Howard Megdal

It is not surprising that Billy Wagner pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to save New York’s 10-8 victory over Cincinnati Thursday night. After all, since coming to the Mets, Wagner has been one of the most automatic closers in baseball, converting 87 percent of his save opportunities. To put that in perspective, just under 60 percent of all save opportunities were converted in the National League in 2008’s first half.

But Wagner seems to have his greatest difficulty in games with either higher stakes, or even higher perceived stakes, as he showed Tuesday night, allowing the tying run in the eighth inning of the All Star Game.  read more »

From the early moments of what ended up as the longest All Star Game in baseball history, it appeared that a member of the New York Yankees would play the hero in the festivities at Yankee Stadium Tuesday night. As it turned out, the hero would end up a member of the Boston Red Sox—J.D. Drew won the Most Valuable Player award in the American League’s 4-3, 15 inning victory.

From the start, most of the hype surrounding the game has been about the venue, rather than individuals or even team rivalries. But at every point, the Yankees were the story. During pregame introductions, Yankees were cheered, of course, Red Sox were booed, and everyone else received largely indifferent responses.  read more »

While the streaking Mets actively shop for a corner outfielder to replace the injured Moises Alou and Ryan Church prior to baseball’s July 31 trading deadline, 19-year-old Fernando Martinez, who can be either the long-term solution in the outfield, or the bait for the team’s short-term answer, showcased his talents at the Futures Game Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

Martinez had one hit in two at-bats on Sunday, and as he has done since signing with the Mets, excelled against players more experienced and older than he is. But with a number of injuries limiting him to just 791 professional at-bats, even a team that promotes as aggressively as the Mets has to be reticent about throwing Martinez into the midst of a pennant race.  read more »

A day game after a night game is normally the province of a baseball team’s backup catcher. Why, then, was Brian Schneider, the man Omar Minaya described as his “regular catcher” when the Mets acquired him this winter, in the starting lineup for the July 10 day game against the Giants?

It’s because Ramon Castro, whose strong bat has been a big part of New York’s recent success, had played the night before—a far more regular occurrence since Jerry Manuel took over as manager from Willie Randolph.

“It does feel better to be playing more,” the 32-year-old Castro said as he put on his uniform in front of his locker Thursday afternoon, prior to New York’s game against the San Francisco Giants.  read more »

The Mets did a lot of heavy lifting on their recent road trip, amassing a 5-3 record against the National League East-leading Phillies and the wild-card-leading Cardinals.

The success of the road trip, punctuated by three straight wins in Philadelphia, catapulted New York into the thick of the National League playoff race. The Mets further solidified these gains with a pair of shutout victories Tuesday and Wednesday against the Giants, and they now stand just 1.5 games out of first place in their division, and just 3.5 games behind St. Louis for the wild card.

But how successful the Mets are down the stretch will be determined in large part by the team’s success on and off the field between now and the end of July.  read more »

Oliver Perez is an enigma.

While many pitchers have displayed inconsistency, Perez’s highs and lows are remarkable, not just from game to game, but season to season.

There are endless theories for Perez’s problems, ranging from the mechanical to the psychological, and many prescriptions to solve them.

He showed encouraging signs Sunday against the Yankees, striking out eight and walking none over seven innings, but he’s been so inconsistent that it’s hard to know if it was meaningful progress or just another blip. The one thread running through Perez’s numbers appears to be a simple one—if he throws even a decent amount of strikes, he will be successful.  read more »

Monday night’s 7-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals will be particularly disappointing to fans of the New York Mets, particularly if it provides a harbinger for how the Mets play over the next week.

With another three games against the Cardinals, who lead the National League wild-card race, followed by four with the Phillies, who lead the National League East, the Mets will be facing two teams that stand between them and a playoff berth.

A strong week would likely put New York squarely in the middle of the wild-card chase, and could catapult them into the division lead. But a poor week could leave New York on the outer reaches of the playoff picture; long shots for October play.  read more »

It’s only been eight games. But Jerry Manuel has made it clear that he has a very different plan to manage the Mets than his predecessor, Willie Randolph. These changes range from the tactical to the philosophical, with some tone changes thrown in for good measure.

