18
2012
Morning Grind: There’s Still A Lot Of Baseball Left
An article by 
Throughout this five game losing streak, there has been a tsunami of negativity following what was a very exciting and positive first half for the New York Mets. Yes they are in a rut in what is an awful time to do so, but that doesn’t mean in any way, shape or form that the Amazin’s are out of this race in 2012.
Last night was a pitiful, backbreaking loss. After Niese’s excellent start, Valdespin and Thole’s clutch knocks and the team in general working their tails off, the bullpen blows the game yet again. The Mets are now two games over .500, right on the brink. The last time they were only a pari of games over the .500 mark was May 19th in Toronto nearly two months ago.
However, even if the Mets get swept in this series against the Nationals, there are still 70 games left to play in 2012 after that. 44% of the season is still yet to be played, a stretch of 3% of a season worth of losses this past week hurts, but it is still just five games out of a very long 162-game season. These five games have not killed this year’s chances for the Mets. Don’t get me wrong, if they continue on this course, this will not be the case two weeks from now, they have got to pick it up.
Despite the loss, the Amazin’s showed signs that they indeed are returning to form. Jon Niese’s start was a MUCH needed performance out of the starting pitching, especially now that the Mets have a 41-year old washout going on Saturday against the Dodgers. The offense came to life once they got away from the lefty starter Ross Detwiler. Really the only part of the puzzle that wasn’t there was the bullpen, and that puzzle piece has been nowhere to be found all year. Perhaps Alderson should bring in some guys NOW to help NOW instead of kicking the tires on guys like K-Rod, who he knows he isn’t going to acquire.
This team has gone through ebbs and flows all year, and every time they get into a three or four game skid, they comeback and go on a win streak, so who’s to say it won’t happen again?
Nobody thought anything of the 2012 New York Mets when spring began. Reyes, Beltran and K-Rod were gone. Johan Santana was looking unreliable with his fragile shoulder. Wright was coming off an awful, injury riddled season. Many saw this team as easily last place, possibly with over 100 losses. Yet with resurgent years by Wright and Santana, an unprecidented season out of R.A. Dickey and a batch of AAAA players and homegrown farmhands behind them, this team has given us one hell of a ride so far. Why is it that since they hit a rough spot now that the sun is suddenly setting on this CInderella story?
The answer is simply that it is not. The Mets are a different team in 2012. You’ve heard the reasons why 1,000 times, but it’s true. They have surpassed any of our wildest aspirations for them, defying what conventional wisdom says about a team like these 2012 Mets. They have fought this hard to get to where they are now by overcoming tough stretches before.
Just because they hit a rough patch like they have in recent years when the bottom dropped out in 2011 and 2010, does that mean they are destined for the same thing this season? Maybe there’s more to this ballclub than many of you think, and hopefully the next few weeks will prove that to any whose faith has been shaken because of a string of five losses.
…Ya Gotta Believe my friends, Ya Gotta Believe.
About the Author: Clayton Collier
Clayton, a Long Island native and die-hard Mets fan, started writing online about three years ago. He is currently a Journalism major with a minor in Broadcasting at Seton Hall University. Although very disappointed with the current state of the team, Clayton remains hopeful that the young prospects in the farm system will bring the Mets back to a respected franchise in baseball once again. Besides writing for MMO, Clayton is also a staff member at 89.5 WSOU, Seton Hall's modern active rock radio station. You can contact Clayton by following him on Twitter: @Clayton_Collier or E-mailing him at MaybeNextYearMets@yahoo.com
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 23 | 18 | .561 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 19 | .548 | 0.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 23 | .465 | 4.0 |
| Mets | 16 | 24 | .400 | 6.5 |
| Marlins | 11 | 31 | .262 | 12.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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Clayton, i LOVE your optimism. as a fan of this team even when they’ve sucked i have found myself rooting for them.. But it’s hard to convice an arrogant, way past his prime with 7 straight losing season GM to believe in them.. Had he believed in them, he would’ve acquired some help already, instead, he will not have to “duquette” his way on this team… It’s amazing how little he cares as a GM… Sabotage from the beginning of the season, funny, i was right all along…
Frustrating. But I take solace in the obvious spirit and heart of this team.
Can Valdespin play CF? Let’s give this kid a shot at starting several games in a row in CF.
And! My God! Can someone please explain to me why Rony Cednao starts over Daniel Murphy the day after an off day?
