I just wanted to add some new comments David Wright made to Newsday regarding his recent slump that has seen him go 10-for-his-last-49 at the plate with just one home run and two RBI, dropping his average to .277 for the season.

“I’m maybe trying to do a little too much and trying to make some things happen. I can’t be going up there and getting myself out or swinging at pitcher’s pitches early in the count because that’s counterproductive.”

Wright has been brutal at the plate without a doubt, but that record-deal he signed in the offseason will only magnify things even more from now until 2020 when his deal expires.

As a team the Mets are batting .227 which ranks 14th in the NL, a mere percentage point ahead of the Marlins.

But as I mentioned yesterday, if you were the opposing pitcher and saw John Buck or Lucas Duda batting cleanup would you give Wright anything good to hit?

Original Post 6/3

Third baseman David Wright didn’t run and hide after the Miami Marlins completed their three game sweep of the Mets this weekend. Instead, the team captain stood by his locker and took the heat of what was an embarrassing three game set in South Florida.

Wright didn’t mince any words on Sunday and suggested that the Mets could be just as bad a team as the Marlins, and possibly worse.

“We don’t have much room to talk ourselves,” Wright told reporters after the game on Sunday. “Talking about, ‘We should beat this team, we should beat that team.’ There’s probably a lot of teams saying that about us right now.”

“They were struggling just as bad, if not worse, offensively than we were. And they came in and just beat us up pretty good. All in all, not a good series.”

On Saturday, Wright also levied some criticism on the team and said that no savior was coming to help them.

“This is what we have to work with, so we are going to have to figure it out,” Wright said. “There is no magic potion, there’s no offensive savior that is going to come and get us out of this thing. It’s up to us to work our way out of it.”

Wright, who is 1-for-his-last-15, spoke about his slump and acknowledged that he might be trying to do too much.

“I got to go up there and start being better and maybe taking some walks. I am swinging at some pitches I normally wouldn’t swing at and getting myself out a little bit. I keep preaching that the offense is kind of run on getting on base and taking your walks and I am not doing that right now.”

There’s a great deal more that’s wrong with this team than David Wright. When he signed that record-breaking, eight year, $142 million dollar deal, I was adamant that the front office needed to back him up with a legit bat to protect him in the lineup or this could spell doom.

Like he’s done so many times before, Wright is trying to compensate for a porous offense and trying to get the Mets back into the game with one swing of the bat. I can’t fault him for trying. However, I can fault a front office who should have known and seen this coming after observing Wright for two seasons.

How do you invest over $140 million dollars on one player, and then do nothing to protect that investment?

If the top priority last off-season was to sign Wright to an extension, then the second priority should have been to sign a big bat to protect him in the lineup. Wright’s never been one to carry a team, but protect him in the lineup and he’ll give you some eye-popping production.

Don’t look now, but Ike Davis is showing signs that he might be coming out of his season-long slump.

“That’s three days in a row that Ike has hit the ball hard,” Keith Hernandez said on Sunday.

Davis collected two hits and three RBIs in yesterday’s loss to the Marlins, including a mammoth 425 foot homer that saw him swing at full extension for the first time in a long while.

It was good to see him extend his arms like that and crush that pitch. We saw him do this a lot in the second half of last season.

Ike hasn’t struck out in his last two games which is also worth noting and his average, though still stifling, is up to .168. He’s definitely not out of the woods yet, but for the Mets this is a good sign.

In my May rankings, the Mets were ranked 29th in runs scored (88), batting average (.222), on-base percentage (.284), and on-base plus slugging percentage (.639). The best way to navigate through that would be for Ike Davis to start producing, and for it to have a positive carryover effect on the rest of the lineup.

He is 5-for-15 in his last four games and has lifted his average 20 points in his last ten games. Davis acknowledged his improved performance at the plate after the game yesterday. ”I feel like, obviously, I’m having better at-bats,” he said. “I’m putting the ball in play more.”

The Mets hope he can put the ball in play a lot more including third baseman David Wright who knows that there’s no help on the way and everyone needs to start producing up to the level of their expectations.

(Photo Credit: Gordon Donovan)

Mike Puma of the New York Post writes that David Wright has zero regrets, and continues to believe in the direction of the franchise.

“I’m disappointed in our performance so far,” Wright told The Post. “As far as specifically what Sandy and I talked about and I guess the plan moving forward, a big part of that plan is pieces we have in the higher minor leagues.”

David Wright, who signed an eight-year, $138 million contract extension over the Winter, is currently batting .300 /.402/.494 with six home runs, seven doubles, 11 stolen bases and 28 RBI in 160 at-bats this season.

“I’m disappointed in our performance as a team. I’m not disappointed in [what] I believe what the plan is going forward and what I believe this organization is capable of doing in the near future.”

The Plan. I hope one day they write a book and make a movie about this plan.

Updated by Joe D. at 2:30 PM

Just caught this on MetsBlog who seems to have just caught on to what has been a two day debate here:

It almost sounds like Collins put Valdespin in a situation he knew would end up with a hit-by-pitch, maybe in an effort to teach Valdespin a lesson, right? If that’s the case, is that why Valdespin threw a ‘tantrum,’ as fans and media have described it?

Unfortunately, we’ll never know if Collins sent Valdespin up to hit knowing he’d be beaned, in a game down nine runs. And, there is no way to know if his teammates were really indifferent, even though that’s what it looked like. I hope this isn’t the case. I really hope Collins didn’t risk getting a player injured, just so the youngster could learn a lesson. I also hope Terry’s players don’t go on to question his leadership because of it, even if the guys understand his reasoning. In other words, I really hope this just goes away…

Matt, first welcome to the party. Also, you may want to read my post entitled, “This Team Is Fractured”. It has even more insights in it that will help you realize what’s going on.

One thing though, your closing comment, “I really hope this goes away.”

Sitting on one’s hands and saying ten Hail Mary’s is not going to make this go away. It’s Terry Collins who should go away and I believe you know the reason why.

Aren’t you the one who always says, “hope is not a strategy”?

It would be great if we could wish this into the cornfield, but a fractured clubhouse is not just going to go away all by itself. This is not the first time we’ve seen Collins divide a major league clubhouse…

Do you really believe that Valdespin was showing up the Pirates and not Terry Collins when he hit that homer? Watch it again… What do you see…

Do you think Collins didn’t know that bat flip was intended for him and not the Pirates?

Weren’t you right there at the post game?

“I know he’s trying to make a statement because he hasn’t been in the lineup. I know he’s trying to make a statement to everybody what he can do. If he keeps hitting homers, he can stand at home plate all he wants, I guess. As long as they start coming up at the right time.”

Collins sent Valdespin up there to get his just desserts as one of our readers pointed out.

It’s not as unbelievable as it sounds, it’s human nature to want to get even.

Luckily he wasn’t seriously injured.

That said, Valdespin needs some reprimanding, some friendship, some understanding, and some baseball etiquette. That much is also clear.

Original Post May 13, 12:00 PM

They say that the cream always rises to the top. Except of course when you don’t use it and just let it sit around and spoil.

That’s what continues to happen with Jordany Valdespin.

In the latest chapter of the New York soap opera titled “El Dramático,” Valdespin was intentionally hit by a pitch by Pirates reliever Bryan Morris. This stemmed from Valdespin’s prolonged admiration of his 426-foot moonshot into the Pepsi Porch in the latter innings of Friday’s lopsided loss.

It isn’t troubling that Valdespin basked in his bomb on Friday or that he even got hit by a pitch Saturday. What’s troubling is the lack of support from his teammates and the coaching staff.

In the often glorified unwritten rules of baseball, it states that a team is informally granted permission to peg a player if he showboats after a home run. I get that. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it’s something I’ve learned to accept as a baseball fan.

What bothers me is that no one is there to have his back when it happens. David Wright went on the record after Saturday’s loss and offered a somewhat head-scratching statement about the incident.

