Tom Seaver Fan Club

Tom Glavine was roughed up by his former team and the Mets dropped their game against the Braves.  Glavine lasted four innings and gave up two runs on three hits and three walks with two strikeouts.  It’ll be his last pitch of the spring season as Glavine gets ready for his Opening Day start on Monday against the Nationals.

Lastings Milledge joined a slew of other players that were sent down to the minors.  There’s no doubt Milledge is a talent and he’s got nothing to be ashamed of with his production this spring.  He 18 for 55 with 10 runs.  His biggest flaw was his patience at the plate.  He struck out 16 times and walked only twice.  He went yard once and doubled three times.  I’m hoping to do minor league reports so I’ll be keeping on eye on Milledge at Triple A Norfolk.

MLB is going to be releasing a DVD with all seven games of the 1986 World Series.  This would be pretty invaluable when I get to the World Series portion of my 1986 Mets Diary although if something keeps me from buying it, it’ll be the $90 price tag.  Very cool stuff though.

Pedro Martinez threw in his first spring game this afternoon, and the results were positive.  He made it through three innings and only needed 35 pitches to do it.  He gave up only a single hit and one walk and he struck out two.

Equally impressive was Victor Zambrano.  He threw the final six innings and completed the shutout.  He gave up only four hits and two walks and he struck out four.  An effective Victor Zambrano will go a long way towards the Mets having a shot at winning it all this year.  As the third starter, he’s going to be relied upon to come up with 14-15 wins, something he’s never done before.

Jose Reyes continues to have a hot spring.  He’s 11 for 19 and he’s only struck out twice.  And I know it’s hard to pick on such a great average, but he hasn’t drawn a walk, which isn’t encourging. 

Brian Bannister has impressed Willie Randolph so much that it looks like he’s going to be the fifth starter and Aaron Heilman is headed for the bullpen.  Heilman wanted back in to the rotation and that was supposed to be one of the main reasons behind the Jae Seo trade.  And while Heilman has had a great spring, Bannister’s has been even better.  He’s struck out 13 in 19 innings and he’s given up only two earned runs.  Heilman’s thrown 14 innings and he has 11 strikeouts vs. zero walks and he’s only given up two earned runs as well.

Heilman’s never had a great run as a starter and he was actually quite good last year when he closed at the end of the year.  Regardless, he could end up starting games out of the box if Pedro’s out for an extended period of time in April. And even when he is put into the pen, he’ll be around in the event one of the other starters go down.

We all kind of figured this would happen, but Pedro Martinez’s toe isn’t quite ready.  Pedro is supposed to throw in a game for the first time on Sunday but that doesn’t give him nearly enough time to be ready for the start of the season.

In his place, Tom Glavine will get the start on opening day.

John Walsh at the Hardball Times has posted the sites Mets preview.  Like myself, he’s optimistic that the Mets will be able to challenge the Braves in the NL East.

Victor Zambrano had a very good start yesterday against the Baltimore Orioles.  He went five innings and gave up only one run.  Most importantly, he didn’t walk a single batter in his first start of the spring.

This is old news, but Kaz Matsui is out for at least three weeks with a knee injury.  I have mixed feelings about making a move for Alfonso Soriano, but he’d be a pretty good fit on this team with second base wide open with Matsui being down.

Billy Wagner was shut down until this weekend with a sore finger although he’s said he’ll be ready for opening day.  Not to state the obvious, but losing Wagner would be a blow to the pen.   It would force Jorge Julio to close and we’d be replacing our top reliever with someone who normally wouldn’t have made the team.

This is a solid column on Rickey Henderson.  I still think it’d be interesting if we brought him on board for the season.

Pedro Martinez threw 61 pitches to Mets minor leaguers yesterday.  There’s still some question as to whether he’ll be ready for opening day though.  I’m probably sounding like a broken record, but one of our biggest weaknesses is our rotation.  If Pedro misses significant time this year, it could be the difference between playing in October and losing the division.

Xavier Nady continues to hit the ball well, and from all indications, he might get the starting right field job.  Victor Diaz has done good but not great, so I have a feeling this is going to be a final week decision for Willie Randolph.

