Enjoying the All-Star Game
How about THIS for a bullpen? *drools*
I went to the All-Star Game, on a whim, in 2006. It really changed how I felt about the game in general. I had a blast, and I can’t wait to get back to another one, or for it to hopefully be at Citi Field in 2013. It was like being at a party devoted to baseball.
Here’s the article I wrote about it, in 2007. Mid-Summer Excitement
Tags: All Star Game, all star week, all-star, Baseball, celebration, David Wright, excitement, Home Run Derby, Mets, mid-summer classic, party
Mets vs. Braves: Important, but not THAT Important
Huge three game series for the Mets coming up here, but most of it’s about perception and confidence. No three games in July ever decide anything, but winning and losing this series is the difference between being within striking distance of the division lead going into the break, and being clearly the second-best team.
If the Mets win this series they will be respected throughout the league as contenders. They’ll be brought up in all trade talks for big acquisitions. When analysts adjust their season predictions, the Mets will make it onto a lot of their lists. David Wright will again be recognized as one of the best players in the game, people will stop taking as many pot shots at the Mets, their minor league system, their medical staff and their decision making.
If they lose and fall four or more games back from the division lead things won’t be as rosy during the break. Analysts will find a way to justify their decision in the winter that the Mets have too many holes to make the playoffs. They’ll talk up Bobby Cox, they’ll talk about the Phillies having a good second half. Jose Reyes will be described as injury prone. Carlos Beltran will be portrayed as an 80 year old grandma that can’t walk, much less play CF. They’ll question Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya and their ability to do their job.
All off the results of one series. If a sweep happens either way, the reactions will be even more extreme.
The series is really not that big a deal. It’s an important series to try to win and not let the Braves get too far ahead, but even if they’re four games out going into the break, that’s hardly insurmountable given how many games they still play against each other. Still, it’s a chance for the Mets to put the first half to rest on a positive note, take a deep breath, and soar into the second half with the addition of Carlos Beltran.
If you’re headed out to Citi Field for any of these games, the Mets are having a fan appreciation weekend. They’re doing a lot of seat upgrades, signed giveaways, and handing out gift cards. On Sunday 25 lucky fans will receive game-worn jerseys. Enjoy!
Tags: All-Star break, Atlanta Braves, Baseball, braves, break, Carlos Beltran, championship team, David Wright, first half, Jose Reyes, lebron james, Mets, New York Mets, NL East, second half
All-Star Votes and David Wright Foam Finger
Wright Trots home after his first Home Run of the Season
We should all be voting for the Mets to make the All-Star Game. I know some fans think they should just stay home and rest, but in most cases the players themselves don’t want to stay home and rest, would rather have the honor of an All-Star appearance, would be running around doing media appearances anyway, and if they really need the rest they’d bow out. So let’s vote our Mets into the game. More All-Star appearances by Mets just increases their presumed value to the national audience and their overall resume.
David Wright has a chance at catching Placido Polanco of the hated Phillies, and would certainly be a deserving starter. Additionally, the Mets have announced that the first 20,000 fans at Citi Field for Wednesday’s game against the Tigers will receive a Blue “Make Wright #1” Foam Finger.
Jose Reyes got a slow start to the season off the thyroid issue, but he’s back to playing ball like an All-Star, and there is no reason we shouldn’t vote for him to be there.
Rod Barajas has been a great addition to our team. Why not honor him with a vote?
Most importantly, Angel Pagan has been an amazing fill-in for Carlos Beltran and extremely valuable. Everyone reads stats differently, but there are categories where Angel Pagan excels. WAR, Wins Above Replacement, a stat that tries to calculate how much a player contributes to the success of a team over an easy to find replacement, lists Angel Pagan as the top centerfielder in the National League. Not just that, but he’s tied for 7th overall! (Wright is second). So voting for Pagan wouldn’t be a homer pick, he actually deserves it.
Since the ballot contains the AL portion too, my general philosophy is to vote for guys that have a chance to beat out Yankees. Justin Morneau is one that can, and should, beat out Mark Texiera. Andrus for SS and Pedroia for 2B are both long shots, but they’re the runners up at the moment.
Tags: All Star Game, all-star, anaheim, Angel Pagan, Citi Field, David Wright, foam finger, Jose Reyes, Mets, mets givaways, New York Mets, rod barajas, WAR
Mets Slowly Vanquishing Their Demons
David Wright’s Power: David Wright has already surpassed his home run totals from last year, proving it was just a fluke. He’s had big home runs, multi-home run games, and some absolute bombs. Maybe now that the league realizes his power his back they’ll pitch to him a little more tentatively and he’ll be able to cut back on some of the strikeouts.
