Tuesday Morning Mets Newsstand

There's a whole lot of nothing going on. Some minor Mets transactions and news snippets in bullet-list form:

• The Mets came to terms with Aaron Heilman on a one-year deal worth $1.2 million. This was Heilman's first year of arbitration eligibility, and that figure is in line with what other middle relievers with three-plus years of service time have been getting. I guess. I didn't really look it up, but it sounds reasonable.
• Jose Valentin is back! With a minor league deal, anyway. The Mets declined a $4.3 million team option on Valentin earlier this offseason, and it is likely that the mustachioed madman will miss some or all of spring training as he recovers from knee surgery.
• Marty Noble has a new mailbag up at Mets.com. My favorite reader missive is the one that criticizes Noble for not being opinionated enough for the reader's liking.

• Monday: Winners and Losers: American League by John Peterson. John breaks down the offseason activity of the junior circuit's ballclubs.
• Wednesday: Met-Killers Revisited by Alex Nelson. Alex took a look at the active players who have been the most abusive of the Mets relative to their abusiveness of the rest of the league. Four words: Endy. Chavez. Number. Five.
• Thursday: Sorting Out the Back End by Chris McCown. Chris takes a look at the menagerie of arms that could comprise the back ends of the starting rotation and bullpen corps.
• Friday: Point/Counterpoint: Johan Santana by Steve Hubbell and John Peterson. Really great back-and-forth on the best pitcher in baseball who nobody wants but everyone would kill to have.

• Octavio Dotel officially signed with the White Sox. Two years and $11 million? Better them than us. Dotel hasn't pitched more than 31 innings since 2004 and hasn't posted a sub-3.50 ERA since 2003. He turned 34 in November.
• At Viva El Birdos, Larry Borowsky counts down his twenty favorite homeruns in Cardinals history. You might want to stop at #2 unless you're a glutton for punishment.
• The guy at #1 just signed a four year deal worth $15.5 million. @#$% him.
• The Royals signed Brett Tomko. Bleah.
• The Rockies are close to inking Troy Tulowitzki to a six-year, $30 million contract.

• The teaser for the new Star Trek film is online. There's not much to see. The film is scheduled for release in December 2008 and is being directed by J.J. Abrams of Lost, Alias and Cloverfield fame. I don't know much about the project, but I've gleaned a bit of info from its IMDB page. It appears to follow the early exploits of the characters from the original series, which I'm assuming will include many wedgies and swirlies for Spock as a freshman at Starfleet Academy. Funniest casting decision? The Asian kid from Harold and Kumar as Sulu.
• I've been watching the Terminator TV show and the first few episodes have been surprisingly solid. I'm still not sold on the actress playing Sarah Connor, but she isn't terrible and I think she'll grow on me. Linda Hamilton is still that character in my mind and it's difficult accepting anyone else in the role. The kid playing John Connor is pretty good, and the girl terminator -- played by Summer Glau of Firefly fame -- does a fine job. Terminator 2 was one of the defining movies of my early adolescence and still stands as one of the few best films that Arnold Schwarzenegger has made, right up there with The Running Man, Predator and Commando.

  Ultimately, the show will succeed if it manages to advance the story in a way that is both satisfying and consistent with the first two movies. The show takes place shortly after the events of the second movie, and it isn't yet clear if there is a linear story arc that will carry it towards the events of the third film or if it will follow a separate thread that would otherwise run parallel to the third's. If you're a fan of the Terminator franchise definitely give the show a try for a few episodes. You should be able to catch them at Fox.com if you haven't yet seen them on the television box thingie.