Mets Fans Forever

Mike Jacobs Returns

AUTHOR: GREG POMES

Mike Jacobs made his New York Mets debut in 2005 hitting a 3 run homerun as a pinch hitter. Jacobs played 30 games for the Mets in 2005 in which he had 100 at-bats.  In those 100 at-bats he hit 11 HR's and had 23 RBI's.  Many people including myself thought that Jacobs was the future first baseman of the Mets but in a stunning trade Jacobs was sent to the Marlins for 1st baseman Carlos Delgado.  

Jacobs' first two seasons with the Marlins were productive, in 2008 he lost playing time and his average went down to .247 but he did hit for power when he hit 32 homeruns and drove in 93 RBI's.  The Marlins decided to trade Jacobs to the Royals last year, where he played mostly as a DH due to his lackluster defense.  Jacobs would be released after the season ended.

This past week Jacobs resigned with the Mets for a minor league deal.  If Jacobs makes the team he will get $900,000 plus incentives that could get him slightly over $2 million.  

Jacobs signing is an interesting one.  The Mets have it made it no secret that Daniel Murphy is the Mets 1st baseman for 2010.  The organization has said time and again they believe in him.  Some thought that the Mets would have gone after a 1st baseman to platoon with Murphy but Jacobs I doubt is that platoon guy.  He is a left handed batter like Murphy and he is not known for his great defense.  Also the Mets earlier this year signed Tatis who I believe would be that platoon guy.  

I don't think Jacobs makes the team out of Spring Training, there is just no place for him. The minor leagues could be an option but the Mets have Ike Davis in the minor league system.  Many people including the Mets believe Davis will be the starting 1st baseman next year which means he needs his time in AAA.  

One option I could see is Ike Davis being assigned to AA for the time being and Jacobs could start for the AAA team.  Jacobs' signing does add more depth at 1st base and perhaps if Murphy does not get off to a good start Jacobs will replace him as the Mets 1st baseman.  

I wonder how Daniel Murphy is taking this, hopefully it will make him work even harder than he does and improve his game from last year.

J.J. Putz Talks About Mets Incompetence

AUTHOR: GREG POMES

Last Friday Comcast SportsNet Chicago ran a story on their website which you can view here.  We all know that Putz was traded from Seattle to be a setup guy for K-Rod.  When the trade was announced the thought of the 1-2 punch of Putz and K-Rod seems like a dream come true for Met fans, especially after the way the bullpen killed the playoff chances of the Mets in 2008.  Unfortunately for us Putz was injured for most of the season, severely hurting our bullpen in 2009.  Putz says of his trade to the Mets last year:

"When the trade went down last year, I never really had a physical with the Mets."

There you go, right from the man's own mouth.  The Mets never gave him a physical before completing the trade.  That is unheard of in the game today.  How does a team not give an incoming player with known injury problems a physical before completing a trade?  Putz goes on to say:

"I had the bone spur (in the right elbow). It was discovered the previous year in Seattle, and it never got checked out by any other doctors until I got to spring training, and the spring training physical is kind of a formality. It was bugging me all through April, and in May I got an injection. It just got to the point where I couldn’t pitch. I couldn’t throw strikes, my velocity was way down."

This shows exactly what is wrong with the Mets.  They knew the bullpen was a big reason why the Mets failed to make the playoffs in 2008 and they knew that K-Rod alone was not enough since he only pitches 1 inning per game and they refused to go out and spend money on a setup guy so they make a big trade, make sure to tell the press and ticket holders the news without checking on the health of a player.  There is no organization in Major League Baseball today that operates like this. You can criticize teams like the Nationals, Pirates, etc... about their records over the years but I doubt they run their organization like this.

Once Putz was hurt the Mets also made sure to shut him up about the injury:

"I knew that I wasn’t right. I wasn’t healthy. The toughest part was having to face the media and tell them that you feel fine, even though you know there’s something wrong and they don’t want you telling them that you’re banged up"

The Mets as usual make a mistake and then instead of fessing up to their mistake and take their lumps they try to cover it up or blame beat reporters for just doing their jobs.  They also have no regard for the player’s health or careers as the Mets tried to have Putz come back in August but as he was trying to come back he felt tightness and then the Mets finally told him:

"I blew my elbow out. That was kind of a shock because I never felt any pain in it."

Putz said the one thing he learned from this situation was:

"That it’s my career, and when you know something doesn’t feel right, and they want to take these little sidesteps to do something, and just wait and wait and wait, you got to get it taken care of instead of trying to prolong the inevitable."

This off season we have seen guys take offers from other teams in smaller markets and in some cases for less money to avoid playing for the Mets.  I think now we know why.

This is just embarrassing now.  If the Mets are going to succeed things need to change.  You cannot run a successful team like this.  It's one thing not being able to sign players or trade for players because of a lack of money but when you do spend the money on a free agent and make trades for a player you have to make sure they are healthy and follow the correct procedure.  The White Sox made sure to give Putz a physical first before signing him as Putz says:

"They wanted to do a physical right away. They took an MRI. The elbow looked clean"

This shows that the Mets organization as it is structured right now is a complete mess and as long as Omar is the GM whether or not if it's in name only and rich boy Freddy Wilpon wants to be a baseball guy nothing is going to change.

The Day the Music Died

Author: Clare Lafferty

Jane Jarvis died over the weekend. For those who are not familiar with Jane, she was the organist at Shea from 1964 to 1979 and as much a fixture there as the NYC skyline sign, the 410 center field marking and Lindsay, Murph and Kiner.

When I used to go to games as a kid, the music was a big part of the whole experience. Not only did Jane play the traditional tunes (National Anthem, Meet the Mets) but she played jazz tunes. Her background was in jazz and she knew many famous jazz icons, like Lionel Hampton. She also worked for Muzak (you know, the elevator music people) composing songs that were also jazzy in nature.

Jane Jarvis brought a happy and uplifting attitude to Shea through her music during many years of bad baseball and sparse crowds. I'll never forget feeling so bad when the Mets announced they were going to canned music and Jane would no longer be playing the organ live there. A piece of Mets history was gone in an instant replaced with "progress".

Thank you Jane for the joy you brought me and many, many Mets fans throughout the years. You played for the Mets for 15 years and made Shea better because of it. Rest in peace, Jane.