Cutnpaste: - R.A. Dickey, Damien Magnifico, Lucas Duda, Dae-Sung Koo, David’s Pad

R.A. Dickey: Teams don’t trade for journeyman knuckleball pitchers in the off-season. They wait for the trade deadline. He’s been arguably the Mets most consistent starter, but he’s a No. 4 according to most scouts, maybe a No. 5. He’s somebody a contender might covet in July, but he’s not going to bring back a lot of talent.  http://www.newyorkmetsreport.com/2011/10/25/mets-have-precious-few-pieces-to-trade

10-28-11: - http://www.soonersports.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/102611aaa.html  - Damien Magnifico, a 2009 fifth rounder of the New York Mets, and Gray, a 2011 10th rounder by the New York Yankees, were both clocked in the mid-to-high 90s in the intrasquad. Magnifico tripped triple digits on the MPH display on the scoreboard, topping out at 102.  "It's pretty amazing," added Golloway on the two pitchers' performance. "We've had that display for a number of years and I have never seen it hit 100. And you have Magnifico hitting 100, 101, 102 today, then you have someone like Jon Gray pitching against him, and he's sitting there rocking the gun at 97-98. It's pretty amazing but those guys also understand its about throwing strikes."

Purely as a hitter, Duda put up numbers over 324 plate appearances last year that stack up on a percentage basis with what Mike Stanton did in 2011 and what Ryan Howard did in 2005. And that’s why I think Duda is a star with the bat in his hands. There are certainly reasons to be skeptical. Duda has neither the pedigree nor track record that Stanton and Howard possess. He’s not come close to matching the over the fence power of either of those two players. And his outfield defense is atrocious. But when he steps into the batter’s box, Duda has put up some eye-opening numbers. Now we have to see if Duda can overcome the adjustments that pitchers make against him this year. We have to see if he can produce over a full season. And we have to see if he can cut it in the outfield. But there are definitely reasons to be excited, too. And the proposed new outfield dimensions at Citi Field could help improve his power numbers. Duda could be the best hitter on the 2012 Mets. That is if they don’t trade him for help in other areas.  http://mets360.com/?p=8305

TO THE untrained eye, Dae-Sung Koo looks like any other weekend warrior at Petersham Oval. But this 42-year-old baseballer is not your garden variety pitcher. After all, we're pretty sure most of his teammates haven't won an Olympic medal, starred for the New York Mets, don't possess a 150km/h fast ball or have an estimated $50 million in career earnings.  But while he can't walk down the streets of his homeland, South Korea, without getting mobbed, Koo has been preparing for the Australian Baseball League in the relative anonymity of a Sydney winter league. http://www.smh.com.au/sport/korea-opportunities--mets-unlikely-hero-finds-a-home-in-harbour-city-20111029-1mpek.html#ixzz1cBfUbUGf

New York Mets star David Wright has been trying to sell his swank penthouse in NYC’s Flatiron District for quite some time… He paid $6.1M for it back in 2006, tried originally selling it for $7,850,000, and has continued to lower the price to unload…Here’s what my real estate expert says about the property, ” I hear rumblings that it’s gonna come down another $200k to $6,750,000. No buyers are stepping up to the plate…In the meantime, Wright is living in a $12,000 pad on the Upper East Side.” http://www.terezowens.com/david-wright-trying-to-sell-swank-penthouse-in-nycs-flatiron-district

Mack’s 25-man: - RHSP R.A. Dickey

There hasn’t been a better pitcher of the staff in the last two seasons, and yet I still can’t figure out why two Mets managers kept pulling this guy 50 pitches before his arm would become tired.

This is not one of those post series that are going to be filled with a bunch of stats. Simply put, there was no pitcher last season that made me feel more comfortable than Dickey. And, I include his bad outings. The 2011 Mets proved they could score runs and Dickey proved most of the time that he could settle down.

It also seemed to me that the Mets played better when he was in there (somebody go look it up…).

Johan Santana will be given the SP1 slot, even if it is only out of respect. Right now, Dickey would be a lot of people’s SP2, but frankly, you’d like to pitch this guy behind the pitcher with the most heat.  I’d let Jon Niese sit at 95 first, then follow him the next day with R.A.’s 13-mph knuckler.

Long term is definitely up in the air here. First, if Dickey has another year like the last two, he would have to signed for a lot more than the Mets are paying him now (forget age…  knucklers can pitch until they die of natural causes).

There will be lots of young meat in this rotation in 2013 and Niese may be the only survivor here, but I’m sticking with Dickey until he shows he can’t carry his own weight.

Cutnpaste: - Wayne Krivsky, Luis Carreno, Jose’s Final Days, R.A. Dickey

Two holdovers from former New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya's regime were let go by the organization Friday, major league sources told ESPNNewYork.com. Former Minaya deputies Wayne Krivsky and Bryan Lambe are out, the sources said. Krivsky is the former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds. He was influential in bringing rookie infielder Justin Turner to the Mets as a waiver claim. The departures were expected as their contracts expires and GM Sandy Alderson and lieutenants sought to bring in their own personnel. Both had scouting roles this past season. - http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/35323/ex-reds-gm-krivsky-lambe-out

9-23-11 via Twitter: - AdamRubinESPN - The #Mets signed 16-year-old Venezuelan RHP Luis Carreño in recent days… When BA did their list of top 40 International prospects, he wasn't on the main list but in an "Other Notables" list.

As the rain poured down Friday afternoon Jose Reyes still sat at his locker. He was one of the few players who hadn’t deserted the clubhouse, waiting for a chance to play a game. But the rain finally beat him, the game called and rescheduled, condensing Reyes’ career with the Mets to just five more days until he slips into limbo. The Mets will face the Phillies in a split doubleheader today, accelerating the countdown for Reyes, who has six games left before becoming a free agent. And after a season of insisting that he just wants to play and not think about the future, even he can’t push it out of his mind. "Right now I don’t think about that stuff," Reyes said. "But the next couple of days when the season gets closer to the finish maybe I’ll think about it. I have a lot of great memories here. I don’t know if I’m going to be back. Who knows what’s going to happen? - http://www.northjersey.com/sports/130488958_Reyes__time_is_almost_up.html

Twitter: - RADickey43 - R.A. Dickey -  by sabometrics - Thank you everyone. It's been a long season I know. But never abandon hope. It is the quintessential human emotion. Glad I finished strong.

Cutnpaste: Omir Santos, Josh Satin, R.A. Dickey, Moneyball, Mechanics

9-5-11: - http://www.rotoworld.com/sports/mlb/baseball?r=1  - Tigers recalled C Omir Santos from Triple-A Toledo. Santos will function as the Tigers' emergency backup catcher down the stretch. The 30-year-old from Puerto Rico has managed one hit in eight big league at-bats this year

9-3-11: - http://metsmerizedonline.com/2011/09/prospect-pulse-buffalo-2012-help-on-the-way.html  - Josh Satin - Satin continues to hit at every level he plays and has a .307 BA for his career, his lifetime OBP is .397. This season, split between AA and AAA, his slash line is .322/.411/.493. He is a September call-up for the Mets, and has been added to the 40 man roster, so we should get to see his debut any day now at Citi. Next year he should be in the ST mix as a back-up 1B-2B-3B and PH, but with Evans blocking his path, he will probably spend 2012 as insurance for the big club, as he works on his defense at AAA, while playing 1B, 2B, and 3B.

9-5-11: - http://www.latimes.com/sports/sns-rt-bbo-metsmtze793x3w0gt-20110904,0,794512.story  - RHP R.A. Dickey had gone more than a month without a victory before he finally picked up a win Monday, going seven shutout innings against the Marlins. The wait wasn't so long this time as he followed that up by pitching on three days rest for the first time this season and he got the victory over the Nationals with six innings, allowing three runs.

9-5-11: - http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14921  - There's one scene that sticks out in my mind, though, if only because it made me realize something about the Moneyball phenomenon as a whole. You'll remember it from the book as the chapter where Billy Beane simultaneously wheedles Ricardo Rincon out of the Indians and leaves Brian Sabean wandering around the Embarcadero wearing a barrel. That moment is the heart of Michael Lewis's book. In the film, it seems almost out of place, as if some poor assistant rushing a latte to Mr. Sorkin had tripped and fallen and gotten his script crossed up with 10 pages from another movie. What to that point had felt a little like, I dunno, The Bad News Bears Learn Microsoft Excel became something else entirely. Pitt works the phones, and Jonah Hill beaches himself in the corner of the screen, and the whole enjoyable hustle unfolds like something out of another movie—Glengarry Glen Ross, maybe. And that's when it occurred to me: Moneyball is, very quietly, a story about a con.

9-5-11: - beyondtheboxscore.  - When scouts begin their evaluation on a pitcher, it’s usually during his warm-ups (once he’s one the mound). They don’t hold their gun or stopwatch, but instead simply watch the mechanics and delivery of the hurler. That’s because for some scouts, mechanics are the initial attribute that scouts evaluate. First and foremost, they look to see if he can repeat his delivery. If he can, that’s obviously a plus. Even though all pitchers are different and some have their own unique style, scouts typically want to see a clean and smooth delivery. Things usually flow from there, as you can’t do much of anything should you be unable to consistently repeat your mechanics. Scouts prefer clean and smooth deliveries for a variety of reasons, one of which is to prevent injury. You want to make sure he isn’t changing his arm speed when throwing his off-speed stuff. That generally occurs in the arms of younger pitchers, but tinkering can fix that. On a similar note, changing his arm slot when throwing off-speed pitches isn't acceptable either. Tinkering can fix that too, but you don’t want to see the pitcher lose bite on his stuff when changing a delivery flaw. However, consistent mechanics are more important by a mile.