Today the Mets will open up their regular season away against the Florida Marlins. The Marlins are sending one of their new pitchers, Mark Hendrickson, to the mound. Hendrickson, with a career ERA at 5.01 does have one thing that the Mets tend to struggle against, which is that he is a left handed pitcher. Will that curse continue? We will have to see after today's game. Here are some Mark stats:
Vs Mets: 2 G, 3 IP, 3.00 ERA
@ FLA: 3 G, 16.2 IP, 4.86 ERA
Daytime: 60 G, 275.1 IP, 5.26 ERA
Another interesting note is that career, as a starter, his ERA is 5.15 and as a reliever it is 3.55.
In 16 IP this Spring, he posted a 1.69 ERA while walking 2 and striking out 9.


In other words, we cant just look at his career ERA and assume he is a pushover because he is on a streak right now and he is a left handed pitcher, which the Mets have trouble hitting. That being said, it is a telling story about the Marlins right now that they have Hendrickson as their opening day pitcher.

I hope you all caught the Braves/Nats game last night. It is always fun to watch a team show off their new park, and beyond the fanfare, it was actually a good game. Nats were ahead, then the Braves tied it (with no help from Paulie who allowed the ball to get away from him) and with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth, in a tied ballgame, Zimmerman hit a shot for the walk off.
(I was also thinking, since Chipper hit the first homer in Nationals Park, does he name his next kid after the ball park?)

Before Spring Training Games started, I listed what I thought the final standings ion 2008 would be. That original list can be found here.
For the AL East, I have not changed my predictions:
    Boston
    New York
    Tampa Bay 
    Toronto
    Baltimore
For the AL Central, I used to have Minnesota in third, now I'm thinking more like the White Sox in third:
    Detroit
    Cleveland
    Chicago
    Minnesota
    Kansas City
The AL West also has not changed, but with the recent injuries to the Angels pitching staff, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Mariners take an early lead and then lose it or see the Mariners right behind the Angels all year long.
    Los Anglos
    Seattle
    Oakland
    Texas
No need to change the NL West either
    Arizona
    San Diego
    Colorado
    Los Anglos
    San Francisco
Second and Third place for the NL Central took me a while to decide. I decided to stick with my original prediction of the Brew Crew coming in second and the Astros in third but this is another situation where it will be close all year. Down the stretch, I feel the Reds will do better than the Cards, so I flopped them from the original list.
    Chicago
    Milwaukee
    Houston
    Cincinnati
    St. Louis
    Pittsburgh
The main division, the one that really matters, the NL East:
    METS
    Atlanta
    Philly
    Washington
    Florida
Besides the fact that I am really biased towards the Mets, they have the tools to be on top. The Braves rotation this year makes them scary, and good pitching beats good hitting, thus they are above Philly. Washington will not be in the cellar this year.

Other Predictions:
    The Tigers got a shot at 1000 Runs
    The Mets (pitching staff) will lead the league in strikeouts this year. Their pitching staff has been developing and with the addition of Santana and Maine getting older, the strikeouts will keep on coming this year.

I am a big fan of Season previews even though they generally don't say anything that has already been said or that they do say things that just angers me. Anyway first up is the Washington Post. Projected NL 2008 Standings:
1 Mets
2 Phillies
3 Braves
4 Nationals
5 Florida
Its really hard to break down what they said about the Mets without copying over the entire entry they wrote, so here it is, the Washington's Post (March 26) opinion about the Mets:
    "The Mets play in a rather extreme pitcher's park (last year, Shea Stadium ranked fourth among MLB parks that favored pitchers), yet somehow have managed to be torpedoed by their lack of pitching over the past few seasons.
    But somebody in Queens finally got wise to the problem, as the Amazin's went out and landed the best pitcher on the planet, in Santana If they had this guy seven months ago, there's no way they would have choked away the division title to the Phillies.
    Something still gnaws at us about the Mets, and we don't make this pick with any strong conviction. They are still old and creaky (Alou and Martinez, in particular, are a hamztring and a shoulder away from irrelevance), and they still appear to lack the same choose-your-body-part (guts, heart, etc) attribute that did them in last September.
    But if Santana goes 20-5 witha 2.50 ERA, as seems possible in this league, the Mets will be tough to stop. "
My initial reaction when reading this was that Post was complementing the Mets while insulting them at the same time, but thats to be expected because they are not an impartial voice for baseball (they have to support the Nats) but when it comes down to it, they are right. The Mets are a pitching team now, and it will come down to pitching to win it. Good pitching beats good hitting. I love how everyone says though that the collapse was based around pitching. It is not that simple, if you want to simplify it, then the distinction has to be made that it was centered around bullpen pitching, because down the stretch the starting pitching did a good job.


