The Mets have signed Nelson Figueroa, Adam Bostick, Andy Green and Rene Rivera to minor league deals. Whoopie!

Ted Berg took a tour of Citi Field and offers his thoughts on the layout as well as a stab at how the field might play once it opens.

At MetsGeek, Mike Newman looks at Aaron Heilman's chances of being a credible starting pitcher next year.

At The Hardball Times, Tom Tango makes the Hall of Fame case for Tim Raines. Raines will have a tough row to hoe this year, with Rickey Henderson -- a better version of Raines -- a certainty to be voted in on his first shot. Raines is an underappreciated player, a great player for a long time, who will hopefully have is day in Cooperstown sooner rather than later.

South Side Sox tries to figure out what Kenny Williams is thinking by trading Javier Vazquez to the Braves for a mostly-nothing-special group of players.

Beyond the Boxscore rounds up some of the smaller moves made yesterday, including Russell Branyan signing with the Mariners and Bobby Howry signing with the Giants.

Rany Jazayerli talks about how easy it is to game the free agent compensation system for Type B players.

Also, be sure to check out the new SBN Hot Stove hub, which features stories and analysis from around the network on all things hot stove.

Walks are great. I love walks because walks (a) avoid outs and (b) clog bases and, with all due respect to those who use it as a pejorative, clogging the bases is a good thing. Many of my favorite all-time ballplayers were proficient base-cloggers: Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, John Olerud, Barry Bonds, Brian Giles. Walks are almost universally good things for a hitter. Some will argue that there are times when a player needs to be aggressive -- like when the bases are loaded, for instance -- and, while the point has some merit and may be worth having a dialog about, walking in those situations can hardly be construed as a bad thing, can it? Baseball has no game clock to dictate the length of a game; outs are the only currency that baseball accepts, and avoiding outs can, theoretically, prolong a game indefinitely.

Walks: They're !@#$ing awesome! One caveat with walks is that when player stats are presented, we usually only get a single column for all walks, which doesn't really tell the whole story about that player's plate discipline. To get the full effect, you really need to see total walks juxtaposed against intentional walks, the delta of which -- unintentional walks -- tell us how often a player drew a walk, which is more meaningful than knowing how often he was issued a walk.

I threw together a list of the highest single-season non-Bonds unintentional walk (UBB) totals since 2000. Here they are:

PlayerName	Year	UBB
Jason Giambi	2000	131
Jason Giambi	2003	120
Bobby Abreu	2006	118
Bobby Abreu	2004	117
J.D. Drew	2004	116
Adam Dunn	2002	115
Jim Thome	2000	114
Lance Berkman	2004	113
Pat Burrell	2007	113
Brian Giles	2002	111
Brian Giles	2005	110
Adam Dunn	2008	109

I conveniently cut the list off at twelve in order to include the second Adam Dunn season, but it's not as if I'm cherry-picking years altogether, and it's also not clear why every list has to be enumerated to some multiple of five.

The first thing that should strike you about this list is how many of these seasons belong to players who count themselves among the current group of free agents. Seven of the twelve -- 58% -- are free agents, each without the encumbrance of draft pick compensation to consider for his future team. We get two seasons from Jason Giambi, two from Bobby Abreu, two from Dunn and one from Pat Burrell. Brian Giles would have been a free agent had the Padres not exercised their team option on him for 2009. Expanding the list to 20 would have given us three more Giambi campaigns.

The other point of interest here is that none of these are marginal ballplayers. All of these guys are (still!) good-to-great, and each was certainly great during the year(s) indicated. You know why? Walks: TFA!

Now that the incentives and disincentives for signing free agents are all clear (inasmuch as they can be at this point), imagine a top-five that looks like this:

1. Jose Reyes
2. Adam Dunn
3. David Wright
4. Carlos Beltran
5. Carlos Delgado

You've got something like 150 homeruns, 400 walks, 500 runs scored (500 strikeouts). Would you rearrange this order? Would you slot someone else in instead of Dunn? Are you too busy drooling to arrange cohesive thoughts on anything right now?

Nick Evans strained his right quad playing winter ball in Puerto Rico and has been sent home for rehab. Reports indicate that Evans was a sad little puppy without his best bud Dan Murphy by his side, so the injury comes as something of a mixed blessing for him.

Mets Tailgate likes Bob Howry, now more than ever in light of the Cubs declining to offer him arbitration last night.

