No sooner has the 2008 season ended than we're blessed with the first batch of 2009 projections. These come courtesy of ACTA Sports and The Bill James Handbook. The BJH will be availabe on November 1st, months ahead of most of the other baseball annuals, which is great because we get numbers to play with, though we have to accept that the rosters here could change quite a bit by the time next season rolls around.

Here we go.

Let's remember that these are just projections. Some numbers and algorithms went into a computer and these popped out. That's a really simplistic way of looking at what is surely a very complex system, and I don't describe it that way to make light of all of the work that goes into developing and implementing a projection system. Forecasting ballplayers may seem like a frivolous use of time, but there is little doubt that most if not all big league teams use player projections of some form or another. They'd be crazy not to use the many years of baseball data that exists to analyze the likelihood of certain performance results for free agents, players on their own team or potential trade targets on other teams. Projections don't tell us what is guaranteed to happen, but they do tell us what could very likely happen, and that should at least be a part of any reasonable player analysis, whether you're in a big league front office or a humble website sending information through this sophisticated series of tubes we call the internets.

Some thoughts on the Mets, bullet-wise.

• Marlon Anderson should be jettisoned post-haste. He is not better than Val Pascucci. I'm not sure he's better than Morten Anderson. Why was it necessary to sign him for two years? Anyone?
• Carlos Voltron is a god.
• Luis Castillo is a Met.
• Can Brian Schneider never start again? Can Ramon Castro please stay healthy? The 80 points separating their OPS projections is not insignificant.
• Endy Chavez isn't much of a hitter, though he could be one of the most undervalued commodities in baseball.
• Ryan Church's projection isn't terrible, but it's not great, either. For comparison, Lastings Milledge's projection is .281/.347/.439. I don't feel so well.
• Carlos Delgado, not so bad. The computer thinks Carlos will continue his resurgence and put up an OPS similar to his 2008 mark, which is middle of the pack among big league first basemen.
• Damion Easley: Time to retire.
• Mark my words: Nick Evans will not OPS .829. Nice thought, though.
• Fernando Martinez: Not ready for the big time yet.
• Daniel Murphy is the Irish Hammer. Close your eyes. Now picture the Irish Hammer. Now picture him hitting .296/.371/.478 as a 24-year-old. Now picture him doing it at second base. Feel better? How did you read all of that with your eyes closed, eh? Cheater.
• I'm a little disappointed in Jose Reyes's projection. That .798 OPS would be a 35-point dropoff from his 2008 line. I'll take the over on this one.
• Is it wrong to wish that Brian Schneider had been driving that car in DR and not Ambiorix Burgos? Yea. Probably.
• The Mets could do far worse than Fernando Tatis as a righty bat off the bench, Or: Sixteen words I couldn't have fathomed writing a year ago.
• David Wright: Yea, let's trade this bum.

I'll post the pitcher projections tomorrow, and then some free agent/trade target projections on Wednesday.

If you were asked to guess the player with the highest walk rate (BB%) among Met hitters with at least 100 plate appearances in 2008, who might you throw out there? Carlos Beltran walks a lot, and he'd likely be my guess. David Wright also has great plate discipline, so he'd probably be a solid choice. Neither? Hmm. I see where this is going. Someone not-so-obvious. Got it: Dan Murphy. No? Gah, !@#$ me. Fine, who?

A: Luis Castillo.

Bingo. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the player who seems to be universally hated by fans and management alike, whose name precedes some variant of "absolutely has to be traded" on almost every Mets offseason wishlist, was the most disciplined hitter the Mets had this year. Care to guess how many regular second basemen walked at a better rate than Castillo? Zero. Or how many non-OF/1B/DH types did so? Four: Dave Ross, Chipper Jones, Craig Counsell and Ramon Santiago. Castillo's 14.4% BB% was 28th in all of baseball and his 1.43 BB/K rate (walks per strikeout) was 6th in the majors. He also stole 17 bases in 19 attempts, which is kind of astounding considering how hobbled he looked most of the time.

