1) The Ballpark: Citi Field is just too big! I know we’ve been saying that for the last 2 seasons but the Wilpons refuse to bring in the fences.  All you look at what happened to David Wright in his the first season at Citi Field.  His power numbers were down and the last 2 seasons his strikeouts have been on the rise.  Wright’s power at Shea was to the right center.  Citi Field’s right center is about 45-50 feet deeper than Shea’s and it has affected Wright negatively.  Some called it a fluke but then look at Jason Bay’s horrific first season.  The park took away his power. Citi Field without a doubt robbed Bay realistically of 5 homeruns and probably more.  The great fence of Flushing needs to go down too while we’re at it.  It’s time to admit the size of this park was a mistake and change it.

2) Coaching Staff: The entire coaching staff needs to go.  Howard Johnson has been a horrible hitting coach.  The situational hitting since Hojo took over has been non-existent.  It seems like Hojo would rather be their friends than a coach.  I get it he’s an 86 Met and the Wilpons are reluctant to fire him.  The Mets should just give Hojo a job with a nice title and a good payday and let him go away.  Dan Warthen also needs to go.  I know the pitching was better than expected this season but I don’t like all the injuries to our pitchers under his reign as pitching coach.  I didn’t like that in 2009 he didn’t know about Johan’s latest injury and he didn’t know that Santana was skipping side sessions.  I also didn’t like him calling Maine a habitual liar to the press. That’s just something you don’t say.  Razor Shines just needs to go.  Chip Hale seems to be a decent to good coach but at the same time Ron Darling mentioned many times throughout the season that Hale had been working with Wright and changing his defense.  Wright’s defense this year was pretty bad. He committed 20 errors and at times was slow in turning a double play.

3) The 3 Poisons (Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo): Once the Mets finally do hire a general manager that GM (Alderson) must find a way to get these three off this team! Castillo is done, he can’t hit and he has absolutely no range at 2nd base.  Castillo brings nothing to the New York Mets, time to cut ties with him. Oliver Perez should not be on this team, he has done nothing for the Mets since signing that contract.  Perez cares more about himself than the team as he repeatedly refused to go to the minor leagues.  He didn’t win 1 game in 2010!  If you look at the way the Mets played before the all-star break and after the break there’s a huge difference.  Carlos Beltran decided to finally grace the team with his presence and was supposed to be the spark for this team but unfortunately did nothing other than make outs at the plate and miss balls hit to center on defense. Beltran refused to move over to right field to allow the better player Angle Pagan to play center and help the team.  Let’s not forget that these guys also refused to go visit wounded soldiers with the rest of their team.  These guys are not team players, they’re hurting this team and it’s time to get rid of them.

The new GM when he/she is finally hired has a lot of work to do and a lot changes to make.  Without these changes we can expect another losing season.

The Mets are in my opinion, just about beyond tinkering because the problems are systemic and involve the dreaded “intangibles”. Unfortunately a win here and there only clouds the minds of the fan who just wants to see their Metropolitans win. Even winning 2 out of 3 over the Yankee’s this past weekend, while emotionally gratifying, hasn’t changed the situation. It’s just given fans a welcome reprieve.

Having delusions of grandeur, thinking a trade for another team’s aging, expensive ace isn’t the answer if it’s going to cost key prospects. It’s merely fodder to deflect attention off deeper problems.

Believe me I’m not trying to rain on our parade here, the Mets had a good weekend, but this isn’t fantasy baseball or Playstation where ridiculous unbalanced trades are routine and reality plays little to no part. At this point why would any player, especially one with the veto power of a no-trade clause, really want to come to Flushing other than to dare I say, flush their careers away.

It’s harsh of me to say, I know. I get no joy out of feeling like this but we have to stay rooted in reality. As unfortunate as it may be.

You can fire Minaya, every coach and Manuel and the team will still be…the team. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen. Clearly Manuel and his coaching staff have made their share of mistakes.

It certainly wouldn’t hurt the Mets to have an infusion of new blood. How much worse can it get? There is no place worse than last place that is more demoralizing.

One of the same questions that dogged the team this past off season is still relevant and is coming home to roost. Why didn’t the organization go after AT LEAST one other starting pitcher in an aggressive way?

Yes we’ve all wrangled over how the finances aren’t Monopoly money and how these decisions aren’t made lightly. However we were also told that finances weren’t affected by the Madoff scandal. I dare anyone to keep defending that postulate with a straight face.

The bottom line, the players simply have to play to their standards. Why isn’t that happening? It’s difficult to answer that without speculating and delving into a seriously dark place that every fiber of my being wants to refuse to go.

