Mets Morning News: With Bourn and Oswalt On The Radar, Ex-Astros Must Be The New Market Inefficiency

Meet the Mets

Word came out on Saturday that the Mets had interest in righty Roy Oswalt for their pitching staff. Unfortunately, Oswalt's agent didn't know that the Mets were interested. It seems as if they considered him for their vacant rotation spot before they agreed to a deal with Shaun Marcum a few days back.

Nick Cafardo in the Boston Globe lists three teams that are waiting for a bargain on center fielder Michael Bourn – the Mets, the Mariners, and in a bit of a surprise, the Orioles.

SNY has interest in hiring Bobby Valentine for the network's pre-game studio show. Valentine would likely contribute to a short slate of games.

A memorabilia dealer wants Jose Reyes to spill the beans on Carlos Delgado's relationship with controversial sports medicine doctor Anthony Galea under oath.

Around the Majors

Due to a rule change, the old fake to third, throw to first play is now considered a balk. Somewhere, Turk Wendell sheds a tear (and then shoots a bear and rips its teeth out to add to his necklace).

The Rangers added righty hitting utility man Jeff Baker on a minor league deal. The only reason why this is relevant is because Baker is a right handed bat with a pulse.

Scott Rolen is on the Dodgers' third base radar, even though the team says they will go with Luis Cruz at the hot corner. Interesting that the Dodgers spent somewhere around $50 billion on the rest of their roster but may only end up with 28-year old Luis ".261/.296/.394 career minor league hitter" Cruz or the reanimated corpse of Scott Rolen at that position.

King Felix Hernandez is in no rush to re-up with the Mariners and is looking for more than a four year extension.

People affiliated with the Diamondbacks continue to throw Justin Upton under the bus – this time former star Luis Gonzalez says that Upton didn't show leadership. NEED GRISSION!

Nationals' second baseman Danny Espinosa will try to play through a torn rotator cuff this year.

Yesterday At AA

On a previous January 26th, Major League Baseball changed the controversial balk rules that saw the Mets rack up 40 balks in the 1988 season.