In Arizona:

• Josh Thole went 2-for-4 with an RBI (.382/.441/.509).
• Eddie Kunz, still ruff, blew a save and picked up a loss, allowing a homerun and two walks in an inning of work.

In Hawaii:

• Ruben Tejada went 0-for-3 with two walks and two runs scored.
• Jordan Abruzzo went 0-for-4 with a walk and two strikeouts.
• Josh Stinson allowed a run on two hits -- one of them a solo homerun -- in an inning of relief.
• Roy Merritt struck out two and walked one in two innings of work.

In the Dominican Republic:

• Fernando Martinez went 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored.
• Argenis Reyes went 3-for-5 with an RBI and two runs scored.
• Fernando Tatis went 1-for-4 with a strikeout.

In Puerto Rico:

• Nick Evans went 0-for-2 with two walks and a run scored.
• Michael Antonini allowed four runs on six hits and two walks in four innings.

In Venezuela:

• Michel Abreu went 1-for-3 with a walk, an RBI and a run scored.

At MetsGeek, Chris McCown looks at some available options for jettisoning Luis Castillo to parts unknown.

At RotoGraphs, Brian Joura looks at Daniel Murphy's value in upcoming fantasy drafts. Obviously, his value skyrockets if he becomes a starter at second base instead of a platoon partner in left field.

ESPN.com has been posting winter forecasts for each big league team, and Bob Klapisch penned the Mets preview. Nothing terribly new or exciting here. Blah blah closer yada yada big spenders. It'll kill a few minutes of your Wednesday if nothing else.

At The Hardball Times, David Gassko looks into whether experience really does matter in the playoffs. There isn't a ton of data to work with (105 seven-game series since WW2 were considered), but the results might surprise you. And by you I mean me.

The Tao of Stieb, a Blue Jays blog, runs down five reasons not to sign Ryan Dempster.

River Avenue Blues ruminates on Bobby Abreu and whether he makes any sense for the 2009 Yankees and/or beyond.

Wow. Phillies fans. Just, wow.

The last two days we looked at The Bill James Handbook projections for Mets hitters and pitchers. That's fun and all, but one thing we've had to acknowledge is that any number of those players won't actually be on the Mets next season (I'm looking at you, Marlon Anderson!). So let's have a crack at some players who spent 2008 elsewhere but have varying degrees of likelihood of landing in Queens this offseason.

The Mets may have as many as three rotation spots to fill and as many as two three all of their bullpen spots that need plugging. There are a lot of options out there in both buckets, and the Mets will spend plenty of time this winter trying to make the staff over.

We'll do pitchers today, position players tomorrow. First the starters.

Lots of interesting names on this list. I threw Jake Peavy up there just for kicks, even though there's next to zero chance the Mets will trade for him. Still, those numbers are purty, and they're *not* park-adjusted yet.

• A.J. Burnett is a strikeout machine, but he's 32 and has a history of so-so control and arm trouble. He's a better pitcher than Oliver Perez, for sure, but he's also five years older and will probably make more money per year. The Mets could do worse, but if you're going to spend $16 million a year on Burnett, why not just spend $23 million (or whatever) on C.C. Sabathia?
• Ryan Dempster was terrific for the Cubs this year, but should we judge him on 207 great innings of 2.96 ERA in 2008 or 1195 career innings of 4.64 ERA as a starter?
• Jon Garland will only be 29 next year, but he has terrible strikeout marks and isn't even really a groundball pitcher. He has very good control, but is that enough?
• Perhaps the most interesting name on this list is Randy Johnson, who had outstanding peripherals as a 44-year-old in 2008. We know he had problems in New York when he played with the Yankees, but on a one-year deal he would be a decent risk. I don't think it'll happen because I think the Mets would be gun-shy about his experience in the Bronx, but it would probably work out better than most people suspect.
• The biggest problem with Derek Lowe -- and it's definitely a problem -- is his age. He's basically been awesome for the Dodgers these past four seasons. He is an extreme groundball pitcher, has good control and strikes out enough batters to keep 'em honest (whatever that means). Are you going to hand out $12 million a year for three years to a 36-year-old? It's a tough sell. I might go for a two-year deal with a team option, though I feel like someone will go to three.
• Sabathia isn't as good as Peavy, but he's the same age and would cost only money and a first-round pick. He throws a ton of innings, which is both good and bad. He's going to cost Johan Santana money, and while it would be tough to pony up $50 million for two pitchers, imagine running those two out there for two games apiece in the LDS.
• I'm a huge Ben Sheets fan: He strikes out a lot of batters, he walks very few. He's also had a laundry list of injuries and would be a colossal risk on any deal that wasn't year-to-year.
• Randy Wolf is a BLAIM (Below League Average Innings Muncher). 200 innings of 4.30 ERA has plenty of value on the open market. Could the Mets do better? Sure. They could also do worse (see: Pedro Martinez circa 2008).

Now the relievers.

There are more guys than those listed, but this is a pretty good sampling of what's out there. We've got young and old, righty and lefty, closers and middle relief.

