I think my favorite memory of Gary Carter and something that always pumped me up (from a baseball perspective), and often times I felt it was overlooked during game 6.

I loved when Carter scored. Clapped his hands, pointed to Mookie (and probably said something like – Alright, man keep it rolling, YOUR NEXT) clapped his hands again, nodded and shook Mookie’s hand. Of course he did, and the rest was history.

If I could have that on a 5 second roll and watch that video every morning when I wake up, I think I’d hit the snooze button alot less.

Well I’m a Net fan and vividly remember him sucking and I never thought he was Japanese, let alone thought, he played a small part in breaking down barriers for future Asian basketball players like Jeremy Lin.

Drazen Petrovic and Detlef Schrempf broke down barriers for European basketball players like Dirk Nowitzki.  Rex Walters didn’t do shit.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7480419/fausto-carmona-cleveland-indians-arrested-accused-using-false-identity

Now – if Sandyball wants to blow the team up and start over because they want a different type of talent – then tell us.  Don’t low ball Reyes and make us look bad or cheap.  Just tell us.

But with that said.

1.  A team in New York can no longer go into full rebuilding mode.

2.  Signing Reyes would completely jack up the attendance and the envigorate the franchise.  Even if we are hovering around .500 for the rest of the season.

How about his decline in speed, decline in range, decline in health, his inability to catch pop-ups against the Yankees?

All the heat he got, was warranted and it was a product of how much money he made comparative to his productivity.  Great, he hit.302 in 2009 but was the softest .300 in recent memory with his .732 OPS.  It’s like a guy rushing for 1,000 yards and scoring 1 touchdown.  SOFT.

Castillo did nothing well, other than take pitches, sacrifice bunt and pivot the double play at 2B.

There’s no reason at the current state of the Mets to not payoff Castillo and see what these younger, cheaper 2B’s can do.

If you keep Castillo, and let Brad Emaus go back to his original team in the Rule 5 draft, you may never know what he can turn out to be.  If you keep Castillo, and don’t give David Murphy or Justin Turner a shot at 2B, you may never know what they can turn out to be.

The move makes baseball sense.

However, the franchise keeps stockpiling different meanings for the title of this blog. 

This offseason has been quite eventful (but not very eventful on the field) for the Mets:

We clean out the front office only to find the Wilponzi’s (Thanks Steve Somers) needing to clean their own house. 

Then here come the three “Sandyball” amigos, and most likely at the best time with all the probably financial restrictions coming down the pike.

Terry Collins will be a band-aid manager until somebody with more cache (that wants the job) comes along.

The Phillies land Cliff Lee.  The Braves and Marlins have more young talent about to flourish on their teams.  The Nationals even made some moves.  If Strasburg was pitching, we’d be projected to be in last.  Which reminds me…Vegas is got the Mets at 78 wins.  Which probably is about right, so what do we hang our hats on this season?

SP – Mike Pelfrey – Not a #1 starter, has the velocity to throw more strikeouts, but just doesn’t.  Completely engulfed my hand at the Mets VIP Party.

R.A. Dickey - It was great watching him last year.  When the Mets brought him up, initially I laughed and thought it was a pointless move.  Until I saw him pitch. Then I was laughing how many times I’d see hitters just loft flyballs into the huge CitiField outfield and Angel Pagan would run them all down.  Not to mention, my wife ruined his no-hitter.

Jon Niese – I don’t like the way he spells his first name, but that WHIP is gotta come down before I’m a believer.

Chris Young – If only this was a basketball team.  If healthy, and thats a big if, he could have success at home.  Super flyball pitcher + super big outfield + good outfield range = low home ERA.

Chris Capuano - Complete crapshoot. Crapuanoshoot.

Dillon Gee – Saw him at the VIP Party, kinda small, but had a solid September ERA.  Didn’t ask for his autograph.  That should spell out what I expect of him to do in 2011.

Pat Misch – AAAA starter with a nice WIP but no velocity.  Could possibly have more wins than Johan this year.

Johan Santana – No longer has the best changeup, no longer is a strikeout pitcher, no longer is worth his monster contract, and is no longer is healthy.  You are clearly on the decline.  See you in July, if we are lucky.  You deserve to be last on this list.

All in all, I suspect this staff to have a sub 4 ERA, especially since they pitch half of the time in CitiField.  Lets bank on Big Pelf being more consistent and less balky, Niese keeping up the strikeouts and lowering the hits and hoping to get R.A. Dickey part deux with the Chris Young I experiment.

The other part of me has been too busy with work and life and only catches the highlights from a Florida hotel room.

But there’s something going on here.  I don’t know what it is.  But 11 games over .500, most home wins in baseball, brilliant defense (especially in the outfield), Takahashi and Dickey have 12 wins, Pelfrey is an allstar, Jose Reyes is healthy and killing the ball.

Things to be happy about:

1.  Mike Pelfrey has put it all together.

2.  Jose Reyes is starting to look like 2008 Reyes.

3.  Back end of their rotation has been ridiculous

4.  Great production out of the catcher position (offensively and defensively)

5.  Hovering at the top of the NL East

6.  Ridiculous amounts of confidence at home and from a pitching/defensive standpoint, I feel like the pitchers just KNOW that they can pitch strikes and let the defense make plays, especially from a flyball point of view.

7.  Ike Davis is smooth at 1b.

Things to be concerned about:

1. Johan Santana’s velocity.

2.  Bullpen and KROD, both still scare me.

3.  Jason Bay is way too quiet offensively.

4.  I’m tired of the talk about where is Angel Pagan going to play when Carlos Beltran comes back.  Pagan will play CF.  The guy is hitting .300 and has 35 RBIs and just from watching games, his range has been ridiculous. 

At least, I didn’t dream this up.  He’s pretty high up there.

5.  Jerry Seinfeld’s lavish praise towards the guys in the booth, while warranted, felt a little awkward.  I mean did we really need to feed Keith’s already ballooned out ego?

www.theamazinmess.com/pictures/Section319.JPG

https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-twins-6-26-2010-896187/?ticket_id=253920426

https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-twins-6-26-2010-896187/?ticket_id=253921218

www.theamazinmess.com/pictures/Section319.JPG

https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-twins-6-25-2010-896329/?ticket_id=255576399

https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-twins-6-25-2010-896329/?ticket_id=255572824

Section 319, behind home plate, right under the SNY booth.  Really great seats.

https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-padres-6-10-2010-896326/?ticket_id=254037015

https://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-padres-6-10-2010-896326/?ticket_id=254037015