The Amazin' Mess

Clearly left us too early.

I think my favorite memory of Gary Carter and something that always pumped me up (from a baseball perspective), and often times I felt it was overlooked during game 6.

I loved when Carter scored. Clapped his hands, pointed to Mookie (and probably said something like – Alright, man keep it rolling, YOUR NEXT) clapped his hands again, nodded and shook Mookie’s hand. Of course he did, and the rest was history.

If I could have that on a 5 second roll and watch that video every morning when I wake up, I think I’d hit the snooze button alot less.

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I get it, we are broke.  BUT we are still a New York team, with a new stadium and it’s own television station.  Why can’t we keep both? 

Now – if Sandyball wants to blow the team up and start over because they want a different type of talent – then tell us.  Don’t low ball Reyes and make us look bad or cheap.  Just tell us.

But with that said.

1.  A team in New York can no longer go into full rebuilding mode.

2.  Signing Reyes would completely jack up the attendance and the envigorate the franchise.  Even if we are hovering around .500 for the rest of the season.

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Are you kidding me?

How about his decline in speed, decline in range, decline in health, his inability to catch pop-ups against the Yankees?

All the heat he got, was warranted and it was a product of how much money he made comparative to his productivity.  Great, he hit.302 in 2009 but was the softest .300 in recent memory with his .732 OPS.  It’s like a guy rushing for 1,000 yards and scoring 1 touchdown.  SOFT.

Castillo did nothing well, other than take pitches, sacrifice bunt and pivot the double play at 2B.

There’s no reason at the current state of the Mets to not payoff Castillo and see what these younger, cheaper 2B’s can do.

If you keep Castillo, and let Brad Emaus go back to his original team in the Rule 5 draft, you may never know what he can turn out to be.  If you keep Castillo, and don’t give David Murphy or Justin Turner a shot at 2B, you may never know what they can turn out to be.

The move makes baseball sense.

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well…well…it’s that time again.  Today, I bought opening day tickets and why not…it’s the one day a year that everybody starts in first place.

However, the franchise keeps stockpiling different meanings for the title of this blog. 

This offseason has been quite eventful (but not very eventful on the field) for the Mets:

We clean out the front office only to find the Wilponzi’s (Thanks Steve Somers) needing to clean their own house. 

Then here come the three “Sandyball” amigos, and most likely at the best time with all the probably financial restrictions coming down the pike.

Terry Collins will be a band-aid manager until somebody with more cache (that wants the job) comes along.

The Phillies land Cliff Lee.  The Braves and Marlins have more young talent about to flourish on their teams.  The Nationals even made some moves.  If Strasburg was pitching, we’d be projected to be in last.  Which reminds me…Vegas is got the Mets at 78 wins.  Which probably is about right, so what do we hang our hats on this season?

SP – Mike Pelfrey – Not a #1 starter, has the velocity to throw more strikeouts, but just doesn’t.  Completely engulfed my hand at the Mets VIP Party.

R.A. Dickey - It was great watching him last year.  When the Mets brought him up, initially I laughed and thought it was a pointless move.  Until I saw him pitch. Then I was laughing how many times I’d see hitters just loft flyballs into the huge CitiField outfield and Angel Pagan would run them all down.  Not to mention, my wife ruined his no-hitter.

Jon Niese – I don’t like the way he spells his first name, but that WHIP is gotta come down before I’m a believer.

Chris Young – If only this was a basketball team.  If healthy, and thats a big if, he could have success at home.  Super flyball pitcher + super big outfield + good outfield range = low home ERA.

Chris Capuano - Complete crapshoot. Crapuanoshoot.

Dillon Gee – Saw him at the VIP Party, kinda small, but had a solid September ERA.  Didn’t ask for his autograph.  That should spell out what I expect of him to do in 2011.

Pat Misch – AAAA starter with a nice WIP but no velocity.  Could possibly have more wins than Johan this year.

Johan Santana – No longer has the best changeup, no longer is a strikeout pitcher, no longer is worth his monster contract, and is no longer is healthy.  You are clearly on the decline.  See you in July, if we are lucky.  You deserve to be last on this list.

All in all, I suspect this staff to have a sub 4 ERA, especially since they pitch half of the time in CitiField.  Lets bank on Big Pelf being more consistent and less balky, Niese keeping up the strikeouts and lowering the hits and hoping to get R.A. Dickey part deux with the Chris Young I experiment.

