Reyes says he will be back to normal health come Spring Training

Matt from MetsBlog did an excellent recap of Mike Francesa’s Jose Reyes interview, which can be found here.

The audio can be heard on WFAN

Here’s my take on hearing Jose chat with Mike:

Reyes came across as a genuinely honest person who as a player wants nothing more than to win a championship and play everyday. Jose answered a few questions which really interested me. When Mike asked him about his relationship with Willie Randolph, he reacted pretty emotionally. He couldn’t seem to understand why people thought he and Willie had a bad relationship. He referred to Randolph as a “father figure” and someone who wanted him to be the best player he could be. That statement alone really got me on Reyes’ side. He continued to be honest and open over the course of the interview. Mike asked him what bothered him the most and he said that it was the fans sometimes not believing he was playing his hardest and also thinking he was not trying his hardest to come back to the field last season. What really caught me here was when Jose said he actually re-injured himself trying to rehab in time for the final three games.

His hunger to play and win were evident throughout the interview. He really comes across as one of those “gritty” and “tough” players the media were clamoring for during the debacle of 2009. Jose wants nothing more than to take the field everyday and to be a winner. His says his best moment as a Met was clinching the NL East in 2006. Clearly, he wants more.

Another moment in the interview when Reyes came across as a true Met was when Mike asked him about not being liked by the Phillies players. He said Jimmy Rollins was a good guy, and he didn’t understand why the other teams disliked his style of play. The Cardinals and Marlins were mentioned as “other teams.” He then turned back to the original topic  and told Mike that if he raises his hands to the sky after a home run, than Shane Victorino is guilty of being flashy as well. He, like many people, finds no rationale for Rollins, Victorino, Hamels, and other Phillies continuously focusing their energy on the Mets, even after winning the World Series in 2008. “They won, why do they still care about the Mets?” he said.

In summation, Reyes’ conversation with Francesa gives the listener an excellent picture of a player proud to be a Met and ready to prove the many doubters and disbelievers wrong in 2010. The Mets need to encourage more of their stars to speak publicly the way Francoeur and Reyes did today. From a PR standpoint, Reyes could have done a 180 for his image among Mets fans today. The mess of 2009 may have done more to light a fire under these Mets than 2007 and 2008 combined. What we heard today were two players who want nothing more than to take the field and win. If the clubhouse attitude is anything like the attitude of these two Mets, we are in for a better season than we may expect.

Maury Brown is the most recent to address the growing “problem” of aggregating websites. In case you are new to the Internet, these are sites that simply collect and link to other sites, contributing little or no original content.

Brown outlines the unhappy reactions of those who are producing original reporting— mainly, newspapers.

Now, this dilemma is not new, but one particular part of Brown’s piece interested me. In discussing MetsBlog.com, a blog devoted to (you guessed it) the New York Mets and one of the most popular of the so-called “aggregating” websites, Brown mentions that many Mets beat writers resent the site’s popularity.

Recently, though, Matthew Cerrone, the blog’s founder, tweeted this response to critics: “WFAN just cited a newspaper report on air. I tried to click the link, but it was radio, so I guess I can’t read the original report.”

Basically, news sources have been piggy-backing on each other for years. The only difference is that now it happens a lot faster.

This debate is actually starting to sound a lot like one we had at NPI last month over a similar issue— we were concerned over literary/creative originality, while this debate is about journalistic integrity.

Now, the debate in journalism is obviously different— saying something first is much more important in reporting than it is in literature (in some cases, it’s the entire point). At the same time, though, the debate seems to hinge on a similar point: Namely, at what point has someone contributed enough “original content” to effectively appropriate it?

In the case of reporting, though, the problem is almost inverted. Ideally, we don’t want them adding any “original content” (in journalism, they call that stuff “fabrications”); we just want the facts. Obviously, though, the first person to report something should get cited, but when does something make its way from “breaking news” to common knowledge? I’m sure someone was the first to report on how Bill Clinton freed two journalists in North Korea, but by now it’s basically common knowledge. Citing one individual source for common knowledge seems silly*— and that happened two days ago. 

