What Can Mets Expect From Jason Bay?

 

For Jason Bay, 2010 was a year he'd like to forget.  In fact after crashing into the wall at Dodger Stadium and suffering post-concussion syndrome, he might have been forced to forget alot of it.  It was not supposed to be that way for Bay who signed a multi-year contract with the Mets amid speculation he really did not want to sign here.  That was a notion Bay later refuted but the sense was there the Mets were not his first choice.  And talking to Bay in spring training last year, he really felt there was talent on the Mets and thought the team could surprise.

And the team did surprise in the season's first half topping out at 11 games over .500 at one point before the second half meltdown after the All Star break.  But Bay never seemed to get untracked offensively while ironically proving to be a much better defensive player than advertised.  You also got the sense Bay got a little spooked by the dimensions of CitiField as his power numbers were not up to snuff.  He was starting to feel better at the plate by mid-season but then that fateful day in Los Angeles ended his season prematurely.

Bay spoke to me at the end of last season and expressed regret that he got to play so little alongside Carlos Beltran.  "We were like ships passing in the night this year-just when he got back I got hurt and so I do not think we ever got a chance to get things going.  I still feel in 2011 with myself, Beltran, and Pagan we have a real good trio of outfielders."

If the truth be told, there may not be a better trio in the league if they are all healthy and producing.  The back of Bay's baseball card indicates the Mets can expect big things from him in Year 2.  In fact, a middle of the lineup featuring Beltran, Wright, Bay and youngster Ike Davis could be pretty productive even in the spacious alleys of CitiField.

My thought is Bay will return to his 90-100 RBI efforts of seasons past and 2010 will just be a speed bump for him.  If that is the case, the Met offense could have a much different look than it did in 2010.

 

Tomorrow: Beltran and Reyes in Contract Years--Good Or Bad For The Mets?

Statement From Wilpons On Court Case

 

 

Statement from Fred Wilpon, Co-Founder and Chairman, and Saul B. Katz, Co-Founder and President of Sterling Equities, on behalf of the Sterling Equities partners and their families

GREAT NECK, N.Y., February 4, 2011 -- Following days of leaks and press speculation, the Court - with the agreement of the Sterling partners - has released the complaint that was previously filed under seal.

The Trustee's lawsuit is an outrageous "strong arm" effort to try to force a settlement by threatening to ruin our reputations and businesses which we have built for over 50 years.  This is a flagrant abuse of the Trustee's authority and we will not succumb to his pressure. The conclusions in the complaint are not supported by the facts.  While they may make for good headlines, they are abusive, unfair and untrue.  We categorically reject them.  We should not be made victims twice over - the first time by Madoff, and again by the Trustee's actions.

The plain truth is that not one of the Sterling partners ever knew or suspected that Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme.  Because the Trustee has no evidence to support his claims even after a year-and-a-half review of over 700,000 pages of documents and many, many hours of depositions, he has created a claim that we "knew or should have known" that Madoff was a fraud.  Why should we "have known" when the SEC and other government agencies that had oversight responsibilities did not know?  In fact, the SEC reported that Madoff was above board and legitimate, even after it investigated him many times.  Madoff was not a hedge fund, but an SEC regulated broker dealer and like millions of other Americans, we trusted the brokerage statements we received.  The Trustee is suing not only for what he defines as "fictitious profits" but for monies that we deposited with Madoff over almost 25 years.  That is outrageous, unfounded and inconsistent with the law.  Let us be clear, the Trustee is attempting to seize money originally invested with Madoff, which was earned from the Sterling businesses.

The Trustee also alleges that we were blinded to Madoff's crimes because our businesses "depended" on the returns.  That is complete nonsense.  We have good, sound businesses that were successful years before we invested with Madoff, including both real estate and the New York Mets.  Those businesses never depended on returns from Madoff.

Our previous statements

All of the public statements we have issued to date have been accurate and true.  We said when the fraud was first disclosed that the losses we suffered in the Madoff scheme would have no impact on the operations of the New York Mets and that was true.  At the time, we could not have anticipated that a trustee would file a lawsuit seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in addition to the substantial amounts that Madoff had stolen from us.

As we announced last Friday, we are now seeking one or more strategic partners in the New York Mets specifically because of the uncertainty created by the lawsuit filed by the Trustee in the Madoff bankruptcy.

We thought that Madoff was a friend for 25 years.  That is why his betrayal was so painful.  Each of the Sterling partners and their families invested with Madoff in good faith right up to the day his crime was exposed.  We were as shocked as the rest of the world when the money in our accounts vanished along with the billions he swindled from thousands of other innocent people.

In summary, we are proud of what we have built and achieved as a family.  We have worked very hard for our entire lives, always with character and integrity. We will not sit still while the Trustee or anyone else makes these outrageous and irresponsible allegations.  People who know us know the truth about who we are and what our life's work represents. 

 

Again, we have done nothing wrong.  We played by the rules.  We abided by the court order not to discuss the lawsuit.    Others did not.  We are confident we will win in court.

 

### 

 

Contact:           Dick Auletta

                        R.C. Auletta and Company

                        212-355-0400

                        [email protected]

 

=======================================================

 

STATEMENT BY ROBERT B. FISKE, JR., KAREN E. WAGNER, AND DAVID L. CAPLAN OF DAVIS POLK & WARDWELL LLP  ON BEHALF OF THE STERLING DEFENDANTS

 

NEW YORK, N.Y., February 4, 2011 -- Following days of leaks and press speculation, the Court, with the agreement of the Sterling partners, has released the complaint against our clients that was previously filed under seal.

 

While the heated rhetoric in the complaint may generate headlines, it is not supported by the facts, the law, or the extensive discovery record developed by the Trustee before he formulated the complaint - numerous depositions and over 700,000 pages of documents provided by the Sterling partners over the last year and a half.    

 

The bottom line is that the Sterling partners were innocent victims of the Madoff fraud, and the Trustee's massive discovery effort did not uncover one shred of evidence to the contrary.  Nevertheless, the complaint further victimizes the Sterling partners by arguing that they "knew or should have known" that Madoff was a fraud and therefore are somehow liable for amounts beyond their very substantial losses.  This suggestion is false. 

 

With regard to the complaint:

 

The complaint appears to contend that, because the Sterling partners are wealthy and successful individuals, they should have known Madoff was not trading any securities and was engaging in a Ponzi scheme.  Yet the Sterling partners had over $500 million in their Madoff accounts at the time of his failure - some put in only days before - and all of it lost.  Anyone who knows Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz knows that they would not have dealt for one minute with someone they thought might be engaged in fraud.  Moreover, as a matter of elementary common sense, no rational person who thinks his broker might be a fraud would leave such a substantial sum with him.    

 

Contrary to what the Trustee asserts, the returns on the Sterling-related brokerage accounts were not "staggering," "easy money," or "too good to be true."  The $300 million of profit alleged in the complaint, even if accurate, would not be "staggering" or extraordinary when viewed in the context of the amount of principal invested over the past 25 years.

 

In addition, the $300 million claimed in the complaint reflects only those accounts that the Trustee has selected for inclusion because they were profitable.  It ignores numerous accounts that, in the Trustee's parlance, were "net losers," which, according to our clients' analysis, total approximately $160 million. 

 

Madoff investments did not "fuel" our clients' operating businesses.  The Sterling partners' wealth was generated by their hard-earned success in real estate, sports, media, and other businesses - not by investments with Madoff.    

 

The complaint also ignores the fact that Madoff was viewed as a person of considerable stature in the financial community.  He had been the chairman of the board of directors of NASDAQ, a member of the NASD board of governors, and a member of the board of what now is SIFMA - an eminent figure in the investment world.  He also partnered with prominent financial institutions to create Primex, an electronic auction trading system that was approved by the SEC and adopted by NASDAQ.  Moreover, the Sterling partners knew, and relied upon, the fact that the SEC - the federal agency charged with uncovering and prosecuting fraud - had investigated Madoff and taken no action against him.

 

For 25 years the Sterling partners saw nothing to indicate that Madoff was not trading securities as he was reporting he did.  Moreover, the partners took legitimate comfort from the fact that numerous highly regarded and sophisticated lending institutions readily accepted their Madoff investments as security for multi-million dollar loans. 

 

The Sterling partners' dealings with their broker were entirely lawful.  While the Trustee calls payments made to them "fictitious profit," he ignores a large and consistent body of state and federal law that permits a customer of a registered broker dealer to rely on statements he receives from the broker - and which imposes no investigatory obligation upon a customer who in any event would have no way of confirming what the broker was doing.  Payments made in connection with those statements are lawful.  Our entire system of customer dealings with brokers is structured so that customers receive, and rely on, their account statements and confirmations.  Any suggestion to the contrary is simply incorrect. 

 

The complaint appears to argue that the partners should have known that Madoff was a fraud for three principal reasons: 

 

First, they were friendly with Madoff and could have asked him if he was engaging in a fraud.  Neither the law nor common sense supports such a proposition. 

 

Second, in 2002 the partners diversified their securities investments by establishing a new company to be run by Peter Stamos.  The Sterling partners were investors and had no role with respect to investment decisions.  Nonetheless, we understand the complaint to contend that, because two of the partners were involved in the selection of Mr. Stamos and the establishment of the fund, they became expert in market trading, hedge fund due diligence, and broker dealer regulation, and, therefore, if people said things to them like "I don't know how Madoff does it," the Sterling partners should have realized that Madoff was doing no trading and running a Ponzi scheme.  Thus, the theory of the complaint appears to be that comments of this type should have led the Sterling partners to reach a conclusion that the SEC, with the benefit of substantially more information, trained fraud investigators, and subpoena power, did not reach.   

 

Similarly, we understand the complaint to claim that, because Merrill Lynch, when it acquired part of the Stamos company in 2007, would not permit investment with managers employing "black box" or other similar strategies, the Sterling partners should have concluded that Madoff's registered brokerage operation was fraudulent.  In fact, many people invest with managers using such proprietary strategies, which are entirely lawful.  That Merrill Lynch decided not to means nothing. 

 

Third, the complaint suggests that, because Sterling Stamos had invested in the Bayou hedge fund, the Sterling partners should have realized that Madoff was a fraud.  Again, the proposition is wide of the mark - the partners had no involvement with the Bayou investment, and Bayou was a completely different situation.  Bayou was a hedge fund.  Madoff's brokerage entity, on the other hand, was a registered broker dealer, regulated by the SEC, that issued statements reflecting trading for customers.

 

The complaint is further undercut by another fundamental fact not mentioned by the Trustee:  if the Sterling partners had thought Madoff might be engaged in a fraud - a conclusion they never reached - their recourse would have been to go to the SEC, the watchdog that licensed Madoff and that is there to protect customers.  This would have been a futile exercise.  As we know now, the fraud would not have been uncovered.

 

The complaint, in our opinion, is an unwarranted reach by the Trustee.  The Sterling partners lost more than money in the Madoff fraud - they lost faith in someone they thought was a trusted friend.  But their faith in the legal system remains strong, and we are confident they will prevail.

 

                                                            ###

 

Contact:           Tom Orewyler

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

212 450-6039

[email protected]

.

Court Documents To Be Unsealed: Litigation Ahead For Mets?

 

 

 

So, the next step in the Madoff scandal has begun to come into focus: Both sides have dug in and settlement talks are, at the least for the moment, done.  The defendants in the case have agreed to drop their motion to keep lawsuit documents sealed and so they may be unsealed as early as Friday morning. 

What does it all mean?  In the short term, not much as most of this stuff has likely been revealed with the apparent leaking of information to members of the media.  Rightfully so, the Wilpons felt what's the point since most of what is inside the documents have already been unveiled for the world to see? But now the real chess match begins as the sides seem destined to be embroiled in a long court case that could take years to litigate. 

My sources indicate that the Wilpons have cooperated fully with the Madoff investigation from jump and have provided hundreds of pages of documents to aid in the inquiry.  What you must remember here is the documents that will be unsealed are merely contentions of the plaintiff and should not be construed as evidence until they are presented in court just as the defendants refuting the claims are contentions as well.

Ok enough legal babble--what does this mean for the Met fans? Well, a couple of things.  First and foremost, this issue will not go away any time soon as a court case of this magnitude could drag on for 2 years or more.  Secondly, it makes the prospect of a minority owner a remote possibility because they will not need the money until this case is settled (unless of course they re-enter settlement talks) and more importantly, any minority owner will want this resolved before he jumps in. 

