Mets Morning News: Winter Meetings Eve

Meet the Mets

Negotiations with R.A. Dickey are expected to gain steam in the next few days. Reports say that the Mets increased their offer to Dickey, though no word on how much exactly. However, trade talks for Dickey are also getting louder, as 6-7 already have expressed interest in talking to the Mets about our knuckleballing hero.

Sandy Alderson has plenty of holes to fill on the team and a lot of the work to get that done will happen during this week's meetings. Some sources say that the Mets may even get creative with backloading contracts.

Newsday has a great piece on the rise and fall of Lenny Dykstra, who is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow on charges of bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets, and money laundering. So sad.

Did you know that Bobby Bonilla is still be paid by the Mets?! Here's your first reminder of that fact this offseason.

Around the Majors

After rumors that the Angels were in the lead, it turns out the Cubs inked Japanese reliever Kyuji Fujikawa to a two-year, $9.5 million contract.

The Toronto Sun has a really cool day by day rundown of the Blue Jays & Marlins trade talks. You never get to see this kind of behind the scenes stuff and it's pretty interesting to see how this all works.

The Brewers acquired reliever Burke Badenhop from the Rays in exchange for Raul Mondesi Jr. Seems like a low cost for a good pitcher.

The Cubs are going to shop Alfonso Soriano at the Winter Meetings this week and the Phillies may be a possible landing spot for him. Soriano actually had a surprisingly solid season in 2012.

Ichiro's agent is talking with a number of clubs about his client, as the Yankees haven't shown interest in him of late.

Yesterday At AA

What if David Wright is the Mets' Tony Gwynn? Rob Castellano poses this question.

Chris McShane runs through some of the non-tendered players that could be fits for the Mets, both at catcher and the outfield.