JJ speaks

Larry Stone of the Seattle Times gets a few thoughts from JJ Putz ('00) on the differences between the Seattle Mariners last year and the New York Mets so far.

Loosening up a clubhouse is a role that J.J. Putz takes seriously — and he has the whipped-cream pies to prove it.

Putz, however, sees a markedly different attitude with the Mets than on the downtrodden Mariners team he left behind. Putz, in fact, painted a grim picture of a house divided last year in Seattle, contributing to the historic flameout that ensued.

Putz has had nearly two weeks to soak up the Mets' atmosphere, having showed up in Port St. Lucie in early February to work out at the team facility and get acclimated.

"It's different. Big time," he said Sunday. "It's almost like there's a more relaxed feeling. They just know they're going to win. Where in Seattle, a lot of times, it was expectations, and a lot of times we didn't really know how to deal with that. Here, it's a given. We will win. Not 'we're supposed to win this year,' but: We will win."

There is a bit about injuries, his own included. Then,

But Putz also made it clear that he felt there was more to their collapse than just injuries. The Angels, for instance, had far more players get hurt than the Mariners and still won 100 games.

A poorly constructed roster and a long list of underperforming players would seem to be two major culprits. That's just me. But add Putz to the chorus of those who point to a dysfunctional clubhouse as tearing apart the Seattle ballclub. John McLaren and Bill Bavasi, you might recall, both alluded to the exact same thing upon their firing last June.

I started by asking Putz if all that was overblown. He shook his head and said no, and noted that there was an undercurrent of internal tension all season.

"There were just some guys that just aren't really team guys," he said. "There's a lot of guys that are team guys in there. There was definitely some butting heads on certain things. What the hell can you do? Some guys are just stubborn."

He refused to name any names. But his inference was strong.

Read the article for that rest of that last part.

It's not Putz's problem any more, of course. He's delighted to be with a Mets team that is legitimately built to win. Oh, he was initially a little taken aback by fact that the Mets, barely 24 hours before his acquisition, had signed Francisco Rodriguez, the single-season saves leader, and to realize that he was no longer going to be a closer.

"If there was anything that pissed me off about the whole thing, it was the fact they did trade me somewhere knowing I wasn't going to close," he said. "That was the only thing that didn't sit well with me from their [the Mariners] standpoint."

But Putz quickly concluded that setting up for a contender was something he could live with.

"I'm just closing the game in the eighth," he said. "That's the way I'm looking at it. To have a chance to come to a contending team and win, it's not that big a deal.

There's more. Go read it.