EARLY ASSESSMENTS

I think I've figured out a way to while away the off-days. This might become a regular feature - I might give an update on these topics, in regard to the Mets and baseball in general, every two weeks or so. Since I just thought of it, no graphics today...but I'll try to dress it up in the future:

THE METS

Most Impressive: The reason I wanted to give an assessment, two weeks into the season, is because of Ryan Church's arm. That's by far been the most impressive thing about the Mets so far (slim pickings after the underwhelming 5-6 start). I could have mentioned Church for a number of reasons - he's hitting, period...but he's also hitting lefties - but teams have already stopped taking the extra base and challenging him in right field.

Least Impressive: Jose Reyes has had an awful start. He's just hitting .205, with a .238 OBP, and tack on a hamstring injury, to boot. He should be back playing soon, and I guess I'd rather he slump now than in September, but with the way he finished last year, Reyes needs to start playing better soon.

Biggest Surprise: I'd be lying if I said I expected this kind of start from Angel Pagan. Pagan leads the team with a .385 batting average, and is tied for the team lead with 10 RBI. I thought he might be a good addition to the bench when the Mets acquired him in the off-season, but now that he's the regular left fielder (in for the injured Moises Alou), he's been so good it raises the question - what will the Mets do when Alou comes back? I can't decide if I'd rather see them keep playing Pagan, or turn around and trade him while his value is sky-high and get some bullpen help in return (and while I have a limited attachment to him).

Biggest Disappointment: Pedro Martinez*'s injury is the biggest disappointment so far. I expected him to have some sort of injury mid-year, and miss a little bit of time, but to get hurt the way he did, so early in the year, it was a huge disappointment. It will only be OK if Martinez* returns relatively soon (on the timetable they set), and is healthy and effective straight through the post-season.

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Most Impressive: Are you aware of what Brian Bannister has been doing for Kansas City? (There are actually a few Royals starters putting up some great numbers, but I like Bannister, so I'll focus on him.) Bannister is 3-0, with a 0.86 ERA. In 21 innings, he's struck out 13 and given up just 10 hits, while walking 5 against Detroit, the Yankees, and Minnesota. It's not surprising, based on what he did all of last year, but it sure is impressive.

Least Impressive: C.C. Sabathia has been terrible. He's 0-2 in three starts, with an 11.57 ERA. 13 K's and 9 walks in 14 innings - and he's given up 24 hits. (He's given up four more earned runs than he's had innings pitched.) I could have also gone with Andruw Jones here, too - but he had a bad season last year, so he hasn't impressed me in a long while.

Biggest Surprise: How about the hot start by the Florida Marlins, and though they've cooled lately, the Kansas City Royals (both are 7-5). Neither one will last, but it certainly surprises me that the team leading the NL East this deep into the season would be the Marlins. (The Pirates are also 6-6 - .500 would be a big deal for them.)

Biggest Disappointment: By far it's the Detroit Tigers. What a bust. They're not going to recover - I'm making that bold prediction right now, with them standing at 2-10. Don't you feel like we should have seen this coming? I kind of do.

I realize I must be missing a team or someone somewhere. I also realize that these categories are sort of close (is there much of a difference between "least impressive" and "biggest disappointment"? In my mind right now there is a subtle difference, but I may feel differently in two weeks.). I'll re-evaluate over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, put your thoughts, if you have any differing ones, or even if you agree, in the comments.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I'm not easily influenced...but Opening Day, and teams' performances on the first couple of days of the season, leave quite an impression on me. I've been thinking about this all day, and why, even though I know the season is a long one and that these games can't be very indicative of the entire season, I draw impressions of teams from their first couple of days.

This is what I've come up with: I think it's because these are the only games in the standings, and the only stats to go by right now, that they take up some sort of permanence in my brain. So here's where my mind is at right now:


-The Tigers are a huge bust.

-The Royals are awesome!! (The same thought I had the year they beat the Red Sox pretty bad on Opening Day...was that last year?)

-The Pirates have also turned the corner. Good for them.

