On the trade block? Again? (Photo by The Associated Press.)

"Mad Men" is back on hiatus. The WCWS is a memory (not a distant memory, but a memory nonetheless.) And all the autumnal tree branches have reverted to simply sticks.

Must be Hot Stove season. And that means two things.

1. Time to bookmark MLBTradeRumors.com.

2. Rumors are swirling.

While the Steelers and Broncos defenses were running up and down the field in Denver, there were a handful of Mets-related rumors running around the Internet.

FOXSports' Ken Rosenthal reported a potential three-way deal that would send Luis Castillo to the Cubs, Milton Bradley to the Blue Jays and Lyle Overbay to the Mets. That would, of course, free up the Mets to sign Orlando Hudson, who is a free agent yet again this offseason.

Who knows how serious these talks even are, but Overbay did rebound to an .838 OPS in 2009, with 16 homers. Considering how he clubs right-handed pitching (15 of 16 HRs were against rightys with a .509 SLG), perhaps he could be a platoon candidate with Daniel Murphy, while Omar Minaya looks for a big bat for left field on the free-agent market.

And who could that big bat be? According to Jon Heyman on his Twitter feed, it could be Matt Holliday, who Heyman thinks is the Mets' top target along with Randy Wolf and Bengie Molina... because well, Omar can't go an offseason without flirting with a catcher.

You'll notice that Heyman doesn't think the Mets will go hard after John Lackey. On Twitter, he even noted that the Mets are spooked by his injury history. However, that's not a concensus around baseball, according to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick. Out of 20 baseball people he polled, 12 thought Lackey would land in New York. Unfortunately only four thought it would be the Mets.

But the most important thing to remember this time of year is the sodium level of all these rumors. Take them all with a grain of salt. Come to think of it, make a handful of salt.

Omar acknowledges there are some places the Mets could improve. Maybe. (The Associated Press.)

You have to hand it to Mets general manager Omar Minaya.

Sure, he may not be able to fire anyone without creating controversies (see Randolph, Willie and Bernazard, Tony).

Sure, he brought back Oliver Perez.

Sure, he signed Luis Castillo to such a bad contract that even after a bounceback season, he's still a burden.

But he can identify potential problem areas on the Mets.

OK, I'm being a little unfair to the Mets GM. He simply arrived at the winter GMs meetings in Chicago and spoke briefly with the media. Those comments were picked up in The Associated Press piece:

The Mets, who slid to 70-92 during an injury-filled season, could be active, general manager Omar Minaya said. The Mets had an opening-day payroll of nearly $136 million this season, second only to the Yankees' $201 million.

"We have to find a way to be able to slug more and I think pitching is another area we have to look at," Minaya said. "I think we are going to identify some of the players we like, and once we identify those players, then we are able to sit down with the agents ... We are also going to have to explore some trades. If the opportunity is there and we have a player we like, we are going to pursue that player."

Yup, a slugger and a pitcher, that's what the Mets need. In other news, smoking may be hazardous to your health.

The reality is, this is just the opening round of the Hot Stove season. The GMs meeting tends to be fairly quiet. It's the owners' meetings that tend to be the more explosive.

But I suppose it's good to know that Minaya knows what we all know. You know?

Damn arbitration. (Photo by The Associated Press.)

Everything's rosy in MLB these days, right?

They're coming off a competitive World Series that actually went to six games for the first time in ages. TV ratings were up. MLB Network enters its second year. After some initial hiccups, two new ballparks in New York were largely considered successes. Another new building opens up next year, this time in Minnesota.

Everything's coming up Selig.

Not exactly.

There's a lot of reason to be concerned that the economic collapse has driven an immovable wedge in between the Haves and Have Nots. There were signs that it was bad this past season. Now there are signs the upcoming season might be worse. And I'm not even talking about the Yankees winning another world title.

This week's trade of J.J. Hardy from Milwaukee to Minnesota for Carlos Gomez is troubling at best. Obviously, Hardy fell hard from his All-Star days of a few years ago, even spending time in the minors this season. But according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that stint also served as a means to end. By spending enough time in the minors this season, Hardy's free-agent date got bumped and thus was more attractive to other teams.

But he still would have seen his $4.5 million contract go up through arbitration and thus was traded for the light-hitting Gomez.

If the Brewers can't afford a 27-year-old arbitration-eligible shortstop, what does that say for MLB?

I say it says Trouble... with a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for... well, a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Good luck with that.

*****

Well, the WCWS is over so we can now safely move into Hot Stove season and forget all about the misery of the last two weeks. Well, as much as Yankees fans will let us forget. Let's see if they show up in this week's edition of Random Thoughts.

By the way, I've always enjoyed the No. 27. Even wore it one season of hockey. Never again.

Free Agency: Alex Cora filed for free agency this week. Wouldn't mind having him back.

'30 For 30' Still 3 For 4: Didn't catch this past week's "30 For 30" documentary on ESPN on the drug-related death of Len Bias a few days after being drafted by the Boston Celtics. A mix of an extremely busy week and only moderate interest in a story I think has been well-covered.

But I am betting on this week's doc on Jimmy The Greek.

Defecting To The Mets? Cuban defector and soon-to-be-highly-sought-after free-agent pitcher Aroldis Chapman's agent Edwin Mejia was quoted in the New York Post this week as saying, "He likes New York."

I wonder why?

Whether the Chapman camp actually gets the bidding war between the Mets and Yanks it obviously wants remains to be seen. For whatever reason, the two teams rarely end up in that scenario.

Good Time For MMA Fans: What a couple weeks for MMA fans. Saturday night was the first CBS broadcast for Strikeforce and it delivered a fun slugfest between Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers on free TV. While I didn't think the buzz was on the level of the Kimbo Slice EliteXC cards, "Fedor" was one of the trending topics on Twitter. It will be interesting to see if tweets translate to ratings.

To counter the broadcast network exposure for a fledgling rival, UFC replayed the main events of not one, not two, but three recent pay-per-views for free on SpikeTV. The UFC 101 main events of B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian and Forrest Griffin vs. Anderson Silva I saw live in Philly, but came off well on TV. The 103 main of Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort was exciting. But nothing compared to the wild main event of UFC 102 between Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Noguiera. Just an incredible brawl between two MMA legends.

And now next weekend, UFC will give away Couture's next fight against Brandon Vera at UFC 105 -- also for free, also on SpikeTV. Once again, it's a good time to be an MMA fan.

Game Show Returns: Am I the only one excited about the return of "Let's Make A Deal"?

Parade Thoughts: In the "J.J. Putz, We Hardly Knew Ye" entry, I noted that Disney parades are the only parades anyone cares about in the year 2009. So obviously, I did not watch the Yankees' slow-moving procession throughout Manhattan.

But I did read an awful lot about it on Twitter, Did they really play the Six Flags commercial song?

We all groan in retrospect when thinking of the "Who Let The Dogs Out?" days at Shea Stadium, but at least the song was relatively current.

Not a 10-year-old song from five-year-0ld advertising campaign that no one actually likes.

$500G. (Photo by The Associated Press.)

There's no way around it.  2009 was a disappointing season for Mike Pelfrey.

After a super-strong second half in 2008, where Pelfrey even recorded a few complete games, he was penciled in as the No. 2 starter behind Johan Santana.

That didn't work out so well.

But while the Mets and their fans may be down on the 25-year-old former first-round pick, he's still a 25-year-old former first-round pick. And that means two things.

1. You don't give up on him.

2. You get him cheap.

The Mets did just that this week, picking up a 2010 option for $500,000 because he is not arbitration eligible. Even giving the Mets what he gave them in 2009, that's a bargain.

