Blogging Mets

Word Sunday that the Marlins will “listen” to offers for Giancarlo Stanton. If that is the case, the Mets should trade anyone in their system for him.

Giancarlo Stanton available?

Jim Bowden of ESPN and SiriusXM tweeted:

Dan Jennings Marlins AGM told us they will listen to all offers on Giancarlo Stanton but they’re not shopping him and don’t want to move him.

Stanton is simply one of the best young hitters in the game. Last season he hit 37 home runs, despite missing nearly 40 games due to injury and playing in cavernous Marlins Park. He already has 93 home runs in his three year career, including a rookie year in which he was called up in mid season.

If he is truly available, the Mets should move heaven and earth to get him, and that includes trading Matt Harvey or Zack Wheeler, in addition to other top prospects. It is never a good idea to trade young potential aces, but the 23 year old Giancarlo Stanton is one of those special hitters who does not come around very often.

The Mets desperately need hitting and have a surplus of young pitching, so there could be a match. It is highly doubtful that Stanton will be moved — the Marlins would be absolutely insane to trade him for anyone — but the Mets should at least place a phone call to Miami and see what it would take to land him.

Here is another Mets quiz, this one dealing with players involved in Mets trades.

Enjoy.

Scott Hairston Hits for Cycle — 4/27/12

Hairston was a surprising bright spot in 2012, hitting a career high 20 home runs. His best day actually came during one of the team’s worst losses of the year — he hit for the cycle in a wild game in Colorado that the Mets lost 18-9.

Johan Santana No-Hitter — 6/1/12

Santana broke the Mets franchise no-hitter curse with a gem against the Cardinals at Citi Field. Already a distant memory was that Carlos Beltran should have gotten a hit on a ball that was ruled foul. But Mike Baxter’s no-hitter saving, shoulder separating catch will never be forgotten.

R.A. Dickey Consecutive One-Hitters — 6/13/12, 6/18/12

You’ll be seeing a lot ofDickey on this list. His incredible year included an incredible stretch in which he did not allow an earned run in 44.1 innings, including those back-to-back one-hitters. Dickey was simply unhittable. Well, except for those two hits.

Ike Davis Hits 3 Homers — 7/28/12

Davis was hitting .150 midway through the season but came on in the second half, finishing with 32 home runs. He hit three of them in one game in his home state of Arizona. As is the Mets way, the team managed to lose the game.

David Wright All-Time Mets Hits Leader — 9/26/12

When Wright hit an infield single in the third inning against the Pirates, it was the 1419th of his career, setting the all-time Mets hits record. Thankfully he will be allowed to extend that record (more on that later).

R.A. Dickey Wins 20th — 9/27/12

By late September the Mets had nothing to play for, except Dickey winning 20 games. He did it during a matinee against the Pirates. It was a really nice moment in an otherwise forgettable season for the team.

Jason Bay Released — 11/7/12

Bay will go down in history as one of the worst free agent signings ever. Not just Mets history, but all of baseball history. They mercifully pulled the plug one year early, eating the $20 million owed to Bay for the final year of his contract. He will not be missed.

R.A. Dickey Wins Cy Young — 11/14/12

In a tense moment for Mets fans, Dickey was announced as the Cy Young Award winner live on the MLB Network. What was expected to be a close vote was instead a landslide.  It capped off the best feel-good story the Mets have had in many years.

David Wright Extension — 12/5/12

After much hand-wringing on the part of Mets fans, Wright signed an eight-year, $138 million contract that will make him a Met for the rest of his career.  It was a good PR move, as well as a solid baseball move.

R.A Dickey Traded — 12/17/12

After contract negotiations failed, the Mets shipped Dickey to Toronto. In the long run, this move will help the Mets; Travis d’Arnaud is (hopefully) a can’t-miss prospect, the next Mike Piazza (hopefully). Short term, though, it will be sad not to see Dickey holding his Cy Young Award at Citi Field wearing a Mets uniform.

