Daily Roundup- Saturday, March 7th

As Spring Training continues the two local teams continue to look at prospects and the big money free agents they brought in.

The Yankees were impressed by Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger’s debut on Friday and the Mets were equally impressed by Jon Niese’s two innings of work against the Cardinals where he also happened to notch a strikeout against Albert Pujols.

The important thing about Spring Training for both teams is that they get guys healthy and enough practice time to get up to speed by the beginning of the season. Having seen one of their big money guys already go down with a torn labrum it seems like, the Yankees have to hope that C.C. readies himself for the season without any gimp or limp. The Yankees desperately need for C.C. to pitch like an ace from the beginning of the year seeing as how their offense will suffer without A-Rod there to protect it.
The Mets meanwhile have to hope that their WBC representatives come back without any injury either and also can contribute. However, in a tightly contested race for the fifth slot in the rotation, every pitch counts.
They brought in Tim Redding for the fifth slot and also gave Freddy Garcia (But he’s pitching himself right out of that contest) a shot. But the guy that has really impressed is Livan Hernandez although he got roughed up a bit in his last outing. The best case scenario for the Mets would be Jon Niese blowing everyone away in the next two weeks and allowing the Mets to stash Tim Redding and Livan Hernandez in their bullpen or put Livan in Triple A just in case the injury bug comes and allows Niese to firmly grip the 5th spot.
My prediction? The Mets end up with Livan as their 5th guy. Redding as the long man out of the bullpen and Niese is going to start the year in Triple A and do spot duty in case of injury.
Coming back to the Yankees, the pressure becomes even greater for the new Yankees to step up. Mark Teixeira’s batting average the last three years from April through June look like this: .272, .298, and .276. That just can’t happen for your number 4 hitter or number 3 depending on where they hit. Also Cheeseburger’s ERA look like this over the last three years and over the first three months of those three seasons: 5.64 in April, 2.64 in May and 3.41 in June. The Yankees need these high priced investments to get going fast.


Burt Hubbuch of the New York Post writes that Johan Santana hopefully knows his body best when it comes to injuries.

The main thing here to remember is that Johan has no problem with pitching through injury if it is necessary. But he also has 137 million invested in him. The pressure on the Mets is to make sure they take every possible precautionary measure and the pressure that Johan must feel to validate that contract are two very constricting forces that need to be met at some road down the middle. Johan needs to understand that divisions aren’t won in May so feeling the need to make an Opening Day start is not so much anything BUT symbolic.
The Mets meanwhile maintain that they won’t push Santana and they have to be careful with his throwing sessions. I understand why they pushed him early on; they had to see how well he could throw off that mound without pain after he had surgery in the offseason to repair it. But having him pitch so much with so few days of rest in between had him making the quote “I’m a pitcher not a reliever” and well he was just stating the obvious. The fact is, the Mets and Johan have come to an understanding and hopefully they can have this squared away by the beginning of the season. The unfortunate part of how this was handled is that if anything starts up during the season, and he goes down, the Mets training staff and administration will be blamed and that just would be worst case scenario talking.

Randy Galloway gives thanks for the departure of Terrell Owens.

In a land where football is king and they look at their football players as legends and man among boys, Terrell Owens ego was allowed to freely do what he does and that is wreck the place. The fact is, the T.O. show has come to an end in the most storied way. I believe there are more shocking attributes to this release than just meets the eye. I think this decision was made after the way the team played and all the negative press that was constantly thrown at T.O.’s way as if he was the only person who took a pass at playing competitively at the Eagles on the final day of the season when their playoff hopes were on the line. The fact is, the Cowboys have only their selves to blame for such calamity. Count me among those who don’t really give a damn about their current state of affairs but as a fan of the sport, guys like him with such enormous talent and ability should not be flying off the handle from their mouth like he does. But hey, he's not an idiot, he's just troubled.