Here it is, my 2007 season preview:

In the AL West:

1. Angels
2. Oakland
3. Rangers
4. Mariners

When it comes down to it, the Angels are the best team in the division due to a balance of hitting and pitching. Oakland lost too much from Zito going away to Kotsay not being in play for a while. The Mariners and the Rangers could flip flop a lot this year, but ultimately, the Rangers made more improvements. Overall, this is a weak Division.

In the AL Central:

1. Twins
2. White Sox
3. Tigers
4. Indians
5. Royals

Waiting for today made this division a lot easier to call. With Rogers out for half the year, at least, pitching on the Tigers will be a bit weaker, and in a year with what looks to be a tough AL Wild Card Race, they will fall short. (Even with Sheff belting homers out of the DH spot). I still believe the Twins will be the best in 2008. They still have enough tools to win it this year. A lot of that is due to their young pitching that is good and that they can win offensively on small ball just as easy as they can long ball.

In the AL East:

1. Red Sox
2. Yankees
3. Toronto
4. Orioles
5. Tampa Bay

In 2007, no team has a 1-5 rotation that can beat you every night. However, the Red Sox are the closest team to having that. Furthermore, they can pound the ball out of the park from many different batters. The Yankees can do that too, but their pitching is no where close to the Red Sox. Watch out for the Orioles this year upsetting the 3 spot. They could easily develop into a 500 club, however, there are a lot if’s on the team and easily could fall to the five spot if the rookies on Tampa Bay have an amazing season.

In the NL West:

1. Dodgers
2. Diamondbacks
3. Padres
4. Giants
5. Rockies

No surprise here that the Dodgers are on top. The Diamondbacks have three key players that all can have break out seasons this year. This means trouble for the rest of the division. Stephen Drew and Carlos Quetin will break out offensively this year as Chris Young becomes a pitching break out. Jorge Julio leaving will also help.

In the NL Central:

1. Pirates
2. Cubs
3. Cards
4. Astros
5. Brewers
6. Reds

So probably a lot of you stopped reading after the Pirates were listed first. They will have a break out year this year. Pitching in this division is horrible. The only team that is proven is the Brewers if Sheets is healthy, and their hitting is horrible. The Pirates could get a lot of wins out of Duke, Snell and Mahom. Its their hitting that is highly over looked. They have a lot of guys that can hit for power. Bay is the one that we all know. With LaRoche behind him, and Nady behind him, they all will get more pitches to hit. It is a possible 35-35-20 HR combination.

In the NL East:

1. Mets
2. Phillies
3. Braves
4. Marlins
5. Nationals

You probably already predicted that. The thing that can push the Braves in front of the Phillies will be the bullpen. Gordon is getting weak. Bob Wickman, Braves, is also weak. Mike Gonzales will take over the closing role, which can change the outlook of the Braves this season. Mets have an AL lineup tho, and an average rotation with above average bullpen

So the Playoffs:

ALDS:

Red Sox over Angels

Twins over Yankees

NLDS:

Mets over Pirates

Dodgers over Phillies

ALCS:

Sox over Yanks

NLCS:

Mets over Dodgers

WS:

Mets over Sox

Ok, that might be a bit biased

The Sporting News Baseball Preview Issue came out today. There are a few interesting Points. First off, the Mets are number one in the national League in the power polls, 5 overall and the Phillies are 6.

Then they go and say that the Mets will lose in the NLCS to the phillies.

I cant imagine anything that could hurt worse than that. I used to dislike the Braves the most in the NL, but now I feel after the Rollins comments, the Phillies have taken over that spot.

Now for Mets review:

Top Prospect to watch this year is Mike Pelfry.

No Surprise there.

Player on the decline this year due to age, Paul Lo Duca

Not earth shattering new

And on the funny side, they asked John Maine how much he spent on his Spring Training Wordrobe, and he stated three dollars

And now for Keith Law. Keith Law today was talking about the NL on ESPNEWS. He stated that problem that the Mets will have is last year they had an excellent strong rotation, and this year they dont

Im not sure where I was last year, but I do not remeber having an excellent rotation at all Last year. In April, Pedro and Glavine were great, and then Traschel was average, Zambrano was a disaster and then disappeared due to injury. Furthermore, the replacements of Soler, and Lima, were horrible , well Soler wasnt horrible, but Lima was nothing short of horrible...So I dont get his point.

