If you’re online tonight between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM EST, I highly reccomend you check out our good friend Joe McDonald’s live online radio show at ProBaseballCentral.com…
Most of you know Joe’s excellent work from NYSportsDay.com – his radio program proves just as good…
Tonight, Joe features Jim Caple from ESPN and author of the [...]

According to Majestic Athletic, Carlos Beltran’s No. 15 and Pedro Martinez’s No. 45 rank among the top 15 largest selling jerseys of 2005, writes ESPN’s Darren Rovell.  No other Mets crack the top 15.
Rovell notes that gross retail sales of licensed MLB products are up roughly 100 percent compared to the same period last season…
Note that teams [...]

Scott Long at The Juice, who alongside Will Carroll, known best for his work at Baseball Prospectus, have created one of my favorite new blogs, lists the Mets as seventh overall in his MLB Rankings.  He ranks only the Cardinals, 3, and the Marlins, 7, higher…

I don’t typically pen this style of post, but since Dayn Perry of FOXSports.com rhetorically asked 10 ‘burning questions’ for the upcoming season, I figured I’d help him out with a few answers…

Mets GM Omar Minaya announced to reporters after the game that Mike Matthews has been added to the 40–man roster – a move that indicates Dae-Sung Koo or Felix Heredia will most likely not make the club when camp breaks.
Minaya also stated that Victor Diaz, Gerald Williams, Aaron Heilman and Joe Hietpas have been sent [...]

The Mets were shut out by the Dodgers, 3–0, at Tradition Field today. 
Kaz Ishii tossed 5.2 innings, allowed one run, struck out two and walked one. 
For details, check out the inGame Notebook.

Former Mets GM and current ESPN analyst Steve Phillips projects a 14–12 record with a 3.35 ERA and 200 innings pitched for Mets RHP Pedro Martinez.
Phillips doesn’t base his projections on skill, mind you.  Instead, he blames a once shaky relationship with Piazza, a lack of ‘relationship capital’ with the team’s fans and media, and a sketchy [...]

The Associated Press runs an article on Bobby Valentine, who currently coaches  former Mets Benny Agbayani and Matt Franco in Japan, and his desire to see a an expansion of MLB to Asia.
I would love to see a true World Series between the MLB champ and the rest of the world.  This will never happen, I know, [...]

The Mets and Dodgers meet at Tradition Field…follow along with my inGame notes…

According to a Mets Press Release, the team has signed C Mike DeFelice to a minor league contract.
The Mets will likely send DeFelice directly to AAA, and use him as insurance, along with Kelly Stinnett, for back-up Ramon Castro.

John Donovan of Sports Illustrated ranks Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran sixth and seventh, respectively, on a shortlist of recent free-agent acquisitions who are under pressure to come up big this season…
I guess I agree.  I wanted to refute this, trying to come up with some clever counter-argument, but there isn’t one.  I mean, Piazza, [...]

For those  wishing the Mets will bring in more people to help complicate the bullpen situation, the Yankees told LHP Buddy Groom he will start at AAA.  Groom, a 13-year veteran on a non-roster contract, can opt to become a free-agent if he is not on a Major League club by May 1. 
According to [...]

Having combed the newspapers and talking with friends who cover the team, I

Kaz Ishii will make his official Mets debut today when taking on his former team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, at Tradition Field…
I will provide an inGame Notebook, starting at 12:10 PM EST.

With the option of sending Heath Bell to AAA, Newsday and the Star-Ledger each suggest the Mets are unlikely to carry Bell on their Major League roster when camp breaks next week, despite Bell holding hitters to a .174 AVG, and posting a 2.31 ERA in seven relief appearances, while striking out 11 with only [...]