I’m curious abut something, if Met brass went to Daniel Murphy and said, “Het Murph we need more power from you.” Could Murphy as do that? I think he could.
As a Met fan, I’m not going anywhere. Saw a handful of folks last night after the loss that said they were checking out for the season. Can’t help but wonder if they’re just casual fans or really can’t stand losing to any extent.
This BP is awful, no doubt about it. Improvements must be made. My sanity demands it.
Even with that horrible BP this game should have never went to extras. Twice Bay failed in a big spot which would have resulted in at least 2 more runs, if not more. Torres being called out at first also cost a run. But shoulda, woulda, coulda doesn’t win games.
Yeah, you’re right.. LEt’s blame it on jason bay… Look, the guy sucks, we get that, but VALDESPIN put us ahead, parnell and that horrible game calling catcher josh thole costs us the win in the 9th inning, then byrdak and beato… Case closed… But of course, you wanna put it on Bay… Guess what, wright had an Opp to give us a cushion after the thole double, yet he once again, FAILED to come trough, let’s put some blame on him as well shall we?
BULLPEN, BULLPEN, BULLPEN…. That horrendous bullpen sandy put together over the offseason is what’s costing us MANY GAMES..
Blame ‘it’?
Yup, the BP sucks.
I mentioned Jason Bay as a piece in the overall failure last night. Is that factually wrong? No.
I’m saying if Bay got it done even one of the two times he had the opportunity very likely the game doesn’t go into extras and we win it in 9. And very likely we don’t have to see some of those faces of failure coming out of the BP.
Just get used to watching this same scenario night after night with him in the lineup.
I’m just curious how did Thole game calling cost us. A fastball there was the right call. Parnell just tries to throw it threw a wall instead of locating it. Isn’t there a girls softball team you can root for. Your a poor excuse for a fan always negative
Did anyone hear Beato throwing Thole under the bus on the post game last night? That kid has no room to talk. He crossed Thole up on that wild pitch or just totally disregarded what Thole put the sign down for. Look at the way Thole was set up and look at the pitch Beato threw.
We don’t need attitudes like that in the BP. Got enough problems there.
Clayton: Everybody is going to start abandoning ship. Here are the facts.
-99% of Mets fans didn’t even expect a game on July 17th, 2012 to matter.
-This team had almost everything go their way in the 1st half
-Weaknesses of a ballclub start to show as you play more games
-David Wright carried this offense for the 1st half with occasional help from Tejada and Murphy.
-In 2011, MLB had 3 teams that looked to be over achievers. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Arizona. Two of those teams faltered in the 2nd half. 1 of them in particular gave up a big prospect package for a SP who didn’t help them at all.
The truth of the matter is, everybody can and will point to the bullpen. The bullpen is weak right now but there are so many other holes.
-The Mets are getting almost 0 everyday/consistent production out of their outfield.
-Their 1B is still making an out over 70% of the time.
-Their top two SP’s have had nothing but good luck, logic dictates the ball will bounce the other way
-Their starting C doesn’t make up for his lack of offense by “calling a good game.”
There are more problems than what “getting Broxton” or getting X at the deadline can fix.
What people who complain are doing is trying to pretend everything wrong with a baseball team can be fixed overnight. It cannot.
Getting different bullpen arms in the winter wouldn’t have made Davis, Duda, Torres, Kirk, Bay, Thole better hitters. It wouldn’t have made Gee’s arm not go numb, it wouldn’t have stopped Santana and Dickey from getting attacked early in their last few outings.
People circle the bullpen because it’s easy. It’s their last memory. But the truth is when you have a big league roster of more experienced players who do not hold up their end of the bargain… you’re going to see more problems in the 2nd half.
If somebody can tell me how “Sandy getting off his butt” to get a guy like Broxton would have turned Thole, Torres, Duda, Kirk, Bay, Ike around?
Those hitters are hitting a combined .237.
You can’t have an offense where only 1 or 2 guys performs and carries the team. As bad as Murph has been at times, he, Tejada and Wright are the only positives in the lineup.
What would Broxton do to fix that?
I just don’t think people understand the impact of the new wildcard and how that is going to slow the trade market to a stand still. People are mad at the Mets for not getting someone yet, when there has been little to no movement yet to start with. Besides that, if we are at 2-4 games above .500 and are pissed that our GM hasn’t gotten us an available reliever then that means in the NL there are only 4 teams who consider themselves out of it and only 3 teams in the AL.
