Kuzul

The New York Mets have done surprisingly well so far this season, and as June nears, there are whispers of a playoff run.

They have the tools at the plate. David Wright has an all-multiverse batting average of .373, and the Mets have been pleasantly surprised by the output of Mike Baxter, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Daniel Murphy and others once considered little more than fill-ins.

Props also go to the starting pitchers. Any lingering concerns about Johan Santana’s surgically repaired shoulder were erased in his complete game shutout of the San Diego Padres last week. R.A. Dickey is having an All-Star season.

Props are also due to closer Frank Francisco—for his last few outings, anyway. A change in his bullpen sessions has improved his pitching tremendously after a very shaky start to the season. At one point, his ERA was above 8.00 and he was consistently throwing more than 20 pitches an inning. That is not a winning formula for a closer.

Still, Francisco has 13 saves this season—one off the National League lead. Concerns that he was tipping his pitches seem to have abated.

Here’s the rub: Francisco’s recent success has come against underperforming teams. The Mets are into their toughest stretch of the season so far, with series against the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals and the surging Washington Nationals. Then comes their interleague series against the Yankees, always a tough slog for the Amazins no matter how the Bombers are performing.

With the recent adjustments to his mechanics, it’s possible that Francisco will be up to the task, assuming that the Mets can hold at least a few leads into the late innings. But Francisco has a troubling characteristic: It doesn’t take much to get him off his game.

Take his blown save against the Miami Marlins earlier this month: Francisco was angered by a few close calls on pitches and was eventually tossed from the game by the home plate umpire after blowing the lead.

Solid hits by opposing players have also rattled Francisco. On those occasions, he’s acted like he’s been possessed by Armando Benitez. When his cool evaporates, so does his control.

That leads to another concern: high pitch counts. Francisco has kept his pitch count down the last few games, which is an encouraging sign. But if he resumes throwing upwards of 25 pitches an inning, it won’t be long before his stamina is played out.

The Mets would do well to seek out a quality reliever who could step into the closer role in the event Francisco falters. That won’t be easy this year. Injuries have bedeviled bullpens everywhere, and a number of closers are having disappointing seasons. The competition for healthy closers is bound to be fierce as the trade deadline gets closer.

Brett Myers, anyone?

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Last year, Ike Davis played in 36 games before he suffered a freak ankle injury from a collision with David Wright.

That cost him the rest of the season.

Coming into this season, Davis was expected to put up high numbers. Thus far in 2012, he has done anything but that. 

Hitting just .161 in 137 at-bats, Davis is looking discouraged. A slow start is understandable, but it’s late May already and Davis has shown very little, if any, signs of improvement.

The Mets have looked impressive through the first eight weeks of the season. Only three and a half games behind the first place Atlanta Braves, the Mets seem to be a threat heading into the summer months.

With the severe struggles of Davis, however, the question seems to be whether or not a trip to the minors would be beneficial. Personally, I believe a trip down would be smart move for both Davis and the team as a whole. 

At this point, Davis needs fresh  offensive input from a new voice. Down on the Buffalo Bisons, he can go back to basics and really focus on tweaking his swing as well as clearing his head of what has been an exhausting first few months to the season. 

Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson and Manager Terry Collins are not opposed to the idea, and as Davis’ woes continue, a trip to the minor leagues seems more and more realistic.

Collins spoke in the recent days about the team considering this possibility. However, Collins also went on to say that “nothing is etched in stone,” and that the team will weigh its options.

If the team does decide to move Davis down, the pieces the Mets have in place to fill his spot should be adequate. Daniel Murphy would most likely shift over to first, and Justin Turner would assume second base duties.

A big part of the Mets is Ike Davis.

With his struggles, the Mets have have had a shortened lineup, and Terry Collins has been forced to juggle the order.

The bottom line is that the Mets need Davis to produce out of the middle of the lineup. They simply cannot afford to keep him as a regular with the way he has played thus far.

It will not be long until a decision is made by the organization on the status of Davis. 

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The Mets reached a dubious milestone on Friday night against the Miami Marlins. A first-inning triple by Jose Reyes thwarted the possibility of a no-hitter for the 8,000th time in Mets history.

The no no-no’s streak is surprising not just for its 50-year span. The Mets have had any number of pitchers capable of blanking an opponent for nine innings.