The biggest thing though is this will hang over the Mets like a dark cloud every single time they don't make a trade or not sign free agents or shy away from a top draft pick because he is represented by say, Scott Boras for instance.  The litmus test might very well be if the Mets are in contention by the All Star break are they buyers, sellers, or neither?  Whatever words are said, their actions will speak volumes as to where their finances are at that crucial point in the season.

Sandy Alderson's track record is to do more with less so he may desire to take that route anyway but the public perception will be that he may be hamstring by the organization's cash flow or lack of it.  The ironic thing is if the Mets are out of contention by July 31, the proper course would be to become sellers which will send flares up that the Mets are dropping salary to curb costs.

The moment these documents are unsealed, it will set into motion a series of events that could have this case linger in the minds of Met fans for years to come and that is why I think the Wilpons wanted to settle.  And the plaintiff in this case might have missed a window of opportunity because you get the feeling the Wilpons just wanted this to go away but with the contents of the lawsuit leaked, the repuation of Fred Wilpon is at stake making him more apt to take this to the finish line in court.

My question remains this: If the Mets made $ off the Madoff scandal, why would they hold salary this off-season and why would they be seeking a minority owner to bail them out?  Secondly, how could the Wilpons be held accountable to have known the true story behind the Ponzi scheme if the SEC, who is trained to spot these issues, missed it?  And the fact that the Mets fully cooperated with the authorities by providing over 700 pages of evidence would refute the statements that they knew what was going on? All good questions that will now be answered in court in the next 30 months or so. That is unless a settlement alternative can still be reached.

Are The Wilpons Getting A Fair Shake From The Media?

 

I know all about the media in this town as I have both been a New Yorker all my life and have covered the Mets for over 20 years but it must be said the hatchet job being done on the Wilpons is both unfair and misguided.  I can not say I am surprised but enough is enough already.

Is it so hard to understand that a lawyer in a lawsuit brought against the Wilpons would try to exert pressure by leaking details of the lawsuit in order to either extract a settlement or a much richer one?  Yet, until this morning no one in the media even entertained that notion.  I know very little about the legalties of this case but it would be hard for me to believe that the Wilpons would get a fair shake in court if those sealed documents were released on February 9.  They are high profile public figures and as such, it would be hard to try this case in court after it has been litigated in the "court of public opinion."

So, the question remains why would Wilpons offer to settle here?  Simply put, these stories are damaging their ability to do business because of all the negative publicity.  It stands to reason this has hurt their ability to pursue players, sell tickets, and even generate revenue for advertising both inside the stadium and on SNY.  I am sure they want this resolved for those reasons and a variety of others including the care and concern for families affected by this.

The offer to pursue minority ownership is to defray the cost settling these cases might have on the Mets ability to conduct business in the way a New York franchise should.  While we are on that topic, lets be clear that the Met payroll is still one of the highest in baseball and while you may quibble on how they spent it, make no mistake their payroll levels are more than enough to win.  This notion that the Wilpons do not invest in their team is pure nonsense fabricated by people who never let facts get in the way of a good story or have an ax to grind with either the Wilpons or the past general manager who was treated very unfairly in many corners of the media as well.

My sense is the Mets tactic of letting a new general manager advocating a wait and see approach once he can truly evaluate his players is a sound strategy.  And more to the point, it is a strategy that would have been employed whether the Madoff case wreaked its ugly head or not.  But if you hear the media tell it, the case has been tried and completed before we even have all of the facts.

I wrote in this blog just a few days ago that we should all take a wait and see approach whichever side of the fence we sit on and let the evidence guide you once it comes out.  You can not do that when info about the case is leaked to the media by a lawyer who has a hidden agenda and because of that, so much is being assumed before we know all the facts.

And that is just flat out wrong.

 

2011 Mets Might Be Better Than You Think

 
 

When you bring up the topic of the 2011 Mets,most baseball experts say they are a .500 team at best and were even picked to finish last in the NL East in some circles.  I say stop the insanity--they were pretty much a .500 team last year without some of their core parts and with a new manager, you have at least give Terry Collins a chance to put his stamp on this team.  Sandy Alderson has assembled a very impressive roster in the front office whose baseball acumen might very real re-define the "mission statement" of the team.

