Dealbreaker is a mild way to describe what the Mets have in their hands.

Trade ideas, who comes and who goes, how to spend the Wilpons’ money, etc, etc, etc. The battles about what 2011 will look like are still raging as we speak. Quite honestly, this team is in a place I never in a million years thought they would ever be. They are in real trouble as a franchise. Everybody can see this except perhaps those that are involved. There are so many voices, opinions, and people who either want to reach out and help this team restore itself to a place of relevance. Then some who want to get as far away from this franchise and the memory of it as fast as humanly possible.

This is just a game and I get that. But it’s a game that we love and we have given a lot in support of. In my opinion, any fan that thinks things are cool as they are or they are very close to a breakthrough is either delusional, offering conflicting opinions just to feed the banter monster, really don’t love the Mets and support them as much as they publicly profess to, or just don’t understand baseball in Flushing.

I think much has been forgotten about where this team was and its direction. I think that is part of the problem. This franchise has not shown the propensity to correct its mistakes. Willie Randolph, being in town for the Brewers-Mets series, had much to say about his tenure in Flushing and this highlights a lot of what was wrong with this team. Issues still yet to be corrected or addressed.

“I don’t really know how to answer it because I just look at my time when I was here,” he said. “We had one really big disappointment, but I think for the most part my staff and I were able to get the team back to a certain respectability or way of playing the game.”
Willie may manage again but New York is not the place. David Wright even chimed in on what he felt about his team and it’s direction.
“The situation with Johan [Santana] is tough,” Wright said of the ace of the rotation, who had season-ending surgery and whose timetable for a 2011 return is unknown. “Going into any season not knowing who your No. 1 is, especially in this division where other teams have two No. 1s, it’s not what you want.”
Even Willie Mays, “The Say Hey Kid”, says he wants to return to the team he finished his HOF career with, and give the Flushing faithful something to cheer about.
“They really embraced me and made me feel welcome, like I never left,” Mays said. “I want to do something for them.”
SNY’s Howard Megdal affirms what many of our fans think: The Mets can win without spending money.
 “The Mets don’t need to spend more money to win. They simply need to make reasonable plans based on likely events, with effective alternatives.”
Effective alternatives such as an outfield platoon of Evans/Duda/Ratliff and possibly F-Mart with some combination with Bay and Beltran, providing they are healthy. Otherwise, Mr. Megdal would suggest starting these four is enough to carry the team. Really? C’mon.
The Mets’ attention to detail in the draft is something also crucial to their futures. Apparently, a team can spend as much as it likes and most teams in large markets take advantage of that opportunity. But the Mets often break rank and don’t extend themselves where they should. Since 2008, the club ranks 26th in the league in draft bonuses, according to Baseball America.

“The bottom line,” said Jim Callis, Baseball America’s executive editor, “is they just have not spent on the draft, and they have not spent internationally.”

The team lacks the ability to think ahead and have their hands in free agency and pays for older players past their primes with albatross-like contract.

Did I miss anything? This team needs to tap into the importance of tradition and make the hard decisions and most of all, stop lying to the fan base and make a real effort to give the city what it deserves: a winner that’s not from the Bronx.