{"id":926,"date":"2011-02-10T11:11:31","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T16:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/?p=926"},"modified":"2011-02-09T23:40:56","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T04:40:56","slug":"newgeneration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/2011\/02\/10\/newgeneration\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Time For a New Generation of Mets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

As I sit here wondering if the Mets will extend Reyes\u2019 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. \u00a0In my eye, generations are roughly defined by the \u2018core\u2019 or the handful of top players on a team that stay together for a couple of years. \u00a0You had Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo and John Franco leading us into David Wright,Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran. \u00a0There was an overlap, or bridge, between these two generations as some of them played together. \u00a0One midseason story line was even when Wright would, or should, move ahead of Piazza in the batting order. \u00a0What if the bridge between generations was not so obvious?\"\"
\nWe are Mets fans because we love the Mets. \u00a0We love the Mets because we are Mets fans. \u00a0It\u2019s emotional, fanatical, and probably illogical, but it\u2019s what we do. \u00a0\u00a0We have an emotional connection to the team, and to the players. \u00a0We all know that you \u201croot for the laundry\u201d and that it doesn\u2019t matter who is wearing the uniform because if it says \u201cMets\u201d on it, we want them to succeed.<\/p>\n

There is talk out there about breaki<\/p>\n

ng up the Mets core: If the Mets haven\u2019t won with Wright and Reyes, maybe they are part of the problem and not the solution. \u00a0How would the fanbase, the one that includes the millions of fans not on Twitter or in the blogosphere, react to the Mets rebuilding? \u00a0Would 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. \u00a0Perhaps 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. \u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Fans may enjoy a prospect or two, especially one that\u2019s 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. \u00a0Half of those guys probably won\u2019t stick around long term in the big leagues, certainly not with the Mets, and they\u2019ll make mistakes and boneheaded plays and go through slumps that will not enamor them to fans. \u00a0We love the team, but rooting for lovable losers is not what being a Mets fan is about. \u00a0For every fan that loved Ty Wigginton while he<\/p>\n

was a Met there are a hundred or more that love Benny Agbayani because he was a part of a run of success. \u00a0Rustyjr of The Real Dirty Mets Blog<\/a> asked for reader submissions of their top 50 Mets of all time, and has been counting down the tabulated results. \u00a0If you\u2019re paying attention you\u2019ll notice that the list hardly follows any statistical reasoning. \u00a0Ray Knight comes in at #37 for example despite his numbers across a mere 254 games with the Mets not being anything amazing. \u00a0Perhaps his baseball-reference sponsor has some insight:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

We cling the players that come through for us in big moments. \u00a0Endy Chavez made an unbelievable catch in a key moment of the biggest Mets game of the last decade. \u00a0For his Mets career he was at best a serviceable 4th outfielder and an amazing defensive replacement, which aren\u2019t usually the guys that go down in history and get remembered. \u00a0Endy\u2019s catch is immortalized in the left field gate at Citi Field and in the fan walk outside, and it\u2019s one of the few parts of the building that has never been criticized by fans. \u00a0We form bonds and connections with these guys, and while winning makes them all look nicer, sometimes it\u2019s just the emotion and effort of one player or series that makes us love them. \u00a0Endy\u2019s catch was in a losing effort and Robin Ventura\u2019s memorable Grand Slam Single was the last win the Mets would get in that series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWould fans really pay to see a team of prospects? \u00a0My guess is no. \u00a0If the Mets fail to put a winning team on the field again in 2011, it won\u2019t draw any more fans in August and September if they trade off every piece they can at the trading deadline. \u00a0While the removal of players that we have a negative association with may sound like a good idea, It doesn\u2019t actually create more interest in watching that players replacement. \u00a0Sure 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. \u00a0Some cit the early 90s as some of the worse Mets seasons in history. \u00a0The \u201886ers retired, moved on, got into trouble and were no longer Mets. There were a couple of flashy prospects here and there that didn\u2019t really pan out. \u00a0There was some brief excitement with Generation K, which shows us that a philosophy of \u201cWe might be pretty good in a couple of years!\u201d is not a selling point. \u00a0There 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. \u00a0I 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?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I sit here wondering if the Mets will extend Reyes\u2019 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. \u00a0In my eye, generations are roughly defined by the \u2018core\u2019 or the handful of top players … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Is It Time For a New Generation of Mets?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1133,1248,19,124,15,3],"tags":[1344,1338,2966,1349,4,1342,1336,1330,1350,785,1332,1000,928,5,1341,1348,1347,1346,1340,2964,1162,353,1331,1335,14,1334,1343,1351,1031,1333,1337,1345,133,1339],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":932,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}