I don’t agree with anything anybody is saying.
Well, I agree that the Mets have gotten off to a disappointing start and that we’ve just had two exceptionally unhappy end-of-the-year experiences. I think that Jerry Manuel has made a number of bizarre managerial decisions this year and I don’t know why he has been making them, since he didn’t seem to make many bizarre decisions last year.
Certain players, most notably Perez and Wright of course, have been having difficulty finding their groove. Hasn’t anyone ever seen an April before? The year’s been bad so far, but if you look at every year, twenty-one games is not enough to tell you what is happening. I’ll tell you this, though. I am certain that the Mets are not going to finish 9th in the league in ERA, 8th in the league in runs scored, and 15th in the league in home runs. It’s just not possible.
Glass jaws? No grit? Maybe, as Joe Benigno invariably opines, what they need is a good brawl? I don’t believe in any of that shit. This team has considerable strengths and some peculiar weaknesses. They are good, but not that good. They are better than last year with this bullpen, as long as we don’t freak the new guys out. A couple of games switched in each of the past two seasons and the Mets could have been on their way to the World Series. Despair is premature. We are just spooked. Big time.
It should be a very interesting weekend.
Hey – -
Great article especially when mets fan are not feeling too great. I really am having a hard time dealing with the negativity. I logged on here to ask – have you ever met any of the Mets players? there seems to be no easy way to do that
Hi Dana,
You are the ray of sunshine that always makes me feel better when the Mets are doing poorly. I hate the negativity that comes with NY sportswriters. I hate hearing that David Wright got booed. You have said that you dislike booing the Mets too. I may yell at them and curse if they make an out, but I won’t boo them. The boos are saved for the Phillies, Atlanta and actually all the NL East teams.
My landscaper is a Red Sox fan and he ragged on me today about the Mets and said that’s why he roots for the Red Sox, since they always win. I would have said something nasty but then my lawn might look like Shea after the ‘69 World Series. LOL! Since your wife is a Red Sox fan, has she been giving you a hard time too?
Anyway, I still think Jerry will correct the problems. I still like Daniel Murphy, errors and all; I also like Omir Santos, yesterday’s game notwithstanding, and Putz, Rodriguez and Green are definitely an upgrade from Heilman and Schoenweiss, et al.
The Red Sox always win? did this guy skip the 20th Century? I have to laugh at Phillies fans too. They have a long, distinguished history of fading in September. But suddendly their the gritty team that always finds a way to win. Just proves its all cyclical. Hopefully we’ll cycle back.
I agree that it is too early in the season to write them off. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of their demise are greatly exaggerated.
However, in every crazed “trade everyone” call that comes into WFAN lies a kernel of truth. At least based on April, it feels as if the Mets picked up right where they left off…..in the last two Septembers. Abandoning a zillion runners in scoring position. Mediocre to lousy starting pitching. Mental errors unbecoming to multimillion dollar pro athletes. And obviously Putz’s most recent performance was not awe inspiring. And though I usually dismiss claims of “chemistry” or “momentum” (I instead subscribe to the maxim that momentum is as good as the next day’s starting pitcher) I do agree that the Mets appear to lack true, gritty leadership. I don’t think they’ve had it since Cliff Floyd left, at least not with an everyday starting player. Maybe LoDuca but he had his own issues.
I get annoyed when I hear callers saying Wright needs to be traded. (Apparently its a long time since we prayed for Gil Hodges – today I guess he’d be shipped cross town for Nick Swisher if he struggled in April!). But I am increasingly believing that the core of the team may need to be juggled. I usually focus on Beltran, because, as talented as he is, I never got over the fact that at the eleventh hour his agent tried to get the Yankees to take him at a discount. Beltran has never satisfactorily addressed that fact, If he considers the Mets a consolation prize and goes to bed at night clutching his Mickey Mantle and Bernie Williams stuffed puppets, if equivalent value could be obtained (not easy) I can live with it, and it may be a good jolt.
The Red Sox always win? I must admit they have developed an irritating success lately, but that is very lately. And Red Sox fans have transformed themselves, in that very short time, from soulful perennial losers (also pretty irritating to me, which I’ll go into another time) to swaggering simulacra of Yankee fans just displaced north by a few latitude degrees. I was just talking to my mother yesterday about this very thing– she mentioned that the Red Sox fans she knew hardly seemed to remember that martyrology that they stewed in for so long. Something that defined them for 86 years was let go with barely a backward glance.
Just goes to show you, even if you learn to embrace losing, you would always rather win.
