The World Series ended on November 4th and immediately our thoughts turned to the off-season. We can’t wait for Hot Stove baseball to start. We just have to wait fifteen days, which is the period of time each club has to offer contracts to and sign their own free agents. Those two weeks crawl by slowly as nothing is going on.
At midnight on the appointed day, November 19th, the fun will begin. I hope you didn’t wait up because nothing happened, and very little will happen over the next two additional weeks. That’s because, teams have until December 2nd to offer their free agents arbitration. We twiddle our thumbs, check out MLB Trade Rumors, Mets Blog, and MMO. We refresh our browsers every few minutes and each time there is no new news.
December 2nd arrives and passes. Finally we will get some real action that we can salivate over. Sorry, not yet. The prognosticating experts are spinning, tweeting, and putting out false rumors, so as to sell newspapers, and get more listeners and viewers. Every so often there is a signing or a trade. No matter how insignificant it may be, it is trumpeted as breaking news.
That’s enough! I’m burnt out. Please, don’t wake me until after Christmas. Or maybe I’ll sleep until pitchers and catchers report.
How many different ways can you argue the point about which starting pitchers and left fielder the Mets need. Should Murphy be our first baseman? So you state your opinion on MMO and the next thing you know you are beaten with a large stick of verbal abuse from those who think they know everything about baseball.
The incessant repetition of the same subject over and over again weakens my resolve. It reminds me of why I don’t listen to Mike Francesa – a ten minute monologue and then 5 hours and 20 minutes of rehashing the boring minutiae of each and every rumor, each and every day.
There’s not a player on the Mets that hasn’t been criticized. Poor Daniel Murphy. He’d be better off shipped out to Kansas City or somewhere like that where he will have an above average career. But as a Met, that’s not good enough. We want a star at every position. Reyes and Wright are bums, losers and chokers. Castillo is the worst player ever, even with an OBP of .380. Let’s sign Carlos Delgado. And then boo him on opening day when he goes hitless.
Trade for Adrian Gonzalez. Give the Padres whatever they want. Just get it done. Or let’s steal Prince Fielder for two unproven starting pitchers. Let’s take a big gamble on mediocre pitchers so as to compound our past errors with new errors.
We fans are purely amateurs at this game of player personnel. Omar has done a reasonably good job. He’s made some good signings and acquisitions. All his moves haven’t worked out as planned. No one gives him credit for trading for Johan Santana – he fell into his lap. Or for signing Carlos Beltran – he just outbid everyone. If we’re going to beat him up for the bad moves, we must give him credit him for the good moves.
Unfortunately, his communication skills are so pathetically weak, and this trait will eventually get him fired.
I’ll say it again. The only way the Mets can successfully compete in 2010 is if Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana are healthy, and David Wright finds his groove again. Otherwise no off season moves will make us contenders. One big free agent like Holliday, Bay or Lackey. Then a bunch of Plan B type moves. And we are in the hunt. That’s all it will take.
I’ll probably wake up at the end of next week, get something to eat, and see what has transpired. I’ll check out the MMO comments and the chat room to see who’s calling whom a moron.
And then I’ll go back to sleep.
Pitchers and catchers report on February 17th. Opening Day is Monday April 5th at CitiField against the Marlins. I’ll be there awake and ready to go.
*Mets Merized Online Needs Your Help*
I would love to see Bay, and Lackey! Healthy team and faith!
Seems to me Omar (and ownership) gets an ‘F’ for 2009; and an over-all C- since he took over. And i don’t blame him for the injury tsunamis that hit us last year, but i do blame him for standing pat and allowing all kinds of deals to get done and sitting idly by. Two deals are posters for that clueless-ness. The Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez trades. It doesn’t matter that we would not have ‘contended’ anyway and that 2009 was a ‘lost’ season: #1) the prospects given to the Indians in both trades were not overwhelming; 2) our longer term competitive position would be enhanced if we had gotten either one; 3) we’d have Lee and the Phillies would not: 4) Martinez also plays 1B.
We should have pursued both trades; its called strategic planning. And also, Omar’s now ‘infamous’ excuse about Guererro;s ‘risky’ back is a bad joke.
Bob L
You make some valid points about Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez for the future. But just because you hadn’t heard of the prospects traded for them, doesn’t mean they aren’t overwhelming and that the Indians won’t benefit in the long run. Mark Shapiro is no dummy.
For Lee they got 4 players – Triple-A right-hander Carlos Carrasco, Class A righty Jason Knapp, catcher Lou Marson — the likely heir apparent to Victor Martinez — and shortstop Jason Donald. Would you have traded Mejia, Thole, Tejada for Lee?
For Martinez they got 3 players including Justin Masterson. Would you have traded Ike Davis and others for Martinez?
