One New York Life

1) The Mets Weren’t Getting Roy Halliday: If you put a gun to their heads, or probably just asked them straight up, the Mets brass is probably thrilled at the developments over the last few days. “But Tom, their division rival got Roy Halladay… how could they be thrilled?” Because due to newspaper columnists, radio show hosts, and insane fans — people we’re honestly arguing that trading a 26-year-old, MVP-caliber shortstop in his prime and depth they don’t have for a 32-year-old pitcher + $100M who’s pitched 220+ innings the last four seasons was a good idea. It wasn’t. Especially when one considers the list of 2011 free agents include Cliff Lee, Ted Lilly, Josh Beckett, and potentially Matt Cain. None of whom costs you one of the best five shortstops in the league, prospects you don’t have, and a lot of money. The Mets can now say “we had no one the caliber of Cliff Lee to trade for Roy Halliday, and that’s what the Blue Jays were looking for.” No one can contest this other than people who were demanding the Mets make moves last season when they were completely out of it.

2) The Red Sox Got Fleeced By John Lackey: There’s a big difference between the prettiest girl at the dance and the prettiest available girl at the dance. Lackey is the latter. He got the Red Sox to give him AJ Burnett’s contract off a season in which he pitched to a 3.83 ERA. He also hasn’t pitched a full season since 2007. You can’t complain about Omar Minaya’s tendency to sign injury prone players and then complain about him not sinking $15M/year in to a player showing signs of a 30+ break down. Also, the Mets just don’t give long-term contracts for pitchers unless you’re one of the five best pitchers in baseball. This is a good policy. And they really don’t do it to guys over 30. See if this is a good policy in the fourth year of Derek Lowe’s contract. I bet it will be.

3) Jason Bay Is Better For Citi Field Then Matt Holliday: I can’t say this enough. Matt Holliday is an over-rated baseball player. He hit .330 in Coors Field and .270 on the road. He’s a .270 baseball player. .270 baseball players are not worth $20M/year. If you believe the Mets, they charted both Jason Bay’s and Matt Holliday’s 2009 fly balls and compared them. They discovered that most of Holliday’s fly balls would die in the acres of left field at Citi. I believe them. Do you know why? Because all baseball teams should do things like this when they’re examining what players fit their park. I can look at Holliday’s numbers, his attitude, and the way he fields and realize the team that signs him to a Vernon Wells contract is going to be as happy with him as the Blue Jays are with Vernon Wells. This is not confirmation bias because there is no argument that disputes it. Despite what the Sports’ Guy would suggest — when you have the opportunity to sign a Coors Field Creation who played well for six weeks in a contract year you don’t, in fact, have to do it. They’re pursuing the right guy. Insert Canadian exchange rate joke here.

4) Omar Minaya Is Not A Bad General Manager: You can not name that many bad deals Omar has made for the Mets. He’s been solid, doesn’t offer too much money for bad players, and is not going out and signing the world and thus screwing over the team for the future in an offseason where he, by all rights, should be doing so. A bad GM trying to save his job (Steve Phillips… remember him?) would be mortgaging the team’s entire future to throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. Minaya is staying the course, making smart signings, not jumping on bad trades, and realizing what everyone else should be: THE METS WEREN’T BAD LAST YEAR. And, lest we forget the good that he’s done, he got Johan Santana for nothing and traded the recently non-tendered by the Braves and out-of-baseball Ryan Church for a good right fielder with a laser-rocket arm. This is not a bad general manager, people. It’s a good general manager who is getting the best of what’s available. John Lackey is not the best of what’s available, especially when there’s a fairly decent chance he’ll be able to trade for some players from teams trying to dump salary.

Like I said on Twitter yesterday… could we maybe give the Mets’ an entire offseason before declaring them dead? They weren’t getting Roy Halladay… it was a pie-in-the-sky wish that would have cost them Jose Reyes and Mike Pelfrey at a minimum.

The season blissfully ended last weekend and I happily get to put this season to bed with watching some non-depressing baseball games. I can happily stop hearing insane Mets calls on WFAN. I can happily stop reading the commenters on Metsblog. I can happily ignore Twitters from Mets’ bloggers. I used to think it would be fun maintaining a Mets Blog. It’s not. Because, as I’ve mentioned earlier this year, when the Mets are going badly, the fans (and writers) are as bad as the Jets. It’s so insanely different then the Giants. The Giants don’t make changes based on media pressure. The Mets and Jets do. That’s why you got Favre last season. That’s why Mangini is gone. That’s why the Jets have been terrible. The Mets have a terrible tendency to listen too much. And they can’t.

The number of bloggers (and, to be fair, newspaper reporters and beat writers) who have talked up the need to blow up this team and start from scratch is mind-boggling. The people who follow this franchise really, honestly believe that we should start from scratch when the opening day line-up, if nothing changed from right now, would have Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Jeff Francoeur, and Luis Castillo (off a .302/.387/.346 year). Their ace pitcher would be Johan Santana and their closer would be K-Rod. If they execute his option, their set-up man is still JJ Putz. These people would argue that the team should trade off five All-Stars (for fifty cents on the dollar off bad years, mind you) for what? Prospects? Half of equal value? If this team needs to be blown up, what should we do to the Pirates? Nuke them from orbit?

Besides that, the number of columns written saying the Wilpons are terrible owners and that Jeff embarrassed himself by appearing live, in-studio, with Omar Minaya on the Mike Francesa Show is equally mind-boggling. Francesa, regardless of if you like him or hate him, is a tough interviewer. He asked everything the fans should be wondering (will the Mets’ share Wilpon’s Madoff-related suffering? Will the stadium concerns be addressed? Will Murphy be the every day first basemen? Will the Mets at least spend up to this year’s payroll?) and he answered them honestly as possible. Yes, the Mets will probably have the highest payroll in the National League next year. No, it won’t be as high as the Yankees. Yes, we’re going to be aggressive in filling our shortcomings. No wonder other team fanbases hate us so much. Can you imagine being stuck under the thumb of Robert Nutting or Jeff Loria and listening to a group of spoiled people complaining about their owner spending $150M/year?

And, on top of all that, I can’t even imagine the abject idiocy of people demanding firings off this season. Off of a season in which, before the injuries started, the Mets were in first place by 4 games. A season which featured over 1500 days and $40 million on the DL. How, with a straight face, can you demand a manager and a general manager be fired off that? No one can present a cogent argument for why Omar Minaya should be fired. “He should have made mid-season moves.” No, he shouldn’t have. There was nothing that was going to fix this season. Sending prospects to the Nationals for Adam Dunn meant we would have had Adam Dunn on a 70-win team. “He should have had a better bench.” We had a great bench. We had Gary Sheffield to play twice a week in the outfield, Alex Cora to handle middle infield, and Fernando Tatis to handle corner outfield. By the end of the season, they were on a fourth string middle infielder and a third string corner outfielder. You get 25 guys on a major league roster, people… not 50. He made a great trade this season in getting an every day right fielder for a bench right fielder. His trade record with the Mets is 75%. “He should have signed Derek Lowe instead of Oliver Perez.” You don’t know that. Let’s wait until Lowe is serving up batting practice in 2013, shall we? “He was wrong about Daniel Murphy.” Yes, he was. He misread a prospect. It happens.

Other than the yearly reworking that goes in to every bullpen, the Mets need to replace three — THREE — positions. First base, left field, and a 2nd starting pitcher. The Mets’ farm system isn’t deep, but they certainly have enough in the system to put together a package for a Johan Santana-like sign-and-trade deal. If I’m taking the Wilpons at their word and they’re going to at least spend up to the current salary number and maybe a little more, they have around $50M to spend after dealing with Wright’s and Reyes’s escalators.

