The 2008 New York Mets Postmortem – Intro
I was watching Game 1 of the World Series when I finally determined I was over the season. It took some time. Not because I’m truly surprised with the results — the Mets weren’t good enough to be in play the last day of the season. While it sucked they didn’t get a chance to get hot and roll the dice in October, they almost definitely would have gotten knocked out by the Phillies in the NLCS. Regardless, I had to give myself enough time to put the season in perspective and get out of “blow up the team” mode that Francesa got everyone on following the loss. To be fair, he did have a point… how many consecutive years are you willing to watch the team gag down the stretch before you admit that there’s something wrong with this core of players. The stat-heads can argue all they want about how there is no such thing as “clutch” — but that doesn’t change that this team has a problem in a big spot. David Wright, who is an excellent hitter and a decent fielder, runs up 100 RBI and 30 HR every year, but the lasting memory of him this year is Dan Murphy leading off the bottom of the ninth with a leadoff triple and Wright unable to put a ball in play to win the game. The lasting image of Jose Reyes, after another stellar statistical season, is the chronic inability to hit in September.
Not to lay all of this on the offense. The bullpen surely deserves a bunch of blame… but it’s really difficult to put the bullpen losses in perspective when you come home for a 7-game home stand and just need to go 4-3 and instead go 2-5. There is also a reasonable amount of blames to go on the fans. The first game against the Marlins on the last weekend of the season played host to about 15k fans. Mets fan complain about Yankee fans a lot but, if there’s one thing you could say for them, if they were 1-game behind the Red Sox playing a home game against the Orioles on the last week of the season — there would be 53,000 people there from the first pitch to the last pitch. Shea was empty and the crowd was booing. The fanbase can defend it however they want, but there isn’t a defense.
So, where do we go from here?
Who’s Off The Books
Pedro Martinez: $11M
Moises Alou: $7.5M
Orlando Hernandez: $6.5M
Oliver Perez: $4.5 million.
For a total of about $30M
For all intents and purposes, we can call Billy Wagner “off the books” and presume the Mets are going to eat his $10.5M… we’re a big market team. Piss off Minnesota.
So, before the bonanza of signing starts let’s take a look at what went wrong and where we’re going. We’ll take a look at the 25-man roster at the end of the season, who will be gone, and who will replace them. At least I can think about it rationally now.
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