18
2013
Wild Card? Why Not the Division!
An article by 
So, just like every recent spring, the Mets are not picked to do anything in 2013. In most cases, they are not even mentioned as being a team in the National League East, which to me is quite insulting. The so-called “experts” don’t pick the Mets to finish above .500 yet alone being mentioned for even a Wild Card spot.
Why not the Wild Card? Why not even the Division?
Yes, most people would say to me at this point ” Ok Clare, are you crazy?”. And maybe I am. But I have faith in our team and have had that faith since 1968. I saw that team in 1969 who no one picked to do anything shock the world and win it all. It had a lot of no-names at the time – Al Weis, Cal Koonce, J.C. Martin and Bobby Pfeil to name a few. It also had some good solid players who went on the great noteriety – Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Tug McGraw, Tommie Agee and my first favorite Met, Cleon Jones. We had Gil Hodges as our manager and he was the right man for the job. He led with a quiet demeanor but the players all knew he meant business.
No one believed in that team either.
I saw the 1986 Mets – picked by many to win and for the most part, had a great regular season and playoffs. But, in the World Series, they met their match in the Boston Red Sox. I’ll never forget Game Six and the feelings I had. Here we were, one strike away from losing to the Red Sox and ending the Curse of the Bambino. We would always have to carry that around and in New York, that would have been almost impossible, especially since our cross town rival Yankees would never let us live that down. But, what did the Mets do? They rallied under incredible odds to not only win that game, but win the whole thing. When Mookie’s grounder went by Buckner, it was a feeling that I have never had up to then or since.Pure elation!
No one believed in that team either.
Here we are getting ready to start the 2013 season and no one is picking us to do anything. We have a mix of young talent, proven players and veterans from other clubs. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But, you can’t look at the roster on paper and assume that the Mets have no shot at even a Wild Card. Every team has a shot; all teams are filled with major league talent. Who’s to say that Matt Harvey and Johan Santana won’t have good solid years? Can David Wright continue to be the franchise player? How about d’Arnaud – is he the real deal? I know our outfield is a little shaky, but why can’t Nieuwenhuis and Duda play well out there? Will Cowgill and Baxter get a chance? Who knows!
But, even with all the questions, we still have a team that will be worth rooting for. Maybe we will have a rebuilding year and all the critics will be correct. But, just maybe, things will all gel together this year. We could be the team no one sees coming. We could be the team that puts it all together and just plays hard and doesn’t have all the pressure that the other “contenders” have. And even if we don’t make the playoffs, it will never deter me from being a Mets fan.
My daughter, who is a Mets fan too, told me once ” Mom, when you are a Mets fan, you are true to the team. No one can stick with a team like this unless they are really a fan!”. She wears her orange and blue all the time, even though we live in Phillies country. That is what a Mets fan does – tells everyone that we are proud of our team and follow each game right down to the last one.
So, enjoy the 2013 campaign everyone. Let’s see if our Mets can prove everyone wrong and let’s shoot for the playoffs. It would make for one magical year – us hosting the All Star Game and playoff games in the same year. And don’t get discouraged if our year turns out badly. Our future is bright with our young guns and we will be financially able to add more pieces of the puzzle in 2014.
Come out and cheer for our team – let’s show everyone that being a Mets fan is about loyalty and faith. Let’s Go Mets in 2013!!
About the Author: Clare Lafferty
A Mets fan since 1968, Clare lives in southern New Jersey in a suburb near Philadelphia.. Her first favorite Met was Cleon Jones and my current one is David Wright. My favorite Mets moment aside from Game 6 was Robin Ventura's grand slam single.
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Well said, Clare. I didn’t think the Mets had a shot in hell in ’69. We were the clear underdogs in the WS. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the stadium….
I’ll be enjoying watching the Mets this season, just like I’ve done every season since ’68.
LGM!
I get you have faith but at some point one must realize that this team is not likely to make the playoffs. I want them to but I think we’ll take third place with about 76 wins this year. This outfield is not all that good. The bullpen is a question mark. Those are key pieces this year. I hope that I’m wrong and would gladly admit it if I was but I don’t see how when you have Atlanta and Washington in this division this Mets club can win it.
I know – I am too optimistic, everyone. But that was the point of the article – why not dream big??
Realistically, I can see the Mets winning between 75-78 games this year. But I’m still optimistic that maybe we can catch lightning in a bottle so to speak..
LGM!
thats the spirit , GO METS
Thanks for the optimism. I can see the Mets doing their normal good start to the season and then instead of selling off the Mets reacquire Carlos Beltran for right field as Cards are looking to open space for Oscar Taveras. This would be a salary dump by Cardinals so Mets would not have to give up any prime prospects. The Red Sox, not being interested in Jacoby Ellsbury longterm due to health concerns trade him mid season to Mets. The Red Sox who have their best prospect Boagarts who is to big to stay at shortstop and Iglesias who can’t hit turn to Mets for a package centered around Wilfredo Tovar and one other prospect. Duda is hitting and all of a sudden the Mets have no holes. In an interesting twist, Carlos Beltran, talks about taking care of unfinished business with Mets. The reporters think he is referring to winning a World Series but he is really talking about paying for Ike Davis to get a nose job. Davis swears that new nose makes him more aerodynamic and he goes on a base stealing barrage and completes the season with three stolen bases. In return, Mets players pay for Beltran to get that hideous mole cut off his face under his ear. Hey, it could happen! Lets Go Mets!
Beltran’s mole always bothered me too
Clare, I love your optimism. I too am an optimist. But I really can’t see the Mets winning the division title. The Nationals are rightly the odds-on favorite to win the division.
However, I do think too many are writing off the Mets this year and can easily see them winning 85 games this season. Just one reason for this is that I think too many are overrating the Braves and Phillies. It’s highly questionable whether the Uptons and Johnson can replicate what Chipper, Bourn and Prado did last year, and the Braves rotation is questionable in terms of stamina and durability. The Phillies? Old as dirt, with all the attendant risks.
Kudos to you and your daughter for putting up with the heathens in enemy territory. Keep wearing your orange and blue!
Clare, I love your optimism. I too am an optimist. But I really can’t see the Mets winning the division title. The Nationals are rightly the odds-on favorite to win the division.
I seem to recall many people saying the same thing last year at this time, only replace Nationals with Marlins. lol
Last year at this time I was saying the Marlins were way overrated and that it was just as likely they would implode and fail as they would succeed like many of the pundits were predicting. I never liked how Beinfast put together that team last year.
I agree with you realistically -still it’s fun to dream!
-Clare
Very much agree.
The Nats clearly look like the team to beat with a tremendous pitching staff, a fine offense and good depth. Barring any cathastrophees, they’ll win 90+ games.
Meanwhile, the Braves should also be good. However, their rotation isn’t really any more proven than the Mets rotation. Are Kris Medlen, Mike Minor and Julio Teheran make 30+ starts each ? Will Tim Hudson hold up as he approaches his 38th birthday ? Their offense should be fine and has youth on its side – though as usual – the Uptons are penciled in as studs – while only having performed like that occasionally. And they’re replacing two players – Prado & Bourn – who performed very well in 2012, for a combined 10+ WAR. With likely progress from Heyward & Freeman, I do see the Braves as a 90-win team. But if a SP or two gets injured, they could be in trouble with their rotation depth erased by several trades.
The Phillies have an aging roster without any sort of depth. Unless the stars align, can’t see them winning more than 85 games max.
The Mets are the true ” Wild Card” in all of this. They have more depth than at any point in recent time, especially pitching wise. A lot of players are youngish and partly unproven. Anything between 70 and 85 wins seems very possible.
I agree – the Mets can win that many games but all the cards have to fall right for that to happen. Who knows! We can all dream, can’t we?
I give you props on your optimism, but this year I am finding it hard to muster up any enthusiasm, sad to say.
Let’s go mets… Is it me, or does anyone else find that the season seemed to have take forever to get here? I guess having a GM that doen’t care abou the team does prolong things…
oh boy , and again , you are not able to post a useless bit of a comemnt without mention your hate for SA . geez , ANNOYING doesnt describe it close alex . i really start to think its kind a disease men. wow, is it my fault that i picture you as a person who always have to do this ??? it would be pathetic but youve proven no other . heck, i imagine you telling someone you love them..it has to be like this … ” I love you honey, but SA su cks…” … Do you need a paperback for your grocerys Sir?? Alex: ” No ,thanks, and geez i hate our FO ….” ….. Sir , you know why i pulled you over ? Alex :” No officer , but SA su cks …” thats pathetic alex !!!!
