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How The Jets Offseason Will Go

The media, and some fans, will get on Rex Ryan for talking too much and claim they cannot believe a word he says anymore.  Rex Ryan will continue to say crazy things.  The media, and some fans, will take what he says as big news worth talking about while un-sarcastically talking about whether or not they should be talking what Rex says.  (ESPN Radio’s Ryan Ruocco and Robin Lundberg are pros at this sort of double talk)

 

A scapegoat will be picked.  Santonio Holmes and Mark Sanchez appear to be the popular picks right now.   Every possible free agent at either of those positions will spark posts about how they can’t win with the player they have now, and need to make a push for this new guy.

 

A strategy will be touted as what the Jets need to do more, or less, of and favorite players and coaches that eschew the 2011 Jets perceived bad habits will be trumpeted around as guys the Jets have to sign.

 

We’ve seen it all before with the way the Mets are treated lately.  The Jets will try to fan the flames some, but at the end of the day they’ll do what they feel they need to do to get better, regardless of what the fans or media think they desperately need.

 

One crazy trade that intrigues me as a Giants fan is Peyton Manning to the Jets.  I think the two brothers playing in the same city and the same stadium would be an interesting sidebar to next season.

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2012: Can It Get Worse?

The 2012 Mets team is so devoid of any expectation that it’s almost a lock that we’ll be pleasantly surprised.

 

The way things have gone, it’s easy to forget that the Mets actually have a lot of talent on the roster.

 

With Ike Davis, David Wright and Daniel Murphy leading the way, the Mets offense should do pretty well.  Lucas Duda looks like a real good player.  Josh Thole and Ruben Tejada haven’t lit anything on fire, but they’re both still pretty young and have some value.

 

The Mets redid the bullpen with some talented and reliable arms.  They’ve got some guys returning that did a good job, and should be much improved there.

 

The starting pitching is obviously where one sees the biggest holes, but it’s probably not quite that dire.  Mike Pelfrey and Dillon Gee will probably never be stars, but they both have shown they can be inning eaters or pitch that occasional gem.  Jon Niese has dealt with some injuries, but he’s a high strikeout guy still learning and growing.  R.A. Dickey is a very good pitcher and has proved he’s no one-hit wonder.   The big question mark is obviously Johan Santana and if he’ll experience any setbacks or injuries during the year.

 

There’s more talent on this team than people seem to be talking about right now.   Some of it may it may be suspect, and some may end up injured, but it’s unlikely it all will and it’s also possible some of the younger players take unforeseen strides forward.  They may not win 95 games, but they’re not the 60-70 wins, lock for last place team that they’re being portrayed as.   Sometimes you have to push aside some of the doom and gloom and take a closer look.

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Ceetar’s Origins, Mostly Mets Podcast, and The Mazzilli’s

Lately the origins of my e-identity has come up a couple of times.  Most recently Metspolice.com awarded me a Mazzilli award for “Most Optimistic” (I think the fix is in there), and Google Images suggested he use a picture of a Cheetah.

 
Last week’s Mostly Mets Podcast, perhaps the final one of the year, answered one of my Twitter questions involving Kirk Nieuwenhuis’s potential promotion.  I asked when he’d be up here to take Andres Torres’ job.  Toby Hyde said July first, Ted Berg said sometime in June, and Patrick Flood twisted it a bit and suggested he’d take Jason Bay’s job instead.  When Patrick read my question he mispronounced Ceetar as “Key-tar” instead of “Cee-tar”.  Ted, the one of the trio I’ve met, corrected him but forgot the origin of the name.

 
So here it is:  I was looking to name a character in an online MUD, which is basically a text-based pre-World of Warcraft style game played over telnet. (This was like 1997)  I came up with Ceetar.  My character ultimately became a demon-worshipping evil priest type character wielding dark magic and a spear to kill monsters and good guys.  It became my online identity and as I began signing up for accounts and emails and websites, I started using it as my user name.  So that’s the pretty nerdy origins of the name.

 
As time as gone on, the idea of creating a more ‘professional’ handle has come up, but I ultimately pass on it.  I’m not trying to hide or be anonymous, and I don’t think using Ceetar does that either.  Almost everything I’ve done on the Internet about the Mets has been done as Ceetar.  To use my real name would actually obscure some of that, and the name is hardly hidden.