The team does have question marks and will reside in a division that houses some of the best pitching in the sport.  The strategy to stay put, evaluate what you have, and wait until you have more economic flexibility is a sound one which should not be surprising knowing what a solid baseball man the new GM is.  And my sense is there is serious talent on this roster--I mean All-Star caliber talent like Wright, Reyes, Bay, Beltran and K-Rod and budding stars like Angel Pagan and Ike Davis.  This team will hit plenty even in spacious CitiField and so the 2 big questions will be: Is there be enough starting pitching and who is the bridge to K-Rod?

One scout told me, "If Young does for them what Dickey did last year, they will be OK especially if Pelfrey duplicates 2010 and Santana returns for the second half.  They will hit and they are pretty solid defensively."  The 8th inning question is a tough one but not an uncommon issue around the league--that is why the Yankees paid so much for Rafael Soriano.  So, the rotation is the rub here and more specficially, how they perform on the road where the Mets lost in walk-off fashion too numerous times to mention a year ago. 

Many experts pinned that on the bullpen but you could make the argument that an anemic offense put the team in those positions due to the loss of injured players.  And then there is the question of in-game managing.  It is no secret that I was very critical of Jerry Manuel and the way he handled this team but let me be very clear--I personally liked him alot and always said that I'd want him to manage my son in high school or college but at this level, I think he misstepped quite a bit.

 Terry Collins will do a better job of communicating roles to the players and will do less tinkering with the lineup.  This is a group that needs that and needs to play with passion.  My sense is that Jerry sometimes tried to think too much "out of the box" when a simple approach would have served the team better.  Trying to bat Jose Reyes not once but twice indicated to me his stubborness clouded his judgement and in the 2009 season his opposite field hitting drill proved counter productive especially with his big power hitters.

When I look at this team its pretty simple, Reyes is the catalyst, Wright is your fulcrum, Beltran when healthy is your best all around player and Jason Bay, aside from last year has been an RBI machine.  Pagan and Davis are great complimentary pieces and so what will decide the Mets fate is health and starting pitching.

Which makes them very similar to a handful of NL teams aside from the Giants and Phils.  Lets remember the Mets were 10 games over .500 midway through the season last year before that fateful West Coast trip after the break which for all intents and purposes, ended their season.  With a little luck, (which they are overdue to receive) they just might surprise the naysayers.

Rex Ryan Blazing A Trail To Super Bowl Glory

 

When the playoffs began just a few short weeks ago, many experts felt the road to the Super Bowl was filled with land mines for the New York Jets.  After all, they were a #6 seed and beyond that, their road to the first Sunday in February went through Indy, New England, and likely Pittsburgh which meant Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Ben Roethlisberger.  It could be argued no team in recent memory had to go through that tough a journey--all on the road.  The fact that the Jets had became a hated team that talked far too much made the detractors of the team relish the chance to see them go up in flames.

But that very thing brought this team together and Rex Ryan used it as a motivating factor to "build the impossible dream."  Don't get me wrong--Ryan did not only use words--he devised unique game plans that quite frankly, parked his "blitz first" mentality at the door knowing his defense needed a different strategy against both the Colts and the hated Patriots.  It's the mark of a great coach to be flexible enough to change philosophies in order to win.  Pat Riley did it with the Knicks as his philosophy changed dramatically from his "Showtime" Laker teams when he came to The Big Apple.  His Knicks were "lunch pail players" that were physical and mostly about defense and rebounding, aside from Patrick Ewing's offensive prowess.  But he did it because it was the shortest road to winning and that is the biggest strength of Rex Ryan.

I know he's cocky and brash and will mix it up with anyone but make no mistake--he is a tireless worker and an innovative game planner.  And the adjustments he makes at halftime round out his resume as a complete coach.  But the real value in Rex is he has an impeccable sense of what his team needs.  Last week, he needed to be brash because of the history with the Patriots but this week, he's been humble and my sense is that's because this game will be more about bulk than syle.  So, expect the Jets to build a more aggressive defensive game plan with complex blitz packages designed to confuse a Steeler offensive line that is hurting.

The Jets are breathing hard on their first Super Bowl appearance since 1969 and moments before kickoff I am sure Jet fans will think about the tarp that was missing in Miami in 1982, the second half meltdown in Denver, or last year succumbing to the arm and brain of Peyton Manning.  But I suspect those thoughts will be long gone later in the night as Rex Ryan may finally deliver to Jet fans what so many coaches failed to do--a trip to the greatest of all sport spectacles--a Super Bowl.

