[Updated @ 11:18am: Astros, Reds, Phillies]: News of arbitration [non-]offers are trickling in, so whenever I hear something new I'll add it here. If you discover any on your own don't hesitate to include them in the comments, but be sure to provide a source. I'll update this list accordingly. I am only going to include Type A and Type B free agents, since the arbitration status of unranked players is inconsequential.

Players who were offered arbitration are listed in bold green (Type A) or green (Type B).
Players not offered arbitration are listed in bold red (Type A) or red (Type B).

Angels

Garret Anderson (MLB.com)
Jon Garland (MLB.com)
Darren Oliver (MLB.com)
Francisco Rodriguez (MLB.com)
Mark Teixeira (MLB.com)

Athletics

Alan Embree (MLB.com)
Frank Thomas (MLB.com)

Astros

Doug Brocail (MLB.com)
Mark Loretta (MLB.com)
Randy Wolf (MLB.com)

A.J. Burnett (MLB.com)
Gregg Zaun (MLB.com)

Braves

John Smoltz (MLB.com)

Brewers

Eric Gagne (MLB.com)
C.C. Sabathia (MLB.com)
Ben Sheets (MLB.com)
Brian Shouse (MLB.com)

Cardinals

Jason Isringhausen (MLB.com)
Braden Looper (MLB.com)
Russ Springer (MLB.com)

Cubs

Bobby Howry (MLB.com)
Kerry Wood (MLB.com)

Diamondbacks

Juan Cruz (MLB.com)
Adam Dunn (MLB.com)
Orlando Hudson (MLB.com)
Randy Johnson (MLB.com)
Brandon Lyon (MLB.com)

Dodgers

Joe Beimel (MLB.com)
Casey Blake (MLB.com)
Jeff Kent (MLB.com)
Derek Lowe (MLB.com)
Greg Maddux (MLB.com)
Brad Penny (MLB.com)
Manny Ramirez (MLB.com)

Mariners

Raul Ibanez (MLB.com)

Marlins

Luis Gonzalez (MLB.com)
Paul Lo Duca (MLB.com)
Arthur Rhodes (MLB.com)

Mets

Moises Alou (MLB.com)
Luis Ayala (MLB.com)
Oliver Perez (MLB.com)

Padres

Trevor Hoffman (MLB.com)

Phillies

Pat Burrell (MLB.com)
Jamie Moyer (MLB.com)
Rudy Seanez (MLB.com)

Rangers

Milton Bradley (MLB.com)

Reds

David Weathers (MLB.com)

Red Sox

Paul Byrd (MLB.com)
Jason Varitek (MLB.com)

Rockies

Brian Fuentes (MLB.com)

Royals

Mark Grudzielanek (MLB.com)

Tigers

Edgar Renteria (MLB.com)

Twins

Dennys Reyes (MLB.com)

White Sox

Orlando Cabrera

Yankees

Bobby Abreu (MLB.com)
Mike Mussina (MLB.com)
Andy Pettitte (MLB.com)
Ivan Rodriguez (MLB.com)

Midnight tonight is the deadline for teams to offer salary arbitration to their own free agents, of which the Mets have eleven:

• Oliver Perez
• Luis Ayala
• Pedro Martinez
• Moises Alou
• Damion Easley
• Tony Armas
• Orlando Hernandez
• Ricardo Rincon
• Ramon Martinez
• Matt Wise
• Trot Nixon

Only three of these guys have been ranked by Elias: Oliver Perez is a Type A free agent; Luis Ayala and Moises Alou are both Type Bs. A quick free agent compensation primer: The upside to offering arbitration to a ranked player is clear: Should he sign elsewhere, the former team -- in this case, the Mets -- would receive either a first round pick AND a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds (Type A) or just the sandwich pick (Type B). There are circumstantial exceptions to the compensation for Type A players, because a team could conceivably sign more than one such player but, obviously, only has one first round draft pick to offer back to the player's original team. In such cases, the highest ranked Type A player signed is compensated for by the signing team's first round pick; the second highest ranked Type A the second round pick, etc. Of course, any team picking in the top half of the first round has their first round pick protected, so the musical draft picks begin with the signing team's second rounder instead.