In fact, seven pitchers have thrown no-hitters after leaving the Mets, according to NoNoHitters.com, a website that keeps a running update of the Mets’ futility. Another 10 came to the Mets with no-hitters under their belts.

Nolan Ryan, of course, posted seven no-hitters in his post-Mets career. Tom Seaver threw one for the Cincinnati Reds in 1978, the season following his departure from New York. Dwight Gooden and David Cone added further insult by pitching no-hitters for the Yankees.

Hideo Nomo and Mike Scott also chalked up no-hitters after leaving the Mets. The most recent Mets alum on the list is Philip Humber, who pitched the 21st perfect game in major league history for the Chicago White Sox last month.

The Mets have come close to breaking into the no-hit club. There have been 35 one-hitters in team history. In some of them, an early inning hit was followed by pitching perfection.

Many others were denied in the late innings. Here are six that were stopped in the eighth and ninth innings.

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I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was the first day I opened my first pack of baseball cards. The pack was 1989 Topps. The first card I pulled was a Randy Johnson baseball card from when he was with the Seattle Mariners.

I thought, “Sheesh, this man looks scary…I wouldn’t want to face him on a bad day.”

Dante Bichette’s rookie card was also in this pack. It was significant because my dad said rookie cards were a baseball player’s most significant cards.

But after looking at Bichette’s rookie card, all I could think was, “Who would want to play for a team that boasts pink colors?” (That was in reference to the pink banner at the bottom of the card that said Angels.)

That was stupid of me, since it was just part of the Topps design.

Little did I know at the time Bichette would go on to have a solid 14 year career in the big leagues with the Angels, Brewers, Rockies, Reds and Red Sox.

All I knew was to get the thing in a plastic sheet. Too bad overproduction deemed this rookie card worthless (tear).

Moving on. Nearly 25 years after Bichette made his major league debut, his son—same name but add a Junior to the end—was a first-round pick of the 2011 Major League Draft.

Dante Bichette Junior thus marks the beginning of this slideshow, which tracks the progress of the New York Yankee’s top five active draft picks from 2011.

This takes into account that the Yankees second-round draft pick Sam Stafford did not sign with the Yankees. He will miss all of 2011 because of a tear in his throwing shoulder.

It also takes into account that Jordan Cote, the Yankees third-round pick, still has not made his professional debut (though he will this spring in the GCL).   

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In January of this year, the New York Times ran a story that said the Yankees are saving now for a potential free-agency splash next winter. The story highlighted hurlers Matt Cain of the Giants and Cole Hamel of the Phillies as potential targets for the pinstripes.

But could the Yankees be loading up the ole piggy bank for the heir apparent to Derek Jeter?

Could it be that the Bronx Bombers are eyeballing Starlin Castro, the sweet-swinging shortstop for an annually afflicted Chicago Cubs franchise?

At first this question seems preposterous, especially in light of how well Jeter has been playing thus far this season.

But looking big picture, a few things have occurred in the past month that points to the potential for Castro to eventually become a Yankee.

First, Castro is eligible for arbitration after the 2012 season. While the Cubs have signed Castro through 2012, new Cubs GM Theo Epstein has yet to commit to Castro long-term. Reasons for this vary, which will be highlighted in a moment.

Second, Castro’s at-times attention deficit at shortstop has sparked Chicago radio pundits to float the opinion balloon that Castro should move to the outfield.  

To this, I say perfecto!

Yankees outfielder Nick Swisher is a free agent after this season.  According to ESPN New York writer Wallace Matthews, Swisher intends to test the free agent market in 2013.

Andruw Jones will also become a free agent. And there is no guarantee the Yankees will re-sign him.

The Cubs could give Castro some serious on-the-job-training in right field. Castro could then learn the ins and outs of the position, en route to becoming the right fielder for the Yankees next season.

Once a Yankee, Castro would receive mentorship from Jeter on how to properly prepare to play shortstop every day for one of the greatest baseball teams in world history.

Who better for a young phenom like Castro to receive mentorship from?

Then when Jeter finally hangs the spikes up in a few campaigns, the Yankees can seamlessly slip Castro into Jeter’s position.

Castro and Cano.

Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Two .300-hitting ballplayers playing middle infield together in New York over the next decade.

Let daydreaming by Yankee fans out school and office windows begin.

Let collectors of skyrocketing Castro rookie cards and memorabilia feel like kids once again.  

Hark the Herald Angels [who for the record love the New York Yankees] Sing…

All right, all right; snap out of it!