The most famous of these changes so far has been Manuel’s freewheeling press conferences with reporters, including jokingly threatening to “cut” Jose Reyes (and not as in releasing him) over an on-field tantrum, and referring to the vocally negative feedback from some Mets fans as potentially helpful “fertilizer” at Shea Stadium.

Manuel’s tactical adjustments—the things that actually relate to baseball—have gotten much less notice.  read more »

With Moises Alou on the disabled list, Mets manager Jerry Manuel has said that the team needs to plan as if he isn’t coming back. And Trot Nixon, who has started in left field eight times since the Mets acquired him from the Arizona Diamondbacks (where he had been playing for Arizona’s AAA club) on June 15, wants to put himself squarely at the center of those plans.

So far, the results haven’t come for the longtime Red Sox standout, whose season line stands at .148/.281/.296. But Nixon, who New York acquired in part for his seemingly endless hustle, said he isn’t pressing.  read more »

With Chien-Ming Wang on the shelf until at least September with a torn tendon in his foot, the Yankees are scrambling to replace one of the few givens in their 2008 rotation. The Wang Replacement Derby is wide-open—expect plenty of quick hooks and Plan B's until New York settles on a pitcher—or trades for Cleveland’s soon-to-be free agent ace, C. C. Sabathia. Here is a guide to the likely participants, in predicted order of usage:

Dan Giese

If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then Giese has the inside track on the position, having taken Wang’s spot the first time through the rotation Saturday against Cincinnati.  read more »

If Willie Randolph’s situation with the Mets was most like that of Davey Johnson, who was also fired less than halfway into a season less than two years removed from an appearance in the NLCS, then Jerry Manuel, who was named interim manager of the Mets early Tuesday morning, is Bud Harrelson, Johnson’s replacement.

Harrelson took over a 20-22 Mets team during the 1990 season, and led them to a 71-49 record—good enough for 91 victories, but falling short of the postseason. And this standard—significantly improved play, even if it falls short of a playoff berth—is likely Manuel’s bar to clear so he can remove the interim tag from his job title.  read more »

The Mets had no shortage of disappointing losses during Willie Randolph’s tenure, but the team chose to fire him, along with pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto, around 90 minutes after Monday night’s 9-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Randolph will be replaced by former White Sox manager Jerry Manuel; Dan Warthen, who had been the Mets’ pitching coach at AAA New Orleans, will assume Rick Peterson’s duties. AAA Manager Ken Oberkfell and AAA coach Luis Aguayo will also join the staff.

Randolph’s fate was the subject of speculation since the end of the 2007 season, one in which the Mets lost a seven-game lead in the National League East with 17 games left to play, one of the biggest collapses in baseball history.  read more »

Joba Chamberlain’s adjustment to the role of starting pitcher in the major leagues, taking place under the most intense of media glares and in mid-season, has not been noteworthy for the fits and starts along the way. Rather, what is striking is how few of them he has encountered.

Following an 89-pitch outing with a maximum allowance of 95 pitches against the Houston Astros Friday, which equaled six strong innings in a 2-1 New York victory, Chamberlain is now a member of the Yankee rotation without restriction. He has posted a 2.84 ERA in his first three starts. As he displayed in his most recent start, his rawness can provide some revelatory moments—both of the fact that he has been facing major league hitters for less than a year, and that despite that fact, those hitters have a great deal of trouble with even his mistake pitches.  read more »

It’s still too early for the Mets to make the irrevocable decision to be sellers at baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline on July 31. But just barely.

The Mets found themselves seven games out of first place Thursday evening following a 5-4 loss to Arizona, pending Philadelphia’s game at Florida. The wild card offers even worse news; the Mets trail St. Louis by eight games, pending the Cardinals’ game at Cincinnati.

The Mets have lost six of seven games; a similarly poor performance over the next few weeks, or a strong one by St. Louis and Philadelphia, could put the Mets 10 games out of a playoff spot by July 1.

