TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

Boxscore

Well, here we are. After 155 games, the Mets have managed themselves in to a situation where they are 2.5 games out of the NL East and one game up on the National League Wildcard. The Brewers and the Mets are in a race to see who can collapse harder. The Mets face the NL-best record Cubs and crushed-their-spirit-last-year Marlins. The Brewers face Pittsburgh (against whom they’ve gone 11-1 on the season) and the Cubs. The Phillies face the only-play-the-Mets-hard Braves and the NL East toilet Nationals. The Metropolitans control their own destiny. Win out and they at least get the Wildcard. Lose any and they risk another September collapse.

The Board Room did an excellent job here. It really couldn’t be scripted any better.

The Mets could have gone up by 2 games in the Wildcard tonight. They didn’t. Instead they had the lights blown out in 4th inning when they, for the second time this season, gave up a grand slam to the opposing pitcher. I’ll repeat that. For the second time this season — the first being Felix Hernandez hitting off Johan Santana — a Met pitcher gave up a grand slam to an opposing pitcher. In the fourth inning, Jon Niese delivered a pitch to Jason Marquis that landed in front of the scoreboard. The bullpen came in to stop the bleeding and promptly gave up another home run to Derrek Lee to send the game into a 7-2 blowout. The bullpen continued to bleed runs to a 9-4 laugher that was never really close.

Slowly but surely, the toxic environment at Shea Stadium is becoming more and more a problem. The fans are still on edge. Everyone in the bullpen can expect to be booed when they enter, on every walk, and on every hit. Half the line-up can expect to be booed when they do anything but get on base. The fans are doing the opposite of helping. I can’t even imagine what the final game at Shea ceremony will be like if the team doesn’t make the playoffs. I might not even watch.

The bright side to this loss is it was the one game they could lose without being crippled. Jon Niese is a September call-up who probably isn’t ready for primetime. He’s had 3 starts. One was an 8-inning shutout against the Braves. The other two have been a combined 6 innings with a combined 11 runs. If there was one game they had to pencil in as a loss, it was this one. A guy making this third start against the best team in the National League.

Here’s the problem: after tonight there really isn’t any more wiggle room and there really aren’t any more excuses. The team is throwing Santana, Perez, Martinez, and Pelfrey in its next four starts. On Saturday, if the team doesn’t have something locked up, they’ll have some tough decisions to make. Throw guys on short rest? Throw Santana on Saturday or Sunday and effectively keep him out of the playoffs until Game 3?

Second problem: The Brewers have been having a terrible run of luck lately, going 5-15 in September and dropping 8 of their last 10. There’s got to be some sort of feeling in the Brewers’ clubhouse that it’s gotten as bad as it’s going to get and they’re still only 1 game out with 6 to play. On top of that, they get the benefit of playing a team who they can officially claim ownership of while the Mets are apparently playing against both The Script and Destiny.

Third problem: Even if by some miracle the Mets limp in to the Wild Card, they still have to go to the playoffs with this bullpen. One issue I’ve had with Jerry Manuel is his dogged insistence that this pen will work through their problems. They obviously are not going to. At this point, throw three rookies and John Maine on your post-season roster and see what happens. At least with those guys we can go with the devil we don’t know — which, in this case, is better than the devil we do.

I’ve gone from cautiously optimistic to completely resigned. This bullpen is either going to end this season this week against the Cubs or next week against the Cubs. It’s very symmetrical, really. All that said, the Shea fans deserve a heaping-helping of “F*ck You” for helping to make the team tighter and worse. Have you ever seen an abused dog cower in the corner when it knows it’s done something wrong and is waiting to get beaten? That’s the entire Mets team. It can’t fail in peace and, in a game of failure, that’s a problem. They are treating every pitch and every at-bat as the end of the world because of the completely unsupportive home crowd. Way to go, guys. Glad you bought your tickets and feel justified in booing. It makes it awesome for the rest of us.

If the season ends with the Mets out of the playoffs, I’m relatively certain I’ll lay about a third of the blame on the home crowd. The Shea crowd, somehow, is a spoiled child. They went in to this season mad about last year. They’ve thrown tantrums and booed and expected this team to make the playoffs as a foregone conclusion. What these idiots don’t realize is that they’re in the midst of one of the more awesome pennant races in baseball right now. There are three teams slugging it out for two playoff slots. All three teams are separated by two games. If not for last season, Shea would be rocking and rolling and the fans would be supportive and having a great time. Because last season gave the Met fan some sort of entitlement complex about getting to the post-season this year, they’ve decided to be as assy as humanly possible. It’s not helping, dummies.

I’m one voice in the midst of 100,000 but I think they can do it. I’m continuing to think positively.

We can do this.

I was watching the Monday Night game yesterday when Kornheiser issued his “100% apology” for…. something. I had no idea at the time what it was for. Most places are reporting it was because he goofed on himself for not understanding Spanish to the point where he said “He either said [something related to football] or ‘I forgot to pick up my dry cleaning’”. He promptly apologized for making fun of… himself… or the overly obvious stereotype of…….. Spanish-speaking dry cleaners?

Most commenters on sports blogs (specifically Deadspin and Awful Announcing) have made the horrifically obvious “OMG, THEY SHOULD FIRE HIM FOR THIS BECAUSE HE IS TEH SUXXORZ NOT BECAUSE OF THIS!!!!!” comment. We get it, guys. Everyone who’s ever announced any sporting event in the history of the universe is a terrible commentator. In fact, there has never been a good commentator. Everyone is terrible. Only you and your boys in the living room watching the game with you are funny — everyone else is lame. In fact, you break up an entire room of 8 guys with your biting wit. You are totally qualified and will do a much better job then everyone else.

The every-announcer-is-awful trend falls under my “Fix It” category of complaining. Who is a good announcer? Has there ever been one? Does anyone currently on television fit your high broadcast standard of excellence? Michaels and Madden have been doing commentary for a combined 200,000 years — they’re obviously terrible. Joe Buck has never had a good moment in his career. Ron Jaworski, though he’s one of the only guys on television who studies the 22-shot for every team he announces and breaks down beyond the degree that you can even conceive it is terrible. Troy Aikman is a filthy Cowboy and is worthless but… err… oh, that’s true.

I’m so over the “X announcer sucks” type of articles and accompanying comments that I can barely begin. Do me a favor — if you’re going to complain about announcers, at least tell me who qualifies as “servicable” in your grading scheme.

As of today, the Mets have 17 games remaining in the season. The lead they have over the Phillies is 1/2 what it was at this time last year. 3.5 games. Metsblog does not have the Magic Number counter like they did last year. In a week, the Magic Number counter won’t have the outline of the Phanatic creeping up on Mr. Met like it did last year.

I could make some sort of forced analogy here about the 17 remaining games coming on September 11th. I won’t. I will say that today should have been the day that the Mets and Yankees made up their rainout game in June. Mets/Yankees for the last time in the Stadium would have been a good thing today.

At this time last year, I had stopped watching the team. I was more intent on catching up with TV than I was about watching them knock the magic number down from 5 to 0. As it started to fall apart, I still didn’t watch. It was going to happen. In my stupid head, I’d decided that I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of making me nervous enough to watch. Their last 17 games featured 6 against the Nationals and 6 against the Marlins. On Saturday, John Maine pitched 7.6 innings of 1-hit ball. It was locked up. All they needed was one good start out of a Hall of Fame pitcher against a team 20 games under .500. One. Good. Start.

He got one out and gave up seven runs. The season was over on the last day — the Mets were out and the hangover started. A hangover that forced the Mets to get Johan Santana and wouldn’t end until about June 26th of the following year against the Yankees. Watching the team at the beginning of the year was frustrating. The were bad, mundane, and the manager couldn’t get them back.

There’s an argument about when the season turned. It could arguably be the day Jerry Manuel took over, benched Jose Reyes over his loud protests, and seemed to say “what you pulled with the other guy you’re not going to pull with me. If you suck, you will sit. I do not have “guys.” The team will be a meritocracy.” The team was down 6.5 when Manuel took over in LA and down 3 when they got home a week later. Going in to the All-Star break, they had a week of St. Louis and Philly, went 5-3, and were on their way. I have a cautious optimism for the Mets right now. It borders on confidence for the first time this season. They’re getting the kind of things that baseball teams who win things get. Inexplicably good play out of role-players. Career months from regulars. Crazy stretch pitching.

