You can root for the Mets without being convinced of their doom
Baseball is over. We are all sad. It’s been nearly a month since the Mets played though, and that regular routine of baseball has been weened from our schedule already. It feels like ages since they’ve played.
Are the Mets next? Will the Mets at least be in the conversation to be next? Time will tell. The season of half-baked rumors begins now.
Just my silly little attempt to take a picture that represents “Waiting For Baseball.” Been playing around with my camera more lately; maybe I’ll take some interesting pictures down in Spring Training. My first set of tickets arrived yesterday.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Mets seasons come and pass, leaving games that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called 2010, an Age yet to come, an age long past, a press conference started in Flushing. The conference was not the beginning. But it was a beginning.
Okay, the quote barely makes sense, but the cyclical nature of the Mets history reminded me of Robert Jordan’s epic series. The Mets are again faced with a reboot of sorts, shedding some dead weight and redirected the franchise that has run off course.
So far I feel Fred and Jeff Wilpon said the right things. I’m sure some of it’s probably saying what we want to hear, but they’ve given the right answers and seem to have the right goals and motivation. I’ll take it. Words are all we have right now, until after the World Series when we can start signing guys, and even that’s nothing until we play, and win, some games.
This season wsn’t a total waste for me. The Mets made a lot of strides in appeasing and interfacing with fans and bloggers. They created a Twitter account and started interacting. They invited a group of bloggers ‘into the fold’ and gave us an opportunity to stand on the field and talk to players during batting practice. They’re aware that there are a lot of intelligent people that spend a lot of time focusing on the Mets and thinking about them in detail. Giving us that opportunity this year was an amazing thrill and one I’m extremely thankful for. It also gave me a chance to meet some of the fellow bloggers that I’ve been interacting with for a while.
You may have noticed, or not, that I’ve been posted a lot less. It’s not the Mets, although them being mostly irrelevant for a month didn’t hurt, but me. I’m getting married this weekend and things have been rather hectic. The Mets did not reward me with a wedding present of a NLDS game to miss, and David Wright did not respond to my wedding invitation . I probably won’t be updating much over the next couple of weeks, but I suspect once things settle down I’ll get right back into it. I’ve got some stuff planned in the offseason including some sabermetric debates that I’ve been putting off as well as some trying to match up the title of the blog with the 2011 season and the direction of the team. In other words, a couple of spin posts trying to justify believing the Mets can and will win the World Series in 2011. (Hey, it’s more fun than predicting doom and gloom. Aren’t you tired of that?)
David Eckstein : Cause he sucks. Read Fire Joe Morgan for more.
Javier Vazquez : I don’t want to hear any “NL is weaker” crap. I don’t want to sign players that had a good year two years ago. Vazquez is at best a project.
Orlando Hudson : He’s not just very good. Provides a little more power than what we’ve got, but fades down the stretch, is pretty whiny and is getting up in age. He’s not coming off a good year either, despite being on the best team in baseball.
Manny Ramirez : Not sure he’s even a fit anyway, but I’m sure he’ll get mentioned by someone. Old, not really a fit. Another huge ego guy that’s not going to accept a diminished role and will demand too much money.
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)
I listened to most of the interview with Omar Minaya and Jeff Wilpon yesterday on WFAN. I wish it had been with someone other than Mike Francesa who is very biased, and very amateurish, when it comes to the Mets. However Francesa is the guy that gets the ‘big’ guests due to reputation and seniority, so we have to deal with it. Here is a list of things I expect from the Mets going forward. Also a list of things Francesa should’ve asked. (He may have asked them at one point and I missed it, but not in the first hour.)
 |
| From 100409_Astros |
I expect the Mets to be big players in the quest for a big power bat. Probably in left field, unless a doable trade comes along for a guy like Adrian Gonzalez, which seems unlikely. Matt Holliday seems to be the best choice, hopefully he doesn’t stay with the Cardinals.
They’re committed to spending on what they feel will improve the team to make it competitive next year. This is the most important piece of news. They made no mention of a budget, a cap on spending, or any number. This doesn’t mean there isn’t one, but it also suggests they are flexible to get the job done.
They’ve already been discussing and planning, but obviously until teams and players exercise options after the World Series, you can’t know what’s going to be available for sure.
“You’re lowering ticket prices for season ticket holders. Will those ticket prices come down for game day sales? Will there be less gold level games as was reported?” The Mets have not offered season ticket holders a percent discount for buying all 81 games in the past. To me, this suggests that Ceaser Club Bronze, and Metropolitan/Baseline Box seats will be cheaper. These are the two areas they mentioned, and are probably the most overprice in terms of the cost to quality ratio.
They intend to add more Mets stuff to Citi Field. More memorabilia, a Hall of Fame, and naming stuff after prominent Mets.
Medically they’ve adjusted how they’re going to get information, and how they’re going to release it. Their excuses were a little bit weak, but as long as they’re aware that that was the problem. It was true that they listened to the Dodgers (or was it the Giants?) doctor when Reyes hurt himself on the road trip. I remembered commenting on it, wondering why the Mets were letting the opposing team decide whether their shortstop was ready to play. The problem was in the decision making in that they were soft on the severity of the injury, figuring that Reyes would be okay to play soon, and that taking him out of the lineup for a cross country flight to New York wasn’t needed.
Another question Francesa didn’t ask, or didn’t ask for clarification on: “I just heard Reyes is having the surgery. Will he be ready for Opening Day, 100%? Will he be full strength, full speed?” Instead, Francesa praised the doctors and the hospital, and went on to ask about other things.
It gives me faith that at least Omar knows what needs to be done. I just hope he’s aware of the little things that need to be done and not overlooked. I like Cora, but am not necessarily sold on him being the answer. I think it might make more sense to have power off the bench. The Mets don’t need to build a 300 home run team, I think they just need the threat of power to help scare pitchers a little bit.
I have a couple of posts planned here and there about this and that. Including my thoughts on what the Mets need to do this offseason.
For now, here is a link to my last article on TOTK.com about why as we all turn to other sports to watch, I still view baseball as the best of them all. King of Sports