So i read today on mlbtraderumors.com, that the Mets have a mild interest in Todd Williams, who is on the Orioles

NOOOOO. NO NO NO. NO WAY. ITS NOT WORTH IT. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

So I guess I should give an explanation. Hes a good reliever for his price, 715 K about, however he has a tendancy to perform badly a lot. My favorite story of him last year is that he was trying to intentionally walk a guy on the Marlins and gave up the go ahead run because his intentional walk pitch was hittable, and no one on the field was prepared to make the play.

Besides that, he has always had promise, but he is just too big of a project to conquer, maybe usefull in AAA.

Despite my intial reaction. I still like the guy as a person

Theres a nice pie chart in SI about teams that win and lead in Spring Training and where they end up in their diviion. (Since 94)

15.4% end up in first place

23.1% are a wildcard second

7.7% are a non wild card second

30.8 end up in third

19.2% end up in fourth

3.8% end up in fifth

Slightly encouraging

Well i finally get to see the Mets on TV tonight, as they play the Nationals and the game is televised here

Meaning I just saw Green and Alou save Perez and only allowing one run on what easily could have been three runs..ugh

Anyway, There was a crazy game that the Padres and Rangers took part in tonight. The end score was 24-7. Even if the game has no meaning, it just is a ridiculous score that is fun to look at.

So everyone has an opinion about Wright batting second, here is mine.

I dont like it. I know they are looking for someone to get on base a lot in the two spot, but i think it should happen, if at all, late in the season.

LoDuca will have a drop in onbase percentage this year, however, him batting sixth makes no sense. He does not strikeout a lot at all, Reyes has a lot of speed, the whole point is to get Reyes in scoring position for Beltran/Delgado. Wright in the two spot also decreses the power in the back. the 5-6-7 of Wright, Green, Alou has power potential. Also, Wright with Alou and Green inbetween, just has a lot of protection

And Julio Franco hits a homer...wow I love Spring

Has anyone noticed that the Mets tend to win more this spring at night? I dont know the actual numbers but I feel they do better for some reason at night.

I dont think Glavine's line, 6 innings and 3 earned runs, does him justice. In his six innings, he only had one bad inning where all the runs came from. He also had 7 strikeouts, which is unusually high for him, but thats a good thing.

Smith and Burgos  both had good outings of one-hit scorless innings. They both also had a strikeout.

Burgos has started to settle down. He goes in waves of good and bad. I wish there was a pattern.

If you want to know if the Mets have patience at the plate, they displayed last night. They had nine walks in the game.

Also, how about Jose Valetine, who had two more RBI, bringing his Spring Total to 11, which is pretty good.

As reported on mlbtraderumors.com and other places, there has been a lot of recent A-Rod news

The Good news is that none of it involves the Mets

The first piece deals with the Yankees. The Yanks announced that they would not renegotiate another contract at the end of this season. In other words, if Arod steps out, he's out.

Now there are two teams that apparently have intersest in Arod that are known so far. The first would be the Angels. The second would be the Giants.

Arod said a while ago that there were five to six teams that were involved.

For the Giants, having Arod would mean that they would have 2 possible home run champs.

In all seriousness though, it would be an interesting situation to have Arod in SanFran

Well....today was interesting. The Mets lost 11-3

Mike Pelfry had 4 ER over 5 innings

This was his first really bad start of the spring, Its not going to affect his roster position and he will be the number 5 guy mid to end April.

Sosa was just bad today, .2, not even a full inning, and he allowed 6 runs

For good pitching news, look at Heilman and Wagner who in a 8-9 formation each pitched one hit innings.

Hitting wise, Jose Valetine has continued to get into rythem today by having a 2 RBI game

He is still going to be important this year, lets just hope in October he gets on a hot streak

Chad Bradford threw a scoreless inning for the Orioles today, reducing his ERA by a point of two so now it is below 11.

In enemy news, Utley hit two homers today

This kid is scary, and unlike Howard, pitchers will not be able to get around him because he can slap the ball to all areas of the field.

So both games were losses today, but both were losses by one run.

Lets look at the Florida Game first:

John Maine showed he was human today going 5.2 innings and giving up 4 ER. However, that puts his Spring ERA at 3.07, showing that he is still having a very good spring

The question now is, can this good spring translate into a good season

Speed wise, well it was there. Milledge stole 2, Johnson and Hernandez each stole one

Thats how you win ball games

Milledge also had a pretty good day hitting wise, going 2-4, with a double and RBI. Back up catcher Castro also had an RBI

For the rest, check the box score.

