Kuzul

So much for the New York Mets taking the best player available in the 2010 draft. So much for them taking a collegiate bat.

The Mets passed on Chris Sale, Zack Cox, Josh Sale, Deck McGwire, and Michael Choice in favor of Matt Harvey, a 6’4″ right-handed pitcher out of UNC.

The Mets had the coin to spend on a guy over their slot, so it seems odd that they went with a pitcher who wasn’t universally expected to go inside the top half of the first round.

Harvey was taken in the third round by the Angels in 2007, but he has developed so much since then. He is the ace of the staff and a legitimate innings eater for the Tar Heels down at Chapel Hill. Still, this isn’t 2007 when he was Baseball America’s top high school prospect at Fitch.

He threw 96 innings in 2010, compiling an 8-3 record with an ERA slightly above 3.00. More impressive is Harvey’s near 3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, having logged 102 Ks and just 35 walks. That’s pretty good over 14 starts when you add in the fact that he throws a sinking fastball that routinely hits 94MPH.

Harvey reportedly has a sweeping slider and a plus changeup, and he is close to incorporating a curveball to give him a nice four-pitch selection. He hasn’t thrown it for a few years though, and even when it was his primary out pitch in high school, it wasn’t that great.

He’s another 21-year-old who measures in at more than 200 pounds (6’4”, 225 pounds) and his durability and ability to maintain the velocity on his mid-90s fastball late into games had him rising back into the minds of teams looking for a pitcher in the first round.

He has lowered his ERA by two full runs this season, being used exclusively out of the rotation while cutting back on his walks and logging more innings than ever before.

Alex Nelson of Amazin’ Avenue reports a 65 percent ground ball rate based on his heavy fastball, but says Harvey occasionally throws the ball across his body and has some control issues. Still, with those elite rates, expect a short stint in the Minors before a fast track to the Big Show.

His control will be the key to his success in the Minor Leagues, and he will need to work out a few kinks in his delivery if he is to prove that his low walk totals in 2009 really were legit. He averaged five walks per nine innings in ’09 and 6.3 in 2008.

He received All-America honors from Collegiate Baseball in his freshman year two seasons ago in 2008, when he held batters to a stingy .214 batting average and won the most games (seven) by any UNC rookie since 2004.

As a sophomore in 2009 he went 7-2 in 21 appearances (13 starts) and made a pair of starts in the NCAA Tournament, according to tarheelblue.com.

I rated him as the No. 3 pitcher likely to make a quick and successful move to the majors, which you can read about here, but while it’s very much a safe choice, I can’t help but think it could have been a little stronger.

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Mookie Wilson is a household name in New York. He won a World Championship with the Mets in 1986 and played 10 of his 13 professional seasons in Flushing. Second on the Mets all-time franchise list for triples and stolen bases, being surpassed only by Jose Reyes, Mookie became part of one of the most famous plays in the history of the game when his dribbler down the right field line got between Billy Buckner’s legs.

I had the chance to speak with Mookie about that memorable Game Six victory, his new role with the club, the 2010 First Year Player Draft, the farm system, and the current state of the franchise.

Mookie turned 54 years old earlier this year, but the moment he hit that slow-rolling ball towards first base is a moment that will stay with him for the rest of his life.

“Oh boy, there’s so much that did happen in that game,” the South Carolina native said in a nostalgic voice. “It’s a topic of conversation everywhere I go and it feels like just yesterday.

“My memory of that game is very vivid actually, because it’s such a talked about topic. The one thing I do remember is how we felt when we were in the process of losing that game and that thought was going to wash out everything that we had accomplished that whole year and that was what was on my mind and everybody’s mind.

“When events started to unfold and things happened the way they did it was almost that we were destined to win this, because we really should have lost that game. We were very lucky.

“There were so many things that even happened before that ground ball. The wild pitch, the four guys before me who all had two strikes on them, it all set the stage for a situation that every kid wants to be in, and I just happened to be there and I was just thinking ‘don’t make the last out,’ you know, ‘don’t be that guy.'”

As Mets fans will tell you fondly, Mookie fought off several tough pitches to stay alive before forever etching his name into history with his ground ball that got through Bucker’s five-hole.

What many fans don’t know is that right field umpire Ed Montague picked up the ball, marked it with a small ‘X’ and gave it to the team’s traveling secretary Arthur Richman, who joined the celebrations in the clubhouse at Shea Stadium.

“I was excited, I didn’t know what I was doing really,” Mookie said with a laugh. “First of all I couldn’t believe what had just happened, but I took the ball from him, signed it and gave it back to him. At that point it really didn’t mean anything to me, it was all about winning the ballgame.”