*In high school, as a way to stick it to English teachers who were Draconian about citations (which is basically every high school English teacher), I always planned to turn in a paper with a footnote after every word that included every recorded usage of that word in the O.E.D., to prove that it was impossible to ever truly put something in “my own words.” Unfortunately, high school John S was too cowardly to ever actually do this.

Technology has so dramatically decreased the lag-time between one person knowing something and everyone knowing it (Brown himself has a joke about re-tweets counting as plagiarism), that I wonder if “breaking a story” is eventually going to be one of those outdated achievements, like driving across the continent, or owning a cell phone. In yet another way, then, the face of journalism is changing forever.  

The700Level.com – Philly Sports & Minutiae: Enemy Territory Q&A …

MetsBlog.com publishes both rumor and opinion, as well as accurately reported information from other sources. Information on MetsBlog.com may contain errors or inaccuracies – links to content and the quotation of material from other …

With a big series starting tonight in Queens, I participated in a Q&A with Mike Nichols up at Metsblog. Topics include the state of each team, the injury situations, the upcoming series, and what the next months might hold. My…

With a big series starting tonight in Queens, I participated in a Q&A with Mike Nichols up at Metsblog. Topics include the state of each team, the injury situations, the upcoming series, and what the next months might hold. My…

Another day, another absence of Gary Sheffield. Leg cramps just aren&t what they used to be. Other item of note – Jeff Francoeur hits his first home run as a Met and immediately moves into the cleanup spot. When the…

Another day, another absence of Gary Sheffield. Leg cramps just aren&t what they used to be. Other item of note – Jeff Francoeur hits his first home run as a Met and immediately moves into the cleanup spot. When the…

Well, there you go. Way to push people away. Here’s Matt Cerrone’s explanation for closing the comments section.

Update: Matt would like to make the metsblog comments exclusive to a small group he selects. Check out his survey.

Apparently, Matt Cerrone of Matthew Cerrone’s Metsblog.com will be making an announcement later regarding the status of the comments section writing earlier today, “For those who are curious, I will be making a post later today about the state of this site’s comment section, which has been intentionally closed since Tuesday night.”

My guess is he’ll say a small group of commenters became an annoyance so he closed it, he’ll then poll something, but finally just decide to do without the comments section.

I doubt the decision will significantly hurt the site, since it’s the “Grand Central Station for Mets Information”. However, eventually people will decide they no longer are interested in the Grand Central Station and instead like the Union Square of Mets Fans! What I mean by that is that eventually a newer and more fan friendly site will come along to take over as the #1 site for Mets stuff. That won’t happen for a while, since Metsblog.com has reached a critical mass and people will continue to visit the site, despite its flaws.

BTW, a group of ex-commenters, led by therealsince86 and dirtysanchez, have gotten together and are starting their own site, trs86.wordpress.com and will be joinging forces with mrose’s NLEastChatter.com. Go check em’ out and catch up w/ old friends.

Has Matthew Cerrone grown tired of all the complaints about the format of his blogs comment section? Is he showing us who’s the boss? Usually when Matt shuts down the comments section for repair, he lets us know. What do you think?

The Mets open their new ballpark, Citi Field this evening against the San Diego Padres.

Thanks to Matt Cerrone at metsblog.com for all the amazin’ coverage leading up to today. 

Of course, I didn’t get an opening day ticket this year.  I would have had to sell everything I own just to think about sitting in the upper section of the Promenade.  I guess there are some things that are recession proof after all.

~Sam

Bravo, Aaron. I am genuinely happy that you finally decided to speak up. However, you are about two and a half years too late. Since 2006 you have been stuck in the bullpen full-time and you have been miserable. To this day, I still do not know why the Mets placed you in the bullpen. You were never a reliever in any stage of professional baseball and you were drafted in the first round as a star starter from Notre Dame. Sure, you showed some signs of being a good reliever, but you could never sustain a consistent groove. As a starter, you developed a little slower than expected but you were finally showing some signs of brilliance (e.g., the one hitter against the Marlins in 2005…ironically enough it was Luis Castillo, who currently can’t hit a lick for the Mets, who broke that up) before you were put in the bullpen. Maybe you did something to Omar that he didn’t like, or maybe Willie Randolph just hated Notre Dame. You should have been a starter all along.