Speaking of what he gave the Mets, it was 10-12 with a 5.03 ERA, down from 13-11 with a 3.72 ERA in 2008. He missed time, falling short of the 200 innings he recorded in 2008. Even though he remained a contact pitcher, his strikeouts-per-nine actually rose (5.2 from 4.9). But his walks-per-nine also went up (3.2 from 2.9) and as a result, his WHIP shot up to 1.514 from 1.360.

There's no way to objectively spin his performance. Subjectively, you could argue that he had to overcome advertisity and he's still learning how to do so. But the reality is he's done it before. The Mets need him to do it again.

And if he does, then he's really going to be a bargain.

Now whose name am I going to mock? (Photo by The Associated Press.)

Time to get back to normal here at The InterMet and talk primarily about Mets-related items. After all, what's there to say about a parade? The only parades anyone cares about are the ones that travel down Main Street U.S.A in Disneyland. Everything else is slow-moving traffic.

And as luck would have it, we have a little info about the Amazin's to help distract us from those celebrating crosstown. According to Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post, the Mets have informed J.J. Putz that they will not pick up his nearly $9 million option for 2010, instead cutting him loose on a $1 million buyout.

Amazingly, this means the Mets dealt Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith, Endy Chavez, Mike Carp, Jason Vargas and others for 29 innings of Putz. Suddenly Omar Minaya's creativity last offseason looks more like a pipe dream. The Mets never got the benefit of having two closers at the back end of their bullpen. But they did get Sean Green and Jeremy Reed.

Aside from putting "Never bet on a pitcher with a bum arm" slightly below "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" on our list of good rules to live by, the question is where the Mets go from here. Coming off elbow surgery, it's going to be difficult for Putz to find an attractive deal elsewhere. Maybe he comes back to the Mets on a deal with innings-based incentives at a significant discount.

Considering his strikeout-per-nine was roughly half of his last season in Seattle (5.8 to 10.9) and his WHIP was the highest since coming up in 2003 (1.636), it would have to be a serious discount.

More likely, it goes down as a failed experiment. But at least one that won't cost the Mets another $8 million.

So it's nice to see a Phillie walking with his head down. Not so nice to see Yankees jumping around like House of Pain. (Photo by The Associated Press.)

... and  needless to say, it's not the Mets.

But there is good news for Mets fans, the long national nightmare is over. The WCWS -- known as the Worst Case World Series in these parts -- has reached its conclusion, meaning Mets fans no longer have to choose the lesser of two evils. In the end it felt like being single and watching fellow single friends pick up prospective dates at bars. You're happy for your friends, but dear god are you resentful that it's not you.

It was a more competitive World Series than we've grown accustomed to in recent years and also featured pretty obviously the class of each league. You could make an argument for either team being the better team, though that's really irrelevant. Regardless, I'd probably side with the Yankees because of an edge in both starting pitching and bullpens.

But with that said, I think the Phillies will really look back on this series with great remorse because you could make a strong case that they should be celebrating back-to-back titles right now. They had last year's Series MVP on the mound wth a 3-0 lead in Game 3 and their closer on the mound at the end of Game 4. Even if you get one of the two, you're still likely talking Phillies dynasty by now. And windows like that close awful quick.

But what's amazing is even with those missed opportunities, a single decision by Charlie Manuel on Wednesday might have given the Phillies a legitimate shot at redemption. When he let Pedro Martinez pitch to Hideki Matsui for the second time in Game 6, the entire baseball world seemed to be screaming into their televisions. It had to be all hands on deck there, but for the second time in the series (starting Joe Blanton over Cliff Lee on short rest being the other), Manuel didn't manage with enough urgency.

And because of that, he's not managing a Game 7 today. It's like I said the other day: Manuel got outmanaged by Joe Girardi in the series. And I don't even think Girardi's a great manager. But then again, I've got a Mets blog with a wacky name. He's got a ring.

Wow. What a great heel smirk. (Photo by The Associated Press.)