While teams have managed to overcome deficits that large, such stories are rare. And with the team’s depth and talent base depleted by poor drafts and the Johan Santana trade, along with a core—David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, John Maine and Santana—that is still in its prime, retooling for 2009 could end up being their best (only?) shot at getting back into the company of the premier clubs.

If the Mets punt on 2008—and unless things change soon, it will come to that—here are some of the selling options they have if young talent is available in return:  read more »

While the hysteria over Joba Chamberlain continues in the Bronx, Austin Jackson, a 21-year-old outfielder with New York’s AA affiliate in Trenton, calmly prepares to be the next big thing. And Jackson knows exactly who to talk to about that process.

“Reggie Jackson comes and visits us every spring,” said Jackson, as he dressed in front of his locker prior to Tuesday night’s game against the Connecticut Defenders. “The past two years, we got to sit down and talk. That’s huge from a friend standpoint. Sometimes he would be struggling, but he was always confident.”

Tellingly, the younger Jackson seems most engaged when he’s talking about hitting. That alone has to make the Yankees feel reasonably good about their decision to draft him with an eighth-round pick in the 2005 draft.  read more »

Martinez is Least of Mets’ Worries There are no shortage of problems for the Mets, from Ryan Church’s concussive complications, to Moises Alou’s inability to heal, and even Billy Wagner’s ability to save his only poor performances for the worst possible moments, as he did Sunday, giving up a home run to Tony Clark as the Mets lost their fourth straight to the San Diego Padres, 8-6.  read more »

Unlike in the NBA or NFL, players selected in the Major League baseball draft are not expected to contribute to the big-league roster immediately, or often for years. But both the Mets and Yankees seemed to draft with the current problems with their respective teams in mind.

For the Mets, the issues addressed were in the starting lineup and depth of starting pitching. For the Yankees, the effort was made to collect high-ceiling young pitchers, hoping enough will stick to make a pitching staff.  read more »

Hours before the game, the army of Joba-clad supporters swarmed into Yankee Stadium to welcome the newly crowned king, Joba Chamberlain, to the starting rotation Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays.

But Chamberlain lasted just 2 1/3 innings in his first major league start. Uncharacteristically wild, he walked four hitters. By the final out of New York’s 9-3 loss to Toronto, most of the Joba jerseys had made their way to the exits.  read more »

It is commonly assumed that if Joe Torre had been a free agent, rather than property of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he, and not Willie Randolph, would currently be manager of the New York Mets. That chorus will likely quiet a bit after the Mets completed a 5-2 homestand by defeating the Dodgers Sunday night, 6-1.

But the funny idea of the whole Torre-for-Randolph idea is that there’s no evidence that the aspects of Randolph’s managing that have come under fire most—his lack of demonstrated passion, his deference to veterans and his problems managing his bullpen—would have altered with this particular regime change. After all, Randolph learned his style by Joe Torre’s side as a bench coach for much of Torre’s Yankee tenure.  read more »

In recent years, the New York Yankees have made a habit of starting slowly, only to confound critics by coming on strong and making the playoffs. The team started 11-19 in 2005 and 21-29 in 2007, only to rally to make the playoffs in both seasons, winning 95 and 94 games, respectively.

The early returns on the 2008 Yankees have been about as disappointing as those previous starts. But there is also reason to believe that the 2008 Yankees, who currently hold a 26-27 record, will be able to pull off a similar finish.  read more »

Speculation about Willie Randolph’s hold on his job as manager of the New York Mets seems to be reaching a breaking point. First, Randolph was forced to apologize for public comments that, among other things, asserted that the SNY network, which is owned by the Mets, slanted coverage against him. Then he and the Mets proceeded to lose six of seven games to the Atlanta Braves and Colorado Rockies.

