Posted on

Keep On Celebrating: Mejia Edition

photo by CeetarI realize this is one of those debates that everyone is firmly entrenched on either side, but here it is cropping up again. Jenrry Mejia’s post-save celebrations have often been somewhat demonstrative and his most recent save over the Nationals tipped the scale enough to bring up the tired old ‘hey, that’s now how things are done!’ argument.

 

I can’t quite figure out why anyone cares. There are no style points in baseball and some players have always worn their hearts on their sleeves. There is no code of conduct and there’s no reason to try to force players to play by your set of standards. As Mejia said himself, if you don’t want to see him save a game…well, beat him.

 

It’s even more ridiculous for this to have spun a media cycle where crotchety beat writers, who hate when anything interesting happens after the 6th inning, whipped the story into enough of a frenzy that Terry Collins actually had to address it with Mejia.

 

There are the entertainers, we are the entertainees. Why get up in arms when they do just that? You don’t tell the magician to tone down his flourishes, don’t tell Brad Pitt how he should portray his character. Let’s stop trying to bland-down the game of baseball.

 

Let’s stop worrying about how much emotion the players show, and worry more about getting Mejia more opportunities to be celebrating a victory.

Posted on

Spring Training Voyage

 

I’m back from Spring Training, and it’s all too soon. I was having a lot of fun poking around Port St. Lucie and Digital Domain Park.  I took 500 pictures over three days, and captured images of many of our favorite, and less favorite, Mets players.  I watched road, home, and minor league games and saw players from the low minors to the cream of the crop doing all different kinds of baseball drills.  I met Amber Coyle, and Matthew Rose of NL East Chatter and The Real Dirty Mets Blog.

First, check out these two posts I put up last week involving Mets eating dinner and pictures from the St. Patrick’s Day game against the Red Sox and then click below to view more pictures.
Posted on

What To Watch For In Mets Spring Training Camp

All teams have a variety of different roster spots open for the taking in Spring Training.  So what should we be watching in Port St. Lucie with the Mets?  (And if you’re watching on SNY, the games will be in HD this year!)

Tiki Hut at Digital Domain Park

Health
Keeping players healthy is definitely number one. This includes building up arm strength and recovering from an injury that ended last season, or simply not getting hurt.  Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez and Daniel Murphy ended up the season on the disabled list. The primary goal from them is to get to Opening Day without experiencing any pain or lingering effects of what ailed them last year.  Bay and Rodriguez have both been reported healthy and pain free, but it’ll be good to show that in real spring training games.  Daniel Murphy has had some knee issues, and the best shot he has at winning a job this season is to not be hampered by lingering pain that prevents him from putting in the work both at second base, and at the plate, that he needs.

Some guys have been injured frequently, to various degrees, and may be at risk again.  Chris Young, Chris Capuano, Carlos Beltran are three of the most recent cases.  Beltran has mainly been dealing with one issue, a lack of cartilage in his knee, and may have that under control via an understanding of what ails him, and a knee brace that keeps his knee bones from bruising further.  Beltran’s goal this spring is to prove the brace hasn’t reduced his range significantly in center field, and to get the reps at the plate he needs to keep up to speed without needlessly stressing his knee in exhibition games.

Young and Capuano have more to prove if they want to earn a spot on this team and continue contributing for the entire season.  Consistent starts this spring with no reports of pain or soreness would go a long way to giving us confidence that can give us some quality innings.

Jose Reyes often gets mentioned in the injury discussion, but really he was healthy for most of 2011.  He had a medical condition that had him almost literally rolling out of bed and into the field in April, and had a slight oblique strain mid-season that was so poorly managed by the Mets and their manager that it probably cost him twice as many games as it needed to.  Players get nicked u, and an oblique strain isn’t something to worry about.  Given these parameters, it seems like 2010 is the absolute floor of what we can expect out of Reyes for any given season, and given a full spring worth of preparation it’s not unfair to expect him to be much better again.

The Stars
The results may not matter, but it’s still fun to watch some of the best in the game play.  The Mets have a nice core of excellent players.  David Wright and Jason Bay can launch home runs and bash the ball all over the place.  Jose Reyes can run wild and be his energetic, fun to watch self.  Carlos Beltran may go back to making difficult defensive plays look easy while blasting home runs.

While maybe not on the same level, yet, many other players that have jobs secured are fun to watch.  Ike Davis has some great power and is maturing as a hitter.  R.A. Dickey is an amazing guy and watching him taunt hitters with the knuckleball is always fun.  Jon Niese progressing with his devastating curveball or Bobby Parnell blowing guys away with his occasionally triple digit fastball will make highlights reels all spring long.

Rounding Out the Roster
Which guys will make the team seemingly out of nowhere?  Who will have a monster spring and launch themselves into the conversation for 5th starter, or long reliever, or first pinch hitter off the bench?  A lot of the bullpen is open for guys looking to have a strong showing.  Beyond second base that has a couple of favorites, but is an open competition, there are a couple of different ways the Mets could fill out the extra bench spots.  Could it be Nick Evans? Or Scott Hairston?  What about Jason Pridie or Justin Turner?

