Meet the Mets
Jose Reyes Watch: The rumors regarding Jose's affair with the Marlins continue to swirl around. Doc Gooden added his own thoughts, as he thinks Reyes will leave and may even go to Philadelphia.
The Mets will unveil uniform changes and a new 50th anniversary patch at a news conference on Wednesday morning, according to Adam Rubin.
Some guy named Nick Evans was removed from the 40 man roster, along with outfielder Jason Pridie. Both players can opt to become free agents since they've already been outrighted off of the 40 man roster before.
Remember Ike Davis? No? Well, he says that he is recovering well from his ankle injury.
Toby Hyde took a look at the shortstops playing in the Mets short season leagues. Phil Evans and Danny Muno, both 2011 draftees, are the names to keep in mind here.
Looks like the Mets aren't looking at former Dodgers' closer Jonathan Broxton yet. I still think Joe Nathan's the better option from the injured closer bin.
Finally, Howard Megdal suggests that the Mets should look into acquiring Gavin Floyd from the White Sox. While I doubt Angel Pagan is enough of a return, I think Floyd could certainly be attainable for the Mets and he'd be an obvious step up from the Mike Pelfrey's and Dillon Gee's of the world.
Around the Majors
Great news out of Venezuela, as Nationals' catcher Wilson Ramos was rescued on Friday night and is safe and sound at home. I'm sure there will be more details coming out soon but it's just great news that he's okay.
It looks as if the rumors regarding the Phillies re-signing of Ryan Madson were premature, as they reached an agreement with former Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon instead. The 31 year old will get a 4 year, $50 million contract with an easily attainable vesting option for a 5th year. In case you didn't realize it, there are plenty of reasons to think this contract will only end poorly. Not to mention that the addition of Papelbon adds to the unlikability (is that a word?) of the boys from Philly.
The Marlins continue to make news early on in this offseason. The Marlins have made supposedly competitive offers to Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols and now to Mark Buehrle as well. On Friday evening, they officially rebranded themselves as the Miami Marlins and showed off their new uniforms and logos.
Jim Crane could finally gain control of the Houston Astros next week, as a vote on the sale of the team has been placed on the agenda for next week's owner meetings. It'll be interesting to see if the Astros and MLB go through with the plan to move the 'Stros to the American League in 2013.
I got a good laugh out of this one. Apparently, Dodgers' GM Ned Colletti is turning to sabermetrics. To demonstrate his new found love of numbers, he decided that it was a good idea to overpay replacement level OF Juan Rivera for some reason.
Finally, Mets fans have been traumatized by awful bunting for years now. While Terry Collins decided to profess his love for the sacrifice bunt late in the season, the Mets did not appear on FanGraphs list of the worst bunts of 2011. That's a big surprise to me, actually.