When Randolph reached out to Mets ownership, his call was reportedly returned by General Manager Omar Minaya.  read more »

It is an acute irony that Darrell Rasner, who improved to 3-0 with seven shutout innings in New York’s 8-0 win over Baltimore Wednesday night, has the best ERA among the team’s starting staff.  read more »

While the Mets and Yankees played just two games this weekend, due to a Friday night rainout, there were a few illuminating aspects to both games for the heretofore struggling New York teams.

Wang’s Increased Use of Slider is Double-Edged Sword  read more »

It is a peculiar irony of this largely disappointing Mets season that one of the loudest sustained cheers any player at Shea received this year was on Sunday, May 11, for left-handed reliever Scott Schoeneweis, quite possibly 2007’s least popular Met.

Schoeneweis kept a sense of humor about the fan reaction. He claims never to hear plaudits, only criticism. Therefore, on Sunday, he heard only an absence of boos.  read more »

Morgan Ensberg, backup third and first baseman for the New York Yankees, knows that fans don’t flock to Yankee Stadium to see him.

“For the fans, I am so overshadowed, which makes sense,” Ensberg said, sitting at his locker with a copy of a Dan Brown novel in his left hand prior to Thursday’s game against Cleveland. “I’m not that big-name guy. They get to see me if somebody is hurt, or needs a rest.”  read more »

It’s open season on Mets starter Oliver Perez.

Billy Wagner ripped him for failing to compete, after Perez gave up five walks and seven runs in 1 2/3 innings on April 30. Earlier, Willie Randolph had criticized Perez for failing to go deep into games, even though Randolph twice removed Perez in the sixth inning when Perez had yet to allow a run. After his recent poor outing, the New York Post led with, “The Mets are running out of patience with the maddeningly consistent Oliver Perez.”

OK, so now what?  read more »

When the Yankees chose to open the 2008 season with Phil Hughes, 21, and Ian Kennedy, 23, in the starting rotation, some growing pains were expected. But while Kennedy had less of a track record to count on, there was ample reason to think Hughes, who got the call Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Detroit Tigers, would be ready to log at least league-average innings.

But Hughes hasn’t merely been mixing good starts with bad thus far—he’s been almost uniformly awful.  read more »

Heading into the 2008 season, the Atlanta Braves were the fashionable pick to win the National League East. Seven different ESPN writers had Atlanta on top, with one picking them to win the World Series.

That’s nothing new, particularly. Atlanta is expected to be successful, having won 14 consecutive division titles from 1991-2005, a feat that hasn’t even been approached in baseball history.

But unlike those championship teams, this iteration of the Braves suffers from a lack of overall talent and health, particularly on the pitching staff. Those limitations were on display during this weekend’s series with the Mets, as New York won two of three games.  read more »

With Pedro Martinez eyeing a late-April return, the Mets would appear set to move forward with their planned five-man rotation intact. But if New York wants to make the decision best for the team now, later in the season and even for 2009, they ought to consider a wacky idea: expanding to a six-man rotation as soon as Martinez or Orlando Hernandez is healthy enough to take the mound.

While the starting rotation has been a strength thus far, much of that success has come from the young Mike Pelfrey’s development, and from surprise success story Nelson Figueroa.  read more »

Jorge Posada’s mysterious shoulder injury has not yet healed to the point that he can resume his duties as everyday catcher for the New York Yankees.

"He won't throw today," New York manager Joe Girardi said prior to Sunday’s game against Baltimore. "We'll check again on Tuesday—see how he is and see if the arm is back to full strength."  read more »

Since 2003, the Yankees and Red Sox have been about as even as two teams can be. New York holds a 50-47 edge during the regular season heading into their matchup Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. New York has won the American League East three times to Boston’s one.

The Red Sox have elite hitters (David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez), the Yankees have elite hitters (Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano). The Red Sox have a top closer (Jonathan Papelbon), the Yankees have a top closer (Mariano Rivera). The Red Sox have promising young starters (Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester), the Yankees have promising young starters (Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy).  read more »

While Nelson Figueroa, scheduled to make his first start for the Mets on Friday night, may be unknown to most American fans, observers from Mexico to the Dominican Republic to Taiwan know the 33-year-old journeyman pitcher as an ace. So do those who have seen Figueroa dominate at nearly every minor league level for more than a decade.

