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.

The Mets will call up the following minor leaguers when rosters expand today:

Jon Niese, LHP
Robert Parnell, RHP
Ricardo Rincon, LHP
Carlos Muniz, RHP
Al Reyes, RHP
Argenis Reyes, 2B
Ramon Martinez, IF

Niese is expected to start on Tuesday against the Brewers. Parnell, Rincon, Muniz and Al Reyes will go to the bullpen while Argenis Reyes and Martinez will add some bench depth. Marlon Anderson should come off the disabled list and join the expanded roster as well.

Despite recent comments to the contrary, it appears that Luis Castillo will be the starter at second base when he is activated from the disabled list tonight. Argenis Reyes has been getting the bulk of the playing time lately, though his 60 OPS+ leaves plenty to be desired (an additional 40 OPS+ or so). Castillo is nothing special, but his 88 OPS+ this season is considerably higher than Reyes. I don't think either is a spectacular fielder, though if Castillo's knees are up to the task his bat is certainly an improvement over Reyes and even Damion Easley at this point. Easley's reputation as a middle-infielder with pop hasn't really manifested itself this season; his .347 SLG is just a shade higher than Castillo's 2008 mark of .331 and is actually lower than Castillo's career SLG of .357.

Apparently chemistry, not getting solid starting pitching and scoring more runs than every NL team but the Cubs, is what has gotten the Mets to this point in the season (not to mention winning a ton of recent ballgames against terrible teams). This is just a brutal, horribly-conceived article that begs the Mets not to "tempt fate" by inserting Castillo into a lineup that has flourished without him. Conflating causality with coincidence has long been a favorite arrow in the tired sportswriting quiver, and this cage-liner by the Post's Larry Brooks is more of the same. I'm far from a Castillo supporter, but this is a little ridiculous.

Orlando Hernandez will undergo surgery to remove a bunion from his right foot. Hernandez, "39", likely won't pitch again this year or ever.

Did MLB screw the pooch by not sending its marquee ballplayers to compete for Olympic gold? Jayson Stark (nae) and Keith Law (yae) debate that question.

You can't win them all, and four-game sweeps are especially tough, but when you take the first three against an awful team like the Pirates, it's a little disappointing not to come away with the last one. The Mets failed in the two areas they fail most often: hitting with runners in scoring position and relief pitching. The Mets had thirteen baserunners and only plated two of them. Comparatively, the Pirates had 15 baserunners and plated five.

Pitching-wise, John Maine was iffy. The two hits allowed look great, but his velocity was piss-poor and he walked four batters to just three strikeouts in five innings. He gets some bonus points for figuring out a way to get through those five innings with slop, but the Pirates are a crappy, crappy offensive team so it's hard to come away particularly impressed with his outing.

Brian Stokes turned back into a pumpkin, giving up a brutal two-run homer to Adam LaRoche that tied the game in the sixth. Pedro Feliciano and especially Duaner Sanchez were bad, combining to cough up three runs in the bottom of the eighth.

Damion Easley was just brutal at the plate, going 0-for-3 with a walk and accounting for five total outs if you consider his two GIDPs. The walk came in the ninth when the Mets actually managed to bring the tying run to the plate. Unfortunately, Argenis Reyes was that tying run, and he quickly became the third out.

No rest for the weary, as the Mets scoot home to take on the Braves on Tuesday.

Big winners: John Maine, +29.9% WPA, Nick Evans, +13.6% WPA
Big losers: Duaner Sanchez, -37.3% WPA, Brian Stokes, -23.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Sanchez double-play in 5th, +21.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: LaRoche homerun, -25.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -21.1%
Total batter WPA: -29.9%

Game Thread Roll Call

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

Johan Santana pitches his best game of the season, the Mets' best-pitched game of the season, and the fourth-highest game score in the National League this year. Yes, it was against the Pirates, but it was still tremendous. Seven strikeouts, no walks, three hits. He improves to 11-7, but with a bit more run support and a lot more bullpen support, he'd be at 15 or 16 and would be a legitimate Cy Young candidate.

It's nice to know that David Wright can get a day off and the Mets can embarrass themselves by batting Damion Easley third and still come away with an easy win. Dan Murphy has eight walks and six strikeouts in 41 at-bats. He's not going to hit .415 the rest of the way, but he has a good enough idea at the plate to be considerably useful. The same can't be said for Nick Evans, who will probably earn a temporary demotion if Luis Castillo comes back before the end of the month.

Speaking of Castillo, it says a lot (bad) about Easley and Argenis Reyes when I find myself looking forward to Castillo's return. Easley is down to .265/.314/.354 and Reyes is at .280/.316/.320. Reyes's average is surprisingly solid, but he has zero plate discipline and no power to speak of. Castillo doesn't have any power either, but he does a solid job of getting on base, which is far more than we can say about Reyes or Easley.

The Phillies squeaked out a win in San Diego, so the Mets' lead remains at two games, though the Marlins' loss to the Cubs drops them 4.5 games behind. The Mets wrap up their series with the Pirates at 12:35 on Monday.

Big winners: Johan Santana, +39.6% WPA, Brian Schneider, +26.4% WPA
Big losers: Damion Easley, -8.3% WPA, Fernando Tatis, -7.5% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Schneid-dog two-run homer, +17.5% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Easley double-play in 3rd, -5.9% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +39.6%
Total batter WPA: +%10.4

I didn't see any of this game so I won't pretend that I did. Judging by the boxscore and the game thread it appears to have been more of the same, but I'll leave it up to you guys to fill in the blanks. Or Cabbage Head.

Big winners: David Wright, +43.4% WPA, Joe Smith, +34.7% WPA
Big losers: Scott Schoeneweis, -27.1% WPA, Argenis Reyes, -19.0% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Wright the hero, +43.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Effing Gerut, -34.6% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +13.8%
Total batter WPA: +36.2%

Game Thread Roll Call

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

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.