Mikey J, one of our esteemed bloggers who penned an excelent letter to MLB yesterday, emailed me a link to a NESN article that takes a shot at the recent Sports Illustrated issue which predicts that the Mets will win the World Series in 2009.
They begin by suggesting that maybe the prediction was just another April Fools gag a la Sidd Finch. A suggestion that has been echoed by Boomer and Carton this morning on WFAN.
But then it goes from some gentle ribbing into a no-holds barred attack on the makeup of the 2009 Mets or as they call us, “the 2008 Mets plus a closer”.
Isn’t the age-old saying, “Starting pitching wins championships”?
Apparently, SI has never heard that phrase. Either that, or someone forgot to mention to the magazine that after Johan Santana, the Mets’ rotation consists of John Maine, Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez and Livan Hernandez. And the only sure thing out of that group of names is that one of them (Hernandez) will be on waivers by Memorial Day.
John Maine has never reached 200 innings.
Mike Pelfrey has one major league season under his belt.
Oliver Perez still doesn’t fully understand the concept of a pitch count.
Livan Hernandez’s WHIP looks like the price of gas in Manhattan.
The author then dishes out a few more hits below the belt when he moves on from pitching to our hitting, or in his opinion, lack of it.
Maybe SI is banking on the Mets’ infamous un-clutch lineup to suddenly hit with runners in scoring position with the new setting of Citi Field.
You can read the full article here, and then kindly leave them a piece of your mind, as it’s plain to see that they have certainly lost theirs.
METS IN ‘09!
*Mets Merized Online Needs Your Help*
Nobody expected the Mets to win in’69 either.
Ya gotta believe!!!!
…and expect the unexpected, especially when every other media outlet has picked us to finish third.
I guess we should expect more hate like this from all the jealous fans of teams who werent selected to win it all by sports illust.
Who cares what they think. We have a new bullpen, a new park and a new attitude!! Go Mets!
Screw NESN!
its funny how they wont talk about the redsox rotation…
Josh Beckett is always great but he pitched under 200 innings last year and had an era of 4.03.
John Lester was probably the best pitcher on that rotation and threw 210 innings. IS COMING OFF HIS FIRST FULL ML SEASON…
Dice-K threw 167 innings last year and won 18 games, but i still dont think hes worth all the money they threw at him…
Tim wakefield 4.13 era and 180 innings pitched…. comparable numbers that livan hernandez could have…..
brad penny threw under 94 innings last year and over 6 era… enough said.
Clay buchholz after his no hitter, never was the same. era of almost 7 last year.
John Smoltz NL lifer and now has to play against AL teams all the time. will not pitch until may or june….
so why is NESN talking??? hmm…. these are very similar rotations and the NESN crew is just mad. they are different teams in different leagues but they should prob keep their mouths shut.
oh and yes, we are the “08 Mets” except this year we have 2 closers and a potentially Nasty bullpen.
and…
they should watch what they say, they are the same 2nd place team they were last year….
Neil Keefe is a bitter Yankee fan working for NESN. He ran the River Ave. Report Yankee blog. Here’s another love-piece he wrote about the Mets awhile back.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2559-meet-the-mets-baseballs-biggest-joke
Pretty transparent he thinks the Mets ‘collapse’ is worse than the Yanks blowing the 3-0 series lead for the first time in baseball history. Poor Neil can’t rip the Sox as he’s cashing their checks, he loves the Yanks, so he targets the Mets. Wahhh Neil.
Looks like being a Skankee fan and working at NESN has gotten to him…lol.
Someone change his diaper and he will be fine
I love the Mets and am very hopeful for this season, but come on people! Not one good thing can come out of this SI article and you had to expect major blowback after it was published considering how the last 2 seasons ended.
If SI gets it right that’s great, but that means nothing. But if they collapse again, people will have this to throw in our faces. Or if the season comes down to the wire again and we need some wins against the Astros, that team can staple this magazine up against the club house walls for motivation.
Neil Keefe wrote me a response from his email address. If you would like to address this article directly he can be reached at neil.keefe@gmail.com
“the 2008 Mets plus a closer”
The 2008 Mets plus a closer would have won the division by like five games.
i told them a piece of my mind there.
Red sox nation is Stupid. Actually the whole New England Fan base are Morons. (and I root for two of the teams). I live in Ct and am still astounded that I have to hear whining about Manny all day.
why does f***ing nesn care about the NL
SI picked the Angels to make the World Series, and they probably won’t even make the playoffs. So I don’t really like their Mets prediction.
You gotta love it when people go off on a team when it is clear they don’t even know that much about the team- they just go on what little they do know, plus negative things they’ve heard that they’ve come to accept as fact, and so on. I find it amazing how some people act like they know what they’re talking about, but they clearly don’t. It’s amazing the things people will say about a team, when they have their information so backwards. The comment about the only difference for the Mets’ pen being a new closer illustrates this. Sure, that’s the easy response for people to make when they really don’t know what’s going on. So many people try to act like experts, yet they don’t really have any original thoughts or personal observations they’ve made on their own. This guy clearly deserves a big roll eyes.
Nice reply goes to the poster who said that 2008 plus a closer all year long would have won the division. But again, when you’re relying on what you hear other people say, your not likely to discern these kinds of truths.
Stupid chowderheads….I have three words for them:
Bill Freaking Buckner