I look forward to the bullpen crushing my soul in October.

Billy Wagner out for the year, possibly next year, and possibly his career.

Our closer’s Luis Ayala… strap in. On one hand, I know that Billy Wagner would have blown big saves down the stretch. On the other hand, I have no idea what Luis Ayala’s going to do. I guess I’m signing up for the Luis Ayala Fan Experience.

As for next year, I really don’t want the Mets to sign K-Rod. Don’t get me wrong, I think K-Rod will be great for a couple more years — but he’s got exactly the sort of batshit crazy, violent delivery that’s going to lead to him breaking down sooner rather than later. If I had my choice, roll the dice with John Maine and see what happens.

I was going to write a whole column praising SNY for their commentary this year and their general awesomeness compared to that other propaganda machine that masks as a regional sports’ network. Then, behold, the west coast’s only baseball fan, m’man Bootleg, did it for me.

Also, he’s been dropping a column per day for the whole month to keep me busy at work, so check all the whole Sounds of Summer feature.

Ahh, the New York Mets bullpen. The group of folks who lost us the 2006 NLCS and we’re responsible for between 1/3 and 1/2 the games lost during The Collapse. Fortunately, after each case, the Mets brass paid close attention to this detail and addressed it accordingly.

Or they didn’t do that at all.

The Mets’ bullpen has oscillated between “shaky” and “HOLYF*CK” since 2006, anchored by Billy Wagner… A guy capable of rattling off an impressive string of saves (as evidenced by his no-hitter to start the year) and equally capable of falling apart (as evidenced by his ability to blow three saves in five days). If there is any part of the team that I have zero faith in for an extended stretch run, it’s this one.

Scott Schoenweis - As much as I’d like to lay in to Scott Schoenweis for blowing games this season… I can’t. Someone finally figured out that he’s not great as a starter and not great reliever… but he’s real, REAL good against lefties (.223 against vs. .293 against). Unfortunately, the Mets translated that into “full inning guy” and he’s been getting, predictably, lit up against righties. The only way Schoenweis should ever close a game is if the last three batters are Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Geoff Jenkins.

Joe Smith - Joe Smith is Mirror-Universe Schoenweis. He snacks on right-handed batters (.239 against) and gets owned by lefties (.308 against). Same as above, minus the Utley/Howard/Jenkins thing. Much like Shoenweis, I’m perfectly fine with Smith so long as he’s used in his role.

Aaron Heilman - Our own little basketcase. Heilman came up as a starter and was moved in to the bullpen because he wasn’t a particularly good starter (5.93 ERA). Save for a particularly backbreaking homerun to Yadier F’n Molina in 2006, he’s been a great reliever, giving the Mets 3.03 ERA and a WHIP barely over 1 in 2007. Problem is: he wants to be a starter and has been very vocal about the fact he wants to be a starter. The wheels have come off this year and the Met fans have been predictably assy with him, booing him from opening day right until now. He’s been a source of contention between Hulse and I for a while… Hulse taking the side “you’re get paid to play baseball, go out there and get me three outs and stop whining” and me taking the side “if you hate what you do, you’re not going to be as good at it, no matter how many people yell at you to just go out there and get outs.” This argument has devolved into various forms, but that’s the crux. Regardless, it’s been very difficult to have faith in Heilman and, though I don’t believe in booing your own team, even I have to admit that I get the shakes when he goes out there.

Duaner Sanchez - Sanchez was tremendous for the Mets in 2006… then decided he needed some Fourthmeal in Miami. One cab accident later and he missed half of 2006 and all of 2007. Back this year, he’s yet to find the stroke that saw him pitch to a 2.60 ERA in 2006. In the odd way baseball works out sometimes, if Sanchez hadn’t gotten hurt, the Mets wouldn’t have traded Xavier Nady to the Pirates for Roberto Hernandez and Oliver Perez. Perez could be out of baseball by now the way his career was going and Nady wouldn’t be playing for the Yankees. Regardless, Sanchez has lost a few points off his fastball following the accident that damaged his shoulder. His love of Fourthmeal got him kicked out of spring training for showing up out of shape. Sanchez has shown flashes of brilliance this season but has a tendency to let a game get away from him quickly.