Angelo, you’re a truth teller. Make sure though you don’t annoy some folks! LOL
I see you’re back to annoy the hell out of everyone here with your useless and garbage posts. Please, keep it moving when you see my comments, i’ve told you many times, if it’s not baseball related comments, don’t reply to me
stop your anti-SA propaganda. I wish we had real fans instead of the likes of this guy.
Let’s be civil here, everyone. Each person has the right to not like SA. Personally, I think he has done an OK job considering he is trying to put pieces in place without any money or minor league players to trade off. The big test will be what SA brings in 2014 when the Mets have money to spend and have cut loose some of the players.
Nice to see a little optimism. Thanks Clare.
I feel your pain as a fellow fan stuck in the middle of Phillie territory. At least I have had the Giant’s to throw back at them lately (Football, not baseball). because as bad as Phillie fans are, Eagles fans are 10x worse (even though many of them are the same people!)
How true! Philly fans especially Eagles ones, are the worst!
Phillies fans aren’t that bad – just hate when they claim to be the best, most knowledgable fans in all of sports – what a joke!
-Clare
There is a difference between hopes/dreams and expectations. Could it happen? Yes. Do I expect it? Not in a million years. While I will not grant the division to the Nats in Feb, to have them winning the division is a reasonable expectation. Nevertheless, we can hope and dream the Mets put it all together somehow and are fighting for that prize in September but I am not counting on it.
I see the Mets as improved over last year but still not in position to contend.
I agree – it think the Mets can improve over last year but realistically not win the division. But who knows about the wild card? It seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened. I am a Mets fan that watches every game no matter what the score or where they fall in the standings. Yes, call it crazy, but the word “fan” comes from the longer word “fanatic”!
Clare, I love the optimism and I agree with you 100%. The Mets infield is solid. The catching should be an upgrade. They have some wonderful young arms in the starting rotation. Now addition by subraction, Mr. Poison, Jason Bay is gone. The Met clubhouse is pretty muc free of toxic personalities. The biys just need to be positive and believe in themselves!! Ya Gotta Believe, Baby!!
be fair to the guy. Bay might have lost all ability to hit, but he was never reported to be anything but a model citizen and fine teammate, and he did seem to hustle at all times in the OF (at the expense of his head of course). Which is probably the only thing that kept him from getting roasted by the fans even more than he already was.
Come on Van, when you’re only playing 40 or so games a season you’re goona hustle. Bay made it clear he’d rather play in Beruit than Citifield. He was the original Milkman while he was here, milking every injury for all it was worth.
Wild Card? Why not the Division?….Really?….How much time do you have? This comment box isn’t big enough?
What are you people drinking up there? You need to come down to PSL like I did and see how crappy this team is in person!
1) Nobody outside of Queens can name one of our outfielders.
2) All other teams in the NL East actually signed real baseball players and got better.
3) this team will be lucky to beat the Marlins for last place
Apparently you’re only a fan if you see the glass as not only half…but all the way full. Anything is possible is our best hope and reason why our team will be good this year. I’m shooting for this team to win 72 games, anything more than that, and it’ll have to be my wildcard or division championship.
Jason Bay would have been considered an awful employee if he worked behind a desk. Concussion in 2010 in fairness was a good show of hustle. But in 2011 he misses the first two weeks with a rib cage, comes back for a week and then proceeds to take two games off with paternity leave. He’s making 15 million a year, has missed half his time and takes the maximum leave. That told me all I needed to know about Jason Bays dedication. Then he misses games here and there and then misses the last week of 2011 with a sinus infection. That’s right, a freakin sinus infection.
Then in 2012 he misses game because of jammed pinkie (David Wright plays through the same injury). Then he misses 15 games diving for a ball and the day he comes off the DL he begs off the game because of an upset stomach from antibiotics he was taking. Forget playing with pain, Bay couldn’t play with even the slightest discomfort. So when people tell me “he played hard” I just don’t get it.
Be nice to Jason Bay. The Mets are paying him more than any other outfielder this year.
Of course, Bobby Bonilla it the second highest paid outfielder so ….
Jason Bay was a risky experiment that just didn’t work out. How many of those have the Mets have over their history? Too many to count unfortunately. We need to just cut our losses and move onto now. The Mets have some young players that will be fun watching and I am looking forward to seeing what David Wright will do this year now that he’s been paid. Hopefully, he will have a solid year and who knows what can happen….
