11.11% into the season, and the Mets are on top

Apr 24, 2007 11:42 AM

The Mets are 12-6 after 18 games. They’re in first place. They’ve nearly got the best record in baseball. This sounds a lot like 2006, despite the miniscule half game lead. John Maine’s surprising with his good pitching, Heilman’s struggling in some spots, people are wonder when and if Lastings Milledge will be the everyday outfielder, and plenty of so-called experts are trumping up the Braves as one of the teams to beat to win the division.

I do worry about the range of the corner outfielders, but they’re both hitting very well. If Milledge was slotted in, we’d almost have to trade one of them, and who knows what we could get. I trust Omar Minaya, and I wonder if he’s shopping Milledge around at all. They can’t keep implying that next year Milledge will be the starting outfielder forever. Personally I’d rather have kept Cliff Floyd around than Alou if we weren’t going to play Milledge. There are other outfield prospects in the Mets system that they’re proud of, and it might be beneficial to get something out of Milledge now while his value’s still high off his torrid spring ; he’s not doing so bad in New Orleans either.

On the other hand, Jorge Sosa, Jason Vargas and Philip Humber are all doing pretty good down there too, and especially coupled with how the Mets starters are doing I’m not even sure where the biggest weakness is yet. Rather than trading someone now for someone that may or may not be a key for later, It’s probably a better bet to see what doesn’t hold up for the whole season and fix it then.

I still hear a lot of negativity from Mets fans, and with a winning percentage of .667 there is really little more you could hope for. Delgado and Wright have one home run between them in the middle of the order and they’re still winning. With the exception of one cold start, Oliver Perez has looked good since game 7 last year and Maine is more then we could’ve hoped for. There are three guys with good era’s waiting in the wings and the excitement when Pedro returns, even if it’s three months from now, is going to be great. I expect to be seeing a World Series game in person this year.

Excited

Feb 15, 2007 11:47 AM

Maybe it’s because it’s the first year the Mets have made the playoffs in a while, or maybe it’s because of how devastating it was leaving Shea after game 7, but i’m very impatient about the start of the 2007 season.

Even though the roster is still unknown, there are a lot of young pitchers out there ready to make the team and shine. And a lot of them will get the chance to. Orlando Hernandez will probably miss a couple of starts here and there, and there are always injuries and switches during the season. On top of this, Pedro rarely pitches a whole season, but this year it will be the first part of the season he misses, so that when the time comes to pitch in the playoffs, not only will he hopefully be energized from missing it last year, it’ll feel like July for him as he’ll only have been pitching a couple of months.

We’ve got enough relievers out there to find something that works and Wagner…well, he’s not Rivera, but what else is there?

Delgado is a very smart player, and after his struggles last year, I think he’ll be having a monstrous year, Reyes is only going to get better, i’m predicting 70+ steals this year. David Wright is only improving too, and as of yet he’s the only position player in Port St. Lucie right now. He’s going to hit 30 home runs and 130 rbi’s this year. I’ve been saying this all off-season, and he’s been doing great in the games he’s been playing, I think Anderson Hernandez is going to be a starter on this team.

I miss Cliff Floyd, and I think he’s going to have a huge year this year, but I think are outfield can get it done. I’m interested to see what happens with Milledge.

I’m strongly considering trying to goto Spring Training this year, but if not, I have every intention of winning the lottery and scoring tickets for opening day.