Your Saturday morning dose of New York Mets and Major League Baseball news, notes, and links.
Meet the Mets
The big news yesterday was that the Mets landed their first big league free agent, former Diamondbacks and Athletics outfielder Chris Young. The deal is reportedly for a year at $7.25 million and gives the Mets a 30-year-old outfielder with some power and defensive ability. We have a roundup of some of the reaction to the signing but for further analysis, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs says the Mets got a bargain on Young, while Mark Simon of ESPN NY compares Young to Mike Cameron. Toby Hyde, meanwhile, categorizes this as a solid step. I agree, though that step has to lead to something else.
In order to make room for the Young on the 40-man roster, the Mets waived righty Hansel Robles. Robles cleared waivers and is still in the Mets organization.
With the signing of Young, Adam Rubin estimates the Mets current payroll at about $62 million. The team insisted to John Harper yesterday that payroll can be expanded beyond his reported $25-30 million ceiling and perhaps some of that money will be used on outfielder Nelson Cruz, who the team reportedly still has interest in.
MiLB.com has a rundown of the Mets' minor league all-stars, complete with some insight from Paul DePodesta himself. This isn't a top prospects list but merely who they considered the best performers in the organization.
There was some bad news for first baseman Allan Dykstra who apparently broke his fibula playing down in Venezuela.
Around the Majors
The CardinalsmovedWorld Series hero David Freese along with reliever Fernando Salas to the Angels for center fielder Peter Bourjos and outfield prospect Randal Grichuk. Seems like a nice deal for the Cardinals, who can replace Jon Jay with an actual center fielder now.
Jon Heyman reports that the Royals are showing serious interest in Carlos Beltran, which may kill the dream of Carlos going into the Hall of Fame in a Mets hat.
Peter Gammons reports that Jhonny Peralta already has multiple 4 year, $52 million contract offers in hand. Any chance one of those is from the Mets?
At FanGraphs, David Laurila has a great Q&A with Cardinals assistant GM Michael Girsch.
Jack Moore wrote about how air travel changed the game of baseball.
All MLB stadiums may have metal detectors beginning in 2014.
Anna Benson will be on Dr. Phil next week talking about her arrest. There's a video clip in there that kind of makes me interested in watching, actually.
Yesterday At AA
Ron Darling renewed his contract with SNY. YAY!
If you read an article or find a link that you think would be a great addition to a future edition of Mets Morning News, please forward it to our tips email address tips@grission.com and we'll try to add it in.