You’d expect Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine to be there for us this year.  If the Mets are going to compete for a World Series, they’ll need more from their rotation then just those two guys.  So the fact that Steve Trachsel’s looked sharp this spring makes me feel a little more confident going into the later parts of March.  If he can step up and win 13-15 games, then the Mets should be in pretty good shape.

The Mets lost their game to the Orioles 3-2 in ten innings.  Trachsel threw the first four innings and gave up only three base runners.  He got the final seven men out that he faced.  Glavine throws for the Mets tomorrow in a night game against the Washington Nationals.

Homeruns have been few and far between for the Mets this spring.  Not a single Met has more then one homerun in twelve games.  Xavier Nady leads the team with nine RBIs and eight runs in 24 at bats.  He’s sporting a nice .417/.462/.625 line.  David Wright’s been having a tough time though.  He’s four for 21 and he has one homerun and three RBIs.  Here’s a decent story about Wright and the work he’s done to improve defensively.

I guess I’d rather have this now then during the season, but hope this isn’t a trend.  Carlos Delgado and Juan Padilla have sore shoulders and Victor Zambrano has a bad back.  Throw in the fact that Glavine is miffed about his old GMs upcoming book and Cliff Floyd has issue with the media bothering his father and it’s made for a tense camp the last couple of days.

Steve Trachsel threw three shutout innings this afternoon as the Mets topped the Astros 7-1.  Kaz Matsui triple, singled and drove in two runs and Julio Franco was a perfect two for two with two RBIs and a run.

Steve Trachsel is one of those players nobody thinks too much about, but if the Mets are going to contend, they need help through out their entire rotation.  A healthy and effective Trachsel will go a long way.  If he becomes an anchor, I’m hoping Omar Minaya recognizes it and gets us another arm.  The Mets should put the runs on the board for him and his start this afternoon is very encouraging.

After the Mets had batted in the first two innings, the score was 9-0.  This is a great lineup and while I don’t like the pitching staff giving up seven runs (it’s early, so it’s not really indicative of anything at this point), I have a feeling the Mets are going to have their share of high scoring games like this.

Xavier Nady had a monster game.  Four hits, a grandslam and six RBIs.  Another newcomer, Carlos Delgado was also great at the plate.  He went three for three with two runs.  On the pitching side, Steve Trachsel had a rough start and he walked four and gave up four runs after getting pulled in the second inning.  Mitch Wylie and Billy Wagner both had nice outings out of the pen.  You can check out the highlights at MLB.com.

These two play each other again this afternoon.

This is a solid story on Julio Franco’s diet and training regimen.  Franco made his debut in 1982 and other then missing the 1995 and 1997 seasons, he’s been in the league since.  He’ll be 48 in August and even with 2,521 hits, his chances of hitting the magic 3,000 mark is pretty slim.

Regardless, I like the idea of Franco being on the bench.  He’s a solid hitter and he’ll take a walk if need be.

This is a solid story on Julio Franco’s diet and training regimen.  Franco made his debut in 1982 and other then missing the 1995 and 1997 seasons, he’s been in the league since.  He’ll be 48 in August and even with 2,521 hits, his chances of hitting the magic 3,000 mark is pretty slim.

Regardless, I like the idea of Franco being on the bench.  He’s a solid hitter and he’ll take a walk if need be.

If the Mets have one weakness heading into the 2006 season, it’s their starting rotation.  John Donovan higlights this in his latest column and I’ve been saying it most of the off season.  The Mets have a World Series Champion lineup.  This team is going to score a ton of runs and they really took care of their bullpen with the Billy Wagner and Jorge Julio signings.

In the process though, they traded Jae Seo and Kris Benson, leaving our rotation pretty shallow.  Steve Trachsel missed time last year because of a bad back and Pedro has the bad toe.  Aaron Heilman’s never really done much as a starter and Victor Zambrano walks a ton of guys.  Then there’s Tom Glavine, who looks like he’s always one season away from a major decline.  According to the depth chart at MLB.com, our sixth starter is Alain Soyer, a Cuban defector who’s never thrown in the major leagues.

So if Trachsel goes down, or ever worse, Pedro misses time because of his toe, the Mets don’t have a bona fide starting pitcher to fill in.  That either forces us to give up even more prospects to acquire a starting pitcher, or it forces the team to fight it out and hope they can just outscore the other team.