At the major league level, it’s been a different story. He has pitched for seven clubs, and has succeeded in sticking with exactly none of them.  read more »

Jimmy Rollins may have killed the Mets, but he’s not owning up to it just yet.

“Last year is last year, and that team knows it,” Rollins said of the Mets following Philadelphia’s 5-2 win on Tuesday. The game was the first between the two clubs since New York squandered a seven-game lead over Philadelphia with 17 games to play at the end of the 2007 season—one of the greatest, most humiliating collapses in baseball history.  read more »

Don’t let the scoreline fool you: Mike Mussina is living on borrowed time.

His fastball during last night’s 6-1 win over Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium wasn’t particularly fast—MLB.com’s Gameday listed his initial 85 mile-per-hour fastball offering as a changeup—and his once-great curveball was merely good. This will not be good enough against the American League’s better lineups.

Mussina has built a solid Hall of Fame case on a pair of factors—dramatic difference in velocity between his good fastball and excellent curveball, along with above-average control. But Mussina’s maximum velocity is down considerably, eliminating one of his advantages. It also has led him to nibble off the corners, trying desperately to expand the plate—and eliminating his other major advantage.  read more »

Joe Girardi’s decision to use Jason Giambi as his regular first baseman was anything but a no-brainer. Certainly, Giambi’s recent history argued against it.

Giambi is hoping that a doctor’s diagnosis and his first-ever winter that included running will allow him to be an exception to the rule that first basemen become designated hitters, then slowly fade away. And Girardi is clearly betting Giambi will be the exception to the rule, playing him at first base in each of his first three games as Yankee manager.

Since signing a seven-year, $120 million contract with the New York Yankees prior to the 2002 season, Giambi has been an increasingly irregular presence in the lineup, and seeing him in the field has been an even greater rarity. In his first two seasons with the Yankees, Giambi played in 313 of a possible 324 games, 97 percent, including 177 at first base. But in the past four seasons, Giambi played just 441 of 648 games, and just 211 of those at first base. Last year, Giambi appeared in just 18 games at first base, and often was replaced in the late innings for defense.  read more »

Joe Girardi’s first game as manager of the New York Yankees Tuesday night was an easy one, at least compared to his other Opening Day debut, as a rookie catcher for the Chicago Cubs.

“I was a lot more nervous than I was today,” Girardi said during his pre-game news conference, about three hours before yesterday’s game against the Blue Jays. “I was very nervous. [Cubs veteran pitcher] Rick Sutcliffe said he’d take care of me, that he knew the hitters, and that [leadoff batter] Bob Dernier never swings at the first pitch.  read more »

Mets fans might be forgiven for having unsettling flashbacks when New York took a 6-2 lead in the fourth inning of their first game of the season. Even during the horrendous 5-12 finish last year, the Mets had plenty of early leads—seemingly losing their advantage in the middle and later frames.

But Opening Day, a 7-2 victory for New York against the Florida Marlins, was an encouraging demonstration of why this year might be different.  read more »

It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of the collapse suffered by the Mets at the end of the 2007 season. Seven games up with 17 to go, New York finished 5-12 to land one game behind the Phillies. It was a choke to top all chokes.

And yet, to judge by the lack of radical restructuring over the off-season, the team decided that while the embarrassment was huge, the actual personnel problems that needed fixing were small.  read more »

The dust has cleared on the New York Yankees’ spring, and the many unresolved questions at the beginning of the preseason about their pitching are … still unresolved.

The already fragile coalition that makes up the starting rotation may be splintering. And the veterans at the top of the bullpen have held their spots thus far, but not decisively, meaning that a group of unheralded relievers may end up needing to supplant Kyle Farnsworth and LaTroy Hawkins as the season progresses.  read more »

The New York Knicks’ decision to hire longtime Pacers’ executive Donnie Walsh to run basketball operations should fill Knicks fans with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

Fortunately, the team has nowhere to go but up, and the fan base’s wish list is likely smaller than it has ever been. No demands for a championship. Basketball that is merely watchable will be a cause for celebration.