The second baseball preview for today is from Baseball Digest. Their projections:
1. Phillies
2. Braves
3. Mets
4. Nationals
5. Marlins
Their basic points for the third place selection is a carry over of the collapse and that for most of the year, the Mets were a .500 team riding out a very strong April and mostly strong May. Under the weaknesses section, they say that Starting pitching cannot be considered a weakness but still the back of the rotation is a weakness. I feel that they got the "need to improve" section exactly right. They talked about how the Mets struggled last year playing teams in the division and until they can dominate in the division like they did in 2006, then they cannot win it all in 2008.

No matter what happened in todays game, the point of today was the showdown for the fifth rotation spot. The combatants: El Duque vs the Big Pelf.
In the first corner, pitching 5 innings El Duque:
5.0 IP, 4 H, ER, BB, 2K, 6.75 ERA
In the second corner, going in 3.2 IP, Pelfrey:
3.2 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 2 K
So based on today, El Duque won out the fifth rotation spot. Pelfrey had such a strong start to spring training, its a real shame that over the last two weeks he has been having mini meltdowns. In this game, he went 3.2 IP without giving up a run. Then he gave up 4 straight. He cannot stop the bleeding, and until he can, he cannot pitch in the rotation.
Reyes 2-3, 2R, 2B, 2 SB (6)
Wright 1-2, RBI, 2BB
Church 0-4, SB
Anderson knocked in his 4th RBI in the last two days. Reyes numbers were the offense story of the day. Its good to see him take 2 bases in the same game, because thats what we hope to see all season long.

The Mets picked up Parnel in the 2005 Draft in the 9th round, 269 overall. He played 3 seasons for Charleston Southern University before signing with the Mets. Looking at his stats in college, he did not look like a good pitcher. His ERA went from 4.76 to 6.82 to 8.86. In that same season where he had a 8.86 ERA, he posted an amazing 1.73 ERA for the Mets in Brooklyn in 15 G over 73 innings pitched.
Overall in his Minor League Carear, he has posted a 15-22 record, 3.77 ERA, 322.1 IP, 300 K, and a 8.39 K/9.
2007: A Advanced: 12 G, 3.25 ERA, 10.08 K/9
          AA: 17 G, 4.77 ERA, 7.51 K/9
          Combined States, 4.19 ERA, 2.3 K/BB
In Baseball 2008 by Sporting News, they rank Parnel as the 9th best prospect in the system, but that was before the Santana trade, with the trade, he is ranked #6. They like his power sinker and his tight slider.
So far in two games this Spring, he has pitched 7 innings, and allowed 3 H, 2 BB and 7 K's, no runs. So besides the great ERA, he is striking out 3.5 batters for every walk.

Parnel will only be 23 this year, and his stats have him on a track to make a difference and hopefully the majors one day.

With these two games, pitchers started to get their final tuneups in before the season and Randolph started some strategy. Not wanting to have Santana face the Braves and Pedro the Marlins, he moved their games away from the MLB. I don't know if Santana did a minor league game, a sim game, or a throwing session, but I do know that Pedro did 6 shutout innings in a minor league game meaning that over 14 innings pitched in Spring Training he has let in 2 runs. Here are the notes from Tuesday's game:
Beltran 1-2, 2 R, BB, 2B
Casanova 1-3, R, RBI, HR(2)
Pagan (5), Wright (2), Beltran (1) all stole bases.
Niese 4.2 IP, 2H, 2 ER, 6 BB, K
In this game, where the Mets beat the Braves 5-4 (and it always feels good to beat the Braves), Casanova took over the lead for Mets homers this Spring by 2. (On the other side, it feels like the Mets are hitting a lot of doubles). It was good to see Beltran steal a base (good sign for health) and Pagan get his 5th, showing that he can play Randolph's running game.