Now for the Mets and Orioles, which was a 2-1 loss.

Hitting wise, besides Pedro Feliciano getting a hit, not much to report.

So by now you know that Park had a good day, but was moved to the bullpenn. Other notables were Billy Wagner who pitched a 1 hit inning. Schoweis who pitched 1 hit ball, Burgos who pitched a perfect inning, and Smith who had a 1 hit inning with 2 strikeouts

Smith is gonna be nasty this year, and I cant wait.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that Wright has 5 errors this spring...I dont think anything of it, but still, that seems a little over the top.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how our old friend Cliff Floyd is doing this Spring. So far, in 22 AB, he is hitting .318 with a homer and 5 RBI's

Pretty good cliff, pretty good

I was playing MVP Baseball 2005 today, and I was the Norfolk Tides. I was batting with Craig Brazell and a thought went through my head...where is he?

So I went to google, because all of the world's answers are on that site. It turns out that he is on the roster of the Jacksonville Suns, which is a Double A affilite of the Dodgers

Havnt heard his name in a long time

In a close game, 2-1, the Mets Bench (with a few starters) beat the Cards Bench (also with a few starters).

Both RBI's for the Mets came from Newhand and Easily aka the 2007 Mets Pinch Hitting Crew, which is a good thing i suppose.

In further hope of a hitting second baseman, Gotay had a double. Alomar had a base hit as long with Beltran. Alomar also stole a base

Now the real story of the day is the pitching. The Mets pitching today had 0 ER, the one run comming off of an error from Newhan. El Duque actually went 6 scoreless innings, with 3 hits, 3 walks, and 5 strikeouts.

Walks are a bit of a problem, but when you pitch like he does, and ur bitches touch around 40 mph, you just have to look at the ERA and the score...cause walks will happen.

Adkins continues to make the bullpen situation interesting as he, Feliciano, and Heilman all had 1 one scoreless inning.

Now for a former Met. Remeber Roger Cedeno?...Yes, I am sorry to bring that back up. Well, if you didnt know, he was trying to get a spot in the outfield for the Orioles this year. He was released today.

Just thought you might want to know.

So this game was not so desirable for the Mets.

There is one thing, besides Billy Wagner, that I did not like about this game. When you look at the box score, the Mets had nine hits in this game. They had one run. That is a problem.

Most teams always go through the problem of clutch hitting and hitting with runners on the basepaths, especially when they are in scoring position. For the Mets, its beyond a problem, it can be disasterous in the season because the team is so dependent on its offense. Amazingly, the Mets did not hit into any double plays.

Yes Billy Wagner was also a mess today, you can look at his box if you want. I didnt see the game, nor did I hear the game, so I dont know if he was pitching in a game situation or just working on a pitch, I honestly cant make a judgement.

Joe Smith had anothet great inning, no hits and two strikeouts.

You can put him on the 25-man roster now

Yesterday, on ESPN, Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus was being interviewed.

He talked about the braves for a bit, and had some interesting insight about the Mets, relating them to the 2002 Angels.

Please go to

http://www.dailybaseball.blogspot.com to read the overview of what he was talking about.

This game was the second in a row of good, well-rounded, well-played baseball. The Mets won last night 6-2.

For this game, we are going to start with the bad in this game. My only complaint is this game was the performance of Burgos. I mean, in all honesty, a relief pitcher giving up 1 run in an inning, everyone once in a while, is ok. However, Burgos allowing one run with last night, is not good because he is not shutting down batters and its going to ultimatly leave him off the 25 roster.

Now for the good, and there is a LOT of good from this game.

Oliver Perez, im going to write about him in a later post because you already know by now his pitching last night (which was good).

In other pitching news, Sosa had a strong 1-hit, no run inning.

Hitting wise. Jose Reyes was more than a spark for the offense, he was a forrest fire. He was 3-3, more importatnly, he had 3 stolen bases. More important than that, 2 of them were successive, and then he scored on a wild pitch, he practically maunfactured a run (a la jackie robinson).

Overall, there were 11 hits in this game. One of the important hits was from Castro. Not just because it was a homerun, but it shows that the depth in the catching postition is more than defense, but also can put some pop in the line up.

In other positive news, Delgado had an rbi and Beltran also had 2 rbi.

Now on to Oliver Perez. I truely believe the person u can compare Perez too is Orosco. He is the starting pitcher form of Orosco. The reason I say that is because Orosco had two sides. He was either absolutly amazing, and unstoppable, or he was just throwin beachballs. Perez is either a phenom or a disaster.