It was no secret that you wanted to start, but you decided to put your brave face on and say, “I’ll do what is best for the team.” Great, grand, wonderful…but what wasn’t best for the team was the tension this created. Writers, bloggers, radio hosts and fans alike discussed Aaron Heilman: he should be in the bullpen: he should start, he should relieve, he should be traded…I heard it all. All this resulted in was that microscope was placed on you. Every time you had a bad performance people questioned whether you were happy in the bullpen. Perhaps this affected your performance; we all saw you pout whenever you walked off the mound to a chorus of boo’s. Maybe you were not performing up to your best abilities because you were disatisfied with your situation, but you decided to stay quiet and pitch poorly in the bullpen.

I never blamed you for what happened in game 7 in 2006…you pitched a great 9th inning and you were unfairly pushed out to pitch the 10th because Billy Wagner wasn’t effective in the series. You should have been on the bench icing your arm in the 10th. You had a so-so year in 2007 and a miserable year in 2008. I never boo’ed you though, I always thought you were going to bust out of your shell….if you were put into the starting rotation. I have complained endlessly to my friends about how the Mets should either put you in the starting rotation or trade you. Whenever a starter went down with an injury or started to struggle, I got on my soapbox and spoke how Aaron Heilman would come through for us if we only gave him a chance to start. But three seasons later your no longer “a young arm” and your stats are poor…your trade value has plummeted. Who knows what the Mets could get for you if they traded you.

I am extremely confident that if you get traded and start you will become an all-star. Unfortunately, I do think you need to be traded. Being boo’ed for two straight years can take its toll on someone…you need a fresh start. So, Mr. Heilman, be prepared to become the next Jason Isringhausen (except in reverse). He was a starter who was traded and became an all-star reliever. You are going to be a reliever who will be traded and go on to become an all-star starter. It could have been different Aaron, if only you decided to speak up sooner.

Matthew Cerrone from metsblog weighed in today on possible outfield solutions for the Mets. My ideas are in the post below, but I felt I should FJM this post, to start some dialogue on the subject. Anyone who reads metsblog, knows the ellipses are his weird idea, not mine.

…with or without Ryan Church, i believe the Mets should make a trade for an outfielder…at this point, i have no problem with using Jon Niese or Eddie Kunz to help further invest in this current season, which is going far better than most people thought it would just 30 days ago…the Mets neglected their farm system a bit over the previous few seasons, clobbered it further with the Johan Santana trade, and so i just as soon keep depleting it while trusting that the most recent minor-league acquisitions, such as Brad Holt and Reese Havens and Wilmer Flores, are all the start of a new-and-improved farm system instead…

This logic is self-defeating. We’ve punted half of our system, so why not the rest! We’re talking about individual players here and you can’t just say “let’s trade them for a veteran,” without considering the possible contributions of Niese and Kunz next season and weighing that against a specific outfielders merits. Steve Phillips used this kind of logic. Steve Phillips is a blithering idiot.

…to me, this team needs a stable, reliable corner outfielder, who a) the Mets can run out there every day and know what they’ll get, b) helps to prop up the back-end of the batting order, and c) who will help return order the bench…Damion Easley, Fernando Tatis, Marlon Anderson and Endy Chavez are not starting outfielders, they are superb bench players, which is where they best serve the team…

The redundant use of “stable” and “reliable” does not qualify point “a”. You don’t know what you’re going to get from a player in a 2 month sample size, that’s the risk of deadline deals. But I’m nitpicking and let’s assume the part of about Marlon Anderson being superb bench player was a typo

Yesterday, at SNY.tv Ted Berg explained why the Mets should consider buying low on Dunn.

Yes..

