You were close Clayton and made some good points but not all are what I would say I Agree with.

1 – Starting Pitching – The issue isn’t so much a prediction on Santana, Santana can go either way and until we see what we got it’s not the main problem with the SPs. There is actually hope here that the SPs will be better if Niese can take another step in his development and Gee remember what got him into the rotation. What the main concern is unless Niese does take that step and maybe one or two more that we at best even if Santana is the Ace he used to be is that we have only ONE ace and that is never enough to compete in the NL East. None of us are pessimistic because of that or disappointed because there was really nothing that could have been done in this area by Sandy even if he had the money! CJ Wilson was the top pitcher available and thats not really what I would call Ace!

2 – Bullpen – This was the FOCUS of the offseason and yet it is STILL worse than the one we started with last year which was Attempt #1 to rebuild that Pen! If he did that good of a job without payroll restraints in 2011 rebuilding the Bullpen why should we expect him to have finally gotten it right with LESS money?

3 – Offense – you were dead on here! We lost the catalyst of the Offense and the leading RBI man who led the team with only half a season of accrued stats!

4 – Josh Thole – He is a MLB catcher (his check says so!) what he isn’t is Piazza and truth is No catcher today IS Piazza! Thole could be another LoDuca who has a Career .286 BA compared to Thole’s .276 career numbers in only 3 years! Is he defensively challenged? Maybe but his numbers include catching a Knuckleballer and all those runners who stole off the LOST IN SPACE Pelfrey who ignored them like an Ex Girlfriend at a Party!

5 – Ike Davis – Is one of the few bright spots on this team. Will he give us what we have seen so far? Well the issue really is here , If he does NOT how much is due to him being rusty and how much is due to not having Beltran in the lineup to see better pitches? Or Reyes on base to take up the room that will now be used to pitch around and even walk intentionally to dispatch him?

6 – Murphy – pretty much spot on here. I love his Bat I love his FIRE but it’s useless unless it has a home that does not take away from it! Murphy could be the LEADER this team has sorely needed but you can’t lead when your the one booting routine grounders in a position your not entirely suited for! Personally I think it’s moot and the play at 2B just temporary until Wright gets traded and Havens takes over while Murphy moves to 3B!

7 – Wright – Fences in the excuses are gone! And NO WAY TO WIN! If he sucks he will be traded for something probably chopped liver! If he does well he will probably be traded for Kids! The know and pessimism with Wright has very little to do with what he MIGHT or might not do, It’s all about the fact he is the next tradeable high salary player and Sandy will need to cut more in order to stem the money losing lack of attendance tide! To use a phrase so popular around here (with a little twist) “We don’t draw enough (or Win Enough) WITH Wright so why care about drawing enough or winning enough without him? The pessimism about Wright is all about what Sandy is likely to do not anything to do with what Wright himself does!

8 – Tejada – No he won’t replace Reyes’ production and probably not his fielding either. He’s not bad when you look at him on an island by himself and has some promise in the future! Lets correctly point out that he is probably the ONLY decent replacement for an All Star Sandy has made! We lose less with the glove with Tejada than we lost with the glove on Duda (who we will get to) and while the bat lost something it was more of a trade in some respects. What was once a triple will at best be a double but most likely a single!

Jason Bay – Bay was a bad signing no doubt. At the time of that signing he was one of the better candidates to go for in a very weak FA class! The pessimism here is lack of faith he will shine with the new fences, the problem is even if he does he is gone quicker that Wright is!

Torres – Sad when a throw in on a deal for a part time reliever becomes your everyday player isn’t it? Especially since a .270 hitter was not good enough to keep and is being replaced by a guy who hit .231 last year and is years older than the guy we thought was not worth keeping! Lets hope Kirk stays healthy and comes up to erase this problem.

