The Mets Police

The Daily News is doing a great job keeping an eye on what’s happening in the Bronx.

First, the jobs. The Yankees are moving across the street. Does anyone really believe that 1,000 new permanent jobs will be created?

Darn, I wish I had written that.

There wouldn’t be a need to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build new parks if elected officials hadn’t secretly given Macombs Dam Park and part of Mullaly Park away to the baseball team. Contrary to the city’s claim that the project expands park space, the community is losing four acres.

During troubled economic times such as these, news that a project will bring in new tax revenue is positive. But Pinsky failed to explain the other side of the balance sheet: $180 million in breaks on property tax and other taxes; nearly $300 million in capital costs to replace the parks and demolish the old Yankee Stadium, and nearly $1 billion in tax-free financing.

All together, city taxpayers are chipping in nearly $500 million for the project, and costs are growing.

Thanks Star-Ledger for this cool video of Taxpayer New Shea Field. I encourage everyone not to use the official name.

Always great to see more people jumping on the Pedro Exposed bandwagon.   Pedro ran out on Boston the second the Sox won their first World Series in a long long time, and carpetbagged his way to the Mets to become the face of the franchise and some curious marketing decisions made by the GM.

I can’t believe I missed this one but New York Magazine jumped on the Pedro Bash.  Ecerpts below and the full thing here.

 It’s hard to argue that the signing was successful in pure baseball terms: Martinez was great through 2005 and the first two months of 2006, then got injured, struggled through the season, and missed the playoffs. After surgery, he openly discussed retirement and missed most of 2007  while the best Mets team in twenty years came up justshort of the World Series. (MP assumes he means 2006).   Pedro made five starts in the last month of the ’07 season, pitching well — but not well enough to help the Mets avoid one of the worst collapses in baseball history. For those five starts, he earned $14,002,234. Last season brought twenty mostly ineffective starts. His ERA was 5.62, by far the highest of his career. Four years wasn’t too much to give Pedro. Two, it seems, was pushing it.



Pedro’s early “success” fooled the Mets into thinking big-name players were all it took to become champions. (Or become the Yankees — whatever.) Thus: Beltran, solid; Wagner, destroyed by injuries; Delgado, initially effective and then a mess until the second half of last season; Santana, outstanding — for now, just like Pedro in his first season — and with five more years to go; and Castillo, horrific, and with three more years to go. The team spent a ton of money with no World Series to show for it. Once those contracts end, odds are that the Mets will breathe the same sighs of relief that they are now with Pedro leaving.

Always nice when I stumble across a non-Mets blogger making some fun Mets commentary.

Here’s one and here’s an excerpt:

Then there’s the second base dilemma, also known as “how much was Minaya drinking the day he gave Luis Castillo a four year contract?” I’d wager Omar was part of the test project for legalizing absinthe in the U.S. Perhaps the Mets can dump him (that is Castillo) somewhere–the White Sox are reportedly moving Alexei Ramirez to short, and perhaps Castillo would be just the kind of guy Ozzie Guillen would like around in the clubhouse to abuse. That has to be worth something. What should the Mets get in return, you ask? Peace of mind, my friend, peace of mind.

And if you’ve read this far, it’s time for the portion of the program known as “come dream with me” or “all free agents can be ours.” It’s a ridiculous feature of any and all hot stove essays, so who am I to tamper with tradition? I want Manny. He was so good when he came to LA last season, he made me a Dodger fan. That’s true baseball magic. New York should be big enough to deal with his flakiness. And I love the idea of a top of the order that goes Reyes-Beltran-Wright-Ramirez. The other 5 guys might not matter. And if that can’t happen, maybe go for Adam Dunn for a high-salary/low-years deal? After all, in my fantasy I’ve punted on defense, so what the heck.

Read the rest here.

I blogged about it all year and caught lots of grief from my name-calling, but it looks like Pedro-bashing is catching on.   People are starting to realize that Pedro did nothing after June 6, 2006 – something I first mentioned in this post and about 100 other times since….but enough about me, I’m just a fat dopey blogger.  How about the take of a respected journalist:

Here’s an excerpt from Bob Klapisch on Espn.com

Mets didn’t get their money’s worth with Pedro

Fern Cuza might be talking a good game for his client, but the Mets aren’t about to forget how quickly their investment in Pedro dried up, especially this past September. He went 0-3 while the Mets were being caught and passed by the Phillies, ending the season with a 5-6 record, the first sub.-500 campaign in a full season of his career, and a 5.61 ERA.

Plucking away Martinez was an enormous public-relations coup, but today the Mets’ hierarchy admits Pedro fell short of their expectations. “We thought we’d get three [good] years from him,” one senior official said. “Turns out we got 2½.”

Even that’s a generous assessment, considering Martinez spent long stretches on the disabled list in each of his past three seasons with the Mets. Pedro was terrific in 2005, winning 15 games, striking out 208 and posting a league-leading 0.95 WHIP. His dominance rolled over into early 2006, when he was 5-1 through May, allowing just 39 hits in 71 innings. But then came the first of two stints on the DL that season, and the old Pedro never returned.

The entire piece is a good read.

Meanwhile there are always Pedro Apologists like this guy. (below)