and Alderson was free to trade him, he couldn’t because Santana was now damaged goods.

Still, a waiver deal was possible in August if Santana could come back strongly from the DL. Instead he had two brutal starts and was shut down for the season.

So not only did the Mets not blow their chance to trade Santana, there really was no chance of trading him at all. This was just a case of awful timing. When Alderson could have traded Santana, he couldn’t because the Mets were surprisingly still in contention. Then when they fell out, Santana was untradeable because of his health.

So the Mets are likely stuck with Johan Santana and his hefty bill. Unless of course another team is in love with one of the Mets players and would take Santana in order to get that player. But really, what are the odds of that?

Former Mets third base coach Eddie Yost has died at the age of 86. He passed away Tuesday morning in Massachusetts — another part of Mets history gone.

Eddie Yost

Yost was with the Mets from 1968 to 1976, at a time when coaches stayed with teams for long periods of times; not like today when they are disposable.

Along with Rube Walker and Joe Pignatano, Yost came to the Mets when they hired Gil Hodges. While the Brooklyn-born Yost left for the Red Sox, pitching coach Walker and hitting coach Pignatano stayed on until after the 1981 season, when the Mets cleaned house with the firing Joe Torre.

As a fan, it was kind of comforting having the same coaches around — they were the only constants while the managers and players changed.

It was also a time when benches weren’t packed with all sorts of coaches. Three were enough back then. Eddie Yost, Rube Walker and Joe Pignatano — that’s all the Mets needed.

Most Mets fans really like Daniel Murphy because of his hitting and his work ethic, but is he really the long-term answer at second base?  Do you think the Mets would be better off trading him to fill other gaping holes on the team?

Click here to see other polls in this continuing series: