Six games ago, the Mets basically seemed dead. We dropped series to the Braves and the Nationals among others and it just seemed like any hope we had on the season was quickly leaving our grasps like how sand leaves fingers. Well the Mets had a response with a five game winning streak with very few starters left on the roster. Suddenly, before last night, the Mets went from 7 games below .500 to 2 games below .500 (and now 3 games) which seems like a much more managable situation. (And of course keeps hopes alive for the playoffs, which is always nice).

I am not one of those fans that needs to make the playoffs in order to have fun. Generally as long as the Mets are playing my spirits are good. But between the injuries and the losing things were getting really depressing, and it was a type of depression I havn't associated with the Mets possibly ever (maybe its due to how the real world outside of baseball is pretty depressing right now and compounding factors of both are a lot to handle). However these five games have not only represented hope but also showed that the Mets, no matter who the field are a fun team to watch.

Switching gears slightly, on the SNY broadcast last night simply described why the Mets are the team to root for. They talked about how Stengal really established not only a mood for the first years of the Mets but really established the mood for the franchise which is "fun". The Mets are more fun to root for than the Yankees. The Mets are more fun to root for than any team which is something good to remember during this season of hurdles for the Amazin's.

Here's an understatement: It has been a rough season for Mets fans.

We all need some activities to boost optimism in a time like this and one of the best solutions is minor league baseball. On one side, its great because you are down about the economy, its a lot cheaper than major league baseball. On the other side, if you are depressed about the New York Mets its great because you get to see the future play some ball....and by the way, the Cyclones are also in first place right now.

Anyway the Cyclones have a few great promotions coming up that are worth checking out. The first is August 3rd against the Renegades where Strawberry will be in attendance and if you are one of the first 2500 fans you will get a Strawberry Bobblehead (or a Strawbobble as they call it) with Straw in a Brooklyn Cyclones jersey.  If that is not your style then attend the game a few nights before that against the Staten Island Yankees where they will be giving out Green Irish Shirts.

The event that the Cyclones are most excited about takes place on August 16th where Lasorda returns to Brooklyn to be inducted into the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame (in a pre-game ceremony). Fans can try to get to the game early to get a Screen Photo ball of Tommy and his life.

If you just want to go see baseball, check out some of the stats of Cyclones this year:
Fuller 1.75 ERA, 36 IP
Cohoon 2.48 ERA, 40 IP
Bouchard .408 BA
Servido 6 HR
Rivera .311 BA, 19 RBI

Brooklyn might be the place to be this year.

One player whose name is starting to get thrown around in conversations about Mets minors with good statistics is Josh Satin. Satin is mainly a second basemen (but can play the other bases as well) for the Savannah Sand Gnats at the age of 24. His stats this year look promising but there are a few other things that also have to be taken into consideration. The Mets drafted him in the 2008 draft in the 6th round. At that time, and still today, he is considered somewhat of a sleeper pick as his stats suggest:

2009- 87 G, 303 AB, 89 H, 21 2B, 4 HR, 42 RBI, .294 BA
2008- 48 G, 155 AB, 47 H, 12 2B, 2 3B, 5 HR, 15 RBI, .303 BA

And Some College stats:

Satin's Career Statistics
YEAR	AVG	G	AB	R	H	RBI	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SB
2004	.000	2	4	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0
2005	.348	57	221	39	77	40	15	1	5	27	29	7
2006	.222	47	167	18	37	20	5	1	2	18	24	6
2007	.287	53	202	33	58	41	11	0	4	27	38	3
Total	.290	159	594	91	172	101	31	2	11	72	94	16

The question that comes with Satin is what to make of his age and ability, especially when comapared to the talent that he is playing with. He is older than most of his competition right now, which should give him an advantage and possibly inflate his stats, but its hard to figure out what to make of that inflation. He was also hitting well over .300 earlier this season, and he is starting to drop off a bit. He's an interesting player because he has skills but but where he plays puts a damper on them. Some say he could be an orginzational player type, which makes sense.

Its been a little over a week since I've been able to post and a couple of moves have been made that I wanted to comment on. The first being the Francoeur for Church trade. I know a lot of people have been commenting that this was a nothing trade, but I really like this trade for a few reasons. The first being that it was an old fashion one for one trade where both teams try to make their situations better by giving struggling players a new atmosphere to play in. The second is that the Mets have really nothing to lose in this trade. Although Francoeur has been struggling the last two seasons, he still has a tremendous upside, something that Church really doesn't have. Plus, when you consider the outfield the Braves have moving up the system, they probably aren't looking for Church to be an everyday starter. The main downside to this trade is that it isn't a blockbuster that is going to fix everything that is wrong with the Mets team currently, but honestly what would do that at this point.

The next signing is that of Pedro. Look, if he does good than the Phils look like they know what they are doing on and off the field but in reality I just can't believe he is going to be that good. This is a situation where he needs to pitch in a big league game for me to believe that he has it in him to be effective (in other words, I am not entirely convinced that the Phils even need him right now).