When Chad Bradfor left, well i had mixed feelings right away. I was very upset that he left the Mets. I was happy that at least he went to the Orioles, and not to a team like the Braves.

However i thoguht he would always be only good with a person like Feliciano, who compliments his speciality (the Orioles really dont have somebody like that)

I  did feel better when I heard about Smith. Anyway, I am getting offtrack the real point of this article is too talk about Chad Bradford and his Spring. Its been bad. No kidding. He started off good, but latly, he has just been off the mark.

6.1 innings so far, 8 earn runs....Not good.

I dont feel thats a trend though. He just has not found his grove yet this spring and I hope and know he will find it before the season starts.

Im hoping to see him at Oriole Fanfest before the season starts

So you might wonder why it says game 1. Well i feel thats what today really is, game 1. After that day off in spring, its time to finalize that roster and get into season mode. Like Willie said, its time to tighten up. Its time to start playing for real, in game settings and have starts make long starts. Its time for the bullpen to act like one. And its time to get hits when it matters, not just scattered throughtout the game

That being said, the Mets, get this, ACTUALLY DID THAT TONIGHT. Seriously, the played for real and it was great. They beat the Orioles (good day tommorow coming) 6-1.

Lets start tonight's game review with pitching. Pelfry, who with a win could lock up a rotation spot, had some good points and some bad points tongiht. The good points is that he went 5 innings, which is huge, allowed one run, and a walk. The bad news is he allowed 7 hits, but he was able to get his way out of those hits without damage, which is good. His spring ERA is now 1.29

In a strange way, Im happy to see him have all those hits. Generally when u allow 7 hits, u have more than one walk and way more than one run allowed. This shows that he can work under pressure, which is good. I say this puts him in the rotation.

After that, Adkins, Felicino, Smith, and Schowneis, went 4 innings with no hits. Feliciono stuck out the side. As Smith had a strkout like Schownwies. There were also no walks in these four innings.

This is huge cause all of these guys, besides adkins, will be in the Mets bullpen come April 1st. Smith is the most important cause now he is racing agianst Burgos and probably moving past him.

So now for the bats:

The Duke had a big night tonight going 2-3 with 2 doubles, thank god, and he scored a run...so now he is back

Reyes had a triple...no surprise. Jose Valetine had a triple....JOSE VALETINE! thats just nuts.

And that centerfielder, well he had his 3 rd homerun of the spring.

Green, Valtine, Beltran, and Hernandez all had RBI, whichi is good.

In my opinion, more importat was when the Mets were winnig by a score of 4-1, they were outhit 6-7, this showed they were getting clutch hits. 3 of their 6 runs were scored with 2 outs. This is important because thats how the mets won games last year

The story of Jorge Julio has been one that I have been following before the Mets, because before he was on the Mets, he was on the Orioles. When he was with the Orioles, he was bad...really bad.

So we know the story. The trade was Jorge Julio for Kris Benson. The Mets wanted a little more, so John Maine was the throw-away mid prospect in the trade.

And then the story evolved. Jorge Julio blew the second game of the season for the Mets. The rotation went south. They brought up Maine, and he ended up pitching in the postseason.

However, well before teh trade deadline, the Mets decided they needed more pitching for the rotation, so Jorge Julio went to Arizona for El Duque.

Well there are a few teams that are looking at Julio now. The Cardinals, the Giants, and the Marlins. The cardinals are actually having talks with the Dbacks about them.

Now what about the second met. Well once upon a time there was a highly held pitching prospect Y. Petit. In fact he was on the cover of the first issue of Gotham Baseball as the future of the Mets rotation.

I remeber being excited about this guy.

The Mets then sent him and Mike Jacobs to the Marlins for a hitter called Carlos Delgado. So, Petit has been on the Marlins now since that trade.

Why these two stories? Because there is a traderumor from mlbtraderumors.com that the Marlins are offering Petit for Julio. For the cards, no player named yet for Julio.

and yes I am back, i have an extra 100 MB of memory for the month, but im going to have to upgrade soon.

and please participate in the community projection in my previous post

thanks to all

The season is just about two weeks away. 2007 will bring new stats and new and renewed story lines. One of my favorite from last year was Carlos Beltran. In 2005 he hit a miserable (compared to other years) 16 homeruns.Then, as we all know, in 2006 he exploded with 41 homeruns. So how will he do in 07?