Yesterday the Mets lost to the Marlins by the score of 7-5. One note that you wont see in the box highlights below, is an amazing catch by Beltran where he dove with the ball going over his shoulder basically, once again, another sign of health.
Reyes 1-3, RBI, BB, 2B
Castillo 0-2, R, 3 BB
Wright 1-4, R, 2 RBI, BB
Delgado 2-5, 2 RBI
Molina 2-3, R, .381 BA
Smith 1.0 2H, 3 ER, 6.00 ERA
Heilman 1.0, BB, 0.00 ERA
In this game, Reyes hit his 5th double of the Spring and got his 9th RBI, Wright got his 7th and 8th RBI's in this game. The story of this game was the bullpen that gave up all 7 runs to the Marlins, and in my mind Smith, who is not making this decision easy for Randolph because his spot in the bullpen is his spot to lose. At least Heilman was effective, as he has been all spring.

Since there have been five games since the last time I updated game reviews, I decided to break it down, partially because Saturday and Sunday's games were depressing. Saturday, the game ended early due to rain in Winterhaven I believe, where the Indians play.
Beltran 1-3, R, RBI, HR
Easley 2-3
Perez 5.0, 7H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 4 HR
Smith 1.0, 2H
Figueroa 1.0, BB, 3.14 ERA
Positive notes about Perez's performance is that he did strike out 6 or three batters for every one that he walked. Bad news about his day is that he gave up a lot of homers. It was a shaky day for him and he couldn't seem to get his pitching back on track. Figueroa had a nice outing though and Beltran hit a no doubt homer for his first of the Spring. Really, when it left his bat, there was no doubt, it flew out of the park.

Sunday was an ugly, ugly, ugly game for the Mets. Their pitching has been really strong in Spring, but El Duque and Pelfrey struggled.
Delgado 1-1, R, 2B
Reyes 2-3, R, RBI, 2B
El Duque 3.0, 5 ER, 2 BB, K, HR
Pelfrey 4.1, 8 ER, BB, K, HR
The final score in the game was Cards 14, Mets 4. The problem with Pelfrey seems to be beyond him getting outs after one time thru the rotation, its developing into a game control problem. As soon as the game gets a little out of hand, he cannot stop the damage, it just piles up on itself. The ninth inning of that game was a good example where 6 of his runs came in. He got only one out that inning.

Monday was the farthest thing from that game. The Mets beat the Orioles 1-0 on an amazing outing from John Maine. In total, there were 5 hits in the game, 3 coming from the Mets.
Castillo 2-3, 2B, RBI
Maine 6.0, H, BB, 7K, 1.78 ERA
Smith 1.2, BB, 2 K
Maine was lights out putting up 7 Strikeouts. I thought it was also a very good sign that Smith didn't give up any runs over 1.2 innings, Smith is not a person that I usually associate more than 1 inning from the bullpen with. I usually think of him as a specialist.

Complete Box Scores
Game 25
Game 26
Game 27

I just had a chance to watch the bottom of the ninth to the end of the game on an ESPN re-telecast this afternoon and have some further thoughts on the topic of opening day.
First, I am not sure if I saw this right, and tried to look at still photos and had some trouble, but is Oakland wearing Pepsi Logos on their arms? If they are, is the EMC on the arms of the Red Sox also an advertisement? If those are true, and someone who knows please contact me, but thats really wrong. Its like that one time when they were going to advertise one of the Spiderman movies on the edges of the bases. There is so much advertising on baseball, please MLB, leave it off of the uniforms in future opening day series. (That being said, I never want to see a:
Geico Auto Insurance World Series
Sprite Presents the World Series
(I think you get the point)

I am glad though to see the spirit in the ballpark and that it is full. The Tokyo Dome seems deceptively full.