Basically the MLB killed the trade deadline frenzy with two of it’s moves this year, getting rid of draft pick compensation for the acquiring team and the 2nd wild card? Doom for big name guys being traded. So basically the only thing Sandy most likely could even do is something that people would criticize anyway.
Your assuming that a big name is the only trade that can be made or that can help a team.
A problem common with armchair GMs who use ESPN as thier only scouting source.
We don’t need big names we need Bullpen.
How fast you all forget….July 4 2010, 2 whole years, the severely injured overachieving New York Mets sat at 46-36, a place higher than this team ever achieved. Everyone talked about the great hustle, attitude etc of this team that was overachieving. Then just like now,, but for different reasons, the GM did nothing and watched the team collapse. Then, the GM had his hands tied, now the GM is incompetent playing in a game run by young men with modern ideas vice the ideas that worked 2 decades ago based on cheating players. The future is bleak.
question for you. If in 2010 the GM had his hands tied, why assume that has not been the case since then?
Because the 2010 GM didn’t cut 55 mil from the payroll in the name of payroll flexability in order to be able to make moves!
How do we know the Wilpons aren’t holding him back?
Sandy Said so! He said we were buyers!
But he should know that until you actually buy something your merely a browser!
Omar also said that he was not restricted. Hence the question, why assume differently now? Still the same owners.
Guys, according to jesseP and his article….
Bullpen is not as bad as it seems. Believe !!! (Roll eyes)
Once again, please do not talk about me or my posts and then say you wish to be ignored or you never comment on my posts.
You can’t have it both ways.
Yesterday was 1 game. And if you actually read what I wrote, my point was they are not “the worst.” I didn’t say they were good… ever.
I said comparing them to the NL they are better than roughly 6 other bullpens in the NL while others (such as you) point at the guys like Rauch, Ramirez, Byrdak, Francisco and claim they are “the worst in baseball.”
That was the point of my post.
And again I will re-iterate. Having KRod would make them barely any better than they are now, their problem is they have no shut down relievers and their minor leaguers have provided absolutely no help.
That’s the problem.
They are below average, as I pointed out. They are simply not, the worst.
Go read what people say rather than seeing subjects and looking for ways to distort the things said to fit your agenda.
HOW CAN AN AUTHOR IN THIS BLOG, WRITE A POST DEFENDING THE BULLPEN, THEN GET OFFENDED IF SOMEONE SAYS TO HIM: GUESS THE BULLPEN MADE YOU LOOK SILLY”
You’re a pathetic person jesseP, yesterday you engage in conversation with you and today because i am calling your crappy post out you’re gonna pretend like ohhh, ignore me blah blah blah, F*** you, you weasel POS, the bullpen sucks, just as your articles, everyone in here had posted articles about how the bullpen was THAT bad, yet instead on commenting on articles made by fellow writters of the staff, you weasel your way into a post just because you also like to get comments and hits on your article, i will expose you truly so everyone can see the weasel and the snake that you are…
“F*** you, you weasel POS”
Ah yes, the place where the civil come to interact.
Alex – This is where you lose any sort of ground you may have when you complain about others.
You are the one that says you want people to ignore you. You are the one that says you do not comment on some blogs such as mine.
You cannot cry wolf every time somebody talks to you and claim they are “baiting you” and then respond the way you did.
There is nothing I can say about the NY Mets as a fan that should allow you to come here and say “You’re a pathetic person jesseP, yesterday you engage in conversation with you and today because i am calling your crappy post out you’re gonna pretend like ohhh, ignore me blah blah blah, F*** you, you weasel POS, the bullpen sucks, just as your articles”
Nothing. Your reply is classless and speaks directly to your character and involvement on this website.
I comment on almost every single post written on this site, so for you to come here and make things up is without merit.
You think *I* am a problem on this site and that *I* do the writers wrong?
I can guarantee you that your entire post above does more to tick other writers off than anything I write about in my blog posts.
There are 70 games left and if they just play .500 do you know what our record will be?
Same as it was last year!
Considering I had them pegged for 74 wins going in, that would be better than I predicted. .-)
It just goes back to what I have been saying..This team is pretty much the same as it was last year with the exception of Dickey going 12-1 compared to Gee going 7-0 plus the fall of the Phillies from grace and into the cellar instead of running away with the division like they did last year!
If the Phillies played the same as they did last year we would be roughly 9-12 games out of the Division and maybe 6-8 games out of the Wildcard.
We didn’t really improve all that much, have stayed almost in place while the rest of the division got worse around us!
