What was this "plan" again?

Well, this has been an interesting few days. I held off writing about Gary Matthews, Jr. because I'm not entirely sure I understand what happened. We sent a young, hard throwing reliever to the Angels for... a defensively and offensively declining potential replacement for Carlos Beltran? At first I was fine with this, mainly because I don't think Angel Pagan should be in the major leagues as anything but a fourth outfielder. But as I'm hearing more and more and GMJ, doubts are beginning to surface. That, plus Jerry has already gone on the record as saying that Pagan will have the edge over GMJ in spring training. These people talk way too much. This situation is similar to what happened with Ryan Church last year - and Jerry's comments then were really the beginning of the end for Church.

Moving on - yesterday afternoon, the news broke that Ben Sheets was signed by the A's for $10 million. I wanted to take a gamble on Sheets, but not for $10 million, so even though I'm disappointed by this news, I am glad we didn't offer him that much. Sheets has a huge upside, but did not pitch at all last year. I think the A's are insane, but this is a good deal for Oakland because 1) they have the money to spend and 2) they set themselves up for a situation where they can trade Sheets for prospects in July if their season isn't going anywhere.

And now this morning I discover that Jon Garland is going to the Padres on a one year, $5.3 million signing. As with Jason Marquis, I don't believe that either Sheets or Garland would have been our saving grace... but I think they would have been an improvement, especially Garland because he will give you 190 innings every season. So now, the Mets will be offering John Smoltz some kind of deal. I have serious doubts as to his ability to start, given his age and the trouble he had last season. If anything, Smoltz can probably help out of the bullpen and I'm sure he is a valuable veteran to have around in terms of mentoring younger players. But - and this is my biggest issue - this guy is a BRAVE. The last time we tried that, it worked out REALLY well... oh wait.

Anyway, the Mets have clearly been lying to us about this so-called off season plan. Pitching and defense? Really? Mets management needs to have their own three day mini-camp in the Seattle Mariners front office. Those guys know how to build a team to fit their ball park.