Letters to the NL East, Part 4, Dear Phillies…

Letters to the NL East, Part 4.

Dear Phillies,

 

Is Chase Utley enjoying his rocking chair?  Let me warn you now, you’re going to say “Once everyone gets healthy” a lot while the Mets and Braves distance themselves from you in the division.

 

Good job offering Cliff Lee the most money per year, and keeping him from the Yankees.  You see, they’d score runs for him.  I find it hard to believe that you are  better off with Lee than with Werth.  Ibanez’s power seems to be vanishing and he’s aging quickly.  Rollins hasn’t really been good in three years, he’s batting third in the lineup yet has a .258 AVG, and .320 OBP over the last three years.  You’re using whatever warm bodies you could find for right field and second base.

 

You’ve got great pitching, but none of them are good hitters.  Also, every year dozen

s of great pitchers have sub-par years, get hurt, or get no run support.  Will Hamels rising walk rate make him ineffective? Will Oswalt’s back hold up? Roy Halladay threw 750 innings over the last three years, not including Spring Training.  That’s a lot of wear and tear on an arm.

 

Your a talented team, more talented than your fans deserve, but you don’t have a lot of depth and aren’t built to handle injuries.  But injuries happen, and if you play Wilson Valdez for any extended period of time you might as well shoot yourself in the foot now.

 

And that bullpen! No Lidge, you’ve got Contreras closing for now because you can’t trust Madson.  Contreras, who’s 10 among active pitchers in wild pitches and 20th in errors, is who you’re going to trust in pressure situations.  The bullpen wasn’t good last year and it doesn’t look any better.  What’s your plan? Burn out the starters and hope they hold up all season?  You can only push an arm so much before it breaks.

 

You know what they say…the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

 

Your Bitter Rival,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

Letters to the NL East, Part 3, Dear Marlins…

To read previous letters, go here.
Letters to the NL East, part 3
Dear Florida Marlins,
Like most  embarrassing franchises, you didn’t do anything real exciting this offseason.  Oh sure, you signed John Buck, a very nice catcher, but he’s not going to fill the void left by Uggla in his contract year. You paid too much for Javier Vazquez, who was basically terrible last year and was looking for a cozy place to pitch himself into oblivion, and you won’t even get draft picks for him if he does have a good year and bolts.
Kudos though for spending more money this year, if only slightly.  Obviously we all know it’s an attempt to garner a little bit of interest going into a new stadium in 2012.  I can’t help but wonder if you even care how well the team does this year, as long as it looks like it’s going to be better in 2012.  The Mets set attendance highs leaving Shea Stadium, but it looks like the Marlins may set attendance lows leaving Sun Life Stadium.  The only question is if you’ll have more fans in the stands than names for the stadium.

You did a good job revamping the bullpen, which from what I can remember was terrible.   Still, you look a team with some nice players, some passable prospects, and some just not very good ones.  In the end, you’re just boring.  you’re good enough to win games,  not bad enough to be schedule-fodder, but there isn’t much hope for anything else.  At least it doesn’t look like you’ll drag us to Puerto Rico this year.

Your bored “rival”,

Optimistic Mets Fan

Letters to the NL East, Part 0, Dear Yankees…

To read previous letters, go here.
Letters to the NL East, part 0

Dear New York Yankees,

It’s April again.  It’s time to see how your collection of players that were good in the early part of last decade hold up in 2011.  The offense should be fine with mansion-building Jeter manning shortstop.  Even if he can’t quite man the position, at least he can make fine looking leaping throws since he lacks the arm strength of Jose Reyes to reach first otherwise.

The Mets released Oliver Perez, but if we still want to see his act we can always tune in to Yankees games when A.J. Burnett pitches.  Your bullpen looks good, sure, but Mariano is another year older and has presumably reached the stage where he’ll never have to audition for another contract again; the opposite of a contract year.  Soriano has been said to be a bit of a malcontent, we burned Pedro Feliciano out already, and most of us are tired of the Joba show.  Did you really add Luis Ayala, prominent 2008 collapsee, to the roster?

You’ve got steep competition in that division; the Red Sox are clearly better on paper and I wouldn’t count out the Rays.  The Blue Jays have managed to at least be dangerous in recent years and the Orioles are gunning for you.

Good luck trying to make the playoffs this year…you’ll need it.

You crosstown rival,

Optimistic Mets Fan

Letters to the NL East, Part 1, Dear Nats..

Dear Washington Nationals,

 

You closed Five Guys and are building Shake Shack in Nationals Park? Copy cats!  If you take our Brooklyn beers, I’ll be furious.  Let me guess, it was all Alex Cora’s idea?

 

Should I be talking about your actual team?  Is there actually anything to talk about?  You’re going to finish last, it’s just a matter of how badly.  Oh, I know, you’ve got a shiny new slugger in right field stolen away from the Phillies.  Kudos on making them a weaker team, that should help us out.  I’m sorry you still have to pay him that much money in 2018.  Don’t worry though, those draft picks you got when Steven Strasburg left for free agency will probably be reaching the majors right around then and won’t be making much money.