MLB Trade Rumors was kind enough to remind us that today marks the 11th anniversary of the ill-fated Mo Vaughn-Kevin Appier deal between the Mets and the Angels. The trade is often mentioned as one of the poor moves by Steve Phillips that led to the undoing of the team. Certainly it did  not work out the way the Mets had planned, but I contend that it was not so bad.

Mo Vaughn — he was a big guy!

Let me explain.

Coming off their World Series appearance in 2000, the Mets suffered through a miserable 2001, winning just 82 games. They needed hitting badly, so Phillips went out and got Roberto Alomar, Jeromy Burnitz, Roger Cedeno and Vaughn — bold moves that all eventually failed. Mo Vaughn was the centerpiece of the makeover; a former MVP slugger who had missed the previous season with a knee injury.

After making his infamous trip with Bobby Valentine and Omar Minaya up to Connecticut to see Vaughn hit in a batting cage, Phillips pulled the trigger on the deal, sending Appier to Anaheim.

Appier had only been a Met for a season. After pining for him for years, Phillips signed Appier to an overpriced four-year, $42 million deal, panicking after losing Mike Hampton to the Denver school system. Appier was perfectly adequate in 2001, going 11-10 with a 3.57 ERA, but he was really nothing special.

Seeing an opportunity to trade a journeyman pitcher for a potential difference maker, Phillips took the chance. Vaughn was due around $50 million over the following three seasons, but Appier was owed $30 million — both hefty prices.

Vaughn was not terrible in 2002, hitting 26 home runs with 72 RBIS, both second on the team to Mike Piazza. The Mets would have liked more production for the money, but at least he was far better than Alomar, Burnitz and Cedeno. Appier went 14-12 with a 3.92 ERA as the Angels won their first World Series championship.

Vaughn played in just 23 games in 2003 before his knees gave out, ending his career. Appier was healthy but bad — so bad that the Angels released him midway through the season. He was due around $20 million; at the time it was the most money a team had eaten.

So both players only gave their teams one year of quality service. As far as the money, it was pretty much a wash because the $17 million Vaughn was owed for 2004 was insured.

When you come right down to it, this was basically an almost equal swap of bad contracts. The Mets were gambling that if Vaughn could come all the way back, he would offer far more than Appier ever could. It wasn’t an awful gamble. It’s not as if the Mets gave up promising prospects for Vaughn — it was just Kevin Appier. As it happened, both players were on their last legs.

Phillips would get fired midway through the 2003 season, in part because of the Mo Vaughn trade and those other deals. But you know what? Phillips went for it, at least attempting to do something to make the team better. I wish the team’s current timid, do-nothing general manager had some of that boldness to him.

I’ve been playing around with this quiz website, so I thought I’d create a Mets quiz for you guys. Since it’s the first one, some of the questions are pretty easy. Let me know what you think and if you’d like more of them.

The Mets sent out a Christmas card on Facebook on this Christmas Day. Since it is a holiday I will not point out that this is the only thing the Mets have given us this season, that the team still has significant holes that likely will not be filled by Opening Day. No, this is a day for being positive, despite the fact the Mets have done nothing positive to improve the team for 2013. But let’s not be negative, even though the Mets have lost more games in every season since genius GM Sandy Alderson took over.

Ah, enough. Here’s the stupid Mets Christmas card.

Jack Klugman, who prominently wore a Mets hat while portraying Oscar Madison in “The Odd Couple,” died Monday. He was 90 years old.

“The Odd Couple” is still my all-time favorite television show; when I was a kid they played it constantly on WPIX, at one point airing  it four times a day. I was always happy that sportswriter Oscar was a Mets fan.

Here is Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison, proudly wearing his Mets hat:

If you were hoping to find one, two or three major league outfielders on the Mets roster under the Christmas tree, or a bullpen which could actually close out games, then you will be one sad boy on Christmas morning. You see, the Mets still have the same team they had in 2012. Oh wait, it is worse because they traded away the best pitcher in the league. Meet Sandy Alderson, the Grinch Who Stole the 2013 Season.