 
Back on the topic of the Mostly Mets Podcast, which deserves it’s own review post one of these days, I think I’m setting a New Years Resolution to meet either Toby or Patrick (but not both) so that I can say I’ve Met Most of the Mostly Mets Members. Try saying that five times fast.

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Don’t Tell Me How to Feel, How to React

Coincidentially Dec 5th is the day the 21st amendment was ratified, re-legalizing the consumption of alcohol.

 

Don’t tell me the Seaver trade was worse.  We shouldn’t be arguing which Mets disappointment was worse instead of debating batting titles and MVPs.  I feel how I feel, and you feel how you feel.  This is the single worse day I’ve experienced as a Mets fan.

 

Don’t tell me about the contract, or that you know how it’s going to turn out.  No one knows that, and there aren’t probability charts for injuries.  Everyone is different.   Can you really go from hoping that ball finds the gap so Reyes gets a triple, to hoping he pulls a hamstring or isn’t worth it in a couple of years?  Would you really have been upset of the Mets ‘overpaid’, which is something that only happens in retrospect, to keep a player like Jose Reyes on the team?  Does anyone seriously root for a long-term fiscally responsible plan when they go to baseball games?  I don’t.  I just wanted to see Jose Reyes and my Mets.   Add in that Carlos Beltran is also gone, and Johan Santana may never be the same, and it’s hard to swallow.

 

Also, don’t tell me I’m “Less of a fan” for being less interested in the Mets without Reyes.  There is no rulebook to fandom.  The truth is most of you are also less interested in the Mets, just unwilling to admit it.  Less people will go to games, less people will buy jerseys.  The team being likely worse only further plays into that.  Jose Reyes was one small part of the big picture, but without his portion I find myself noticing the other pictures, other places to spend my money, in the building.  I’ll never not be a Mets fan, nor will I ever stop rooting for them, but that doesn’t mean I’ll devote the same level of energy and commitment that I have in the past.

 

To sum it up in a way that to me seems to represent baseball pretty well:  I’m less excited about the Mets and less confident they’ll be successful in the near future than I was following Beltran striking out against the Cardinals to end the ’06 season.

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Realignment: Home Field, Tie-Breakers, More Interleague, Bench

The news this week is that the Astros sale is final and they’ve agreed to move to the AL West for 2013.  This means the schedule will consist of 30 interleague games, all season long, as well as the 72 against your own division, and another 60 against the rest of your league.    I happen to like it, besides the keeping the DH thing that gives the AL an unfair advantage.  A 2nd wild card berth will also be added with a one-game sudden death playoff for the true Wild Card spot.

 

These changes were made to even up the leagues as well as put the emphasis on winning the division.   Winning the division guarantees you’ll make the Division Series, although doesn’t give you any additional benefit _in_ any of the series besides home field over the Wild Card.  I’d actually like to see that eliminated now, and just go with best record.   If a 94 win wild card team already has to dispatch with a lesser team in a sudden death match, let them have the home field after that if they’re playing an 88 win division winner.

 

For those of you that still think the balanced schedule is important, this new format would include that for the divisional race, although not the wild card race.  Each division would play the same set of interleague teams.   What I’d be curious about is the tie-breakers.  Previously if two teams were tied for the division and wild card, but both would make the playoffs, the team with the better record is awarded the division.   While I think there is merit to keeping the same format, emphasizing that you need to beat the teams in your division to actually win it, I could see where it’s a tough pill to swallow to technically have the best record in the division and have to play a sudden death game.

 

This format has the potential to create a lot of heartbreak.  Especially the first couple of years as teams leading in the Wild Card are used to coasting and preparing for the playoffs.  To then potentially go home one day after the season ends is going to feel much like we felt as Mets fans in 2007 and 2008, or Reds fans felt in 1999.  I suspect the winning team will treat the game as pretty much an extension of the regular season, not getting overly excited about winning that ‘first round’ game.

