Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
At $149,373,987, the New York Mets had the National League's highest payroll in 2009. Their fourth place finish in the NL East, 23 games back in the standings, might suggest that the cash Omar Minaya dished out wasn't money well spent. A closer look reveals a team harassed all season by injuries and a group of hitters that could never find a long-term answer to produce runs.
In the outfield, Carlos Beltran had a potential All-Star season broken up, playing in only 81 games due to a knee injury. In fact, only Jeff Francoeur amassed more than 500 at-bats among Mets outfielders, and he was a mid-season import from the Atlanta Braves.
The infield wasn't spared either as mainstays Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes had their seasons cut extremely short due to injuries. Even staff ace Johan Santana ended his season early with elbow issues.
The good news is that most of these players are expected to be healthy and ready to go for spring training.
MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.
The second half of the season is in full swing and lo and behold if capitalism hasn't reared it's ugly head once again. Billy Beane was spun off Matt Holliday (as expected of course) and the eleventy billion dollar payroll machine that is the New York Yankees are in first place in the AL East. (Of course, that can't explain why the Mets are horrible but that's a whole other thing.)
Will the Yankees' surge be enough to propel them into the critically important No. 1 slot of the FanHouse MLB Power Rankings? Find out after the jump.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Nationals outfielder Josh Willingham accomplished a feat that had been done just twice in National League history before yesterday, smacking two grand slams in the same game. Check this out -- the first National Leaguer to do this was Tony Cloninger, a pitcher, and the second was Fernando Tatis, who you may remember hit both his grand salamis in the same inning. By comparison, Willingham's slams look mundane. Ten American League players have also hit two grand slams in the same game, with the trick last being accomplished in 2003 by Bill Mueller.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That Alfonso Soriano and Fernando Tatis each hit game-winning grand slams, but they've got nothing on Josh Willingham. The Nationals' outfielder hit two grand slams -- in consecutive innings, no less -- to almost single-handedly beat the Brewers.
Willingham became just the 13th player to hit two grand slams in one game, the first since Bill Mueller did it for Boston in 2003. With eight RBI, Willingham tied the franchise record set by Tim Wallach with the Expos in 1990.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That the Mets can't even break a lengthy team-wide home run drought without something going wrong. Brian Schneider went deep Sunday afternoon at Citi Field, snapping an 80-inning span without a big fly for New York. Three pitches later Fernando Tatis left the yard again. So why did that elicit boos from the Met fans?
Because Tatis homered so soon after Schneider that the infamous mechanical apple -- an all-new heavier model than the one used at Shea Stadium (seen on the right at Citi Field) -- didn't reset in time for it to rise immediately after Tatis' drive. The apple did eventually emerge, but not before the ire of already edgy Mets fans had been raised.
"You come to Citi Field, Mets fans expect to see the Apple," said Elizabeth Cruz, 24, of Maspeth. "It should go up every time. It was disappointing."
MLB Power Rankings:Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.
Well, that took freaking forever ... but the Blue Jays finally started to stink the joint up. I swear to you, you can't stay long atop the MLB Power Rankings -- our failure by osmosis jinxing ability is just too strong, son. At any rate, it was a weird week for ranking baseball: the Cubs continued to skid, the Padres went on a tear and Toronto fell off the face of the planet. So, yeah, spiciness ensued, and you may take the jump to see how badly your team fared. Unless you're a Rangers or a Braves fan, in which case they couldn't have done that poorly.
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the Roto Rush is your double espresso shot of fantasy baseball advice every weekday.
Remember when Rickie Weeks was a hot new prospect whose quick bat drew comparisons to Gary Sheffield? Yeah, turns out that was four years ago.
Following season after season of frustration for hopeful fantasy owners, Weeks is finally coming through. The speed isn't there, but he's homered in three straight games to give him nine total in only 140 at-bats. By comparison, he only hit 14 in 475 at-bats last year. So has our man-crush of yesteryear suddenly transformed into the new Dan Uggla, or is this impressive power display just another tease?
Daniel Murphy burst on to the major league scene rather quickly. He went from decent prospect to top rookie last season, as he had some very good splits (.313/.397/.473) in his first 131 major league at-bats.
Manager Jerry Manuel thinks so highly of him that the original plan to have him platoon with Fernando Tatis in left field has been scrapped. Murphy has impressed so much that the left field job is now his to lose.
Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.
Meet the ... Chokers. Sorry, folks, but until they can actually close out a regular season, that's the label they're getting. Fortunately for us fantasy folks, we don't really care about total team performance in the regular season, provided it doesn't impend on individual players' abilities to post statistics. And in that sense, the New York Baseball Mets are quite the enjoyable team to watch. They have a slew of top-tier players on the squad and generally almost always provide a ton of fantasy value. Not much will change in terms of that this year, although you may be surprised as to where it will come from.
Our MLB editor files dispatches from the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas in Notes From Sin City.
While the baseball world watches and waits for Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia to make up their mind, or even just for a scrap from super-agent Scott Boras, closer Francisco Rodriguez has become the belle of the Winter Meetings ball.
Though the Mets have yet to publicly acknowledge that they have signed the record-setting reliever, it is widely believed that Rodriguez has agreed to a three-year deal with the club worth roughly $37 million and containing a vesting option for a fourth year that could push its value past $50 million.
Problem solved, right? Third straight September swoon averted, right? Hardly.
Look, there's no doubt that the Mets' biggest need heading into the offseason was to fix their wretched bullpen. And there's no doubt that Rodriguez is a big part of the puzzle in that regard. But they also play in the same division as the reigning world champions and a pair of clubs in the Marlins and Braves who are capable of winning 85-plus games if things break right.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
MLB Power Rankings
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Starting Five
Poppin' out the box scores and right into your cubicle, the 
Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through 
