The Jacket joins the show to talk about his time with the Mets, including a good story about Pedro Feliciano:

Feliciano has come up a bunch lately in the more comprehensive discussions of the Mets’ offseason because he stands to be a free agent — Type A, most likely — but it seems entirely possible he could accept arbitration if it’s offered, eschewing his right to free agency since it’s questionable whether any team would be eager to part ways with draft picks for a lefty specialist. Chris McShane provided a nice rundown here.

This is all speculation, but I have to think the Mets would be best served at least offering arbitration to Feliciano, even knowing he’d likely get a raise over the $2.9 million he earned in 2010 if he accepts it. Yes, they could probably find another lefty specialist — if perhaps a less effective and certainly a less durable one — for less money than that.

But it seems like the downside to offering him arbitration is the risk of slightly overpaying a pitcher that Fangraphs has valued between $2.9 and $3.7 million in four of the past five seasons, and the upside is getting back either a steady southpaw willing and able to pitch more than every other day or a compensatory draft pick.

The only reason I could see not to offer Feliciano arbitration would be if the Mets absolutely do not have room in their budget to bring him back at that rate and address more pressing needs like the starting rotation and second base. But that’s information I obviously am not privy to.

Of course, I reserve the right to rethink this multiple times in the coming months.

Also, Peterson and I spoke long enough that our interview needed to be chopped into two Baseball Shows. Look out for the second part next week, in which he talks about some of the stuff he’s doing with the Brewers now and how he uses pitchFX to help his staff.