Lucas Duda – #2 on the HOPE scale! The guy showed he can hit! can he do it for an entire year? Even if he does the problem is going to be his adventures in RF that are going to make us lose games! He has lots of power when he gets good pitches but like Ike Davis you have to wonder if the lineup protection is strong enough for that to happen? He is hardly a reason for pessimism the issue with him and Ike is what is around them will diminish thier production which some will then point to as a decline of the player and use as reasons for getting rid of them! You were pretty much spot on with the doubts but those doubts are hardly the reason we are unhappy with the state of the team! IF (which gets overused by the optimists) bay can be unloaded then Duda can move to LF where he would appear to be more suited!

Reasons you did NOT mention….

BENCH! – Well the bench last year consisted of Duda, Turner, Tejada, and on the borderline Paulino. We are pretty much left with Turner being the only .260+ hitter on the bench! Hairston is still here which doesn’t say much. Nickeas is our backup catcher! it should be noted how people complained about Omar RUSHING kids up due to his lack of bench. What do you think will happen this year? Will we rush Kirk and Havens? Harvey or Familia? Some say they are ready but they are no more ready than Pelfrey and Niese were!

Longevity – Look at this roster, how many players will be under contract in 2013 if by some miracle of god they do well? Answer a whopping THREE! Two more have options, Another 9 that will be Arb eligible. Add it up! 14 players meaning we will need to add 13 players to make a roster for 2013! And we though there was roster tunover the last two years?!!?!???!??? The Arb eligible players are estimated to cost us 36.2 Mil in 2013! Double what they are costing us in 2012! How many of those guys get traded due to money not performance? Considering that Wright, Santana and Bay are those three guaranteed players and all could be shipped off at the first sign of value what does that tell you about the LONG TERM VIEW we are supposedly so focused on?

Finances – We lost 70 mil last year WITH Reyes, Beltran and K-Rod as a draw. We cut them and others came off the books for a savings of 55 Mil. Do the math and tell me we are now going to make money even if attendance stays the same as last year! Who thinks we will draw more this year? We have solved nothing financially and may not have even saved what we THINK we saved should that attendance go lower than last year!

Minors – Well we are about to start year #2 under Sandy and so far the only thing we sem to have added was Wheeler and Nimmo! Nimmo is 18 (maybe 19 by now!) Wheeler is at least two years away! Three All Stars gone and all we got for it is two prospects one of which we would have gotten even if we had not made a single trade? I fully expect there to be BIG BUZZ in metland over whoever those comp picks we got for Reyes nets us. Will that be beacause those players are really good or because we need to justify losing an All star that should have net us a 1st round pick if only we didn’t let a team worse than us steal him away due to lack of interest!

All in all you did a pretty good job Clayton I await your OPTIMETS post. I just wanted to add tht some of us pessimists are concerned AS MUCH with the LONG TERM as the optimists claim our moves are all about!
Long term view is good but I don’t see a long term view!
The Optimets have long said that you CAN BUILD a good team cheaply using Sabermetrics. I see no sabermetrically valid signings made yet in two offseasons!

Another point that should be made about we pessimists here….
None of us are saying that Sandy and rebuilding won’t eventually lead to a better overall team!
What we are saying is it isn’t better yet! the BETTER part hasn’t started yet! We are a CHEAPER team not a better team and while being cheaper my in the future lead to being able to buikld a BETTER team none of us are going to APPLAUD the moves until such time as that BETTER TEAM is realized and signed to play for the mets for longer than a one year contract!

Just so you know no one here is down on Josh personally and we do appreciate what he does bring but considering how he’s still learning the position 3 years after coming up here we just can’t understand why he spent the first 3 years as a professional playing 1B.

I am lookiing forward to the alternate universe version to come.

and as usual, the truth is likely in the middle. And big contributions will be made by guys not even mentioned.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DTJU1bfaraQ/TJ0psiu3COI/AAAAAAAABIM/7-07RjkXqhw/s1600/RandyQuaidXOut.jpg

version of being a Mets fan