“You’ve got guys that support Valdespin, and guys obviously are trying to help him,” Wright said. ”I think toning down some of his flair might be appropriate.”

So what he said is that guys support him, but he should tone it down? I don’t see how publicly concurring with the over-the-top perception of Valdespin is showing support. Wright was dubbed as the team’s captain to begin the season, but I’ve seen little in the way of upholding that title. Sure, he’s produced on the field this season, but as long as Valdespin wears that orange and blue uniform, he deserves the support of every player on that roster. It’s a captain’s job to ensure that.

That leads me to Terry Collins’ management. If there was any speculation as to Collins’ disdain for the Mets’ productive bench player, it seemed to be dispelled Saturday night. With the Mets down 10-1 in the 7th inning, Collins forced Valdespin into the game to receive what he thought Valdespin had coming to him. Sure enough, Valdespin was drilled in the right forearm.

“They threw at him,” Collins said. “I knew they might. It’s part of the game.”

Collins’ rationale was that he didn’t want to burn two bench players by using Mike Baxter. So at the expense of wasting an additional bench player in a bigger blowout than the night before, he threw Valdespin into the fray. The brief moment was a microcosm of the prodigious disconnects between Valdespin and the Mets.

Valdespin went on to “throw a fit” in the dugout after the inning ended according to SNY’s Kevin Burkhardt, who was very boisterous about the incident over Twitter and showed his lack of support for the Mets utility man.

All the tweets to me saying the Mets need to protect Valdespin are lost. All he has to do is take the HBP, move to 1B, and move on (cont)..

— Kevin Burkhardt (@KBurkhardtSNY) May 11, 2013

Throwing a fit in the dugout just shows his lack of understanding of the game….

— Kevin Burkhardt (@KBurkhardtSNY) May 11, 2013

For the most part, I enjoy Burkhardt, but I think he’s the one who’s a little lost. I find it sort of unprofessional to go on the Internet and talk about a Major League baseball player’s lack of understanding. I mean, he did make it to the Major Leagues after all. I’d venture to say he has a pretty firm grasp on the game Kev-o, but thanks for your insight. It’ll be interesting to see Burkhardt’s postgame interview after Valdespin’s next walkoff.

Valdespin refused to address the media about the incident after the game.

If you don’t like the guy, trade him. If you can’t stand a guy for outwardly expressing his emotions on the field, tell him behind closed doors. Don’t make a mockery of him by having him walk the plank on national television and then telling the media he should tone it down. With teammates like that, who needs opponents?

I seem to recall a championship team in 1986 that had copious amounts of player tension. The Mets were also loathed for their frequent curtain calls and arrogant attitudes. That was their identity. Now their identity is the evident lack thereof.

The media circus that has surrounded this team is getting out of hand. I dislike having to spend the first half of the season contributing to this debacle. There are more disconcerting issues on this team.

Jonathon Niese’s consistent struggles are putting more pressure on Matt Harvey to perform. If Harvey doesn’t continue his unimaginable season, the fan base will alienate themselves further from the team. If Harvey does continue and the Mets don’t figure things out offensively, he could grow old of this team and be gone for good. I don’t know how many times you can expect a guy to throw nine innings of one-hit baseball without giving up a run and settle for a no decision. It’s those kinds of games that will make a guy lose interest.

Daniel Murphy is mired in a horrific 9-for-61 slump. He’s been a solid hitter for the Mets and they’re going to need his bat if they want things to get better.

Ike Davis has been so bad that he’s been seeing bench time. When he is playing, he still can’t get it together. Fellow MMO writer John Delcos expressed his feelings on the first baseman’s future:

“Davis’ slow start should definitely cause the Mets to resist the temptation of signing him to a multi-year extension. Davis is hitting a paltry .170 with a .270 on-base percentage. He already has 35 strikeouts with just 17 hits and 13 walks. He has four homers and eight RBI.”