Pedro Feliciano - Another lefty specialist that borders on full-inning guy. I really have nothing good or bad to say about Feliciano… which means I’m probably OK with him relieving in a big spot.

Luis Ayala/Al Reyes - Fearful; but the Mets system got Oliver Perez and John Maine back on the right track, so I’ll reserve judgment for the moment.

Billy Wagner - Wagner has proven himself to be Queens’s own version of Trevor Hoffman — someone incredibly good at stacking up 1-inning, 3-run saves… so long as he comes in at the top of the 9th with no runners on base. Ask him to come in in the 8th, or in the 9th with runners on, or in the 9th in a nationally televised game…. forget it. For me, Wagner is as much to blame for the 2006 NLCS debacle as Heilman or Beltran. If Wagner doesn’t give a home run to So f’n Taguchi, or RBI hits to Scott friggin Spezio or Juan friggin Encarcion, then there’s no game seven and no Yadier f’n Molina. The news on Wagner has been inconclusive at best. At the moment, he’s out three more weeks. If, at some point, they have to shut him down for the season, I don’t know what direction they’d go in.

Final Grades:
Infield: A
Outfield: B+
Bench: B-
Starters: A+
Bullpen: D-

Mets starting pitching has been relatively great this season with a great mix of veterans and young guys. It’s one of the few things that’s been fun to watch all year… but kind of in the way you watch the kids in horror movies sleep together — you just know the end is going to wind up ugly.

Johan Santana: The Mets have an irritating tendency to haze new free agent pitchers in their first season. They did it to Tom Glavine, they did it to Pedro, and now Santana gets to enjoy a 2.75 ERA with 11 wins. In his last six starts alone, he’s had no-decisions in games 8IP-2R, 6.3IP-1R, and 7IP-2R. Again, Met fans - an unreasonable lot - want Santana to go out every start and throw 200 pitch, complete game gems. I, on the other hand, argue that if you can’t hand your bullpen a 2-run lead and ask them to get six outs that you’re not long for the season. Somewhere along the line, I had an argument with a friend that the Mets exiled too many guys to the frozen north for Santana. They didn’t.

Pedro Martinez: At the beginning of this season, I wrote about how Pedro would have a great bounceback year because he’s had a full year off to get his arm problems in order. As it turned out, I was right about his arm. About his legs, not so much. He’s made four starts since returning from his second stint on the DL and has looked quite good - notching one win, one hard luck loss, and two bullpen related (shocking) no-decisions. The fans really have to be on pins-and-needles with each Pedro start but, as someone who was only hoping to get 20 starts and the post-season out of him, I’m happy. If you made me sign for a post-season rotation featuring Santana and Pedro pitching some combination of games 1, 2, 5, and 6 — I’ll take it.

Oliver Perez: No one has been more up-and-down this season than Oliver Perez. When he’s good, he’s amazingly good (in wins, 59 IP, 0.983 WHIP, 1.68 ERA in wins) when he’s bad… strap in. Since Dan Warthen and Jerry Manuel took the reigns Ollie is 4-3 with a 2.83 ERA, a 1.18 WHIP while holding opponents to a .296 OBP against. He’s also only given up 2 unearned runs — a huge bane in the Randolph Era. I’m not sure exactly how Manuel’s gotten Ollie past his mental problems. The only noticeable shift was early in the Manuel Era. Ollie walked the bases loaded, gave up two runs on an error and looked to be on the verge of giving up a big inning. In that spot, Randolph pulled the plug. Manuel left him in. I don’t know if the “stop whining” approach is what worked, but something’s changed. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the Mets handle the Oliver Perez contract next year. The Mets have a relatively strict rule about giving pitchers not named Johan Santana no more than 4 or 5 years — however, Ollie is death to left-handed hitters and the Mets are in a division where at least two of their division rivals generate most of their power from left-handed batters (Brian McCann, Kelly Johnson, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard). Toss in two starts against the lefty-dominant Yankees and you have a guy who’s pretty valuable to the team. Crazy as it is to say, I can see the Mets offering five years at $14M per and having Boras turn it down.

