Meet the Mets
Sandy Alderson was introduced as Met GM on Friday to much fanfare and praise. Patrick Flood felt as if the news conference was all things to all people, a sign that the grown ups were now in charge. Alderson briefly touched on the steroid issue, but it certainly did not become the lightning rod that some of us expected. We even learned that Alderson is not planning to miss the sports marketing class he teaches on Mondays at Cal-Berkeley. No word though if Profesor Reyes will trade notes with Professor Alderson. SNY may have gone a bit overboard with the Alderson factoids though.
Guess it's time to put the spotlight on the Met managerial search now. SNY put together a fairly comprehensive list of potentials, but you can probably cross two of the names off already as John Gibbons isn't interested and Bobby Valentine appears to be close to taking the Milwaukee job (stop me if you've heard this story before). Ed Ryan continues to argue that Chip Hale is as good a managerial prospect as Wally.
There was a ton of stuff on the Met minor leagues out there over the weekend. Jenrry Mejia, in particular, got a fair amount of press. John Sickels writes that the Mets' handling of the star prospect was egregiously bad. Joe Janish thinks that Mejia still has a lot of work to do to be a MLB pitcher.
Wilmer Flores, Jenrry Mejia, and Matt Harvey round out John Sickels' top 20 Met prospects for 2011, but none of them grade above a B+.
The Mets seem to have an abundance of riches when it comes to South Atlantic League third basemen. Scouting the Sally ranks three Mets in their top five third basemen. One of those guys, Aderlin Rodriguez, is getting a lot of people excited due to a swing that looks like this.
Not a great week for the young Met arms pitching in the AFL.
Former Met farmhand Teddy Dziuba tells Mack's Mets that the Minaya minor league philosophy was geared towards the select few superstar prospects at the expense of the potential average starter.
And, finally, Howard Megdal ranks Frank Cashen as the best Met GM of all time. Hopefully Sandy will appear towards the top of this list someday.
Around MLB
Niether Lil Ron Washington nor two President Bushes could help the Rangers tie the World Series against the Giants. This San Francisco team seems especially reserved considering they are one game away from the city's first World Series since 1958.
Chase Utley's stoicism may be the cause of his sudden scapegoat role.
Check it out, Mike Silva extends an olive branch to the sabermetric community.