March 27, 2012 • 6:48 pm 0
Join the gang here at KinersKorner.com as the Kult of Mets Personalities talk baseball as Spring Training rolls to a close.
We will be joined by Sean Kenny from Mets Merized Online.
Showtime is 8:30 PM EST until 9:30…Tune in at http://bit.ly/GWoqEB
Filed under: Kiner's Korner Podcast, Matthew Fazelpoor
March 6, 2012 • 6:23 pm 0
Spring Training is underway, and we are building towards the Mets opener with everybody ready to put last year behind them.
On tonight’s program we are joined by Kerel Cooper from On The Black
The Kult of Mets Personalities will come to you from 8:30 to 9:30 PM EST talking all things New York Mets.
Join us then!
Filed under: Kiner's Korner Podcast, Matthew Fazelpoor, Kult of Mets Personalities Podcast, New York Mets
December 6, 2011 • 8:37 pm 0
We will discuss the state of the New York Mets beginning at 8PM on the Kult of Mets Personalities Podcast http://bit.ly/uNtcRa
Tonight we are joined by Mike Silva and Steve Keane, and of course, the entire Kult. Tune in at 8!
Filed under: Kiner's Korner Podcast, Matthew Fazelpoor
October 25, 2011 • 7:49 pm 0
Filed under: Matthew Fazelpoor
July 27, 2011 • 8:43 pm 0
Baseball trade deadline has always been a fun time of the year for a baseball dork like myself to follow during my time as a baseball fan, especially when your team is a seller. That, of course, is not the New York Mets this season. I’ve seen this time of year evolve from USA Today baseball rumors to ESPN rumor mill to Metsblog’s always great coverage to now playing out over Twitter with every writer stepping over each other to report things first.
I work some pretty harsh hours at the radio station, NJ 101.5 (3AM to 11AM), thus my afternoon nap is the only thing that keeps Matty Faz ticking. Today, I did not fall asleep till 2 PM or so, and things seemed to really be moving with this Beltran thing. Nonetheless, I took an epic 4 hour nap, and woke up to a bunch of text messages, culminating with “Bring me Zach Wheeler.” This Beltran thing was already like a movie we knew the ending too, but were just waiting to see the story arced around it.
At this point, I had the ending to everything, so rather than just running to the trusty Mets and baseball websites to see what the hell happened while I was in the midst of my slumber, I took it to Twitter. Quick aside, I have gotten much more into Twitter the last few months. On the debut of my solo podcast, The Mash-Up with Matt Faz, last night, I commented to great Mets blogger, Kerel Cooper, that it is almost astonishing how rabid the Mets fans on Twitter are. They literally comment on every pitch of every game and are so passionate.
My one complaint with Twitter, especially beings that I work in the media, is that it has completed a great frontier of erroneous reporting with reporters, bloggers, and beat writers stumbling over each other to fire the first tweet about a breaking piece. Knowing the end already, I figured this would be a fun experiment to watch how this played out with Mets fans reactions mixed in. Let’s just say I kept myself amused for over a half hour reading through 4+ hours of tweets to sum up the final chapter of Carlos Beltran’s Mets career.
Without boring you with all the details, it played out something like this. The Indians made a fair offer, but Carlos wanted no part….the Rangers offered the best volume of players, but Carlos wasn’t into that either……The Giants were moving to the front, but it wasn’t clear who they were giving up….They were not going to even trade Gary Brown…..Then they were and the Gary Brown DEVELOPMENT was the one that put things over the top…..Beltran must have known something was up last night because he took the team out for dinner…..Gary Brown out and stud pitching prospect Zach Wheeler in….Phillies still think they have a chance, but know their chances are waning……The Pirates make an aggressive move?…..Put it in the books, Zach Wheeler is a New York Met…..but not official yet.
That is a very condensed afternoon of tweets and reports that I got to enjoy. Putting all that fun aside, a topic my colleagues and I discussed at great length this off-season and season was that the greatest addition the Mets made this year was in the front office with guys like Sandy Alderson, JP Ricciardi, and Paul Depodesta to go along with John Ricco and Wayne Krivsky. It was scenarios like this when the team would have the ultimate leg-up and know exactly what they were looking for in another team’s farm system. They would know exactly how to get those teams engaged in a bidding war. And most importantly, they would have the ability and the stones to execute trades like this.
