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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!

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Excited for Spring, Rooting for The Mets

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.

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?

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Jose’s Last Laugh

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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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Bring Back Professor Reyes!

Bring back Professor Reyes!

I know Jose Reyes decided to focus more on baseball and cut out some of the dancing and theatrics. It’s a move I disagree with, but whatever makes him play better. His replacements for the Professor Reyes’ Spanish Academy are pathetic though. I’m glad John Maine is getting some attention, but Maine Street USA is very lame. It’s basically the same thing they did last year without him, with giving three hints and having you guess the city. The other one is even worse, with David Wright. I believe it was called Do The Wright Thing, and it was all about making sure you ‘always wear your helmet’. It was very bad, and he must’ve repeated the sentence 15 times. Good intentions..maybe the other ones will be better, but I doubt it.

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How Many Strike-Outs for Mets Pitching This Year?

Tomorrow is the day. At noon tomorrow the moment we’ve all been waiting for since Glavine walked off the mound that Sunday afternoon. His upgrade, Johan Santana, will report to Port St. Lucie and officially start the 2008 baseball season. It’s not quite the regular season games we’re waiting for, but having daily news, even if it isn’t much, to look forward to everyday will be a much needed joy.

David Wright will be showing up this weekend, as ready to get started as we are for him to get started. Wright is the player I think we have the most confidence and faith in. He played his heart out last year, all year. He truly cares, truly wants to win, and plays the game the right way both on and off the field. I would rank the players I have the least questions about going into next year like this. David Wright, Johan Santana, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran. I also have few worried about John Maine, or even Pedro Martinez.

I know most people probably think I’m insane for not worrying about Pedro, but I’m not. As the time came for him to return last year, I thought he’d have a good couple of starts, and that he could really contribute in the playoffs. We never got there, but Pedro did pitch well. Now everyone is saying you can’t count on Pedro, but I don’t think that’s true. His pitching in September proves that the injury he recovered from isn’t going to inhibit him, and he’s only recovered more from it now. He’s still an ace pitcher, he still knows how to pitch, he still has that ability. And he’s healthy. Sure he’s brittle, but he’s always been brittle, whatever that means. It’s possible anyone can get hurt in 2008, but I don’t think Pedro Martinez is more likely, and certainly not a given, to get injured. Plus Pedro is a competitor. I think he’ll truly thrive on this come back of his, plus I think he’ll thrive on the friendly competition he’ll have with Santana. They are going to feed off each other all year. A thriving, strike-out thirsty 1-2 punch of Santana and Martinez is going to have opposing batters at Shea Stadium whiffing so much it’ll change the wind patterns.

However, this team did come off a horrible collapse, and we’re going to need to see something from them to really regain our confidence in them. One thing that comes to mind would be to see a combined 3-22 stat from Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell during the opening series. That would really make us feel good, although we can’t forget that Rollins and Burrell had a pathetic showing during the opening series at Shea in 2007 also.

A quick word on the former player Roger Clemens. I listened to some of the hearings today, and I was actually laughing at Clemens. He comes off so badly in my opinion, that I’m absolutely convinced he did steroids. It’s no longer a he said, she said situation, it’s a he said, THEY said situation. From the little I heard, McNamee, Pettite, Pettite’s wife, and Mike Stanton all have said Clemens has taken steroids. Clemens countered most of this with garbage like “I don’t remember that.”, or “Pettite must have misheard”. It doesn’t look good, and I’m done with all the attention this is getting, it’s time to talk about baseball now that spring is finally here.

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The Collapse, and 2008

I’ve been thinking about this, and it has a lot to do with David Wright and how he’s easily the captain of this team.

The Mets maybe be an 85 win team next year, but I don’t think so. I think they’re going to be angry about last year, angry and ashamed.

You know how the the Patriots played after being caught cheating in week 1? That’s how I see the Mets next year. Up 9-2 going into the 9th? Why not go for another run? There will be no ‘taking it for granted’. And I don’t care if it pisses off Hanley Ramirez or anyone else. I want them to take the confidence of 2007, but not think they deserve anything. They should go out and play the Phillies(and the Braves and Marlins and Nationals) like they punched their mothers.

Last year they had what I felt to be a good attitude, but they seemed to lose it on the field. 2008 is going to be a good year.

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Mets Extra

At the end of 162, it’s the Philadelphia Phillies 89, the New York Mets 88.

Wow. That sucked. So much for my optimism. I’m not going to be one of those fans that throws blame and anger all over the place, calling for heads and trades and all of that. I will break down the team and next year and what I want to see happen sometime in the near future. I expect I’ll update a bit through the playoffs (I’m rooting for the Cubs) talk about awards and all of that. After October I’ll still post, maybe once a week, or when other things happen. I’m proud of myself for getting through the entire season with this blog, and look forward to making new bloggie friends in the off-season and next year. Here is my postseason prediction, and my in-season stats for the year.

I think the Rockies win tomorrow.

AL Divisional Round
RED SOX defeat
ANGELS (3-1)
INDIANS defeat YANKEES (3-0)

AL
Championship
RED SOX defeat INDIANS (4-1)

NL Divisional
Round
ROCKIES defeat PHILLIES (3-1)
CUBS defeat
DIAMONDBACKS (3-1)

NL Championship
CUBS defeat ROCKIES (4-2)

World Series
RED SOX defeat CUBS
(4-2)

Personally I went to 33 baseball games this year.

My record at Shea Stadium was 15-12.

My record at Mets games was 17-12.

My record for the hometeam was 18-15.

My record for the Nationals was 3-2. (This included three stadiums, RFK, Shea, and Dolphin Stadium)

This year I attended games in 4 stadiums(Shea, RFK, Yankee, and Dolphin)

I’ve now been to 13 Stadiums(Shea, Yankee, Fenway, Wrigley, Citizens Bank, Dolphin, RFK, Petco, ½ old Busch, ½ new Busch, Dodger, Angel, San Fran, McAfee)

Next year the goal is to check out Camden Yards, Nationals park, and Tropicana field.

The Optimistic Mets Blog player of the year is: David Wright.

Is there any doubt? David Wright is looking so good. He was the most solid, consistant player on this team. He struggled in April when the team didn’t, and since then there have been very few games he hasn’t gotten a hit in. He’s now in the top two or three in career Mets avg, slugging, obp and ops. He’s got a .311 career Mets batting average. He expanded his game, learned from his peers, and took on more of a leadership role. He’s a great fielder who needs to figure out his throws a bit, but I’m so glad he’s on our team.