Your Friday morning dose of New York Mets and Major League Baseball news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
The Mets did not play a baseball game yesterday, but don't worry. There are still nine games left before the cold, hard winter sets in. The first of those is on Friday night in Atlanta starting at 7:35 p.m.
In the meantime, the Mets are sending scouts to look at 23-year-old Cuban power hitter Yasmani Tomas. Perhaps the Mets can strike it rich the way the White Sox did with Jose Abreu this winter.
Adam Rubin reports that Wally Backman may have a job on the Mets' coaching staff in 2015.
A recent hot streak has Marc Carig asking if Wilmer Flores is the team's shortstop of the future.
Mike Puma talked to Paul DePodesta about the Mets' top hitting prospects.
Mike Vorkunov makes the case for Zack Wheeler as a future ace.
SNY has an interview with Triple-A infielder Matt Reynolds.
FanGraphs gives us a complete breakdown of Jacob deGrom's eight consecutive strikeouts from Monday night.
Around the NL East
Giancarlo Stanton talked to the media about his recovery from the facial injuries he suffered when he was hit with a fastball last week. He seems to be doing well, considering his situation.
The Phillies lost the Padres 7-3 despite an incredible catch by Domonic Brown.
Denard Span might have made an even more awesome play in Washington's win over Miami.
Gio Gonzalez pitched impressively in that game and he could be making his case to be part of the Nationals' postseason rotation.
Around the Majors
Emma Span writes that Bud Selig is sending a bad message by ignoring the Mets' financial mess as well as the recent discrimination allegations against Jeff Wilpon.
Anthony Rizzo has won the 2014 Branch Rickey Award thanks to his work with pediatric cancer patients. The Cubs and Chicago are very lucky to have such a mensch.
In what continues to be a bizarre story, Ron Washington says he resigned from the Rangers because he was "not true to" his wife.
Backup catcher Tony Cruz hit a walk-off single in the 13th inning versus Milwaukee to lower the Cardinals' magic number to eight.
The swooning A's lost again on Thursday, but it's not because they've made too many trades this summer.
You should definitely read this if you've been wondering what former big league shortstop Khalil Greene is doing nowadays.
Richard Justice lists the Mets as one of his five breakout teams of 2015.
Derek Jeter hit his first Yankee Stadium home run of the season to help the Bombers defeat the Blue Jays.
The new Jeter farewell video by Gatorade is pretty cool, I guess.
Yesterday at AA
Steve Sypa profiled a pair of Korean prospects, balanced slugger Jeong Choi and middle infielder Jung-Ho Kang.
Jared Steckler examines the run-scoring potential of Dilson Herrera and other Mets prospects.
Episode 85 of Amazin' Avenue Audio is now available.
On this date in 1967, Wes Westrum, the Mets' second ever manager, resigned right before the end of the season.