John Maine: At the moment, I have to assume Maine’s days in the rotation are numbered. He’s struggled to go six innings over his last few starts and, considering the mess the bullpen’s in, it will be moderately unsurprising to see him and prospect Jon Niese wind up auditioning for the bullpen when the rosters expand. I like Maine — he’s turned in some great performances in big spots since being traded for Anna Benson — but has problems of late going deep into games. That said, you can do worse then taking a 7.75 K/9 guy and grooming him to take over for Roller Coaster Wagner in 2010. I would be completely unsurprised to see Maine get sent to the bullpen in the next few weeks if 1) Wagner doesn’t come back, which is starting to look possible and 2) Jon Niese, a AAA prospect is called up when the rosters expand. If they’re going to do it, I’d rather they see what they have now instead of throwing him on the mound in a playoff game and rolling the dice.

Mike Pelfrey: Pelfrey’s been a fun ride this year. He was the Mets first round pick in the 2006 draft, made his debut with the A+ St. Lucie Mets that season, and made his debut with the big club in the 2nd half of a double header (which I was at) vs. the Marlins. Since Met fans are a somewhat insane and unreasonable lot, most of them were quite unforgiving as Pelfrey proceeded to go 4-13 in 2007 at the major league level after a whole 176 IP at the minor league level. The light came on toward the end of May (pretty good considering the complete lack of minor league seasoning and learning on the fly in the bigs) and following three hard luck NDs in a row (4 ER, 21 IP, 15K) he’s gone on a tear. In 15 starts he’s gone 9-2 (both losses against the Marlins who, for whatever reason, own his soul) with a 3.19 ERA and a 1.271 WHIP.

El Duque?: Duque was making his fourth rehab start for the Binghampton Mets when he took a bad step covering first and did something to his foot. There hasn’t been any updates about Duque’s progress since the middle of July so I’ll have to assume he’s done for the season. Regardless, the team would be hard pressed to remove a starter in favor of him at this point in the season.

—

Next up… the PEN OF DOOM

The Mets bench is an odd collection this season — primarily because of all the injuries. At the beginning of the season, it was a collection of Omar Minaya’s favorite Ex-Expos and scrap heap players. Now, it’s a collection of Omar Minaya’s favorite Ex-Expos, scrap heap players, and some guys from Double A Binghampton sprinkled in.

Robinson Cancel: Scrap heap. Cancel had 42 games with the Brewers in 1999 and hit to an OPS+ of 18. Yes. 18. Since then, he’s bounced around Double and Triple A before landing in the Mets’ system this year. Cancel (and occasionally Raul Casanova) fill up the “third catcher” role on the Mets bench, freeing them up to use Ramon Castro in late-game pinch hitting situations against a lefty-reliever. I mentioned Castro already in the infield portion of this piece since I’m pretty sure Jerry Manuel considers him 1/2 a platoon. Cancel has been as generally worthless at the plate this year as you’d expect the back-up catcher to be so he’s generally a non-entity. While I’m sure he (or Casanova) will remain on the roster, I don’t think they’ll get much playing time as the season draws down.

Ramon Castro: Castro and his jaw take up two roster spots but the bench-catcher offense is worth it. Inexplicably, the Mets didn’t use him in every interleague game as DH, instead opting for some of the other terrible hitters on their bench. Blah blah blah back-up catcher as DH is a bad idea blah blah. I’d argue Castro is probably the best bench-catcher in the league and am very happy he’s around.