I’ve gone on a little longer than I normally do. I haven’t been a Mets fan as long as many of you who go back to the sixties and seventies, but I can safely say this is the worst state I’ve ever seen this franchise in. What happened in that game ranks up there with Tom Glavine‘s meltdown in 2007 in the way it felt. A real punch in the gut.

It’s hard to tell where the Mets go from here. In all probability, this will be swept under the front office’s Persian rugs instead of being used as a way to band together. The only silver lining is a morbid one. Things can’t get any worse.

However, fairness is irrelevant in sports. A manager’s job security always becomes an issue when he has lame duck contractual status and his team has lost six straight games.Losing streaks get everybody edgy, with questions directed to management, in this case, GM Sandy Alderson, who was asked the inevitable by The New York Post.

“That’s not something that has entered my mind or any mind within the organization,’’ Alderson said. “Has it entered the minds of others in the media or what have you? Yes.’’

Well, of course it has. It’s been on the back burner since pitchers-and-catchers in February. And, I don’t think for a second it hasn’t crossed Alderson’s mind, either.

Walter Alston used to work on one-year contracts, but he was Walter Alston and his Dodgers teams were perennial winners. They were an organization that believed in consistency. They were the exception to the rule.

By contrast, Collins manages the Mets, a franchise that last went to the World Series in 2000. Thirteen years later, and they are on their fifth manager. That’s not even three years each, and that’s no stability. While this trend doesn’t suggest good things for Collins, it might work in his favor for at least this summer. If the Mets aren’t going anywhere, there’s no reason to make a change and have owner Fred Wilpon pay two managers.

Bobby Valentine managed that World Series team, but frequently clashed with then GM Steve Phillips – one of four since 2000 – and with his personality wore out his welcome. Art Howe was the polar opposite of Valentine, and that didn’t work, either. I thought Willie Randolph had a chance, but he was hamstrung from the beginning when he wasn’t given full reign to hire his coaches and had to deal with clubhouse spyTony Bernazard, who usurped his authority. Jerry Manuel was overmatched, but that’s what you get when you sack a manager after midnight.

Now there’s Collins, who was brought in by Alderson to clean up the mess. However, Alderson doesn’t have free economic authority to spend, and consequently Collins doesn’t have the pieces. He’s basically a custodian; here to keep things clean.

The pieces he’s been given don’t fit, but here’s the rub, Collins is judged on what he does with those pieces, much like on those cooking shows where the contestants have to make something out of a basket of random ingredients.

“He came into the season without a contract for next year and may not have one for next year through this season,’’ said Alderson, meaning don’t expect an in-season extension. “But as I’ve told him and said before: This isn’t just about wins and losses. It’s about how we approach the game and fully taking into account what he has to work with.

“We talk from time to time and the [job status] subject comes up. I’m not trying to avoid the topic. It’s status quo. You go through a tough week and people like to immediately jump to conclusions and start discussing a doomsday scenario. A good first week isn’t necessarily any more of an indication than a bad fourth week.’’

So, there you have it: Collins is the care taker for 2013.

Alderson wants to know more if his roster can work and play nice with each other rather than if it has any talent. He’s telling us – again – that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game.

Unfortunately, they keep score and results do matter. Major League Baseball isn’t new wave, liberal physical education where everybody gets a prize for showing up.

Winning does matter on this level. Teams pay big money to get players capable of winning and fans pay big money to watch those players.

If the losing continues, attendance will eventually drop as it has every year since Citi Field opened. But, the players will get their money. And, Collins could be out of a job. Not fair, but that’s how they play the game. It is also something Alderson needs to think about concerning his own job status.

Thoughts from Joe D.

While I don’t think any manager can get more out of this team than Terry Collins is — and that is mostly because he’s been dealt a rotten hand by GM Sandy Alderson — I see too many flaws in Collins for me to defend him.

As an in-game strategist I disagree with more than half of the decisions he makes. No manager is perfect, but Collins makes too many bad decisions, many of which have negatively impacted the results of a game.

I thought it was a bad idea to let Collins play this season out as a lame-duck manager. Any of my regular readers know that. I wasn’t worried as much about his status becoming a distraction as much as I was concerned over the impact it would have on Collins as the manager and his decision-making process.