• Everybody hates Kyle Farnsworth, and though he isn't really closer material, he could certainly contribute to a quality bullpen if used appropriately.
• Brian Fuentes is probably my top choice to close for the Mets next year. His platoon splits are fairly even, despite using a sidearm delivery from the left side that is commonly susceptible to right-handed batters. He'll be 33 next year, but three years of Fuentes seems preferable to six years of Francisco Rodriguez.
• Trevor Hoffman probably won't ever leave San Diego, but he'd be a decent signing for a year if the Padres committed to rebuilding. He has great control and still strikes out a lot of batters even though his fastball tops out in the mid-to-high eighties.
• I'm not really a huge Brandon Lyon fan. He's interesting, and has good control, but he's really a bridge guy. Could be useful in mid-to-late innings.
• Will Ohman stunk for two years in Chicago before turning in a nice season with the Braves last year. The Mets could do worse in the middle innings.
• Arthur Rhodes is like a hundred years old and he's not so hot against righties, but he dominates lefties like nobody's business. There's probably no room for him if the Mets still have Pedro Feliciano and Scott Schoeneweis, but none of that is set in stone.
• Juan Rincon used to be a dominant setup man in Minnesota, but then he got busted for steroids and has been mostly terrible the past seasons.
• Francisco Rodriguez is the prize of the free agent relief market, but I have a hard time dumping six years and $100 million on him. He's not quite as good as his saves record might indicate to someone who actually cares about that sort of thing. He's no better than the fourth-best closer in the AL; is that worth breaking the bank?
• Kerry Wood is another interesting name. Would come far more cheaply than Rodriguez with comparable peripherals.

We'll do non-Mets batters tomorrow.

Ever since baseball went to three divisions per league in 1994, the Mets and Cubs only get to meet a couple of times a year. I was fortunate enough to get some perspective on the Cubs' fast start from Byron Clarke of the inimitable Cubs blog Goat Riders of the Apocalypse.

Eric Simon:: Despite a terrific season last year with Iowa, Geovany Soto is a career .280/.358/.426 hitter in the minor leagues. He's off to a fast start with the Cubs this season (.304/.403/.537). Tell me a bit about him and where you think he'll end up, offensively and defensively.

Byron Clarke: The Soto situation is a little a-typical. He was cruising through the minors, probably not going to make it, and then last year, it apparently just clicked for him. He had a tremendous year, got a September call-up, impressed then, impressed this spring, and has continued to impress in the first tenth of the season. I'm fairly certain he's not as good as his early line, but the Cubs do not have a history of strength at #2, so anyone who's halfway decent is given a hero's welcome. At the end of the season, he'll probably have a .290/.370/.500 line with around 20 home runs. Defensively, he's passable. He's not going to throw a lot of runners out, but he's apparently a decent game caller.

ES: What's the status of Alfonso Soriano? Where does his gaffe rank among the stupidest sports injuries of all time? Worse than the Sammy Sosa sneeze-spasm? The Clint Barmes dear meat incident? The Bill Gramatica jump-n-tear?

BC: The whole Soriano situation is a little surreal. It's as freak-an-injury as a sneeze-spasm, and it's given all the Soriano haters a good opportunity to get in their cracks. As for where it fits in the pantheon of stupidest injuries? Somewhere between sneeze-spasms and 'washing my truck.' Still, it's not as bad as Jason Williams driving his motorcycle into a lightpost and ending his Bulls career.

ES: Give me your early impressions of Kosuke Fukudome.

BC: He's a complete player. Very fundamentally sound. He has a great approach at the plate. He's patient, will take the pitch and drive it to any part of the field. He runs well, might steal a base if the pitcher's got a high leg kick, and can throw out runners at the plate, especially if they don't run hard. He started off very hot, has cooled down a little, but the fundamentals are still there. For a Cubs team that has struggled for years with over-aggressiveness, his patience at the plate sets a great example for the rest of the team. He sees about 4.5 pitches/appearance. He has some power, but that's more of a bonus. He ought to be hitting in the #2 slot, but the Cubs have been doing well with him at #5.

ES: A lot of Cubs fans I've spoken to were happy to see Mark Prior go. What are your thoughts on the matter?

BC: To me, the whole situation was unfortunate. If events had occurred in a vacuum, I would have been in favor of giving him one more shot in Chicago, but the world is not a vacuum. About two years ago, the local media decided to make Prior 'a bad guy,' and Mark didn't handle it well. (The media also tried this with Kerry Wood, but he handled it much better and is now even more beloved than before.) Anyhow, relations between the fans and Prior, and Prior and the team soured. It was appropriate to let him go, but I'm saddened by the whole parting. I think Mark has some excellent and productive years ahead of him, and I'll be sad to see those occur in someone else's uniform... but I'll be one of the Cubs fans that feel that way. In the end, he was done in by high expectations, high salary, and poor relations with the local beat writers and talk radio guys.

ES: Ryan Dempster has a great ERA so far, but he seems to have gotten pretty lucky in allowing just nine hits in 19.0 innings. His 13-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio is unspectacular. Are you bullish or bearish on his future as a starter?

BC: Sell. He hasn't had a good season as a starter since 2000, and as long as I keep repeating that fact, he's been pitching well. So, I will state once more for the record. Ryan Dempster has no business in the Cubs rotation. His early results are a fluke, even if he's been our second best starter.

ES: Kerry Wood: Closer. The results have been good to this point. How does he look, and how is the rest of the bullpen shaping up?

BC: Wood looks better and better with each outing. He struggled a bit at first, allowing runs in two of his first four or five games, but he's looking like a shutdown closer, much like people expected he would be. Currently, Carlos Marmol is the eighth inning set-up man. I've commented a few times that Marmol is the Mariano Rivera to Kerry Wood's John Wetteland. Marmol has been shaky at times, but still dominant. We've also got Bobby Howry who struggles in April, but will be excellent down the stretch, Michael Wuertz (reliably solid), Jon Lieber (ought to be in the rotation), Sean Marshall (also should be in the rotation), and Kevin Hart (unheralded but solid.) To jinx us, I would say that the bullpen is a real strength of the team... but if the starters can't get it together, that won't last for long.

Thanks, Byron. You can check out my responses to his questions at Goat Riders of the Apocalypse.