Back to reality, we all know Mr. Epstein is much smarter than letting the Cubbies best player in years get away without receiving anything in return. After all, Epstein did not shrewdly transform the Red Sox into World Champions without some intelligent aggressiveness.

Barring insanity, Epstein will keep Castro at shortstop for now, amid a backdrop of taking trade offers from other ball clubs. Perhaps in time, Epstein will ship Castro out of Chicago as part of a mega deal. 

What a great way for a struggling club to load up on young arms and bats, than to trade away a phenom like Castro to a contender. A phenom, by the way, who makes just $567K. In baseball, this is chump change.

And do not think for one hot second the Boston Red Sox do not have their scopes set on Castro, either. If Jose Iglesias’ bat does not join his spectacular defense at shortstop, Boston will also enter the Castro sweepstakes.

Then again, Epstein could just step in and sign Castro this summer, and thus make him the face of the Cubs for the next decade. Trade or sign, the opinion Castro becomes a New York Yankee will thus become null and void. And Castro could go on to become our generation’s Ernie Banks.

But as all baseball fans can attest, the Yankees have proven time and time again throughout their history, when they want someone, they usually go all-out to get them.

James is a huge baseball fan who loves to write and make new friends. You can follow James on Twitter by clicking HITHA!

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If the New York Mets are going to have any chance of finishing over .500 this season, then they are going to need to get a lot of outstanding performances from their starting pitchers.

The Mets’ rotation is set entering the season, but they still have a number of questions about the health and abilities of their starters.

It is very possible that the Mets’ rotation looks a lot different at the end of the year. Pitchers may be dealt and prospects may come up from the minors to replace ineffective starters.

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David Wright sounded optimistic after his first spring training game on Monday.

“I feel good,” he told reporters after his four innings of play. “I feel healthy. I got a chance to dive around a little bit, run the bases a little bit, see some pitches, get some at-bats. Now it’s just a matter of getting reps.”

That isn’t a small matter.

The Mets third baseman sat out most of the spring recovering from a torn abdominal muscle. Now he’s got just two weeks to get ready for Opening Day.

For a player of Wright’s caliber, that’s not too much to expect. But there are other factors that are likely to slow Wright’s progress.

Here are five reasons why Wright may not have the right stuff in April.

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The Baseball Hall of Fame—holy ground for America’s national pastime. Within Cooperstown’s pantheon are honored 296 of the diamond’s royalty. Some are gods; some many have never heard of. A few don’t truly belong; others, having received the sport’s ultimate reward, remain under-appreciated.

Each of them was immortalized by vote, a process vulnerable to an array of human foibles. Whereas most Hall of Famers fully deserve their honor, more than a few waited for enshrinement long after their achievements warranted such recognition (sometimes for decades), or, occasionally in the case of the Veterans Committee, wormed their way in via cronyism, inflated reputation or voter incompetence.

Because (since 1958) the ballot permits—but does not require—voting to the 10th place, some very mediocre players garner votes. Often, this safeguard prohibits too many candidates from making the cut—lest the Hall grow even more overpopulated than it already is— although it occasionally detracts votes from worthy players who should make it in but wait many unnecessary years, or never make it at all.

Why the electorate felt compelled to cast votes for the pedestrian likes of Mike Jorgensen, Terry Puhl, and Eddie Miksis is a wonder. Maybe those responsible also pulled the lever for Harold Stassen…

In 1981, Gates Brown received a vote. A talented batsman who, at his retirement, stood third all-time in pinch hits, Gates enjoyed a superlative year as a sub during the Detroit Tigers championship season of 1968.

Coming off the bench and delivering key hits time and again, Brown contributed mightily to Detroit’s pennant run. A career total of 582 hits, however, stands as far from the stuff of legend as the 119-loss Tigers of 2003 did from first place. Yet Brown shared 27th spot in the voting with five other nondescript players.

This means that some voter penciled Brown as a 10th-place selection over 17 far more Hall-worthy players. If the top nine vote-getters are excluded, which any sane person—including, presumably, the voter in question—would when making Gates his final pick on the ballot, then Brown received a vote instead of later inductees Luis Aparicio, Bill Mazeroski, Orlando Cepeda and Richie Ashburn, as well as Roger Maris and Maury Wills.

Remember, electors are chosen for their expert knowledge of the game.