He’s making far too many bad decisions now than at any other time since taking over for Jerry Manuel. I think it’s a result of managing with a monkey on your back or your boss constantly hovering over your shoulder.

I don’t believe Sandy Alderson wants Terry back and that’s fine by me. But it should have been delineated that way before the season began. They could have handled it differently and just announce that this would be Terry’s last season as manager before assuming a new role in the front office. That would have made more sense, avoided all the constant questions, and let Tery and the players breathe a little easier throughout the season.

I got the sense from something David Wright said last week, that he and the team need to perform well because they like Terry and don’t want to let him down. ERRRRRRGGGHHHH. Wrong answer.

Collins has had to manage a team that is unworthy of being called a big market team and attendance has never been worse than this recent three-year run. As bad as the results have been, I doubt Gil Hodges or Davey Johnson could have done better with the same bad outfield, bullpen and backend of the rotation. This isn’t Terry’s mess, it’s Sandy’s mess – and he should be the one responsible for any of the bad results as well as cleaning it up.

To date, the Mets front office has not even discussed the subject internally, according to one team executive. They probably will not do so before next winter. The team wants a bigger sample size on which to base projections on Harvey’s future performance and health. For as dominant as Harvey has been—posting a 2.33 ERA and striking out 10.9 batters per nine innings in 12 career starts—it is still only 12 starts.

Costa conducted his own study and polled a group of students from Pepperdine University who were recently honored by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and this was what they concluded after examining all the comps, history, injury risk and evidence.

To mitigate any injury risk, the Pepperdine team suggested the Mets wait until after the 2014 season before offering Harvey an extension. They then looked at the contracts of not only the five pitchers listed above but also other starting pitchers who signed extensions after their first or second professional seasons.

Weighing all this, they recommended that the Mets offer Harvey a four- or five-year extension worth $30 to $35 million after 2014, assuming he remains on roughly the same performance trajectory.

Makes logical sense to me, and while it’s too premature to be discussing a longterm deal after only 12 starts, this does show how high;y regarded Matt Harvey has become in so short a time.

The Mets right-hander owns a 2.33 ERA in those 12 starts, allowing just 46 hits and 30 walks in 73.1 innings while striking out 89 batters.

While history has taught us that the job security of a typical manager is often tenuous, I am genuinely puzzled with respect to this particular case. If the team’s consecutive 4th place finishes under Collins’ guidance are the primary focus of one’s judgment, it would be reasonable to point out that even Joe McCarthy would have had difficulty making trying to make Chicken Marsala out of the chicken feathers that comprised much of the Met roster over that period. When Alderson was brought aboard to reconstruct what had become a dysfunctional franchise, his choice of manager clearly signaled his recognition that a developmentally minded person would best serve his purpose. TC was a natural choice given his position as minor-league field coordinator for the organization as well as his wealth of experience.

Ah, but here lies the point of contention for some: as the organization seems poised to focus more intently on the immediate fortunes of the big league club, some would suggest that Collins’ skills might best be re-deployed. Let him focus on the farm again, and bring in an individual with a greater apparent “win now” approach to give the team the extra nudge it could have used during last year’s mediocre second half. Just how effective any particular managerial ploy would have proven for a team with the myriad weaknesses of last year’s squad is questionable, at best. For all the noise made this off-season regarding the team’s uncertain outfield, one has only to review the numbers of the 2012 corps to realize that outside of Scott Hairston, there was precious little evidence of quality. The same could be said of much of the bullpen and the catching corps, the latter evoking the old comparison to a box of Kleenex – they pop up one at a time, get it?

