Last year, one of the big discussions coming into the year was: Who should bat second?

Should it be Paul Lo Duca, the “prototypical number #2 hitter”, coming off a very bleh .283/.334/.380 season with the Marlins. Or should it be Carlos Beltran, who batted 3rd in 2005 and struggled mightily in his first year, batting .266/.330/.414. Many thought that a move to the second spot in the lineup would be the cure for Beltran’s struggles in his first year as a Met.

As we all know, Lo Duca batted second, hitting .318 batting behind Jose Reyes while Carlos Beltran went on to have a MVP type season hitting .275/.388/.594 from the third spot.

Considering that, I’m quite surprised that we have been reading lately of the possibility that David Wright, not Paul Lo Duca, might open the season as the #2 batter. Let’s take a look at a possible lineup, with Wright in the two spot.

Reyes
Wright
Beltran
Delgado
Alou
Green
LoDuca
Valentin

As opposed to what I expected before this David Wright talk…

Reyes
LoDuca
Beltran
Delgado
Wright
Alou
Green
Valentin

While lineup construction doesn’t matter that much, especially for a team that will score a lot of runs, I feel like the second lineup is much more equally distributed, as opposed to the first lineup, which feels a little top-heavy.

If there is a guy who I would like to see eventually displace Lo Duca as the second batter, it would be Lastings Milledge, if and when he finally gets the right field job from Shawn Green. But before that, I think the Mets would be best off keeping LoDuca in the two spot and Wright in the fifth spot.

click to enlarge (hat tip: FAFIF)

Well, it appears that all of our hard work here as finally paid off, as Sports Illustrated has given us a mention in their recent Mets season preview article. The mini-sidebar invites readers to take to the web to vote for their favorite Mets site. Here is the URL if you would like to go and vote for us. Or, you could vote for one of the other three worthy sites. But you don’t want to do that, do you? Seriously, it’s an honor just to be nominated.

Whoever votes the most will receive the unbridled satisfaction of a job well done, and the undying gratitude of a bunch of baseball geeks. Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and made MetsGeek such a tremendous success this season, and thanks to the Mets for giving us something to be excited about.

The Mets will be back next season, stronger and better than ever. We’ll still be here with the goods every day between now and then.

Thanks again, and congratulations to the Cardinals. Go bring the World Series back to the National League where it belongs.

–Eric

With the Padres winning this afternoon to lock up the NL West title, the Dodgers end up the Wild Card winner and win an all expenses paid trip to Queens to take on our boys at Shea. Here’s a quick breakdown of the two teams.

Pitching

                 Mets   NL Rank   Dodgers   NL Rank
---------------------------------------------------
Staff ERA        4.16      3        4.24       4
Starters ERA     4.68      8        4.30       4
Bullpen ERA      3.26      1        4.15       8
---------------------------------------------------
Staff K/9        7.15      3        6.60      10
Starter K/9      6.61      7        5.71      13
Bullpen K/9      8.05      3        8.13       2
---------------------------------------------------
Staff K/BB       2.20      6        2.17       7
Starter K/BB     1.91      9        2.06       7
Bullpen K/BB     2.78      1        2.33       4

Batting

        Mets   NL Rank   Dodgers   NL Rank
------------------------------------------
Runs     828      3        816        4
AVG     .264      9       .276        1
OBP     .333      8       .348        1
SLG     .445      3       .433        7
SB       146      1        126        2
SB%      81%      1        73%        6

The Mets had a terrible September, which helped drag their overall numbers down closer to where the Dodgers are. The Mets seem to have an edge in pitching, though it’s not nearly as pronounced as I would have thought. Hitting-wise, I figured the Mets to have an edge, too, though the Dodgers’ squad got on base more frequently than any team in the league.

This figures to be a better matchup than many would guess given the disparity in total wins, the Mets at 97 and the Dodgers at 88. It all gets started Wednesday afternoon at 4pm at Shea, so be there or be here.

The Organizational Player Chart has been updated. Rejoice.

