The Mets didn’t lose last night, but they didn’t win either and as I sat in my living pondering what to do with the evening, I figured it was time to reflect on exactly what has happened in the past two weeks.
If the Mets want to send a message to their fans and build a future, then they HAVE to sign Reyes. He wants Crawford money….give it to him. I know all about how the Mets have to rebuild and have to restock their farm system. But Reyes isthe farm system. He came out of it and it is time for the Mets pony up if they want to be players in the big leagues again.
Wright is out three more weeks…surprise, surprise. I betcha he flew all the way to Cali to find out exactly what those doctors in New York already knew, that he has a broken bone in his back that takes 6 weeks to heal.
Justine Turner is a keeper on every level.
The Mets have to realize that if there is a fan in the stands who is as passionate as the one who was booted out of the stadium Sunday night for holding up a sign that said “Sign Reyes”. Then they should really have their heads examined. Here is a fan, who consequently writes for his own website on his own dime, who attended a game and is kicked out because he wants his team to win. Yea, guys, keep kicking those fans out of games and your going to pray that those Phillie and Yankee fans fill the park when they visit Citi Field to beat up the Mets.
The Mets are three games under .500, isn’t it time for Fred to take the legs out from under them?
I like Beltran, I hate Beltran. I know he’s playing his heart out for a contract. Trade him now and if Alderson wants to, throw in K-Rod as well.
I like the way Terry Collins fights. He is becoming the driving force behind this team. If they finish with a winning record or even contend, give him Coach of the Year.
I want Derek Jeter to get his 3000 hits real soon. It would kill me to see him get in at Citi Field.
Dillion Gee can pitch.
I think the hit that Cousins gave Posey was clean.
I don’t like the fact that Larry “Chipper” Jones weighs in on what the Mets should do. Worry about your own team.
Gary Carter is my favorite player to ever play for the Mets. I have something written about him for later on this week. Right now, my heart goes out to him and his family.
I really want to see the Mets take two out of three from the Brew Crew.
16 comments
njstuckintx
6/7/2011-9:19am at 9:19 am (UTC -4)
Terry Collins may have all the drive in the world, but he plays checkers while others play chess.
Agreed on Reyes. Unfortunately, he’s hitting FA. He may re-sign with the Mets, but there is no way he doesn’t hit FA at this point. Not with every time he steps on first and then on second as he’s legging out a triple. Each step on those bases goes Ka-ching. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.
Gee is certainly a pitcher. Gritty and not scared. Un-Pelfrey-esque.
I hope Derek Jeter, sitting at 2,999 hits, runs into Aroid while trying to field a pop fly, Aroid fracturing his back and Jeter succumbing to a deep bone bruise.
Chipper has owned the Mets his whole career. Named his kid Shea. He’s probably the one you want to get a low-down from on the Mets. Flipping Chipper. >:-(
And trade Beltran for sure. Pelfrey too. Keep Krod, unless you are getting a buck and a quarter on your dollar.
kingman 26
6/7/2011-9:27am at 9:27 am (UTC -4)
I agree with just about everything in this thoughtful piece.
But Will my friend, they kicked the guy out because the purpose of his sign was to advertise his website. He was told not to hold up the sign on national TV advertising his website and he did. If he was holding a sign for Starbucks or Chase bank or Harrah’s or another competitor of Met advertisers and partners, he would have been kicked out too.
He was not there as a fan, or to support Reyes—he was there for self-promotion and free publicity.
There are plenty of ways to legitimately and strongly criticize the way the Mets do things, but this is not one of them.
metsfan4decades
6/7/2011-9:31am at 9:31 am (UTC -4)
Not resigning Reyes end of last season I feel will turn out to be the big mistake of Sandy’s first year as GM. Then again, I have no way to know if his hands were tied by the Wilpons when he was hired, b/c of the money situation. That was about the same time they borrowed some 25 MIL from MLB.
Going forward, they absolutely have to resign him.
The guy who got kicked out of the stadium for the ‘Don’t Trade Reyes’ sign was really kicked out b/c he advertised his website on that sign, not b/c of the main message of the sign. Either way, sounded like the Mets security handled that poorly. Surprise, surprise.
(You wrote ‘Sign Reyes so it’s possible we’re talking about 2 different guys.)
Jeter getting the 3000 hit at Citi…yeah I can see that. Would just be our luck.
I like Dillion Gee going back to last Sept. Still don’t understand why half the fan base had/has the mindset of ‘he’s garbage’.
I love Beltran, I love Beltran. There is no reason for me to feel any hate towards what will arguably be the best CF we’ve ever had. I’ll miss him when he’s gone.
Oh, and Sabean is an idiot. Don’t know what he is thinking.
TRS86
6/7/2011-9:38am at 9:38 am (UTC -4)
While I am a fellow blogger, I would have expected to be kicked out of the stadium if I consciously plugged my website while taking advantage of the Reyes craze. I honestly can’t think that he would be upset over being kicked out. They asked him not to do it, he did it anyway, he got kicked out….. Moving on.
I still don’t think they should have re-signed Reyes last fall. He was coming off a very pedestrian season that was either the result of injury or stubbornness. I think they had to wait until they saw what we had and what he would be going forward. It may have cost them a few million but not as much as it would have by signing him and then him being last year’s Reyes as well as injured. We also do not know if they approached him or not nor if Reyes was willing to sign a deal coming off such a poor season. If the Mets want him they can get him. Honestly, what has it cost them in the scheme of things? 3-5 million per year for 5-6 years? So over all if they re-sign him it cost them 20M to make sure they did not waste 75M. Of course you could say that now Reyes could walk away, sure he could. He however, was just as likely to walk away then as he is now.
