Cutnpaste: - Jason Isringhausen, Don Zimmer, Mets Attendance, Reese Havens, 1882 Mets

Jason Isringhausen — It was a rough season for Isringhausen, who had mixed results filling in as the team's closer in the second half. Once a bright prospect in the Mets organization, Izzy had his best years closing games for the Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals. But he returned to where it all started this summer and notched career save No. 300 in a Mets uniform. - http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ycn-9174449

Don Zimmer, Tampa Bay Rays -- Rays owner and longtime Mets fan Stuart Sternberg isn't cutting any checks to ex-Mets this postseason, but he is ponying up some dough to pay for the services of one on the bench. Zimmer's best days certainly happened elsewhere, from his playing days with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers as well as the Chicago Cubs to his managerial turns in Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere. Or maybe you just associate him as Joe Torre's old bench coach with the Yankees, the one who Pedro Martinez threw to the ground in self-defense from a charging bald bull. Zimmer's an original Met, though -- a dyed-in-the-wool 1962 vintage that played all of 14 games for the Amazin's that year before being dealt to the Cincinnati Reds in May. That should give him a pass in case Jonah Keri's The Extra 2% didn't woo you about the good things going down in Tampa these days. - http://www.amazinavenue.com/2011/9/30/2459916/a-mets-fans-guide-to-recognizing-your-saints-in-the-2011-mlb-playoffs

Mets attendance declined for a third straight season, with the team drawing a total announced crowd of 2,352,596 in 2011. That figure was the team's lowest in seven years, since Art Howe's final season as manager. The 8.1 percent decline this season comes on the heels of a 19.2 percent dropoff from the inaugural season at Citi Field to Year 2 in 2010. Attendance dropped 21.6 percent from 2008 at Shea Stadium to 2009 at smaller-capacity Citi Field. - http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/35658/mets-attendance-down-8-in-2011

9-22-11: - http://projectprospect.com/article/2011/09/22/2011-eastern-league-top-prospects - Reese Havens, 2B New York Mets - “He really stayed with his approach no matter how we pitched him. I had the opportunity from second base to see how he hit. He got in good counts. We started pitching him away more as the season went on and it’s like he changed his approach. He was fun to watch.” – Eastern League hitter

In the 1800s the game went huge, particularly in New York where journalists referred to it as the “national pastime”. Leagues were formed, stadiums were built, and players were paid to play the game. By the turn of the century baseball looked like the modern-day game, with owners, presidents, managers, and star players. Here are some photos of that era pulled from the Library of Congress Archives. - http://1x57.com/2011/10/02/historical-baseball-photos-1880-1915

Cutnpaste: Brad Holt, Chris Young, Tim Teufel, Harry Minor, Jason Isringhausen

9-17-11: - Brad Holt (Mets supplemental first-round pick in 2008): The right-hander from UNC-Wilmington rocketed through the minors for the first year of his pro career. But after reaching Binghamton in June 2009, his career has come to a dead stop. After back-to-back rough seasons in Double-A, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Mets take a chance and leave him unprotected. Read more: link  

Chris Young went to a little private college in New Jersey called Princeton. Maybe you’ve heard of it? He was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates (how unfortunate) in the 2000 amateur draft, but refused to sign his rookie contract until he got assurances from the club that he would be able to complete his studies. So he didn’t end up becoming a full-time pro ballplayers until after he graduated with a degree in politics in 2002. (They don’t call it “political science” at Princeton like they do everywhere else. They can get away with that because, well, they’re Princeton.) Today he’s a pretty respectable no. 4 or no. 5 starting pitcher. - http://www.totalprosports.com/2011/09/16/9-smartest-players-in-major-league-baseball