From there, the history of the ball saw it making its way not to Cooperstown but instead to a pair of private collectors; firstly to actor Charlie Sheen and then to songwriter Seth Swirsky.

“Arthur called me the day or the week he was going to put it up for auction for charity and asked if I minded and I said ‘Na, go right ahead. I gave you that ball, you do what you like with it,'” Mookie added. “He thought enough of me to ask me first and I guess he was giving me first opportunity to get the ball back.

“Man, if I had known the value of the ball at that time though. I was never really that sentimental about that stuff, but I told him to go right ahead and when I heard how much it went for I said ‘boy, you’re the smartest kid in the world, Arthur.'”

Mookie was reunited with the ball back in 2006 when he attended the special 20th anniversary celebrations at Citi Field. He also met with the ball’s new owner Swirsky, who loaned the ball to the club for display in Citi Field’s new Hall of Fame and Musuem.

“I’ve seen the ball a couple of times, but to actually see it and be around it really is a great feeling. It’s almost like you touch the ball and you travel back in time. It’s a piece of memorabilia that will always bring back memories…where you were, what you were doing, and that, to me, is the centerpiece of the whole museum.

“Now I might be a little biased because I had a personal involvement in it, but when I went to see it again it was like walking back through time.”

The museum has attracted positive comments throughout the Mets community, especially from fans who were vocal about the club’s apparent lack of history when the stadium was first opened in 2009. Click here for a behind the scenes tour. Among its biggest fans is the Mets former outfielder who says it was worth taking the time over and doing correctly.

“As important as we thought it was, the management probably wanted to make sure the ballpark was in working order. It was a criticism of mine too, I’ll be honest, but I also understood that there were things were more pressing. Now that they have the museum together it is really good. It was worth the wait.”

Mookie is now back working with the Mets as an outfield and baserunning coach in the minor leagues, fresh off taking some personal time after his managerial stint down in Brooklyn with the single-A Cyclones.

“Once you’re a baseball player, you’re pretty much a baseball player for life and you always have to be involved,” he said. His love for the game is still evident in every word.

He was approached by the Wilpons, Omar Minaya, and other people within the organization during the offseason about working with the club to instill what he called a “new culture” down on the farm.

“They said that this position was open and that they really needed to focus on their defense and baserunning this season and that this was part of the new culture that they were going to develop and they wanted to know if I wanted to be part of it.”

With his affection for the club and his history with the Mets, Mookie was all too happy to accept the offer. He said a few new players have been brought into the system since he stepped away from the game three years ago, but that the depth throughout all of the Mets Minor League teams is very promising.

“We have a lot of talent at the lower levels and it’s unbelievable. We have power and speed and pitching at the lower levels—it’s going to take a couple of years to see that, but I think that’s where the patience and development is going to come in. We do have players that are going to be ready to able to help the big club, no ifs, ands, or buts about that, it’s just a matter now of the development of those players.

“In terms of depth, we are very deep with potential outfielders and with regards to the infield we have guys who are going to be ready to step in and who are going to be able to perform at the Major League. I’m not a pitching guy but it appears we have guys who are on their way, so we are deep in a number of areas.

“Everybody knows Fernando Martinez and if not for injuries here right now he might be in New York at this point. Kirk Nieuwenhuis is in AA right now and he is a very intriguing athlete, he can run, he has a good arm, he has power, he hits from the left side and even though he can play a lot of positions he is very good at center.

“We have another kid in AAA who I like right now is [Jesus] Feliciano. He’s a very, very good ballplayer, very complete, very smart, and he’s leading that league in hitting at this point. We have other guys who are coming up, a local kid who is very high on the chart called Carlos Guzman and we have a guy at Port St. Lucie called Sean Ratliff, just to name a couple of guys. We also have guys at A-level who are going to be very, very good ball players, but they have some ways to go.”

With all eyes centered on the MLB draft in Secaucus, N.J. Monday, rumors have been building about who the Mets will add to their farm system. Michael Choice, Chris Sale, Yasmani Pomeranz, and Zack Cox have all been mentioned in passing, but Mookie says that with the depth the Mets already have, they will likely be drafting the best player available rather than trying to fill a specific need.

“Because we are pretty deep in the organization that they may go for the best available athlete at the time,” he said. Once they are in the system, how fast they progress through will depend on their skills, maturity, and circumstance. Take Ike Davis and Ruben Tejada as examples, Mookie says.