Like any good movie villain, Pedro Martinez is ready to rise from the dead for yet another postseason shot at the Yankees.

Last seen smirking as he walked off the Yankee Stadium mound to boos following a better than expected performance for the Phillies in Game 2, Pedro gets the Game 6 start Wednesday against Andy Pettitte. This time, Pedro doesn't have 37 days rest... not that he had that many before, but you get the idea. Instead he's going on normal rest, which for Pedro is abnormal rest.

Does he have it in him to pull out another strong outing with only four days in between starts? You wouldn't think so, but you also wouldn't think he'd have been able to shut down the Yankee bats in Game 2. So I'm not doubting Pedro this time.

Not betting on him. But not doubting him.

Now that raises a different question. If Pedro pitches well enough for the Phils to somehow force a Game 7, who in the blue hell do you send to the mound for the defending champions?

Really, there are four options: Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ or Brett Myers. Hamels would be the obvious choice, but he also said he wants to take his ball and go home. So I have a hard time turning to him with a world championship on the line. Not to mention the fact his postseason ERA is 7.58 this year.

But that's the problem. All your options are pretty ugly if you look at how they've performed this postseason.

Happ's allowed seven hits and five walks in five-plus innings. That's a 2.25 WHIP, if you're keeping score. Myers doesn't even have two full innings under his belt, but he's allowed two walks and a homer. And Blanton, like Pedro, was better than expected in Game 4, but still has allowed 10 runs in 15 innings. And would be on short rest. And any one of these guys might be needed in relief Wednesday, because while Pedro never ceases to amaze, he never throws a complete game either.

So that's what Charlie Manuel is looking at if he even gets to a Game 7. Not exactly a wealth of options. So who do I think Manuel will turn to for a Game 7 start?

Someone who knows a rain dance.

Stay away! (Photo by The Associated Press.)

We all know what a road map to success would look like tonight, if the Phillies were allowed to draw it any way they liked.

It would start with Cliff Lee and end with Cliff Lee.

But sometimes a great road map can need to be altered, even TripTiks drawn up by AAA. There are sometimes roadblocks and detours that cause you to change your route.

In tonight's Game 5, those complications could be anything from long at-bats to injury to dangerous Yankee bats. They are the things that could prevent Charlie Manuel from leaving his ace on the mound for all nine innings at Citizens Bank Park.

Which raises the question: If the Phillies are leading after eight and Lee is unavailable, would you go back to Brad Lidge?

There's no right answer ahead of time. But it will be fascinating to see what Manuel decides, should we get that far.

Update (12:04 a.m.) -- Of course, we now know Manuel stayed far away from Lidge in Game 5... and it almost burned him. Ryan Madsen was anything but automatic, but he did get the Phillies to Game 6.

Who closes Game 6 is anyone's guess. (Though the smart money would be one Mariano Rivera.)

Bad week. (Photo by The Associated Press.)

So it was a bad week for former and current Mets general managers.

One clearly lost the faith of his bosses. And the other was Omar Minaya.

Former GM Steve Phillips lost his ESPN gig when revelations about an affair with a fellow Worldwide Leader employee compromised his ability to do his job.

So by comparison, Minaya's week wasn't nearly as bad.

As outlined in the "Front Office Machinations Bad For Omar?" entry, some believe the Mets are padding the front office with experienced baseball execs for the possibility that Minaya may not last the 2010 season. Like Phillips, it appears he's lost the faith of his bosses.

On the plus side, I don't know that Joe McIlvaine had a bad week.

*****

Well we missed last week's Random Thoughts when my laptop decided it needed a three-day vacation. So I'll try to fill in some of the blanks with this week's edition.

Remember: Nov. 5 is only days away. MLB can't hurt Mets fans anymore after that.

Pedro The Heel: Forget Pedro's impressive performance on the mound in Game 2. I want to talk about his performance in the week leading up to his start. His performance as a heel.