It’s always tough to sit here and say wow we got a future all-star or ace (or #2) starter, especially when a guy is Single A. What you hope for is to have high ceiling guys who can project to a certain level. What you hope for is for a guy to have the canvas to be something special and put him in a position to move up and thrive in your organization. Despite your feelings on Carlos Beltran, I think every Mets fan can sit here today and be pretty content with the player they got in return. Zach Wheeler is a big kid with a great fastball and curve, drafted 6th overall in his draft (which was a very strong draft class), who averages 10 K’s per 9 innings pitched. He is a guy that projects to a very good #2 starter and maybe one day an ace, who knows. That is type of a pitcher you roll the dice on with a trade like this.
You read constant speculation in baseball, most of it wrong, about how things are going to play out. Well, the last few days, nobody believed that Sandy could get an A level prospect for Beltran (a 2 month rental) especially considering the Mets desperation to move him. Just like it only takes ONE team to give Jayson Werth 126 million dollars, it only takes one team to really need a middle of the order bat like Beltran offers. Sandy played this absolutely perfectly.
As for Carlos Beltran, I certainly appreciated and respected what he could do on the diamond and what he did for the Mets. Personally, there was always a disconnect I had with the guy where he would never be one of my favorite players. Again, I was a fan and loved watching him play because he was so consistent and smooth out there. Appearing on the Kult of Mets Personalities podcast last week, Mark Healey of Baseball Digest summed it perfectly and said he didn’t have those traits like a Mike Piazza that drew Mets fans in. Beltran will be missed, though, and his memories and status as one of the best free-agent signings in Mets history will live in.
Maybe it was because he was such a crown jewel of the beleaguered Omar Minaya regime, but either way, the Beltran thing had a weird feel to it this year, despite his monster numbers. And even with my certain disconnect with Beltran, I will always appreciate his contributions to the Mets.
And best of all, he will not be on an NL East team, especially Philadelphia. He can now be part of the solution of keeping Philly out of the World Series. Come October, with the Mets almost certainly not a part of it, I will root for Carlos to carry San Fran right back into the World Series and get a shot at a ring.
Today is one of those rare days, where I think all sides can be happy about how things played out. That does not happen often in sports and especially with trades involving the New York Mets. The Giants got the bat they coveted…Beltran gets the playoff shot he seeks…The Mets acquired the front-line pitching prospect they needed…
And most importantly, Sandy’s regime got the chance to make a big-time mark on the next chapter of the New York Mets, rather than just undo some of the blunders that Omar made.
Bookmark this day in Mets history……LET’S GO METS!
Filed under: Matthew Fazelpoor, New York Mets 2009-2010
December 14, 2010 • 9:16 pm 0
For the readers of this site, Nik, Coop, Robert Z, and myself (Matt Faz) are hosting our first podcast tonight at 11PM on Blog Talk Radio. You can listen in at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kinerskorner/2010/12/15/kult-of-mets-personalities …We hope to make this a regular thing. Please tune in and call us during the half hour show. We would love to hear from you!!
Filed under: Matthew Fazelpoor, New York Mets 2009-2010
December 2, 2010 • 5:25 pm 0
Happy Belated Thanksgiving to the great readers of Kiner’s Korner. Just like Brent Musberger refers to the 4th Quarter of a game as “The Money Quarter,” post Thanksgiving is the money quarter of Baseball’s Hot Stove season. In my last post, I urged fans to temper their excitement since the Mets are cash strapped. The theme of this off-season with the now loaded front office will be to find the low-risk, high ceiling guys.
So while the back (and front) pages of the area papers are littered with the non-story of whether Jeter will return to the Yanks, and the anti-climatic realization that Cliff Lee will also be heading to the Bronx, the Mets have gotten little blurbs here and there for some moves, such as…..
The Mets stand to get a sandwich round draft pick if Pedro Feliciano signs elsewhere!! And LHP Mike O’ Connor has been signed to minor league contract and might compete for a bullpen spot in 2011!!! And guess what else??? Ollie Perez has a 10 scoreless inning streak in Winter Ball!!!