Poor Bill Buckner. Never mind that he won a batting crown, seven times hit .300, and came within a season and a half of the elite 3,000-hit club—his outstanding career is forever lost in the glare of a single gaffe that didn’t send the Boston Red Sox to another cursed World Series defeat (it merely enabled the hard-luck Bosox to drop the Series the next evening).

Buckner isn’t Hall of Fame material, but his numbers—including, ironically, a solid fielding record (and the penultimate mark for assists in a season by a first baseman)—exceed that of many Hall of Famers. Yet he qualified for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) ballot only once, earning a paltry 10 votes, which permanently dropped him from eligibility.

Considering the ballot’s hangers-on who collect comparable numbers over multiple elections, it’s obvious that voters ignored Buckner’s 22 seasons because of one unfortunate occurrence.

Case-in-point: one-trick pony Don Larsen. Yes, that lone trick, a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, amounted to one of the most fantastic feats in baseball history. But the Hall isn’t permitted to enshrine players for a single event.

Yet Larsen received no fewer than 22 votes for 15 consecutive years. Not big numbers, but far more generous than his career totals: an 81-91 record (including a 3-21 season), a solitary 100-strikeout year, and an ERA often topping 4.00.

Even so, Larsen’s relatively hefty vote totals—entirely attributable to a spectacular moment in a lackluster 14-year career—left in the dust such terrific, if not Hall-caliber, hurlers as Jim Perry, Billy Pierce and Dave McNally.

A voter shows himself more misguided to reward a player for one triumphant effort than to punish a player for one catastrophic incident.

Such specious voting extends to Johnny Vander Meer, who was just as liable to walk a batter as strike him out. Vandy’s wildness culminated in a meer 119-121 career record—yet, thanks to his consecutive no-hitters, he polled twice as many votes in 1966 as Arky Vaughan, one of the best shortstops ever (not to mention further outdistancing Ernie Lombardi, Hal Newhouser, Billy Herman and Bob Lemon—each eminently more deserving than he).

In fact, Vander Meer, who consistently finished higher than at least half a dozen future Hall of Famers during his years of eligibility, outpaced Newhouser all eight years that they appeared together on the ballot.

Whether or not one views Newhouser as a bona fide Hall of Famer, he did win back-to-back MVPs—and nearly a third—whereas Vander Meer never finished higher than 18th in MVP polling (incidentally, the very season he tossed his no-nos—so how could writers rank Vander Meer so highly for his career when they didn’t even rank him highly for his season of glory?).

Averaging 72 votes a year, Vander Meer’s claim to fame was taken too literally by some writers.

Whether the BBWAA has always known what’s it’s doing when it comes to casting Hall of Fame ballots is debatable (it’s done a largely admirable job in recent decades). However, one can peruse the vote totals of virtually any year and drop a jaw at who scored higher than whom.

As in 1949, for example, when Pepper Martin—a scrappy hitter and, for the time, terror on the base paths—parlayed a pair of heroic World Series performances that made him a legend of the Depressed Midwest into more votes than 25 future Hall of Famers. And even though quite a few of those eventual entrants likely didn’t merit enshrinement, they undoubtedly enjoyed more laudable careers than Pepper. (Certainly Goose Goslin, Sam Rice and Zack Wheat—absolutely deserving—should have scored higher than Martin.)

But that’s the human element of the Hall of Fame, and it’s still preferable to some statistically based program like the college BCS—heaven forbid, some egghead ever devises something similar for Cooperstown…

The 2012 election likely will usher into Cooperstown several great players from among 27 candidates. And if Barry Larkin and Jack Morris, the two favorites, ascend to Baseball Heaven—or even Tim Raines and several borderline candidates—then the BBWAA surely will have done its job.

But I’ll be scanning the bottom of the ballot to see how many wayward votes went to Terry Mulholland, Brad Radke and Tony Womack. 

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The Winter Meetings just ended this week and as expected, Brian Cashman made zero significant moves other than bringing back their own free agents. The Yankees may be interested in Yu Darvish and Yoenis Cespedes, but as of right now, they have not made any moves.

The 2011-2012 offseason was dominated by first basemen, such as Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, but the New York Yankees already have Mark Teixeira and had no need for either of them.

The Yankees need pitching to push them over the top to legitimate World Series contenders, and the 2012-2013 free agent class is full of great starting pitchers. The Yankees also have other important needs, such as right field and the left side of the infield.

