Thursday Morning Mets Newsstand

Bullets, something, something.

• At BallHype, Dave Studeman imagines an alternate historical reality for the Mets.
• There's a really nice autobiography of former Baseball Prospectus writer and current Cleveland Indians front office employee Keith Woolner at Science Magazine. It's part of a series of articles featuring folks who have studied science and have gone on to interesting and rewarding careers. Woolner is most famous in baseball circles for inventing VORP, or Value Over Replacement Player, which in turned spawned the Blank-ORP editorial vehicle that has become de rigeur on baseball blogs and other fansites. For example, did you know that Jose Valentin led the National League in MORP -- Mustache Over Replacement Player -- last year? Of course you did.
• I missed it last week, but a writer known only as "Pizza Cutter" wrote up a sabermetric review of the Mets' 2007 season at MVN's Statistically Speaking blog.

  At the same blog, Mike Fast wrote a terrific primer on MLB.com's PITCHf/x system they rolled out during the 2006 playoffs and continued throughout the 2007 season in most MLB parks. In short, PITCHf/x provides velocity and trajectory information about every pitch thrown.

  The data is readily available via XML feeds to those industrious enough to plow through their immense depth and breadth, though Josh Kalk was kind enough to process the data himself and provide player cards based on the data. Check out Oliver Perez. Scroll to the bottom for the release point chart, which clearly indicates a fairly consistent release point the majority of the time, with the occasional pitch thrown outside and/or below norm. I suspect those were his laredo offerings that caused Rick Peterson fits in the dugout.

And for a quick stroll around SBNation.

• Viva El Birdos has an early report card for new GM John Mozeliak.
• The Marlins finished 30th out of thirty teams last year in attendance. The problem? Apparently ticket prices were too low.
• Purple Row breaks down the relative NL West starting rotational strength.
• Beyond the Boxscore looks into whether big league clubs are getting any better at drafting.
• Athletics Nation laments the increasing possibility that the A's may move out of Oakland, and it doesn't sit well.
• Twinkie Town runs a neat little "Who Am I?" post. Check it out and let me know if I should steal the idea. Might be fun, no?