Walsh brings an undeniable record of success with him—while Indiana has not won an NBA title, the Pacers have been to the playoffs all but two seasons with Walsh in the front office since 1989-90.  read more »

The Mets sent a pair of pitchers, Orlando Hernandez and Mike Pelfrey, to the mound on Sunday in Port St. Lucie in an attempt to settle on someone to take the fifth spot in the starting rotation. Neither provided much in the way of results—Hernandez gave up five earned runs in three innings, while Pelfrey was touched for eight earned runs in four and one-third in a 14-4 loss to the Cardinals.

But while both are, in many ways, learning how to pitch—Pelfrey due to inexperience, Hernandez with an altered delivery due to an ongoing bunion problem—only El Duque seemed to show any progress.  read more »

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.—It is said a criminal shouldn’t return to the scene of a crime. But Washington Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden was on hand Friday to see his team take on the Mets in Port St. Lucie just months after he lifted Lastings Milledge from New York for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.

And while spring training results are often skewed, the evidence so far is making the Mets look more and more like victims.

“He’s had a very good spring,” Bowden said as he made his way down the visitor’s clubhouse tunnel. “He’s impressed with small things, too—he hits the cutoff man, he runs the bases well. He’s been a good fit.”  read more »

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.—The Mets certainly hope that last night’s events serve as foreshadowing of the 2008 season.

In front of a sellout crowd at Tradition Field, Johan Santana quickly took command of the game against the Orioles in the first inning. A recent criticism leveled by former major leaguer Jack Morris is that Santana is relying too much on his change-up. And considering that a change-up is merely a slow fastball, such a pattern could be problematic.  read more »

Are you sitting at your desk, panic-stricken now that your boss handed you an NCAA bracket and urged you to join an office pool? Is your knowledge of college basketball less of a Crimson Tide and more like an Akron Zip?

Have no fear: a little knowledge is all you need to succeed at mastering March Madness. Following this outline does not guarantee victory—but it will allow you to love your bracket and defend it to others.

OVERALL STRATEGY  read more »

The Yankees may have been encouraged by Mike Mussina’s second outing of the spring over the weekend, when the 39-year-old veteran struck out 5 batters in just 2 2/3 innings. Then again, he also walked a pair and allowed a home run, failing to finish the third frame.

It’s too soon in the spring to draw conclusions from any pitching performance. But the Yankees are keeping a particularly wary eye on Mussina, who limped to the 2007 finish line.  read more »

While spring is supposed to allow fans of even the most untalented teams to dream of an October championship, the early returns of spring training have not been kind to the Mets. From a draw against the University of Michigan to a home run allowed by Johan Santana in his very first inning as a Met, there has been precious little in the way of good news to help New York move past 2007’s epic collapse.

And then there are the injuries in camp. The good news is that it’s still a long way until April, let alone October. The bad news … Well, here’s a rundown of the injuries, from least worrisome to most.  read more »

While the Mets solved the single largest question about the team’s roster with the acquisition of Johan Santana, there are still a number of issues at the margins of New York’s makeup that spring training will help to answer.

Ultimately, the number of at-bats or innings pitched in the spring is too limited, and the competition too uneven, to make any educated baseball decisions based upon the statistics compiled in Port St. Lucie. But here are a few indicators that will begin to answer the question of whether this team can be great, or merely good:  read more »

Any time a team returns a lineup intact that scored 968 runs, as the New York Yankees did in 2007, chances are that team will excel again the following year.

But there are a number of questions the Yankees will begin to answer this spring that will determine if this year’s team will win ugly during the regular season and fall short against the American League’s best pitching in October, or if the Yankees finally have the right mix of youth and experience.

Like personnel-deprived teams that played during World War II, New York’s starting pitching may be either too young or too old. The Yankees have one starter, Chien-Ming Wang, who is in his prime. He may not be a true ace, given his low strikeout rate, but he is likely to provide better-than-average production, and more importantly, innings.  read more »