Tom Seaver Fan Club

John Walsh at the Hardball Times previewed the Mets today.  It’s presented as five questions and he starts off with a look at the rotation as well as the pen and the offense.  It’s a nice one stop resource with the season set to kick off here in a few days.

The decision has been made and while Mike Pelfrey won’t join the team for a couple of weeks, he’s got the job as the teams fifth starter.  In the meantime, Chan Ho Park will slip into the bullpen, although he’d definitely make for a decent spot starter or emergency starter is that’s how Willie Randolph needs to play things.  Not a bad move, and it gives the phenom some big league team.  There’s not much left for Pelfrey to prove down in the minors.

A new site started up today that’s affiliated with the Tom Seaver Fan Club and it’s the Met Minor League Baseball Blog.  While most of the action won’t start in a little less then two weeks when the minor league season starts, it should be a great stop after that because you’ll get a nice, one stop source for everything that’s minor league for Mets.  I’m looking forward to it because one of the things I haven’t had much of a chance to do here is keep track of all the prospects.  Now I don’t have to .  Ray has a link up there today to an interview with Mike Pelfrey and Philip Humber which was a pretty good read.

MiLB.com recently reviewed some of the minor league happenings for the Mets this spring training.  The highlight of the column is how the departure of former Latin America scout, Eddie Toledo, might affect the team and there’s a Q&A with minor leagueer Joe Hietpas, the Mets fifth round pick back in 2005.  It closes things out with a look at one of the Mets’ surprises this spring, Mike Carp.  There’s a lot of stuff here so be sure to check it out.

A lot is riding on Oliver Perez’s arm this year.  He’s going to be relied upon as a middle of the rotation starter and in a lot of ways, how he does is even more important then how the Mets current number one, Tom Glavine, does in 2007.  You know what you’ll get from Glavine but a solid season from Perez will go a long way towards another playoff appearance for the Mets.

In a great column at MLB.com, Charlie Nobles profiles Oliver Perez.  Pitching coach Rick Peterson has been working with him and hopefully as the spring season drags on, we’ll see more of the 2004 Oliver Perez coming out.

Baseball Prospectus continues their Hope and Faith series with a look at the Mets by Jim Baker.  There’s not a whole lot to argue with here as I agree with him that the divisional title will most likely come the Mets way but the bigger question is the post season.  The rotation is a mess but if a rookie picks it up or Omar Minaya makes a nice trade deadline move, that could easily be taken care of.  The solid bullpen will also help as will the big leads this offense will put together.  Nice read though, so be sure to check it out.

Ah, the AL champ Detroit Tigers.  I’m not too bitter, but this is the team we were supposed to play in the World Series.  Anyway, the Mets are no 3-7 this spring and while that might concern some, it stands to reason that a veteran team with few is any holes would rest their starters more then a team with a bunch of question marks.  So I’m not concerned.

The good news is, John Maine threw three good frames in his start.  He gave up three hits and a walk and he struck out three.  Phillip Humber and Aaron Heilman were beat up pretty bad though and it was Heilman who took the loss.  Carlos Beltran hit his first homerun of the spring and Shawn Green had two hits in the game.

Oliver Perez gets the start tomorrow and he’ll go head to head with Tim Redding and the Washington Nationals.

John Maine got the Mets to a solid start today in the Mets game against the Orioles and threw two shutout innings but everything fell apart when top prospect Phillip Humber was hammered in the third inning for five runs.  Ambriox Burgos was solid in the later part of the game and he threw two shutout innings like Maine.

Ruben Sierra had a big game at the plate for the Mets.  He went two for three with all three Mets RBIs.  Lastings Milledge had two hits including a triple.  Tomorrow the Mets take on the Indians, who split against the Tigers in a home and home series this weekend.