Plan 1 (The stars align and everything happens like I want it): Resign Carlos Delgado to a one-year, incentive deal which he’ll likely take to try and score a DH job in 2011… remind him it’s either this or the A’s. Delgado fills the role of everyday 1B and interleague DH. Let Daniel Murphy develop as a bench player/caddy for Delgado so he can get some at-bats without the entirety of the Mets’ Media Douches wanting to lay a season at his feat because he’s learning two new positions at the major league level. Offer a sign-and-trade package to Toronto for the available Roy Halladay. Pick up JJ Putz’s option and trade him and cash to the Rays for Carl Crawford and his option. Angel Pagan becomes the bench outfielder. Sign Rafael Soriano from the Braves. The Mets have a rotation of Johan Santana, Roy Halliday, Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, and John Maine. An All-Star closer, an All-Star set-up man. And a line-up of Jose Reyes, Carl Crawford, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, David Wright, Jeff Francoeur, Luis Castillo, and a catcher. $24M for Halliday, $10M for Crawford, $8M for Soriano, $5M for Delgado. Pencil in 65 wins for your starters and go to work.

Pros: Unbelievably awesome. Selling season tickets is not a problem.
Cons: Probably won’t happen because too many things have to break right.

Plan 2: Sign-and-trade for Prince Fielder or Adrian Gonzales, either of whom will probably be made available in the last years of their deals. Sign Jason Bay. Take a flier on Erik Bedard.

Pros: Lineup is still an awesome Reyes, Castillo, Beltran, Wright, Fielder, Francoeur, Bay, Catcher.
Cons: Island of Manhattan may not be big enough for both Prince and CC. Brewers are close enough to contention that they’re going to want major league ready players. No Roy Halladay. Signing a guy prone to DL stints.

Plan 3: Offer the Nationals whatever prospects they want for Adam Dunn since they’re not contending until at least 2011. Sign John Lackey. Execute Putz’s option. Still sign Rafael Soriano. Roll the dice with Angel Pagan and his adventurous base-running in left-field.

Pros: Lockdown bullpen, less wins in the rotation.
Cons: Angel Pagan is a bench player. He shouldn’t be starting.

Plan 4 (worst case scenario so what will happen): Lavish type A free agent money on Matt Holliday and enjoy him hitting .220 in Citi Field. Sign 32-year-old Aubrey Huff to a 5-year deal and wonder why he’s declining every season. Sign John Lackey. Don’t have a draft pick until 2012.

Pros: Spending lots of money.
Cons: Terrible.

The Mets are going to have to spend money to fill in their gaps — but the idea they need to start from scratch is absurd.

In lieu of the normal 10 Thoughts On August, I decided to let my friend and fellow Mike Mussina supporter Mike Hulse take the August Mets’ slot with a response column to Jayson Stark’s dire predictions of the Mets future. I think I’d like to get at Stark’s column in a point-by-point response some day but with football season and Germany looming — it may fall to the wayside. Below is Mike’s view on how to fix the Mets in $30M.

—-

Apparently Mr. Stark feels my beloved Mets are basically effed in the a. He claims the end is nigh.

I disagree.

So, I’m gonna fix it, right here, right now. And I’m gonna do it without one sided trades that you may hear listening to WFAN along the lines of ‘The mets should deal Daniel Murphy and Bobby Parnell for Roy Halladay’.

The holes are as follows;

- LF
- 2 rotation spots
- 1B
- C
- Lefty relief pitcher
- Set Up Man
- Possible change in management

I’m going to take the last one first. People who feel the whole thing should be blown up have a right to that opinion, but who, pray tell, will be coming in? On the executive front, who’s the big move to make? Prying Billy Beane from Oakland? You want someone off the Moneyball tree a la JP Ricciardi? He’s done great in Toronto. If you want Omar fired, awesome, but find a replacement. And before anyone says it… Bobby V isn’t coming back, and if he does, it guarantees nothing. I love Bobby V, but if he came back to lead the Mets to a championship, it would be the first time he did that, ever. Next year will be a make or break year for both Omar and Manuel. To be honest, watching the Mets backups playing out a worthless season with some fight in them speaks highly of Jerry. I’m voting stand pat, not because i think they’re infallible, but because there’s not a better alternative.