While you may sense some sarcasm there, I understand what is going to have to take place this offseason for the greater future good. This week, there is the first buzz that the Mets are in the mix for a free agent. And yes, it’s a high ceiling guy….and not just because he’s really tall (sorry had to go for the bad joke). The Mets are one of the teams interested in RHP Chris Young, who is talented but has been plagued by injuries. He is a pitcher who fits Citi Field, and more importantly, played for the Padres under the eye of Sandy Alderson and Paul Depodesta.
Who knows if they will sign him or not, and while the prospect of signing Chris Young doesn’t have me planning a tickertape parade, it does spur one thought. One of my biggest pet peeves with the Omar Minaya era was that he would unearth certain gems, i.e. Maine, Ollie, Dickey. The problem was that Omar would discover the high ceiling guy and then count on him as much as Reyes and Wright. The thing with these sleepers is that you can sit on your laurels and act like you found a star. They are sleepers because their performances are going to be up and down and volatily unpredictable.
The new regime does not have a track record with the Mets yet, but I am hopeful to take as many as fliers as possible, and see how many gems can come out. And then more importantly, once that guy is found, to not rely on him and sign him to say a 3 year 36 million dollar contract (Ollie). As fans, we are going to grow with this new regime and learn their process of handling things. They might not sign Chris Young, but I say if the team is not in the running for Cliff Lee or Carl Crawford, then let’s bring in all the longshots. And I reiterate, that yes, Omar brought in his share, but he didn’t temper his own excitement and became too loyal to “his guys”….and it’s a very big factor that got the Mets into this mess.
The “money quarter” is underway, and as always, I love to hear what readers want out of this offseason and what their expectations are. And with our hopes for change, comes tempered optimism as we wonder what the future holds for us. As Jay-Z sang in the song for which this column is titled sums up what I think Mets fans like myself are thinking based on the past few years…”Hoping for the best but expecting the worst….Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?”
Sandy, you and the boys have the ball…
Filed under: Matthew Fazelpoor, New York Mets 2009-2010
November 17, 2010 • 5:10 pm 0
As Mets fans continue to wait for the 2011 Manager Sweepstakes to wrap up, I am sure we all can’t help but wonder what the on-field product will look like. In my first post to Kiner’s Korner, I introduced myself and my thoughts on the Mets, and painted a picture that the “best is yet to come.” While I truly believe that, I have wondered what the pulse is of this fanbase.
Mets fans have had to sit and basically pray that one of their archrivals did not win a World Series (especially Philly), while their own team was stuck in turmoil. And while things are moving forward toward fixing this mess, I wonder how much patience the fans have next year. Are the flushing faithful prepared to endure a 70-75 win season? Are we prepared to watch Philly run to another NL East title and watch the rest of the division continue to fortify and build up their squads?
It is a painful and long process to get back to being a winner in baseball. This is especially true when you have a season like the Mets are facing in 2011, in which you are waiting for bad contracts/bad attitudes to come off the books in the hopes of building towards 2012-2013. Between the Madoff scheme that paralyzed the Wilpon’s finances, and the lackluster attendance in the first two seasons at Citi Field, this is a tricky spot that Mets fans and ownership are in.
Both sides have certain things they need in order to tick. The fans need a winner, and need meaningful baseball to warrant going day in and day out to the Citi Field and spending the money on the team that the owners so desperately need. I cannot blame the Mets fans one bit for not wanting to go watch this team play late the last few years with the product that was on the field. At the same time, though, the fans want ownership to consistently sign top notch free agents and bring in high priced talent. Despite the constant talk that ownership is cheap, I disagree wholeheartedly with that assessment. As I said in my first piece, they have always brought in a top priced guy. Not always the right guy for the right price, but definetly expensive pieces. This team’s problem has been surrounding and building the depth within the team and farm system.
Basically I am throwing this out there to Mets fans. This season is going to be tough. Unless, Sandy pulls a rabbit out of his marine’s hat, and rids the team of Ollie, Castillo and maybe even Beltran’s contracts, it will be another long, arduous season. If you know, however, that things are being put into place to fix this team long-term, are you guys ok with that? I would hope that the masses of Mets fans would rather correct this thing properly, and build a winner for the next 7-10 years, rather than a one year crack at it. But then again, after four years of letdowns, I can understand if the patience is wearing thin. I know that mine is.
