4
2010
Abandon All Hope?
An article by Russell Zanca
Must We Really “Abandon All Hope”?
Easter greetings to Metsdom! It is Season’s Eve this glorious Easter Sunday, and none of us isn’t excited for our Mets despite what our baseball sense may be telling us.
Here’s to 2010 being as unexpectedly wonderful as 2009 was crushingly unexpected!
Well, imagine my good feelings being squelched this morning when I leafed through the Times Sports section to find George Vecsey’s column, telling Mets fans to abandon all hope in Dante’s classic sense from the Inferno. Not the kind of literary invocation any of us needs before the 2010 MLB season has started.
The columnist doesn’t really share any gloomily original thoughts, but affirms what a lot of us have been arguing about on MMO since February: the pitching staff is a shambles before we even run out of the gates. Those of us, myself included, who can’t stomach gloomy predictions, prefer to see the pitching staff as a big question mark.
Vecsey points out that no serious fan can really argue that the Mets went out in the offseason to address the glaring weaknesses of the starting rotation. Well, we knew that, too. He simply doesn’t think we can compete seriously w/ the Phils and Braves if we really cannot define our #2. Hard to argue unless #s 3, 4, and 5 prove incredible.
Furthermore, he seems very skeptical of a big core-led comeback, even with the addition of folk like Bay and Francoeur. He makes fun of us for starting the season w/ Pagan and Mathews Jr. in center, doubts Reyes may ever really become what he once was, and sees the latest injury to Murphy as more of that horrible Mets luck continuing.
He talks about good guys like Cora and Tatis, but the implication is they are talentless in terms to compete in our division when you consider who the Braves and Phils have. He goes one biting step further by declaring that those good bench guys on the Mets are “Queens people.” In other words, good enough to play for a franchise and team in Queens that may be beloved but ultimately inept.
It’s hard for me to be mad at Vecsey, mainly because he’s pointing out what most of us know and can see, but, still, on Easter Sunday and on the day before the 2010 Adventure is set to begin?
We all know only too well that we have an Everest to climb this season. Our expectations are far from grand, but we are looking for improvements, and that alone should give us some cause to enjoy 2010 barring terrible play and more unforeseen injuries.
True, the roster moves of late are making us scratch our heads and swear uncontrollably, but God knows I am not and never will abandoning all hope.
Let’s Go Mets, 2010!
About the Author: Russell Zanca
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I’ll never abandon all hope, but this yeay i am hopeing for the best but bracing myself for the worst. After the back to back collapses and the injury that was the 09 season, what more can we handle at this point? True the Mets didnt address the one key hole in the starting rotation, but I along with alot of other people am hopeing and praying that “thoes oher 4 guys” can step up and show they are were they are suppose to be.
lets go Mets
Unfortunately Jerry is simply shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Meanwhile, some of the best chairs are still in the storage locker.
If we abandoned all hope we wouldn’t be Mets fans. I think we’re used to this already…
85 wins, thats my goal for this season! Hey, its a start in a right direction, right?
You just got to hope that three of the starters have good seasons and the offense is very good. That is very possible. That should carry us to be respectable (85 wins). So in this scenario there is hope.
i think Vecsey is a very good writer and a sane/sober/professional, but i disagree with his ‘Inferno-esque’ prognostications for the Mets this year.
IF we remain healthy AND the pitching performs up to our now subdued expectations (Santana, 18 wins; Pelfrey, 14; Niese, 12; Maine 8; Perez, 5; Takahashi 7–we’re an 82 – 84 win team.
And perhaps more, if we get 8 – 10 wins from Ollie; 10 – 12 from Maine—WHO knows?
Baseball is a crazy, delicious, unpredictable, game. That’s why we love it. LETS GO METS!
As long as Jerry Manuel is running this ship (into the proverbial iceberg no less), there can’t be much hope for the 2010 season. He has proven time and again he can handle the media, but can’t manage a rotation, bullpen, or bench. I mean, seriously, he’s all but said ALREADY that there are no set bullpen roles going into the season. So that means we could see Sean Green in the 8th inning this week trying to get out Adam Dunn with his new submarine delivery and then watch Pedro Feliciano in the 8th trying to get out Ryan Zimmerman. I guess what I’m saying is the season hasn’t started and already the pitching is in chaos. The #3 starter is now #5, the #5 is now #3, the #2 is now #4 and the #4 is now #2, no set-up man in the bullpen and who knows who pitches the 6th-7th innings!!!! UNBELIEVEABLE for a team that ‘fancies’ itself a contender to have this kind of utter dysfunction over it’s most vital key to contending. But, these are our Mets.