The Mets are pretty interested in Brian Fuentes, and reportedly plan to meet with him in Las Vegas next week. Signing Fuentes would cost the Mets their first round pick next June, which should certainly give them some pause.

At MetsGeek, Mike Newman looks at some hypothetical trades and James Kannengieser makes a case for some former Mets who will appear on this year's Hall of Fame ballot.

Bob Klapisch doesn't think the Mets got their money's worth out of Pedro Martinez, arguing that the $53 million they gave him over four years included considerable time on the disabled list, a disappointing 2008, and nothing closer to a World Championship than falling in seven games to the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS.

At RotoGraphs, Peter Bendix looks at Johan Santana from a fantasy point-of-view, and concludes that he is good, but not that good.

At FanGraphs Eric Seidman evaluates Carlos Beltran and figures that the Mets could reasonably pay him $10 million more per season and still get their money's worth.

Also at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron analyzes Aaron Heilman's candidacy for the starting rotation.

Speaking of FanGraphs, they're now carrying wOBA for every player/year in history. Awesome.

At Beyond the Boxscore, R.J. Anderson crunches some SQL in comparing Barry Bonds's and Ted Williams's astonishing offensive accomplishments.

Ted Rogers, telecom magnate and Blue Jays principal owner, died last night of congestive heart failure.

[Updated @ 11:18am: Astros, Reds, Phillies]: News of arbitration [non-]offers are trickling in, so whenever I hear something new I'll add it here. If you discover any on your own don't hesitate to include them in the comments, but be sure to provide a source. I'll update this list accordingly. I am only going to include Type A and Type B free agents, since the arbitration status of unranked players is inconsequential.

Players who were offered arbitration are listed in bold green (Type A) or green (Type B).
Players not offered arbitration are listed in bold red (Type A) or red (Type B).

Angels

Garret Anderson (MLB.com)
Jon Garland (MLB.com)
Darren Oliver (MLB.com)
Francisco Rodriguez (MLB.com)
Mark Teixeira (MLB.com)

Athletics

Alan Embree (MLB.com)
Frank Thomas (MLB.com)

Astros

Doug Brocail (MLB.com)
Mark Loretta (MLB.com)
Randy Wolf (MLB.com)

Blue Jays

A.J. Burnett (MLB.com)
Gregg Zaun (MLB.com)

Braves

John Smoltz (MLB.com)

Brewers

Eric Gagne (MLB.com)
C.C. Sabathia (MLB.com)
Ben Sheets (MLB.com)
Brian Shouse (MLB.com)

Cardinals

Jason Isringhausen (MLB.com)
Braden Looper (MLB.com)
Russ Springer (MLB.com)

Cubs

Bobby Howry (MLB.com)
Kerry Wood (MLB.com)

Diamondbacks

Juan Cruz (MLB.com)
Adam Dunn (MLB.com)
Orlando Hudson (MLB.com)
Randy Johnson (MLB.com)
Brandon Lyon (MLB.com)

Dodgers

Joe Beimel (MLB.com)
Casey Blake (MLB.com)
Jeff Kent (MLB.com)
Derek Lowe (MLB.com)
Greg Maddux (MLB.com)
Brad Penny (MLB.com)
Manny Ramirez (MLB.com)

Mariners

Raul Ibanez (MLB.com)

Marlins

Luis Gonzalez (MLB.com)
Paul Lo Duca (MLB.com)
Arthur Rhodes (MLB.com)

Mets

Moises Alou (MLB.com)
Luis Ayala (MLB.com)
Oliver Perez (MLB.com)

Padres

Trevor Hoffman (MLB.com)

Phillies

Pat Burrell (MLB.com)
Jamie Moyer (MLB.com)
Rudy Seanez (MLB.com)

Rangers

Milton Bradley (MLB.com)

Reds

David Weathers (MLB.com)

Red Sox

Paul Byrd (MLB.com)
Jason Varitek (MLB.com)

Rockies

Brian Fuentes (MLB.com)

Royals

Mark Grudzielanek (MLB.com)

Tigers

Edgar Renteria (MLB.com)

Twins

Dennys Reyes (MLB.com)

White Sox

Orlando Cabrera

Yankees

Bobby Abreu (MLB.com)
Mike Mussina (MLB.com)
Andy Pettitte (MLB.com)
Ivan Rodriguez (MLB.com)

Midnight tonight is the deadline for teams to offer salary arbitration to their own free agents, of which the Mets have eleven:

• Oliver Perez
• Luis Ayala
• Pedro Martinez
• Moises Alou
• Damion Easley
• Tony Armas
• Orlando Hernandez
• Ricardo Rincon
• Ramon Martinez
• Matt Wise
• Trot Nixon

Only three of these guys have been ranked by Elias: Oliver Perez is a Type A free agent; Luis Ayala and Moises Alou are both Type Bs. A quick free agent compensation primer: The upside to offering arbitration to a ranked player is clear: Should he sign elsewhere, the former team -- in this case, the Mets -- would receive either a first round pick AND a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds (Type A) or just the sandwich pick (Type B). There are circumstantial exceptions to the compensation for Type A players, because a team could conceivably sign more than one such player but, obviously, only has one first round draft pick to offer back to the player's original team. In such cases, the highest ranked Type A player signed is compensated for by the signing team's first round pick; the second highest ranked Type A the second round pick, etc. Of course, any team picking in the top half of the first round has their first round pick protected, so the musical draft picks begin with the signing team's second rounder instead.

The Mets will almost certainly offer arbitration to Perez, because there is no disincentive to do otherwise. Typically, the worst case scenario for offering a player arbitration is that he accepts and you didn't want him to. That is, you wanted him to sign elsewhere so you could collect the draft pick(s), and his accepting of arbitration would have negative implications on your team's plan for the subsequent year, either financially, roster-wise, or something else entirely. This actually happened in the winter following the 2002 season, when the Braves offered arbitration to both Greg Maddux and Kevin Millwood, expecting at least one of them to decline in favor of a multi-year deal elsewhere. Both players accepted their arbitration offers, and the Braves were forced to trade Millwood to the Phillies (for Johnny Estrada) to ease the burden on their 2003 payroll. The Mets have no such concerns about Perez, because they could afford any one-year arbitration award should he fail to find a deal to his liking on the open market.

I think the Mets should probably offer arbitration to Ayala, too. If he doesn't sign with someone else, the Mets will be on the hook for something like $2 million (just a guess) for next year. Ayala was pretty terrible last year, but the Mets flushed $1 million down the toilet on Matt Wise, so even the worst case for Ayala next year would hardly cripple the Mets financially. Moises Alou is sort of interesting, but the Mets won't offer him arbitration. It's not clear what Alou could be awarded in arbitration, considering he missed almost all of 2008. The collective bargaining agreement stipulates that arbitration-eligible players who are not yet eligible for free agency can be awarded no less than 20% below what they made in the previous season (certain exceptions notwithstanding), but that rule doesn't apply to players, like Alou, who aren't covered under the reserve system [Article XX(A) of the CBA]. Would it be worth extending an arbitration offer to Alou if he'd expect, say, a $3 million arbitration reward? Who knows.

Nobody else on the above list is going to get an offer from the Mets. Prior to 2007, that passivity would have precluded the player from resigning with his former team. That's no longer the case, so the Mets could still negotiate with Pedro Martinez et al without having to guarantee any of them the right to arbitration.

Of course, 29 other teams also have to make arbitration decisions on their own free agents, which is where things will really start to get interesting. There has been very little player movement this offseason, but once the compensation-related incentives/disincentives become known we should see things open up a bit. Will signing Adam Dunn or Ben Sheets make more sense if they won't cost any draft picks than, say, Manny Ramirez or Derek Lowe plus draft picks to boot? By Tuesday morning, the risks of signing another team's players will be much clearer.

Things I am thankful for on this, my favorite holiday of the year:

• Carlos Beltran
• David Wright
• Jose Reyes
• Johan Santana
• Moving to a brand-spanking-new stadium in 2009 (that hopefully won't be called Taxpayer Field)
• Luis Castillo's balky knees
• Moises Alou's pee hands
• Eddie Kunz's ruff outings
• Daniel Murphy's Irish hammer
• Jerry Manuel's post-game interviews
• Carlos Delgado's resurgence
• Endy's Chavez's glove
• Fernando Martinez's potential
• The Mets' big fat wallets

And last but certainly not least, the most intelligent, well-informed, evidence-demanding, status quo-rejecting, self-policing, and otherwise freaking brilliant Mets community on the internet, without whom I certainly couldn't fathom doing this every day. I raise a giant turkey leg to you all!

I'm having a difficult time remembering a more excruciatingly slow offseason than this one. Not only are the rumors of bottom-shelf sexiness, but they're all so embarrassingly off-base that a vast sea of internet sites are losing credibility by the hour. Not this one, though, because we set the bar so impossibly close to the ground as to stifle any potential credibility demerits.

