New York Mets Continue Cutting Costs

In another attempt to save money and recover from the Bernie Madoff scandal, the New York Mets eliminated one of their minor league teams, the Port St. Lucie Mets. In 2010, the Mets lost $50 million and this past season the Mets lost another $70 million. The owner of the club, Fred Wilpon, said that the organization was "bleeding cash." Sandy Alderson made a statement saying that the Mets payroll will be around $100 million this upcoming season and they are already at $89.1 million. Johan Santana, David Wright, and Jason Bay account for roughly $51 million of the original $89.1 million. The Mets could not fund the Port St. Lucie club and that's why they had to get rid of it.

As a Mets fan, hearing your owner saying that your team is, "bleeding cash" is like a death sentence. Its so frustrating because how can you get any better with no money? You can only plug in role players if you have a few really good players that can carry the team for the most part. Because of the whole situation, it prevented the Mets from resigning Jose Reyes, who the team could obviously use.

I hope that Sandy Alderson is doing the right thing and that all this cuts will pay off in a couple years. This needs to be our last rebuilding period for a good amount of time because we have good young players at key positions.

The home of the Port St. Lucie Mets. Well, used to be anyway.

Mat Latos gets traded to the Cincinnati Reds

The Reds had to give away four good players to make Mat Latos a part of their baseball team. Two of the four were first round draft picks, Yonder Alonso and Yasmani Grandal, and they also had to trade Edinson Volquez to the Padres.

This trade made no sense for the Reds. The stadium that the Reds play in is regarded as one of the best hitter's park in baseball. That's why acquiring a pitcher and trading away hitters isn't a good deal for the Reds. Their rotation is a good one and they have five pitchers with no obvious weaknesses and can all win your club a baseball game on any given night, but unfortunately, they play in the Great American Ballpark.

Mat Latos is the newest member of the Reds.

Yu Darvish

The Texas Rangers, who lost C.J. Wilson in free agency, have won the opening big for Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish. The bid was reportedly worth $51.7 million, which is the same amount as the Red Sox spent to talk to Daisuke Matsuzaka. Darvish will be well worth the money they pay him if he posts the same numbers that he did over in Japan.

For his career, Darvish has a 1.99 ERA. That number is no fluke either, Darvish has been posting on that earned run average since he was 18 years old. He is now 24 years old and put together his most impressive season to date. Yu struck out 276 batters in only 232 innings pitched.

Darvish appears to have all the tools necessary to become one of the best pitchers in the league instantly. But, like Matsuzaka, it will may be hard to get used to pitching every fifth day. I think he can handle everything though and I believe he will be a force in the MLB.

Ryan Braun tests positive for PED's

Ryan Braun, the National League MVP, has reportedly tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Sources say that Braun was told about this incident a month before accepting the award. When asked to comment about the report, Braun's reply was, "Its B.S."

I believe that Ryan Braun took performance enhancing drugs. Depending on who you talk to, some with say that baseball is done with the steroid-era and some believe it is still going on. I am one of those that still thinks steroids are way to involved with baseball. Every year, there are always a couple of players that test positive for PED's and until baseball goes a few years with no reports of steroid use, I believe that the player used it. I want to believe that steroids are out of baseball for good, but I just can't. Its not good for the fans, the players or anyone else. Get steroids out of baseball.

Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson to the Angels

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have signed two of the biggest free agents that were available this off season. The first person they were able to sign was 31 - year old Albert Pujols. Pujols was with the World Series winning Cardinals before deciding to leave St. Louis for Los Angeles. For the quality of player he is, he was underpaid his entire career and some people believe that he went where the most money was to make up for some that he may or may not have lost out on. He received a ten year deal from them worth approximately $254 million. Albert is exactly what the Angels needed. The Angels only were able to produce 67 RBI's from the third spot in the lineup last year and Pujols with have no problem surpassing that number this year.

The best pitcher on the market was C.J. Wilson and he signed shortly after Pujols did. Wilson will be the third pitcher in the five man rotation for Mike Scioscia. It was an even better signing for them because Wilson is a lefty and that will help them immensely. Wilson left the Texas Rangers, who were World Series runner up's for the second year in a row.

Pujols (Left) and Wilson (Right) being introduced in front of more than 4,000 fans.

Bobby Valentine and Ben Cherington

As a result of the collapse in September by the Boston Red Sox, Terry Francona was let go by the organization and Theo Epstein went to the Chicago Cubs. They decided that Ben Cherington would be the best general manager for them to have the most success. The Red Sox also thought that Bobby Valentine was the best manager that they could get, and they signed him to a deal.

Reports came out that some of the Red Sox players were unhappy with the hiring of Valentine. I first heard that story and thought that the unhappy players were going to be the ones that had already spent a lot of time in Boston and had a sense of entitlement to different things and were afraid of a change in culture--which is exactly what that team needs. I think that Valentine is a good hire for the team because people that have been around him say that he is always the smartest guy in the room. Valentine knows a lot about baseball and knows how to put his players in a position to win.

Valentine and Cherington are walking into a great situation in Boston and don't need to make major changes to the team. The fact remains that the Red Sox still went 90-72 this past year. Going 90-72 in any other division would lead to a pennant. But with the American League East being so strong, it's hard to get into the playoffs. Plus, Boston fans expect their sports teams to play well and put a lot of pressure on them to win.

Ben Cherington (Left) introduces Bobby Valentine (Right) to Red Sox Nation.