YANKEES: What About Villone?

Ron Villone, Yankee reliever, declined the Yankees' arbitration offer a few months ago. He is apparently looking for a 2-year deal and hasn't spoken to the Yankees since he declined the arbitration. He has been quoted as saying "Several other teams are more than interested" but he would like for the Yankees to be interested.

One team that has shown interest is the Mets, who need to upgrade their bullpen after reliever Guillermo Mota received a temporary ban for using illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Mota provided some important innings during the playoffs for the Mets (who faced a number of injuries to big players: Martinez, Sanchez, and El Duque) but the Mets have to wonder if it was him or the drugs that produced the results. One thing is for sure, pitching wasn't the problem during the playoffs because the Mets got surprisingly good pitching performances from their youngsters. Much like the Yankees (who failed to hit against Detroit's hard-throwing pitchers and Kenny "Pine Tar" Rogers), the Mets failed to get the hits when needed.