As far as the field goes, here’s the deal. The Mets save about $30 mil in expiring deals. It’s possible they won’t reinvest that money but assuming they do and don’t ADD payroll, it makes things tight. It also doesn’t help that the farm is thin so trading is out unless it’s for a mediocre player. They can make one ‘big’ deal and will have to piece it together from there. Here’s what I’m thinking, hole by hole:

1) LF – Jason Bay: This is your big move. The Mets have a massive hole in left. More an axe wound. It’s awful out there. I figure it’ll cost something like $12-15 mil per year, but he’s an excellent 2-way player and the Mets sorely need something like this. The deal also frees them up to trade Fernando Martinez who is about all the real value they have in the farm. Leaves the spending budget at $18 mil.

2) SP (2) – Erik Bedard, Brett Myers: The Mets need to roll the dice a little at this point unless they want to just blow it all up and rebuild everything. Both of these guys carry varying degrees of risk but with that comes the necessary discount. Erik Bedard has been plagued with injuries in his Seattle tenure, however, he only made $7.75 million last year and hasn’t done a thing to merit a raise. If he can be signed to something with incentives you may be able to get him for only like 5-7 mil guaranteed. That kind of money either gets your a risk or it gets you Livan Hernandez. Myers is wildly inconsistent but he’ll likely command a deal in the 4 years for $32 mil range. Best case: both starters cost you $13 mil next season, leaving $5 million in the budget.

3) 1B – Daniel Murphy: No, I don’t think Daniel Murphy is a long term solution at first. However, there is not a good 1B on the market and the Mets don’t have the prospects to deal for a guy like Adrian Gonzalez. Nick Johnson is the best free agent out there. I like Nick Johnson, but if I’m on a budget, I have more pressing needs with my money. I’d rather take a shot at Murphy developing into a .300 hitter with a little power than spend all I have left and then some on an injury prone .300 hitter with a little power.

4) C – Omir Santos: Santos has had a fine rookie year for a catcher, seems to be well liked for those who buy into ‘clubhouse guys’, got more than a few big hits for this team in a down year. He’s not a marquee guy who will win you anything, but he’s not losing you any games. Plus, he’s going to get better, not worse.

5) LHRP/Set up man – Mike Gonzalez: Assuming nobody blows him away with a $10 mil per year deal to close, he’s perfect. You have 5 million left which is what elite set up guys get. He’s a very good 8th inning guy to compliment Parnell and is left handed so Feliciano isn’t brought in for every game against Philly for the rest of his life. It’s cheaper than exercising JJ Putz’s 8 million dollar option, and Gonzo didn’t have elbow surgery this season.

So, $30 million bucks can solve major issues but not all of them. If the Mets can get creative, they can vault back into contention. Long term they do need to build the farm, but that takes time unless they decide to sell off everything. In the end, there can go a lot of different ways, however, the end is not nigh.

To borrow the term from that 60-year removed Brooklyn team.

In the last week, JJ Putz has been shut down, Billy Wagner was shipped up to Boston (to find his wooden leg), Johan Santana and Ollie Perez have undergone minor surgeries to get ready for next season, and Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel have gotten the golden “Vote of Confidence” from ownership. All of this seemed part and parcel of the team raising the white flag about a week after I did.

At the moment, I’m trying to convince myself that the state of the team isn’t THAT bad. It’s difficult. It seems like the franchise is in terrible shape. The owners lost money in the Madoff scheme. The stadium was horribly overpriced and will now deal with falling attendance. There’s a rumor Minaya won’t be allowed to spend up to this season’s payroll. The farm is in terrible shape because the vice-president of minor league development was too busy challenging his players to fights to notice they, mostly, sucked. I’ve read columns talking about “calling up the kids and seeing what they got.” People, if there were kids to call up do you think we would have begged for Anderson Hernandez back from the Nationals or be playing Cory Sullivan in the outfield? We took a look at what the jewel prospect had. It wasn’t much.