“It’s going to be a matter of need and there are a lot of variables to take into account, such as the age and youth of a person. The one kid who was up there already but came back to AAA because of his age was Ruben Tejada, who is a very good player. Ike was taken up because of need and he is doing quite well.

“We have to see what the big club needs and whether it’s going to be detrimental or advantageous to the player, because it’s not always the ‘now’ situation, we have to worry about the future of the ballplayer.”

Still, with all of the problems in the rotation and the lack of a runaway favorite in the NL East, Mookie says there is a lot to be happy about in New York right now.

“There are some encouraging signs, but I think people will agree that they are inconsistent. There is a big disparity between playing at home and playing on the road and I think that some of it comes from the attitude of being relaxed at home in a new ballpark. On the road we just don’t know.

“The inconsistency is the issue right now. I wish I could say what is causing the inconsistency, but I’m not there on a day to day basis but once we can straighten that out, we’ll be pretty good. If we can hold the fort until we get completely healthy, that should make the world of difference.

“Right now we will look around July to gauge where we are. It’s still early but every day wasted is a day you don’t get back.”

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Do you know how many times Johan Santana has posted a zero for the Mets? There have been 14 times when he has not allowed a run. Not an earned run, but any run.

Four times he has earned a no decision in those 14 splendid games, including a ridiculous three times this season. There have been three further times where he has allowed two or fewer unearned runs in his two-and-a-half years in New York. He is 0-2 with a no decision in those contests.

It’s looking eerily like 2008 all over again. In his first season with the Mets, Santana allowed one run or fewer 11 times. The Mets lost three of those games.

On Wednesday against the Padres, Santana allowed one run or fewer for the eighth time in his 12 starts. He has only won four of those solid outings, and the Mets have gone on to lose three of the others.

Santana’s seven shutout innings against the Cardinals on April 17 were only saved by a 20th-inning rally long, long after he had left the game, but the Mets fell 2-1 against the Marlins four weeks later when the only run he gave up came following a third-inning error.

He was victimized even further against the Brewers last time out on Friday when he threw eight zeros on the board, only to see Igarashi dish up a walk-off home run to Corey Hart, and on Wednesday Jerry Manuel made the mistake of thinking the bullpen could hold down a one-run lead on the road.

Santana is currently riding a 15-inning scoreless streak without a win in either game. I don’t work for Elias, but over his last five starts, Santana has a 0.74 ERA and the Mets are 1-4. That is absolutely criminal.

For a team that does not have great depth, heck, any depth, in their starting rotation, they can not afford to keep letting these outing go to waste. If you can’t pick up your ace when he is on the mound, the team has no chance of success over any extended period of time.

Santana wasn’t at his best against the Padres in Petco Park, but he worked out the kinks and pitched a smart ballgame. He worked his way both into and out of jams, but he was smart enough to see what wasn’t working and he adapted accordingly.

As evidenced by the meltdown against the Phillies a month ago today, Johan is not perfect. He will have bad outings and he will get hit hard when he leaves stuff over the plate against a good lineup.

But if he is fighting hard to put the team in a position to win, it is so incredibly frustrating to see the Mets either fail to give him some support or to blow a late lead. No decisions mean precious little if the team still wins, but losing a game that you were one strike away from winning when your stud has blanked a team for seven innings is inexcusable.

Sure, it’s great to win 10-5 or 8-2 games, but until the team can win those tight contests they are going to stay in the middle of the competitive NL East pack. Middle might even be generous in their inability to win outside of Citi Field continues through the summer.

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The 2007 first year player draft was very pitcher-heavy, but with the exception of the No. 1 overall selection, some of the biggest names to come out of it were actually position players.

A total of 18 pitchers were called in the first round alone, led by Vanderbilt graduate David Price, but there was good overall depth in the draft, especially through the first three rounds.

How many GMs do you think are out there right now still kicking themselves that Jason Heyward fell to No. 14? How about the fact that one of the brightest pitching prospects in the game, Jordan Zimmerman, didn’t go at all in the first round? Did Florida hit the jackpot in Mike Stanton with the 76th overall selection?

With just one week to go until the 2010 draft, Bleacher Report looks back to see who came out on top this time three years ago.

Major League success and experience weighs the most here, with Minor League contributions and potential assessed from AAA down to single-A.

As always, feel free to let me know your thoughts.

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Baseball’s 2010 draft is just one week away, and the Mets will have the seventh overall pick.

After not having a first-round pick in 2009, the Mets will find themselves with a top-10 selection for the first time since 2005. Of their previous 56 first-round picks, the Mets have landed All-Stars, Cy Young winners, Silver Sluggers, Gold Glove recipients and future Hall of Famers.