Alderson is charged with making the Mets better — not just in the long run, but now as well. You could argue that the R.A. Dickey trade will indeed eventually pay off for the Mets. Perhaps one day, Noah Syndergaard will be throwing to Travis d’Arnaud in the seventh game of a World Series.

In the meantime, the Mets still have to play baseball, and Alderson has done absolutely nothing to improve the team for the present. I’m not saying he should go out and mortgage the future by signing big money free agents and trading prospects; that didn’t work in the past. But Alderson has to do something, and he just hasn’t.

The outfield is an embarrassment, yet the Mets still have the same crew out there. Oh wait, I forgot, the Mets made that blockbuster deal to import Collin Cowgill. That should set things straight.

Alderson traded Dickey, which is fine, but he did so without a backup plan for the rotation. Instead of just letting top prospects Zack Wheeler, Jenrry Mejia and Jeurys Familia compete for the spot, Alderson says, “Duh, I guess I have to sign a mediocre veteran along the lines of the incomparable Chris Young and guarantee him a spot.” I would think if you are going to trade a Cy Young award winner, you should have a plan. Oh well, I guess I’m the dumb one.

It is stunning to me that Alderson is lauded for his performance because he made two good trades (Beltran and Dickey) to bring in top prospects. He definitely deserves credit for those deals, but they are the only major moves he’s made in two years (including three off seasons). I’m sorry but that is not a positive track record.

Alderson took over a team that won 79 games in 2010, and under his watch the Mets have won 77 and 74 games in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Am I crazy or is that the wrong direction?

Everyone is saying, “Just wait until 2014 when the $50 million owed to Johan Santana and Jason Bay come off the books. Then Alderson will do something!” Remember we said, “Wait until the $50 million owed to Carlos Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo come off the books. Then Alderson will do something!”? Well guess what? That money came off the books and Alderson did not do anything with it. Was that the Wilpons’s fault? Probably, but what makes anyone think things will be different the next time around?

The Mets needed a creative general manager who could work within the parameters the Wilpons set down. Sandy Alderson is not that man. Instead he just lies to us about payroll and acquiring new talent, playing the fans for saps because we keep believing and hoping it will be true. Really, Alderson is nothing more than a con man. It figures the Bernie Madoff-loving Wilpons hired him.

Merry Christmas, Mets fans.

Our old pal John Maine has signed a minor league deal with the Marlins and will be invited to Spring Training.

Maine hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2010, when he went 1-3 with a 6.13 ERA for the Mets before going down with an injury. He pitched in the minors for the Rockies and Yankees over the past two seasons but not well enough to warrant a call-up.

Let’s hope John Maine can make it all the way back. He seemed like a good guy who gave it his all  during his time in Flushing.

Cody Ross has reportedly signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks, which means he will not be on the Mets in 2013 and beyond. That is a good thing.

Cody Ross won’t be on Mets next season. That’s fine.

I never understood the fascination some had with seeing Ross on the Mets. He is a perfectly adequate player, but as a right handed hitter he managed to hit just 22 home runs while playing in Fenway Park in 2012. What would have happened in Citi Field if didn’t have that short porch? I say 15 home runs, tops.

Arizona is a home run hitters park, but my guess is that he hits maybe 20 homers in 2013.

It’s not known yet how much money Cody Ross got from the Diamondbacks, but he was reportedly looking for three years, around $25 million. I have no problem with the Mets spending that kind of money for a quality player with tons of upside, but at 32 (tomorrow, happy birthday Cody!), I think we’ve seen the best of Cody Ross.

With no quality free agents left in the Mets budget, Sandy Alderson would have to swing a trade to get  a much-needed outfielder. Arizona’s outfield is crowded, and Justin Upton is apparently readily available for some reason. But the Mets likely do not have enough to get him, and besides, they probably don’t want to pay the nearly $40 million he’s owed over the next three years. And we all know Alderson prefers to stand pat rather than actually do something.

So expect to see Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Mike Baxter, Collin Cowgill and some other low priced mediocre player roaming the outfield in Flushing next season. Yes, it’s what dreams are made of.