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First Last Game at Citi Field

I bought tickets, way back in May, for the final game of the season. I didn’t think it would matter; I figured the Mets would’ve clinched, but it had mattered for two years and I figured it wouldn’t be a bad game to be at.

From Citifield

It seems I was wrong. There is nothing to watch, and Pelfrey isn’t even making his final start of the season. This means Figueroa on the mound and who knows who playing around him. So why am I going?

A couple of reasons. It’s still baseball, it’s still the Mets, and I already have tickets. I haven’t been to Citi Field in a while due to a combination of life keeping me from being able to afford tickets (not the prices) and the Mets not being good enough to make it worth going.

I love Citi Field. It’s my favorite baseball stadium and I’m looking forward more to being in the stadium once more than the play on the field. I’ve always been a strong proponent of the new place, but the feeling I get now is similar the the ones I got at Shea Stadium late in the season. A “It feels right being here, and I’ll miss it for the next couple of months” feeling. I’ll enjoy being able to wander around, and not having to sit in my seat and stare at what’s become bad baseball lately for nine innings.

If I watched at home, I’d mentally tune out and not pay attention because it doesn’t mean much. I’d probably turn on football. At Citi I’ll mentally say goodbye to baseball, bury the 2009 season, and watch Manuel mismanage his final game with the Mets.

I’ll come home, root for the Islanders, the Giants, the Tigers and whoever is playing the Phillies. I’ll try to erase the 2009 Mets from my mind, and start waiting for April 5th, 2010. It’s only 184 days away.

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Best 2009 Mets Acquisition

Without a doubt, the best acquisition the Mets made in 2009 was Citi Field. Given all the problems and the Mets going nowhere, the one new thing this year that helped sooth the pain and will continue to be there year after year is Citi Field.

From Citifield

The stadium was there for all 81 games is was schedule to host, which is more than most Mets can say. It’s a great place to watch a game, and my biggest regret is the season died too fast to really get a feel for how it handles the big game, and what that energy would feel like. There’s great standing room only spots, including the bridge out in center field. We got to keep the Home Run Apple; If only the whole ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ had worked for the Mets this year. Maybe that’s the problem. They certainly didn’t get the Apple to pop up every game.

From Citifield

Mobility and visibility are one of the big pluses of Citi Field. No matter where you are in Citi Field, you’re rarely a few steps from being able to see the field. It’s easy to get around the park as well. It has 360 degree mobility so that if you’re in the right field promenade you don’t have to circle the entire stadium to visit someone or something in left field reserved. You can do it without having to fight through crowded aisles or concourses, or puddles of water or vendors and janitors pushing pallets of trash or frozen burgers through the area. While it’s crowded, I have yet to encounter the type of gridlock that was prevalent at Shea Stadium. With the exception of the middle level club seats you can get to any part of the stadium with any ticket. I wish there were a center field exit to the Pepsi Porch, but I’ll live with it.

From Citifield

The food, beer and distractions available at Citi Field are great. I do agree that the focus should be on the game, but if I wanted to zone out and stare at the game, I could stay home too. I want to immerse myself in the stadium, the crowd, the beer and the food. I want to do it without missing the game, and Citi Field allows me to do this without missing whole innings, something that was common at Shea.

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Why I’m Watching Baseball

What I’m Rooting For Now

Sure, the Mets are out of it. Everyone has been injured. The manager is still a disaster, and there is still no obvious plan in place going forward. So what should we watch when we’re drawn in to watching baseball? What should we be rooting for?

September call-ups are always a popular choice, even if the Mets aren’t going to have that many. Biggest guy to watch is Josh Thole, the prospect catcher. Catcher is a big hole next year which makes catching prospects even more important. If Thole is for real, then the Mets can look for a short term stop-gap type solution behind the plate for one year. Can watch Murphy and Evans and Pagan and Parnell as they jockey for position and hope to be in the plans for next year.

From Mets

Mainly though, I’m rooting against the Phillies and the Yankees. It still looks unlikely that either team will miss the playoffs, but stranger things have happened. Both bullpens are suspect, as Lidge goes for the blown save record, batters figure out Phil Hughes, Mariano gets older and frailer, and other guys don’t step up the possibility for a collapse looms. I think both teams are beatable, especially in the playoffs if it comes to that. I don’t expect to see either in the World Series.

Still, the state of baseball frustrates me. The Phillies and Yankees don’t lose as often as I would like, and too often grab victory despite teetering on the edge of failure. I would get no enjoyment watching either of them play baseball in October, and hope I don’t have to. The Islanders first game is October third. The Giants and Jets both start playing this Sunday. I have no idea when the NBA starts, but I think it’s a couple of weeks yet.

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Weekend Turns Out to be a Dud

From 040709_Phillies

Three months ago you would’ve pointed to this weekend as one of the biggest of the season. Four games against the Phillies was likely going to set the tone for September and who was chasing who. On a New York front, the Yankees are also playing the Red Sox so it would’ve been baseball mania in New York.

