Saturday, January 6, 2007By Mike Steffanos
The 2007 starting rotation previews will come back on Monday, as we finish up with Alay Soler, Jason Vargas and Dave Williams. I've got some house hunting to do this weekend, so I'll just have the time to briefly check in today. Fortunately, with so little happening, this won't take too long.
Signing David Newhan for the bench makes sense. The Mets were looking for a left-handed pinch-hitter, as Chavez will likely see his share of starts and will also come into games for defense. From what I here, Newhan is a guy who plays the game the right way, so he'll fit in. Other than that, it's difficult to get too excited over the candidates for the bench and the bullpen the Mets will be signing this month.
At some point there will be the week-long mini-camp, and towards the end of the month the media event that is the winter caravan will take place. Omar has surprised us before, but it seems unlikely -- given the Mets reluctance to hand multi-year contracts out to sub-mediocre pitchers -- that anything truly remarkable will happen between now and the start of spring training in just over a month. Still, I'm sure we'll find a lot to talk about.
Finally, beginning tomorrow we will be posting a piece every Sunday by Barry Duchan from Metscentric. Barry has followed the team from the beginning, and primarily writes about the pre-1986 Mets. I love the historical stuff, and hope you'll all enjoy it, too.
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Comments (6)
Neither Newhan nor Easely can play SS right? So that makes Valentin the only backup for Reyes? I feel like someone on the bench should be able to play SS.
Posted by Anonymous | January 6, 2007 6:05 PM
That's a good point, but how many games does Reyes miss, anyway? At least Valentin is a good SS.
Posted by Mike Steffanos | January 6, 2007 6:56 PM
I like Newhan signing. However, they need to cut Damian Easley as I see him as the newest incarnation of Joe McEwing or Chris Woodward.
Posted by Mets Fan T | January 6, 2007 9:23 PM
He could hit better than those 2 guys, and has some pop in his bat. I'll reserve judgement until I see him play. I killed Jose Valentin last April, and wound up cheerfully eating those words.
Posted by Mike Steffanos | January 6, 2007 11:09 PM
Anonymous/Mike,
Easley has played close to 200 games at SS in his career (191 to be exact), which is the most he's played at any position other than 2B, where he's played over 1,000 games.
Posted by Stu | January 7, 2007 4:18 AM
He's not a good defensive shortstop, though. HoJo played some games at short back in the day, too. I would think that if the Mets wanted to give Reyes a day off they'd be more likely to play Valentin there.
Posted by Mike Steffanos | January 7, 2007 11:04 AM