In March of 1992, the great Washington Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell wrote:
When the Mets are great they think they’re the best ever. When they’re good, they think they’re great. When they’re mediocre, they think they’re very good but got stiffed. And when they’re bad . . . they think if they spend $30 million or $40 million, they’ll be great again before the ink dries. The Mets’ reward for self-inflation is that they seldom learn the proper lessons from their annual disappointments and, so, almost never approach the next season with fitting expectations .… Mets fans always expect a lot. And the Mets always oblige by telling them what they want to hear: We’re great.
Why do I start this post with that quote? For two reasons.
First, I think it accurately identifies the problems that have haunted the Mets in the 20 years since that article was written. Namely, a quick-fix mentality coupled with, it has to be said, a fan base that has been unwilling to tolerate getting worse so as to get better (especially since the rise of the Yankees).
Second, this is the first off-season I can remember where the Mets didn’t follow the same-old plan. They were honest with the fans. They didn’t go out and spend just to say they did. Instead, they retrenched.
But, there’s a cost to the team’s honesty. I can’t remember a season where the Mets fan base was less excited for opening day. As many of you know, I’ve endorsed the Mets offseason of austerity; however, I have to acknowledge that I’m also not quite as “juiced” as I have been in other seasons. Honesty is a two-way street.
Of course, the recent Madoff-related news just adds to the negative aura surrounding the franchise. You’d think the way the media has treated the story that the Mets have sold off all their good players, have a payroll of $20 million and are going to have to rename the rotunda after Irving Picard. My day job precludes me from saying too much about this, but the one thing I want to say is that Fred and Jeff almost certainly anticipated being sued for the $300 million they are alleged to have obtained from being “net winners.” I am fairly certain they did not anticipate being sued for $1 billion because they “should have known” about Madoff’s scheme. It’s that latter uncertainty that is why they need to sell a piece of the club.
But I digress. We are Mets fans. Can’t we handle the truth? Did anyone really think last year’s team was going to be good? Let’s recognize, a lot went right last year and they were still 4 games under .500. Yet, the negativity surrounding the team heading into last season was nowhere near what it is this season. Is the only difference that we didn’t go out and spend $65 million on someone like Jason Bay?
I should say, that’s cause for optimism on my end. I love the Scott Hairston signing. Now, if Terry Collins wants to, he can play Pagan against righties and Hairston against lefties. Here are the slash lines that platoon could produce:
In Hairston’s best season against lefties (2009): .318/.378/.543
In Pagan’s best season against righties (2010): .300/.351/.436
That’s a really good potential platoon. Then there’s the pitching staff. No, we didn’t sign Cliff Lee. And I would have signed Jeff Francis, not Chris Young. But both Young and Chris Capuano have the potential to pitch well in Citi Field. I’ve written a lot about both, but if Citi Field reduces Capuano’s propensity for the long ball (and he’s healthy), the starting staff could be really good.
The bullpen may also be really good. Bobby Parnell’s SIERA suggests he’s for real. K-Rod will presumably be healthy. Tim Byrdak strikes out more than a batter an inning against lefties for his career.
And remember, on July 5th last year, the Mets were 46-37, just two games out of first and in the lead for the Wild Card. Then, the wheels came off. But the Mets did contend for half of last season.
The Mets are also far more well-equipped to handle a top player going down with an injury. Chin-Lung Hu can fill in (at least defensively) for Reyes should he get hurt. Hairston can fill in should Beltran/Bay get injured. There’s Dan Murphy who should be able to step up if something happens to Wright/Davis and may end up as the everyday second baseman. Willie Harris can also step up. Harris, by the way, has great plate discipline. For his career, he’s swung at only 16.4% of pitches he’s seen outside the strike zone (below the MLB average). In the last two seasons he’s walked in 14.5% and 12.6% of his plate appearances. In 2009, he actually had a .364 OBP even though his batting average was only .235. For a few games, or as a pinch-hitter, Willie has value. Behind the plate there’s Thole and Paulino, with Dusty Ryan at Triple-A if either guy can’t produce. Even in the rotation there is some depth with Dillon Gee on call.
So why are we so down? We’ve generated false hope with a lot less. Is it just that the Wilpons haven’t opened up their checkbook to spend even more money? Who that we didn’t sign should we have signed? What big player who was traded should we have traded for?
If it’s the money being spent, or lack thereof, that has us down, then we need to do some soul-searching as fans. Our payroll will top $140 million this season. We have a proven leadership team in the Front Office that understands advanced statistics and knows how to put together a winning club. And it won’t waste money while getting us there. Terry Collins seems likely to instill the discipline and energy we know the team was crying out for under Willie and Jerry. There’s a lot to like about the 2011 Mets.
So, while I’m not as excited as I was, say, for the beginning of the 2008 season where I thought Johan would put us over the top. I’m also not as excited as I was for the 2002 season that brought us Alomar, Vaughn and Burnitz. And that is a very good thing.
41 comments
TRS86
2/6/2011-12:42pm at 12:42 pm (UTC -4)
Nice job.
metsfan4decades
2/6/2011-1:02pm at 1:02 pm (UTC -4)
Great piece.
Unlike some Met fans I’ve been reading, I have no problem with the disciplined type plan they put forth this off season. I like the FO (which I think was the #1 change that was needed), I’m happy we have a new manager (’cause Jerry just had to go). I don’t know if Collins will be the good for the type of team we have this year, but I’m more than willing to give him a chance.
The other type changes I’m looking for couldn’t be done this off season – namely better drafting, better player development, in short, improve the minor system. Without that, we might be competitive for a year or two but we won’t stay competitive. I’m hoping they’re on the right path there.
I have to say, I’m looking forward to opening day same as I always have. It won’t erase the negativity surrounding this team because the Madoff problem won’t be solved overnight. But at least with all that crap we’ll be reading about in the days going forward, we’ll at least have the games to watch as well.
rustyjr
2/6/2011-1:04pm at 1:04 pm (UTC -4)
One time thin Lizzy guitarist Garry Moore passed away today at the age of 58 – the good do die young
TRS86
2/6/2011-1:07pm at 1:07 pm (UTC -4)
It does make me upset that since 2006 there has been a dark cloud hanging over the Mets heads for much of the season.
What also concerns me is that if the Mets are viewed as unstable it will hurt them in future negotiations with not only FA but their own players.
Prismo
2/6/2011-2:44pm at 2:44 pm (UTC -4)
Then you should hope for a settlement – it would likely be done by mid-season, and the Wilpons hope to have the 25% sold by mid-season as well. So maybe it would all be wrapped up in time for next offseason.
However, knowing the Mets, something even bigger will come along and mess it all up again.
metsfan2011
2/6/2011-1:08pm at 1:08 pm (UTC -4)
agreed. I presume we’ll see better drafting because it’s hard to be worse than this franchise has been for the last 20-plus years. I think the Madoff stuff has a few outcomes, each of which is probably pretty good for us as fans. Either a) Picard will lose his suit and the Wilpons will be financially stable again, b) they settle the suit, the Wilpons find a buyer for part of the club, and everything is status quo, or c) the team gets sold and we get new ownership.
TRS86
2/6/2011-1:37pm at 1:37 pm (UTC -4)
Right and in at least 2/3 situations talent on the field will most likely not be affected in the longrun.
Prismo
2/6/2011-2:46pm at 2:46 pm (UTC -4)
The issue with it going to court is that it would likely continue through most, if not all, of next year’s offseason. That’s a loooong time for this “dark cloud” that TRS mentions to be hanging over our heads..as well as over the heads of potential free agents.
hazmet
2/6/2011-3:30pm at 3:30 pm (UTC -4)
As an example, Picard vs. Picower where Picard recoverd 7.2 Billion dollars, yes that’s right 7.2 Billion, he starting suing in May 2009 and settled in December 2010. Also in that cased Picower drowned to death in October 2010 leaving his widow and the Picower legal team to reach settlement. Who knows if he hadn’t have died he still may be fighting the case. So we’re most likely looking at years as opposed to months. But I hope not.
Prismo
2/6/2011-4:20pm at 4:20 pm (UTC -4)
HEY FRED!!! SELL THE ******* TEAM!!
Prismo
2/6/2011-4:32pm at 4:32 pm (UTC -4)
Oh, and great info hazmet! Obviously each case can be very different, but it’s still interesting to compare how long these processes can take.
Prismo
2/6/2011-3:26pm at 3:26 pm (UTC -4)
I think this about sums everything up!
http://images.memegenerator.net/picard-finger/File/158696/picard-finger.jpg
(and following the link, an attempt to embed it which I’m sure will fail)
Prismo
2/6/2011-3:26pm at 3:26 pm (UTC -4)
Yep, it failed!
saltygary
2/6/2011-5:45pm at 5:45 pm (UTC -4)
lol
metsfan4decades
2/6/2011-8:18pm at 8:18 pm (UTC -4)
LOL….
stickguy
2/6/2011-5:47pm at 5:47 pm (UTC -4)
purely on a “on the field” level, I am actually optimistic about the season.
I said this the other day, but this crap probably came at a good time (if it was to come at all). The team really needed to clear some dead wood, and make an attempt to shore up the foundation and blend in some young talent. Conveniently, that normally leads to payroll taking a dip in the ST anyway. So whether it has to, or it just helps to, payroll can go down a bit.