 

Many will dislike the extra interleague, but I’ve got no more desire to see another series against the Dodgers than the Angels.  Roster construction in the National League may take on a different form.  With interleague play scattered throughout the season, and more of it, NL teams may feel the need to carry more of a DH type player on the bench.   None of this is official yet of course, but it looks like it’s pretty close to accurate and finalized.  It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out, but I think it could be fun.

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A Chance For The 2012 New York Mets

Take 2011 where two teams completely out of it suddenly made the playoffs and one of them even won it all.  It’s impossible to predict baseball.  Sure you usually have a pretty good chance of knowing which teams will be good, and which will be bad, but every year dozens of people that watch hundreds of games are completely wrong about who’s going to win divisions.

 

Despite a handful of games against the Wild Card-leading Atlanta Braves still to come in the last 60 or so games, when the Mets traded Carlos Beltran on July 27th while trailing those Braves by 7.5 games, it was considered the right move.  That’s a lot of ground to make up for a team barely above .500, and the long term benefits of trading Beltran were largely considered to outweigh any gutshot chance the Mets had at overcoming that deficit.  As it turns out, the Mets were only two games behind the team that eventually won the Wild Card.  The St. Louis Cardinals were a mere couple of games better than the Mets at that point, and they even still had head to head games remaining.    A lot of things still went wrong for the Mets from that point forward.  They didn’t finish above .500 and it’s extremely unlikely that keeping Beltran would’ve made much of a difference.  Still, it’s a pretty good example of how you never quite know what it’s going to take to make the playoffs.

 

That’s what I want from the Mets in 2012 while they get their payroll/revenue balance under control.   I’m not demanding they throw money around and attempt to buy a championship, but they need to keep the possibility of a championship open.  Put the team in a position so that if most things go right they can make the playoffs.  I’m not talking outlandish things like Ruben Tejada putting up a season like Jose Reyes.   Jose Reyes plays 140+ games.  Jason Bay has a season that splits the difference between his best years and his Mets years.  Johan Santana makes 30 starts and is a good, if not great, pitcher.  Pagan is more pre-2011 Met than 2011 Met.  Josh Thole, Lucas Duda, and Ike Davis progress and have good solid major league years at their positions.  Jon Niese takes a step forward.  Mike Pelfrey‘s numbers fall more in line with 2010 than 2011.   The bullpen guys that get signed, coupled with the ones that remain from last year, perform reasonably well and keep the games from getting away.  The biggest one of course is that the Mets stay reasonably healthy.

 

None of those things are that outlandish.  Some are even likely.  There are also good things and bad things that will be completely unforeseen.   David Wright could break his back again, or R.A. Dickey could decide to live on Kilimanjaro and back out of his 2012 contract.  One of the yet unsigned relievers could go on to have an unbelievable shut-down type year, and Mark Cohoon could be promoted from the minors in May and have a Rookie of the Year caliber season.  You just never know, so give it a chance and hope and root for more good than bad.  We’re certainly due.

 

 

 

 

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There Is No Replacement For Jose Reyes

There is an interesting juxtaposition among Mets fans that talk about things like trading Wright or letting Reyes walk.  The same people that justify this with statements about not competing for years and being in rebuilding mode seem offended that some (I’d say many) Mets fans suggest they’ll be much less interested in the Mets if Reyes leaves.

 

There’s always a lot of comparison, as well as attempts to avoid comparison, to the Yankees with the Mets.  They share a city and compete for the same entertainment dollar.   The common rhetoric among Mets fans is that the Yankees fans are front-running morons that only care about yelling about how many rings they’ve won and that Mets fans are truer fans that love the team, good or bad.   If a vastly diverse group of millions of Mets fans can agree on anything, it’s that Jose Reyes is a talented baseball player that’s fun to watch.   At what point does it stop being about watching your favorite players play your favorite game and start becoming about being a consistent winner?

 

What is baseball without the season, with the ups and downs of a 162 game scheduled filled with bad breaks and huge hits and the ebbs and flows of stress and emotion?  I don’t follow the Mets for optimal lineup constructions and high-value controlled commodities.  I watch the Mets because I love baseball and I’ve formed an attachment to the players that have worn the uniform year after year.  Jose Reyes is one of those players.  He’s a life-long Met and it’s hard to imagine him anywhere else.  The Mets have other good players, but there is something special about Jose Reyes and his fun-loving attitude.  Perhaps it’s the way he seems to love playing the game as much as we love watching him play it.

