Some Saturday morning Mets 'sauciness, plus a suggestion. I know the offseason is now in (mostly) full swing and everyone is kicking around trade proposals in their heads (and in the FanPosts), but I'd urge you all not to give away your milk for free because we'll be running another Amazin' Avenue Offseason Plan Contest this year so if you use up all of your good ideas now then you'll have nothing left with which to buttress your overall winter blueprint.
Now the links.
- The Mets deadline to negotiate with Hisanori Takahashi has been extended to Friday, November 5, giving them a bit more time to work out a deal to bring back their most versatile pitcher from 2010.
- Anthony DiComo, Mets beat writer for MLB.com, is reporting that Wally Backman is already on the list of candidates the Mets are considering for their managerial vacancy.
- Bob Klapisch goes one step further by saying Backman will be in for an interview next week and that Backman was actually on the list of potential candidates Alderson provided to ownership during the interview process.
- Also in that last article, Klapisch says assertively that, "Alderson will start by hiring Paul DePodesta". It's not clear if Klapisch has inside information or if he's just echoing what we've all heard, which is that Alderson is interested in bringing DePodesta to the Mets.
- In national news, Joe Morgan and Jon Miller might not be back on ESPN next year. Their respective deals expire after the World Series so there's a chance their reign of error may be coming to an end.
- At Lookout Landing, Jeff Sullivan compares this offseason's pitching and hitting of players with and without any previous playoff experience to help dispel the myth that "playoff experience" is a prerequisite for playoff success.
- At Beyond The Boxscore, Justin Bopp uses some sweet graphical wizardry to show the inning-by-inning game scores for the World Series Game 2 matchup between Matt Cain and C.J. Wilson.
- Ever wanted to build your own Retrosheet database to play with? This tutorial will get you starter.