Alou’s Option Will Be Picked Up
The rumor mill is strong about the Mets picking up the option of left fielder Moises Alou. The Mets have until November 15 to exercise the option. If the option is exercised Alou would make $7.5 million for the 2008 season.
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Injury Updates
- Mets second baseman Luis Castillo had surgery to clean out his left knee which was bothering him this past season. He is expected to be ready for spring training. He is, of course, a free agent so even if he’s ready it doesn’t guarantee he’ll be a Met.
- Duaner Sanchez is recovering nicely and is expected to play winter ball in December.
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Jaramillo A No Go, HoJo Still In
In a report in this morning’s New York Daily News Mets general manager Omar Minaya is quoted as saying that Howard Johnson, not Rudy Jaramillo, will be hitting coach in 2008.
I love Rudy like a brother, but it would be totally unfair to bring him in after I interviewed him as manager. It wouldn’t be fair to HoJo, who did an outstanding job as hitting coach. If you look at the numbers, everything in the second half of the year we were up in.
Rickey Henderson is still expected to be replaced.
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Philadelphians Are Ugly
Travel & Leisure magazine recently published their America’s Favorite Cities survey and found something that Mets fans have suspected for a few years already. Philadelphians are the least attractive people. I’m not making this up. You can look it up. According to an article by Reuters “The city of more than 1.5 million people was also found to be among the least stylish, least active, least friendly and least worldly”. So I guess the Mets don’t have the worst home crowed. The Phillies do.
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Mitchell Denies Byrd Leak
An article in today’s New York Times reports that George Mitchell has denied his investigative team leaked the Paul Byrd story on Sunday. On the morning of the Cleveland Indians ALCS game 7 loss to the Boston Red Sox The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Byrd’s HGH usage. There was speculation that Mitchell, a member of the Red Sox board of directors, purposely leaked the story to get under the skin of Indians players and give his team an edge in the game.
Mitchell’s denial says one of two things. Either he’s lying and he actually did leak the story or he’s totally incompetent. Mitchell and his team have been investigating for 2 seasons and he didn’t know about Byrd but somehow a couple of reporters figured it out by looking at business records supplied by “confidential news source”. Mitchell loses either way in this case as he loses credibility.
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Stottlemyre Hired By Mariners
The Seattle Mariners have hired former Mets and Yankees pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre to serve as their pitching coach. Stottlemyre’s hiring is part of a massive shakeup of the Mariners coaching staff that is expected to include former Mets shortstop Larry Bowa (yes, he played briefly with the Mets) as third base coach.
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Fixing Links, Part 2
So I went through all the links in my blogroll yesterday and weeded out the dead ones. The criteria I used for seeing if something is live was that a post must have been made since the All Star break. A total of 47 links were removed and some links had to be edited to point to newer locations of the site they were pointing to. If you run a Mets related site or blog then please feel free to let me know so I can include it in the new and improved blogroll.
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Byrd and the HGH
A story broke yesterday about Cleveland Indians pitcher Paul Byrd‘s use of human growth hormone (HGH). Byrd has said that he has used HGH as part of the treatment for a pituitary condition and has only used it with a prescription. HGH has been banned by Major League Baseball since 2005 and Byrd supposedly made his last purchase a week before the ban too affect.
Meanwhile, Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro claims that he had no knowledge of Byrd’s use of HGH until this past Friday. This despite the fact that Byrd says MLB officials have known that he’s used HGH and that he keeps some in a clubhouse refrigerator. The tiebreaker on believability comes from MLB spokesman Pat Courtney who said that the league didn’t know about Byrd’s use. Byrd’s not looking too credible right now.
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Red Sox vs. Rockies in World Series
Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on winning the ALCS and advancing to the World Series. They will be playing against the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies have been on somewhat of a hot streak having dispatched their the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks in 4 games (each) in the NLDS and NLCS respectively and 21 of their last 22 overall. But they have not played in about a week and that layoff may make them rusty and kill their momentum. Game 1 is Wednesday night.
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LaRussa Returning to Cardinals
After much speculation the AP is reporting that Tony LaRussa will be returning to the St. Louis Cardinals next season. A news conference will be held today to make the announcement. Terms of the deal were not given to the AP by their anonymous source.
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