Now everyone wants Nelson Cruz

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I have spent — maybe wasted — thousands upon thousands of words advocating for the Mets to give a Major League opportunity to one of any number of Triple-A mashers with nothing left to prove in the Minors.

And nearly every time I do that, someone in an email or a comments section or message board somewhere will respond with the same arguments:

If this guy’s so good, why hasn’t any team given him a chance? If he’s really a Major Leaguer, why do teams keep letting him go?

I have no answer. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.

Case in point: Nelson Cruz became a Flushing Fussing favorite during Spring Training 2008 when I was certain the Mets needed an extra right-handed power bat to replace Moises Alou when he inevitably got hurt.

I have no idea what the Rangers would have wanted for Cruz at the time, nor did I claim to. But Cruz had, to that point, spent 442 Major League at-bats not hitting like a capable Major League outfielder and appeared buried in Triple-A Oklahoma.

So I suggested (twice) that the Mets inquire about Cruz, and for all I know they did. That’s not the point here.

My point is that sometimes even 442 at-bats across a few seasons is not long enough for a player to adjust to the Major League level, and usually, when a guy mashes the crap out of the ball in Triple-A, he can be expected to eventually continue doing so in the bigs.

Because now everyone wants Nelson Cruz, apparently.

You know Cruz. He’s the same guy the Mets traded for Jorge Velandia and the A’s traded for Keith Ginter and the Brewers packaged with Carlos Lee for Francisco Cordero, Laynce Nix and Kevin Mench.

So he’s a pitch-perfect example of a player some would say three different teams “passed over,” who made it to age 27 without big-league success, and who still, it turned out, could contribute to a Major League club.

So with that in mind, check out Meddler’s Rule 5 draft preview at Amazin’ Avenue. The Mets are the first team in the Rule 5 draft that currently has openings on its 40-man roster, so they should have their pick of this litter.

Items of note

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A “rogue hacker,” to quote the Jets’ press release, broke into David Clowney’s Twitter account and talked trash to fans. No word on why a rogue hacker wouldn’t pick someone more notable.

Lawrence Frank is quietly the longest-tenured coach in New York sports. Probably not for long.

Taco Bell and 50 Cent have squashed their beef. Phew.

Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports ominously reports that the Mets have “called on Russell Branyan.” I’m not certain he’s the best pickup for the Mets, but I’ve long been a fan of the Grand Branyan. Depends on the price tag and whether he can still adequately defend the outfield corners, I think.

American mustache hero Keith Hernandez will reportedly return to the SNY booth.

Minaya, Hendry scouring for suckers

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OK, so first there were rumors of a three-team deal between the Mets, Cubs and Blue Jays that would send Luis Castillo to the Cubs, Milton Bradley to the Blue Jays, and Lyle Overbay to the Mets.

Then someone bothered asking the Blue Jays and it was shot down.

Then came rumors of a very similar deal, except replacing “Blue Jays” with “Rangers” and “Lyle Overbay” with “Kevin Millwood.”

Then someone asked the Rangers. Again, no dice.

Doesn’t seem too hard to read the tea leaves here: Jim Hendry will gladly take on Luis Castillo if it means he can get rid of Milton Bradley and his contract, but the Mets are unwilling to take on Milton Bradley and his contract.

So they’re looking for a sucker.

Overbay is about as good a hitter as Bradley, plus he can defend at least a little, plus he’s owed way less money for fewer years, plus he hasn’t spent large parts of nearly every season on the disabled list, plus he’s not Milton Bradley. Shouldn’t really be too surprising that the Blue Jays shot that one down.

Kevin Millwood is owed $12 million next year — maybe a bit pricey for his caliber pitcher, but nothing prohibitive — plus he’s a decent pitcher who has started at least 29 games in each of the last five seasons, plus he’s coming off a very good year. He’s probably someone the Rangers could replace for less money, but he’s not someone I imagine they’d be eager to give away in return for a lousy contract.

I have absolutely no inside information to back this up, but it sure sounds like the Mets and Cubs are hoping there’s a third team out there that makes far worse moves than the Mets and Cubs.

Good luck with that.

It’s pretty much unreasonable to expect any team taking on Milton Bradley’s contract to send the Mets something that will actually fill much of a need for 2010.

I doubt this rumored framework goes away anytime soon, but I also doubt the teams involved will be able to get it done unless the Mets substantially lower their asking price.