Marlon Anderson: Scrap Heap. I had a decent exchange John Peterson at Blastings! Thrilledge over Anderson in his comments section. He posed the question about why the Mets considered Marlon Anderson a good pinch hitter when he was, in fact, a very bad hitter. Anderson inexplicably has very good numbers as a pinch hitter vs. his career numbers. As a PH his line is .284/.347/.428 in 324 PA vs. a 2007 league average PH .226/.309/.351 and vs. his own career line of .266/.315/.392. It was more an argument about stat-head’s dogged insistence that situation in an at-bat never matters. My argument is that, while it may be over-rated like most of the mystical seam-head bullsh*t, it’s not meaningless (ie: Jason Giambi’s near 150 pt OPS improvement as a 1B vs. DH). Anderson, for whatever reason, is really good at coming in and taking one at bat. He’s not so good getting 4 plate-appearances per game. As such, I’ll take him for what he is - a pinch hitting “specialist” who probably shouldn’t ever sniff a starting spot.

Argenis Reyes: AAA New Orleans. I don’t know how we got Lil Reyes… maybe the Indians sent him as a belated thank you to Minaya for the Grady Sizemore/Cliff Lee/Brandon Phillips for Bartolo Colon deal. He’s another in a pretty long line of Mets’ 2B prospects that are vacuums on defense and relatively awful on offense. Reyes was called up to become the bench middle-infielder after Luis Castillo’s injury turned Easley into the starting 2B. As Easley’s cooled off, he and Reyes are splitting time as the starter until one of them volunteers to be the every day starter.

Damion Easley: Scrap Heap. Easley’s was a great bench player for the Mets for the last season hitting for a 114 OPS+ in somewhat of a renaissance season at 37. He gets a decent amount of playing time because of Luis Castillo’s $6M knees. He hasn’t been quite so successful this year but has managed to ride a hot streak in to a starting job following Castillo’s extended absence and Ruben Gotay’s free trip to Atlanta. A knack for clutch hitting this season (.355/.429/.452: 2 out, RISP; .260/.283/.460: Late & Close) has allowed Met fans to pretty well ignore his less than impressive replacement level OPS+. I’d rather him not be our starting 2B in big game situations but with Castillo still not really on a return timetable and Argenis Reyes unable to decide if he wants to be good or bad — he’s what we have.

Nick Evans: Double A Binghampton. Evans made his debut against the Rockies in May and immediately discovered the Coors Field Effect by hitting three doubles in his first game. Teams quickly realized he was a Double A guy and he went 1 for his next 20 with 9K before getting sent back down. He was inexplicably called back up as an injury replacement instead of giving one of the other prospects a look at the major league level. This call-up has been moderately more successful. He’s hit .277/.308/.340 in round 2’s 52 plate appearances. He’s still relatively over-matched at the plate and I expect him to be the candidate for demotion upon Ryan Church’s return. Why he was given a second look over Triple A New Orleans’s Val Pascucci (a rare member of both the Ex-Expo AND the Scrap Heap club), who’s been destroying Triple A all season, I have no idea. I suspect Pascucci will be given a chance to impress as a September call-up and will probably leave via the Rule V draft this December.

Daniel Murphy: AA Binghampton. Murphy has quickly turned himself into a fan favorite by having a 3/4ths Jay Bruce debut. He also has Nick Evans’s exile ticket to the frozen wasteland of Binghampton and has the hole puncher in the other hand. In his first 45 plate appearances, he’s picked up 16 hits, with 2 HR, 2 doubles, and a triple with 6 walks and only 5 K. For those scoring at home, that’s a .421/.511/.684 line and Met fans have a chance to get excited for a farm system guy for the first time in a while.

Endy Chavez: Ex-Expo. Still good as a 4th outfielder. The Mets-bloggers, oddly, are evenly split on Endy’s worth. Some argue he’s replacement level and should be replaced. Others point to the 2006 catch and say that if Carlos Beltran gets a hit or Yadier Molina dies, Endy’s catch goes down as the greatest play in Met history, one of the greatest plays in NLCS history, and gives the Mets the win. Replacing that type of late-inning defense is very difficult. They’re both right. Endy’s an incredible defensive replacement outfielder and, so long as the Mets continue to employ aging left-fielders, he’s a good person to have on the roster.