TRS86
6/7/2011-9:42am at 9:42 am (UTC -4)
Couple of other things.
I love Carlos Beltran and will miss him greatly when he goes. So will the Mets. Trying to replace his production with Fmart or Duda
While I can’t stand them, I actually respect Chipper and Jeter. Two guys who are no doubt hall of famers who have been nothing but professionals that work hard everyday their entire career. They deserve any accolades they get and I could not care less where they get those milestones. Chipper weighing in on the Mets? who cares? That being said, he’s right.
kingman 26
6/7/2011-9:57am at 9:57 am (UTC -4)
“While I am a fellow blogger, I would have expected to be kicked out of the stadium if I consciously plugged my website while taking advantage of the Reyes craze. I honestly can’t think that he would be upset over being kicked out. They asked him not to do it, he did it anyway, he got kicked out….. Moving on.”
Wow. We totally agree on a political/economic/social issue.
I am taking the rest of the day off.
It will not get any better than this!!
stickguy
6/7/2011-9:46am at 9:46 am (UTC -4)
Collins is a nice leader of men or whatever you want to call it, but he does seem a bit challenged on the minor details of managing a game.
I think the answer is to get him the equivilant of an offensensive coordinator in football. Call him the bench coach, but let Terry get them onto the field, and let the other guy make the in game decisions!
as to Gee, I think it is just overreaction because he isn’t Tim Linci or some such. But, he gets the job done, and you have to love the way he goes about his job.
TRS86
6/7/2011-9:48am at 9:48 am (UTC -4)
I am not so sure about Collins’ in game managing ability. I have only seen a few WTF moments out of him.
stickguy
6/7/2011-9:54am at 9:54 am (UTC -4)
quite a few early on, but I have nto noticed much lately. then again, I rarely am paying attention to the game as it is going on!
metsfan4decades
6/7/2011-10:22am at 10:22 am (UTC -4)
I usually watch every inning and IMO, there have been more than just a handful of WTF moments from TC. A few were universal head scratchers (Hu PH??). Many were of the hindsight variety though so hard to fault him for that – or easy for some Met fans to say ‘He SHOULD have done such and such’.
The other night though, with the Cap at bat, pinch running Harris, trying-to-bunt-him-over-then-the-balk-thereby-sending-Thole-up-for-Cap-with-the-count 1-1 was brilliant, IMO.
metsfan4decades
6/7/2011-10:44am at 10:44 am (UTC -4)
Off topic:
May just be me, but the Twitter feed to the left was so much easier for me to read with the white type background and/or darker text.
Looks like there was a format change in the past hour or so?
This reminds me of someone……LOL.
TRS86
6/7/2011-10:50am at 10:50 am (UTC -4)
LOL, I do not know what happen. I have not changed anything.
metsfan4decades
6/7/2011-11:07am at 11:07 am (UTC -4)
That’s always the way. I swear there are Gremlins at works in my laptop at times.
metsfan4decades
6/7/2011-11:35am at 11:35 am (UTC -4)
Just an FYI…I see twitter is now back to it’s old format.
Thanking the Gremlins for leaving….
TRS86
6/7/2011-12:39pm at 12:39 pm (UTC -4)
Yeah, we had updated the plugin so I had to go back and find where to edit the code and what to change it to…
metsfan4decades
6/7/2011-1:12pm at 1:12 pm (UTC -4)
On the subject of Beltran, Joe Posnanski had this to say in his blog yesterday as he posts about watching Royal baseball back in the day:
I saw the young Carlos Beltran play baseball here. I know people think I’m a bit gaga over Beltran — and I am. But really, how often can you say that you watched a player like Beltran grow up. How many players have ever been like him? He could run like few in baseball history — in his career he has stolen 289 bases and been caught 39 times. No base stealer in baseball history has been so efficient. He could play center field like a dream — I can’t tell you how many times I saw him gracefully outrun line drives into the gap. He could hit with power from both sides of the plate. There have not been many who switch-hit with power.
In 2003, the one decent team he played on in Kansas City, Beltran hit .307/.389/.522, he stole 41 of 45 bases, he hit 10 triples and 26 home runs, he scored 102 runs and drove in 100 in just 141 games and he was an absolute marvel in centerfield. That was the year I saw him do one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen a player do. With the Royals down to Arizona 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth — and with the Royals in something resembling a pennant race — he fought off pitch after pitcher from the 100-mph throwing Matt Mantei before earning a walk. He stole second. He stole third. And he scored on a pop-up into shallow right field.
I wouldn’t say Beltran was a moody player, not exactly, but he did seem burdened by his talent and the losses. His mind would wander sometimes. His desire would flicker — or at least that’s how it looked to fans. Whatever he did, it always seemed like he could do more. As I’ve written before, he was cursed with the gift of grace.
But watching him grow up … it’s one of the sporting thrills of my life. The Royals were a bad team just about every year I wrote about them. But they had some wonderful players. I’ve written this before, but when Beltran went absolutely crazy during the 2004 playoffs for Houston — when he hit .435 with eight homers and six stolen bases in 12 games — people kept coming up to me and saying: “Well, you didn’t know he was THIS good.”
And I said: Actually, I did. i sat through a lot of bad baseball games. Carlos Beltran was my oasis.
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http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-last-royals-game-for-while.html