With pitchers and catchers reporting in 18 days, Mike Puma of the New York Post points out there is little buzz about the Mets nationally and that they may have lost ground to other NL teams in their relatively idle offseason.
With the Cubs, Marlins, and Padres clearly making big strides going from pretenders to contenders, he wonders whether the Mets attacked this offseason with the same urgency to try and compete for a wild card after a sixth straight losing season.
“Activity shouldn’t be confused with achievement, but Mets fans hungry for a contender probably deserved better.”
The person who should be most concerned about this Mets offseason, which began and ended on November 5th when they signed Michael Cuddyer, is manager Terry Collins.
With all the high expectations and rampant talk from players about October baseball, he is clearly on the firing line and becomes the perfect fall guy and scapegoat if things go wrong.
“Though the Mets have holes, most notably at shortstop, Collins is expected to keep this crew in contention for the entire season. So if the Mets are sitting seven or eight games below .500 on Memorial Day, Collins could be a goner.”
Puma also goes on to break down the National League offseason as it relates to the Mets heading into spring training. It’s an interesting article.
