According to Adam Rubin, the Mets have signed career minor-leaguer Mike Hessman to a minor-league deal.
He’s 31-years-old, hit .217 / .324 / .442 with 23 home runs and 77 RBI last year with the Detroit Tiger’s Triple-A team. Hessman last played in the majors in 2008 with the Tigers, hitting .296 / .387 / .889 in 12 games with the Tigers.
Hessman has played every position at the minor league level, with the majority of his time coming at third base.
The Mets might be able to swing this one, but they might have to pay a bit more. Everyone knows the Mets desperately need rotation help, so all free agents have the upper hand.
This also could just be a ploy by Wolf’s agent to get Milwaukee to pony up a few million more or possibly an extra year.
John Maine for Corey Hart: Two things come into play here…
1. Rick Peterson is the pitching coach in Milwaukee. John Maine and Peterson back together could rekindle some magic.
If I was another team, I’d have to be seriously concerned about Maine’s health, pitching guru or not. I just don’t think he has the build to be a starter anymore.
2. Corey Hart in LF, Jeff Francoeur in RF. Um, yikes.
Buried at the bottom of a Winter Meetings article, is a good tidbit that should brighten up some Mets fans mornings.
David Wright and Daniel Murphy each spent a week living at hitting coach Howard Johnson’s house and training at the Mets facility in Port St. Lucie. Jeff Francoeur was supposed to join them, but he isn’t fully healed from his surgery yet, according to Adam Rubin.
Wright is focusing on increasing his power stroke for next year, according to the article.
I like these kind of stories. Just reaffirms the fact that you know these guys want to be at their best.
Interesting. Glad the Mets are spreading their interest around, even if nothing pans out. I hate when they lock in on targets and put their blinders on.
And probably every other decent free agent’s agent that is in Indianapolis this week.
Best quote…
"I thought he was going to be real good. I thought he would be an All-Star, an impact player at the MLB level. And that's what he became," said Ken Oberkfell, who first worked with Wright in 2003 as manager of Class A Advanced St. Lucie. "He just stood out, he was a very good player."
With Jason Bay and Matt Holliday on the free-agent market and fairly free to set their own demands, the Mets may look to trade for a player to fill their hole in leftfield.
Josh Willingham from the Nationals and Juan Rivera from the Angels are two players they have interest in, according to Joel Sherman.
River has two years left on his contract, worth a combined $9.5 million. Willingham is still under control by the Nationals, and earned $2.95 million last season. He is a free agent following the 2011 season.
I think the Mets should take a look at both of these players, though I prefer dipping into the free-agent class first. Both would be decent additions to the club.
I like Rivera.
1. How many times do Francisco Rodriguez and Brian Bruney argue/fight/whine in 2010?
2. Are only NL East teams making moves? That’s what it seems like so far.
Updated – 12:39 p.m.: 610 AM is talking about socks. Steve Popper cites two Mets sources as saying it’s false. David Lennon says, “not in 3-way, not in any way.” This one’s dead. Let’s move on.
Updated – 12:19 p.m.: Tim Haines, on PhillyBurbs.com, now attributes the report to WIP-AM 610, a Philly radio station. But nothing is on WIP-AM’s Web page. I’m tuning in to the station to see what’s up.
Updated – 12:12 p.m.: Sweeny Murti on WFAN spoke to a Mets official who vehemetly denied the rumor.
Congrats, PhillyBurbs. You just had you 15 minutes of fame.
Original Post: Here’s a short, quick blurb from PhillyBurbs.com (a conglomeration of a few Philly-area papers) that claims the Rays have traded Pat Burrell to the Cubs who then traded him to the Mets (via Retire31).
Former Phillies outfielder Pat Burrell has reportedly been swapped twice this morning, eventually landing with Phils division rival the New York Mets.
The Tampa Bay Rays traded the slugging left fielder to the Chicago Cubs then the Cubs dealt Burrell to the Mets. Names of other players involved in the deals were not immediately available.
Aside from the validity of the report, if the Mets end up with Burrell and consider him their guy for leftfield, something is seriously, seriously wrong.
But let’s be real about this. There is no story here. Not even an anonymous source. Come on, really? Even the best out there can make up a source.
This is the only story on this, anywhere and coming from a fairly unknown source. Take with a big grain of salt. Like, Citi Field big.
Welcome the the Winter Meetings.
According to a blurb in the Daily News today, the Mets have looked into the possibility of lowering a portion of the walls in Citi Field (via The Mets Police).
Daniel Murphy had the most homers of anybody in a Mets uniform with 12 last season. That actually has prompted team brass to revisit the issue of Citi Field's dimensions - or at least the wall heights. Mets officials are considering removing the second level of padding in center field to make the wall eight feet in the area Carlos Beltran patrols. They had maintained late in the season that the stadium would remain identical in 2010.
Taking a look back at some of my photos from Citi Field last year, I happened upon this photo…
It seems the Mets would have to seriously adjust the “house” for the apple, or have it more than partially exposed as it sits in waiting, which would be a little odd.
I truly believe Citi Field is getting a bad wrap due to a sub-par Mets team in 2009. Too many people believe that the poor team performance by the team last season reflects the face that Citi Field is where home runs go to die, which is simply not true.
As I’ve stated before, Citi Field surrendered the 12th most home runs per game of all stadiums last season, to the tune of 1.057/game.
Added from the comments, by dances_w_vowels:
The actual number of HRs given up by Citi Field is 130, 6th from the bottom in MLB, partially because of the Mets' ineptitude, partially because the park IS huge. It also gave up 42 triples, tied for 4th in the ML. To that, the Park Factor in your link shows that 20% more triples were hit in games played at Citi over games the Mets played on the road. That, more than the HR stat, shows the park plays really big.
Park factors on ESPN have the park listen at .943. (Anything below 1.000 favors the pitcher.)
In that case, why aren’t pitchers lining up to pitch half their games in Citi Field?