Street and Smith says: .288 AVG, 35 HR, 104 RBI, 18 SB

ESPN (Magazine) says: 557 AB, .285 AVG, 36 HR, 109 RBI, 22 SB

In a few days, I will post my projection with a community projection. If you want a community projection, just post ur projection here and I'll make the community one

Somethings to consider for your projection:

Last year he hit better on the road, meaning is AVG should surge (ESPN magazine), because "basic logic" would say that would lead to an increase of his home AVG from last year.,

Stolen base wise, he says he wants to run more

Willie wants him to run more

Ricky thinks that Beltran is too cautious on the basepath;s

First off, i know i try to recap every game, and ive been a mixture of out this weekend and sick, so hopefully if i feel better tommorow, i can recap, and man , as u already know, it does not look good.

Before i get into my opinion about Burgos right now, i have a small piece of Reyes news. I just looked at the most recent issue of Becket, and for the first time since i can rember, the Reyes Bowman Chrome Rookie card cracked the top 20 hot list for the month...just thought to share that

Its obvious that burgos has control issues. Over the weekend he has had 7 earned runs. I am concerned about this. He seemed to be having a great spring until the last week, where everything has gone down hill. On the flip side, Joe Smith has been absolutly amazing (please note that i am not referring to his most recent game where he gave up three runs, his worst outing of the spring by far)

Despite the fact that Joe Smith has been unbeilvably good compared to Burgos in the past week, i still feel that Burgos should at least start the season in the pen. He has playing experience in the majors which Smith does not. Also, Smith i feel needs a little more time to develop the abilty to take the work load and i feel in the minors, they can better regulate the time he gets.

I am not against sending Burgos to the minors. He was rushed through the Royals system and maybe some time at AAA can straighten him out...I dont feel that it would have a big effect

Sorry about the major delay in this post, wasnt feeling too good. Anyway, if spring training games could be amazing and get the blood flowing, this was it. The starting pitching was drool worthy, the long ball was out there, as that race for 25 just keeps getting more and more interesting.

So lets start with pitching. Oliver Perez was Oliver Perez. Not 2006 Oliver Perez, he was 2004 Oliver Perez. He pitched 5 innings. Allowed only 3 hits, did not allow any runs, and had 9 strikouts. 9 STRIKEOUTS...thats awesome. No walks either

Man, that is a dream come true.

The game went to Feliciano and Smith next. Felicano had a perfect inning with a strikeout. Smith threw a no-hit inning, one walk, and two strikouts.

I like Smith, I like Burgos, but i think that only one will make the team at first, and that will probably be Burgos because of expierence.

Showenies was next with 1 inning, 1 hit, 2 walks, and 2 strikouts.

Who needs Bradford and Oliver and Hernandez when you have Burgos, Smith, Showenwies and others

Wagner had a rough inning, giving up a run.

So it was time to see heart attack Wagner.

Now for the bats:

The Mets had a total of 9 hits with Reyes, Castro, Beltran, Green, LoDuca, Valetin, Milledge and Newhan all getting hits.

Shawn Green and Castro both launched long balls, as Milledge had a stolen base

Green will start. Newhan will be on the 25, that leaves milledge out most likely.

Alou and Delgado are both injury prone. If Alou goes down, i see Milledge or Johnson taking his place, if Delgado goes down, i see Green and Franco splitting time at first and either Milledge or Johnson  joining the team

Soler reportingly has signed with the pirates, more on that later

Well, let your hearts bleed for the birds. The orioles have to forget about former Met, Kris Benson, pitching this year. He was rehabbing for a chance to come back this year and avoid surgury but, his rehab hit a snag and now he has to have surgury.

Why be sad for the birds? Well their replacement is Steve Trachsel...enough said. Being an Oriole fan myself, this is something that I am not looking foward to.

I'd rather the Orioles pick up Soler now and hope for some Mazzone magic.

For the other topics, check out:

http://www.dailybaseball.blogspot.com

Lets look back at what the Bergen Record predicted would happen in the 06. Also head over to Daily Baseball for new news

4 of 5 say Yanks in first, other said blue jays

4 of 5 say Braves in first, other says mets

3 of the 4 that didn’t say Mets in first, say wildcard

One actually said Mets over Dodgers in the NLDS, another say Mets over Giants, other 2 say Mets lose to Cards in the NLDS

Those who moved the Mets on, have them losing to the Cards in the NLCS

None predict Cards as a winner for the whole thing

Closest any say to 97 wins for the Mets is 94

One predicts Carlos Beltran as NL surprise player