Monthly Archives: January 2009

Mets have interest in Pedro

Despite several reports and rumors throughout the course of the off-season that the Mets have little or no interest in retaining veteran right-hander Pedro Martinez, Mets GM Omar Minaya reportedly met with Martinez in the Dominican Republic this week to discuss a possibly comeback to New York.

The 37-year-old Martinez completed a four-year, $53 million contract last season with New York, in which he went 32-23. Martinez, who was hot on the free-agent market following his World Series victory with Boston in 2004, was plagued by injuries throughout his Mets career and is currently struggling to find a guaranteed contract.

Pedro’s problem last season was that, on most occasions, he failed to make it past the fifth inning, thus putting a burden on an already-overworked bullpen. Different factors went into it, such as a fixed pitched count by the Mets staff in order to maintain Pedro’s health, prevent injury, and to save his arm.

If I was Omar Minaya, I’d bring back Martinez in a heartbeat. The Mets are in need for starting pitching, and you can never have too much depth — especially when you would be getting a veteran out of it. Because he is in his later years, the Mets can get him much cheaper than what they signed him for last time around.

Why not? Why not sign Martinez to a cheap contract? If it doesn’t work out, simply let him go. The Mets wouldn’t lose much money in that situation.

Mets need to set limit for Perez

Oliver Perez is better than more than half of the starting pitchers in the Major Leagues, but he isn’t as good as Scott Boras makes him out to be. Then again, Scott Boras makes every single one of his clients out to be better than they are. Boras, as always, has made it difficult for the Mets to re-acquire Perez.

With Perez asking for $30 million dollars over three seasons, the Mets need to simply say no. Yes, they need a starting pitcher, but last time I checked, it wasn’t a smart idea for a team to sign a pitcher to a $30 million contract when he is one of the mosdt unreliable pitchers in the game. Yes, he has dominant games, but he also has such horrible games that you wonder what he was doing that day before he took the mound.

Following former pitcher coach Rick Peterson’s departure last season, new pitching coach Dan Warthen took over and teamed up with veteran Pedro Martinez in an attempt to fix Perez. In the end, the change was huge. Perez changed his routine of dropping his head when he begins his windup — and instead changed it in a way where he actually rocked back while keeping his eye on the glove. This was, in all likelihood, an attempt to give him some momentum during his windup and to help him with control by keeping his eye on the glove.

Time will tell if this change will help Perez, because Perez is a type of pitcher who has a LOT of potential. It is just a matter of how he can reach it. Even though he has potential to be a $30 million pitcher, he certainly has not reached it yet. The Mets are better off going for a pitcher like Ben Sheets for less money, and picking up a few small-name pitchers. This way they dont’ waste all of their money on a person who pitchers every five days.

Several Mets players in WBC

The Mets organization will have fourteen players in this year’s World Baseball Classic (as of now), inculindg players on team USA, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and even Australia!

According to MLB.com, these will be the rosters when the Classic begins:

Major Leaguers:

Carlos Delgado- Puerto Rico

Carlos Beltran – Puerto Rico

David Wright – USA

Pedro Feliciano – Puerto Rico

* – Johan Santana – Venezuela

Jose Reyes – Dominican Republic

J.J. Putz – USA

Francisco Rodgriguez – Venezuela

Brian Schneider – USA

* – Unsure if he will play or not (knee or club decision)

The rest of the players are minor leaguers, and if you want to check out who they are, feel free to click on the link above. The link above also lists the major/minor league players by club in the World Baseball Classic.

Who will you be rooting for in this one? It’s a hard decision as a Mets fan since these players are spread out all over the WORLD.

I’ll have to stick with my team from 2006, the Dominican Republic.

Giants hire Sheridan as Defensive Coordinator

The New York Giants didn’t waste any time filling their vacant Defensive Coordinator position. With Steve Spagnuolo leaving to become the next head coach of the St. Louis Rams, the Giants easily filled in the space by hiring within. Linebackers coach Bill Sheridan, who reads this website, will take over a defense that had a strong season despite the losses of Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora.

My father, Mike Tracy, who is a Defensive Coordinator at Hamilton College, has coached with Bill Sheridan at a charity camp for high school football players throughout the past few summers. I was lucky enough to tag along and meet Sheridan several times along the way, and he’s a very nice and professional man to talk to. Each time I see him, including in this photo just before his team was about to play the biggest game of the season, he always has enough time to step aside to talk to my father and I and ask how my website is going, how Hamilton football did, etc.

The Giants chose the right man for the job, and I think it will show next season.

Giants crumble as Eagles advance to NFC Title game

After starting the 2008-2009 season at 11-1, including a late-season victory to clinch home-field advantage against the NFC’s second-best team, the Giants unraveled and fell apart in today’s NFC Divisional Playoff game against Philadelphia.

The Giants (12-4) had some nice-looking drives, but those drives were cut to an abrupt end when the Giants would have to settle for field goals every single time, including two missed field goals.

An interception by Asante Samuel early in the game put the Eagles (9-6-1) in position for a touchdown, which made the score 7-3. The reason why this interception was so huge was that without it, the Eagles likely wouldn’t have scored much of anything before the half because of a non-existant offense.

The Giants were able to get a safety early on, but weren’t able to do much with it because of a missed field goal by John Carney, who missed only one field goal in the entire regular season.

Eli Manning, who had been great all season, made some horrible throws that included wobbly passes and off-target throws that led to several interceptions. There were also several throws that should have been intercepted, but Manning was lucky to see that they landed in the perfect spot.

Late in the game, the Eagles began to pick up a string of first downs on third downs to keep their drives alive, which gave them the momentum to keep the ball and keep the clock ticking.

A few minutes into the second quarter, the Giants’ play-calling turned into a disaster, and this seems to happen whenever the team is down by about two scores halfway through the fourth quarter. The Giants kept running the ball without entering a no-huddle offense, all while the clock continued to tick.

Eventually, time ran out on the Giants’ hopes of returning to the Super Bowl. The fans stopped waving the towels, the players dropped their heads into the ground, and a sense of desperation and frustration began to spread like a disease throughout the soon-to-be-demolished Giants Stadium.

Only one season after Eli Manning was waving the Lombari Trophy on top of the world, he was walking into the darkness of the Giants Stadium tunnel for the very last time.