The Mets will almost certainly offer arbitration to Perez, because there is no disincentive to do otherwise. Typically, the worst case scenario for offering a player arbitration is that he accepts and you didn't want him to. That is, you wanted him to sign elsewhere so you could collect the draft pick(s), and his accepting of arbitration would have negative implications on your team's plan for the subsequent year, either financially, roster-wise, or something else entirely. This actually happened in the winter following the 2002 season, when the Braves offered arbitration to both Greg Maddux and Kevin Millwood, expecting at least one of them to decline in favor of a multi-year deal elsewhere. Both players accepted their arbitration offers, and the Braves were forced to trade Millwood to the Phillies (for Johnny Estrada) to ease the burden on their 2003 payroll. The Mets have no such concerns about Perez, because they could afford any one-year arbitration award should he fail to find a deal to his liking on the open market.

I think the Mets should probably offer arbitration to Ayala, too. If he doesn't sign with someone else, the Mets will be on the hook for something like $2 million (just a guess) for next year. Ayala was pretty terrible last year, but the Mets flushed $1 million down the toilet on Matt Wise, so even the worst case for Ayala next year would hardly cripple the Mets financially. Moises Alou is sort of interesting, but the Mets won't offer him arbitration. It's not clear what Alou could be awarded in arbitration, considering he missed almost all of 2008. The collective bargaining agreement stipulates that arbitration-eligible players who are not yet eligible for free agency can be awarded no less than 20% below what they made in the previous season (certain exceptions notwithstanding), but that rule doesn't apply to players, like Alou, who aren't covered under the reserve system [Article XX(A) of the CBA]. Would it be worth extending an arbitration offer to Alou if he'd expect, say, a $3 million arbitration reward? Who knows.

Nobody else on the above list is going to get an offer from the Mets. Prior to 2007, that passivity would have precluded the player from resigning with his former team. That's no longer the case, so the Mets could still negotiate with Pedro Martinez et al without having to guarantee any of them the right to arbitration.

Of course, 29 other teams also have to make arbitration decisions on their own free agents, which is where things will really start to get interesting. There has been very little player movement this offseason, but once the compensation-related incentives/disincentives become known we should see things open up a bit. Will signing Adam Dunn or Ben Sheets make more sense if they won't cost any draft picks than, say, Manny Ramirez or Derek Lowe plus draft picks to boot? By Tuesday morning, the risks of signing another team's players will be much clearer.

If you want to know how a team with a $138 million payroll can miss the playoffs, take a gander at the lineup. Not that one. I mean the one in queue outside the trainer's room. Injuries are a part of the game, and some players certainly carry higher risks of injury than others. Older players and players with prior health problems are obvious candidates for a trip or two to the disabled list. Especially high-risk individuals are those injury double-threats: Aging players who have a laundry list of past ailments and afflictions (see: Alou, Moises).

Every team suffers its share of games lost to the disabled list. The Yankees had Jorge Posada, Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain all spend time on the shelf; the Red Sox missed David Ortiz, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling for varying lengths of time; the Braves missed Chipper Jones, Tim Hudson, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine at one point or another, so the Mets clearly aren't on an island with respect to busted goods.

I wanted to know exactly how many man-games the Mets lost due to injury this season. So, armed with their transaction ledger, salary data, schedule and my trusty spreadsheet, I had a look-see at how many games individual Mets players missed while on the disabled list. A few caveats:

• I only counted time on the disabled list; missed games while injured but on the active roster were not counted.
• I guesstimated slightly with respect to the day a player went on/came off the disabled list. As a rule, and to be conservative, I counted both days as days on the active roster (i.e. *not* disabled list days).
• For the sake of simplicity, I counted pitcher missed days the same as hitter missed days. I figured it wasn't worth the added complexity of figuring out missed starts, etc., so all team games were treated equally.
• I didn't include Tony Armas's or Trot Nixon's missed days because #$%^ 'em, that's why.

Having said that, here are the results:

Nine-hundred and sixteen missed games at an average cost-per-game of $26,229.35 for a grand total of $25,961,163.30 of lost wages due to injury. That's almost $26 million, which will pay for C.C. Sabathia's 2009 salary, among other things. For poops and pickles, if the Mets had that money back their 2008 payroll would have been more like $112 million, not $138 million. To be honest, I have no idea how much the Mets team attrition compares to other clubs, but 916 games is a ton of missed time.

