Michael Baron over at Metsblog had a good take on why the Mets would want to trade Jon Niese. While Michael makes some great points, to me, the fact that they're looking to trade him right now is actually a testament to how valuable he actually is. For the same reason the Oakland A's are shopping Gio Gonzalez, Sandy Alderson thought it was a good opportunity to listen to offers for Niese. This action is completely dictated by the current state of the market for starting pitching. There is a ton of demand (as there always will be), but there's little supply. A young, cost-controlled, improving, left-handed starting pitcher holds heightened value right now because there aren't many available, quality starting pitchers in trade or free agency. 

One thing that should always be kept in mind is the fact that the current team of executives running the Mets baseball operations is very savy, and they would never make a trade they didn't whole-heartedly believe was in the best interest of the franchise long term. With that in mind, I can say with certainty that Niese will not be dealt unless it's for a package of assets that makes the team better off long term. The Mets obviously feel that they could get incredible value for Niese if they deal him now. And I'd have no problem with trading Niese in a deal like that.

Here is some quick news concerning the Mets in the recent days:

• Hanley Ramirez has told the Florida Marlins that he is willing to switch his position if the Marlins go out and sign free agent Jose Reyes.
• Doc Gooden says that he missed to 1986 Mets World Series Parade because he was "too high" to attend.
• Right now, the top teams in play for Jose Reyes are the San Francisco Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the New York Mets. Sandy Alderson wants to bring Reyes back, he is scared of locking up the 2011 NL Batting Champion for too many years; especially with his injuries in the 2011 season. The Phillies could just be in the race to bump up the amount of the money the Mets have to shell out for the All-Star shortstop.

The Mets are now going through the hiring process of new coaches for the 2012 season. The newest addition is bench coach Bob Geren, former manager of the Oakland A's. Now the Mets are searching for their new first base coach to replace Mookie Wilson.

A couple of weeks ago the Chicago White Sox hired Robin Ventura to be their manager. Ventura played for the Mets from 1999 to 2001 and forever immortalized himself in Mets history with his Grand-Slam Single against the Atlanta Braves in game five of the 1999 NLCS. He also hired another ex-Met, Joe McEwing as his bench coach.

So all these ex-Mets getting hired to be coaches got me thinking: when are we going to see Mike Piazza coaching for the Mets? Personally I think it's only a matter of time before old number 31 wears a Met uniform again. After retiring in 2008, the future Hall of Famer he served as the hitting coach for the 2009 Italian World Baseball Classic team and managed the USA team in the Futures Game in 2011.

Piazza has shown interest in returning the game as coach immediately after his retirement. I think Piazza will wait until his induction into the Hall of Fame to accept a coaches position in the MLB.

In a couple of seasons when Terry Collins' tenure with the Mets is up, I could see Piazza as a hitting coach or a bench coach for the next manager. Or maybe he'll be the manager.

For the last 6 months, we've watched a mediocre Mets team have their ups and downs throughout the course of the 2011 major league baseball season. They're better off due to this past year's events than they were before in my opinion, but that's really a topic for another day. Now by comparison, the Phillies really just had their ups and more ups throughout the course of the season. They won their 5th consecutive NL East division title with a 102-60 record, best in the majors. They had the most dominant starting pitching in the game by a large margin. It's hard to go on long losing streaks when you can throw Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels out there on consecutive days. This was painful for Mets fans to watch no doubt.

Last night, on the other hand, was pure jubilation. We saw two extremely competitive games, in decisive Game 5's no less. The Brewers and Diamondbacks game was exciting (though completely secondary in the grand scheme of things last night from my perspective), and then there were the Cardinals and Phillies. The Cardinals got off to an early lead, scoring a run on a Skip Schumaker double in the first inning off of Roy Halladay. Normally, the Phillies would find a way to strike back. But they never did. That run was the only one scored in the game. Halladay followed that first inning up with 7 scoreless, striking out 7 while walking just 1 over the course of his outing. On the other side, Carpenter was flawless, and I loved every minute of it. Well, maybe not Ryan Howard potentially tearing his Achilles. I may hate the guy as a player, but I don't want to see anyone hurt like that.