PS Of all people NOT to listen to, Joe Benigno is right up there with Francesa.
You know, a lot of people don’t remember the twentieth century, even a lot of people who spent most of their lives in it.
Vicki, my wife Sheila really did give up the Red Sox forever on the night the ball went through Buckner’s legs. I wasn’t exaggerating when I wrote that. Her father Charlie, however, still roots for them and enjoys their current success as compensation for decades of pain. And yes, Theresa, the Red Sox martyrology could get extremely annoying, which is why I hope the Mets win soon. I don’t want anything like that to start happening to us.
JD- You are of course right that the Mets lack clubhouse leadership and have lacked it for awhile. I myself think that they can start winning without that leadership and if they do start winning, they will have more chemistry, and some leadership may develop. Nobody complained about a lack of chemistry in 2006 and we had the same basic core. Yes Pedro and Cliff were still around, but they couldn’t lead as much as we would have liked because of injuries and the fact that Pedro was a pitcher. If Wright comes out of his slump, which I am sure he will, he may very well be able to assume the leadership role he has been too young and too inexperienced to assume before.
Dana, you are the most optimistically optimistic optimist I’ve ever known with regard to this team. I hope you are right, but I believe you are wrong. I’ve seen this tragedy of a mess of a team coming since Carlos Beltran stood there with the bat on his shoulders in Game 7 of the 2006 LCS.
A metaphor for this whole entire rotten mess of a team. It’s very severely flawed, with a severly flawed underwhelming owner who lives in the past, and thinks baseball is the same as it was 50 years ago, before free agency and when guys still gave a shit, and conducts his business accordingly.
Of course, if things turn around and this team goes to the postseason, forget everything I just said *snicker.* LOL
Dana, I agree that Wright may be able to assume the leadership role if he emerges from his slump. But first he has to so emerge (otherwise anyone in the clubhouse with 1/2 a brain will tell him to please first get a hit with RISP before lecturing anyone).
And I have to say, as much as I like Wright, he’s not a rookie anymore thus some of things he does are baffling. He has been in the league long enough to know that pressing and trying to smack a 5 run HR at each at bat is a recipie for certain failure, but he still keeps doing that. He also is miserable at working the count and estimating what pitch is likely to be thrown. In 2006 he used to be at his best with 2 strikes on him, and now its a different story. Can’t help but wonder if the league has his number in some respects.
I always thought that, although Wright is a tremendously talented player, he was annointed by the media as Met counter-part to Derek Jeter far too quickly. David plays the game the right way (and his defense is materially improved), but he remains a work in process. The jury is out if he can be a leader. I don’t see him as a Paul O’Neill type (a crybaby, but a warrior), or a Jerry Grote.
Regarding the 2006 Mets, I think one thing that we are seeing is that, although the American League remains (statistically) the stronger league in most metrics, the NL has improved a great deal since 2006, and the talent flows are a little more equal. I think one benefit of the economic slowdown is that this trend will continue insofar as more teams may become sellers at the deadline, and players may be prepared to accept reduced numbers.
The 2006 Mets were a terrific team, but I always felt that the NL itself looked so crappy at that point that I once quoted Peter O’Toole (as General Cornillieus Flavius Silva)at the end of the miniseries “MASADA”. When they finally conquer the fortress at the edge of the Dead Sea (to discover that the rebels have martyred themselves), the General states:
“A victory? What have we won? We’ve won a rock in the middle of a wasteland, on the shores of a poisoned sea.”
OK, that may overstate the case (and the Cards did win that year…..those bastards) but overall I felt the Mets weren’t facing competition for most of their games akin to what the AL East is like, for example. (The Orioles whalloping the Mets 2 out of 3 games was a good example for me). Times are different now, the league is better (which I am happy about because I prefer the NL game to the AL company softball league), some teams are hungrier, grittier, and may simply have better players.
As for the Red Sox, agree that many of their fan base has short memories. What would be more meanigful is whether (since 1962) the Red Sox have consistently been more competitive than the Mets regardless of WS titles. As far as post-season is concerned, it ain’t close. Since 1962 the Sox have been in the post season 13 times and the Mets have been there 7 times. (Meanwhile the Astros have been in post season 9 times, so the Mets got their work cut out for ‘emselves….)
Deb, I don’t really feel all that optimistic about this team. But I think it is too early to be as pessimistic as most fans on the radio or on the Internet are at this point. I have never thought that this team was a lock to win this division and I agree with JD that the league is getting stronger. It’s going to be a tough race and it is going to be interesting.