So until something worthwhile comes along, let's kill some time on a pre-holiday Wednesday by poring over some historical Baseball Prospectus data. I ran through Mets batter VORP by decade just to see who the team leaders were during different eras of the franchise's history. A lot of these guys you could have probably guessed, but it's neat to see how everyone stacks up overall.

NAME	1960's VORP	YEARS
Ron Hunt	92.3	4
Cleon Jones	69.9	6
Ken Boswell	28.0	3
Tommy Davis	27.8	1
Ron Swoboda	25.5	5
Art Shamsky	25.4	2
Bob Johnson	25.0	1
Frank Thomas	22.5	3
Bud Harrelson	22.4	5
Richie Ashburn	21.8	1

Keep in mind that these figures are aggregates for the entire decade. That 135 games played by Richie Ashburn in 1962 were enough to place him on the top ten list for the eight years the Mets existed in the sixties should tell you all you need to know about the state of their offense back then. Until recently, the Mets have always been heavy on pitching and light on hitting, but this is pretty ridiculous. Ron Hunt and Cleon Jones do alright for themselves here, but the rest is just a disaster. Bud Harrelson played three full seasons and parts of two others and he just barely cracks the list.

NAME	1970's VORP	YEARS
Rusty Staub	97.2	4
Bud Harrelson	94.5	8
Lee Mazzilli	75.0	4
Wayne Garrett	71.6	7
John Milner	70.8	7
Felix Millan	68.8	5
Tommie Agee	62.0	3
Ed Kranepool	58.7	10
Steve Henderson	58.6	3
Cleon Jones	54.5	6

The seventies really weren't much better than the sixties, even with two additional years to work with. Bud Harrelson has eight years represented here; Ed Kranepool has the full ten. Le Grand Orange was only in town from 1972 thru 1975, but two of those were good years and the other two were terrific ones. Lee Mazzilli had the highest single-season VORP of the decade with his 46.8 in 1979, with a comfortable lead over the 36.4 Cleon Jones notched in 1971. Only Staub and Tommy Ageee averaged better than two wins above replacement per season. It was a less offensive era to be sure, but even within that context the Mets were pretty pathetic.

NAME	1980's VORP	YEARS
Darryl Strawberry	253.9	7
Keith Hernandez	181.6	7
Howard Johnson	164.3	5
Mookie Wilson	122.3	10
Lenny Dykstra	93.4	5
Kevin McReynolds	92.2	3
Wally Backman	90.3	9
Gary Carter	82.4	5
Tim Teufel	51.2	4
Dave Magadan	43.3	4

Cocaine + glam rock = more offense! Lots of big names here, including three of the half-dozen-or-so best hitters the Mets have ever had. I've always had a soft spot for Kevin McReynolds, and I don't think he gets enough credit for his production as a Met. He didn't have much of a personality and he was on the wrong end of the trade that sent future-MVP Kevin Mitchell to the Padres, but he was a very nice hitter for a few years and one of the two batting stances I can remember emulating as a little leaguer (the other was Lenny Dykstra).

Darryl Strawberry and Howard Johnson had five of the top ten VORP seasons of the eighties, with HoJo taking the single-season crown with 74.9 during his monster 1989 campaign: 36 homeruns, 41 stolen bases, 41 doubles, 77 walks. Tim Teufel actually had the tenth-best single-season of the decade with 37.9 VORP in 1987 when he hit .308/.398/.545 in 350 plate appearances.

NAME	1990's VORP	YEARS
John Olerud	153.2	3
Edgardo Alfonzo	121.0	5
Mike Piazza	120.6	2
Bobby Bonilla	111.9	5
Todd Hundley	91.4	9
Howard Johnson	90.5	4
Jeff Kent	79.8	5
Lance Johnson	71.5	2
Dave Magadan	67.9	3
Bernard Gilkey	59.2	3

Is it any wonder why John Olerud is my favorite Met of all time? His 70.4 VORP in 1998 was the best of the nineties when he hit .354/.447/.551 and somehow only finished 12th in MVP balloting. Of course, that same year Mark McGwire hit 70 homeruns and OPS-ed 1.222 and still lost the MVP to Sammy Sosa because Sosa's Cubs made the playoffs and Mac's Cardinals did not.

A lot of times I forget that Jeff Kent was with the Mets for so long. I always seem to mis-remember him playing here for a year or two before being shipped off for Carlos Baerga, but he actually stuck around for something like four full seasons. Johnson and Dave Magadan -- another one of my favorites -- make the return visit, as both also appeared on the eighties list.