Yes, there have been busts, such as Paul Wilson, Les Rohr, Billy Beane, Lastings Milledge and Philip Humber, but the good has often outweighed the bad.

Here are the New York Mets top-10 first-round draft picks of all time.

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Last Wednesday, Hisanori Takahashi became the only Met pitcher to go at least six shutout innings in each of his first two big league starts. Only 18 pitchers have ever accomplished this before.

It was only a matter of time, critics argued, before the proverbial wheels fell off. On Memorial Day in San Diego, those wheels flew off in emphatic fashion. Why are you laughing, Taka? I don’t think that performance deserves a smile and a smirk.

After blanking the Yankees over six innings and 101 pitches on May 21 and doing the same to the Phillies on 94 pitches five days later, Takahashi ran into his first real difficulty against the Padres.

He gave up six runs over four innings of work, including a grand slam to Jerry Hairston Jr. into the suite deck of the Western Metal Supply Co. warehouse in the bottom of the second and a two-run double to Nick Hundley after back-to-back hits to lead off the home half of the third. He never appeared for the fifth.

In total, his line read eight hits, two walks, and one strikeout. So much for a pitchers’ park.

Takahashi was 3-1 with a 3.12 ERA out of the bullpen before joining the rotation, and he knocked a full run off of that number with 12 scoreless innings in his first two starts.

His hens came to roost during his third start though.

Monday’s game marked just the third time this season that Takahashi has allowed more than one run, and it’s the first time that he’s really been hit hard. Sure, he gave up three runs out of the ‘pen against the Cubs and yes, he allowed eight baserunners in three innings against the Marlins, but this was his first real test.

He worked into a jam in the second inning with three straight singles to the No. 5, 6, and 7 hitters, but he retired Durango and pitcher Correia to get one out away from avoiding major trouble. Unfortunately for the Mets, Takahashi left a fastball up and in to Hairston, who rocketed it to the second deck down the left field line.

Worryingly, it was the fifth grand slam the Mets have given up this season. Met killer Josh Willingham was awarded a grand slam on replay for the Nationals on April 11 and Felipe Lopez hit a bases-loaded homer for the Cardinals on April 17. Shane Victorino cleared the bases with a blast for the Phillies on May 3 and Corey Hart went yard for Milwaukee just two days ago.

Of course, the Mets had more problems than just the homerun ball. Raul Valdes allowed two hits and three straight walks to force home two runs without ever recording an out—and for all of the offense’s work in scratching across three runs to get within a pair, the bullpen couldn’t really keep the game close. Four runs in the fifth and five more in the sixth put the game to bed.

When it was all said and done, it was the most amount of runs the Mets had given up since 2004.

With the loss, the Mets dropped to 26-26, four games behind of the first-place Braves. With all five teams over .500 and no team more than four games back, it is the closest the NL East has been entering Memorial Day since 2005.

In recent years, the Nationals were 11 games back on Memorial Day in 2009—as many as any team from any division in baseball—and in 2008 the Nats were eight games out of first and seven games below .500.

2007 saw the bottom team in the NL East (still the Nationals) a dozen games behind the Mets, while 2006 was a brutal year for those in any division who fell behind the pack in the run-up to the holiday. The Pirates were already 16 games out of first in the NL Central after just 50 games, the Marlins were 14.5 back in the NL East, and the lowly Royals were an incredible 23 games behind the 35-15 Tigers in the AL Central.

The last time the NL East was this close was five years ago to the day when the Phillies (24-27) were five games adrift from the first-place Marlins.

The last time any division was this close entering the final Monday in May was in 2004. At that time, the Pirates were four back of the leaders in the NL Central.

Considering the Mets’ road record, it’s not going to get any easier on their travels. But the pitching will have to be much, much better from top to bottom if they even wish to compete.

The hitting is pretty good and the defense is solid, but without dependable outings from the starters and shut-down work from the bullpen, the Mets are going to struggle—even at home.

Let’s chalk Takahashi’s first real meltdown to a bad night on the mound. Everything else he has done so far in 2010 has been fantastic and I am confident he will bounce back strongly next time out.

Hopefully, with Pelfrey going on Tuesday and Santana pitching on Wednesday, the bullpen can get at least a little mild relief. If the Mets are going to win back-to-back games on the road any time soon, it will be these relievers that help lead the way.

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Baseball is a game of statistics where numbers can prove almost anything.

Already this season there are some interesting things to observe with the New York Mets, including the well-documented fact that they have the best home record in all of baseball despite the worst road record in the National League.

Here are a dozen lesser-known facts about the Mets offense and how it compares with their NL East rivals.