 

At least your team isn’t _completely_ horrible this year.  Maybe you can play spoiler and beat up on the Braves and Phillies a bit in September.  Still, you’ll have to pitch and I’ve seen a better rotation in batting practice.  Livan Hernandez and Jason Marquis should fun to face this year.  The Mets couldn’t have a better Opening Day opponent.

 

Your Friens Ahead Of You in the Shake Shack line,

Optimistic Mets Fan

Letters to the NL East 3/5

Letters to the NL East, Part 3 of 5 (part 0, part 1, part 2)

 

Dear Atlanta Braves,

 

Could it be that you’re relevant again? Barring injuries, you just might have a shot at sticking around this year. Last year it seemed like you had some good stretches, but injuries got the better of your team. We’ll see how you stand this year. Acquiring Derek Lowe certainly helps the pitching rotation, and there are some young arms there that look pretty good too.

 

Somehow my hatred for you has ebbed, and you’ve risen to my 28th favorite baseball team. The challenge is on, can you get back down to 29th or 30th? Do you have the manpower in the lineup to compete for this division, or are you going to wallow away and fight with the Phillies for second place? Currently I expect you to beat them, and for at least that first night of baseball before the Mets have a chance to play, I’ll be rooting for you.

 

Your longtime enemy,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

Letters to the NL East 2/5

Letters to the NL East, Part 2 of 5 (part 0, part 1)

 

Dear Washington Nationals,

 

Ooo, A shiny new ballpark! I challenged you to use the revenue from the new ballpark to make yourself relevant again. You haven’t done that yet, but you’ve started to show signs of it. Adam Dunn is one step, and the supposed contract offer to Teixeira is another. You appear to have shades of potential and talent on the team this year. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you moved up one place and finish fourth ahead of the Marlins.

 

Still, it appears the biggest story concerning the Nationals is the prospect of drafting Steven Strasburg, who throws 102 consistently and also has a nasty curve. From what everyone says, this kid appears to be the real deal. Drafting him would be a no-brainer if it wasn’t for his agent. Scott Boras is set to test how serious you guys are, throwing out numbers like 50 million as a signing bonus. It looks like the biggest game you’ll play this season will be a numbers battle with Boras.

 

 

-Optimistic Mets Fan

Walk Off Balk? Almost..

Where oh where did my little Brave go?

I have a message to Giant fans. “Get rid of Armando.” It’s good for at least two wins for your team. The only way last night could’ve been better is if Joe Smith didn’t throw that wild pitch and the Giants didn’t score that run on no hits in the top of the inning. Then we could’ve won the game on a walk-off Balk. The Mets have been finding different ways to walk-off, and that certainly would’ve been a memorable one. Drag-bunts, walks and home runs are nice too though.

Two home runs for Delgado again. He’s back, although as he said in his post game interview, he never went anywhere. Now if we could only get David Wright to put together a hot streak, his batting average is upsettingly low. Although to me he’s been showing some good signs, looking a little better. I don’t think it’s a case of anyone figuring him out, or him not being as good as he looked in the past, it’s just some struggles, he’ll get there. I’m as confident in that as I was that Delgado would show up again.

One thing that bothers me is pinch-hitting for Gomez with Julio Franco. I guess I shouldn’t complain because Franco did what he needed, which was place one up the middle that was grabbed in an awesome play by Vizquel, but I’d much rather have Gomez. I understand that a lot of it’s about ‘taking your lumps’ and the rookies don’t get to bat 4th, and get pinch hit for, but Franco? Bleh.

In the comments of Metsradamus‘s blog entry about this game, someone mentioned that Gotay and Reyes were doing some sort of hex thing at Russ Ortiz? I’d love to see a clip of this or something more descriptive. That kind of excites me, I love seeing stuff like that. I actually miss(figuratively since I’m not old enough to remember) the days when players used to stand in the dugout shouting stuff at the opposing pitcher. Do you know how many pitchers nowadays who could get rattled by that? It would be great. I expect the reason it’s fallen out of style is how much baseball has seemed to develop into a fraternity. Baseball players generally don’t hate the guys on the other team, they see themselves part of the same group of people, peers not opponents. Couple this with all the changing teams most players do, and these guys were once they’re teammates and friends. Could you see Glavine shouting stuff at Smoltz? If he did, it’d be totally friendly, and a joke.

Mota returns today, and I hate that he was rewarded with a new contract. I hope the only reason he was good last year wasn’t steroids. I’m not going to cheer him when he arrives, but I hope as penance he gives up a home run to Bonds, as long as it’s inconsequential. After that I hope he’s lights out, although I do like A. Burgos, who got sent down for him, and he seems better than Scott Schoeneweis. Only time will tell.