Update:
Saw it again, has to be Pepsi
Also, when they are throwing in the underground bullpen, sounds like there are no catchers, the ball sounds like its slamming against something harder than a glove.

Part of this post I have been saving since the Padres and the Dodgers went to China to play their two game set. I watched part of both of those games, and watched part of a Red Sox game vs a Japanese team earlier this Spring. It was really something to see. The China games were entertaining really because of the announcers. On mlbtv, we got the Padres booth, but the problem is that they didn't send the Padres booth to China, so they were announcing off of a single monitor that was being control by an international production team. This production team did not have a lot of experience with baseball so they didn't know what to get in a camera shot. For example, on close plays and steals, the umpire was not in the shots so the announcers had to tell by the look on the faces of the other players in the field if the call was safe or out.
The exhibition games in Japan showed another side of baseball because of how into the game the fans over there are. If you have time, I highly suggest heading over to the part of Mlb.com with the coverage of the opening series and looking at the photos from the past few games there.

Now, as for today, the only criticism I have is opening the MLB season more than a half a week earlier in another country, because as of right now, it does not feel that that baseball has really started (I know this is fairer though for those teams involved to get back adjusted to USA time).
The game itself today seemed exciting, I couldn't tell you myself because I was not awake for it, but from the box it seemed exciting. The game went into extra innings where Boston beat Oakland. (Huston Street blew the game as for some reason Oakland had him pitch for two innings, I feel that if this game was in America, that decision might have been different because of more depth of pitchers). At least the game was tied in the ninth in thrilling fashion as Boston (Brandon Moss) hit a homer to tie it and then in the Tenth Manny put them ahead to win it on a double. The end score was 6-5 Boston.
After the next game, Boston comes back to the states for an exhibition series with the Dodgers at the old Dodger Stadium.

After searching milb.com by randomly scrolling down their list of Minor League teams, and looking at their April promotions, I have made a list of some of the promotions that are eye-catching this month.
On April 5th, the Stockton Ports will be holding Alumni Night, where they will celebrate the history of baseball in Stockton by having past players come and the team will be wearing throwback jerseys. They will also be giving out bronze statues of Ernie Broglio to the first 1000 fans that day.
On April 15th, the Frederick Keys will be holding their first guaranteed win night this season. This is a really cool promotion, if the Keys do not win, then all of the fans get a coupon for free admission to another game Monday-Thursday later in the season. I really like this promotion, hopefully I can catch one of them this year.
April 21, our own Binghamton Mets will be celebrating baldness when they hold Bald is Beautiful Night.
The next day, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans will be holding an Earth-day / Going Green day, where everything will be green. I am not sure from their description whether they mean green as in energy efficient, or green as in the color green, when I find out I will post it here, but I have a good feeling that they will be doing both types of green.
The Pelicans will also have a day when they celebrate all the different types of Motorboats when they have Motorboat Night on April 24.

Yesterday, Bud Selig announced the field and the venues for the 2009 Baseball Classic. The field wasn't a mystery. It was known a while ago that the field of 16 would not be changing this year, but next time in 2012 there could be an expanded field featuring teams like Israel for example. Anyway, there was a lot of debate about where the venues would be this year, and I feel they did a good job spreading them out, even though I would have liked to see one on the East Coast of the United States.
Pool A will be playing in Tokyo and the teams are China, Chinese Taipei, Japan and Korea.
Pool B will be playing in Mexico City and the teams are Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and South Africa
Pool C will be playing in Toronto and the teams are Canada, Italy, United States, and Venezuela
Pool D will be playing in Puerto Rico and the teams are Dominican Republic, Netherlands, Panama, and Puerto Rico
The venues for the rounds after the first are not official yet, but the speculation says that San Diego will get the second round and Dodger Stadium will get Semifinals and the Finals. The official write up can be found here.