Now the Yankees have grabbed a big lead, the Mets are injured, and people are talking about the football Giants. The biggest stories for the Mets is the ’69 reunion Saturday night and Pedro’s return to the Mets home field on Sunday. There is little or no juice for the series, and I’m sure some Phillies fans will come up the coast, but it just doesn’t matter.

I do think both Pelfrey and Perez will have good games. I think Parnell might have a nice bounceback start as well. I also just noticed that the Mets rotation features three Ps. Interesting? Not really.

It really is time to start parting ways with some of the useless veterans, like cutting Livan Hernandez yesterday. Sheffield can go too, Cory Sullivan has more extra base hits than him since being called up, and at least Sullivan can play defense.

Lets get Evans up here and him, Sullivan, Reed, and Pagan can all compete for possible roles on the team next year.

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Meaningless September Baseball

You know it’s bad when you’re starting to pay more attention to the upcoming Yankees series against the Red Sox hoping the Sox can stay undefeated than you are to the Mets, and even have to strain to remember who they’re playing next.

In fact, while I can’t find it in my budget right now to justify going to Citi Field to see the Mets play bad baseball, I just got an offer to go to the Thursday night Red Sox games in the Bronx. At least this way I can go to a game and not be disappointed when the home team loses. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have baseball being played but my interest waning. It’s not fun, and I’m not even a big football fan so I can hardly look forward to the Giants.

If Beltran and Reyes were to come back tomorrow, I’d tell you we still had a fighting chance. Technically we do. There is plenty of time for miracle comes backs and great baseball. It just doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen with this bunch of guys. Stranger things have happened though, and I know I won’t be able to complete ignore the team anyway. After all, it’s still Mets baseball.

Maybe Sheffield discovers some magic from when he was younger, the non-steroid kind, and maybe Pelfrey blossoms into a really consistent solid starter. Perhaps Perez finally figures it out and starts pitching with less walks, despite the indications that he needs a better coach. Because of the Conservation of Walks theory, Jeff Francoeur will take the walks that Perez stops issuing, and actually raise his OBP well above his AVG. Daniel Murphy could suddenly become the solid hitter we all started to suspect he could be.

Unlikely, but still possible. Can you risk missing it by turning the television off?

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Division Isn’t Out of the Question for the Mets

You may have seen that pessimistic post on Metsblog earlier that stated the Mets should be aiming to go 45 and 20 to win the Wild Card.  This is short sighted.  I hate to do this, but let’s go back to 2007.

On July 27th 2007 the Mets were up four games over the Phillies and Braves in second place.  They kept the hordes at bay for a month, and on August 27th were six games up, seven over the Braves, and neither team looked really good.

Then the Mets played that ill-fated series in Philadelphia where they lost four games, the lead dropping to two games and panic started to set in.  The Mets rebounded terrifically winning five in a row and 10 of their next 12.

They hosted the Phillies again on September 12th with a seven game lead and plenty of reason to think that the series in Philadelphia was merely a fluke.

More so than any other reason, the Mets lost in 2007 because they lost those seven games to the Phillies.  In 2009 the Mets and Phillies play eight more times.  They blew their first chance at this a couple of weeks ago, allowing the Phillies to sweep them, but 65 games and eight against the leader is not something you write off.  If the Mets are good enough to overcome the deficit in the wild card, they’re good enough to overcome the deficit in the division.  The Phillies are bound to come back to earth, as they’re not going to play at this crazy winning percentage for the rest of the season, and now they’ve started to be bit by the injury bug as well.  If the Mets can recover and run with it, it’s the division that’s waiting, not the wild card.  If you’re looking for numbers or formulas, here is one for you.

There are 10 weeks left of the season, and 8 games against the Phillies.  Win six of the games against the Phillies, and then play merely one game better than them in five of the other 8 weeks they don’t play Philadelphia.  Win one more game, whether it’s another against the Phillies, another random game during the season, or game 163.  From there the playoffs are your oyster.

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Hard to be Optimistic about the Mets

It’s hard to be optimistic with the state of the Mets right now. It’s hard to be confident in Omar, it’s hard to be confident in Manuel and the coaches, and even the promising young guys no longer seem promising.

comebackreyes

How did we go from being disappointed that Murphy got an extra plate appearance last season and wouldn’t be eligible for Rookie of the Year, to a guy that we’re talking about trading while he still has some value. Personally, I don’t agree with that sentiment, but Murphy’s stock has definitely gone down since last year.

Mike Pelfrey was quickly becoming an excellent pitcher, and while there were some concerns most were okay with him being ‘named’ the number two starter before the season. Now he’s struggling to make that next step and gain consistency.

To me both these guys have talent, drive, and are smart enough to learn how to get better. So why aren’t they getting better? While the ultimate onus falls on the player, this is why there is a manager and coaches in the first place. Most people don’t really understand what a coach does, but if they didn’t have a big role they wouldn’t be fired as often as they are, and teams wouldn’t necessarily even have them.

