Joel Sherman of the New York Post, put together a list of five things he says have improved for the Mets since last season.

1. The Madoff mess is behind ownership: This might not please fans who wanted the Wilpons out, but they were not selling. Thus, the sooner they could begin trying to fix the finances, the better for the organization.

2. The growth of the farm: Zack Wheeler wasn’t even a Met at this time last year. Now Wheeler, Matt Harvey, Jeurys Familia and a healthy Jenrry Mejia are pushing toward the major league staff.

3. Johan Santana is healthy: The whole organization looks and feels better when he is pitching and pitching well.

4. David Wright is a star again: His 0-for-14 is a current blight. But in the aftermath of Jose Reyes’ departure, the Mets needed Wright to be the homegrown beacon again.

5. The steadiness of the Sandy Alderson regime: Yes, Omar Minaya is getting emeritus points as prospects he brought to the organization such as Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Dillon Gee help. But under Alderson something more important has happened: We now expect good decisions (such as not rushing young pitchers Wheeler, Harvey, etc.). That is quite a front office turnaround.

I agree whole-heartedly with the first four, but I’m not sure I agree with number five.

So far it feels like many of the good things I’ve seen this season are the product of the players who came back strong from injury in Wright and Santana.

Also the unexpected contributions from players that were already in the system before the new front office took over.

At times I get the feeling this front office is flying by the seat of their pants and have gotten lucky thanks to the depth of players left behind by the old regime that have stepped up when needed.

The Mets are winning and playing exciting baseball, but this team was never being handled as a win-now team, but instead part of a rebuild with an eye toward 2014.

Well guess what? This team is better than what most of us expected and that includes the GM who had no idea how good this team could be. Imagine if he only had the foresight to know this team would be this good, this late in the season?

At least he was right about one thing. This team has been fun to watch. But as GM he should of known it was a lot more than that, and with a little more confidence in his roster and a tiny bit of foresight he could have played this offseason a little differently.