In other Baseball News:
    Possibility of Smoltz starting on the DL.
    Miguel Cabrera could be the next 153.6 million dollar man.
    Javy Lopez retired.
    John Patterson to sign with Rangers. (Knew it would be fast)
    The Baltimore Sun said yesterday that there was a possibility of Steve Traschel being the Opening Day starter, luckily Gutherie beat         him out for the spot. (Guts really does deserve it)

Over the pass two seasons, before the Mets got Santana, they were linked to trade rumors for Haren/Blanton, actuall trade offers for Bedard, and an contract offer to Barry Zito. What if these trades or signings happened? What do their springs look like right now.

A lot has been said about Bedard, I forgot which announcer during what game said this, but he has even been compared to Koufax (a little ridiculous in my mind). Living in Baltimore, I remeber that last year he got off to a real slow start, his ERA was above 5 most of April. Even with that, Spring Training he is normally on. Last year he had a Spring Training ERA of 1.96, previous years had him looking at 4.35, 3.71, and 2.04. More importantly, from 2004 to 2007, his strikeouts were 21, 17, 19, and 24. So far this Spring, this is Bedard's line:
18.0 IP, 19 ER, 5 BB, 8 K, 9.50 ERA
In his last start, he allowed 7 runs over 9 hits and 5 innings pitched. Something is not right. I know pitchers sometimes tend to struggle in Spring, but a pitcher who was going for Cy Young before getting injured last season should not be putting up Spring numbers like this. Bedard's stat line will be interesting to watch over the course of the season.

Zito had a bad year last year and was not what San Francisco expected. So far this Spring, Zito is struggling again, in 18.1 IP, he has let in 21 ER, 13 BB followed by only 4 K's, a and posting 10.31 ERA. Things could have been different if he went to NY, if he was with the Jacket, but we will never know for sure. For what its worth, I am glad we didn't take that gamble with Zito.

Haren and Blanton have not been as bad as the two previous pitchers. Harren over 14 IP, has allowed 8 ER, 3 walks, but struck out 15 batters and posted a 5.14 ERA. The difference here is that even though his ERA is much higher than what he is used to, his K to BB ratio is very good (exactly 3 to 1). Blanton is a near clone going 17 IP, allowing 9 ER, walking 3 and striking out 15 and posting a spring ERA of 4.76.

Its not healthy to ask yourself what if we did this or what if that happens, but sometimes it can be fun, and I think this situation is one of those good times to ask yourself what if.

I was getting ready for an entry earlier today from Minor League Promotions in April, and one of the teams I came across had a promotion that will take place on May 3rd that not only did I feel the need to share, but dedicate in its own entry.
The Stockton Ports, a Minor League team (Class A Advanced) in the Athletics System, will be giving away a Mike Piazza bobble-head to commemorate his 3 day stint with them last year. The bobble-head has Mike in a jersey from this team and can be seen here. Here is a quote from the team website about the giveaway:
"The first 1,000 fans will receive a little piece of history with a Mike Piazza Bobblehead. the future Hall of Famer will be depicted in a Ports uniform to commemorate his 3 day stint in Stockton last year."

I love when Minor League teams have players that reached the majors be offered later in bobblehead form from their minor league days. I have never heard of a situation like this though, where the player was with the team for a year, and played 3 games not in an effort to move up the system, but just to rehab. It is an out their promotion one that I hope somehow gets to Ebay, because as a Mike fan this is an interesting story piece.

Scott Moviel is a RHP in the Mets farm system. Last year, the Mets drafted Moviel in the second round, pick number 77 and assigned him to the Gulf Coast League (Rookie). In his 19-year old season, he posted an 0-2 record, 3.38 ERA in 12 G over 40.0 IP. He struck out 37 batters and walked 11.
What makes this pitcher stand out, literally, is his height. Over the internet and through Sporting News Baseball 2008, I have seen 3 different measurements, but they are all towering. The consensus from thebaseballcube.com and Sporting News is that he is 6 feet and 11 inches, but I have also seen 6'10 and 6'9, but lets go with 6'11.
His fast ball clocks in 87-93 MPH, but he has to get the height affect as well that makes his fastball seem faster. I would assume from the position of the batter, it probably feels that his arm is halfway to home plate when that ball is released.
Sporting News ranked him at #7 in their Top 10 Mets prospects. Important to not though is that #2 (Guerra), #3 (Humber), and #5 (Mulvey) are on that list as well, and they are now on the Twins. So if the everyone shifts up, then he is #4 on the top 10 list.
There is a scouting report that can be found here. The basic synopsis is that he has a good fastball and curveball, but both can be held back by his mechanics and delivery that can be inconsistent at times. The more inconsistent in his delivery, the less control he has, and then he becomes ineffective. They call him a project, but a workable project.
Should be fun to follow Moviel through the minors and hopefully one day to the majors.