- David Wright, split seconds from launching a 2-run home run in Camden Yards
Jose Reyes: Jose Reyes is back. He’s stealing bases, he’s lacing triples into the gaps, he’s hitting the ball out. He’s terrorizing pitchers and reasserting that he’s one of the most exciting players in this game. He’s smiling and having fun, and if there is any singular factor that’s making this clubhouse better than it was last year, it’s Jose Reyes’ infectious baseball attitude. I’m still waiting for more home run handshakes though.
Citi Field: No longer is Citi Field where home runs go to die. If Citi Field was intimidating Mets hitters, it no longer is. The Mets have had plenty of home runs at home, and have had some fun walk-off homers. The park is starting to feel like home and it’s become a big asset to the Mets, who have more home wins than anyone in the majors. It’s better decorated this year as well.
The Bullpen: The bullpen has been a sore spot for a while, being one of the biggest parts of the two collapses. So far the bullpen looks pretty solid. Francisco Rodriguez makes things a little shaky sometimes, but he gets the job done. There is still a state of flux with Takahashi and Mejia but the bullpen has come through, even more so now that the starters have been able to keep them from being overworked. The arms and talent are there, so it’s no longer about trying to find someone, anyone, that can do the job. As the season rolls on and the rotation gets more settling with Takahashi, Maine and/or Perez coming back and contributing, or acquiring another quality starter, the roles in the bullpen will become a little more settled and we’ll know who we can trust. One things for sure though, we no longer think the game is doomed when the bullpen gets into it, and this knowledge probably helps the offense know they don’t have to score a billion more runs as well.
The Mets are a good solid team. There are plenty of holes they could patch up, plenty of places to improve, and plenty of losses that will happen. This team seems to have turned the corner and put the past behind them so that when things aren’t going as perfectly as they are now, I trust that the good times will return and that the Mets will be a fun team to watch all season. They are no more flawed than anyone else in the league, and they’ve got the talent, the resources, and the desire required to make this season a successful one.
Tags: Baseball, bullpen, Citi Field, David Wright, future, Jose Reyes, Mets, mets demons, mets past, New York Mets
David Wright Is, and Should Be, The Captain of the New York Mets
Not every baseball team has, or needs, a captain. Currently only four of the thirty teams have captains: Derrek Lee of the Cubs, Paul Konerko of the White Sox, Jason Varitek of the Red Sox and Derek Jeter of the Yankees. The Mets haven’t historically needed to trump up the ego or perception of one of their players and proclaim him captain. In fact they’ve only had three in their history and two were co-captains. Keith Hernandez was named captain after the Championship season of 1986. Gary Carter soon joined him, and they were co-captains until 1989. John Franco, after the 2000 Pennant year, was named captain and served until 2004.
Is it time to name a new captain? Could the Mets benefit in 2010 from an on the field leader? There are arguments for and against, but I think it’s becoming more and more obvious that title or not, David Wright is a leader on this team. He’s hardly the only one: Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana both provide leadership as well, but the team might still benefit from an official captain.
Johan Santana is a cheery guy in the clubhouse, and he’s also a fierce competitor. He provides a nice mix of enjoying the game, yet still preparing and competing to the best of your ability. Francisco Rodriguez provides energy and passion at the end of the game, and is also a fiery guy. It’s generally assumed that a pitcher, despite John Franco, cannot be a captain because they do not take the field every day. I don’t really buy that argument. While there is a benefit to being a leader from the front of the lines every day, there are plenty of ways to lead from the dugout, between innings, and before and after games. Santana is on the mound 20% of the time and the pitcher is definitely front and center of the guys on the field batting for a win.
Still, it’s obvious to most observers that the guy most likely to be the Captain of the Mets is David Wright. He’s well-spoken, confident, and a star. He’s a fan favorite and one that will hopefully spend his entire career with the Mets. He’s never worn another uniform. He grew up a Mets fan. He’s a guy that’s willing to instruct, support and motivate his teammates and they respect him for it. David Wright can lead this team.
The 2010 Mets have a void in leadership with a lame duck manager. The players are now familiar with the plusses and minuses of the current management and it’s time for them to step up and provide for themselves. Whether this is David Wright walking out to the mound to talk to Pelfrey, or Johan Santana signaling to the infield what he’s going to throw so they can cheat and reposition themselves a little bit, 2010 is about moving forward, and it’s time to name a captain. The last two times the Mets named one it was after a pennant year and the team lost. Maybe it’s time to name a captain that will lead us to another championship rather than rewarding a player with a title afterwards. But one thing is certain whether it becomes official or not: David Wright is the captain of the 2010 New York Mets.
This post will also be visible at The Real Dirty Mets Blog for vibrant discussion and debate. Come join the fun!