Sports is really the one place in life where I feel comfortable reveling in the misfortune of others (barring injury). And I tend to take advantage. The Patriots being beat by the Giants in the Super Bowl, pushing their season record to 18-1? Awesome. The Celtics losing a tough Game 7 against the Lakers in which Kobe played like crap and their best player was Ron Artest, who went on to thank, among others though in my opinion most prominently, his psychiatrist in his post game interview? Fantastic. Even to a lesser extent the Yankees losing Game 5 to an inferior Detroit Tigers squad capped off by an inevitable Alex Rodriguez strikeout? Stellar. Despite the fact that my favorite teams suffered through mediocre, awful, and borderline historically awful seasons during these events, I didn't enjoy them any less. While having my favorite team cause these enormous failures for said hated franchises is 10 times better, I still love watching them lose to other franchises. I've seen the Jets knock the Patriots out of the playoffs. I've seen the Nets knock the Celtics and Knicks out of the playoffs, but I'll take these moments any way I can get them. So naturally when the Phillies fail to meet even the most reasonable of expectations, I'm over the moon with joy. Phillies fans can say whatever they want to me about how the Mets are no where near as good as their team, and they would of course be right. It doesn't mean I can't thoroughly enjoy their loss. 

I live and work near Hartford, Connecticut. Right in the fabled borderland between Red Sox and Yankees country. Being originally from the UK, American sports have never been easy for me to get into. Especially baseball. I mean, I don't even really like cricket, and that's the closest thing we have in England to it. Most of my early years in the US were spent in Massachusetts, so the Red Sox was the only game in town. When we moved to Connecticut it was a pleasant surprise to actually live in a place where Yankees fans lived. Bright lights, big city, all that jazz. I'm a Manchester United fan, so the Yankees are a bit like the Man U of MLB (just as the Cowboys are the Man U of NFL); biggest stadium, most fans, most succesful club, etc. Then, one day, I noticed a lad at work wearing a baseball cap with a round logo bearing a blue NYC skyline and the word "Mets" in orange. I'd heard of the Mets, obviously, but was surprised that more people in Connecticut didn't support them. Who, then, were the people buying tickets to Mets games? My interest in the Sox-Yanks borderland dissolved as I began to wonder about the difference between fans of the two New York baseball teams. What set them apart from one another? Was it like Manchester United and Manchester City fans back home? And if so, were United really the equivalent of the Yankees, or was there more to learn here?

It's no coincidence that the more successful a team is, the better is their stadium, their presence in media, and even their logo. As a kid, I marveled at Manchester United's cantilever roof, and the striking club crest that featured a red devil. Everything was, just, well perfect. But it's a chicken-and-egg situation. I used to think teams were better because their stuff was better, but that was because I was a child and I didn't properly understand money. Now I'm an adult (or pretending to be) I can see exactly why these things are so. Or can I? When I arrived here in the late-80s, I was struck by the Yankees pinstriped uniforms; they looked superior to other teams' uniforms, even other teams that wore pinstripes. I couldn't understand why baseball culture was steeped in this retro look, but the New York Yankees at least had transcended it by perfecting it. Then I saw the Mets logo; the clashing colors that, as a sign-painter, I was taught you should never mix. Blue and orange?! What the-?

Then I read the history of New York baseball and saw that it was a tribute to the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, whose colors were blue and orange, respectively. But you probably know that. Once I studied the Mets logo more closely I discovered it was round because it was in fact a baseball, complete with red (sorry, orange) stitching. The Brooklyn/NYC skyline fit so well into it, as did the bridge at the bottom. Then it hit me; the Mets logo was actually better than the Yankees logo! What could this mean? The colorful little metropolitan world represented by the logo captured Brooklyn and New York's vibrancy, while the Yankees' top hat and baseball bat looked more suited to Broadway than the Queens Highway. Perhaps those pampered Yanks have been so thoroughly infiltrated by day-trippers and corporate ignoramuses they've forgotten what the Big Apple is all about?

One thing that NYC is about is diversity, versatility. When I saw that Yankee Stadium  – the old as well as the new – had been used to stage rock concerts, I was surprised. Unfortunately, no matter how many concerts the Yankees would ever stage, they would never trump the Mets, whose Shea Stadium played host to the Beatles not once but TWICE. Beat that, you top-hatted bufoons.

So, next time people start lecturing me on the famous Sox-Yanks rivalry, I'll ask them what they think of the Mets, in particular the logo and the Beatles concerts, and maybe the wild color scheme. Forget the baseball itself; it's not always about that. Well, not in this case, anyway…it's about soul. You've either got it or you ain't, I guess…