“So when people tell me “he played hard” I just don’t get it.”
he’s gritty !
unlike that lazy castillo guy that played through leg injuries after having knee surgery in the off-season !!!
Wow! Some real debby downers! SA has done an amazing job with what he walked into. If u can’t see that then your clueless. Sandy didn’t sign a big free agent this offseason cause there wasn’t an outfielder worth the price tag and we aren’t gonna make the same stupid mistakes we did with Omar. We are set up for a hell of a run. We have so much pitching in tge minors that half of them could fail and we will still have one of the best pitching staffs for the next decade! Our infield is above average and our bullpen looks solid too! With all this low budget young talet we will be able to buy any outfield we want next year and years to follow. I follow every single minor league team on top of watching every mets game and know SA has set us up for a long Strega of winning seasons! I’m as excited as I was when DW and Reyes first came up! It’s not false hope, it’s real and everyone can start kissing SA’s ass and saying sorry for their ignorant comments very soon! Long live the METS!
While I applaud your optimism, this is a team that is seriously flawed.
I read this moments ago…”As they are expected to finish fourth in their division, the Mets are perhaps looking passed this season entirely.” It was in an article about holding Zach Wheeler down in AAA and it got me thinking.
Fred got himself into serious financial trouble and dragged the Mets organization down with him. Bud Selig – in an effort to get Fred to hold on to ownership – placed Sandy as GM with the sole purpose of fixing Fred’s financial dilemma. He gutted the team (and in the process, yes, he picked up some prospects which you will do when trading a thirty home run guy and a Cy Young winner).
What I was thinking after reading that line was – well if the fans have to suffer through another meaningless season than why should they spend hard earned money to support the team who are already looking past this season?
I mean – it was Fred’s problem. It became the team’s problem and it is now our problem.
Now I hear both Fred and Sandy saying that they’ll get better players if the attendance goes up. To that I say – get a competitive team then worry about the fans coming back…not before!
Bud Selig – in an effort to get Fred to hold on to ownership – placed Sandy as GM with the sole purpose of fixing Fred’s financial dilemma. He gutted the team (and in the process, yes, he picked up some prospects which you will do when trading a thirty home run guy and a Cy Young winner).
This meme never really made sense. The financial problem was so complex and multi-faceted, having not only to do with the Madoff losses, but also existing debt due to loans and the new stadium, plus the big payroll. Sandy had neither the expertise nor the responsibility to fix anything other than the payroll, and that was the easiest thing to do. You simply let existing bad contracts lapse, like they have done the last two years. I think he was brought in to run things more cost-effectively, but also to implement a new strategy based on the farm system and building from within, and one also geared to more long-term success. Of course he wanted to win right away, but only within the parameters of the new strategy.
I really don’t buy into this idea that Sandy has no desire or responsibility to win.
Hey Metro – How are you?
I don’t think that our comments are all that different.
Do I think that Sandy doesn’t want to win or that Fred doesn’t want to win? No.
What I think, as you pointed out, is that the team finances were so interwoven with the guaranteed interest that Madoff offered (the 10 – 14%), along with the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars invested with Madoff plus the new stadium costs etc. that under normal circumstances Fred would have been forced to sell.
It is my belief that Bud offered Sandy to Fred as a small market-type GM to come in and cut the payroll. This was done so the Wilpon family could keep the Mets. That, and only that, was his top priority.
Setting up the club for the future is a result of gutting the team. If you are going to sell the foundation of the house you need to rebuild. Almost all the other teams would have renovated but the Mets decided that a new, cheaper house was in order.
You can take any team, gut it, trade the major players and have a competitive team in three or four years. The problem with that is twofold. We are in the number one baseball market in the world and deserve better. And, no fan wants to wait around for four years because the owner of the team made some bad investments.
Now, despite what the Mets are going through I am not suddenly going to root for the Yankees. I’ve been a Mets fan pretty much since they started and have been through these dark periods before.
Hopefully we will be enjoying a competitive team in a couple of years. But in the meantime I want to be able to complain about what’s going on now.
I totally agree – i know the team is flawed. And I know that they probably won’t win more than 75 games this year. Still, the point of the article was to just dream big! I am a fan but a realistic one. I know we have MANY holes in our team, but they are still MY team!
-Clare
Good on ya Clare!
I guess some optimism never hurt anyone.
I’m getting to be a cranky Mets fan in my old age.
Ha! I’m not a cranky Mets fan; just an old one