Maybe it’s the skeptic in me. Perhaps I’m just jaded. It’s the 800 lb gorilla in the room that none of us ever want to talk about. I hate that it even enters my mind but it does, as I’m sure it has yours at some point. Perhaps some standards have been skewed. I really hope not. The game has taken enough hits.

So many excuses for so long can only be accepted so much. The result, the team giving away free tickets to former season ticket holders to this year’s Subway Series.

Seriously? It’s embarrassing on so many levels and before any of you argue in favor of a poor economy or lack of interest in inter-league play causing this, which I won’t argue doesn’t play a part, the majority of the empty seats were scattered everywhere throughout the stadium. Not just the very pricey seats.

Adding insult to injury, the first Subway Series game of 2010 at Citifield had Yankee fans outnumbering the Mets fans 2 to 1, conservatively speaking. It was a shameful backdrop for the 2000 Mets World Series team that was on hand and being honored before the game.

Where do we go from here? It’s never easy with New York sports since New York teams are always expected to win and compete for a championship. Even the Yankee’s could attest to that.

Remember, last year was the first time in almost a decade that the mighty Bronx Bombers tasted from the Championship Holy Grail. It’s time for some serious soul searching and like I said a while back, and I will say it again, Fred Wilpon, it’s time to save your team. Your team sir, not your son’s. YOUR team. Albert Einstein once said,

To do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, is insanity.

When Omar Minaya signed onto to be the Mets General Manager the main condition was that he would have 100% autonomy on baseball decisions which has included hiring the coaches.  He hired Willie Randolph’s coaches while he was manager and he had final word on Jerry’s coaches this season.  However, since the ill-fated press conference in which he insulted the Daily News beat writer Adam Rubin it seems the Wilpons have lost faith in Omar Minaya and his ability to be a successful GM for this team.  Since that press conference Omar has hardly been seen in public, hardly talking to the press, when he does have press conferences if questions start getting off topic Mets public relations guy Jay Horowitz abruptly steps in and ends the press conference.  Last week the Mets released Ramon Pena and Luis Aguayo, two of Omar’s friends plus the firing of Tony B earlier this year shows that Omar does not have the autonomy he once had.

Jerry needs to step up in this meeting and tell the Wilpons that if he is going to have any success next season and beyond he needs to pick his own staff that he trusts who have no ties to the Wilpons or Omar only to Jerry.  I personally believe that the entire staff including Jerry should be let go but that would only occur in a perfect world and as we know as Met fans we don’t live in a perfect world.  Jerry will be back, we know that much.  Howard Johnson has done a horrible job as the Mets hitting coach this season and since he took over as hitting coach in 2007.  This isn’t me jumping on the bandwagon of firing Hojo, I wrote this piece earlier in the season that you can read here.  I wrote that piece when it was “only April.”  Howard Johnson advised David Wright earlier in the year to change his approach to the plate, I believe he is one of the reasons why David’s season at the plate has been so erratic and his power is done.  Obviously by the end of May when he had 43 strikeout’s there was something wrong with David at the plate.  He never once told Wright to go back to his old approach, he’s said it himself on interviews with SNY.  He feels for David this new approach is the best.  I never see HoJo after someone has a bad at bat talking to that guy in the dugout, going over the plate appearance, instead he sits in the dugout, chewing his gum or seeds or whatever nodding his head.

The pitchers have done a horrible job this season with Warthen as their coach.  The walks are up, ERA’s are up as well.  Pelfrey has regressed from the pitcher we saw towards the end of last year.  Ollie was worse than ever.  Clearly whatever Warthen is coaching is not working with this staff.

Razor Shines is a bad judge on sending guys home or keeping them on 3rd but he is reportedly Jerry’s friend, Jerry trusts him and I think he could make a good bench coach for Jerry next year.  Bench coach is overlooked but I think he could actually help Jerry, especially at times when Jerry doesn’t play aggressively enough.  Luis Alicea doesn’t seem to have any knocks on him, so we could keep him at first.

Jerry needs to realize the Wilpons are keeping Omar on because they refuse to pay him to stay home, he is the GM in name only right now in their eyes.  Under Omar so far none of the 2 managers have had any chance to fully pick their staff, the guys who answer to them.  This is Jerry’s chance to be the 1st manager under Omar to pick his staff.  He needs to step up and say that this is his team, he has to work with these guys all season long, he needs to be able to trust that they will not have ulterior motives and that they are there to help him lead the Mets to a championship.