Good points. We will see in a week or so.

This irritates me. Maybe they should have let the consensus best pitcher in the '05 draft keep the curveball that earned him that designation.

Here is how the Mets roster moves should go:

Alou, Duque, Sanchez, and Gotay all start on the DL.

Pagan/Clark (who gets Gotay's spot) platoon in LF. Sosa becomes the 5th starter. Register and Stokes in the pen. Smith, Pelfrey, and Figgy to AAA.

This allows you a few things:

A) Let's Pelfrey go down to AAA and get himself together. Starting Sosa lets you see once and for all if he can be a 5th starter, while adding some SP depth (with Armas, Figgy, and Pelfrey in AAA.)

B) It lets you get a good look at Clark as a RH bat off the bench and Stokes/Register in the pen. If Clark sucks and both Stokes and Register do well, you could package one of the RP with Gotay (when he comes off the DL) for a RH bat. If Clark does well, then these are good problems to have and you worry about roster moves when Gotay is ready to come back from his rehab assignment.

We do have useful role players on this team, but Willie and Minaya need to know how to employ them in a way that effectively utilizes their talents.

As for whomever suggested that El Duque get his bunion surgery, that would be fine if you're looking to get him back for the playoffs in 2010 when he's approaching fifty. It's apparently a 2-3 year recovery process, which is why he didn't do it.

That frees up even more inn to let Sosa or Figgy pitch and stretch. If neither one pitches on Tuesday or Wed more than 1-2 inn, then I guess Pelfrey will get the nod even if he is lousy on Friday.

Heilman? Are you kidding?

a.) He's nowhere near stretched out.
b.) He's a lot more useful to the team as a set-up man.
c.) When he got dragged back into the bully, he'd be an even bigger whining nuisance than El Duque is being.

As long as Heilman's a Met, he's one of the set-up men.

To let him think otherwise yet again is to completely screw up HIS psychology again.

Any plan to convert Heilman to a starter is like tugging at a loose thread and unravelling the other side as you go.

As far as ElDuque, I hope they place him on the 60 day DL, operate on this stupid bunion of his and tell him to go back to his original delivery. Hell, maybe they should just cut off the entire foot and stick a block of wood on his leg. Just do something so that he can get ready for the playoffs.

And as far as Pelfrey, he's had numerous chances to step up and everytime has failed to do so. It's clear to me that his "secondary pitches" aren't worth squat. Just let the kid throw his sinking fastball and hope you can get 27 hard-hit, groundball outs. Otherwise, trade him for whatever you can get.

Finally, the Mets MUST get someone else to play left. If Alou says he'll be back in 4 weeks, you can bet it'll be closer to 12. Pagan is a nice backup, but not the full-time answer. Since winning this year is a priority, I think we all need to swallow the bitter pill and have our team make an offer to Bonds. The bottom of this lineup, as is, won't scare anyone. BALCO Barry would change that in a hurry.

El Du

But, if they get lucky and he figures it out, they could dodge a bullet.

Somehow, Duque needs to start on the DL. He does not look physically ready to pitch yet, and with the foot issues, how could anyone question it?

I will go back on record as saying that the best option could be Heilman, with the extra arm for the pen taking over for him. They are going to lose 1 or 2 guys that they like (Stokes, Register, Wise) if Sanchez comes back, so they have the depth to cover for him.

I am pretty sure that option ain't happening, so Sosa, or the dark horse FIgeroa, is the most likely scenerio until Duque is ready.

"Peterson noted how well Pelfrey had thrown between starts and before he entered the games, and said "If he can exhale, relax and carry what he has into the game."

And the men who watched from the stands were perplexed by Pelfrey. "He was better when I saw him two years ago," one of them said. "He still has that heavy ball, and the changeup isn't bad. But the slider is getting killed. He may be better off just scrapping it and going sinker, changeup, 'cause what he's throwing up there now as a breaking ball isn't going to get him a job."

from Adam Rubin NY DN "Pedro Martinez’s final spring start is expected to come on the minor-league side, since the Mets face the Marlins this Wednesday, and it’s not desirable to face the same team you’ll see first during the season."

So who gets the start? Figgy or Sosa? Not sure when either of these guys last pitched. If they don't pitch tomorrow or Tuesday, maybe the 5th starter role comes down to a showdown b/w them on Wed.

Slop, Sosa's effectiveness as a SP also started to fall off w/a couple bad starts in June and then July. His slider started to be more slurve and float up there like a tee ball.

Say Figueroa is the guy, what you gonna do with El Duque? there was a song written during the War to end all War;'s that said "What you gonna do, when they send your man to war?" So what we gonna do (with El Duque) when they send our Fig off to war? El Duque will be # 5 guy until he is total embarrasment like Lima, Lawrence, Chan Ho etc etc etc…...

Is Sosa schedule to pitch in the next couple of days so he could get in 2 longer stints?

But given Mets tendancy to use guys like Fig makes me believe he is going to get the nod.

Lohse would've required a roster spot all year and… El Duque was and is and will be in denial about his status for the entire season.

Also, I mean, Lohse would've given you pretty much a 5.00 ERA and… I dunno, I'd rather see what some mix of Sosa and Pelfrey and El Duque can do than pay Lohse a million dollars per ERA point.

There's a shot that Sosa could give you a string of four or five good starts before all the opposing teams batters are fully in the season mentally and the bottom drops out.

There's a chance, I suppose, that El Duque could still adapt to the bunion enough to give you more than Lohse would've given you, even though that isn't saying all that much.

Lohse is just… bad.

There was an illusion that he was good because he was the least bad of the free-agent starters left but, no, he's actually really quite bad.