Just two days til something and something. Things have been a little slow this week here at MetsGeek, so here’s an open thread to discuss all matter of Mets topics. For instance:

[x] Rickey Henderson as a Spring Training baserunning instructor
[x] New Shea Stadium a mix of Ebbetts Field and PNC Park
[x] Alay Soler
[x] The battle for second base between Kaz Matsui, Jeff Keppinger and Anderson Hernandez
[x] The sheer awesomeness of Gary Cohen on TV

And so on.

From Melissa Salvo Audience Coordinator of Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith:

The reason that I am contacting you is that we just found out that current New York Mets General Manager, Omar Minaya, will be appearing live in studio for tomorrow evening’s show.

We would like to extend to your website the remaining 10-15 FREE tickets to attend the show. It would be a great opportunity for some of your fellow MetsGeeks board members to meet up and see a current baseball GM. These tickets are open to all board members, family members, and friends.

We realize this is such short notice, but it would be great if we could have some Met fans in the audience to represent and help support Omar.

The show time again will be this Wednesday, February 8 at 6:30 pm. Doors will open up at 5:00pm. The studio is conveniently located across the street from Madison Square Gardens in New York City. And again, all tickets are FREE to attend.

If you or any board member is interested in those free tickets or need more information, please contact us back as soon as possible by phone at 646-708-7102 or drop us an email at Melissa.A.Salvo.-ND@espn.com to make a reservation.

And a little bit more information about the studio…

Since we just found out about the show, we can accommodate as many members on your forum that is interested in attending.

Again the show time will be tomorrow evening (Wednesday, February 8) at 6:30pm. The audience should check-in by 5:00pm. The studio is located across the street from Madison Square Garden on W33rd St. (between 6th and 7th Ave).

Feel free to call or e-mail Melissa if you are interested in attending the show.

Braden Looper signs a three-year deal with the Cardinals and Roberto Hernandez goes to the Pirates on, presumably, a one-year pact.

Rincon and Looper will serve as setup men for closer Jason Isringhausen, who has notched at least 30 saves in three of his four seasons in St. Louis.

Looper will also serve as insurance at closer. He posted at least 28 saves in each of the past three years and a sub-4.00 ERA in six of his seven Major League seasons.

Hernandez, 41, went 8-6 with four saves and a 2.58 ERA in 67 relief appearances with the New York Mets last year. He did not allow a run in 55 of his 67 appearances and held right-handed batters to a .213 average while pitching for his seventh major league team.

Here’s a slightly more sophisticated breakdown than the one we did on Saturday with the Braves.

The ratings are loosely based on VORP but there’s certainly a degree of subjectivity involved. The highest score is five, lowest is 1, and players are scored relative to the position they play (e.g. SP5 is compared to other fifth starters, not aces; catchers are compared to catchers, not firstbasemen).

[3] Paul Lo Duca   | C| Mike Lieberthal [3]
[5] Carlos Delgado |1B|     Ryan Howard [4]
[1] Kaz Matsui     |2B|     Chase Utley [5]
[5] David Wright   |3B|      David Bell [1]
[3] Jose Reyes     |SS|   Jimmy Rollins [4]
[4] Cliff Floyd    |LF|     Pat Burrell [4]
[4] Carlos Beltran |CF|    Aaron Rowand [3]
[2] Victor Diaz    |RF|     Bobby Abreu [5]
---                                     ---
 27                                      29

[5] Pedro Martinez |SP1| Brett Myers [4]
[4] Tom Glavine    |SP2|  Jon Lieber [3]
[4] Kris Benson    |SP3| Corey Lidle [3]
[4] Steve Trachsel |SP4|  Randy Wolf [3]
[4] Jae Seo        |SP5| Ryan Madsen [4]
---                                  ---
 21                                   17

[5] Billy Wagner |CL|     Tom Gordon [3]
[4] Mets Bench   | B| Phillies Bench [2]
[4] Mets Pen     |BP|   Phillies Pen [2]
---                                  ---
 13                                    7

Mets Total: 27 + 21 + 13 = 61
Phillies Total: 29 + 17 + 7 = 53

I happen to have a higher opinion of the Mets’ bullpen than a lot of people, thus the high mark for them. Ryan Howard might not quite be a four, but I didn’t think he was as low as a three. You might also argue that Tom Gordon isn’t quite a three, but he’s still quite a good pitcher, even if he doesn’t have Wagner’s resume.