The thing that settles me down a little — and what should settle insane Mets fan down — is that the team Omar assembled was in first place in May. Then Carlos Delgado started the flood of injuries and here we are. Omar’s team was in first place with a third of the season down. Omar’s Plan B team was in striking distance with half the season remaining. Omar’s Plan F team is in last. Anyone who thinks that should earn a firing is crazy.

10) I’m sure there will be a moment this month where I officially throw in the towel.

August 16th. David Wright placed on the 15-day DL with concussion symptoms.

And it is AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL over.

Confidential to Bootleg: Minaya should survive the season. The team he put together was in first place in May. If he does get the axe, it’s painfully obvious scapegoating.

Current Record (As of 8/1): 49-53
June Record: 12-14
GB (NL East): 9.5 (Philadelphia, 4th)
GB (Wildcard): 6.5 (Colorado, 8th)

1) First off — when winning a $5/person Home Run Derby pool was the highlight of your month — you know it’s been a bad baseball month.

2) In addition — pretty much any month that opens with your team barely scraping out three runs over three games in the second most offense-friendly park in the league is going to be bad. It seems like almost an entire season ago now, but this when it appeared the Mets still had a shot at the division. As the month opened, the Phillies were still playing terrible baseball and they’d managed to tantalize the Mets with only a two-game lead. The Mets arrived in Philadelphia with a chance at the division. Then got whupped three times and left with their tail between their collective legs. These weren’t the games at Citi — where the team led early and the bullpen squandered it. These were just a bad team playing a good team. The Phillies went on to build a 10 game lead and the Mets went on to drop a series to the Nationals. It’s been a long month.

3) I find the people demanding the jobs of Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya insane. I’ll listen to arguments, but they have to be better than the laughable “he should have been prepared with a better bench for this” or “he should have made some stopgap moves.” Again, I ask, what stopgap moves fix up your two best hitters, two starters, and your 2nd best reliever going to the DL? Like — the Mets would be a .500 team right now and holding down the fort if only we had Mark DeRosa hitting fifth and Eric Hinske hitting 6th? Really? That’s your complaint? As for Manuel — I agree that the team plays sloppy baseball at times, but most of their issues occur on the basepaths. For that, I mostly blame third base coach Razor Shines who seems to operate with no rhyme, reason, or concept for the game of baseball.

4) If there is a silver lining in this cloud of crap, it’s that the Mets will actually be able to see what they have at first base in Daniel Murphy. Murphy played an adventurous left field to open the season featuring high-profile, game-costing errors. Mets fans, being what they are, immediately decided that he’s a terrible player and should be busted back down to Rookie Ball because, apparently, making a guy learn left field at the major league level is something one just “picks up”. Murphy was moved to 1B (he’s a natural 3B) in June and, finally, toward the end of July, he finally got comfortable at the position. According to SNY, he’s now leading the league in the fake statistic of “double plays started.” More importantly, over the last couple weeks, he’s found his missing power stroke, slugging over .500 for the first time since last season. These last two months will be a pretty good indication as whether or not Murphy is the first baseman of the future. As the organization sold him that way and an excuse for not needing the services of Manny Ramirez, he’ll get that chance next season anyway. Sorry Aubrey Huff — you’ll have to choose another large market team to fund your retirement contract… I hope.

5) National League thought — the American League, again, won the All-Star Game. This caused a minor meltdown amongst NL fans and more irritating superiority amongst AL fans. Look, y’all — the National League is not going to win an All Star Game so long as they only have six innings to get a huge lead. Then the AL manager throws Jonathan Papelbon, Joe Nathan, and Mariano Rivera in succession. We threw Heath Bell. HEATH BELL. I watched Heath Bell for a lot of years, and bully for him that he’s had a great first half in San Diego, but he’s a mediocre reliever having a great half. The fact the Padres didn’t ship him out for an absolute haul at the deadline is insane. He is 30 years old — his value, I promise you, will never be higher than it is right now. The National League is not going to win the All Star game until Rivera retires and the AL no longer has 3 dominant closers to get 9 outs while the NL uses guys like Billy Wagner, Eric Gagne, and Trevor Hoffman. Which means, hooray, I have at least 3 more years of listening to Bill Simmons podcasts where he talks about the superiority of the American League and how all AL teams would be 10 wins higher in the NL — even though the team that would play in the NL would be entirely different and would rely on things like “David Ortiz at first base” and “less batters.” If we’re lucky, we can also hear him continue to complain that baseball games are too long while promoting the awesomeness of the AL’s attendance-boosting gimmick that’s inexplicably stuck around.

