Depressingly Early Football Season and Long Term Mets Plans

My posts have been lacking lately. Part of that is certainly that the Mets don’t produce much to be optimistic about right now, but I am also having a lot of computer issues involving memory and hard drives and multiple reformats of my laptop. I spend most of my time at the computer cursing at it and telling it get going; which is much like how I feel watching the Mets. I was holding out hope as things spiraled out of control with the Mets as is befitting the title of this blog, but my hope is dwindling as the math suggesting the Mets will make the playoffs, even if they were to morph into a powerhouse overnight, grows bleeker and bleeker.

They can still make the playoffs. They won’t, but the possibility does still exist. A strange confluence of events including David Wright not having another slump, Jason Bay coming back and accumulating all the stats that he would need to reach his career averages for the year in the final month, Carlos Beltran shaking off the rust/age/injury and playing well, Castillo putting up career norms for OBP and getting driven in regularly, would have to happen first. Some of these will happen, but it does not seem like it will be enough to matter.

My personal opinion is that the Mets have subtly given up on the season, but they do have a long term plan in place. Promoting the unready Tejada and the possibly unready Fernando Martinez suggests as much. I think the Mets should probably take the next step and start interviewing managers, if not GMs. Take the two weeks to figure out who should manage this team next year, and give them a month to get acclimated with Wright, Reyes, and the rest of the 2011 incumbants so they don’t have to do so in Spring Training. I think it would help the long term goals. One reason not to do this immediately is if the Mets plan on dumping Omar Minaya, in which case you’d want to take care of that before the manager situation, and you may just run out of time to do this all sequentially. Tonight is the night the draft picks have to sign by, so it’d be a perfectly opportunity to make a move forward after that. Give a new GM time to analayze the team and it’s holes and create a offseason strategy. Start the ball rolling, hint at the long term plan, and bring some more of the kids of up in September and I bet Citi Field won’t be quite as empty as some are predicting.

It’s sad that I’m aware that the Giants are playing a preseason game tonight. (Against the Jets too) I prefer years where I don’t even know the Giants record until late October. Or at least late September. I prefer football games as an appetizer to a big Sunday Night Baseball game featuring the Mets and a pressure filled push towards a playoff berth. (results aside)

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!

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.

Just One Game…but a good one

Barely half a day after the horrible loss Tuesday night in Los Angeles and all the things we were complaining about have been put to rest momentarily, but hopefully for good. Situational hitting, getting hits with two outs, with runners in scoring position, tacking on runs, offense in general..all looked good in this Wednesday afternoon game. On the pitching end, the Mets took another big step, finally reaching the 9th inning with a starter. John Maine struggled a little in the 9th and didn’t get to finish, but that’s alright. John Maine has taken steps to show that he’s going to get better this year, and with Santana and Maine, forget Pedro, at the top of this rotation, it gives me a lot of confidence. It’d have been nice for Maine to get the complete game, but Peterson and Willie gave him a lot more rope than I expected, and I think that says that they agree with me about him being improved over last year. Also, the game isn’t about personal stats and 8.1 is plenty from a starter, even bad bullpens should be able to get those last two outs. The bullpen will pitch .2 innings over two days, getting some much needed rest, hopefully charging them for a strong homestand.

However, it’s just one game, and we’ve seen these flashes in other games, and other stretches. The Mets need to isolate whatever is causing the difference between these last two games, whether that be the approach at the plate, the lineup, the manager, or just plain bad luck, and figure out how to make Wednesday stick. The plane ride home just got a little bit lighter, and hopefully the off day will give them time to figure out what went right on Wednesday afternoon.

A quick note on the leadership that so many people think is absent from the Mets and their clubhouse. It’s becoming _very_ obvious to me that Reyes and Wright have taken an active role, if not a public role, in leading this team. They were the first two, as is often the case, out to the mound to congratulate Maine. When a key error gave them the final game against the Diamondbacks, Reyes and Wright, nowhere near getting up in the inning, were the first two out of the dugout to give Beltran a high five with the go-ahead run. There is so much going on in terms of team chemistry that we just don’t see, or only see through the media’s eyes, who are so obviously just searching for anything to write about. The team is under performing, so they look negative.

it’s 2008 and the Mets win

Last night’s game had questionable managing decisions, some poor plays, some inability to hit in the clutch, or to execute in certain situations at the plate, and even some base-running issues. The Phillies had all of these problems, and they lost because of it. It was a rough and tumble series, but the Mets take two of three. Naysayers may want to question how they won them, but that doesn’t matter, just that they did. If you want to go back to last year.. And I really don’t want to go back to last year, it doesn’t help anything. Just as going back to 2006 didn’t help the 2007 team. If you go back to last year, plenty of those games against the Phillies could’ve gone on the other way on some very minor things.

It’s the bullpen that’s important, and despite Wise’s home run, despite Heilman’s struggles, it looks like the Mets have started trying to take the right steps into addressing this issue. The bullpen was the strength in 2006, and we need more consistency out of it this year. Part of this is getting starters deeper into games, but part of it is also one or two more guys stepping up and being able to execute when Willie calls on them. Did the Mets lack fight last year? I don’t know that they did, there were plenty of games where they came back two or three times in a game, only to have the bullpen blow it again and again. That can be mentally exhausting, just like amping yourself up for a fight and having your pitcher pitch you into a deep hole in the first inning can do. This isn’t an excuse by any means, but the Mets have the tools, the attitude, the leadership and the drive to win, and they’ve had it all along; You just have to know where to look.