A lot of you have been asking about the Mets’ payroll situation recently, what with all of the recent signings, trades and other player acquisitions. I’m happy to say that thanks to a lot of work and a lot of help from a lot of folks, I present to you the MetsGeek Payroll Spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet is broken down into player categories:

* Starting position players
* Starting rotation
* Bullpen
* Bench
* Everything else

“Everything else” includes players on the 40-man roster who are not on the active roster, free agents who have yet to sign, minor leaguers with Major League contracts and retired players still collecting a paycheck from Mr. Wilpon. 2005 figures for all players are included for historical reference.

There are bound to be errors and omissions, so if you have payroll information that we are missing or have bungled, please let me know so that it can be corrected. When submitting information be sure to include a reliable source for your claims (like a URL), otherwise there is no reason to believe tht your information is better than ours.

The spreadsheet can be accessed any time by using the link under “Features” on the left sidebar.

Special thanks to the following people:

Wally Gobetz from the Mets Baseball Talk ListServ
Michael Srihari from the wonderful but now-defunct Dugout Dollars
Russell Schwager’s terrific Hardball Dollars

Not much going in in Metsland right now. Omar Minaya is still looking at options to upgrade the rotation and round out the bullpen.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how the Mets stack up against the umpteen-time NL East Champion Braves:

C - Paul Lo Duca vs Brian McCann (Braves)
1B - Carlos Delgado vs Adam LaRoche (Mets)
2B - Kaz Matsui vs Marcus Giles (Braves)
3B - David Wright vs Chipper Jones (push, health caveat for Jones)
SS - Jose Reyes vs Edgar Renteria (Mets)
LF - Cliff Floyd vs Kelly Johnson (Mets)
CF - Carlos Beltran vs Andruw Jones (Braves)
RF - Xavier Nady (or Victor Diaz) vs Jeff Francoeur (Braves)

SP1 - Pedro Martinez vs John Smoltz (Mets)
SP2 - Tom Glavine vs Tim Hudson (Braves)
SP3 - Kris Benson vs MIke Hampton (Push, health caveat for Hampton)
SP4 - Jae Seo vs John Thomson (Mets, based on 2005)
SP5 - Steve Trachsel vs Horacio Ramirez (Push)

CL - Billy Wagner vs Joey Reclamationproject (Mets)

I’ll consider the rest of the bullpen and the bench a push, just for simplicity sake. It is almost a foregone conclusion that more moves will be made and this chart will change, plus the binary nature of the above ratings is not very scientific.

Question of the day: Are the Mets good enough to beat the Braves in the NL East?

Per Rotoworld (you may have to scroll the news to find it. Posted at 7:33 on Dec 5th.), from Omar’s mouth…

GM Omar Minaya said today that he sees Paul Lo Duca as a No. 2 hitter.

“He makes contact. We wanted to get more guys to make contract. We struck out too much last year,” Minaya said.

The Mets struck out 1,075 times last year, which gave them the 7th least strikeouts out of 16 teams in the NL. So, middle of the pack.

The Mets #2 batters struck out 124 times, 9th least in the NL. So, still middle of the pack.

On the other hand, the Mets #2 batters hit .245/.296/.362 (which, by the way, was not dead last. Washington and Pittsburgh actaully did worse).

Omar, the problem with the #2 spot (and the lineup in general) was not strikeouts. It was getting on-base. And it was batting some or your worst offensive players in the top spots of the lineup.

Updated Projected Willie Randolph Lineup:
Reyes, SS
LoDuca, C
Beltran, CF
Delgado, 1B
Floyd, LF
Wright, 3B
Nady/Diaz, RF
Grudz?, 2B

Ah David, we hope for you Willie does not insist on batting Cliff Floyd ahead of you like he did at the end of last year.