Keep in mind that I only included players whom the Mets could have reasonably expected to be on their 25-man roster for the whole season. Here's the positional breakdown:

• Starting pitching: 250 games, $11,032,228.11
• Relief pitching: 207 games, $4,322,530.86
• Infield: 65 games, $2,507,716.05
• Outfield: 195 games, $6,435,185.19
• Bench: 199 games, $972,145.06

Even with all of these injuries the Mets still had a great chance to make the playoffs this season. I'd be making excuses if I blamed their having fallen short on bad health, though it'd be equally naive to suggest that their physical breakdowns didn't play any role in their ultimate demise. To have four players from your would-be active roster miss at least 125 games apiece and not have your record suffer to some degree is unrealistic. Plenty of blame still falls on Omar Minaya for not having reasonable contingency plans for some of these guys, most notably Alou and Hernandez, who were safe bets to miss significant time in any given year. Still, a little more luck in the health department and we might not be grinding our teeth bitterly as we watch other teams take their hacks at baseball history.

The trade deadline is fast approaching and the list of available players is growing shorter. At the same time, the Mets continue to pitch and hit effectively and areas of greatest need are not as considerable as they were as little as a month ago. Then again, winning cures all ills and great play can often mask shortcomings.

Area of need: corner outfield

For instance, Fernando Tatis is hitting .318/.370/.520. Fernando. Tatis. Career .263/.345/.443 hitter. Much worse than that since 2000. He's hitting lefties and righties equally well, and he hasn't completely embarrassed himself in the field. We're only talking 160-some-odd plate appearances, though, and small sample size red flags abound. He's been a great story and a huge lift for the Mets with Moises Alou out for the season and Ryan Church still out as he recovers from the effects of his second concussion this season. Church may be back soon, but neither that nor his long-term status are guaranteed.

Even if Tatis were somehow able to sustain anything resembling his current level of production, Endy Chavez continues to be an offensive sinkhole in right field. Sure, the defense is great and the .272 batting average is decent, but the .316 on-base percentage is 13th among 17 National League right-fielders with at least 250 plate appearances. His .329 slugging percentage is 16th of 17, besting only Washington's Austin Kearns. Endy's .644 OPS is likewise 16th of 17. I don't know which is more astonishing: that Endy is so bad at hitting or that he's managed to accrue 250 plate appearances while being so bad at hitting. That's a poll for another day, I guess. Regardless, Endy's defense is probably good enough to justify carrying his anemic bat as a fourth or fifth outfielder, but as a starting corner outfielder he is pitifully feckless.

Area of need: relief pitching

Billy Wagner's propensity for eating it hard in big games notwithstanding, he's the Mets' best relief pitcher and still one of the best closers in the National League. Aaron Heilman has been a lot better of late and is probably the Mets' number two, which is far preferable to just plain number two, which was Heilman's nom de fan for the first two months of the season.

Duaner Sanchez is a mystery right now. He was effective if unspectacular for the season's first three months, but has been mostly horrible for a couple of weeks now and is suffering a loss in velocity and deterioration of confidence. After missing a year and a half there's no telling what shape his shoulder is in or whether his arm can hold up for an entire season. Maybe it's just a matter of fatigue and he needs a little time off. At all events, he's a definite question mark moving forward.

Pedro Feliciano is still murder on lefties, but unlike the past two seasons, this year he has been downright awful against righties, who have rocked him to the tune of .342/.419/.553. There's nothing wrong with having a lefty specialist in the bullpen, but the Mets already have one guy -- Scott Schoeneweis -- who can't get righties out, and despite his dramatic platoon splits this season I'm pretty sure Jerry Manuel still thinks that Feliciano is a quality guy to throw out there against all comers. Then again, two full years of competence is more meaningful than one half-year of ineptitude, but you still have to assign greater weight to the recent performance, and that's not good news for Feliciano or the Mets.

Joe Smith is the opposite of Feliciano: he dominates righties and has a tough time with the southpaws. Righties have hit just .190/.271/.302 while lefties have gone .293/.408/.415. If only he and Feliciano could play the field I might be inclined to pull Tatis in the late innings and alternate lefty-righty with Smith and Feliciano for an inning or two. It all comes down to how Manuel decides to use them, so let's hope that his inquisitive mind and nerd glasses mean he knows a thing or two about platoon splits.

Area of need: first base?

