Church has a career .724 OPS vs. lefties. Not sure about you, but I like more production out of my corner OF guys.

knowing the mets i have to think there is some kind of PR involved re: sheffield's 500th home run.

either way this is a good signing if sheffield is used right, and bad if he isn't. i suppose that's circular, but he would make a far better pinch hitter than marlon anderson.

The problem was that Franco's zombified corpse was clinically dead for a year and a half before Omar realized this.

Ha. I wonder what would have happened if that corpse switched to a lighter bat.

IMO, there's far too much irrational love for Church based on his carrying them for the first two months last year.

He's a league average (at best) corner outfielder, guys.

I can't wait to see 10K Danny Murphy jerseys in the stands tonight as well. Caucasian Met fans have been clamoring for a non-Wright hero ever since Piazza left.

Dislike Sheff, dislike the move. Hope I'm wrong.

And triumph, this has nothing to do with 500 hour PR. That's just WFAN babble.

It would not surprise me if the Mets find a way to move Church and platoon Tatis with Sheff.

I do not like this move, however I understand the move.

No, it's not irrational love. Church is a good baseball player and he's better than league average. The guy has a career OPS+ of 110 and then when you add his excellent fielding to that you can start to understand why so many fans (myself included) are high on him. Will he be an all-star? Probably not. Will he carry the team? Certainly not. (but we don't need him to) Will he put together a very solid year batting in the 6th hole? Absolutely (assuming he stays healthy).

I've watched Sheff turn into a pile of **** the past 2 years here in Detroit. I wouldnt want him batting instead of anyone, even Marlon Anderson. The dude literally has no shoulders.

haven't listened to WFAN at all today. just saying the mets love this kind of stuff.

He was hitting like .178 in 18 spring games...I mean, hes done. I dont get why any MLB team would want him for any other reason then him getting his 500th HR...which is pretty dumb.

Don't forgot church is not eligible for FA until 2012, if I'm not mistaken. So he's under our control at a reasonable rate (3Mish).
Regardless, he's a solid option. He'll be decent, won't be as good as he was before he went down last year, but still solid. I can definitely see why people want him as part of the core.

The more I think about, the signing isn't bad. Cheap, easy to part ways and it puts anderson one step closer to getting cut.

Hopefully he just shuts up and pinch hits well, it'd be a nice role if he accepts it.

and magglio ordonez is hitting .172 with NO EXTRA BASE HITS! placido polanco is hitting .206!


Gonna be a long season in detroit with these two "done" players chewing up at bats.


Don't love the Sheffield signing..but I don't hate it. Sheff was pretty darn good 2 years ago compared with the perception of him. I am pretty worried that he will snake valuable playing time from some others, but as a strict platoon for church or murphy i wouldn't mind at all. If the Mets win, he may have a positive attitude as well.


hate hate HATE the quote about how he thinks he is getting more PT and I just hate sheff in general, we'll see.

Worth noting that Sheff ran bad on balls in play last year..2 years ago he walked more than he K'd and last year he had 83 Ks in 470 PA with 58 walks, far from horrible.

Absolutely correct IMO.

No they don't. I don't know where you are getting this from.

What kind of "stuff"? Examples?

yeah fair enough the mets' PR goes at it from a different angle.

i like the shef signing, low risk, and finally a decent bat off the bench. even if he steals playing time from others it will likely be because hes outperforming them

but yes he is an uber jackass

Why would sny go with a solid blue bar and not transparent? This looks awful

sheff hasnt played in the outfield regularly in 3 years. i dont like the signing but whatever. i think he's going to be cut by june 15th

i am thrilled with the signing

for 400k, it is amazing

oh and the ballpark is out of this world. waterless urinals are a bit weird, but anything you could possibly think/want a ballpark to have they got it.

Then he has to bat BEHIND better hitters the father you move him up. Theres no solution thats very good because pitchers suck at hitting. But this philosophy of having a crappy leadoffish type hitter (castillo) bat 9th right before Reyes and the pitcher bat 8th is goofy. So now you have an automatic out and ANOTHER crappy hitter batting before Reyes and opposed to the same two people just the other way around? Whats the difference? The difference is just that you give the pitcher spots slightly more AB's and you have to watch him bunt over Ramon Castro instead of Castillo. Ok so the plan at the bottom of the lineup is to succesfully have the catcher bunted to 2nd and then the powerful Luis Castillo drive him in from 2nd, lol. Good luck.

a pitcher hitting 8th is slightly better than him hitting 9th - i believe The Book proved this.

Castillo has 2-3x better chance than a pitcher to drive in a guy from 2nd...

Also, it's a bigger issue to have a pitcher making an automatic out right in front of your best hitters when leading off an inning. Also, it happens a lot of the time that the 7th hitter leads off an inning(first 6 hitters are retired in order, or 6 come to the plate in the first inning). If he gets on, you'd rather the pitcher bat right away and bunt him over because it's much easier to bunt a guy over to 2nd than it is to bunt him home(if the 8th hitter moved him over to 3rd with a hit). It's probably pretty close, but it's far from "goofy."