A Greenwich native, (Tim) Teufel spent four years working his way through the minor leagues in the early eighties and had so much fun he decided to do it all over again, this time as a manager. Teufel just completed his first year at the helm of the Buffalo Bisons, the Mets Triple-A affiliate after years working his way up the ranks, beginning in short-season A-ball with the Brooklyn Cyclones of the NY-Penn League with stops in St. Lucie, Savannah and in Double-A Binghamton for the 2010 season. Read more: http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Teufel-watches-his-players-move-up-to-majors-2175813.php#ixzz1YJOpPeJT 

It is all nearing an end for Harry Minor, a lifetime of baseball that began at Wilson High in the 1940s and coursed through a couple of decades in the minor leagues before a seamless odyssey with the New York Mets that has spanned almost a half century. He admits there is a sense of wistfulness hanging over him as the curtain is set to close on his ball diamond endeavors that have brought him near to so many storied figures of the game. "Yeah, it's almost over," he said, and there is a sadness in a voice that normally oozes with vibrancy. "What will I miss? Obviously, the ball games. I never get tired of watching baseball. - http://www.presstelegram.com/sports/ci_18921592  

Mets manager Terry Collins said Jason Isringhausen (back) could be ready to pitch by the end of this week. Izzy has a slipped disk in his back and experienced leg numbness after receiving an epidural last week to help the back issue. He's likely to be used in a setup role when he returns, with Bobby Parnell and Manny Acosta continuing to handle the ninth inning. - http://www.rotoworld.com/sports/mlb/baseball?r=1  

Cutnpaste: Chris Schwinden, Jason Isringhausen, CitiField Dimensions, Bradley Marquez, Jose Pagan

9-3-11: - http://metsmerizedonline.com/2011/09/prospect-pulse-buffalo-2012-help-on-the-way.html  - SP4: Chris Schwinden - Schwinden has emerged as the “ace” of the Buffalo rotation this year, going 8-7 with a 3.95 ERA in 25 GS. He has put himself squarely on the “prospect map” as a RHP in the Dillon Gee mold. The chief difference between the two, is where Gee relies heavily on his change-up as an out-pitch, Schwinnie uses a hard-breaking curveball. He will be a super long-shot to make the Mets out of ST next year, and will probably be a “holdover” in the Herd’s rotation, but should definitely get his first big league opportunity at some point during the 2012 campaign, whether in the rotation or the bullpen is tough to say.

(Jason) Isringhausen is suffering from a herniated disk in his lower back. He last pitched on Sept. 6. With Isringhausen down, Collins has given a few more opportunities to bullpen options like Manny Acosta and Daniel Herrera. The manager is still trying to figure out his closer situation for the future. Isringhausen has said he would like to pitch in 2012. He has a 4.05 ERA in 46 2/3 innings this year. At 38, he has overcome a trio of Tommy John surgeries, a pair of hip surgeries and a laundry list of other ailments - http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2011/09/mets_notebook_reliever_jason_i.html  

Amid growing speculation that the Mets will shrink the daunting dimensions of Citi Field this off-season, the issue has become an open topic of discussion among players in the clubhouse. After a recent game, David Wright lamented that he had hit “800 feet worth of doubles” and added, perhaps only half-jokingly, that he hoped such an effort would yield a couple of home runs next season. Until now, hitters like Wright have been the ones asked about the size of the park, and fans and commentators have weighed in on the merits of altering a facility that is only three years old. - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/sports/baseball/the-pros-and-cons-of-altering-citi-field.html  

9-14-11: - http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/09/13/3365498/texas-techs-bradley-marquez-takes.html#ixzz1XvtSeqZK  - (Bradley) Marquez is playing football this fall with the Raiders and will go through spring football drills before reporting to the Mets' rookie league in Port Lucie, Fla., in May -- 48 hours after his school session at Tech concludes. "I'll start in rookie ball and hopefully progress throughout the summer and see where I end up at the end of the summer and then go start over again next year [with football]," Marquez said. "Everybody starts at the very bottom, and you basically determine how fast you move up." The Mets awarded Marquez a $325,000 signing bonus to be paid over the life of his three-year contract, and are paying for Marquez's education, which frees the Raiders to use that scholarship money on someone else.