-I love it - the Braves are going to have a rough year! I'm so glad I was wrong about thinking they were going to be good this year - they can't even beat Washington and Pittsburgh!

-Now I guess, though, we'll have to watch out for the Nationals - they're shaping up to be quite a threat.

So you see what I'm dealing with. I need the next couple of weeks to go by quickly, so my mind can return to a somewhat normal state.

FROM DAY-TO-DAY TO WEEK-TO-WEEK: That's the current status of Pedro Martinez*. He's out 4-to-6 weeks with the strained hamstring. Forget everything I've said about Oliver Perez and John Maine matching up against everyone else's third and fourth starters...they're back to being a 2 and a 3. But I still like the Mets' chances this year.

ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT: Ryan Church just hit a homer. Off a lefty. I think he'll be just fine.

AN UPDATE ON THE JETS

You may or may not have noticed that I don't spend a whole lot of time writing about the NFL off-season. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) It happens to fall during the time that I really get excited about baseball season, and

2) I don't understand it as much.

I like football...a lot. But I don't pretend to understand schemes, and gameplans, and how this player fits into this or who would work best in what. I understand that Jonathan Vilma had gotten into Eric Mangini's doghouse in some way, and wasn't the perfect fit with the Jets anymore, and had to be moved, but that's about it. So there's nothing I can comment on that is worth commenting on.

That said, my cousin lives and breathes football year 'round, and he's been reading the blog, and is upset that I haven't touched on the Jets since, oh, about October. And after yesterday's post about the NBA, he's threatened my life. So I think I'll touch on the Jets' moves today.

I'm confused, thrilled, and upset about the three big moves the Jets have made so far this off-season. Not in that order - I'll go over them in the order they happened.

On Friday, the Jets traded Jonathan Vilma to the Saints for a fourth-round draft pick. OK, fine...but then they acquired Kris Jenkins from Carolina for third and fifth-round draft picks. What gives there? I agree with my cousin - it seems like the Jets should have been able to get more for Vilma, especially considering what they gave up for Jenkins.

And here's what bothers me about Jenkins. By all accounts, he hasn't been effective in a few years. And he's been injured recently. The following is not speculation - this is fact...and it's kind of been brushed under the rug for some reason. But almost everyone associated with the Carolina Panthers' Super Bowl team was involved in some way with a huge steroids ring, weren't they? Please correct me if I'm wrong about this - but even if fans aren't sure about that situation, I'm sure teams in the NFL are. So why would the Jets acquire a guy who is so closely connected to a scandal like that....not to mention a guy whose numbers are mysteriously up and down in relation to that incident.

So there's the bad news - it seems like the Jets didn't get equal value for Vilma, and I don't know that it was a smart move getting Jenkins. But their most recent move should be well worth the money invested.

The Jets signed free agent guard Alan Faneca to a record-setting 5-year, $40 million deal. This should improve their offensive line immensely - the young guys will benefit from a veteran presence - and not just any veteran presence, but possibly the best in the league at what he does. The running game should also benefit, and the quarterbacks will actually have some time to make something happen. This one signing could be the difference between two years' ago's playoff appearance and last year's disaster.

BENCH FOR CHURCH ON SUNDAY: Not the pew kind. Ryan Church was sidelined for a few days after a collision with Marlon Anderson on Saturday left Church with a concussion. All of the written accounts of the injury say it was a nasty collision - but I haven't found any video of it. I'm not sure there is any. We'll see if anything turns up by Friday, when the Mets are on ESPN. If it ever turns up, that might be the time. Hopefully this doesn't linger for very long. Promising news - in his first at-bat against a lefty, on Friday (or at least the first one I saw, when I was watching the tape-delay of the Friday game), Church singled to right. So that was encouraging. We'll see what happens the rest of the spring, but he needs to play.

MEET THE METS - RYAN CHURCH

A preview of the 2008 Mets, presented in the expected batting order, followed by pitching rotation, followed by impact bullpen/bench players. Today we focus on right fielder Ryan Church.