Yes, there was the shining glory that was R.A. Dickey’s season, David Wright’s tremendous first half and Ike Davis’ big second half, Bobby Parnell’s emergence as a consistent reliever, the remarkable debut of Matt Harvey and the pinch hitting heroics of Mike Baxter and Jordany Valdespin. Alas, these were but isolated positive parts in a generally mediocre whole.  But if one follows the logic of the Alderson plan, such seasons are necessary parts of an organizational transition. Place holders must be used while long term solutions are developed, and the results aren’t always pretty.  Couple this with the observation that the Mets as team played over their heads during the surprising first half and you need to give credit to the manager. No one has ever accused Collins of lacking intensity, but translating it into an effective battle plan on the field requires a broader range of skills. The fact that the team’s level of success fell off significantly after the All Star break should really be viewed as regression to the mean.  With four spots in the lineup taken up by Jason Bay, Andres Torres, one of last year’s catchers and a pitcher, this was never going to be an offense that would score consistently, and with a porous bullpen seemingly springing new leaks by the day, any lead was in constant jeopardy.

The criteria used in judging a manager’s performance goes beyond the team’s won/lost record, of course, but at some point, the focus ultimately comes down to that stat. What has tempered expectations in the past few seasons is the realistic view that a rebuild was necessitated by a confluence of events well beyond the scope of who was writing out the lineup card. Now that the Met organization appears to be emerging from its 4 year malaise, it would stand to reason that fans would begin to get itchy for any move that might hasten the progress toward full-fledged competitiveness.

However, rest assured, when the first stretch of losing play comes in 2013, there will be those who will label the team as “uninspired” or “underperforming” and begin clamoring for the installation of Wally Backman at the helm. While I have no doubt as to the scrappy pedigree of the current Las Vegas manager and sincerely hope he gets his shot at another big league position, I think that Collins is deserving of a chance to help bring the present Mets team he has helped nurture to the next level.

An extension is in order, in my opinion, and the sooner, the better. The fact that the Mets’ brass has chosen to allow TC to enter the season with lame duck status is somewhat understandable due to Sandy Alderson’s admitted concerns regarding last year’s second half fall-off, but as previously mentioned, any review of team statistics during that period could just as well point to culpability on the GM’s part.

I am looking forward to the season, as I do every Met season, but with real expectation of there being a “surprise” team in Flushing that steps up their game in the second half rather than fading.  Realistically, can we assert at this point that the Mets are poised to topple the Nats from their newly won perch atop the division? Probably not, but would an actual flirtation with the Wild Card be completely far-fetched? I don’t think so, at least for a good part of the season.

Given the horses, so to speak, I believe that Terry Collins can guide the ever-developing Mets to success. He has spoken of his own learning curve and development as a leader, and I believe that it is evident in the way he has conducted himself during the past two seasons. So, give him the horses, Sandy, and give him the opportunity to race them. He has earned it.

This is a great contract for both sides. For Andrus, the obvious financial security in a town he’s familiar with and loves was the selling point. For the Rangers, they lock up one of the best young shortstops in the game through his prime years and the contract expires at just the right time. Jon Daniels saw his approval rating take a huge hit this past winter when he not only failed to acquire a big name that could finally put the Rangers over the top, he also allowed the team’s best player, Josh Hamilton, to leave via free agency to a division rival.

Andrus is one of the best defensive shortstops in the game. At the plate, he’s improved his on-base percentage, slugging percentage and batting average every year since 2010. He owns a 74% success rate stealing bases, which is passable. The Rangers needed to make this happen to infuse some good will back in the franchise, and with a player of Andrus’s caliber, it was a confluence of positives that made everyone a winner.

Everyone except Andrus’s agent, Scott Boras, that is. Well known for taking his clients into free agency and milking every last cent from the owner’s pockets, Boras lost this battle. “We’re the boss,” Andrus said. “I know everybody thinks that about Scott, but it’s different if you’re the one in that position. He works for us. I know he tries to get the best deal that he can, but it comes down to my choice and what’s better for me and my family.”

From one contract extension to the greater chance of another, Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano fired agent Scott Boras on Tuesday and signed with Roc Nation Sports, which partners with Creative Arts Agency (CAA) Sports. Roc Nation is owned by New York über-celebrity Jay-Z. Yankee fans should be happy to learn that Cano will now be represented by Brodie Van Wagenen, who also represents the likes of Matt Cain and the Ryan’s Braun, Zimmerman and Howard. What do they all have in common? Huge contract extensions before they reached free agency, that’s what. Good news for Yankee fans.