• The Mets have a .300 on-base percentage leading off the game with one lone extra-base hit. To put it into perspective, the Washington Nationals are batting .311 with four triples.

• No team in the NL East is hitting left-handed pitching as well as the Mets. New York is batting .291 as a team against southpaws. By contrast, the Mets’ .237 average against righties is dead last in the division.

• New York has fewer home runs (one), RBI (40), and extra-base hits out of its two middle infield positions than any other club in the NL East, but Rod Barajas has hit twice as many home runs as any combination of catchers in the division combined.

• The Mets are hitting just .196 when they fall behind in the count, which is the worst in the division, but they have hit more home runs (12) than any of their divisional opponents when in a pitcher’s count (0-1, 0-2, or 1-2).

• The Mets lead the NL East with a .393 batting average on the first pitch of an at-bat.

• The Mets are batting a pitiful .196 with the bases loaded. No other team in the division is even close to the Mendoza line, and even the second-to-last Braves are batting 62 points higher. Leading the way are the Nationals and their ridiculous .442 average (19-for-43).

• With 20 home runs in 28 home games, the Mets are on course to hit 57 at Citi Field in 2010, breaking the record of 49 they set during the ballpark’s inaugural year. Still, it would rank dead last in the majors.

• Twice this season and once last year at Citi Field, the Mets put together a string of six home games where they didn’t allow a home run. In the previous 20 years of the franchise’s history, the Mets have accomplished this feat on just two occasions.

• David Wright is currently third in the Majors in strikeouts. The last Met to lead the league in Ks was Dave Kingman in 1982 (shared with Reggie Jackson). Kingman is the only Met to ever lead the NL in strikeouts. If Wright finishes third, he will be the first Met to rank in the top three in NL strikeouts since Todd Hundley in 1996. Before last season when Wright finished eighth in the NL in strikeouts, the last Met to rank inside the top 10 was Mike Cameron (10th, 143 Ks) in 2004.

• Jason Bay leads the Mets with a .382 BABIP (batting average for balls in play), good enough for sixth in all of baseball and second in the NL. Bay has always been considered somewhat of a “lucky” hitter, but the high BABIP value goes some way to explaining his .299 average—the second highest of his eight-year career.

• Jeff “6-4-3” Francoeur has a reputation for killing big innings with his tendency to ground into double plays. But he is not, in fact, the worst culprit. Wright has hit into six double plays out of a possible 43 situations when there was a runner on first with fewer than two outs (14 percent). Out of all National League East batters with more than 30 at-bats with a runner at first and fewer than two outs, Francoeur is joint sixth behind Wright, Hanley Ramirez, Gaby Sanchez, Ryan Zimmerman, and league leader Pudge Rodriguez (10-of-32, 31 percent).

• There have been 39 players in the NL East who have had more than 100 plate appearances so far this season. None of them have taken a higher percentage of called strikes looking (43 percent) or fewer strikes swinging (three percent). Philadelphia’s Carlos Ruiz (38 percent and eight percent respectively) is closest in both categories.

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If chicks did the long ball, there’s not going to be a whole lot of love if your team is squaring off against the Mets.

For all of the questions about Jerry Manuel’s rotation coming into the season, it has been an unlikely group of pitchers who have helped New York remain in contention in a highly competitive NL East.

Every team has their faults in the division, and with no one team running away with things one-third of the way through the year, it is as wide open as it has ever been.

We know the story about the Mets struggles and that is why their pitching has surprised so many people over the past week or so.

John Maine went on the 15-day DL with rotator cuff tendinitis in his right arm a week ago, Jonathon Niese will make a rehanb start today after straining his left hamstring a couple days ago, and Sean Green and Kelvim Escobar—although bit parts—are out indefinitely. Add to that dilemma the head case that is Olly Perez, and you can see why there were serious problems throughout the starting rotation.

But then a strange thing happened. The Mets started keeping the ball in the yard and the wins began piling up.

Sure, it helps when you’re playing half of your games in a park that admittedly plays big, but that shouldn’t take anything away from what the Mets are accomplishing with a makeshift pitching staff.

It has been well documented that the Mets had not given up a run in 35.2 innings until the walk off home run to Corey Hart. But similarly impressive and not so widely praised has been the ability to limit the home run completely.

Starting on May 19, the Mets had not allowed a home run at all in eight consecutive games, spanning contests with the Nationals, Yankees, and Phillies. Putting it into perspective, if the Mets had shut out the Brewers last night, that stretch of home run-less games would have been tied for the fourth most in franchise history.