Tags: Baseball, baseball captain, baseball leaders, captain, captain david wright, captains, David Wright, Gary Carter, john franco, Keith hernandez, leadership, mets captain, New York Mets
Excited for Spring, Rooting for The Mets
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| From Mets |
20 Days until Pitchers and Catchers and Injured Players report to Port St. Lucie. I’m excited. To me, it’s hard not to be. It’s still Mets baseball, and no matter how you feel about the Wilpons, the front office, or the team, there are still fun games to be played this season, and fun players to watch.
Johan Santana’s due to make 33 or so starts, and every one of those games is worth watching.
Jose Reyes is reportedly healthy and is always a joy to watch play the game. He’s due to be out there on the field at least 155 games or so.
David Wright, Jeff Francoeur, and Daniel Murphy may have varied amounts of upside or talent, but all three of them play their hearts out. You can’t ask for more out of a baseball player. You can truly believe that these guys want to win at least as much as you want them to.
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| From Mets |
Exciting rookies like Josh Thole, Jonathan Niese, Fernando Martinez, and maybe even Ike Davis are candidates to make appearances this year. It’s always fun to watch homegrown guys try to break out and become major leaguers.
You may be down on Mike Pelfrey a little, but he’s going to work out to do better this year. He’s still a young, talented, homegrown pitcher who will hopefully have a bounceback type season, and there is a good chance we see Niese come up and pitch this year.
The 2010 season won’t be won in January, it won’t be won on paper, and when April 5th comes and the Mets take the field, they’ll do so tied for first place. This is small consolation right now, but anything can happen. There is still time for a trade to happen for another pitcher. It’s entirely possible that one of the Mets starters has an excellent season and pitches great to compliment Santana. The offense isn’t bad, and it’s entirely possibly Beltran is back and healthy by May and Francoeur continues his resurgence and everyone plays well. If some of these things happen, the Mets will be extremely competitive and rather than berate the players I think will fail I’m going to focus on rooting for them to succeed. Isn’t that the point of being a fan?
Tags: Baseball, daniel murphy, David Wright, fernando martinez, jeff francoeur, josh thole, Mets, Mike Pelfrey, new york, New York Mets, optimism, pitchers and catchers, Spring Training
Jose’s Last Laugh
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| From 040909_Pirates |
Jose Reyes got the last laugh last night. It’s presumed by many that he was benched for admiring his long double on Wednesday afternoon, but he managed to get his hand, or feet, into the game anyway. He passed off his base stealing abilities to David and the team, so they could combine for seven stolen bases; four of them by his buddy on the left side of the infield. It did appear that he forgot to give his defense to Alex Cora, but it worked out in the end.
This time it was Beltran hitting a double in the final inning, and he promptly stole third. Reyes’ base stealing ability was obviously pointing out how it would’ve made more sense Wednesday to let Reyes have the opportunity to swipe third, rather than have Castillo bunt him over. Castillo had a key sac-fly on Tuesday, so why not another?
Reyes’ base stealing ability even got Gary Sheffield to steal a base last night. It didn’t matter what Molina did behind the plate, Reyes’ ability made everyone faster than Molina could throw, and may have even slowed down the third base ump’s eyes.
Kidding aside, it wasn’t Reyes’ base stealing ability that won last night’s game; It was Wright’s leadership. Wright recognizes what this team needs to do to win. Granted, he’s not always able to succeed, but baseball is more failure than success, and that doesn’t make him a bad leader. He realized with Reyes out, the way to win the game wasn’t to change the team dynamic with Sheffield and trying to become a power team and hit home runs, but to fill in for Reyes and become the fast, aggressive team that they are when he’s on. He’s done it before. In 2006 when Beltran and Delgado were blasting everything out of the park, Wright contributed by driving them in whenever possible to a career high and team leading 116. In 2007 when Delgado was struggling, Wright switched gears and stole a lot of bases to help Reyes and others set a franchise record for the season and scored nearly 20 more runs. David Wright may occasionally not come through, may press too hard at times, may try to appease too many people, but when it comes down to it David Wright is a winning ballplayer, and a leader on this team.
Tags: bengie molina, David Wright, Home Runs, Jose Reyes, leader, leadership, Mets, Stolen Bases, winning ballplayer
Runaway Train
10 in a row, and this was certainly a game you could’ve thought the Mets would lose when Santana proved to not be up to the task today and the bullpen was iffy. But the Mets kept battling, even in the top of the 9th, and came out on top. Good to see, good to win a game like that, but lets not make a habit of it. David Wright comes through with a clutch hit, a home run that if this was two weeks ago you would’ve been sure was going to be caught. This is probably a good question for metswalkoffs, but how it seems like David Wright has a crazy amount of walk-off or game-tying hits off of opposing closers. I guess it’s logical that these kinds of hits come off of closers, but I may start calling David Wright the Anti-Save anyway.