NAME	2000's VORP	YEARS
David Wright	275.8	5
Mike Piazza	251.5	6
Jose Reyes	210.6	6
Carlos Beltran	194.6	4
Edgardo Alfonzo	136.7	3
Carlos Delgado	88.9	3
Cliff Floyd	77.5	4
Ty Wigginton	42.2	3
Mike Cameron	37.3	2
Paul Lo Duca	36.4	2

Ahh, the aughts. If you closed your eyes and tried to guess this list, you'd probably come up with half of it very easily and a few more without a whole lot more trouble. If you guessed Ty Wigginton and Paul Lo Duca on the first shot, you're either Kreskin, Alex Nelson, or both. These numbers include 2008 results, from which we get seasons by David Wright, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran. Wright's decade-high and franchise-high mark of 81.1 VORP was set in 2007, though Edgardo Alfonzo's 76.9 in 2000 is just a shade behind.

You'll notice a stark contrast between the 2000's and basically all of the decades preceding it. The Mets have some of the franchise's best offensive players right now, so it should come as no surprise that four of the ten best single-season VORP marks have occurred in the past three seasons (Wright's 2007 and 2008; Jose Reyes's 2008; Carlos Beltran's 2006).

And just for kicks, here is the Mets all-time leaderboard.

NAME	VORP	YEARS
Mike Piazza	372.1	8
Darryl Strawberry	296.9	8
David Wright	275.8	5
Edgardo Alfonzo	257.7	8
Howard Johnson	254.8	9
Jose Reyes	210.6	6
Carlos Beltran	194.6	4
Keith Hernandez	181.6	7
John Olerud	153.2	3
Kevin McReynolds	134.4	6
Cleon Jones	124.4	12
Mookie Wilson	122.3	10
Rusty Staub	120.3	9
Lee Mazzilli	117.5	10
Bud Harrelson	116.9	13
Bobby Bonilla	111.9	5
Dave Magadan	111.2	7
Lenny Dykstra	93.4	5
Ron Hunt	92.3	4
Todd Hundley	91.4	9

To date, Mike Piazza leads all Mets hitters in career VORP by quite a bit, his 372.1 out-pacing Strawberry's 296.9 to the tune of more than seven wins. Wright is just a couple of decent seasons behind Piazza, though, so there could be a changing of the guard pretty soon. McReynolds at #10 is surprising, while Reyes and Beltran are both climbing this list quickly and furiously.

At MetsGeek, Alex Nelson looks at some things the Mets could learn from the Phillies' run to a world title.

At RotoGraphs, Brian Joura examines Carlos Beltran's power drop over the past couple of seasons and discusses its impact on fantasy ball. As with most content at RotoGraphs, this piece is geared towards fantasy managers, but it can be read almost in its entirety outside of that context.

DRays Bay writes a letter to Omar Minaya espousing all of Edwin Jackson's fine traits and why he'd be a good fit for the Mets. Plus, he feels really bad about the whole Scott Kazmir thing and wants to make it up to the Mets.

At his blog for Newsday, Ken Davidoff crunches some numbers on Mike Mussina and Jose Reyes.

Rob Neyer gives his take on Luis Castillo's contract in light of the second-baseman's recent commitment to getting in shape for 2009.

A member of Athletics Nation recently wrote this epic FanPost on Rickey Henderson, complete with newspaper and magazine clippings, ticket stubs, and what appear to be homemade collages. The bar has been set, people.

Red Reporter peers into the future of Aaron Harang. I don't see anything about him pitching for the Mets, so boo for me.

A judge has dismissed three counts in the government's perjury/obs-jus case against Barry Bonds. Not thrown out: The other eleven counts, ten of perjury and one of obstruction of justice. When reached for comment, Bonds said, "Three counts? The only count that matters is 762, biotch!"

Curt Schilling is headed for the Persian Gulf as part of the USO tour. I'll rail against the guy for being a blowhard and a whackjob, so I'll certainly tip my cap to him for doing something for the heroes.

At Cybermetrics, Cyril Morong wonders if Ryan Howard should strike out less, but he uses numbers and such so it's not really as sarcastic as it sounds.

Lazy Monday, short week, nothing interesting going on. The free agent market is moving at a snail's pace, with the Mets just barely dipping their toes in the water. Let's kill some time guessing another illegible Mets autograph! No cheating, now. No scouring autograph galleries on the internet somewhere.