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch never really left

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Taco Bell has recently been hyping up the triumphant return of the Cheesy Gordita Crunch to its menu boards, but here’s the jig:

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch never really went anywhere.

It may have been off the menu proper, but since all the materials to make a Cheesy Gordita Crunch were present in extant menu items, the gordita-taco hybrid remained in the Taco Bell computer system and could be prepared to order.

The crunchy taco shell, ground beef, lettuce and cheese, of course, are all staples of the Taco Bell menu. The pillowy Gordita flatbread is used for the normal gorditas, the melted three-cheese mix is in the MexiMelt, and the zesty pepper jack sauce is familiar from the Baja line of products.

In fact, as long as an extinct Taco Bell menu item doesn’t include any specialty ingredients — a black taco shell or the spicy Caesar sauce from the long-defunct Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito, for example — it’s a safe bet they’ll still make it for you at your local Taco Bell.

Just a secret of the pros.

Why Taco Bell decided to remove the Cheesy Gordita Crunch from the menu in the first place is beyond me. It was an important step between the Double Decker Taco and the Crunchwrap Supreme in the evolution of crunchy Taco Bell products that could also be eaten on the go, as necessitated by the near-impossibility of cleanly eating a standard crunchy taco while driving.

Its return to the menu board should be celebrated, of course, but it must not be the final step in Taco Bell’s pioneering work making new things out of a bunch of other things they already have laying around.

Here’s my idea. Listen up, Taco Bell:

Taco Bell’s fabulous website should create a flash-driven interface wherein users can combine existing Taco Bell ingredients into new and delicious Taco Bell menu items.

It will be like an electronic paper doll of pseudo-Mexican deliciousness.

For example: I might log on to TacoBell.com’s product generator and take the existing Volcano Taco and wrap it in the melted three-cheese blend and a piece of gordita flatbread.

Wham! It’s the Magma Gordita Crunch.

Or maybe I want a chicken Chalupa, only covered in Lava sauce and with some crispy red strips — the ones that debuted in that same Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito.

Kapow! The Crispy Caliente Chicken Chalupa.

Lest you think this is just my way of getting more Lava Sauce on stuff, I believe the interface would best be used as part of an interactive contest to drive awareness of Taco Bell’s website.

It would be way, way too much to expect Taco Bell to just reproduce the whims of every capricious Taco Bell diner, not with all Taco Bell has already done for us.

But perhaps visitors to Taco Bell could vote on the most appetizing user-created suggested new menu item, and Taco Bell could reward that user with some sort of Taco Bell-themed prize, plus reward website visitors by creating and selling that popular suggested Taco Bell product.

I fail to see how this could possibly go wrong. All it would really take is Taco Bell tacitly admitting that it gets most of its new products by combining elements of its old ones. That’s just not really a big secret at this point.

Just sitting here watching the wheels

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Look how stuff gets spun:

Yesterday, Adam Rubin published a report that the Royals are looking to deal Jose Guillen and “have identified the Mets as a potential trading partner, although there was no deal considered close.”

James Kannengeiser already did a fine job pointing out how dumb this trade would be at Amazin’ Avenue.

I would guess the whole thing is bluster. It doesn’t take a well-placed source to tell you the Royals would like to trade Jose Guillen this offseason. The Royals don’t have much money to spend, and Jose Guillen is owed $12 million despite not being very good at baseball.

So the Daily News prints it. And since the Mets have had some reported interest in Guillen in the past, can take on some payroll and need a power bat for a corner outfield spot, it’s not hard to identify them as a potential partner.

Here’s where it jumps a step, though: The Sporting News, citing the Daily News, credits the rumor to a Mets source and implies that the Mets are interested. RealGM.com does the same thing.

But that’s not what the story says, at all. Pay attention to the language: The Royals have identified the Mets as a potential trade partner. That’s intentionally vague. All that means is someone in the Royals organization hopes the team can pawn Guillen off on the Mets.

A rumor developed last offseason that the Mets could trade Carlos Beltran for Robinson Cano, so I traced it back to its origin and pointed out that it was clearly speculation gone out of control.

But check the comments section on that MetsBlog post: Readers alternately weighed in on the rumor as though it were real, or accused me of forwarding something that wasn’t real.