That’s a pretty good summary of the current state of affairs in Metdom. Strange but it sounds very much like the old Abbott and Costello skit “Who’s on first?”. Who’s on first, What’s on second, Yesterday’s on 3rd and coming in from the bullpen it’s Tommorra.
Be advised, I am not panicking. That being said, a five hundred finish this season seems to me as totally unrealistic with this horrible roster. Just look at the opening day line-up. Cora and Castillo are your first two hitters? And later on in the line-up we get to see such well rounded professional hitters as Mike Jacobs and Rod Barajas. Factor in the pitcher and we’ve got five wasted spots in the line-up right off the bat. But the “baseball through rose-colored glasses” fan will say, “yes but Reyes will be back soon, and then Beltran”. So what? Don’t expect to see them come charging into Citi Field like General MacArthur. The old Reyes may be gone, and Beltran’s contribution for this season is a complete unknown. Asking them to carry this team is unrealistic, especially when you realize that the horrendous pitching will undermine anything the offense does. Even if we do score runs, how are we supposed to keep the opposition from scoring more? We’ve got some pretty bad starters, and we are stuck with them, because Omar has given us no options. The bullpen is a complete joke, Sean Green? Igarashi? Mejia? No 8th inning relief ace? Oh I forgot, Escobar, Igarashi, or Kiko Calero will handle that role. Oh really? Good job Omar, you moron. I feel real comfortable with this bullpen doing the job when you have Maine bailing in the fifth inning, or Ollie P bailing in the third, and we are depending on these guys getting the ball to Frankie? And it really doesn’t matter who the manager is right now, as long as Omar is running things this team will continue to be an ill conceived mess without any kind of plan or guidance. All we can hope for is what will actually happen, the Mets will start the season 2 – 11, then 5 – 21, then get the record all the way up to 14 – 29, by mid-May when Jerry and that idiot Omar will finally be fired. Then perhaps we can get a real GM like Kevin Towers to try and straighten this mess out.
My hope is that Ike Davis and Fernando Martinez get to develop their skills up here this season. I think this year is going to be average at best, so let’s get them up here to make all their rookie mistakes, and perhaps we can contend with them next year, when we have a new GM and manager, and hopefully a few solid new starters in the rotation. Otherwise they will probably be weak links next year and we will have to wait that much longer for contention. Oh, and send Mejia down, where he can start. That is my hope. Hope springs eternal. I am not optimistic that my wishes will come true, though, not with the clown-school front office that we presently have.
i continue to think, based on our ‘normalized’ roster (i.e., Reyes & Beltran) that we are, in a range, an 80 – 85 win team. IF healthy, no worse than 80 wins and MAYBE a few wins on the upside of the range, BUT many thins have to break better than anticipated for us to achieve more than 84 – 85 wins. And why can’t Reyes turning ’27′ be ‘his old self’? What’s the ‘reach’ on that, again IF he’s healthy?
And if Ike comes up and plays this year, that means Murphy and/or Jacobs are busts. Okay, fine. But if F-Mart comes up and plays, that means Beltran and/or Francouer are hurt (or traded by the July deadline) and our season would, most likely, be a ‘work-in-progress’.
Which might be fine, getting new blood in and building for the future. i can buy in to that.
Otherwise, we are credible and competitive this year and Ike and F-Mart ripen in AAA, burst onto the scene with us next year, or one of them is packaged in a deal for a solid starter.
And i also hope that Mejia goes down to AAA and develops as a starter.
George Vecsey is a pretty smart guy with access to players, coaches and front office personnel. He can and does make errors in judgment but I don’t think his views are totally baloney. He likely carries his views with more conviction than warranted. In short, he goes overboard a bit.
So to George: You’re probably mostly correct but your opinion is jaded with New York Times ennui and Yankees exposure. Get back to Queens where you grew up and where the working stiffs are, my friend.
If…or should I say WHEN Jerry Manuel struggles….say it with me Mets fans…W-A-L-L-L-Y B-A-C-K-M-A-N. There’s a heck of a reason why the front office gave him the backyard single A manager position.
[...] Russell Zanca: “Well, imagine my good feelings being squelched this morning when I leafed through the Times Sports section to find George Vecsey’s column, telling Mets fans to abandon all hope in Dante’s classic sense from the Inferno. Not the kind of literary invocation any of us needs before the 2010 MLB season has started. The columnist doesn’t really share any gloomily original thoughts, but affirms what a lot of us have been arguing about on MMO since February: the pitching staff is a shambles before we even run out of the gates.” [...]