Nyjer Morgan, King of Situational Awareness

Uhhhh. No idea if this makes last night’s walk-off loss more painful or not. (Article via Big League Stew, which also has a video of Morgan’s post game interview. He’s a weird guy.)

The Draft is Tonight

The MLB draft begins tonight and runs through Wednesday. The Mets have the 13th, 44th, and 71st picks overall, and then a whole bunch of other picks. And that’s about all the draft coverage you’ll find here. I don’t pay attention to any pre-draft stuff, the mock drafts, prospect reports, or oracle sooth-sayings. I’m not interested in any amateur baseball players until they’re actually a member of the Mets’ system (or I know them in real life, and even then I don’t care that much). But for coverage of the draft that’s more in-depth than the “I know absolutely nothing about this player” that you’ll find here, check out Mets Minor League Blog.

Attendance is Down, but . . .

If you’re wondering, through their first 27 home games last season, the Mets had drawn 860,118 fans. In 27 home games this season, the Mets have drawn 744,578 fans, a drop of 115,540 fans (13.4%). As Nate Silver covered yesterday in the New York Times, this is a larger drop than expected even taking into account the team’s poor play over the past three seasons. The Mets’ and the Dodgers’ struggles to sells tickets suggests that a lack of confidence in ownership or management can contribute to poor ticket sales.

Anyway, this also means that should you ignore the Mets and Dodgers, MLB attendance is actually up this season. Baseball!

This is Going to be a Fun Week

Well that makes it sound like next year el esta no aqui. Or whatever the future form of esta is. I don’t know any Spanish.

Injury Expert on Wright

Will Carroll breaks down Wright’s injury in his Under the Knife column on SI.com. Carroll used to write for Baseball-Prospectus, where he was behind their paywall, but now he’s a free range writer over at SI where everyone can read him. He’s one of the few covering injuries in a meaningful way, and definitely a must read for everyone who follows baseball. 

About F!

I’m not sure if I understand why Fernando Martinez is here either. If the Mets are looking for a lefty bat off the bench, Kirk Nieuwenhuis makes more sense. He’s also lefthanded and already on the 40-man roster (EDIT: He’s not. Assumed he was. They could 60 day DL Jenrry Mejia and put him on, and so on), but can handle center field (supposedly), something that would seem iffy with Martinez considering his knees and propensity to vaporize on contact. He’s also outhitting Martinez in Triple-A.

On the other hand, perhaps this is indicative that Nieuwenhuis has jumped past Martinez in the Mets’ eyes, in that they would rather have the Captain playing and learning everyday in Triple-A while Martinez sits on the big league bench. If true, this has future implications (though I suppose everything has future implications), as if Beltran is gone in 2012, Lucas Duda, Nieuwenhuis, and Martinez would seem to be the internal options for right field. I would guess that Martinez is the favorite, but maybe Nieuwenhuis is sneaking ahead of him.

On the other hand, maybe big daddy Sandy just thinks Martinez is more big league ready than Nieuwenhuis. More baseless speculation!

Busy day (and week) for me, so things may be quiet around here. Astros preview sometime tonight/tomorrow, then back to normal over the weekend.

DePo on Promoting Pitching Prospects

ESPN-New York’s Adam Rubin talked with Paul DePodesta, Mets VP of Player Development, about the system’s young pitching prospects and their possible promotions to the big leagues. Good stuff, and generally refreshing considering the way such things were handled around here before. You can read the whole thing here.

DePodesta on the Mets Draft

ESPN’s Adam Rubin talks with Paul DePodesta about the Mets’ strategy for the upcoming draft. The Mets have the 13th overall pick. Lots of good stuff, check it out.

Blah?

Martino’s piece is generating a lot of noise on the Internet today (Craig Calcaterra’s reaction here, Deadspin’s here), so I figured it was worth posting a link. It’s certainly different. You can read the whole piece here.

To Repeat Myself

I wrote about Mike Pelfrey’s struggles last September, and in lieu of simply rewriting the exact same post, I’ll just link back to myself. It’s more or less still what I think.