A month ago this would have been an obvious need, but with Carlos Delgado swinging a mighty big stick I'm not so sure any more. Given how precipitously he declined last year and how quickly he has resurged, you really have to wonder if those nagging injuries were bothering him more than he let on. The elbow in particular caused him a lot of trouble the last year and a half, and if he is finally out from under those problems then maybe it shouldn't be so surprising that he's back to mashing the ball. He's not going to OPS 1.200 the rest of the way as he has during July, but he has finally pushed his OPS over the league average for a first baseman and there's reason for optimism that he might keep it there.

Mark Teixeira and Adam Dunn will cost an arm and a leg to acquire for the remainder of this season and both will be free agents at season's end. They'll both be on the Mets's radar come November, but I think they'll stand pat this summer and hope that Delgado's resurrection is for real.

Area of need: bench

Marlon Anderson is terrible, and needs to be jettisoned as quickly as possible. I like to think that if the Mets could find anyone else worth plugging into that prestigious 25th spot on the roster that they would have already done so, but right now the dried up husks of Lenny Harris and Matt Franco both look like better options. The rest of the bench is serviceable, with Damion Easley and Argenis Reyes both providing decent production. Nick Evans and Robinson Cancel are nothing special, but the Mets seem inclined to give Evans a few looks at the big league level, and as far as Cancel is concerned, well, they would otherwise just be throwing away the rest of the post-game buffet.

Area of need: catcher?

This one's a trick, because the Mets don't actually need to acquire a new catcher; they just need to play their best catcher more often. That means more time on the pine for Brian Schneider and more cracks at the starting lineup for Ramon Castro. Here is my entire argument:

Ramon Castro: .290/.365/.538
Brian Schneider: .247/.337/.300

So, as long as Jerry Manuel continues to read this blog I think the Mets will be fine at catcher. Or, at least, have the RSS feed in his Google Reader. Either or.

In summation and in conclusion: improve the corner outfield and bench if doing so would come at minimal cost to the farm system. A solid reliever would be nice, but given the going rate of solid relievers I would be more inclined to go with what we've got or, possibly, promote from within. Perhaps Eddie Camacho, Eude Brito or Eddie Kunz -- all currently with Binghamton -- could be given a shot. They can't be much worse than Carlos Muniz has been. Stay the course at first base and catcher, giving more playing time to Castro at the latter.

One lousy single from Brad Hawpe is all that separated the Mets from the franchise's first no-hitter. I don't really care so much that the Mets have never had one. I'll take the Mets' two World Series over however many no-nos the Astros have had since 1962. Don't get me wrong: it'd be nice to get one, and it'll be really exciting and I'll scream like a schoolgirl, but I don't really lament the fact that there's never been one. The Mets have had a zillion one-hitters, and with just a tiny bit of luck they'd probably have three or four no-hitters by now. But they don't, and they didn't get one on Saturday either.

Tangibly speaking, what they got was just as good: a win, pushing their current streak to eight straight victories and moving them to within a half-game of the Phillies for first place in the NL East. I don't want to say that this seemed unfathomable a week ago, because a week ago the we were in the middle of watching the series with the Phillies and imagining how great it would be to win the last three games and wind up 2.5 games out. But that's just what happened, and then five more wins after that. The Phillies are sputtering a bit and the Cardinals aren't playing so hot, so the Mets are actually just 1.5 games back of the Wild Card. All of this is heady talk when we're only 94 games into the season, but if it was fathomable a week ago it was certainly unfathomable a couple of weeks ago.

Whatever happens tomorrow, the Mets can finish the scheduled first half of the season no worse than a game and a half out of first, and could conceivably head into the All-Star break in first place (!). It's easy to get wrapped up in all of the winning, but you're never really as good as you look when you're on a hot streak and never quite as bad as when you're on a cold streak. The Mets are awesome right now: the starting pitching has been great, the bullpen has been great, the situational hitting has been great, the role players have been great. Is Fernando Tatis going to hit like this all year? Has Mike Pelfrey figured it all out? Is Aaron Heilman back to normal?

Hey, when everybody's playing great there isn't a lot to complain about. The gripers stay away and we're all happy. I'm not going to say the Mets are doing it all with smoke and mirrors, because they are legitimately playing terrific baseball. They've won some squeakers and maybe had some good luck along the way, but great hitting, pitching and unembarrassing fielding is a rock solid formula for moving up in the standings. Moises Alou is probably done for the year, but we really weren't counting on him to contribute much anyway. Ryan Church may be back sooner rather than later, as his recent dizzy spells have been attributed to migraines and not post-concussion issues. Hell, Orlando Hernandez and Angel Pagan are both making rehab starts with St. Lucie. Neither would have a tremendous impact on this team, but both could be useful parts down the stretch.