Said Shapiro -”At the root of this deal was balancing the conviction of our ability to compete in 2010 with the opportunity to impact the team’s construction for years to come. Without the sense of confidence in the team’s ultimate competitiveness, we acted aggressively to add players that will impact the organization in 2010 and beyond.”
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. When your in the midst of a 92 loss season, you have to take stock and figure some things out and do what’s best for the long term.
i was aware of what the Phillies and Red Sox gave up for Lee and Martinez, respectively. My point is we could have made those trades and if we had, our needs today would be far less severe. And the Phillies would not have Lee and be on the cusp of having the best 1/2 punch in baseball..
And with all due respect, c’mon!: Cleveland’s trading of Lee and Martinez were salary dumps. Not one of the prospects obtained were the top 2 – 3 of either team surrendering them. We could’ve competed for them. And i think we should have. Our problems NOW, would not be so severe.
Bob L
Masterson has a high ceiling of a #3 starter. I checked and the catcher Marson and the pitcher Carrasco are top 50 MLB prospects.
Would you have traded Mejia, Davis and Thole?
BOB, did i miss something, i don’t remember omar involved in guerro back issue, phillips was gm ‘back’ then, or is every poor frontoffice decision ever made reverting to omar? go all the way back to seaver & ryan?
sarcasm aside, i disagree with the assumption that the price for those acwuisitions would be the same for us as the relinquising team would know how desperate our need was & could hold fast demanding more. i would, wouldn’t u?
example: if u are selling a used car & u have 2 potential buyers, one looking at it as a spare car for weekends & the other u know is desperately in need to replace his junker that broke down & can’t get him to work. which one are u more inclined to negotiate with to make that sale? the one who can easily walk away or the one who must have your car? this is called supply & demand. prices are higher when demand is greater. adding a lee or a martinez would have been nice; however not if it cost us a shot at halladay, omar only had 13m bet current payroll & luxury cap, just enough to p/u halladay’s prorated ‘09 salary if it came to that. did it happen? no; but it could have. by picking up any intermediate addition reducing buffer below an amount sufficient to p/u prorated contract it would’ve gone into impossible category. perhaps omar was too optimistic; but it’s possible wilpons wouldn’t spend more to place fourth would u? i again wouldn’t have. they’d unlikely have agreed to halladay; but if it put nym over luxury line; the answer was a definite, resounding “no way!” omar woyuldn’t be able to argue for better team in following yrs at all. with all the injuries, it is rediculous to think 1 or 2 acquisitions would’ve altered the result, not even if there names were halladay & pujols. to think otherwise is slamming your head into a solid wall of brick disappointment. bob, you’re thinking like a yankee fan, not a realistic met fan. the wilpons are rich, not filthy rich. their core business, real estate , had a worse yr than the mets in ‘09. we should be thankful they aren’t selling off like pirates,cincy,fl.
Bob L
I see what you’re saying in the Chats. You’re basically throwing out every name that comes on the market and that Omar should “swoop in” before others do. You can’t have a 30 man roster. Also all these guys are not very good.
i am not adding every non-tender guy to our list. i have particularly prioritized Capps, Carrasco, Wang for pitching. And to get Johnson if we trade Castillo; to sign Cust if we do not get Bay; and sign Atkins. Avoid Garko, unless there’s a good reaason why he had poor #s in SF; and avoid Gomes and the rest. We got rid of 4 guys last night; there’s room on the roster.
And i heartily disagree, some of these guys are as good as the earlier F/A’s. Wang is as ‘good’ a risk as Sheets, Harden, Bedard. Capps and Carrasco are both intriguing.
The Phillies’ Carrasco is not good, a power arm, like Parnell with sub-par #s; Masterson about as ‘good’ as Pelfrey. i would’ve traded Niese, Stokes, Martinez, Tejada for Lee; and Thole, Parnell, Tejada for Martinez.
And how about our NOT getting Tim Hudson from the Rangers last week?! He was traded for Chris Ray + a player to be named. Give me a break. We couldn’t have traded Parnell for Hudson??
Bob L – You mean Millwood, not Hudson.
Millwood will make $12M next year. Maybe the Mets are saving their money for Lackey??
You have to wait until hot stove is over before you judge.
Right, i slipped! Thanks. Meant Millwood. My point is the Orioles got him for ‘not much’. And, if we had some of these guys now, F/A’s would be flocking to us and not avoiding us; the Mets ‘brand’ is at a low level right now…not that attractive to the players. And that’s a shame.
i had Tejada 2x…nice trick! i meant Thole, Parnell, Mejia for Martinez. We have to give to get. Nothing’s free.
bob, at some point u need to decide if prospect depth is important or not, by trading off everyone that matures u are condemning our team to never,ever having the youth pipeline ready when we need it. here’s a realism, most non-first rounders need yrs to develop into a useful part. as we keep foregoing out first round picks, not this yr; but prior & hopfully subsequent years, the total lack of prospects is going to kill us as there won’t be any minimum salaried players on the roster to buffer all those beltrans,bays,santanas you always want. remember the luxury line moves like a glacier, not a roadrunner like actual payroll under your avaricness. repeat after me, the mets will never pay luxury taxes under wilpon ownership & the wilpons are as aggressive an ownership group as mlb ownersghip committee will allow. there is no deep pockewted white knight riding to our rescue with billions to spread cheer over countless freeagents creating a dynasty to rival nyy for dominance. our competitors control our destiny re. ownership change. do u believe they’d allow a mark cuban type to control another powerful high spending force in the largest baseball audience in the universe?
Totally agree, but honestly, its become harder and harder to root for this team. How pathetic is it that we have so little depth that we have nothing to rely on but hope and prayer for a group of pitchers that have had only one decent year amongst largely pathetic careers (Perez, Maine, Pelfrey). On top of that, we all know that as Reyes goes, so do the Mets. This guy was completely mismanaged by the Mets and I sincerely doubt that he’ll be anywhere close to his previous form by opening day (if ever!) Beltran has had knee problems for the last few years, and I don’t think is all that reliable anymore. Finally, Wright had a good statistical year, but I can’t recall the last time he had a meaningful hit with RISP. He was mostly flailing away at pitches was utterly unable to step up his game. All I know is that I am as pessimistic as I’ve ever been regarding this team and have absolutely no faith in them whatsoever.
shamik, your feelings are understandable and unfortunate. i believe one of wright’s issues w/risp deals with protection or lack thereof. no pitcher in their right mind, facing the tedious lineup jerry had available would allow wright to beat him giving david absolutly nothing good. why would they? moast games, he was THE offense available. by only getting pitcher’s pitches, wright struggled, i truly hope this gets turned back once a full lineup is back on the field.
while some schmucks who preder to be densly negative will recite “injuries are part of the game” so are storms part of life, katrina wasn’t your ordinaryu storm & the byn were hit by a katrina of injuries so devatating even bobby cox claims he’s never seen such a thing in all his yrs of mnging!
shamik don’t let the bastards get u down if u must hear positives re. our team listen to opponent’s broadcasts instead of our negative ones. hell, even sny is all neg mets all the time, i live in nc now & have residede thoughout our contry for years, 1976 i moved to nj from bklyn, staYING WITHIN METRO AREA; BUT EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY MOVED ME FARTHER STILL OUTSIDE PHILLY, FROM THERE TO GA THEN BACK TO METRO NY FOR 2 YRS BEFORE OUT WEST TO LA. NOW I’M IN NC, ATL TERRITORY ALSO CLAINMED BY CINCY & NATS SO I HAVE TO GET OPPONENT FEEDS WHEN PLAYING ANY OF THOSE 3. although their announcers are sickening ‘homers’, they still recount more positives re. our team than i ever get from nym renditions. i’m starting to believe the powers that be believe we fans are a bunch of masochists they need to abuse regularly. how else do you explain beningo, shein,carlin,tierney,etc. unless jeffy’s tryuing to oust papa by disgusting him.
Its been my experience, that when you win, the media and everyone will be just fine. What have the Mets done to deserve any praise? Three straight years of crushing collapses followed by an abortion of a baseball season. They can’t get their own new stadium right. Hell, they couldn’t even properly fire a lunatic that takes off his shirt and threatens minor leaguers! No, this team deserves every last bit of bad press, they have let fans down repeatedly throughout the years. If only we could get an owner like the Maras or Cuban, someone who doesnt refer to their team as a freaking “product on the field!”
I understand the frustration. And that is even more reason not to make moves out of desperation. If Reyes, Beltran and Wright do not have comeback seasons, we are sunk. Lee and Martinez wouldn’t help enough.
You need to trade for guys like Lee and Halladay to put you over the top. That’s what the Phillies did with Lee and what the Mets had hoped to do with Santana.
Unless the Mets make the playoffs, Omar is out after this year. We have to leave the new guy some flexibility to re-make the team.
Personally, I think that things will break our way with Reyes, Beltran and Wright. If not the team has to be gutted and rebuilt from scratch.
But Danny, we’d be in a far better position right now, IF we had both or even one of those guys.