Of course, he doesn't hit for any power and his defense was terrible last year (his .751 RZR would have ranked dead last among NL second basemen had he played enough innings to qualify), though he has historically been a pretty good defensive player, and his lack of range this past season can certainly be attributed in part to his bad knees. There's no guarantee that his knees have gotten appreciably better, but he seemed to move around a bit better late in the season, whatever that's worth.

If we are to believe what we hear, the Mets may look to dump Castillo this offseason. Personally, I think that'd be a mistake, especially if they'd have to take on some other bad contract in return. Castillo is nothing special, but a second baseman who can steal bases and draw walks as Castillo can has plenty of value. That doesn't acquit Omar Minaya of signing him to that horrible contract, but if Castillo can stay somewhat healthy he is something quite different from useless. He's not Chase Utley or Dan Uggla, but he's also not what's holding the Mets back from becoming a championship team.

Who might be out there to replace Castillo if the Mets decided to trade him or relegate him to $6 million pinch-hitting duties? Orlando Hudson's name gets thrown around, though RZR rates his defense as one of the worst in the National League over the past three seasons, including dead last in 2008. His bat would be a huge upgrade over Castillo's, but at what cost? Four years and $40 million, plus the Mets' first round draft pick (or second-rounder, if their first goes to the Dodgers or Brewers or whomever else)?

The Mets might be better off trying to finagle a trade for the Orioles' Brian Roberts, who has been good-to-great defensively, draws plenty of walks, hits for some power, and is a prolific base-stealer. Roberts is set to make $8 million in 2009 in the final year of a two-year extension he signed in 2007. The Cubs tried relentlessly to pry Roberts from the O's last offseason to no avail, though Baltimore may be more inclined to trade Roberts this winter if they thought:

(a) they had no chance of competing in 2009 (they don't), and
(b) they could get something of substance in return

I don't know if that means the Mets would have to give up a Jon Niese or a Fernando Martinez to get someone of Roberts's talents, but I would at least try like hell to make something happen. I've personally been a big fan of Roberts's for three or four years now, hoping he'd find his way into a Mets uniform one of these days.

Internally, the Mets don't have a lot of options. Actually, that's not really true; they have options, they're just mostly terrible ones. Argenis Reyes is pretty clearly not the answer. He's almost as bad a hitter as Anderson Hernandez was in his time with the Mets, and the novelty of having a Reyes-Reyes double-play combination does not offset the fact that Argenis brings zero to the table offensively. Damion Easley is a free agent, and I'd be surprised (disappointed?) if the Mets brought him back. He had a nice year with them in 2007 and a couple of big moments in 2008, but for the most part he was either hurt or unproductive for the better part of the season. He'll also be 39 in November.

The only interesting name within the Mets' organization who could conceivably help the Mets next season is Daniel Murphy, who is currently seeing playing time at second base in the Arizona Fall League. The Mets have said that they have no intention of moving him to 2B in 2009, but my guess is that the front office is simply hedging its bets in case Murphy is a complete disaster at the keystone. Odds are good that Murphy will be pretty bad, as he's moving from an easier defensive position (left field, or even third base which he played in the minors) to a much more difficult one. However, if Murphy turns out to be even adequate defensively at second base, the Mets will have found a real gem. His bat doesn't appear to be strong enough to carry a corner outfield spot, but it would be plenty productive at second, and the Mets would have a young, cheap, homegrown talent to go along with David Wright and Jose Reyes in the infield for years to come. Don't pencil him in just yet; he's still a long shot to be anything more than a failed experiment.

At all events, if we enumerate the Mets' shortcomings in 2008, lack of a solid second baseman would not be especially high on that list. Sure, every bit helps, but pitching -- both starting and relieving -- will have to be the priorities this offseason. If something falls in their lap to improve the team at second base, gravy, but I don't expect the Mets to spend a whole lot of time worrying about it.

