Die Tryin'

Yesterday on paper looked like a pretty solid day.

1. 11 a.m. wakeup
2. Write a blog
3. Lunch at Virgil's, my favorite BBQ place for hump day lunch with two pals from work, Nick "The Voice" and JD, and OBF Schubert
4. Come home drop a deuce (Editor's note -- was this really necessary?)
5. Watch 90210 reruns
6. Go to gym
7. Eat dinner
8. Watch ABC's hit smash "Lost"
9. Go see Curtis Jackson's (aka 50 Cent's) new flick, Get Rich or Die Tryin'.

I'll be the first to admit that there was a time there in middle school when I thought I was a thug. Baggy jeans, Snoop Dogg CDs, sleepovers with Menace II Society and Fresh on repeat.

While I kicked that phase at about 13, my love for the gangster genre has not died. You may say I was pretty fired up for this flick.

So as I said, on paper, things looked great...That was on paper.

I woke up at about 9:30 and was really groggy.

My lunch at Virgil's was fantastic, but also led to a very bad version of what I have listed as my 4th activity of the day.

The 90210 rerun was all about Donna, and I have a rule that I fast forward thru all Andrea/Donna scenes leaving me with only about 20 minutes of pure 90210 time.

At the gym, I caught a huge blister on my foot.

Lost, of course, was sweet, though they killed off this girl that provides plenty of eye candy.

And then the worst part happened. A few beers deep, flat brim to the side, me and A.F.O.M.G. headed a few blocks over to the theater.

See, I always tell people that they may know him as 50, but I know him as Curtis Jackson. I do that mostly to piss people off and maybe catch a laugh.

Either way, we get to the theater only to realize that the movie was soldout. SOLD OUT at 10:15 on a Wednesday night in an affluent, white neighborhood. SALT...

You might have said the day was about getting rich, but instead I died tryin'.

In yesterday's blog Kerry Kittles' boy asked:

There is a lot of energy being spent on the lineup. I was wondering what pitching moves you see as productive and intelligent. Moves need to be made and I feel that our offense is on the brink. The pitching is my issue.There is talk of Ryan, the hard throwing lefty or (fingers crossed) Billy Wags. Obviously, this would be lovely, but there are plenty of closers out there that can come to Flushing and I am assuming Minaya will not f this up. I worry about starters. Make me feel better. The free agents out there just aren't giving me any comfort. Beckett? eh. Unlikely.

Well Kerry, this is where the Mets' season will be made or broken. There is one thing that all four teams that made it to their respective LCS' in 2005 had in common.

It wasn't a high payroll.
It wasn't a dominant starting rotation.
It wasn't a dominating lineup.

Each team had a dominant bullpen.

White Sox: Cliff Pollite, Dustin Hermanson, Damaso Marte, Neil Cotts, Bobby Jenks
Angels: Brandon Donnelly, Scott Shields, Kelvim Escobar, K-Rod
Cardinals: Al Reyes, Ray King, Julian Tavares, Randy Flores, Jason Isringhausen
Astros: Chad Qualls, Dan Wheeler, Mike Gallo, Brad Lidge

Team ERAs (rank in all of Major League Baseball):

St. Louis: 3.17 (2nd)
Chicago: 3.23 (4th)
LAA: 3.52 (7th)
Houston: 3.63 (10th)

The Mets finished 13th with an ERA of 3.86. That said, if you were to take away Aaron Heilman's 0.68 ERA in 40 innings after the All Star Break, you'd have a very bad bullpen.

The Mets' goal this offseason should be to build the pen.

The lineup should only get better. Other than Cliff Floyd, you can expect every Met in the lineup to improve on his 2005 season. The starting pitching should remain solid. 1-5 the mets are as solid as it gets.

Considering there isnt much out there free agent wise, I think the Mets, if they are in it, will make a run in August for a front line starter if it is neccesary.

So back to the 'pen. On paper, no one really cares about the bullpen. Signing a middle reliever doesnt make back page headlines.

But for the Mets, a better bullpen is what will get them on the backpage come October.

I, like many Mets fans, feel that Billy Wagner should be our prime target at closer. He remains dominant with no real sign of wear. In addition, this would be addition by subtraction as the Mets would be taking a closer from the Phillies. Losing Wagner and possible Urbina (murder charges) and all of a sudden Philadelphia's biggest strength is it's biggest weakness.

Then there are three names I'd love to see the Mets go after.

1. Julian Tavarez 3-4, 3.42
2. Scott Eyre 2-2, 2.68
3. Joey Eischen 2-1, 3.22

Tavarez is most likely the most familiar of these names. He has been a very solid setup man for the Cardinals for a few years and was a solid closer in the AL earlier in his career.

Eyre and Eischen are two dominant lefties out of the 'pen. They stand out to me because they both gave Cliff Floyd two of the worst at bats of maybe his entire career this fall.

If somehow the Mets could grab two of these guys to put next to Heilman and Hernandez and Juan Padilla, who looked very solid at the end of the year, then all of a sudden the Mets have maybe the best bullpen in the National League.

These moves dont scream "Get Rich or Die Tryin" but that is why 50 always wears Yankee hats.

These moves are sensible and cost-efficient, like Brandon Walsh's decision to go to CU.

Grab me any 2b who can hit better than Miguel Cairo/Kazuo and the Mets' lineup will improve.

All of a sudden, without making too much noise, other than Wagner, the Mets are a much improved ball club.

This is the blueprint in my opinion.

It's become trendy to say almost, but the fact is that the big moves on paper don't always work out, and more often than not it's the smaller moves that people don't always necessarily pay any attention to that turn out to be the most important.

That's all for now. As for me, time for good, old number 4.

#9, Ohio St,

Sippy Momo