Meet the Mets
Taylor Buchholz will take 2012 off after battling anxiety and depression throughout the 2011 season. He has nothing but good things to say about the Mets and I wish him nothing but the best.
Goddamn Pat Burrell (his name in the Paternostro household) has finally decided to retire. He ended up with a nice little career, posting 21.9 fWAR over his twelve year career, at least 15 of which came against the Metropolitans. He did lose almost ten wins over his career to defense and baserunning, which...well, passes the smell test certainly. Boy, could he rake, though.
Ted Berg leaned hard on the internet to generate content for his sandwich blog yesterday, conducting one of his Twitter Q+As. Here's parts one and two covering MLB ready Mets prospects, candy bars, and the almost NYC Olympics.
More prospect talk over at Mets Minor League Blog (but of course) as Toby Hyde continues to unveil his Top 41 prospect list.
I like both these guys as potential sleeper/breakout candidates in 2012, though I could see full season ball being a test for each. Incidentally, Camden Maron is on twitter now.(@cam_maron)
Patrick Flood takes a look ahead at the 2014 Mets, and has a poll covering who the most important contributors will be. And no, none of the votes for Josh Satin are me. And yes, I am as surprised as you are.
Around the Majors
The Phillies hope to have Ryan Howard back by May. I imagine they will start Mayberry there until he's back, but then who will they stupidly start over Dominic Brown in the outfield?
The Astros will be the Astros for the forseeable future. Does anyone think this whole thing was a smokescreen. Hey, the team is terrible and it's moving to a tougher division, but at least the name will be the same. Aren't I'm the best owner ever? Seriously, their best offseason move was hiring Mike Fast from Baseball Prospectus.
The Rangers extended Ron Washington for another two seasons. Whatever you think of him as an in-game manager, the team just wins, so no surprise here. Lone Star Ball is down with the move.
AA's Bill Petti continues his series on Park Factors over at Beyond the Box Score.
You can always find someone to take a bet on tools, as somehow Corey Patterson has found another job, inking a minor league deal with the Brewers. I assume he will be a NRI this Spring as well.
And Now the Mets Highlight of the Day to Tide You Over Until Spring Training: Daniel Murphy Means Business
Yes, he was safe. No, I don't care.
And Your Non-Baseball Link of the Day: Matthew Artus stole one of my dream jobs
Writing for WWE.com as well. Congrats Matt!