One New York Life

Daniel Murphy – 2008 – minors. 2009 salary $401k: Really, I would not want to be Daniel Murphy. The organization has essentially said “We don’t need Manny. We got Murphy.” Not a good place to be, really. Not for anyone. Murphy appeared in 49 games last season and got a ridiculous amount of home-grown player love. He finished the season with a respectable .313/.397/.473. Fans fell in love with him for his desperate attempt to win the division against the Cubs with a lead-off triple. I had a Mancrush. Everything was great. Unfortunately, if reports are to be believed, the Wilpons actively blocked Omar Minaya from signing Manny in the offseason — stating “we don’t want his clubhouse baggage” instead of “we lost $300M with Bernie Madoff”. Because of this, the organization has sold Daniel Murphy as the reason the Mets didn’t need to sign Manny. Good luck with that, guys. Really. This won’t come back to bite you in June when you’re down 3 games as the Kool-aid drinkers finally realize the team desperately needs a good right-handed bat and you had the opportunity to sign the best in the league 3 months ago. But, yeah, the rookie should be fine.

Prediction: Murphy isn’t quite what we thought and “We Should Have Gotten Manny” stories appear by June 1st. Murphy is next year’s opening day 3B starter when David Wright replaces Carlos Delgado at 1B.

Carlos Beltran – 2008 salary – $18.5M. 2009 salary – $18.5M: There’s not a whole lot to say about Beltran. There are still insane Met fans who root against him because his first year was bad, he struck out looking in the NLCS, and owns poodles. These people are hardly worth talking to because they can’t ever offer a plan of what to do when he’s gone — you know, because power-hitting center fielders are so easy to come by. These are the people who would tell you they’d rather have a fiery player than a good player. They want Beltran to care when he strikes out in one of his 600 at-bats. He doesn’t. Get over it and realize he’s about the only guy who delivered clutch hits down the stretch last season.

Prediction: Beltran finally puts everything together and has a 30/30 year. Chris Russo says he still isn’t that impressive and talks about trading him for Nate McLouth.

Ryan Church – 2008 salary – $2M. 2009 salary – $2.8M (avoided arbitration): Before the organization tried to permanently injure Ryan Church’s brain during his concussion, he was putting together quite the year. In his first 49 games, Church showed Omar was somewhat justified in shipping Lastings Milledge off for Church and Brian Schneider. A .903 OPS through 187 PA was outperforming most expectations. The media really didn’t believe that a guy who historically could not hit lefties would suddenly figure it out. Church did. Then his brain got rattled and the Mets proved to be completely inept in dealing with head injuries. After getting concussed, Church was allowed to play a couple days later because he “felt fine” and then was sent on a cross-country flight. When his doll’s eyes at the plate weren’t enough to go on, his eventual vomiting fits were and he went on the DL. When all was said and done, Church was absent (physically or mentally) from May 26th to August 22nd. His September was somewhat disappointing. Since I have no real idea what to think of Church, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt until he gives me a reason to do otherwise. He seemed to have no problems hitting lefties last year and I’d guess the right field job is his until he proves otherwise. I’m not going to hold last September against him or his rattled dome.

Prediction: Church gets off to a slow start because of the Mets’ dogged insistence of batting Luis Castillo second. When Castillo finally gets demoted to eighth and Church goes back to hitting second, all becomes right with the universe.