And that will make Rex Ryan's name reasonate in this town much in the same way the names Davey Johnson, Mike Keenan, and Bill Parcells did when they satisfied long-suffering fans of their teams.  It would be rarified air for a coach who would deserve every inch of praise that he would receive.

 

Rex Ryan Leads The Way For The Jets

 

 

 

 

He is brash, cocky and sometimes very irritating but make no mistake about it--Rex Ryan is a winner and well on his way to becoming an elite NFL Head Coach.  His Jet team has been in the eye of the storm all year whether they have been the focus of HBO, league investigations, or bulletin board fodder for their opponents.

But all that has just served as window dressing because he is very skilled at 2 major qualities all great head coaches possess: the ability to create unique game plans and at the same time, employ halftime adjustments that turn intermission deficits into dramatic victories. 

Going into this weekend's clash with Peyton Manning and the Colts, the star quarterback had dominated Ryan  as evidenced by last year's AFC Championship win in Indy as well as numerous encounters with him while on the staff of the Baltimore Ravens.  So, Ryan came up with a new twist--he would reel in his aggressive blitzing strategy and force Peyton Manning to beat him by handing the ball off to Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai.  He did it by employing a deep zone thanks to the fact Darrelle Revis kept wideout Reggie Wayne in his back pocket all night. 

Still, down 7-0 at the half, Ryan had to do more than defuse the high octane Colts--he had to find a way to both limit Manning's chances in the second half and score some points.  From the opening second half kickoff, the Jets leaned heavily on their talented offensive line behind Pro Bowlers Nick Mangold and D'Brickisaw Ferguson as they pounded the quick but small defensive front of the Colts finding the end zone twice in that second half.  But those 2 drives also forced Peyton Manning to watch from the sidelines as the Jets milked the clock for almost 15 minutes on those 2 drives alone.

More drama was to come late in the game as Ryan watched the Colts take the lead but effective use of his timeouts coupled with some creative play calling gave the Jets the win and sent the reigning AFC Champions home.  I have watched Peyton Manning lose playoff games but have never seen a defense defuse him in this fashion on the fast turf in Indy.  And a big reason for that is Rex Ryan had the courage to change his game plan because it was the best way to win.

Tom Brady and the New England Patriots await the Jets in the next round in Foxboro on Sunday.  Going up against the best quarterback and the best coaching staff in the league is a tall order and add in the fact the Jets were embarassed there on National TV just a few weeks ago.  But do not count the Jets out here--Rex Ryan and his second year quarterback Mark Sanchez are now 3-1 in playoff games and all of those have been on the road.

 It should be a week full of verbal missles being fired between here and Beantown.  But when the bell rings on Sunday at 430PM and all the chatter stops, one thing is for sure.  Rex Ryan will have a few tricks up his sleeve and he will have to because he will be facing perhaps the greatest playoff coach in league history.  Can he win? Not sure about that but winning is Foxboro after defeating Peyton Mabnning will surely put the Jet Head Coach in rarified air--air that even the long arm of the NY media might not be able to reach.

Francoeur Credits HoJo

Jeff Francoeur is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise sluggish Mets start as he has pounded National League pitching to the tune of a .438 batting average. For a player who was practically thrown out of the Braves clubhouse, it is a rather remarkable turnaround which the Mets right fielder credits to the way Howard Johnson handled the situation.

“From the moment I got here," says Francoeur, "Howard Johnson just told me that I needed to get into better hitting counts, whereas in Atlanta they kept pounding home the fact I would never get any walks.” Things got so bad in Atlanta that Bobby Cox buried Francoeur on the bench and the team was more than happy to send the troubled player to a divisional rival.

“It was a real awakening because it was the first time I played anywhere else other than my hometown but the New York situation intrigued me because I knew there was talent on the roster and real opportunity for me to play every day," says Francoeur. He got that chance and really excelled at the plate hitting over .300 after coming over here, consistently pounding extra base hits in spacious Citi Field.

According to Johnson, he was a quick study. “Very early on we realized that he was not a player who was ever going to draw a bunch of walks but we did think he could get into better hitting counts by being a bit more selective. Being ahead in the count would then allow him to use his aggressiveness at the plate to his advantage," says the Mets batting coach.

