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What Joe Benigno Will Talk About Today

Today will be non-stop “The Mets have no grit” type discussions.  The people that don’t pay attention and think Beltran is soft will come out of the woodwork.  The clubhouse divide comments will come back.  (Michael Kay actually took care of that already today, thanks..) Overly dramatic, pessimistic Mets fans will be all over these things.  There is usually Yankees praise involved.  I can pretty much predict Joe Benigno’s show from 2-6:30 on WFAN tomorrow.

“Write it down, the Yankees are going to go out and get Roy Oswalt.  After seeing Hughes take a step back last night, and Pettitte on the DL, there is no way, NO WAY bro, that the Yankees don’t get this guy.  And what will the Mets do? Nothing.  What a pathetic game last night.  I don’t care what the numbers say, Beltran needs to sit down until he’s up to speed.  They made a mistake bringing this guy back so fast.  I know Francoeur isn’t hitting but he’s too valuable as a leader to mess with the chemistry.  And no one else is hitting anyway!  At least Francoeur you know you’re getting good defense out there.  I really think the Mets made a mistake bringing Castillo and Oliver Perez, and don’t get me started on this bum who should be pitching for Japan right now or something.  All we heard about was how good the chemistry was on this team and then you throw these malcontents back into the mix and look what happens!   And what is Omar doing?  Will you make a trade Omar? What are you waiting for?!”

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More Pressure For a Quick Start

ike davisIt’s not just Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya that have to worry about fast starts to the season or their jobs being in jeopardy.  The same case could be made for Jeff Francoeur,perez Daniel Murphy, and Rod Barajas.  The way Ike Davis, Fernando Martinez, and Josh Thole have been playing in a way this spring that makes you suspect they’ll be knocking at the door to Citi Field sooner rather than later.

With Reyes possibly being out some, or all, of April the pressure on the starting pitching has just doubled.  The most recent report on April suggests that he may be back closer to mid April, but that’s still a rough estimate.

We’ve known for a while that the season was going to hinge on the starting pitching.  The offense was projected to be one of the top in the league, and surely would’ve won some games on it’s own even when the pitching struggled.  With Reyes and Beltran out, they may not have that cushion for a while, but this doesn’t mean the Mets are doomed to a 9-13 type record to start the season.

The fast start is more important than ever, and if Maine, Perez, and Pelfrey can have a good month of April the Mets will still win games.  We all know they’re each capable of pitching good games.  It was expected before the season that they could definitely pitch competitively and keep us in games, but now they may be pressured to actually win the games.  Instead of quality start performances and limiting the opponents to three runs over six innings, stepping up and going seven innings and occasionally limiting the other teams to merely one or two runs becomes important to the Mets early success.

This isn’t to say the Mets lineup is useless, and that they won’t occasionally put up a crooked number, but Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran are two of the most irreplaceable players in the game today.  The season is never won and lost in April, but if the pitching can step up and win more games than they lose, not only will it minimize the damage caused by losing Reyes and Beltran, it will set them up nicely once they return.

This post, and vibrant discussion about it, also featured on The Real Dirty Mets Blog.

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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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Francoeur and Valentine

With Bobby Valentine talking to ESPN, it suggests that the Mets aren’t talking to him. Which could mean the Mets are planning on repeating the Manuel mistake in 2010. Which would be a shame, because replacing Manuel would be the easiest and cheapest problem to fix on the Mets.

From Pictures

Couple this with rumors that the Mets are talking about signing Francoeur to a three year contract, and it becomes obvious that the Mets just don’t get it. Francoeur, while not the problem, is not the solution either. He’s not a very good player, despite his small sample size with the Mets this year. While I’d rather the Mets look at signing another pitcher, a left fielder, and two catchers and keep Francoeur in RF for the time being, they can do that without committing to him beyond next year. Even worse is what this represents.

If Francoeur is a given in right, and obviously we’ve got Beltran in center, what’s going on in left field? Either the Mets have no faith in Fernando Martinez playing for the Mets any time soon, or they have no serious plans to go after a power hitting acquisition to play there, unless we’re talking a one year deal, which would be harder to pull off. While I don’t think straight out bombers are what the Mets need, although if Manuel is staying it’s more important because it fits his style better, the Mets do need to add another bat. The free agent options are better for an outfielder than a first baseman, and Murphy plus an outfielder is a better team than trading for a 1B and whatever leftover piece you’d have for left.

The Mets are more than capable of competing in 2010, but they do have a lot of work to do in the off-season as well. So far the rumors I’ve heard regarding what they plan are not reassuring.

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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.