Omar, You're Beautiful!

After a long, bleak and dark winter Omar Minaya finally emerged with Prize, Johan Santana.


Oh, Johan!

And after a long, bleak and dark winter of worries that Omar would surrender the entirety of the Mets farm system for a shot at The Magic Mojohan, in the end, in the eyes of those in the know, Omar pants'd another GM.

Well, perhaps this is a bit over the top. Outfielder prospect Carlos Gomez and righthanders Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey one might argue, represent the future of the Mets pitching staff and a potential All-Star outfielder but in reality, who the fuck cares about the future, we've got Johan Santana, the best pitcher in baseball now!

According to Baseball America:

"The two best prospects in the trade, Guerra and Gomez, come with high ceilings but also lack a lot of polish and have a long ways to go to reach their potential. The odds that they both will do so are slim.

Guerra has an 89-94 mph fastball and a promising changeup and he’s only 18. But he also has a below-average breaking ball, has yet to pitch more than 90 innings in a season and while he has held his own, he hasn’t dominated. Gomez had the best package of tools in the Mets system, but his bat is still extemely raw as evidenced by his career .273/.331/.384 averages in the minors.

Mulvey has an arsenal of four average pitches and throws strikes. He’s not overpowering and he’s most likely a No. 4 starter. Since having Tommy John surgery in 2005, Humber hasn’t fully regained the stuff that made him the No. 3 overall pick in the 2004 draft. His curveball is his best pitch but his fastball now sits at 87-91 mph. He too projects as a No. 4 starter.

The Twins have traded Santana for two high-reward but also high-risk prospects, and two back-of-the-rotation starters."

In other words, thanks for finally waking up, Omar. Thanks for making this an off season to remember and a season to look forward to rather than a nightmare to try and forget before it even begins!



But in the words of Winston Wolf, "Let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet, gentlemen."

There is after all, the caveat of having to sign Santana to an extension by Friday before the deal officially goes through.

Of course to blow the deal at this stage would be something like, oh, I dunno, blowing a huge fucking lead over the Phillies in a late-season tailspin, an historic collapse, the likes of which has been rarely duplicated in the history of baseball. And yes, we know what depths the Mets are quite capable of but this, lads and lasses, is The NL East served on a silver platter. Not even the front office muppets can quibble about $150 million over 6 years for the Venezuelan Cy Young.

I mean we've got baseball ace and we've still got Fernando Martinez and a few righties in Eddie Kunz and Brant Rustich to dream about in seasons to come.

This is what they call in the local venacular, a fucking steal. A bigger steal than the Nats nabbing Lastings Milledge for a worn down catcher and an over-rated Jesus Freak outfielder. It's a deal, it's a steal, it's the sale of the fucking century!

And of course, this does not solve the bullpen worries or make Carlos Delgado or Moises Alou and younger or healthier, doesn't make Willie a smarter manager, doesn't keep Billy Wagner from choking in key spots, but for once this winter we can say what the fuck, hold our heads high and give the baseball world something more to talk about than our historic collapse this Spring.

The Magic Mojohan

These kids will say anything these days to get past the doorman blocking entryway into the Gimme My Mets Fantasy Now Goddammit, Bring Me My Johan! Club. They will even pretend they know how to play to get my Magic Mojohan on.


The Magic Mojohan

So they pushed me up on stage and about a hundred tiny little Mets prospects, some of them even future pitching stars projected into the forever with every itchy trigger finger wondering whether or not they will burn out before they hit their prime, the future of the World for crissakes, the Mets World anyway, just waiting for their moment of truth, stepped up and handed me the multi-string Mojohan, the magic one, and I commenced to a playin' it, one foot stamping loudly on the hardwood floor of the stage, the smell of steroids and cigar smoke thick in the air, the laughter of baseball bimbos as they shadow danced with overweight, greasy fingered Moneyball addicts twitching in place as the attempted to look nonchalant in front of the baseball bimbos and repress the imperfections they spent a lifetime rehearsing.



Baseball Bimbo and overweight, greasy fingered Moneyball addicts

And for a few seconds I had them all captivated by the Mojohan, no one cared that the hundred tiny little Mets prospects, including any pitcher the Mets had drafted since 1982 and the rights to their children, were sent by Greyhound to the Minnesota outpost, "The Future Is Always Now" they sang as they formed a conga line, waving goodbye. We could all tell straight away that this Magic Mojohan was capable of some amazing music.

Then one of the strings broke. I didn't miss a beat. After all there were still several strings left and by then I was already lost in the beautiful music of Cy Youngs punctuated by torn rotator cuffs, the milonga of the disabled list, the throat tightening of the twinge in the shoulder or the elbow. The baseball bimbos were taking pictures of themselves, videotaping themselves in Dodgers uniforms, MLB-sponsored nighties snake charming those overweight, greasy-fingered Moneyball addicts who were, after the first string broke, twitching just a little bit faster, thinking of the slide rules in their back pockets and dancing out of tune.

Then another string broke and another and suddenly the Magic Mojohan was out of tune and I stood there, having stopped playing it altogether as the room fell silent and everyone was motionless.