Ruben Tejada does not project to be a knockout, all star, but there are aspects of him that are very interesting, and one of the most intriguing pieces is his age. I had no idea until recently (this season) that during this baseball season he will be 19 years old. I thought he was much older than that (and really I have no idea why I thought he was much order than that). He first played for the Mets in the VESL and in the Gulf Coast League in 2007 when he was only 17 years old. The short stop was named the Mets best defensive infielder by Baseball America (12/19/2008) and Best Strike Zone Discipline (11/9/2007) (Since then, Corey Coles was named best strikezone discipline followed by Reese Haven, Coles was traded for Pagan).

Statistically speaking, his first year was very good as he had 78 hits in 241 AB (.324 BA), 9 2B, 3 3B, 3 HR, 41 RBI, 18 SB. The next season, 2008, he played for St. Lucie where he had 114 hits in 497 AB (.229 BA), 19 2B, 4 3B, 2 HR, 37 RBI. This past Spring he had 22 AB with the Mets team where he got 6 hits, a double and 4 RBI. So far this season he has played with the Binghamton Mets where he has 74 hits in 275 AB (.269 BA) with 13 2B, 3B, 2 HR, and 22 RBI.

 Its pretty incredible how fast Tejada has moved up the Mets farm system that in only three season he is playing fairly well in AA at the age of 19, which is a positive sign. Its hard to predict what the Mets will do with Tejada if he turns on a hot streak to finish off the season, or if he has a breakout season next year. He's a young player that has shown signs of success and people tend to like his defense. The mysteries with him are where is he going and what will the Mets do. He seems to be a player the Mets will watch next Spring or over the winter to try to determine his worth between being a New York Met or being a trade chip.

Today was the first day I saw the 2009 All Star Jerseys (from the MLB.com shop online) and I was a little surprised at first about how well done they are. I like when the BP jersey's are simple and although they need some flair from home team, they also can use something to connect the two leagues across the nation and they did that this year by using Red and Blue jersey's. As for a throw to St. Louis, the bat on the Cards Jersey is featured on the front and then for both the American League and the National League there is an arch that starts on the dot of the i (in National and American) and ends at end of the team name. The hats are really well done as well as the National League is noted by a N and the American League is noted with an A, which looks nice and simple. Overall, these jerseys look really good.

Just a brief uniform history courtasy of Wikipedia:
These BP jerseys were first used in 1997. Hats were first created in 2007. So this is a recent art.

In this week's Get To Know a Prospect, we will take a look at a 22 year old catcher who, although he is on the DL right now, in the last two seasons has started to make some noise in the Mets system as a catcher to start to watch. The catcher of course is Josh Thole. The Mets drafted him in 2005 in the 13th round and that year he played his first "season" of professional ball with the Mets at the age of 18. Thole has really flown under radar in the Mets system for two reasons. First, he hasn't really started to hit above average until last season and second, a few years ago the Mets signed the then 17 year old Francisco Pena, who was supposed to be the catching star of the future. However since 2008 Thole has really started to impress thanks to a successful 2008 minor league campaign, a good fall in Arizona and then a good start to this season. In the last season he has been named an AFL rising star, a FSL postseason all star, and a FSL midseason all star. Here are his stats from the last several years:

2009- .346 BA, 257 AB, 34 R, 89 H, 21 2B, 2 3B, HR, 30 RBI
2008- .300 BA, 347 AB, 104 H, 25 2B, 2 3B, 5 HR, 56 RBI
2007- .267 BA, 389 AB, 104, H, 17 2B, 0 3B, 0 HE
2006- .235 BA, 98 AB, 23 H, 4 2B, HR
2005- .269 BA, 104 AB, 28 H, 2 2B, 3B, HR

The stat that I would really like to point out is his doubles over his minor league career. They have been increasing every year and to have 25 in 2008 is a good sign. He already has 21 this year, and he has been injured which means that not only is his contact hitting improving (look at his batting averages) but his power hitting is starting to improve. This is the type of improvement that the Mets cannot ignore next Spring when recreating the Mets catching depth chart.

This has been a really tough week for Mets fans, and thus, since I haven't gotten any baseball scores since last Friday morning, I am pretty glad I got the news all at once and didn't have to go through day after day of bad news about the Mets. (In other words, I am glad when I checked the box scores this morning, the Mets were at least at .500 and I didn't have to see them go below). In an interesting situation, news about the Mets busride to the ballpark together actually was a full article down here in Baltimore, which is really surprising cosidering that most out of Baltimore news gets a small little blurb.

The incredible thing is although the Mets are in third place, they are only one game out of first place and they play one of two first place teams in the division that now has four teams seperated by two games (If the Phillies don't win the division I am considering it completly their fault especially considering the health of the Mets). If the Mets can have a sucessful series they can start to turn things around, and lets hope that happens.

There are two positive notes I want to touch upon from the last week. The first of which was Fmart hitting his first major league jack. The second one is Pelfrey's amazing 7 and 2/3 inning performance. Lets hope next week is better for the Mets.