Thursday morning happy birthday/anniversary applesauce

Happy Birthday to Jon Niese and Pedro Beato today.  Both were born on the same day the Mets last won the World Series in 1986.  Howard Megdal took a look at this over at his blog yesterday.  Hopefully both are members of the next Mets World Series chamption in the very near future.

Darryl Strawberry and Paul O'Neill can't seem to agree on who would win in a matchup between the 86 Mets and the 98 Yankees.  As the only member of the argument who played for both franchises (as well as both specific teams in question), I'm tempted to call Strawberry the less biased of the two.

The Adam Rubin lobby seems to be preparing to submit their own AAOP.  He'd begin by strengthening the bullpen, and then move on to dealing David Wrongz.  Somewhere out there Omar Minaya is not pleased.

The 7 train to Shea seems to be preparing their own AAOP as well.  Joe Nathan appears to be an important piece in that one as evidenced by their Nathan advocacy here.

If Patrick Flood were putting the finishing touches on his AAOP we might be seeing Nick Evans make his 25 man roster.  He was surprised to discover that Evans had the best UZR/150 amongst ML 1st basemen.  Daniel Murphy also checks in on that list for the second time in three years.

Game 6 of the World Series was postponed last night for those who were unaware.  It will be played this evening, allowing TLR to start Chris Carpenter on 3 days rest for game 7 if he so chooses.  No phones will likely be involved in the execution of that decision.  BtB takes a graphical look at pitchers working on three days rest.

Cleveland doesn't appear to be close to a new deal with Grady Sizemore.  One thing this article fails to note...if the Indians turn down Carmona's option for 7 million they will likely be paying about the same via arbitration.  It's a safe bet that a declined option and a non-tender would be going hand in hand.

The Yankees appear fairly close to having a new offer on the table for CC Sabathia.  He's clearly not a Mets target, so I'll be happy to see this deal go into the "contracts nearly certain to end terribly" category as soon as possible.

It seems that MLB has very few major issues left in the CBA negotiations.  The draft bonuses appear to be the only major hurdle left to be cleared in the process, something that I'm sure will be dealt with swiftly since player agents are not involved in these negotiations.   Also of note, it appears that an effort to ban chewing tobacco is gaining steam around the country.  

The Red Sox seem to be a pretty natural suitor for Jose Reyes, but it appears they will pick up their option for Marco Scutaro regardless.  Hopefully they are a little gunshy about the big contracts after Lackey and Crawford have performed so terribly for them.

Hong-Chih Kuo is set to head under the knife again.  He seems almost a certainty to be non-tendered now, and I'd be thrilled if the Mets took a flier on him this offseason. 

Finally, Matt Klaassan takes a stance defending the use of the intentional walk.