10! in a row and tied for first place. The Phillies get Joe Blanton and even if that made them feel better, that feeling barely lasted three hours. The Mets go for history Friday night, trying to tie the franchise record for wins in a row at 11. This team has made a complete 180 since about two weeks ago, and I cannot see a catalyst for it. Players just started playing well, pitchers started pitching, and instead of finding ways to lose, they’re finding ways to win. Maybe they just flat out ran out of ways to lose games?
Tags: 2008 mets, anti-save, David Wright, First Place, mets walkoffs, records, runaway train, winning streaks
Have to Listen to the Leaders
Reyes: Fly Like the Wind
Here’s my take on the Reyes thing, I support him fully in this. I think it was a mistake to keep Manuel while firing Willie. If a change was going to work, it needed to be a clean slate, not someone leading that’s been through the same problems. So when Manuel starts his tenure by pissing off Wright and Reyes, it doesn’t look good.
Wright and Reyes, by example or otherwise, are going to be or already are the leaders of this team. The team revolves around them, and Manuel needs to work with them and allow them the ability to do that.
At least give Reyes the chance to walk it off, jog in the outfield, really see if he’s hurt. Manuel, admittedly, said that it was his first day played into his decision. This isn’t about Manuel though, it’s about Reyes and winning the game, which we had less of a chance to do with Easley. Reyes wanted to play, and the only message this sends besides “I know best” is that he doesn’t have to play hard when he’s not feeling 100%. Reyes is who he is, and we don’t need him molded into some media-darling cookie cutter player. So what if he throws a tantrum? Haven’t so many of you been saying how you want to see fire and fight with this team? Well Reyes has got it, he is who he is and trying to make him something else is detrimental to the team, as we saw early in the season when Beltran reminding him to stop worrying about how he’s perceived and play the game the way he knows how.
This whole firing situation reeks to me of setting up the team to fail. It sounds like “You can’t fire me, I quit!” by Mets management. They’ve decided the team isn’t going to win, set up a fall guy, and laid the groundwork for next year. What they forget is it’s early June. I still think the Mets can and will break out of it, but it also feels like the media and management are fighting against it. The team needs to be able to relax, and it doesn’t look like this is going to afford them that. Only time will really tell; will this team be counted out on August 1st and pull a Colorado Rockies to make the playoffs after the pressure is off? It’s still too early for that too.
Tags: David Wright, division, jerry manuel, Jose Reyes, Mets, relaxing, tantrums
Subway Series loses some luster, but the Mets gain some
The Subway Series this year was very subdued. I’m still a fan of it, I like how it takes over the city and the general feel of it, but most of the novelty has worn off. It’s certainly no longer a David versus Goliath type match up like it was when it started, or when it reached what I think was it’s peak in 2000. It’s no longer a competition to see who is the better team, but who isn’t the worse team. Both clubs had issues to work out, and the opponent at the moment wasn’t important enough to matter. The fans, excepting when trying to shout down opposing chants and cheers, were almost quiet. I only saw half a dozen fights at the Stadium Sunday night. I’m sure a lot of that atmosphere was due to the game being a blow out, but it was more important that the Mets won, than it was who they beat.
And they did beat them. They played better baseball; hitting, fielding, and pitching. Derek Jeter, who always does well in these competitions, did well with the bat, but was average at best everywhere else. He failed to make the only high-caliber move he has at shortstop, his leaping throw to first, early on Saturday. He also got thrown out trying to stretch a single in that game. On Sunday he couldn’t keep his foot on the bag while fielding a bad throw from Giambi during the Mets first rally.
The Mets, particularly Church, played great defense, hit the cut offs and made great plays. They hit, Reyes hit, Wright hit, and they scored 18 runs. They also pitched well, Santana to Wagner on Saturday and Perez went as far as Santana before giving the ball to Smith and Schoeneweis.
More importantly, whether a result of a team meeting or something else, the Mets played with enthusiasm. They played with energy and heart and they really came alive during these two games. Wright was already on the mound encouraging Perez by the time Matsui’s ball went over the fence, everyone was excited when they got hits and scored runs. Maybe the Mets fans’ unwillingness to boo their own players in the hostile environment of Yankee Stadium helped, and maybe the Mets can go and put together a nice streak of games over the next seven so that when they return to Shea, there isn’t a single person we want to boo….besides Hanley Ramirez of course.
Tags: 2008 mets, David Wright, energy, fielding, hitting, Jose Reyes, Mets, Pitching, Yankees