Cano is the best second baseman in baseball and would easily receive offers north $200 million on the free agent market. He may still reach that number, but it’s much more likely now that it’s from the Yankees, and will get done before too long.

The Cano situation is fascinating to me because it makes me wonder if Boras is losing sight of the marketing aspect of the decision. When Derek Jeter retires, Cano would be the man on that team and in this town. As Mets fans know, it’s the Yankees’ town, and they just allow the Mets a little space by the East River near an airport. Boras’s job is to get the best deal possible for his client, and he’s been wildly successful over the years, but the client has to think about more than just the terms of the contract.

I remember when LeBron James was mulling over his free agent decision, and the common thoughts were that if he wanted to be loyal, he’d stay in Cleveland. If he wanted to win, he’d go to Miami, and if he wanted to get rich(er), he’d go to New York. So while Boras needs to find out which team can offer the most dollars, Cano needs to find out which city can offer him the best off-the-field endeavors, and it seems he already knew that it was New York or bust. Boras felt that another team could offer more money, as evidenced by the declined offer the Yankees already made to Cano. While that may be true, Cano feels his overall lifestyle would be suited best by New York, so out goes Boras.

I think it’s no small coincidence that Cano immediately signed with an agency that partners with a New York-based marketing company headed by a business mogul worth half a billion dollars.

On a smaller scale, another Boras client, Carlos Gomez of the Brewers, also reached an agreement on an extension just three weeks ago. After a string of losses like this, Boras must be reeling. Maybe now’s a good time for Sandy Alderson to swoop in and lock up Matt Harvey.

Yesterday, I faulted Santana for not keeping the Mets in the loop this Winter about his questionable shoulder and how he was progressing, but shouldn’t there be some accountability on the Mets’ part as well?

Wasn’t there an obligation to track Santana down and schedule at least one follow-up examination of Santana’s shoulder which was 18 months removed from capsular surgery?

Or what about checking up on his sore back or his bum ankle that was the apparent reason for shutting him down last season in the first place?

If you were a first-year GM and just a mere greenhorn, wouldn’t checking up on Johan Santana be the first thing you do before pursuing offers for R.A. Dickey?

So how did a 35-year seasoned MLB executive like Sandy Alderson fail to do his due diligence as he admitted on his conference call on Thursday?

No general exam. No X-rays. No MRI. No poking and prodding. No follow-ups on any of the three major areas of concern. Nothing.

Maybe he didn’t want to know?

Maybe he was so dead-set on trading Dickey all along – even when he was saying publicly that the reigning National League Cy Young was not being shopped?

“I’m not actively shopping Dickey our priority is to sign him to an extension, but like any player we’ll listen to any offers,” Alderson said before taking off for the Winter Meetings in Nashville.  ”But we won’t trade him unless we get a difference maker in return.”

I believe in being fair, and in the last two days I’ve given Johan Santana a few good knocks to the side of his head for the way he handled himself in these last three months and how he let his pride and ego get the best of him.

But make no mistake that there were errors of omission and commission made on both sides. It took two sides to created this fiasco – not one.

We’ll never know the real truth and as usual we’ll be left to our own suspicions and speculations. But what does it say about the 2013 season when you traded your ace for no MLB ready pitching in return, replaced him with a late Winter scrapheap signing who came to camp with a sore shoulder and needing a cortisone shot, and didn’t know the condition of your would-be ace until he showed up on reporting date lobbing 69 mph fastballs?

The answers to those questions can all be found in the 2013 Mets Opening Day rotation. We have already moved the timetable for an apparent Mets dynasty from 2014 to 2015. We may have to move it again from 2015 to 2016.

The fact is that the starting rotation in 2013, may be as underwhelming as the outfield. Year three of the Alderson Era is looking pretty alarming on paper thus far. But baseball isn’t played on paper, so I’m willing to see the season play out before completely unleashing my own version of hell.