6) Early in July they sent Ryan Church to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur, thus clearing the team of the guys who have spent extended time on the Jerry Manuel Shitlist. I didn’t understand this trade at first and, as has been well-documented, I was a fan of Ryan Church. But, the more I thought about it, the more I got on-board. At 30, Church is what he is — A .270 hitter with a little bit of power who plays a great right field. At 25, there’s still a chance the Mets’ system can teach him that he does not, in fact, have to swing at every pitch thrown to him. Someone should show video of Vlad Guererro and say “you’re not him. Stop it.” Church should be happy — apparently karma repays a player’s time on the Jerry Manuel Shitlist as TrapJaw got to catch Mark Buehrle’s perfect game.

7) In the closing days of August, like the last gasp of a horror movie monster, the Mets took 5-straight from the Wildcard leading Rockies and the Astros. Then, they promptly returned to Earth dropping three-of-four, at home, to the semi-terrible Diamondbacks. The Mets season, and really the last two seasons, can be summed up by their August 4th game vs. the Cardinals. K-Rod blew the save and allowed the Cards to tie in the top of the 9th. I turned the channel because I knew the game was over. The Mets do not get clutch hits late in games. They haven’t for the last two seasons. Did you know there’s only been three walk-offs in the new stadium this year? The Yankees had three in a week. I checked the box score later in the evening more out of habit then the presumption they won. I discovered that Sean Green HBPed in the go-ahead run before delivering a meatball to El Hombre who did what he do — mashing a grand slam to put the Cardinals up 5. My Mets.

8) As I mentioned earlier this year — the team’s chronic ability to get hits off of bullpen pitchers or to get anything past the sixth inning is something that has yet to be addressed. It hasn’t changed this season. All of their offensive numbers are down due to the injuries — but still, in the 7th-9th inning the Mets aggregate numbers are .240/.330/.363. It represents an 80 point drop in OPS from the 4th-6th. It’s a little thing that nobody talks about but it’s absolutely there — along with their .240/.274/.410 line with bases loaded. I don’t see it getting better next year either.

9) And as that short-lived five game winning streak was happening, I started talking myself in to the idea that it wasn’t quite yet lost. If they could put together a few more wins, maybe they’d start getting guys back, and we had a shot. I was talking myself in to Halladay trades. Then everything came back down to Earth. Really, I do kind of wish the Mets sent a haul of players for Halladay. Right now, there’s a moderately good chance the Phillies end up as, at least, the NL representative to the World Series. So, there’s an outside chance that the Mets, next year, will have to contend with a two-time World Series champion in their division featuring a 1-2 of Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee. And we’ll be responding to that with Johan Santana and……… Oliver Perez?

10) I’m sure there will be a moment this month where I officially throw in the towel. I might be there now but I feel like I’ll know it for certain when it happens. My boss tossed it in after the aforementioned Cardinals game. I’m still holding on to it, but it came really close after the Padres walk-off on Friday. But that’s a thought for another month.

Current Record: 37-39
June Record: 9-18
GB (NL East): 3.0 (Philadelphia)
GB (Wildcard): 3.5 (St. Louis)

1) The day before Carlos Beltran got placed on the DL, I wrote a few paragraphs about how the team was unwatchable. I mentioned that, largely, the bullpen had been fixed and most of the issues evident last year were still evident this year. I questioned what the excuse would be now. That question was answered the next day when Carlos Beltran was placed on the DL before flying to Colorado to visit a microfracture specialist. The team tried to downplay it but guys generally don’t go to visit the Dr. James Andrews types unless there’s a reason for it. Beltran is simply the latest in the list to go down for extended time. Fans got spoiled last season. Wright, Beltran, Reyes, and Delgado missed a combined TOTAL of nine games. There was no way they were going to replicate that but I don’t think anyone could have predicted it would be quite this bad. This is an excuse I can buy.

