10/1
Post #7 Topic: So the Mets lost.
So the Mets lost. They lost in terrible fashion. After beating the life out of a Florida Marlins team that already lacked any life, on Saturday, the Mets had the favor returned tenfold. The combination of Miguel Cabrera and Hanley Ramirez simply outworked and out-hustled their NY counterparts, David Wright and Jose Reyes.
Although a lot can be said of David Wright’s maturation over the course of this year as a player. His statistics were phenomenal if not MVP caliber, despite an early season slump that had the Mets biggest critics wondering whether Mr. Wright had ingested too much vitamin water. It didn’t take more than a month for us to realize that Mr. Wight’s stuff was not only the “Wright Stuff”, but that his stuff has almost limitless potential; David Wright may well be one of the great players in the game in the very near future. Seems baseless? Take a look at the end of the season. In August and September, David hit: .394 and .354, belted 6 and 6 home runs, drove in 21 and 20 RBI’s, and reached base a sparkling .516 and .432, respectively. While the Mets crash can be traced as far back as August, David’s stats during the final week of the season were on par with his recent torrid pace. Unfortunately for David, his team’s impotency rained on his MVP parade, which less than a month ago seemed to be inevitable.
Mr. Reyes was not quite as wonderful. In fact, he was atrotious. Over the lsat several weeks of the season, Jose did not steal 1 base. For a team facing pitching questions throughout the entire year, Jose getting on base was the ignition to a powerful engine. Reyes was the spark plug that could bury the opposing team in the 1st inning, before the Mets had even reached Moises’s 6 spot in the lineup. Something must have went wrong. Jose stopped stealing and started getting thrown out. He started swinging at first pitches, a bad habit which took nearly two years for him to originally cast aside. His OBP dipped 50 points. His fielding regressed. Most importantly, the fun and energetic player that NY had fallen in love with, started to look unhappy. His demeanor after bad, untimely outs suggested he’d rather be elsewhere, and his failure to run out infield hits (at one time considered his bread and butter) suggested he didn’t care that his teammates had October plans that involved baseball. Without any idea what caused the crash that was largely responsible for what is being called the worst crash in baseball, Willie (or whoever mans the dugout next year) better make the appropriate adjustments.
Moises was great. He wasn’t able to carry us to the next level, but he certainly did his part to mask his teammate’s futility during the final months which is what he was paid to do. Unfortunately, with age becoming a factor on the mets, I just can’t see bringing Moises back. Moises is a great compliment player and has been at every stop in the MLB. With that said, this is a roster full of stars that became at best compliment players… plus its time to see what Lastings (if he’s not first arrested) and Carlos can do with full time responsibilities
Likewise to Carlos Delgado. Carlos has been a great Met, but he’s past his prime. I suggest keeping him around in a reduced role (100 games) and allowing Ramon Castro to switch off between 1st base, and backing up our catcher… afterall, despite being several feet short of heroics, if theres one thing we learned about Ramon this year its that hes got decent pop.
Good-bye Mr. Lo Duca. Your stay has been nice, but to resign a free agent, aging catcher to a multiyear deal simply does not make sense, especially with the holes in the rotation.
The Rotation:
I will not be the one to tell Tom Glavine to retire, or return to the Braves. But I will lead the charge to have him demoted to the 4th spot in the rotation. Glavine, if well rested can still be effective. But we should not be relying on him to go against the Peavys, the Webbs and the HAMELS of the NL, nor is it fair to expect him to do so.
Pedro looked great to end the season. Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to catch a break with the bullpen since he got here (bullpen chat later)
Duque stays. If he can’t start, I’d be more than happy to have him replace Sele, Schoenewies, or any of the other bafoons that made Billy Wagner look good.
Any takers for Billy Wagner? Please? Aaron Heilman isn’t being used in the correct fashion, and should either be given the closing job or shipped out in a package for DONTRELLE. Yes Dontrelle. Don’t be fooled by his sub-par year, but here is a guy who is passionate about winning, and although
Mota, Feliciano bye and bye. Smith is young so you get one more chance. Other than that its time to retool (that Brian Bannister trade is looking awfully stupid).
Basically the Mets need to start not from scratch, but from store made dough. They have the elements of a winning team, but also elements of a disaster, at times leaning more towards disaster.
Congratulations to the Phillies. They didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs but they certainly earned it; no one can deny them that.
Predictions for the rest of the way:
The Phillies pitching catches up with them and they’re knocked out. The Padres lineup catches up with them and they’re knocked out. The Diamondbacks youth catches up with them and they’re knocked out. The Cubs history has already caught up with them, and they’re knocked out.
The Colorado Rockies, with one of the most-balanced lineups around, use Coors Field to their advantage to get to the World Series where they are out muscled by the Cleveland Indians, in the best series since the D-Backs beat the Yankees.
Otherwise:
Today at school the President of the Florida Marlins came to do a presentation. After 20 mins spent bashing laywers, law school,
Marlins: The fact that the Mets’ payroll is 180 million and ours is 30 speaks a lot about the quality of team they put together
Me: Don’t you think 30 million is a lot to spend on a Mets’ Farm Team
Marlins: We’re able to compete with the salary we pay.
Me: Then why is nobody sitting in your stadium
Marlins: Have you ever even been there?
Me (lying): Yes, and if your organization is so good, then why, aside from poor infrastructure and bad parking facilities is nobody in the stadium?
The owner of the Marlins then continued to call me a jerk, a dimwit, and about ten minutes more worth of insulting comments. Coming from a man who owns a baseball team, I was pretty surprised. Now given, he did get me pretty bad, in front of a lot of people. But the man didn’t even give me a chance to respond. Sure enough, although he said my questions were terrible, he later continued to answer the same questions asked in a slightly more polite manner.
I agree, perhaps my demeanor was slightly combative, and a little bit unnecessary, but here’s a guy who woke up on his 18th birthday and was given a failing baseball franchise (the Expos), and asked to go to work. For him to come to NY and badmouth the poor Mets, and their poor fans was not something for which I planned to sit idle.
At first however, I thought he may have had a slew of good points, and that I perhaps was irrational. And I did enjoy his liberal use of non-legalese terms such as “Mexican standoff” and “cockshort”, used as in the sentence, that Jealous asshole was just a cock-short lawyer. But once he referred to the NHL as “no longer being a sport”, I knew not to listen to him. Afterall, the Florida Panthers fill more seats than the Marlins, and they haven’t fieled a legit team since… THIS YEAR.
Other Notes:
Wings are a great snack because once you’ve eaten them you still have to pick them out of your teeth for the next 3 days… its like a neverending gobstopper that tastes like smoke and hot sauce…
Jose Reyes had better come back strong next year… 3rd best shortstop in the NL East is not a very prestigious title, and we gotta figure the Nats have something hiding in their farm system.
I thought I saw my bike today in union square. Of course it wasn’t my bike, but I was shocked at how my typically calm demeanor changed in a heartbeat to intense anger; consider that a WARNING HOODLUM WHO TOOK MY BIKE.
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