 

Sure it’s possible to make arguments about injury risks and long contracts that suggest perhaps giving Reyes too much money or too many years may be detrimental to the long term success of the franchise, but frankly I’d rather take my chances with Reyes.  Those risks exist with every player in every circumstance, and if you’re not going to take a chance with a fan-favorite and top of the line player at a sparse position, what are you even doing?   Reyes is already bordering on legendary Mets status, and that’s not something that comes along every day.   Mike Piazza came here when he was great, Dwight Gooden left in 1994 and Darryl Strawberry before him.  Ignoring that there is long-term financial value to having legends to invite back to Citi Field in the future, do we really want to let one walk away for what’s some kind of  ‘smart process of value contracts and prospect development’?  A couple more years and the Mets record book will be Jose Reyes’ biography, with a guest appearance by David Wright.

 

The Mets have struggled for years now with collapses followed by injuries followed by just about everything else.  Now you want to take the most exciting player on the team away too?   While I’ll always be a Mets fan, there comes a point when it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s easy to say that we need things to stabilize, for bad contracts to work their way off the payroll and for prospects to mature and contribute at the fraction of the cost, but in the meantime other teams are playing baseball and competing for the postseason and doing all sorts of wonderful things.  Taking seasons off is not the way to build a perennial contender.  Every year the Mets spend in rebuilding mode, defined by me as letting Reyes go and not replacing him with at least as much talent, is a year that customers find other ways to spend their entertainment dollar.  Some will go to the Yankees, some will switch to other sports.   Some will stop watching with their kids who will spend more time on video games, movies, or something else entirely.   Husbands will take their wives out to a nice dinner instead of to Citi Field, because maybe without Reyes, and winning, they don’t feel it’s worth the traffic and the rushing home from work.

 

Building a winner will eventually repair the damage, but even if you could guarantee repeated success it takes time to rebuild a fan base.  The Yankees had a healthy amount of fans show up, but even in 2000 they were 8th in total attendance.  The difference was that payrolls hadn’t yet skyrocketed to the levels they are at now.  The Yankees payroll in 2000 would be  the 13th highest payroll in 2011.  It was still possible for teams to maintain a rebuilding payroll and keep some talented stars while keeping revenues at or above payroll.  The way I see it, the Mets can’t easily get their payroll down that low, so they need to work on keeping revenues up.  Reyes can’t do it all by himself, but coupled with the right moves he could be the difference between the Mets raising attendance to 2.6 million or it dropping to 1.7.   Just in ticket prices alone, a swing like that more than pays Reyes salary per year.  Factor in revenue associated with advertising prices based on TV ratings and fans in the seats viewing them on the walls and it’s an even starker difference.   I find it hard to believe that having Jose Reyes playing baseball in New York can’t be profitable, and it’s certainly possible, even likely, that Jose Reyes can be a part of the success even four years from now.

 

There is never a guarantee that smart moves focused on the long term will lead to continued success.  There is no formula Sandy Alderson can follow that means the Mets will definitely be a perennial contender in 2014 and beyond.  Prospects, even highly touted ones, hurt themselves or flame out.  Free agent acquisitions that look like can’t misses age badly or under perform in a new environment.   Other teams in the division and/or league do a better job, or get luckier, in scouting and signing players and suddenly no one knows what the solution is for out-performing them.  It’s not hard to get into a cycle of suck like the Pittsburgh Pirates, constantly looking for All-Star prospects that maybe have a good year or two and than take off for greener pastures while the team struggles to even play at .500.  The best you can do is put yourself in a situation every year where the right set of circumstances gets you into the playoffs.  For the Mets that means keeping Jose Reyes.  It probably also means hoping Johan Santana stays on the field and is still pretty good at pitching, and that other players stay healthy as well.   It may be a long shot, but if you don’t keep yourself in the game you often miss opportunities.