This month's issue of Baseball America included its preview of the 2008 season where they have the Mets not finishing third, not second, but first in the NL East, the first major publication I have seen do so this year. Their notes are short but include the importance of Santana, Reyes not breaking down late in the year, Wright, Pelfry, Kunz (as the top rookie) and FMart as the top prospect.
The rest of the division is Philly, Atlanta, Washington and Florida.
Overall, they see Philly getting the Wild Card, and being being beat by the Cubs in the first round. The Mets will beat D-backs in the first round, and then in the NLCS, beat the Cubs. According to Baseball America, the Mets will be beat by the Tigers in the World Series.
They have Wright finishing #1 in MVP voting and Santana finishing #1 in Cy Young Voting.

They also in this issue look into their glass ball at the 2011 World Series where the Red Sox will beat the Dodgers. They say that the Mets will beat the Braves that year with their additions of Mark Texaria and FMart in the OF.
For what its worth, I wonder about the Mets pursuing Mark this upcoming offseason, there will be a lot teams going after him, it should be pretty interesting.

We are about 10 days from the start of the season and we are starting to see pitchers go into the 6th inning, and having pitchers out of the pen, that are our actual pitchers from the pen in 2008. The story of the past 3 games have been the pitching. The Mets played Cleveland, Baltimore, and Washington, and in those three games, outscored their opponents a combined 18 - 3. Lets break down each of these games.
First off, we have Cleveland from Weds where the Mets won 3-1:
FMart 1-1, 2B, RBI
Easley 1-2, R, 2B, BB
Casanova 2-3, RBI
Pagan 0-3
Maine 5.2 IP, 5H, ER, BB, 7K, HR, 2.33 ERA
Heilman 1.0, 2H, 3K
Wagner 1.0, 3K
The rest of the box can be found here. First off, Schoenweis had a good outing too, and the Mets as a team recorded 15 strikeouts in this game. 6 of those K's came from Heilman and Wagner who both struck out the side, and for Wagner, a perfect perfect inning as the the ball never even made it in play. Maine was awesome, especially when the run came early in the game. Once again though, the problem with Maine continues to be the long ball, however, its easy to forget, and reasonable to forget, that in this outing where he really pitched well.
When it comes to hitting, paying attention to players like Casanova is becoming more important due the injuries to the Mets starting and backup catchers. (That being said, Schnieder had a good day in the minor league game going 2-4 with a double and a homer).

Thursday continued the pitching theme with a 7-0 romp of the Baltimore Orioles:
Santana 1-1, R, BB, 2B
Reyes 2-2, R, RBI, BB
Castillo 2-3
Beltran 1-3, RBI
Santana 6.0 IP, 5 H, BB, 7 K, 3.15 ERA
Heilman .2 IP, K
Sanchez 1.0, H
Wagner 1.0 K
Feliciano 1.0, K
The rest of the box can be found here.
The first thing that I noticed when looking at the box was the pitchers used. Santana pitched 6.0, then Feliciano came in for one batter, struck him out, then Heilman came in and finished the inning. Sanchez followed and passed the ball to Wagner who closed out the game. For Wagner and Heilman, it was back to back days of pitching. So it was a real game situation, except for Santana only throwing about 84 pitches. To see the team perform that well is a good feeling.
Another good feeling is watching Reyes get hits and Castillo doing the same. According to the Baltimore Sun, the pitcher who gave up the double to Santana knocked down a plastic chair in the dugout afterwards due to frustration.