As it stands, the run of eight games ranks 11th all-time for the Mets.

Adding more context to the accomplishments of New York’s pitching, there have only been five instances in the last decade when a team has not allowed a home run in nine consecutive games. That is truly impressive.

R.A. Dickey has not allowed a home run in his two outings and neither has Hisanori Takahashi—two men who didn’t really figure to feature in New York’s plans eight weeks ago. Mike Pelfrey has maybe been the best of all, allowing just three long balls in 63.2 innings.

While the Mets have been significantly worse on their travels this year, it is worth pointing out that they have recorded six straight games at home without surrendering a home run. Florida comes to Citi Field on June 4 for three games and the weak-hitting Padres complete the six-game homestand between June 8 and 10.

It’s asking a lot for the Mets to keep the ball in the yard for all of these games, too, but considering how well they have been playing at home it is certainly possible.

No team has gone more than 10 consecutive home games without allowing a home run since 1997, so it would be an impressive feat.

All of this, however, is set against a backdrop of success. If the Mets do not allow a home run in each of their next four games, for example, but lose all four, then the impressive statistical anomaly counts for very little.

Winning is the name of the game, and I can guarantee the Mets would rather give up three home runs in a game and win than keep the ball in the park for nine innings and lose.

Just as vital to the team’s success is scratching out a victory on the road. That challenge resumes again today in the second game of a three-game set in Milwaukee.

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The first round of National League All-Star votes have been counted, and as can be expected, it’s slim pickings for the Amazins.

David Wright is already 73,000 votes behind current third base leader Placido Polanco in one of the closest-fought All-Star battles, and Jose Reyes will need something resembling a miracle if he is to catch Jimmy Rollins or Hanley Ramirez for the starting shortstop gig.

Batting at the top of the order might give Reyes some momentum, especially with Rollins back on the DL, but don’t expect to see him finish any higher than third at best. Frankly, he doesn’t deserve to even be that high.

Wright has been so-so, but voters may take one look at his high strikeout totals and choose he isn’t worthy this time around. It’s a shame because his overall production—strikeouts aside—has been good.

In the outfield, Jason Bay is the only Met inside the top 15 and, with 191,000 votes, is still 150,000 votes away from third-place Shane Victorino. Bay has only just started to heat up, so I think that’s about right based on what we’ve see so far. With some big names ahead of him on the list, don’t expect him to many too many inroads towards the top five.

If voting ended today, the Phillies would have five All-Stars to play alongside a pair from St. Louis and Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun.

While I personally have doubts about Polanco starting at third base, my biggest beef with this is the apparent exclusion of Rod Barajas.

Sure, he’s not a household “star” name, but he has arguably been the Mets most effective player so far this season.

His 10 home runs lead all catchers in the Majors, and his 24 RBI ranks second in the National League.

Yadier Molina leads the voting so far with more than 316,000 votes, followed by Carlos Ruiz, Pudge Rodriguez, Brian McCann, and Russell Martin.

Seriously, voters? I’m not saying Barajas should be an automatic number No. 1, but it’s crazy not to see him in the top five.

Let’s work from the bottom up on this one. Unless you’re selecting Martin for his walks, he has no place on this list. He has just nine extra-base hits this season, and his high number of runs scored was a result of being moved to the front of the lineup following Rafael Furcal’s trip to the DL and batting in front of Triple Crown hopeful Andre Ethier before his injury sent him to the injury heap.

McCann is slightly better than Martin, but his .258 batting average has been masked by 23 walks, and his 17 RBI isn’t that impressive when you consider he’s batting cleanup.

Fans have also apparently brought into the Ivan Rodriguez hype. The catcher is batting a ridiculous .325 despite just one home run and five walks. The 38-year-old is at his fifth club in just over two years, and he hasn’t batted .300 since 2006. He hit just .249 last season, but his batting average may just be enough to carry him to his 15th All-Star selection.

Ruiz falls into a similar category as McCann, except he has a respectable average to go alongside a solid number of walks. The power and production aren’t really there, but you can’t argue with the success he’s been having this year.

That leads to Yadier Molina. His 26 RBI are the most among catchers and two more than Barajas. His .259 batting average is a handful of points lower than the Mets catcher’s, and he has scored just eight runs compared to Barajas’ 20.

Their fielding percentages are almost identical, but Molina’s two home runs and nine extra-base hits are dwarfed by the 10 homers and 17 XBH put up by Barajas.

None of the NL catchers can compete with the average-runs-production triple threat that Joe Mauer brings to the table, but is Barajas honestly that far behind the other backstops in the National League in 2010?