Which goes back to what I was saying last July and the offseason. We made this team worse than it should have been by going into rebuild mode at a time where the rest of the division was vulnerable and just a little help could have made this team even better than people think it was before this 5 game slide!
My prediction of 74 wins going in was mostly b/c of the SP.
Had no idea what we would get out of Johan, if anything at all.
Expected Dickey to be solid.
Wasn’t sure if Niese would show more consistency this season.
Expected Pelf to just give us more of the same of what we had already witnessed.
Gee was a serviceable 5th starter.
Comparing that to the other 4 NL east team’s starting rotation and the Mets just looked like they would come up short on paper.
Didn’t we have a losing record last year?
They were 77-85 last year. Should the Mets go .500 for the rest of the season, that would be 82-80, 5 games better than 2011.
Metsie, i think you’re math is off no????
Mets were 78-84 last year, they are 46-44 this year, if they go 500 the rest of the way, it means they’ll finish 82-80 no??
Yes I was a little off…Hadn’t had my first cup yet! LOL
I was going by Clayton’s 70 games….
70 divided by 2 is 35 plus 46 would be 81 games. 4 games better than last year which to me is pretty much the same!
Keep in mind they have to play .500 to get those extra 4 games….
And we have replaced Gee with Batista so you know how hard .500 is going to be to maintain!
Nice post Clayton. You could of simply posted the title and left everything else blank and that would be all that needed be said. Can’t say I’m surprised to see some of the reactions I’ve seen to this 5 game losing streak. It is what it is I guess. It’s not like the Mets don’t have a history of bad 2nd halves but considering the Mets despite their flaws have scratched and clawed and fought for every win they had this season I take into account your post title to see how they will approach the rest of the season.
Clayton I don’t take a lot of issue with what you said it does appear that the fans around here seem to go from feast to famine whenever we lose a game.
ANyone who has actually been paying attention should have expected this, the only reason we have the record we have so far is we caught the Braves when they were missing a few players at the start of the season and swept them. We have lost every series we played them since.
Washington has beat us all year long! All anyone had to do was look at our schedule and know there were going to be some dark times ahead!
I even alluded to this in the BOLD PREDICTION thread.
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2012/07/4-bolder-predictions-for-the-new-york-mets-in-the-second-half-of-the-season.html
I Quote:
“3 – The Mets will look like they are falling out of the race and appear out of it on the first week of August where things will start to pickup and they play thier way back into the race by the end of September. Starting to day until August 7th they play thier toughest stretch of games in the entire season against teams and away who are all formidable playoff opponents. @Atlanta (3 games),Washington (3@3H), a now healthy Dodgers (3H), @Arizona (4), and @Giants (4). Thats followed by 3 @SD which could be a tough seies at the end of a very long WC Road trip.”
Atlanta has owned us for a decade, Washington has owned us all season, The Dodgers are healthy again and will not be the shutoutable pushovers they were the last time we met. Arizona has a knack for putting us out of the playoffs for good and if we have a really bad road trip we may be so beat down by the time we hit SD that they too can beat us!
But Fans have to get off the damn emotional roller coaster.
Either you think they are good enough and that Sandy did a good enough job to win something or you don’t!
Just as it is time for Sandy it is time for Mets fans to $#!T or get off the pot!
Take a stand and stick with it!
If you think this team has a chance stop trying to make excuses for the Bullpen that is hurting it.
If you think this team is terrible well tell us all what you think needs to be done without costing us Wheeler and Harvey! Cause they are not the problem and could just be the solution!
It doesn’t matter if we win this year or not. Consider this your 1984-85!
Has a lot of fight and gusto but not enough gas and ammo to blow people away!
Only solution is to get those guys, Get that Gary Carter.
And then next year will get you what our crappy bullpen can’t get you today!
Optimistic Mets fans are in denial. Sandy Anderson gave the season away when he announced that Batista would pitch against Dodgers next Sat. Prepare for walks, walks, and home runs. He also signaled the hopelessness when he clings onto Jason Bay. See quotes in NY Times today. Bay is an automatic out, even against lefties. Send him back to the minors and give us any right handed rookie.This bullpen he constructed is the worst in memory, more blown saves than any team in last 20 years already. You have to be crazy to go along with Anderson’s fantasies. The message to him should be: Do something bold now, give us the rookies if necessary, be honest with us and we can then suffer with a clear head.
I’d love to send Bay back to the minors. Too bad the rules forbid that.