Finally, our tour ends with today's game, where the Nationals got an early 2-0 lead and then the Mets scored 8 unanswered runs to finish the game 8-2:
Reyes 2-4, 2 RBI, 2B
Wright 3-4, 2R, 2 RBI, HR
Beltran 2-3
Pagan 2-2, R
Clark 0-2
Pedro 5.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 4K
Wise 1.0, BB, 0.96 ERA
Schoeneweis 1.0, 1.00 ERA
You know its going to be a great day when Wright, Reyes and Beltran are all getting their hits in, its what you want to see out of the Mets. Chico of the Nats had the Mets stumped at first, but when he went out, the Mets were able to take over on the Nats bullpen (we played their likely bullpen pitchers). Chico has always puzzled the Mets a bit, something that I hope to highlight in a later entry.
Although Pedro gave up 2 runs, he still did well, and got the K's when he needed them. I am starting to like Schoewneweis now, which is startling.

The Phillies and the Braves have had their fair share of bright spots and dark spots in Spring as well. Here are some stat lines of some one their starting players. For the Phillies:
Feliz 48 AB, 10 H, 2 2B, 2 HR, 4 RBI, .208 BA, .208 OBP
Jenkins 48 AB, 8 H, 4 2B, HR, 3 RBI, .167 BA, .200 OBP
Howard 47 AB, 15 H, 4 2B, 4 HR, 9 RBI, .319 BA, .377 OBP
Rollins 43 AB, 9 H, 6 2B, 0 HR, 3 RBI, .209 BA, .292 OBP
Personally, I am surprised at Jenkins percentage of hits that are for extra bases, that is surprising. However, in the lineup that the Phillies have, I would want to see higher OBP's out of Feliz and Jenkins because their job is really to be on base for one of the other big bats to send them home. That being said, Howard is in mid-season form already, although he still has to knock in 6 more jacks to be at where he was in previous Springs, but thats not necessary.
Moyer 13.2 IP, 3.29 ERA, 5 ER, 6 BB, 9 K
Hamels 11.0 IP, 6.55 ERA, 8 ER, 3 HR, 3 BB, 11 K
Flash Gordon 4.2 IP, 9.64 ERA, 5 ER, 2 HR, 2 BB, 4 K
The real concern in this group for Philly fans is Gordon. Between Lidge's recent health problems, they need Gordon to be ready to be more than a setup man, and step into the closer light. He has struggled in the last couple regular seasons, and if he continues to struggle this season, it would be a huge weak point for the Phillies.

For the Braves:
K Johnson 38 AB, 9 H, 1 2B, 0HR, 2 RBI, .237 BA, .310 OBP
Y Escobar 39 AB, 18 H, 3 2B, 2 HR, 12 RBI, .462 BA, .475 OBP
M Kotsay 37 AB, 9 H, 1 2B, 3 RBI, .243 BA, .300 OBP
B McCann 32 AB, 9 H, 1 2B, HR, 5 RBI, .281 BA, .303 OBP
In 94 games last year, Escobar hit above .320, and in Spring he is on a tear knocking in 12 runs, and being on base once almost every 2 plate appearances. I really like looking at Kotsay's stats because I remeber a group of people who made a big deal of this trade online like it would make a difference, I still believe that it won't. Warning, the next set of statistics are not pleasant.
Glavine 13.2 IP, 3.29 ERA, 5 ER, HR, 6 BB, 11 K
Hudson 15.0 IP, 1.20 ERA, 2 ER, 4 BB, 6 K
Hampton 7.2 IP, 1.17 ERA, ER, 4 BB, 5 K
Smoltz 4.2 IP, 5.79 ERA, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K
Those stats are scary. Hampton with an ERA around 1, Hudson is pitching strong, and Glavine is pitching sub 4 ERA baseball. The rotation is the Braves strong point and good pitching beats good hitting.
All of this is confirming what we already know, that this will be a long, competitive season.