Frankly, the only thing that scares me is that they let Reyes walk purely over money, which will hurt the team in many ways, now and in the future. dumping the rest of the big contracts (other than wright) won’t do that.
but, it can still be a good, exciting, competitive team over the next couple of years, even while the lawsuit crap is still going on(if it drags on that long)
Hell, like someone else noted, either they finish the suit and they have the money to run the team, or they go bust and sell (and their will be a line of people fighting to buy them out).
so just try to ignore the noise, and just watch games and enjoy your team.
saltygary
2/6/2011-5:51pm at 5:51 pm (UTC -4)
Spot On, great read.
stickguy
2/6/2011-7:45pm at 7:45 pm (UTC -4)
man, so far, how about dem packers!
stickguy
2/6/2011-9:02pm at 9:02 pm (UTC -4)
Dem packers that are falling apart!
Mr North Jersey
2/7/2011-12:14am at 12:14 am (UTC -4)
metsfan2011 great job on this post. It was a refreshing read indeed.
metsfan2011
2/7/2011-9:22am at 9:22 am (UTC -4)
thanks Mr. NJ. I’m hopeful that we can, at the very least, concentrate on baseball moving forward.
oleosmirf
2/7/2011-9:32am at 9:32 am (UTC -4)
If every single one of our key contributors plays around or better than their career averages and our top 3 starters pitch like they did for most of last season then I believe we will make the playoffs.
That’s a real tall order given our results the past 2 seasons but if Reyes, Wright, Beltran and Bay can get their acts together then we ill be at least an 80 win team regardless of what happens with the rotation.
Ceetar
2/7/2011-9:49am at 9:49 am (UTC -4)
I thought very little went ‘right’ last year.
Beltran continue to be hampered by the bone bruises, and they didn’t heal. As a result he didn’t start “Spring Training” until July, instead of roughly April first as they were hoping initially.
Reyes was hampered by a completely out of the blue thyroid issue. Sure, the recovery turned out to be ‘optimal’ in that it didn’t keep him out for 2 months for his levels to go back down, but it did reset his ‘play clock’ to early February in early April. And created another round of negative Mets press involving blood spinning and HGH.
Jason Bay struggled in his first year and then was concussed and had no chance to resurge just as the Mets needed him the most.
John Maine was still injured.
Jerry Manuel was our manager.
Oliver Perez was still injured, never figured out how to get back to pitching, just plain sucked, was possessed by demons. take your pick. there was no ‘things went right’ there.
Their firstbaseman got hurt 2 days before the season started and was out all year. Despite a fine rookie campaign from Ike, this did mess things up.
Francoeur reverted to Francoeur. Predictable? probably. Manuel kept playing him anyway.
Jerry Manuel.
Barajas, a decent C option that many preferred to Molina or anyone else, dropped off a cliff to the point that we’d have been better off with him pitching to Ollie than vice versa.
K-Rod got hurt and missed the end of the season.
Castillo, for whatever you feel about him, was the best 2B on the team last year and developed a bone bruise on Opening DAy in his foot hustling down the line.
Wright had more power, but still had a down year.
Positives? Sure.
Dickey was perhaps the best FA pick up, pitching wise, last season. without a doubt if you factor in cost. Pelfrey had a great first half, although he did slump real real hard at the worst time. Niese was pretty damn good for a rookie, and really when he hit the wall it was well after the Mets were out of it. These things don’t overcome the negatives.
Very little has gone right for two years. But given the current state of the teamt, I don’t think the things that need to go right to be successful are long shots. I don’t think it’s a long shot for Beltran to hit the ball, for Reyes to be better than last year, for D ickey to have a good year, for Niese to improve with a yaer under his belt. etc. I think just swapping Jerry for Terry last year puts us over .500, and I think we’re a better team this year.
Prismo
2/7/2011-10:09am at 10:09 am (UTC -4)
Ceetar, for the most part this is a very logical post from you. However, you seem to have left out/forgotten Johan! He gave us 29 starts last season, and we’ll be lucky to get 10+ starts this year.
TRS86
2/7/2011-10:39am at 10:39 am (UTC -4)
Luckily for us this year and unfortunate for last is that they only won less than half of those 29 starts that Johan pitched in.
Prismo
2/7/2011-10:45am at 10:45 am (UTC -4)
His ERA was 2.98, regardless of how many wins the offense failed to get him in 2010, that’s a lot of pitching production to be missing out on.