It doesn’t have to be a career All-Star on the bench to be a good coach, merely a student of the game. He needs to be able to identify and assist players with making the adjustments they need to make, or fixing the bad habits they’re picking up. Good players can do this on their own, but even good players often have a blind spot when analyzing themselves. It’s the same in all areas of the world. This is why English teachers since grade school have been teaching us to have someone else read over and review our writing.

It appears that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Mets. This has been the case since 2007, and has yet to be identified and fixed. Too many guys are under-performing, and virtually no one is over-performing. This is what makes or breaks good teams. And this is what defines a good manager or coach. It’s not just luck when a player has a career year; it’s often due to hard work, and proper guidance. The Mets have been a better team than the Phillies for years, but the difference is somehow journeyman middle relief in Philadelphia has been able to excel and pitchers like J.A. Happ have come out of nowhere to pitch brilliantly, while Pelfrey, Murphy, Parnell, Evans and guys that have showed promise with the Mets have fizzled and failed to make good on promises of success.

Is the season over? No, it’s not. I don’t buy the Marlins as legitimate. I’m not sure the Braves will be appreciably over .500, although they do look pretty good. If you buy that, it’s between the Mets and the Phillies. The Mets are far behind, but technically it’s only a game or two. They still play each other eight times, and if the Mets were to win those games they’ll be in good position, which isn’t completely out of the question as unlikely as it seems given the current state of the team. It’s growing more and more unlikely as the Phillies pull off more and more unlikely wins and the Mets continue to struggle to find any consistency, but if the ship were to be righted and players do come back from the disabled list and perform, it’s not out of the question for the Mets to catch up.

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Enjoy the Game

The All-Star game arrives tomorrow. Tonight is the Home Run Derby. It’s a much maligned three, or four, days without regular season games. I’ve written an article about how exciting the All-Star break can be, and there are some points this year that I’d like to add.

allstar2009patch

This is the first year of the MLB Network. I’ve really liked what they’ve done so far, and while the All-Star Game is still on Fox, I think we’ll see some good stuff on the Network, getting better every year. Presumably the game will eventually be televised on MLB Network or at least they will have a lot more exclusive rights to things going on around the game.

Watch the game for the celebration of baseball as our National Pastime. Don’t play the “what if” game about injuries and arm fatigue and all that. These players can treat it as a vacation, a reprise from the grind of everyday baseball and the pressures that may envelope them on their own teams. These athletes are in good enough shape that the mental break from the standings is much more important than the physical break from playing.

I’ll enjoy watching the different aspects and play of different stars around the league. Because it’s baseball, and I love baseball. It doesn’t even matter that it barely counts. No one would risk getting excited about the prospects of game seven of the World Series at this point anyway, too much of a jinx.

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Jeff Francoeur for Ryan Church. Why?

francoeur_jeff_2009_scatter

The Mets traded Ryan Church to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur. Hopefully this isn’t what the Braves needed to take the division, but I’m more concerned about Jeff. He’s hitting .250, which is more than he hit last year, and has five home runs.

Presumably it was power and defense that attracted Omar to Francoeur. He does have a good arm. I don’t know that he’s appreciably better than Church, who certainly wasn’t a liability out there. He’s supposedly got power, but for the last two years that’s equated to too many strike outs and not enough hits.

Let’s break down those home runs using hit tracker. Two are considered “just enough” home runs. This means they barely cleared the fence. Two more are classified as “lucky” which means they wouldn’t have cleared the fence on a 70 degree calm day. We know Citi Field is a below average hitter’s park, so how do those home runs translate? He hit all five to left center, which isn’t exactly the easiest place to hit them.

I worry that this was a move because Manuel does not like Ryan Church. Unfortunately, Manuel should play the guys that are better suited to help the Mets win and Ryan Church is just a better baseball player than Jeff Francoeur. The pressure is on HoJo now; hopefully he can mold Francoeur into a better baseball player.

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Mets Should Get a Bison

Fernando Martinez is injured. He was over-matched before he was injured, and I’m not sure sitting for a couple of games is the best way for him to develop into a Major League hitter. So why is he still on the roster? These guys aren’t Albert Pujols in waiting, but they’re hitting pretty well down in Buffalo. What could it hurt to see one of them?

Jesus Feliciano is a leftfielder hitting .302 in 74 games. He’s got 17 doubles, 34 RBIs. No errors.
He was also 6/16 with 2 walks in the World Baseball Classic for Puerto Rico.

Cory Sullivan is hitting .301 in 77 games in center. 35 runs, 15 doubles, 2 home runs, 24 RBIs. No errors.

Neither are sluggers, but they seem to be solid baseball players that likely won’t be worse than Fernando Martinez who can recover and get everyday playing time back in Buffalo for now.