At one point, Hale brought up the possibility of signing Ike Davis to an extension and buying out his arbitration years, similar to the extension the Mets completed last spring with left-hander Jonathon Niese.

“We’re always looking at our young players to see if it makes sense, both from their standpoint and ours, to do complete something on a longterm basis,” Alderson said.

“Ike Davis is coming off a big second half last year, showed up to camp in great shape and in great spirits, and we see him taking on a bigger leadership role in the clubhouse right behind Captain America – David Wright.”

“Any kind of an extension has to fit for us and it has to fit for the player. So it’s something we’ll keep an eye on. Sometimes the player is not interested, and sometimes the agent is not interested. It’s one of those things that has to work for both sides.”

We’ve discussed this topic a few times already this offseason, and back on January 22, I wrote the following regarding Ike Davis and the possibility of extending him:

Now that the Mets have avoided arbitration with Davis and both sides have agreed on a one-year deal worth $3.2 million dollars, the plot thickens somewhat.

Davis gets a hefty raise from the $500K he earned last season. It’s the first step to a four year process that will take his salary to the $15 million dollar a year range by 2016.

Even the $7-8 million dollars he most likely will earn in 2014 sounds like a tough nut to crack for a team who hasn’t doled out that much cash annually in a new contract to a player in many years, not counting their franchise player David Wright who just cashed in for $142 million through 2020. In fact, Jason Bay was the last of the Mohicans.

So will the Mets open their wallets and pay Ike Davis at a level commensurate with what other first basemen of his caliber get paid?

That’s tough to say and I remain skeptical. I don’t think it will happen. Niese signed a deal that averaged about $5 million a season for the next five years. It will take a lot more than that to get Davis to sign any extension.

As I’ve said before, I have yet to see any evidence that this front office will ever pay any player not named Wright at current market value levels. It’s simply not in their DNA.

I could be off base here, but I challenge the front office to go ahead and prove me wrong. In fact, I’d welcome it in Ike’s case.

Contract extensions will be all the buzz this offseason for the Mets.

The team’s only superstars, David Wright and R.A. Dickey, both are coming up on option years, so all the talk has been centered on them agreeing to contract extensions before making any other moves.

But there’s another potential extension that may be discussed this offseason: an extension for manager Terry Collins.

Collins signed a two-year contract in November, 2010 with a third-year option for 2013. Sure enough, even before the 2011 season was through, the Mets exercised Collins’s 2013 option.

Through two seasons in Flushing, Collins has a record of 151-173 with two mediocre-at-best teams. The team finished in fourth place in the NL East both seasons.

At least last year, the Mets had a little bit of firepower with Jose Reyes and a half-season of Carlos Beltran. This year, it was really a team of unproven players other than David Wright.

Maybe Collins’s two seasons didn’t end up so favorably, but there were times during each season that he had the Mets overachieving and playing great baseball. That’s really all you can ask from a manager on a cash-strapped team: getting the most out of his young talent.

Sometimes, the manager takes the blame for all of a team’s problems. Look at Bobby Valentine this year for the Red Sox. Granted, he didn’t always say the right things, but he wasn’t the one on the field underperforming.

But for the Mets, Collins so far has been considered more part of the solution than the problem. Many of the younger players gained a familiarity with him before he became manager, since he was the team’s minor league field coordinator in 2010.

The Mets should consider a multi-year contract extension for Collins, with reasons being two-fold.

First, Collins has earned this extension. Keeping a team of the Mets’ caliber in contention for as long as he did each season is certainly an accomplishment and should be rewarded with a vote of confidence.

Second, managers always seem to perform better when they are not on the hot seat. Rather than worrying about if his job is safe, Collins can focus on putting the 2013 Mets in the best position to win ballgames.

In all likelihood, 2013 will not be the second coming of 1986. But Collins has done enough in his time here to be a part of the next Mets’ playoff run, assuming that is sometime in the next five years when the team may actually have a bit more money to spend.