The Mets’ outfield plan this year was Moises Alou, Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church, and Endy Chavez. Alou began the season on the DL and the plan shifted to Angel Pagan, Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church, and Endy Chavez. Alou’s early injury kind of set the tone for the entire season. The Mets then injured their way through Plans B though F and have settled somewhere around Plan G — which surprisingly involves the guy who was supposed to be their back-up corner infielder and two guys from Double A Binghampton.

LF - Daniel Murphy/Nick Evans/Fernando Tatis: I’ll get in to Murphy and Evans a little more in the “bench” part of this little write-up — both of whom are Double A guys who skipped directly to the show and one of whom is making a statement for being the starting left fielder until Church returns. Fernando Tatis has been an interesting story. Omar Minaya has a thing for bringing in Expos players who weren’t particularly good even when they were on the Expos. Tatis’s major league career ended with the Expos in 2003. In 2004, he was unable to make the Devil Rays squad and effectively left baseball. In 2006 he had a cup of coffee with the Orioles before ending up in the Dodgers’ minor league system. He was released from there and ended up on the Mets Triple A affiliate. Tatis was called up following Angel Pagan’s injury and has put up NL Comeback Player of the Year type-season. Mets bloggers, a very… uh… groupthinky bunch have been predicting doom-and-gloom and a strike of midnight for Tatis since mid-June. On my short-lived and maybe someday-to-be-resurrected Mets’ Blog, I posed the question: “how many at-bats does it take before people realize that maybe, just maybe, Tatis is a guy who only had two full, uninjured seasons and was otherwise mired on crappy teams? Now, on a good team with a healthy body he’s finding the same stroke that he had back before he got hurt?” As a rule, I like “last gasp” players. He may turn back in to a pumpkin next year and hopefully the Mets will let some other team pay for his next three decline years but, for now, I’m happy with it.

CF - Carlos Beltran: Never has a center fielder who hits .270/.850 with 35-40 HR been more reviled and had his career more defined by one at-bat. Does Beltran make too much money? Yeah, probably. Is there a better all-around center fielder in the league? Arguable. The only complaint I have about Beltran, and it’s kind of a silly one, is that he still is way too happy to take a walk to be a good 4/5 hitter. And, if we weren’t saddled with the top-of-the-infield power of Luis Castillo I still argue that his speed and his ability to walk make him a much better 2-hitter for David Wright and Carlos Delgado to knock in. But, I guess with the Mets’ frustrating need to sac-bunt out of the 2-hole in any and all situations that it’s good he’s not in there.

RF - Ryan Church: Speaking of old Expos players — the Ryan Church debacle has been a microcosm of general Mets’ mismanagement of situations. Now, I will grant that concussions are an unexplored problem in baseball, but what’s gone on with Church is almost comical. Following the concussion, the Mets let Church take a couple of days and allowed him to dictate when he was ready. Then immediately put him on multiple cross-country flights. Within a day he had the Steve Young Doll-eyed look. They finally put him on the DL and took him off to play against the Yankees. Then he had a migraine and he’s been back on since. Now, they’ve gone completely in the other direction and are bing absurdly over-cautious. After weeks of rest, he was cleared by a neurologist on 8/9. Nearly a week later and he still doesn’t have a rehab schedule. It’s a shame that this debacle has ruined what was, to this point, an All-Star (and on the road to MVP quality) season. He needs to get back for no other reason to see Hanley Ramirez’s knee knocked the baseball out of him.

It’s somewhat of a concern that the Mets are in the middle of August and really couldn’t tell you who their starting outfield would be in a playoff situation. But… it’s better than the bullpen.

With about a quarter of the season remaining now’s as good a time as any to take a look and see how the Mets stack up against the competition for the all-important last 17 games of the season. Somehow, after one of the more frustrating seasons in recent memory, the Mets find themselves tied for first place with the Phillies on August 14th with 42 left.

I don’t think I’ll start with the bullpen. I’m happy today.