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.

An easy win for Oliver Perez, who wasn't great but didn't have to be because the Mets' offense did all of the heavy lifting for him. Somewhat amazingly, Perez stuck around for 6.2 innings and didn't record a single groundball out. He struck out five and induced flyballs on the other fifteen batters he retired. That's craziness.

Perez did walk five batters, which had to be a little disappointing considering that he already had a six-run cushion when he took the mound in the first and the Brewers never got closer than 6-2. You've got a huge lead, just throw strikes, man!

The Mets got another 2.1 scoreless innings of relief out of a bullpen that is suddenly showing signs of aptitude. Even Duaner "Gasoline Fire" Sanchez kept the Brewers off the board in his second consecutive scoreless appearance. He had allowed runs in four of his prior six appearances, none of which lasted even an inning.

Pitching aside, the story of this game was the offense. Every starter reached base either via hit or walk, and everyone except Jose Reyes scored at least one run. Dan Murphy and Carlos Beltran three time apiece, and Reyes (47), Beltran (20) and Luis Castillo (15) each added a stolen base.

I gave the GWRBI to Ryan Church because, using the new, awesome-r rules, he drove in the actual winning run with his grand slam in the first. If we were using the traditional rules, the GWRBI would have gone to Carlos Delgado since he put the Mets ahead for good with his single in the first. So, if you're scoring the old-fashioned way you can give it to Delgado.

The Philthies lost again to the Nationals, so the Mets' lead in the NL East grew to three games. Both teams are off tomorrow before beginning a three-game series at Shea on Friday that culminates in Santana v Hamels on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.

Big winners: Ryan Church, +16.2% WPA, Oliver Perez, +10.1% WPA
Big losers: Fernando Tatis, -.7% WPA, Luis Castillo, -.5% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Church salami, +18.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Hardy RBI single in 1st, -3.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +12.6%
Total batter WPA: +37.4%
GWRBI: Ryan Church

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by IanB in MD; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

It's funny: on Tuesday night, even when the Mets led 7-0, I had little doubt they would find a way to blow the game. Yet last night, trailing by a run in the eighth, I thought there was no way they'd ever win. Well, they won, they're back in first place, and the disaster of the previous night is all but forgotten. For better or worse.

Johan Santana wasn't at his best, and the Mets' offense was mostly held in check by Kyle Kendrick. Down 3-1 in the sixth, Carlos Delgado put the rest of the team on his back and solo homer-ed the Mets back in the game, knotting the game at three when he poked his second longball of the game over the short porch in left with two outs in the eighth. The Mets' offense erupted for three more runs that inning, and a trio of Met relievers combined to pitch two perfect innings to close things out.

The Mets have a *gasp* day off Thursday before heading to Florida for three games against the Marlins, featuring Instant Replay™.

Big winners: Carlos Delgado, +43.5% WPA, Carlos Beltran, +11.1% WPA
Big losers: Luis Castillo, -15.8% WPA, David Wright, -10.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Murph!, +26.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Howard two-run dink, -18.0% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +9.5%
Total batter WPA: +40.5%
GWRBI: Daniel Murphy

Game Thread Roll Call

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

John Maine hit the disabled list last night, replaced immediately on the roster by Luis Castillo. The Mets will have to find someone to start when Maine's rotation spot comes up this week, and it might be Jon Niese, who is currently headlining at Triple-A Norfolk. Niese is 5-1 with a 3.65 ERA in six starts with Norfolk, compiling a 31-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 37 innings.

At MetsGeek, Alex Nelson looks at the pitchers the Mets will face in their mini series with the Phillies.

At the Hardball Times, PITCHf/x wizard Josh Kalk analyzes Pedro Martinez to determine how much he has left in the tank this season.

If you're a giant nerd like me, you might be interested in reading about the IP technology and other widgets that are being built into Citi Field.