(Angel) Pagan's is too often overlooked, with some people even suggesting the absurd idea that the Mets should not tender him a contract for 2012. Pagan is undoubtedly having a down year at the plate, but he's still far from a liability. Since he began playing a significant amount of time in 2009, Pagan ranks seventh among qualified center fielders in wRC+. It's a bit concerning that Pagan's defense in center field appears to have gone downhill. UZR/150 ranks him worst in baseball at -16.9, but DRS has him at a middle-of-the-pack zero. Poor scores in both metrics are out of line with Pagan's work in 2009-2010. It's possible that the metrics are just a bit weird with him in a small sample of data, or Pagan is just human and having a not-so-great year in the field. Either way, Pagan still looks like a major league center fielder who can be retained on the cheap for next season, and the Mets don't have any obvious choices to replace him in the minor leagues. Productive big league players under team control at a reasonable cost are hard to come by, and in that respect, Pagan definitely seems underappreciated. - http://www.amazinavenue.com/2011/9/14/2423158/the-moneyball-mets-underappreciated-players-on-the-2011-team  

Cutnpaste: Aderlin Rodriguez, Zach Lutz, Wayne Garrett, Jason Isringhausen, Chris Schwinden

9-3-11: - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/833229-new-york-mets-ranking-their-current-best-prospect-at-every-position/page/7#/articles/833229-new-york-mets-ranking-their-current-best-prospect-at-every-position/page/2  - Aderlin Rodriguez, 19, shows a lot of promise at the plate. Rodriguez has cracked the Mets’ top 10 prospects lists for the Hardball Times, ESPN, MinorLeagueBaseball.com and BaseballAmerica. When he was 18 years old, he made his first real professional impact for his Kingsport team as he crushed 13 home runs and posted an impressive .240 ISO

9-3-11: - http://metsmerizedonline.com/2011/09/prospect-pulse-buffalo-2012-help-on-the-way.html  - Zach Lutz - What do I want for xmas? I want Zach Lutz to play a full season with no injuries, just to see what kind of numbers he can put up. The guy absolutely rakes, but he has been snake-bit with injuries. He would have been perfect to call up once DWright went down, but Lutz was on the DL the same time Wright was. If he can stay on the field next season he is just a phone call away from Citi and could be called up anytime to play 1B, 3B, or righty PH duties.

Wayne Garrett was someone who could have been a competent starter but the Mets spent considerable time and resources trying to upgrade the position and the results were disastrous. They gave up Amos Otis to get Joe Foy. That didn’t work out so they gave up Ron Herbel to get Bob Aspromonte. That didn’t work out so they gave up Nolan Ryan to get Jim Fregosi. If only they would have been content to get essentially league average production from their trouble spot of third base, they could have kept a Hall of Famer and a five-time All-Star who amassed 2,020 hits in the majors. - http://mets360.com/?p=7889&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mets360%2Ffeed+%28Mets360+Feed%29 

Jason Isringhausen is hurting, but not enough to call it a career. The veteran reliever yesterday said he plans to continue pitching next season, after bucking the odds in 2011 and remaining relatively healthy for the Mets. Isringhausen is bothered by a herniated disk in his back that will keep him sidelined for at least a few days, but intends to resume throwing by next week. The fact that his arm remains intact, after 53 appearances for the Mets, has him committed to 2012. "As of right now I want to pitch next year -- I plan on it," Isringhausen said before the Mets were swept, 6-5 and 5-1, by the Braves in yesterday's doubleheader at Citi Field. "The way my arm feels, getting the rest of my body in shape over the winter, the way I know I can, losing a few pounds, I think everything will be fine. - http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/back_for_more_ESeGClVJ8qAunMRhZS8MVO#ixzz1XRtuuzen  

From Twitter: - CSchwinny Chris Schwinden - Thank you everybody for the support. Those of you at the game and on here made me feel at home. I'll have a better outing next time I pitch!