TRS86
2/7/2011-10:57am at 10:57 am (UTC -4)
Right but my point is that hopefully with an improved offense a guy like Chris Young or Cap can replace those wins. Regardless of how well he pitched we did not win but 14/29 starts. I feel confident that if the Mets offense is better then another pitcher can win that many as well.
Prismo
2/7/2011-10:48am at 10:48 am (UTC -4)
In 18 of his starts last season he gave up less than 3 runs. The team only won 12 of those games.
metsfan4decades
2/7/2011-11:29am at 11:29 am (UTC -4)
Wish is just crazy, to be sure.
Johan was probably thinking along the lines ‘am I ever going to get any run support’?
Then again, he wasn’t the lone pitcher to be hampered by run support. Think Dickey had that same problem for his first several starts.
Ceetar
2/7/2011-11:13am at 11:13 am (UTC -4)
yeah. Johan. The big depression point. I’m hoping the twho spots of Johan/Maine/Perez/junk5thguy can be approximated by Young/Cap/etc if only via overperforming the Maine/Perez/junk angle. So while our ‘Ace’ level isn’t as high, or ‘Joker’ level isn’t as low and it balances out.
plus I truly believe the offense will be explosive this year and win all those games Johan lost 2-1 3-2 1-0 by like 7-4 6-5, etc
metsfan4decades
2/7/2011-11:30am at 11:30 am (UTC -4)
Mets lost 30 one run games last year. Think about that. If just half of them were won, the perception of the season would have been far better.
Ceetar
2/7/2011-11:40am at 11:40 am (UTC -4)
And they were crap on the road. imo, it’s easier to manage at home, but jerry was a poor manager, and it showed when he had to manage close games, or games on the road.
Prismo
2/7/2011-11:44am at 11:44 am (UTC -4)
“Jerry was a poor manager, and it showed when he had to manage.”
metsfan4decades
2/7/2011-12:03pm at 12:03 pm (UTC -4)
hahaha!
stickguy
2/7/2011-12:25pm at 12:25 pm (UTC -4)
I decided to review my prediction. I originally said that Jerry to Collins was worth 5 mins. I am now upping that to 10.
+ 10 for manager/GM change (since I have hpe for an intelligent move at the deadline now)
+3 for a better bench
+5 for more normal full seasons from beltran and Reyes, + some rebound by Bay
-6 for missing Johan
+4 for no Maine/ollie
-4 because I don’t think they will win 95 games!
QED: 91 wins, hopefully that is enough for the playoffs.
metsfan4decades
2/7/2011-12:35pm at 12:35 pm (UTC -4)
I like your thinking!
stickguy
2/7/2011-12:51pm at 12:51 pm (UTC -4)
I am going with the concept that Jerry was responsible for most of the bad, the rest due to guys missing too many games.
so, if they can get a reasonable amount of helath (translating to games palyed), combined with (other than Johan) what appears to be a much better overall team, I see a lot more wins led by someone who isn’t Jerry.
the last 2 years were the anomoly I hope, and I don’t see a reason to expect a repeat.
metsfan4decades
2/7/2011-1:04pm at 1:04 pm (UTC -4)
According to Ruben on his weekly chat last week, he’s got the Mets winning 80 – which we all know is only one more than last year.
Managers aside, he either thinks the pitching is going to be far worse than some of us do, and/or he doesn’t see the position players rebounding from injury type years last year.
Or…worst case scenario, IMO, is no matter how good they may be playing he sees both Beltran and Reyes gone by mid season.
I really couldn’t say what his mindset was on that 80 prediction b/c it was a chat answer so he didn’t expand on it.
On that note, Sherman has Reyes as good as gone, probably mid season:
http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/hardball/up_jeter_reyes_yankees_bench_mpMRIveX9mZ93Hun726kSK
(see #2 on his post)
stickguy
2/7/2011-1:33pm at 1:33 pm (UTC -4)
I think, at least latey, SOP is to assume the absolute worst case for the Mets, then knock it back a little more just to be safe! IOW, everything will go wrong, nothing every right.
Just seems this happens much more to the mets than other teams.
oleosmirf
2/7/2011-10:40am at 10:40 am (UTC -4)
I agree with everything you said although its very hard to just blow over the past 2 seasons as an anomaly. I can believe Reyes and Beltran were solely based on injury but Wright is not as good as he was 3-5 years ago and Bay was a complete mess and the only real excuse I can think of is Howard Johnson and/or the myth of Citi field.
Ceetar
2/7/2011-11:10am at 11:10 am (UTC -4)
But I also feel you can’t take the anomaly, whether it was or not, and make it the rule. It may be the crux of the season even. How much was anomaly and bad luck, and how much was decline or just general suckitude. I like it for bad luck and bad breaks, but i’m not right _all_ the time..