This is a swing year for the Mets. I am hopeful to see the young players from last year get some more cracks at it, and grow even more. I am hopeful that the now loaded front office can pull 2 or 3 bargain basement signings and one trade to bring in some high ceiling guys that pan out. But with no substantial budget in place, and a season of uncertainty with Johan Santana, it will most likely be a mediocre year. It pains me to say that and I will of course root our team on as much as ever, but I need to be realistic here.
This is a rare time where the fans need to step up and stay behind this team 100% and show up as much as possible. Not only for the financial aspects, but to show we are behind this team and this new regime. And most importantly, as the team builds anew, the fans have to build a new foundation. Mets fans always wait for other shoe to drop (and rightfully so) rather than just be loud and confident in the ballclub. 2011 needs to be a year to start building a home field advantage like Philly has done in a short time at Citizens Bank Park, so that when 2012 and the rest of the future arrives, everything is in order to be celebrating at Citi.
Filed under: Matthew Fazelpoor, New York Mets 2009-2010
November 10, 2010 • 2:08 pm 2
What’s going on Mets fans? My name is Matt Fazelpoor, but I usually go by Faz or Matty Faz. This is my maiden voyage on Kiner’s Korner. I thank Nik and the whole crew for the opportunity to write on a great site devoted to our beloved team. I will do my best to capture the pulse and chronology of a baseball season. We can all agree that being a baseball has become a 12 month job. When things are going great, time flies, but these last few years have not been easy.
I am sure all of my fellow Mets brethren out there are questioning why they consciously decided to root for a team that causes more heartache than a cheating girlfriend. We have sat around and seen a Phillies team that was non-existent ten years ago rise up and become an annual power that sells out every single game. Of course, we have our big brothers across the city that have made playing October baseball their God-given right. I can go on and on, but let’s not keep opening up old wounds.
In sports, things need to completely bottom out sometimes to ensure the proper changes and restructuring is done. Having mild success, and mild failures sometimes means that band-aids are put on gaping gashes. While we go out every day and bleed blue and orange, the ownership, management, and players have not reciprocated. It’s been a rare case where it’s not fans or media being Monday Morning Quarterbacks. EVERYBODY knew the flaws that this franchise had.
Well, I guess a second straight season of an empty brand new stadium late in the year, and no post-season baseball has woken up ownership. They have acknowledged the issues with communication, and running this thing like amateur hour. While nothing so far has shown up in our win-loss record, credibility is creeping back to Flushing.
The new sheriff in place is somebody that everybody in any circle calls a “great baseball man” and a “true professional.” GM Sandy Alderson has already cleared a major hurdle in my book by showing that he is secure with himself by surrounding himself with great baseball people like Paul Depodesta and JP Riccardi, combined with already having quality guys like Wayne Krivsky and John Ricco in place.
Alderson has taken to blogs and Twitter and kept fans in the loop with managerial search. He has also made no bones that adding major payroll is not too possible with the deadwood contracts that Omar left here. And I think all fans are fine with that, and that everybody sees the bigger picture that the foundation of our organization isn’t being glued back together….it was destroyed and being re-built with the right materials.
Omar Minaya did some good things, but he basically enamored us with the big free agent signing, and never had the secondary pieces in place. In the same way, he would show a few top prospects, while the depth of the farm system was always in question because of a questionable baseball personnel department. Everything always seemed, well like amateur hour. Maybe towards the end he started to “get it” and we saw solid prospects come through this season. But it was too late.
I think all Mets fans see this thing finally heading in the right direction. I for one, am very happy that Sandy Alderson does not care for the word autonomy. He knows his credentials, and he knows his power. And most importantly, he has surrounded himself with the right people which will culminate in hopefully a very solid managerial choice.
I promise all my posts will not be this long, but I wanted to give an introduction on my thoughts on things. Comments, suggestion, criticisms are always welcome. I am looking forward to it Mets fans. And I think we all agree on this as the Scorpions (yes I’m a huge 80′s fan) would say….THE BEST IS YET TO COME.
Posted By Matt Fazelpoor
Filed under: Matthew Fazelpoor, New York Mets 2009-2010