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Sure, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to post because frankly, they’ve played brilliantly since I’ve shut up. 

The other part of me has been too busy with work and life and only catches the highlights from a Florida hotel room.

But there’s something going on here.  I don’t know what it is.  But 11 games over .500, most home wins in baseball, brilliant defense (especially in the outfield), Takahashi and Dickey have 12 wins, Pelfrey is an allstar, Jose Reyes is healthy and killing the ball.

Things to be happy about:

1.  Mike Pelfrey has put it all together.

2.  Jose Reyes is starting to look like 2008 Reyes.

3.  Back end of their rotation has been ridiculous

4.  Great production out of the catcher position (offensively and defensively)

5.  Hovering at the top of the NL East

6.  Ridiculous amounts of confidence at home and from a pitching/defensive standpoint, I feel like the pitchers just KNOW that they can pitch strikes and let the defense make plays, especially from a flyball point of view.

7.  Ike Davis is smooth at 1b.

Things to be concerned about:

1. Johan Santana’s velocity.

2.  Bullpen and KROD, both still scare me.

3.  Jason Bay is way too quiet offensively.

4.  I’m tired of the talk about where is Angel Pagan going to play when Carlos Beltran comes back.  Pagan will play CF.  The guy is hitting .300 and has 35 RBIs and just from watching games, his range has been ridiculous. 

At least, I didn’t dream this up.  He’s pretty high up there.

5.  Jerry Seinfeld’s lavish praise towards the guys in the booth, while warranted, felt a little awkward.  I mean did we really need to feed Keith’s already ballooned out ego?

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Really?  K-Rod’s pitches on an 0-2 Tony Gwynn Jr. and David Eckstein made me sick.  Why no fastballs up and away there?

Since 2008:  These are all the games Johan Santana has pitched for the Mets that they subsequently blew. 

1.  April 29, 2008

2. May 4, 2008

3. June 12, 2008

4. July 22, 2008 – This one was ridiculous

5.  August 2, 2008

6.  August 7, 2008

7. September 13, 2008

8.  April 29, 2009

9.  August 4, 2009

10.  May 8, 2010

11.  June 2, 2010

Thats 11 wins.  In hindsight, 2008 was most ridiculous.  He won 16 games and there were 7 blown saves/non wins that year. 

And…I’m not even counting quality starts wasted where the Mets didn’t score enough behind Johan.

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The Padres score 18 runs in the opening game of the series.  18 RUNS.  I would have put a tenner on that they wouldn’t have scored 18 runs in the entire series and quite possibly all 6 games played (when they come to Citi next week).

Right now, the roller coaster continues.  The Mets are just a .500 team.  Their road woes continue and sure, they’ll play well at home but this team is nothing more than a  .500 team.  So, stop getting my hopes up.

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You could almost feel it coming…

Wasted start for Johan Santana (again) and now this puts the Mets in a bad spot to win this series with Fernando Nieve going tomorrow.  No idea what you can get out from him. 

Good news, Manny Parra was in the bullpen for the Brewers earlier in the year, so who knows what the Brewers can expect out of him. 

There is NO reason why the Mets can’t start hitting this Brewers pitching staff now that Yovani Gallardo is no longer on the bump.

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What more can you say?  Right now, you have to be thrilled and encouraged and all that. 

27 innings, 0 runs and Santana didn’t even pitch. 

19-9, 2.80 Home ERA - Gotta love this.

This is a solid read too – http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/6431

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Win the series against the 2009 world champs – check.  Win the series against the 2009 NL Champs – check.  Ok – so I’m starting to believe.

Hisanori Takahashi is unhittable.  R.A. Dickey is unhittable.  Mike Pelfrey is looking like a #1 starter.  Jose Reyes is in a groove.  Jason Bay is in a groove.  Rod Barajas is making a bid to be a NL All star catcher.  Fundamentals galore, bunting, sacrifice flies and stolen bases.  Now, I want the sweep.  I don’t want a well pitched game and then somebody blows it in the 8th or 9th.  Don’t do it to me. 

Side note – Roy Oswalt mowed down the Brewers in Milwaukee tonight.  2 months until the trade deadline, still a little early.  But, now is the time.  Only if Jon Niese was healthier, I think he could be a big cog in making a trade.

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