2) What that means for the Omar/Jerry haters of the world is their retribution will be delayed another year. A rash of injuries can’t be put on the upper management. All they can do is tread water until the All-Stars get back and hope to make a huge, Astros/Rockies-like run for the Wildcard in August and September. This isn’t meant to be construed as a “poor us” excuse. It’s simply a statement of fact. The team is full of holes.

3) The absolute last thing they should do is the thing being suggested by a sadly large portion of the fanbase and an expectedly large portion of Yankee fans — make a panic trade to fill in the gaps. The problem is there are too many gaps. The absolute best case scenario for the Mets is grabbing “a bat” from some organization further out of it than they are. The sad facts that too many people are blatantly ignoring are the Mets farm kinda sucks and most of the “gems” are currently filling injury holes on the 25-man roster. If it’s true that the Giants want Adam Dunn, there is no earthly way the Mets can compete with the Giants’ Cy Young factories in Connecticut and Fresno. If the Red Sox want Nick Johnson, there is no way the Mets can compete with their minor league talent. And, while the Mets fans are currently freaking out over the fact Omar Minaya is blatantly ignoring their pleas, they’re also ignoring the fact that the last time the Mets made a panic-trade to fill in a hole, they sent Scott Kazmir to Tampa for Victor Zambrano. That move cost Steve Phillips his job. The same Steve Phillips, by the by, who tried to convince the ESPN Sunday Night audience that trading the best center fielder in baseball for prospects was a good idea. Which is why the Worldwide Leader’s Sunday Night broadcast is an even bigger joke this year then last year. The team is playing .300 baseball. A window-dressing trade that screws 2010 and beyond to help them play .350 baseball is really, really stupid.

4) And the laundry list of people everyone wants is stunning. Nick Johnson — to replace one injury prone 1B with a new one. Matt Holliday, who has revealed himself to be .270 hitter in .330 hitters clothing like everyone with access to baseball-reference knew he was. Adam Dunn — because what the team truly needs right now is a downgrade at defense. And Cliff Lee — except only by sending A-ball trash and no-one who’s currently filling out the major league roster. The only valid trades right now are for Cliff Lee (because he’s signed through 2010) and Roy Halliday (also signed through 2010, but will almost certainly involve taking on Vernon Wells’s contract). Either of those trades costs Jose Reyes, the best prospects remaining in the farm, and probably other stuff. Then, next year when injuries happen, there will be even less bodies to fill holes.

5) And the sad fact is — these trade desires have been fueled more out of the Phillies being terrible then the Mets being any good. The Phillies got crushed in Interleague Play due to the untimely loss of their guy specifically bought to DH in Interleague/WS play Raul Ibanez. Because of this, the Mets and their around .500 record were able to stick around two games down, occasionally even pulling within one. This had nothing to do with the Mets’ ability to play .450 baseball — it had entirely to do with the Phillies hitting a 4-11 cold stretch in interleague. To note, the Phillies hit a FOUR-AND-ELEVEN cold stretch and we remained convinced the Mets’ were in it because they were only a couple back. Pay no attention to the fact the team couldn’t take the division lead in that stretch, themselves going only 6-10. If the division leader goes 4-11 over two weeks and you can’t get the division in that stretch — you’re not a good baseball team. You’re not even a .500 baseball team.

6) And, as evidenced by the Mets only scoring 3-runs in an entire series in Citizens Bank Park… the Phillies have apparently had enough of those shenanigans. Their complete and total domination of the Mets last weekend was only made less-depressing by the fact I didn’t really watch any of them because of the holiday. The parts I did watch were made worse by Poppa-Yard’s new and fabulous 52″ HD. They were just overmatched in every way possible. Their defense was shoddy, bad Livan popped in for a visit, and it was evident that most of the offense spent — or should spend — some time in the minors this year. The Phillies letting the Mets stay in the race is over. They swept the Mets out of their park and put an exclamation point on it with a 22-1 trouncing of the Reds. Oh, and their DH is coming back in a couple of days.