It could all fall apart tomorrow, but right now it's a lot of fun to watch the Mets play ball, and I guess that's all I really wanted to be able to say. Go out there and win tomorrow and we end the half on a high note.

Big winners: Pedro Martinez, +21.8% WPA, Carlos Muniz, +13.8% WPA
Big losers: Nick Evans, -6.7% WPA, Argenis Reyes, -4.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Iannetta double-play in 4th, +10.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Evans strikeout with bases loaded in 4th, -6.7% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +48.7%
Total batter WPA: +1.3%

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Reg Dunlop; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

News fluttered in prior to Tuesday's game against the Pirates that Moises Alou did *not* have a fracture in his ankle bone thingy and that he might be ready to come off Medicare the disabled list. Endy Chavez's three hits against the Bucs notwithstanding, the return of a healthy-ish Peehands McGee would provide a huge lift for an offense that ranks near the bottom of the league in a number of categories. The over/under on 2008 games played by Alou is around 60, but now's as good a time as any to get those out of the way so the Mets can go sign Barry Bonds for the pennant run. Or they could just stick with Angel Pagan. See if I care.

As for last night's game, we can all thank the Jebus that the Mets came away with the win. There's little worse than watching a four-hour snoozefest against the Pirates only to cough up a tenuous lead in the ninth inning and ultimately lose the game in spectacular fashion. I can hardly summon the energy to comment on how boring this game actually was, which was an incredible feat in and of itself considering that Johan Santana started the game.

Having just written that, I'll still offer that there were a few items that piqued my interest.

1. Ryan Church

Everyone's favorite silly ignorant erstwhile theologian-ballplayer went 1-for-5, but contribute a massively exciting 2-run homer that knotted the game in the fourth inning. Most importantly, it gave me an opportunity to shout "Time to go to Church!" for all to hear and enjoy (all = Kim and the dogs). For her part, Kim was a good sport and even repeated my clever slogan, to the continued puzzlement of the dogs. Whatever. Those humps never appreciated my wry punny wit anyway.

2. Jose Reyes

Hoo-ray for Jo-sé! Reyes had a tremendous game, going 3-for-3 with a triple, a run, a rib, and two-plus walks. He also added a caught stealing to his season register (three now) and another error to same (five now). The error indirectly led to the Pirates' tying run off Billy Wagner in the ninth and directly led to me having to suffer through two more innings of Mets-Pirates "baseball".

Speaking of Reyes's walks, I smugly referred to his three walks as "two-plus" because I really struggle with giving a hitter credit for intentional passes. The hitter should certainly get credit for it in some manner, but giving him points in the discipline column just for standing there seems disingenuous, especially considering how important walks are in gauging a player's development and overall approach at the plate.

To me, the subject of intentional versus unintentional walks is not an insignificant one, and most baseball stat sites do expose the divergence if you dig deep enough. For instance, Reyes "drew" 77 walks in 2007, up from 53 the year before; an increase of 24. However, if we only consider unintentional walks, the increase is just 17 (47 to 61). Look at Ryan Howard: considered a patient hitter (albeit one who strikes out prodigiously), Howard walked 107 times last season. Great, except that 35 of those were intentional. So, Howard really walked 72 times on his own, just 11 more than Reyes. If anything, intentional walks are more a reflection of power than patience, though there's no easy way to track them that way.</digression>

3. Luis Castillo

Luca went 0-for-2 but picked up three walks, raising his on-base percentage to .382. Sure, his slugging lags well behind at just .303, but at least he's doing something, and a walk is just as good as a bunt single.

4. Jorge Sosa

Woot, no runs allowed!

5. Carlos Delgado

There's the big guy we all know and love. Any boost he might have picked up from his big game on Sunday was surely washed away by Monday's rain, because by Tuesday he was back to his old sucky self. I'm not closing the book on him just yet, but I'm also only leaving it open a crack so someone might actually think I'm still reading it.

Quick turnaround to an afternoon game on Wednesday before the Mets head west to play the Diamondbacks. They're likely to get Micah Owings, Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. Woot?