All I was aiming to do was expose how speculative and nonsensical so many hot-stove reports are. Pay attention to the way things are worded and trace everything back to its original source and you’ll figure out pretty quickly that about 50 percent of the Internet’s rumored trades start out with one person speculating.

Items of note

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The Daily News says the Mets could pursue Jack Cust in a trade. Presumably, as a non-tender candidate, Cust would come cheap, but I’m not certain where he fits. He’s a pretty terrible defender and probably a born DH.

Even in a down year in 2009, Cust still hit righties very well. I’d say he could be a left-handed insurance policy and potential platoon partner for Jeff Francoeur, but I can’t imagine the Mets are thinking that way.

I just can’t understand why this paper parted ways with this guy.

Speaking of the Times, Jonah Keri provides a measured approach to the Yankees’ offseason needs.

I don’t want to think about the Jets anymore. Is there a coach in any sport more detestable than Bill Belichick?

TedQuarters person of bafflement Justin Bieber caused a near-riot at the Roosevelt Field Mall over the weekend. I caused my fair share of near-riots at the Roosevelt Field Mall when I was 15, too, but sadly, they never had anything to do with thousands of screaming female fans.

Hear me say stuff

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I’ll be calling in to talk about the hot-stove season with Matt Pignataro and the gang at Seven Train to Shea tonight at 7 p.m ET.

To listen live, click here.

SPOILER ALERT: If they ask me if I think the Mets should trade all their prospects for Roy Halladay, I’ll say no.

A bad free-agent class?

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One popular mainstream media meme is that this year’s is a weak free agent class. But one popular independent media meme* is assuming that everything the mainstream media agrees upon is nonsense.

Anyway, in an effort to figure it out, I added up the 2009 Fangraphs.com WARs of the top 20 players on MLB Trade Rumors’ top-50 free agents list (who has time to do all 50?) and the 2008 WARs of the top 20 players on last year’s list.

I skipped Aroldis Chapman, since he has no Major League data yet, and so added the 21st player — Adam LaRoche — this year. Similarly, I skipped Mike Mussina, who retired, and Ben Sheets, who was injured, from last year’s set, adding Orlando Cabrera and Jamie Moyer.

For a variety of reasons, it’s an imperfect way of calculating the depth of a free-agent class. I only measured the top 20 guys in each year and I only used one year of data.

Anyway, last year’s top 20 free agents totaled 72.1 WAR, and this year’s totaled 65.1 WAR.

So yeah, last year’s class was stronger. Not by a ton, but probably by a significant margin.

Of course, last year’s class was a lot better at the top. It had three players — CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, and Manny Ramirez — with 6.0 or greater WARs, while the current class can boast only one: Chone Figgins. But last year’s list had five players with 2.0 or lesser WARs, while this year’s has only three.

That said, this year’s list has two players with WARs below 1.0: Vlad Guerrero and Jose Valverde. Last year’s didn’t have any.

Anyway, that’s all just an exercise. Tim Dierkes at MLB Trade Rumors doesn’t rank his free agents by the prior season’s WAR — nor should he — so mine is a flawed study. Obviously one season’s worth of WAR is not a perfect measure of a free-agent’s value.

But I wonder if this is really a one-year blip in the free-agent market or indicative of a larger trend. Recently, we’ve seen lots of teams — including small-market ones — locking up their best players to long-term extensions before they hit arbitration, as the Mets did with Jose Reyes and David Wright.

The Rays have options on Evan Longoria’s contract that could keep him under team control until 2016, so, even though he made the Majors at a young age, he might not hit free agency until he’s 31.

There are also cases like Johan Santana’s, wherein a player with a no-trade clause approaching free agency agrees to waive that right to sign an extension with a club that trades for him. The same thing could happen with Roy Halladay this offseason.

Those are very, very isolated examples, but if the trends continue, I have to imagine we’ll see fewer and fewer excellent players hit free agency in the midst of their primes, as Sabathia, Teixeira and Matt Holliday have.

The 2011 free-agent class could be stronger than this year’s, but there’s reason to believe many of the top players on this list will sign extensions with their current clubs before the 2010 season is out.

*- As Sam points out below, this is likely an inappropriate use of the term “meme.”

Paging Dr. Bassett

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Brian Bassett from TheJetsBlog.com called into the studio to talk about the Jets and their upcoming matchup with Cheater McMisunderstoodtherules, better known as Bill Belichick.