What's going to happen to our future they all started shouting out after a moment's pause. What good is this Magic Mojohan if it won't play? My god did you see how much of our future we've given away for this Magic Mojohan??!! Have you any idea of the everlasting misery that's been caused by giving away our bright futures for this broken-down useless Magic Mojohan that once played such beautiful and fulfilling music??!!!

"The Future Is Always Now! I screamed in reply, smashing the Magic Mojohan against the floorboards over and over until there was nothing but splinters and memories in my hands.


The Magic Mojohan gets fine-tuned.

Then all of the baseball bimbos rip their tops off and whilst we are all stunned for a split second expecting to see something no one under the age of 16 or 18 should be allowed by Jesus Christ to see with their own eyes, instead they exposed the Minnesota Twins jerseys they were all wearning underneath their traditional baseball bimbo garb.

They'd known all along.

And the fat, greasy-fingered Moneyball addicts, curdled by this sudden lack of good organ grinding music and now that the baseball bimbos had stopped dancing and swaying to the music, moving and grooving and making everyone sweaty, were becoming manic at the sight of the Magic Mojohan in hundreds of pieces on the hardwood floor of the stage, took out their pocket calculators and starting banging away on them, rocking back and forth, whispering to themselves "Sabermetrics, Sabermetrics...."

*****

I know, it's been a sloooooow offseason so far....

Wither Art Thou, Oh Mets?

Belated New Years greetings, au fait readers...

Still sleeping off the remnants of the beaten track yet the first thing I did upon returning home after a fortnight without newspapers and rumours or internet access was naturally to seek out all the breath-taking breaking news, the wheelings and dealings of Omar as he turned the Mets back from laughingstocks into serious contenders.

The Answer Is: Glad I didn't hold my breath.

Now, I'm not going to go all bitter and bile this time around. It's a new year and although there is no new perspective on the dithering and all-round lack of action from Omar, well, lack of productive action it should be clarified...anyway, no news is sometimes good news considering I might instead have come home to something like Mets Trade Heilman, F-Mart and The Peoples' Pelfrey To Philadelphia for Mike Lieberthal.

So instead we can be comforted by notions such as Keeping An Eye On Joe Blanton.

The only sentence of consequence I could pick out of this desperate bit of speculative journalism was:

"Minaya, who is off to Israel today as part of a week-long trip with prominent agent Arn Tellem and a Seeds of Peace delegation, was unavailable for comment Friday."

And naturally I was thinking to myself gee, just imagine all the hot young pitching talent coming out of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv these days it's amazing no other GMs thought of going to the Middle East in search of young unsungs now that the Carribean and Latin America are already being vacuumed out of any potential talents over the age of 12. How bloody, utterly innovative.

Seeds of Peace?

How about some Seeds of Walter Johnson for the starting rotation? Or Seeds of Sandy Koufax?

About Big Train:

"His fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed."
-- Ty Cobb, Detroit Tigers

And watch Sandy K Mickey Mantle:



*****

But, back at Reality, Inc. there are no such seeds awaiting harvesting so what is one to do about the starting pitching, the bullpen, the lingering doubts about Carlos Delgado's return to form, Castillo's knees and left fielders to fill in for Moises 120 games out of 162?

And you know what? All this nagging in the back of the head is annoying. Make this the make-or-break for every body. Let them all play for their Met careers. Sure, there will have to be more substantive additions than Angel Pagan, but let's face it. There are no magic elixirs out there. There is no one man to come stumbling out of the sky to save the Mets and there never was.

"Angel" Pagan indeed. How is that possible? Do Pagans believe in Angels? I want the Mets to sign Jesus Pagan Superstar instead. He hit .231 at Chattanooga last season before being felled by a mysterious battle with gastroenteritis. A man who could hit a homer out of Hell and watch it land on the Moon. A man who could created wind tunnels when he swung and missed, knock the toupee off of the head of the butcher in the centerfield bleachers without ever hitting the ball. That's who I want to hear the Mets gave up a few minor leaguers for.

Rather than a Wish List I'm going to put together an If List, as in:

1. IF Carlos Delgado puts up his 2004 numbers...
2. IF Moises Alou plays as well as 2007 but for 150 games...
3. IF Pedro has another last Cy Young in him...
4. IF Billy Wagner learned, just for one season, not to choke
5. IF Luis Castillo's knees last 140 games and a restrung hero emerges (not bloody likely)
6. IF Willie doesn't outmanage himself in tight situations.
7. IF whichever na'er do well Omar ultimately selects as his innings-eating number three pitcher behind Pedro and Maine actually eats those innings all season and eats them with surprising effectiveness...
8. IF Omar can only sign three more catchers he will inch that much closer to the Guinness Book of World Records for catchers signed in one season...
9. IF Ryan Church can please be traded anywhere, for anyone...
10 IF Duaner Sanchez can return to pre-taxi form...

And of course, no post completely sanctioned by the Commission without an obligatory Bird That Makes Your Head Spin pic.