Bob L, I agree with what you are saying. Too many opportunities have been allowed to pass us by while we had a boatload of holes to fill. If we had made just 1 or 2 smart moves during the ‘09 season, there would be a lot less work to do now. That is my pet peeve with Omar. Sitting on his hands all through the season with a ton of excuses about injuries and false stories of returning players was inexcusable to me. I am unhappy he is around to mess up another season for us. The work to start fixing is still waiting. It is now a 3 yr deal to get fixed and that’s if we make some progress this year. If nothing of substance happens and the Phils walk away with Halladay, we’re looking at 5 or more years to regain competitiveness. We are in a critical area right now and if there is no action, we are in deep trouble for the foreseeable future. We cannot let the inaction regarding Lee be compounded with more inaction or we fall further and further behind while we hear about Omar in his own sweet time.
I think we should trade the Wilpons.
Yes!
Mets62Fan is right on the money on this one. As he says it -
We have to decide “if prospect depth is important or not, by trading off everyone that matures u are condemning our team to never,ever having the youth pipeline ready when we need it. here’s a realism, most non-first rounders need yrs to develop into a useful part. as we keep foregoing out first round picks, not this yr; but prior & hopfully subsequent years, the total lack of prospects is going to kill us as there won’t be any minimum salaried players on the roster to buffer all those beltrans,bays,santanas you always want.”
Youth has to be part of the plan!
Thats exactly how the Yankees won – they have cheaper options like Melky and Cano, and some pitchers to complement all the big guns. The mets could easily do the same, however there is no vision or long-term planning in the FO whatsoever.
Met62
Explain this to me. If Wright was being pitched around all season, why did he strike out a career high 140 times – 22 to 27 more than previous 4 seasons.
And why were his walks down 22 for each of last two years.
Exactly my point, if pitchers truly wanted no part of Wright, all he had to do was keep the bat on his shoulder and take a base. Instead he was flailing around and ending innings by tossing away his helmet and bat with that same infuriating expression on his face.
shamik, that’s exactly what i’d expect from a selfish player more concerned with his own stats then team victories. say he walks, next guy does what? k or dp? how long before your crucifying him for lack of aggression or not contributing? it was a singularly lousy, unfortunate one in a milion season we should close the book on re. all participants esp wright & k-rod.first for lack of opportunity, second for lack of reg work. 2 guys who were collateral damage from the nuclear holocaust that was the mets’ 2009 campaign.
Sorry but I don’t think this team will ever be good with the current ownership. The Yankees, Phillies, Red Soxs all seem to have figured it out. Hell even the Minnesota Twins somehow manage to give their fanbase a competative, entertaining product year in and year out. Meanwhile I get the feelimg the management of this team is always fumbling around in the dark.
I LOVE baseball. Its the only sport I look foward to watching. My team is The Mets. I hate that this team has become the laughing stock of baseball.
Note to Wilpons: Stop screwing around with my team. If you have no plan to fix it SELL IT to someone who does.
tommy, i truly empathize with your feelings. the wilpons are certainly not doing us any favors; but like u, i once called for attempts to force them out; until i realized a new owner wouldn’t be one we fans preferred like perhaps a rich “winning is what matters type”; but the other major league owners would be choosing the wilpon replacement by vitue of approval needed from ownership committee. that sucks & i certainly can’t see them allowing a mark cuban type loose in ny to add another freespender to the list of nyy,bosox,laa,lad,tex; no more like a clone of pittsburgh/cincy owners selling off wright,reyes,santana,k-rod as soon as present contracts expire that which we’ve suffered 5 yrs building can likely be disassembled lighning fast.
tommy, the inmates are in charge!
You again have valid points. They clammer for Delgato to be back but will his defense be good, and will he hit like 2008. Give Murphy a chance I agree with you earlier comments on him and think that will a good line up he will produce even Hitting lefties and righties with 20 or more HRs.Its the pitching that we need to address for without good pitching (and Santana only every 5 days) we wll not be in the mix in the division.
jerry, #1 firtstbase defense will be fine w/delgado, he’s never been a mex,olerud,mattingly def wiz there; but i’m sutre he;ll maintain adequacy, what we need most out of the posiytion is poer production on a par with howarde,pujols & delgado’s the only available that can be expected to come close to it. 10-20 hr just doesn’t cut it & likely lowest firstbase power production in our div. let’s see, murph was a mid third rounder who couldn’t play defense at any position and you’re concerned over delgado’s ‘d’? personally i’d ink delgado with an insurance milb deal for jacobs if ike definitly isn’t ready. if we’re not significantly improving pitching we must focus on offensive maximization. tha’s delgado/jacobs not murphy/? for firstbase. think about it. from last openning day we’d be adding a full season of francoeur, molina,bay a full season delgado we all better hope & pray molina really can milk much more potential to actual out of pelfrey,maine,perez or this will be a very long season. w/c or bust! jeff’s taken the reins. we’re going for sudden power lineup in a designed pitcher’s park cause jeffy loves the longball. lmao! rediculous. jeff, like boras, lies!