After the jump, you’ll find the full text of a lengthy conversation Dan Murphy and I had under a tent in Hawaii in October, 2007. We talked about life in Hawaii, Murphy’s intimate knowledge of his own swing, working on his defense, his favorite books and more. I’ll excerpt from two of my [...]

On Monday, the Mets announced that Jon Niese was being promoted from double-A Binghamton to triple-A New Orleans. Niese is scheduled to make his first triple-A start on Wednesday, bumping back Ruddy Lugo. As for his reaction to the news, Niese said he was both “surprised and excited” to be heading for triple-A.
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The Mets have done a nice job finding value in their pitching drafts in recent years. Generally, the 41st round isn’t the place to find major prospects, but that’s exactly where the Mets found RHP Nick Carr out of the College of Southern Idaho in 2005.
Carr has one superlative quality: he throws [...]

I wrote following Tuesday’s game about how impressed I was by Scott Moviel. He threw 75% of pitches for strikes with a solid fastball that was generally 91 mph, mixing in a slurvy breaking ball and a developing changeup. Drafted in 2007 out of Berea High School in Ohio in the second round, Moviel [...]

Tuesday afternoon after batting practice I sat down with catching prospect Francisco Pena. The son of former big league catcher, and current Yankees coach Tony Pena, and younger brother of Royals shortstop Tony Pena Jr., Francisco Pena is spending his second year in Savannah with the Gnats. The Mets assigned Pena directly to Savannah, [...]