The Future
What’s more exciting than seeing what may be on tap for the years to come? Jenrry Mejia make a lot of noise last spring, enough that he mistakenly got a roster spot in the bullpen.  He’ll be exciting to watch this year to see how’s he progressed and if he’s someone we can look forward to in the future.  You’ve got some possible outfielders that look exciting, like Lucas Duda or Kirk Nieuwenhuis.

The Broadcast
Besides the games finally being in high definition, Gary, Keith, Ron, and Kevin are a joy to listen to do a game.  Just like Spring Training is a little more lax than the regular season, so are the broadcasts.  Obviously most of us don’t have the opportunity to listen to them live, because most games are on at 1pm, but if you do get a chance it’s well worth it.

To follow Ceetar on Twitter, click here.

Posted on

Is It Time For a New Generation of Mets?

As I sit here wondering if the Mets will extend Reyes’ contract, and how I hope David Wright and Jose Reyes spend their long successful careers only with the Mets, I started thinking the bridge between different Mets generations.  In my eye, generations are roughly defined by the ‘core’ or the handful of top players on a team that stay together for a couple of years.  You had Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo and John Franco leading us into David Wright,Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran.  There was an overlap, or bridge, between these two generations as some of them played together.  One midseason story line was even when Wright would, or should, move ahead of Piazza in the batting order.  What if the bridge between generations was not so obvious?
We are Mets fans because we love the Mets.  We love the Mets because we are Mets fans.  It’s emotional, fanatical, and probably illogical, but it’s what we do.   We have an emotional connection to the team, and to the players.  We all know that you “root for the laundry” and that it doesn’t matter who is wearing the uniform because if it says “Mets” on it, we want them to succeed.

There is talk out there about breaki

ng up the Mets core: If the Mets haven’t won with Wright and Reyes, maybe they are part of the problem and not the solution.  How would the fanbase, the one that includes the millions of fans not on Twitter or in the blogosphere, react to the Mets rebuilding?  Would fans actually be excited for a team that had Tejada at shortstop, Zach Lutz at third, an outfield of Lucas Duda, Fernando Martinez and Kirk Nieuwenhuis with a rotation led by Niese, Gee and Meija? Especially if it took that group 2-3 years to really start to show any talent, if they do at all.  Perhaps Mets fans are too used to a group of players getting only one or two shots at the postseason and now mentally preparing for the next groups opportunity.  

Fans may enjoy a prospect or two, especially one that’s doing well, but watching a group of players lose consistently while going through the growing pains of trying to be a great major league baseball player is not what sells or excites fans.  Half of those guys probably won’t stick around long term in the big leagues, certainly not with the Mets, and they’ll make mistakes and boneheaded plays and go through slumps that will not enamor them to fans.  We love the team, but rooting for lovable losers is not what being a Mets fan is about.  For every fan that loved Ty Wigginton while he

was a Met there are a hundred or more that love Benny Agbayani because he was a part of a run of success.  Rustyjr of The Real Dirty Mets Blog asked for reader submissions of their top 50 Mets of all time, and has been counting down the tabulated results.  If you’re paying attention you’ll notice that the list hardly follows any statistical reasoning.  Ray Knight comes in at #37 for example despite his numbers across a mere 254 games with the Mets not being anything amazing.  Perhaps his baseball-reference sponsor has some insight:

“What a worthy ’86 Series MVP! He embodied those championship Mets. Who can forget his fire, his jubilation scoring the winning run on Buckner’s error?”

We cling the players that come through for us in big moments.  Endy Chavez made an unbelievable catch in a key moment of the biggest Mets game of the last decade.  For his Mets career he was at best a serviceable 4th outfielder and an amazing defensive replacement, which aren’t usually the guys that go down in history and get remembered.  Endy’s catch is immortalized in the left field gate at Citi Field and in the fan walk outside, and it’s one of the few parts of the building that has never been criticized by fans.  We form bonds and connections with these guys, and while winning makes them all look nicer, sometimes it’s just the emotion and effort of one player or series that makes us love them.  Endy’s catch was in a losing effort and Robin Ventura’s memorable Grand Slam Single was the last win the Mets would get in that series.