His low walk rate seems to be the only thing holding him back, but when he’s mashing the ball as well as he has been, the argument could be made that it should be overlooked. His six go-ahead Mets have been key in keeping an otherwise average club within striking distance of the leaders.

Barajas has never been to the All-Star game, and many will make the case that he doesn’t deserve to be there this year, that the 34-year-old career .239 hitter is overachieving.

But don’t vote for Barajas out of sympathy—vote for him because he is deserving. He’s been batting either in the seven hole or in front of the pitcher all year, but he has still been productive. More productive, in fact, than guys leading off or hitting in the meat of the order at other clubs.

Barajas has never been a disciplined hitter, but he plays the game the right way. He probably won’t be deserving of the starting job when the All-Star Game rolls into Anaheim, but he sure should be in the discussion.

Just ask any Mets fan. They will tell you how important he has been this year.

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“A little roller up along first…behind the bag. It gets through Buckner. Here comes Knight, and the Mets win it.”

It’s a call that Mets fans have heard hundreds of times, and it’s a call that never, ever gets old. It’s the same call that brings Red Sox fans close to tears, and it’s the call that reinforced the Curse of the Bambino.

Mets fans of a certain age will tell you exactly where they were when Mookie Wilson’s groundball down the line went between Billy Buckner’s legs, and for people in New York, it is one of the most defining plays in the club’s 48-year history.

ESPN voted it as the second most memorable moment of the last 25 years (losing out only to the 1980 Miracle on Ice victory in Lake Placid which topped the 100-strong list) and the Mets voted it as their No. 1 historic moment of all time.

Lost in the excitement of Ray Knight hopping and jumping towards home plate on that October night in 1986 was the ball that created history. As the fans celebrated and the Red Sox filed away, right field umpire Ed Montague snatched it up from the floor, took a pen, and marked a small ‘X’ near the seam. Who would have known that some 24 years later it would be on display for fans everywhere to enjoy.

The baseball that Mookie hit—yes, the baseball—is now on display in the New York Mets Hall of Fame and Museum, and I had the chance to speak with the owner of the famous ball, L.A.-based songwriter Seth Swirsky.
 
“It was picked up in the outfield by the right field umpire and he put an ‘x’ on it and gave it to the Mets traveling secretary Arthur Richman,” Seth said.

“Arthur then went into the clubhouse and gave it to Mookie and said ‘This is the one’ and Mookie kissed it, everybody kissed it, and there is a tobacco stain, and there was just this big celebration, and the Mookie wrote on it ‘To Arthur, the ball won it for us.'”

After holding onto the ball for several years, Richman eventually put it up for auction in 1992.

Tina Mannix, the senior director of marketing at the New York Mets, said: “Arthur got the ball from one of the umpires and Mookie actually told me that Arthur called him to ask for his permission to sell it and give the money to charity.
 
I had always heard, ‘Grr Arthur Richman sold it.’ I never knew that he had sold it for charity and I never knew that he had asked Mookie’s permission to, which I think was great.”

Just to be sure that the ball up for auction was the “Buckner Ball”—as it came to be known—Arthur also wrote a letter to verify the ball’s authenticity. Dated May 26, 1992, he wrote: “This is the actual baseball, hit by Mookie Wilson, which went between Bill Buckner’s legs in the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox at Shea Stadium Flushing, New York.

“Ed Montague, who was the right field umpire for that game, picked up the baseball. He later presented it to me, saying that he thought I would appreciate having it more than he would…This baseball is 100 percent authentic.”

The ball was eventually snapped up by actor Charlie Sheen for $93,500, and the star held on to the ball for almost eight years until he decided to part with a lot of his sporting memorabilia collection in 2000.

Seth said that when the ball was originally up for auction in 1992, he wasn’t collecting at that point. He said he didn’t think he even read about the auction. “I wasn’t a collector then, I was a songwriter,” he admitted.
 
“I started writing letters to baseball players in the mid ’90s for the fun of it to show my young son one day and they became my first best-selling book called Baseball Letters.
 
“In the midst of writing these letters I would find out different things about the players and I just got into the history of baseball in a big way and before I knew it I was bidding in an auction here and trading there.

“And then before I knew it I was getting these fantastic artifacts…Reggie Jackson’s third home run ball from Game Six when he hit three in a row, the letter Joe Landis wrote to Shoeless Joe Jackson forever banning him from playing baseball again for his ‘throwing of the World Series’ in 1919…”
 
That is where he was in April 2000 when Charlie Sheen was changing his life a little bit and decided to rid himself of his memorabilia. Swirski stayed up late into the night to bid on the ball and he came away with the high bid, well after 3 a.m. Eastern time.
 
