Lowe, rules, and patches

Derek Lowe has signed with the Braves. That leaves Oliver Perez out there with all the leverage. With the Mets desperate to get either one of Lowe or Perez, Scott Boras can use his tactics to push the Mets for 4+ years on Perez.

Don't budge and go beyond three. This is not a Johan Santana situation. We know what Perez is. If he's willing to accept a three year deal at reportedly what the Mets offered him, I think we can live with it. His performances vs the Yankees, Braves and Phillies proves that much.

There are other pitchers out there. We could settle for Randy Wolf on a smaller deal. Then there's Ben Sheets. With a pitcher of his caliber, it's amazing that there has been no talk about him getting some kind of offer, injury prone or not. The Mets should offer him an incentive-laden one year deal now. There's also Andy Pettitte, who, while not as attractive, is certainly intriguing. Of course, we cannot forget about Pedro as well.

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The MLB is having the owners decide on some rule changes in the near future. One of them is having a one game playoff be played at the park of the team that won the season series. What a concept! Maybe some more common sense can prevail and we can see the All-Star game not decide home field advantage. Highly doubtful we'll see that changed anytime soon.

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Last, but not least our wonderful Citifield patch. Really, what more can you say? Is it really too much to put the exterior of the rotunda on the damn thing?!