Would fans really pay to see a team of prospects?  My guess is no.  If the Mets fail to put a winning team on the field again in 2011, it won’t draw any more fans in August and September if they trade off every piece they can at the trading deadline.  While the removal of players that we have a negative association with may sound like a good idea, It doesn’t actually create more interest in watching that players replacement.  Sure there might be a boost in attendance if a fire-balling starter is doing well, or some rookie outfielder is smashing home runs all over the place, but those things will be passing novelties as most Mets fans find entertainment elsewhere that season.  Some cit the early 90s as some of the worse Mets seasons in history.  The ‘86ers retired, moved on, got into trouble and were no longer Mets. There were a couple of flashy prospects here and there that didn’t really pan out.  There was some brief excitement with Generation K, which shows us that a philosophy of “We might be pretty good in a couple of years!” is not a selling point.  There was no clear bridge to the next eneration and a lot of Mets fans in the 90s noticed that there _was_ still winning baseball in New York.  I wonder what the younger Mets fans that are in love with Wright and Reyes would do if they were no longer Mets in the next year or two?

Posted on

Simple Changes Omar Minaya Needs to Make to the Mets

The Mets are a good team.  They’ve got a lot of good players, lots of character, and have a real chance at going far this season.  However, they could be better. There are some very simple things Omar Minaya can do that will make the Mets a better team.

Fixing Oliver Perez is one of the most popular discussions these days.  This one obviously isn’t as black and white.  Where has his velocity gone for instance?  Oliver Perez, unlike most pitchers, is a guy that need some guidance and oversight.  Manuel and Warthen seem to be two of the worst guys to provide this, choosing instead to give up on him rather then try to help.  Maybe they don’t know what to do, which would actually be worse.  Regardless, Oliver Perez has the talent to be a good pitcher.  Someone needs to grow a brain and figure out how to proceed in this regard.   There have been signs, even this year, that he can be very solid..

Replace Frank Catalanotto on the roster.  Even though his failure is over a very small sample size, his upside isn’t exactly that of a superb pinch hitter.  Failure is still failure, and there are dozens of decent replacements to his position on the roster.  Right now he almost never plays the field anyway, so you don’t even need an awesome defender to replace him.  Nick Evans, Chris Carter, Mike Hessman all seem like suitable replacements.

Gary Matthews Junior.  He’s had more at bats than Frank, and has gotten more than a fair chances worth of starts to prove that he can be worthwhile.  He’s failed at just about every opportunity.  It’s a shame Manuel ever chose to start him over Pagan, who’s hit right around .300 for his Mets career.  The major reason cited for keeping him is that he can play center field.  (Besides the somewhat undefinable ‘experience’ factor that Manuel always throws out there)  Pagan is just fine, so do we really need to have a legitimate center fielder to  back him up?  If so, you’ve got guys like Jason Pridie and Jesus Feliciano in the minors.  If not, then just go with Pagan full time and on the rare day he gets a day off, both Frenchy and Bay know what to do in center field for one game, even if it’s not ideal defensively.  This opens up the possibility to any corner outfielder as a backup.

Jenrry Mejia.  I’ve been semi-supportive of the idea to keep him up in the majors if he can help the team win.  However, he’s struggled at times and it only seems to  be hurting his development of his other pitches.  The bullpen has been pretty good, and since starting pitchers are so much more valuable, it’s time to send Mejia back down to the minors to work on being that starting pitcher.

Fernando Tatis is another player that doesn’t seem to have much value.   His best value is his ability to play multiple positions adequately, but the Mets aren’t in any great need in that regard.  Bay and Francoeur play basically all the time, as does David Wright.  Cora’s got 2B.  Ike Davis could probably do with a day or two off occasionally if he hits an extended rough patch, but the Mets have plenty of adequate 1B guys that can fill Tatis’ role better than him.  When Daniel Murphy is fully healed I think he’d be a much better guy to play the role.  He’s younger, has much power, and is a better defender.  He’s got no real spot to play on this team, and right now doesn’t have a ton of value.  If he could be a super-utility guy on this team, the Mets could probably get something of value for him in the off season.  No one else even wanted Tatis last off season, so he basically has zero value on or off this team.

Fire Jerry Manuel, Dan Warthen, and Howard Johnson.  It’s hard for fans, especially on the outside, to evaluate what role these types of guys have.  It’s pretty obvious Manuel does not know how to handle a  baseball team, from wearing out bullpens, to giving up outs while down runs late in games, to playing guys out of position.  He seems to undermine his players to the media, and always seems to show no faith or confidence in his players that need it, excepting washed up veterans who he plays way too much for some reason.  It’s not an easy situation replacing a manager and finding a suitable replacement.  They screwed it up last time they went through this, and they’re still paying for it, but it’s something that could definitely help this team.

Dan Warthen and Howard Johnson may be easier.  They each seem to have had some marginal success with some players, but for the most part the bullpen and starters have underperformed under Warthen, and excepting Pagan and Francoeur, no player has really hit their career numbers or better with Johnson.  It may be time for a fresh perspective on all this, and there is no time like the present.

Not all of these need to be done.  There are different solutions to the problems I’ve presented, and some of the problems might not be as dire as they seem to me.  However, all good teams make adjustments to the roster, and the Mets have reached the point where it’s time to cull some dead weight, and give some new guys a chance.  Hopefully Omar is already discussing which moves he should make for the upcoming games.