That approach has allowed Francoeur to drive the ball much more consistently, making him look more like the hitter that had back-to-back 100 RBI seasons in Atlanta a couple of seasons ago. “Pure and simple, none of this would have happened without Howard Johnson and he deserves a lot of the credit,” says Francoeur.

Whatever the reason, Francoeur has become a valuable Met both on and off the field, and if we are to be fair, Omar Minaya deserves the credit for swinging a swap of outfielders during a year in which not much went right for the Mets.

 

Truth About the Mets Clubhouse

It has been a fast and furious few days for the Mets as this road trip has had a little of everything from a rough start to a brilliant Mike Pelfrey performance to a 20-inning marathon. And yes, of course, questions about how the Met clubhouse feels about Jerry Manuel amidst reports of players questioning his decisions.

We all need a reality check here because players routinely debate managerial decisions but that does not mean they do not have his back. In fact, creating an environment where players can voice their opinions is not a negative especially if they feel safe voicing those opinions. In many ways, baseball teams are like families and if we think along those lines, we can understand what is happening here. We all have disagreements with our family and some them even might spill over outside the house but that does not mean the family relationship is fractured.

Jeff Francoeur has always struck me an honest person and if he is asked a question he is going to answer it in a truthful and forthright way. When he commented he would rather see Jose Reyes bat lead off he was responding to a series of questions but never did it in a disrespectful tone and has always referred to Jerry Manuel as a man who helped him turn the corner after being traded here last season.

The Jose Reyes and Johan Santana references really baffle me because both of those players LOVE Jerry and I mean love playing for him. Reyes recently said, "Jerry is a great communicator and checks in with me every day and I like that about him." Now, Jose may not love the idea of hitting third but make no mistake about it, he likes Manuel and appreciates his candor and honesty. As far as Santana is concerned all he said about 5 days of rest was that he would rather have four but fully understood why the manager was doing it.

The John Maine case is a bit different as I did observe that the pitcher was upset about the possibility of being moved out of the rotation and had a 45 minute meeting with Manuel after being told that could be the case. What would be a worse sign is if Maine felt he could not go in and talk to the manager about the situation and let it fester.

Players voice their opinions about managerial moves all the time. Yankees catcher Jorge Posada was very vocal about the way he thought Joba should be utilized and voiced it in a public forum. When push comes to shove, all that matters is how hard you play for your manager. And fighting through a 20-inning marathon with Mike Pelfrey demanding the ball proves what the Mets' players think about their skipper.

A Rough Start For Jerry Manuel

The words came out of Jerry Manuel’s mouth in his postgame press conference, which I am sure made front-office personnel cringe a little. "Today's game was not a good game for us. I thought we appeared unprepared and I have to take the blame for that," said the Mets manager.

So, in Game 6, as the Mets were preparing to go on a grueling six-game road trip to Denver and St. Louis, with their ace on the mound, they were unprepared to play in front of a Sunday-afternoon crowd at Citi Field. Add in the fact that everyone connected with the Mets admitted that a quick start would be imperative this season, including the aforementioned Manuel. He said during spring training, "Given everything we went through last season, a good start would help that's for sure."

It is certainly easy to overreact after a game in which Johan Santana pitches poorly and Livan Hernandez keeps the offense off-balance for seven scoreless innings, but when you look at the schedule you quickly realize the mess the Mets are in. They knew 16 of their first 22 games would be at home, and after this past week the Mets would have road series in Denver and Saint Louis, followed by a homestand against the Cubs, Dodgers and Braves. Any way you slice it, that's 16 games against teams with legit playoff aspirations, and the task will be more difficult after a 2-4 start.

Part of the problem is the Mets are not getting that big hit that will keep an inning alive or win a close game. "It is very disappointing that we lost the first two series," said Mets third basemen David Wright, "especially when you consider that we had chances to win games with big hits. Now, we go on the road facing two tough teams which might be an early-season test for us."

It will also be an early-season test for the manager, as the Wilpons will keep a close watch on both the standings and the turnstiles -- the crowds after Opening Day have been very light, with a plethora of empty seats readily seen around the ballpark. Mets fans have already began to sound cranky, and a poor road trip might make them even more testy when the team returns home on April 19 for a 10-game homestand.
How Manuel's team responds to this first big moment of the 2010 season may very well decide how long he stays in the manager's office.