2007: .272 avg, 15 HR, 70 RBI, 57 runs, 3 SB, .349 OBP

I am not ashamed to say that I know next-to-nothing about Ryan Church. So let's learn about him together.

Church is a lefty-throwing, lefty-batting, 6-1, 200-pound outfielder. He'll be thirty when the season ends (October 14), and has been in the majors for four years now, all with Montreal/Washington. Last year he played in the most games of his career - 144, putting up the numbers you see above. The numbers aren't bad, but one that's a little alarming, which you don't see, is the 107 strikeouts. He seems to strike out a lot, although at least last year his strikeout rate dipped (in 2006 he struck out 60 times in 71 games!). I would have thought he was speedier than his numbers indicate - but he doesn't steal many bases at all, so I guess not.

Church will see plenty of playing time this year. He will be the Mets' starting right fielder, and won't really see platoons, because the next option is Endy Chavez, who also hits lefty. But what will happen is there will be many times when both Church and Chavez will be in the lineup because of either an injury to or rest for Moises Alou. The key to the Mets' outfield situation this year will be the health of Chavez and Church, because they are the ones who will need to go the distance in order for the likes of Alou, and to a lesser degree Beltran, to be rested and most effective (with Beltran, there's a chance he'll miss about 20 games because of an injury, not so much that he needs the rest).

And I think I'm OK with Church playing that role. Church has a little bit of pop - he hit a career-high 15 homers last year, and ten the year before in half as many games. Maybe the Mets see something in their scouting that indicates Church is poised to break through. I don't know. They seemed content to get him along with Brian Schneider in exchange for Lastings Milledge, leading you to believe they would rather have Church in right than Milledge.

Here's what I'm going to believe about Ryan Church - he's Eric Valent if he had the chance to play every day. I've always liked Valent, and he made some contributions to some pretty poor Mets teams earlier this decade as a pinch-hitter. I'll start out the season believing that comparison is accurate. And maybe Church will prove me right, and I'll become a Ryan Church fan. If he turns out better than Valent, all the better for the Mets. Let's just hope he's not worse - because the Mets will be facing Milledge a bunch this year, and I'm sure he'll remind them with his hitting of what they traded to get Church.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

I can't believe the Mets just made this trade. I really don't have a lot of information to go on right now, but thanks to the Southern Bureau for some ESPN Insider information. Heres' what I know: the Mets traded Lastings Milledge for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.

Umm...what?

Players like Johan Santana are on the trade market, the Mets are dark horses in that chase because they have limited prospects as it is, and the Mets REALLY need a starting pitcher.....and they're trading one of their top trade-able players for RYAN CHURCH and BRIAN SCHNEIDER!?!?

I can't believe that the Mets would make this bad of a deal. It's a bad deal. Awful deal. And Lastings Milledge stays in the division so that he can haunt them 19 times a year. You better believe right now that Milledge will have a Chipper Jones-type career against the Mets for the rest of his career.

The only rationale I can make is that the Mets are working on something huge. Or the Nationals are working on something huge. Or the Mets and Nationals together are working on something huge, which required Milledge to be Nationals' property before he was dealt. I have to believe, following the Johnny Estrada deal, that the acquisition of another catcher is the set-up to a whole other deal. I have to believe that because if I don't, I'll cry.

The Mets could have gotten a number of different players for Lastings Milledge over the years. His value has dropped a little since he was a minor league prospect, but he still had a solid showing last year in the majors. There's no way his stock has dropped so far that he is only worth RYAN CHURCH and BRIAN SCHNEIDER.

One or both of these players better not be on the Mets' Opening Day roster.

I just had to give an immediate weigh-in on this potential disaster. (The only reason it's potential is that there's a chance the Mets can move some of these guys and get someone of value.) I heard it on the car radio on my way home from school and nearly drove off the road. I heard the guy say, "And the Mets trade Lastings Milledge...." in the last line of his update, and I thought, "This should be higher up in the update...this is a big deal." And then when I heard who he was traded for I felt sick. Seriously. I guess I do care quite a bit about the Mets.

I'll probably update more over the weekend...hopefully as future deals develop.