SNY will be airing another edition of Mets Hot Stove tonight at 6:30pm and again at 11:00pm. Tonights show will feature special guests John Maine, Oliver Perez and Omar Minaya, and will be hosted as always by Kevin Burkhardt.

Hot Foot will post a recap of the show later this evening.

New York Daily News Mets beat reporter Adam Rubin spoke with SNY’s Matt Yallof on the floor of the Winter Meetings just moments ago.

Adam said Johan Santana is down to Yankees and Red Sox and its not realistic to think the Mets are in it for Santana. Asked if Omar needs to pull off something signifigant, he does not think Mets fans will be content if he simply brings back Livan Hernandez or Carlos Silva, in light of what the Yankees have done this offseason.

Regarding Erik Bedard, he spoke with a Baltimore Sun reporter and he repeated that the deal that included Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber and Aaron Heilman was rejected. He said its possible that swapping Carlos Gomez with Fernando Martinez might make the deal more attractive, along with including Mike Pelfrey over Philip Humber.

Jim Duquette, in studio with Kevin Burkhardt and Ed Coleman, said that the Dodgers would likely trump any offer the Mets could make for Bedard. He went on to say given his contract, Bedard could be seen as an even more attractive option than Johan Santana.

Adam also said that some of the Mets prospects may have been ‘exposed’ because they didn’t make a huge impact when they had their chance to shine at the major league level.

Mets ace Pedro Martinez will sit for an interview tonight on SNY Spotlight tonight at 7 p.m. The show is hosted by Kevin Burkhardt. Pedro will discuss the team’s historic collapse last season in a chase for the pennant.

Ron Darling has signed a contract extension with SNY to continue on with his work with the station, including up in the booth during games, and the various pre/post game, in studio, etc etc type of stuff. No word yet on the lenght of the extension, just that its mulityear.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think they have the best booth in baseball.  Between their knowledge of the game itself and of the team to the fact that the three of them play so well off of each other. They know and enjoy what they do and it shows, and this move to keep that booth going is a good one.  Ron brings a good pitchers perspective up there and seems to have a bit more patience than Keith.

I've always been a big fan of the ask the booth feature SNY has.  Its not like Ron and Keith really need to be asked for their opinions to be stated, but they, as well as Gary, seem to be decently knowledgable, and thats not counted their vast collection of baseball stories.

SNY actually put some of the newer ones up, a Keith grouping, including Delgado bunting, Keith's batting music, and the SNY wardrobes.  Apparantly, Keith knows how to text. Wow.

Fellow Foot writer Gary pointed out that YES now televises Yankee batting practice. This is one of those things that make me wonder, have the Yankees spent so much money putting together their team of under performing billionaire ex allstars that King George now has to start cutting corners elsewhere?  I guess after tossing all that money at Andy, Roger, and Johnnie, mixed in with the costs involved with A-rods lipstick and maintaining Pavano's blog there isn't too much left over for original programming.  But batting practice?  Do people actually watch this?

Now, I wasn't willing to tune in, check it out.  It seemed easier to you know, blindly make fun it. I'm going to assume though they still use Al Leiter to provide color commentary during it. “And Giambi launced another 80mph fastball over the plate into the stands. Thats his 100th.'

Now that Rocket is getting paid a cool mill per inning pitched, I suspect things will be tough all over the Yankee Empire.  Carl Pavano will have to get his season ending surgeries from back alley doctors who failed out of CW Post.  Practices will be conducted with souvenir balls Doug Mientkiewicz has taken home from games. But more importantly: even more bland programing from YES.  Watch Jeter ride the stationary bike, next on YES.

Granted, SNY might not be a bastion of great programming. With the four hours of Sports New York on today. Though those Mets blue style BP jerseys: way cooler than the black road jerseys.

Bob Raissman over at the Daily News takes a look at Lee Mazzilla as he begins his career as the in-studio analysts over at SNY. According to Raissman, Maz looks to his hometown roots to help him at the job.  From the article:

Mazzilli, a Brooklyn native, was drafted by the Mets in 1973, and was extremely popular primarily due to his NYC roots. Maz was oddly enough traded for fellow SNY employee Ron Darling,  though he resigned by the Mets during the 86 WS run.  He played 9 of his 14 seasons with the Mets.

I'm sure it'll take some time, but hopefully Maz will get into a good groove in his SNY gig. The Mets have always seemed to have that one hometown NY guy (John Franco, Paulie Lo Duca) and that was Mazzilli in the late 70s. His popularity wasn't always justified by his performance, but the fans still loved him, not just for his local roots, but because he was always out there putting in the extra effort. 

Pat Reichart at the NY Post is reporting that former Met ace Ron Darling is expected to sign a 3 year contract extension that would keep him in the booth for SNY, though it has not yet been finalized.

I think this is great news. Ron, Keith and Gary seem to play off each other very well and seem to geuinenly like each other.  While Ron doesn't seem to be as willing to say everything on his mind that Keith does, as a former pitcher he's able to bring the analysis of the pitching performance and mindset that Keith cannot. The three of them together, especially during the harder to watch games, makes it easier to keep with it.

Earlier today on the Mike & the Mad Dog Show, WFAN reported that Chris Cotter who was the Mets pre-game and post-game reporter for the Mets during the 2006 season, has been replaced by Kevin Burkhardt who frequently does the 20/20 updates on WFAN. There is no word on whether or not Cotter will re-sign with SNY with a different role for 2007 or if he was fired.

Thats too bad. I was a big fan of Cotter's when he did the pre/post game interviews which he did a great job on and then he would occasionally have some fun during the game, when visiting different places in all the ball parks the Mets visited. I think Burkhardt should be able to take over Cotter's role without a problem because he does a a pretty nice job whenever he's on the FAN.