“I’m a kid that grew up in Great Neck on Long Island. I was at the ’69 World Series.

“I was a kid that went to camp and used to bring a transistor radio and played shortstop on my camp team and right in between each play the whole summer of ’69 I’d pick up the transistor radio and hear ‘Al Weis hit a home run’ or ‘Tom Seaver struck out the side’ all the great Mets from ’69.
 
“So I’m a diehard longtime fan. I went to Shea Stadium, I went to the World Series at nine years old in ’69, and I really grew up with it. So for me to end up with it was a tremendously humbling experience and I was very glad to be able to lend it to the Mets, and I’m so, so happy that fans are getting a good feeling from it.”

Seth reunited Mookie Wilson with the ball when he brought it to Shea Stadium in 2006 for the 20th anniversary of the ’86 World Series victory and he said he had no hesitations about loaning the ball to the Mets for the inaugural year of the new museum.

As Eric Strohl, the senior director of collections at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, said: “As far as that moment in history goes, it was a pretty drastic part of Mets history. I would say that probably ranks up there as one of the most important moments in all of Mets history.”

While the ball may be seen as ‘priceless’ to some Mets fans, there is—like most things in life—a price attached if you dig deep enough. Seth actually got the ball at the bargain price of $63,945, almost one-third cheaper than what Sheen had paid for it some eight years earlier, and now it has rocketed in value.

While Seth and the Mets refused to disclose how much they agreed the ball was worth when they signed documents to have the ball on display at Citi Field, Seth said it is fair to say it has increased in value multiple times over.

“I’d say it’s worth between $500,000 and $1,000,000 if you look at some of the prices of equally-valued things…Babe Ruth’s home run at the very first All-Star Game in 1933 went for  $900,000, Mickey Mantle’s first home run ball almost $1,000,000, Mark McGwire’s home run ball—although it was overpriced at the time—went for $3.2 million.

“But for me, I want to share my pieces, I don’t want them hidden away. I just want
to make sure they are secure. I see myself as a guardian, someone who has a responsibility to keep these pieces in good shape. This is real, real history here and it’s
my job to protect it.
 
“I always imagine a nine-year-old kid walking through the new Mets museum with his dad and his dad saying to hi, ‘Let me tell you about that game.’ For me, that’s the Bobby Thompson game that my dad would tell me about. And I’m just imagining that kid being thrilled, and so any way I can give back to the Mets makes me completely happy.”

It’s not just fans who get a kick out of seeing the ball. One day, Seth was being interviewed on the field at Dodger stadium by legendary broadcaster Vin Scully, the man who made the now-famous call of that World Series moment.

Seth decided to bring the ball along to show Vin, and before he knew it he was surrounded by players and clubhouse staff all hoping to get a glimpse of the ball.

“Vin Scully takes me out on the Dodgers’ field and he’s asking me about my different books, and at the end of the interview I said ‘Can I ask you a question?’ He was taken by surprise, and I pulled out the Mookie ball because he was the one who made that famous call on TV…’a little roller up along first…’
 
“All of the players were on the field working out—it was the Marlins against the Dodgers—and Mike Lowell comes over. Then Bill Robinson, who was coaching first base for the Mets that night, comes over, and soon everybody is over there wanting to touch the ball.
 
“These players were 10 years old in 1986, 12, 13 years old playing in Little League, but they all came over when they were supposed to be going through their routines on the field. I’ve never seen anything like it.
 
“To them, that game [in 1986] was that same Bobby Thompson home run game; that was the shot heard around the world of their generation. That was the moment that was most crystallized. People could talk about Joe Carter’s home run that ended the World Series in 1992, but I don’t think it has the same kind of clout.

“It’s Toronto, it’s not New York City. It was the Mets-Red Sox. It had everything made for folklore. So I think that’s why it has an ‘otherness’ to it. And I mean, it was the ball.

“It’s never the glove. The game’s called base ball. It’s about the ball. It’s always about the ball. It’s never about the bat. The bat is a great piece, don’t get me wrong, the shoes Buckner was wearing was incredible, the glove, all of it’s good. I don’t denigrate anybody’s piece of memorabilia that goes to the play, but it’s about the ball.

“This ball mean something to me. I like things that tell a story. My heart is with the Mookie ball because I grew up a Mets fan. All that stuff about Buckner saying he had the original ball was bitter grapes. He was still very stung by it. How could he have the ball? I didn’t see him run out into right field to get it. Did you?

“The more that sees it, the merrier.”

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