John Patterson used to be considered the ace of the Nationals' staff. He really emerged in 2005, when the Nationals finished at .500, when he pitched 198.1 innings, posting an ERA of 3.13. Then he had injury plagued years in 2006 and 2007 where he  pitched 40.2 and 31.1 Innings Pitched respectively. The Nationals released him for not performing as well as they hoped. He got 9 innings in and let up 7 runs so far this Spring, and they said they have other pitchers that are performing better this Spring.
That means that Patterson, former Ace, is without a home and I have a good feeling that there are some teams that might be looking at him for either a fifth spot in the rotation or someone in the minors to work his way back up to the majors. In my opinion, Patterson needs some time in the minors to get his reps in, to pitch a lot, and build up his stamina back and then go back to the majors.
He can put up good numbers such as:
    0.94 WHIP vs the Mets last year.
    3.00 ERA vs the Phils over 27 innings in 2005
    1.84 ERA vs the Braves over 14.2 innings in 2005
The problem with looking at his stats is that they are from 2005 because his 06 and 07 campaigns were tainted. It should be very interesting to see what happens with Patterson over the next several days, I am sure someone over the next few days will look at him and possibly by the start of the season offer him a minor league deal.
To sum, his two main issues are his velocity and how his injuries hold up. Over at mlbtraderumors.com, there is a great entry that goes over all of his nerve injuries and normal pitcher injuries. He has had two nerve injuries over the past two seasons. The velocity is also an issue, which could be worked on with some minor league time.

As we get closer and closer to the regular season, the starting pitching stays in longer, the starting players play longer, and the AB for prospects and players trying to get one of the final roster spots start to shrink. With all of this comes roster moves as players get reassigned to the Minor League homes for the start of the season.
The Players that were reassigned were:
    Tony Armas Jr.
    Nate Field
    Joselo Diaz
    Fernando Martinez
The real star here is FMart, especially of late, he seems to be always getting one or two hits, extra-base hits, etc this spring. He had 47 AB over 18 games where he had 16 hits, that included 4 doubles, 5 runs, 4 RBIs, 2 BB and 7 K's. His OBP was .373, his BA was .340, and his SLG was .426. We all got to see his nice even swing this Spring and think about the future.
On top of his offense stats, he had some nice defense plays, including a number one Web Gem announced on Tuesday's Baseball Tonight.
We will see FMart soon, whether its due to injuries to the starters this year, or whether we have to wait to next year.


In other news:
MLB.com has changed the layout of their homepage, and I have not formed an opinion about it yet.
Kerry Wood is injured again.
Joba will start in the bullpen.
Nomar has a microfracture in his right hand.

Sporting News always has several guides for each baseball season. They have a 2008 fantasy guide, a 2008 season preview guide, and then a 2008 baseball preview issue (a regular issue that has the 2008 preview in it). The differences are usually slim between the preview guide and preview issue, but this time around, there are huge differences because the Santana trade happened after the preview guide went to press.
Lets start with the old and then work our way up to the new. The preview guide has the Mets finishing 3rd in the division. They basically harp on three main issues in the write up. The first two are legitimate, one being the Mets age and the other one is a hangover of the collapse (like over compensation swings and such). The last concern they have, is funny because of what happened after the preview went to print. They talk about how Omar didn't pull the trigger on any big trades, and we all know thats not true.
So with that, lets move to the more recent issue. With the Santana trade included, the Mets are predicted to finish second in the East. The issue they harp on now is the depth and age of the Mets overall and how Spring Training has showed weaknesses that the team has.

I know last year is a bad example with the collapse, but 2007, and even parts of 2006, showed the Mets could play well, even great, with major injuries. My favorite example is April 2007, the best month last year by far. Although there were a lot of off days that made a 4 man rotation with the occasional fifth man possible, they worked with a fifth pitcher that was a combination of Sosa and Pelfrey. And then when they got Pedro back, they lost Duque and had to go back to this system. In September 2006, Duque went down right before the playoffs, and the Mets starting pitching held up very well in the playoffs without Pedro, without Duque and with a really shaky Perez.
The point I am making here is that if the Mets play with the same energy they had in 2006, which seems to be there because of the Santana trade, the injuries will have less of an impact because the players will find ways to win.