This class of free agents is loaded, and Brian Cashman would be smart to take advantage of this fact and go out and make at least one huge deal. Let’s see who they will be targeting in the next offseason.

It may be a little early, but we all love predictions, so let’s look ahead at next offseason targets for the New York Yankees.

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It remains to be seen whether Bobby Valentine will be the next manager of the Boston Red Sox, but one thing is certain: If Larry Lucchino and Boston’s ownership group are looking for a guy who knows how to bounce back from a tough year, this is their man.

Valentine was one of baseball’s top prospects in the late 1960s. The Connecticut native with sprinter’s speed headed west to USC and was the fifth pick (by the Dodgers) in the ’68 draft. Big things seemed in store when he was named Pacific Coast League MVP after batting .340 with 14 homers and 16 triples at Triple-A Spokane in 1970. A shortstop, he was the heir apparent to Maury Wills in Los Angeles.

Things didn’t go quite so smoothly. Valentine started out slow in the big leagues, partly due to torn knee cartilage sustained playing touch football, but seemed to be hitting his stride after being swapped up the freeway to the Angels.

A month into the ’73 campaign the 23-year-old had his average at .302 and was taking time off from shortstop to fill in for an injured teammate in the outfield when he ran back to the wall in pursuit of a Dick Green fly ball.

What happened next was a baseball equivalent of the Joe Theismann injury, with the vinyl fence at Anaheim Stadium playing the role of Lawrence Taylor.

As Sports Illustrated later described it: The ball missed Valentine’s glove by an inch, and his leg drove into the vinyl between the two support poles so that the tarp first yielded, then ensheathed his calf like a vise before flinging him back to the ground with a grotesque bend in the middle of the shin.

The incident fractured both of the bones in Valentine’s lower right leg, and he spent nearly six months in two different casts. When the second one was removed, doctors discovered that the bones had knit poorly—leaving an 18-degree bend between his knee and ankle.

Valentine had two choices: suck it up and learn to play in pain, or spend 13-16 more months undergoing surgery and leg reconstruction with screws and plates.

“In my mind,” he told SI, “to go with their plan meant not to be a ballplayer.” Doctors gave him a few months to decide, and by spring training he was jogging and ready to play. Valentine had a huge lump on his knee, a constant limp and his speed was gone. But he played 117 games anyway, batting .261 in his transition from superstar prospect to fringe performer.

Over the next five years he did whatever he could to stay on the roster—eventually playing every position but pitcher—and wound up getting into nearly 400 games on one good leg for four different teams. He knew adversity, but didn’t know how to quit.

In that regard he had a lot in common with his father-in-law, former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, another guy who wore No. 13 and had been dealt a tough blow by fate (in Branca’s case, it was giving up Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard Round the World” that clinched the ’51 pennant for the Giants over the Dodgers). Imagine the late-night discussions those two had.

Nobody would have blamed Valentine for limping away from the game, but he loved it too much and wanted to help others succeed at it.

As manager of the Rangers and Mets, and in two stints skippering teams in Japan, he was not always loved by his ballplayers, but he was respected for his intelligence.

Peter Gammons, who has worked with him at ESPN during Valentine’s recent stint as an analyst, calls him, “One of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met.”

Cocky and at times abrasive, he rubbed many people the wrong way. He also could explode with the best of them, and wasn’t afraid to sit down under-performing players. 

Clearly this is one guy who would not let pitchers get fat and happy on beer and wings. He fought too hard to stay in the Show to let others give less than their best.

Terry Francona had a sterling reputation as a nice guy and a “player’s manager” who preferred letting others get the bulk of the attention and credit.

Valentine enjoys being in front and saying what he feels, even if players won’t want to hear it. And with a roster full of stars that could use some shaking up, Bobby V. may be just what Larry Lucchino and Red Sox ownership feel they need.

SAUL WISNIA is a former sports and news correspondent for The Washington Post and feature writer for The Boston Herald who is now senior publications editor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He has authored, co-authored or contributed to numerous books on Boston baseball history, including his latest — Fenway Park: The Centennialhttp://amzn.to/qWjQRS. His essays and articles have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Red Sox Magazine, and The Boston Globe, and he shares Fenway reflections in cyberspace athttp://saulwisnia.blogspot.com/. Wisnia lives 6.78 miles from MLB‘s oldest ballpark in Newton, MA, and can be reached at saulwizz@gmail.com or @saulwizz.

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