In the "Best-Of-5 Series Moves To Philly" entry, I displayed a great photo of Pedro's unbelievably awesome smirk as he walked off the Yankee Stadium mound to jeers. Pure heel.

In pregame interviews, he deflected blame for tossing an old man to the ground and declared himself the most influential player in Yankees history. Pure heel.

And don't think for a second he didn't know what he was doing the whole time. Pure heel.

The only catch is a heel wouldn't have backed it up on the mound. For most of Game 2, Pedro did just that. Not a heel.

But let's say this, if MLB had 10 guys showing as much personality as Pedro, it'd be a lot more fun to cover. And a lot more fun to watch.

Best Day Of The Year: Had a late night at work with the World Series game getting a late start. Left the newsroom at 1:30 a.m. Got home at 1:15 a.m.

I love falling back.

"30 For 30" 2-For-3: ESPN's 30 For 30 documentary series rolled on with last week's interesting take on the collapse of the USFL. Much like Pedro, Donald Trump isn't afraid to play the heel and it makes for compelling television. Without Trump, I don't know where this documentary goes.

With him, it's an easy thumb's up.

With that said, I found myself agreeing with Trump. I realize we're looking at it after the NFL has had several decades to entrench itself as the No. 1 sports league in the U.S., but I still think the USFL always would've been small potatoes. That's not to say it had to die. I think there was a place for the USFL. Hell, I thought there was a place for the XFL.

But I don't think it ever would've truly competed with the NFL in the long run. Trump said that. Among other things.

"30 For 30" 3-For-4: This week's installment was a look at the Muhammad Ali-Larry Holmes fight. Fascinating look at a fascinating fight. Just the existence of the extensive training footage would make this documentary an easy recommendation, even if that footage didn't show Ali's deteriorating state.

But it does.

And with that, it should be required viewing for every boxer, mixed marial artist, pro wrestler, anyone suceptible to a heavy dose of concussions. So yeah, that would include the NFL, too.

With That Said: Even as his speech and movements slowed, Ali was a charismatic showman like few in history. Like Pedro and Trump, these personalities are few and far between in the sports world today. And sorely missed.

OK, maybe not so much with Trump...

Just Wondering: If Mark McGwire doesn't talk about the past, how did he talk about his credentials in the job interview?

Knockout Pool: Since I didn't have a Random Thoughts last week, I didn't have to cop to the end of my knockout pool entry. But I'm not ducking it either. I had the Eagles two weeks ago and they laid an egg against the Raiders.

I have two silver linings.

1. My second choice was the Jets over the Bills. Didn't happen either.

2. Now I will really really enjoy it if the Giants roll the Eagles today.

These guys won't meet in Game 4. Probably not Game 7 either. (Photo by The Associated Press.)

The Phillies are trailing 6-3 as I type this, but in the bandbox known as Citizens Bank Park, that is far from an insurmountable lead. So this is not written assuming the Phillies will be necessarily trailing two games to one going into Game 4 of the World Series.

But Charlie Manuel is making a huge error in not starting Cliff Lee on short rest in Game 4.

Somehow Joe Girardi -- who has micromanaged this postseason worse than any manager outside of the "Office Space" universe -- managed to get it right, bringing CC Sabathia back on short rest, just like he did in the ALCS.

Lee was cool, calm  and collected in Game 1, as we heard ad nauseum in the hours following the Phillies' victory. So the World Series didn't rattle Lee, but coming back on three days' rest rather than four days' rest is suddenly going to overwhelm the Phillies' ace like a teacher trying to get the tween crowd to stop talking about the new "Twilight" movie.

But Manuel is clinging to the idea that Lee has never done short rest before. Well, when exactly would you like to have him practice? In meaningless regular season games? If he's not doing it in this situation, he's never doing it.

And with Joe Blanton on the mound to face Sabathia, he might not get another opportunity to do it in Game 7.