 

I was at the game this year when Jose Reyes felt that first hamstring tightness and left the game.  It was a packed house for a Subway Series game, and Tejada jogging out to shortstop was like a punch in the gut.  I watched the rest of the game in a daze, barely caring about the result.   Reyes had such a great first half that there were road games in May that I was reminding myself to make sure I turned the game on in time, because Reyes would lead off and I might miss something special.  There are reasons to watch bad teams because even bad or average players hit for cycles, throw pitching gems, and smash home runs.  They can stage remarkable comebacks and rock opposing aces and there’s always the looming possibility that someone will throw that no-hitter.  Without Jose Reyes the chances of something magical happening go down.

 

Faith and Fear in Flushing, in an awards presentation to Jose Reyes, makes similar points and sums up my feelings pretty well in this quote.

except for habit and a lifetime of devotion, I can’t think of a good, rational reason to get squarely behind this team if you’re not on it.

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On Writing Off 2012 in October of 2011

You can find remarks about the Mets 2012 season being over all over the place.  It’s on Twitter, in the mainstream media, in blogs and blog comments.  Its popularity doesn’t make the statement any less ridiculous.  To suggest that anyone knows exactly how much money the Mets will spend, who they will spend it on, and the likely makeup of the 2012 roster is crazy.  To suggest that anyone how that roster, and the other 29 rosters, will perform is crazier.

The randomness of injuries is one such pitfall to this.   If you can suggest with confidence that the Mets will get hurt, and the opposition won’t, for all of next year you’re kidding yourself.   Every year some injury prone guys stay healthy and have big years, and some perpetually healthy guys get hurt and miss time.   On every team.   Ryan Howard is already out for at least 5-6 months.  David Wright missed months.  Ike Davis missed almost the entire season.  The Mets were a revolving door of injuries and if you’re sure that David Wright is going to get hurt again you’re either delusional or you have a voodoo doll.  Every team deals with injuries, but the Mets managed to have more than most and have them happen to their key guys.  What if it had been Scott Hairston, Jason Pridie and Tim Byrdak that had the most serious injuries last season?

Jose Reyes has stated he’d like to stay with the Mets, and Sandy Alderson has declared it Reyes month.  If you’re sure Reyes isn’t going to be a Met next season, you’re not listening.  It all flows from there.   Sandy Alderson could remake the bullpen and acquire a quality starting pitcher that provides the team with much needed quality innings and allows the offense to build leads.  Jon Niese could develop into an ace.   Lucas Duda could hold down right field and prove to be a force at the plate.  There are a lot of ifs around the league, and despite finances or contracts, the Mets have as much a shot of making themselves better as anyone else.

You’ll often hear “The Mets are so many players away from contending.”  This seems to be a shot in the dark, at best.  No one knows how many players the Mets need, and at what positions.   Health plays in.  The Mets needed to completely collapse in 2007 to miss the playoffs.  It’d have been easy to say that adding Johan Santana, the best pitcher in baseball, was that ‘one player away’ the Mets needed.   Baseball is a team game, and often little moves have a cascading effect.  Adding one solid starting pitching could take 20-30 innings off the bullpens workload.   Most of the time those innings will be the lesser relievers, the guys that generally pitch in the 5th and 6th of games that aren’t critical.   You’re able to shift those innings away from the lower quality relievers, to the higher quality relievers.  Those innings also save total innings pitched for the relievers as a whole, providing them with a little more rest and making them more effective.   Then you can couple that with signing a couple of relievers, no one that’s big-impact, but talented pitchers that help raise the amount of quality innings you’re getting out of the bullpen.

The Mets have a lot of talent.  David Wright, Ike Davis, Daniel Murphy, Jon Niese, Johan Santana and hopefully Jose Reyes.  Hopefully some of the other guys like Lucas Duda, Mike Pelfrey, Angel Pagan, and Jason Bay have pretty talented years as well.   You don’t round out a team with All-Stars, you do it with quality players that provide consistent value.   You sign relievers you trust to get guys out most days.  You sign a veteran backup catcher to help mentor Thole and perhaps platoon with him.  Decent bench guys that can provide value in a key pinch-hitting spot and provide defense when they come into the game late.  The Mets, even with a less ridiculous payroll than the Yankees, will add a bunch of new players next year.  Some of these players will surprise, some will disappoint. If more surprise than disappoint, something we’re hopeful of because of Sandy Alderson, than the Mets will compete.