…the thing is, i’m not sure it’s a matter of buying low…it’s a matter of offering more than what the Reds believe they will draft with the two picks their likely to get in the off-season when dunn leaves as a free agent…

It’s not buying low, it’s being the only team to give the Reds a decent offer. And I don’t think the Reds would reject Niese, Kunz, Carp, when: a) they aren’t going to get another offer and b) there is still a bias towards “sure things” over picks in most front offices.

…the knock on dunn seems to be that he’s just not that smart of a baseball player…but, frankly, who cares…the Mets do not need a Gold Glove outfielder…they have endy as a defensive replacement…if he clogs the bases, they’ll adjust…

Clogs the bases!!!! Cerrone has come out of the Dusty Baker bullshit closet! God forgive he get on base alot and run them with average speed!

Furthermore, Dunn’s defense is actually good (see post below). Unlike say, Casey Blake, he wouldn’t require a defensive replacement.

…and, dunn, like bay, would bring extra substance to the middle of the lineup in name recognition alone…

I thought he was going to bring “substance” with his ridiculous .940 OPS, but sure, I guess name recognition works too.

…ibanez does this to a less extent, as does blake, who has also played third base, shortstop and first base during his nine-year career…blake actually reminds me a lot of Xavier Nady, and he would help balance out the batting order as well as any one on minaya’s wish list…

Ibanez does everything to a much lesser extent than Dunn. And this team would win to a much lesser extent with Ibanez in left field as opposed to Adam Dunn…or Endy Chavez…or Fernando Tatis…or Rickey Henderson (!).

As far as Blake goes, the Mets don’t need a crappy shortstop or a below-average thirdbaseman. We’re looking for outfielding, which he doesn’t do particularly well.

Also, how does he “balance out the lineup” while Dunn “clogs the bases”? Dunn is a better fielder, a better hitter, younger, and versatile in the place we need him to be: firstbase

…plus, blake is a rough player who already has his playoff beard…

…

So I’ve been busy with other things that I haven’t really discussed the Mets at all. This is probably because I haven’t been keeping up with the Mets the same way I have over the last couple of years. Sure, I read the box scores and keep up with everything going on at Metsblog, but I haven’t been watching as many games as I did in the past. This was underscored when the other night I watched Baseball Tonight (and caught the end of Gavin Floyd’s near no-hitter) rather than watch the beginning of the Mets-Dodgers game on SNY. I think that once it starts to get warmer, I’ll start watching more games.

So far, the Mets have been tepid at best – they look like a million bucks one day (see 12-1 rout of Dodgers) and like a dollar on other days (see the previous Dodgers games). Predictably, the NY media began their Chicken Little routine, calling for Willie Randolph’s head. While the Mets didn’t storm out of the gates as many expected, there’s a lot of baseball left to be played.

While the Mets flounder around .500, the two major moves this offseason have paid dividends. First, GM Omar Minaya looks brilliant for trading Lastings Milledge for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church. While Milledge goes through the motions in the Nationals’ outfield, Ryan Church has been one of the biggest bright spots for the Mets so far this season. Perhaps the most impressive part of Church’s game to this point has been his defense, specifically his rocket arm that’s throwing out runners from right field.

Of course, the Johan Santana seems to be a success as well. While Santana might not be blowing away the National League like many thought, he’s put up a series of solid starts that the Mets squandered in their late innings. It’s too early to fully evaluate the trade, but so far so good.

I’m happy to have Santana in Queens, but I was also happy to see that Carlos Gomez, one of the young Mets traded to acquire the ace, hit for the cycle the other night. After the trade, I wrote that while Gomez can’t possibly replace Santana (or even the departed Tori Hunter), Minnesota should appreciate Carlos Gomez. In his brief time at Shea last year, Gomez showed the hustle and skill that will make him an asset to the Twins.

So, for now, I refuse to pass judgment on the Mets and hope that as the weather heats up, the bats do as well.

Woman of about 30 on the 6 train headed uptown at 6:20 yesterday.

Long, straight brown hair, bare shoulders, print sundress. Pretty.

Tattoo on left shoulder: Interlocking N and Y, in royal blue and orange.

A Mets tattoo!

How many readers over at Metsblog would marry her based on this description alone?