C - Brian Schneider/Ramon Castro: Considering the Mets are now carrying three catchers, I guess we officially have to break out the dreaded “P” word for Schneider and Castro. The Mets let Paul Lo Duca partially because of his PR problems and partially because he wasn’t particularly good at baseball anymore. They replaced him with….. him from the Nationals. Mets bloggers citywide want Ramon Castro to be the starting catcher in all situations. A quick glance at his splits against righties, his… uh… portly body type, and his time logged on the DL are three pretty obvious reasons why Mets’ brass isn’t exactly falling over themselves to put him in the everyday line-up — but Castro is a great player to have in reserve. He’s probably one of the best offensive back-up catchers in the league, he murders lefties, and a third catcher on the bench gives Manuel the freedom to use him in a late-game pinch hitting or DH role vs. lefties. For me, I enjoy making comments about his gigantic jaw and how the ball doesn’t stand a chance when he really gets his mandible in to one.

1B - Carlos Delgado: Rumors of Delgado’s demise were, apparently, greatly exaggerated. In the interest of full disclosure: I did jump on the “just release him” bandwagon after his atrocious first 40 games which saw production of .224/.303/.359 with only 5 HR and 34K. At one point, I believe I hopped on the “platoon him with Sexson” bandwagon when I realized that OPS vs. righties was about 250 points higher than his OPS vs. lefties and if you combined him with Sexson’s exactly opposite split they made one pretty mean first baseman. Then, on June 27th, Carlos the Bond Villain (Not to be confused with Carlos the Poodle Owner) hung 9 RBI on the Yankees in the first game of day/night crosstown doubleheader. He’s put up a line of .318/.417/.662 with 14 HR and 31K in the 42 games since then. At the very least, Delgado’s likely earned himself his (in light of what Mark Teixeira is going to demand) completely reasonable $16M option next season. At the very most, he had his sniff of the post-season in 2006 and wants to get back. I can think of worse options at 1B right now — and he’s in Milwaukee having a cheesesteakportabella eating contest with CC Sabbathia.

2b - Argenis Reyes/Luis Castillo/Damion Easley: As someone who’s staunchly defended the Luis Castillo signing because of the reasonable price-tag vs. Castillo’s relative production, even I have to admit that the fact we could easily drop 95-year-old Damion Easley in to the role and actually become BETTER on offense does not bode well for the next three seasons. Castillo has been hurt (and now his rehab has been delayed for “personal reasons”) and the Mets seem to be splitting time between Easley (who seems to have found out it’s midnight) and Reyes (another in the looong line of incredible on defense/ineffectual on offense 2b prospects). If Castillo doesn’t return, it would be not terribly surprising to see the Mets give new prospect Daniel Murphy some time at 2B. He was, apparently, a 3B prospect in Binghampton who asked to get playing time at 1B and 2B to increase his chances of getting up to the show. In his first 30 at-bats for the big club so far he’s racked up 14 hits, with 2 HR, 2 doubles, 1 triple, and 9 RBI with 6 BB vs. 5K. Murphy’s been filling half the sixth-string role in Left Field following the injuries of Alou and Anderson and has yet to play the infield at the major league level.

3b - David Wright: Earlier in the season when the team was going bad, Wright had a murderous look on his face at all times leading me to believe he was either going to remove the intestines of a teammate or start carrying around a pet muskrat named “Emma” through whom he’d take all his media questions. As it turned out, soon after Jerry Manuel took over, he gave Wright a day off and he’s been relatively stable since. Dude just needed a break. Considering the bullpen and Reyes pretty much jobbed Wright out of the NL MVP last year, I have very little concern with him falling apart down the stretch.

SS - Jose Reyes: When Reyes is good, he’s really good. When he’s bad, he’s a petulant basketcase who throws tantrums on the field and falls apart like Brad Lidge after a Pujols home run. Jerry Manuel seems to have curbed these tendencies better than Willie Randolph. It’s argued (on SNY… seriously) that Reyes’s benching after failing to run out a pop fly in August 2007 is what led to his meltdown September line of .205/.279/.333 in the midst of what was, before then, a killer season. I don’t THINK Reyes is going to have a mental breakdown like he did last season, but crazier things have happened. Manuel seems to have the power to discipline Reyes and not cause catastrophe where Willie Randolph didn’t. I have no idea why or how… just that it seems true.