7) It’s sad to say, but the fanbase really needs to just settle in for a bad month and stop overreacting to every peak and valley. There is no savior in the system and there is no savior on the field. The team has a bunch of kids who we’re going to watch for the next few weeks to see what they have. What would be nice is to keep the PR machine under control. The same PR machine that convinced the fans that Daniel Murphy and his two-months of service time was going to be a 20/100 replacement for Manny Ramirez. He’s not. It was a terribly unfair mantle to put on him. It’s equally unfair to make Fernando Martinez flail to a .176 average as an overmatched 19-year-old. If there was ever a season in which to be level-headed, it’s this one. Be happy when the generic part you plug-in gets you through a few days a la Tim Redding and Fernando Nieve. But don’t assume because Nick Evans gets on a hot-streak for two days that he’s the answer to the season. Don’t assume because a 19-year-old guy who should be in Double-A is overmatched by Major League pitching and therefore sucks forever and should be traded. For once, take a lesson from the New York Giants and stay the course for a little while.

8) As a fan, I never noticed how hard it was to watch bad defense until I had to watch bad defense every day. Watching baseball every day, you start to take flawless 6-3s and 4-6-3s a little for granted. When both Alex Cora and Jose Reyes were on the DL and I was watching Ramon Martinez try to turn a double play, I started to notice it. When the gold glove center fielder was replaced with the tripping 19-year-old, I noticed it more. Now that the outfield is comprised of a 41-year-old DH, a corner outfielder playing center, and a Triple-A first baseman playing out of position, I appreciate a well-staffed outfield. Also, the next time someone mentions that bad defense can be “hidden” at first base — punch them in the face. Hard.

9) Ryan Church — one of the benefits of the lack of outfielders was that Jerry Manuel has had no choice but to put his petty nonsense aside and play Ryan Church in the field every day. Since Manuel has been forced to stop mismanaging Church, he’s responded by raising his average from .268 to .290 and, even though he’s been victimized by the team-wide power-drought via CitiForbes Field Canyon, but I’d like to think that even Manuel has to realize he’s the best option in right if the team is ever able to field a major league baseball team again.

10) There’s going to come a time sometime in July when fans are going to start asking for definitive answers on when and if the currently DLed players are coming back. If that answer isn’t a good one, Citi Field is going to quickly become a ghost town as people start saving their money rather than spend $100/ticket to watch a $100M team play minor league ball. This is good for me as I’ll happily troll Stub Hub for below face-value tickets to sit in the lower dish. However, this probably isn’t so good for a team to watch their new stadium turn in to Land Shark North.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, the Mets took a 5-4 lead off three run homer from the unlikeliest of sources. Catcher Brian Schneider, not one of my favorites, cranked a three run bomb to give the Mets a lead late in the game.

In the top of the seventh, noted Met killer Pat Burrell opened with a base hit. What followed was Bobby Parnell deftly turning a one-run lead in to a two-run deficit before recording an out. What followed that was the rest of the bullpen giving up another two earned runs as the offense, as per normal, folded up shop and went home in the eighth and ninth inning as it only took seven batters for the Rays reliever to record six outs. I didn’t see this because after the Bobby Parnell debacle, I decided it would be more fun and less frustrating to watch golf than it would be to watch this game. In fact, I didn’t even know there had been a rain delay until I checked the box score.

The team is unwatchable. They don’t come from behind. I think in two months of Citi Field they have had 2 walk off wins. One was April 17th. The other was a walk off walk at the hands of the vaunted Braves bullpen. Discounting K-Rod, they have exactly one reliever who can consistently get outs. And, unfortunately, he can only get lefties out. Also, as it turns out, he can’t pitch every day. Pedro Feliciano has appeared in 40 of the Mets 67. I can’t even be upset that one of the last games was on his shoulders, because he’s done his job more times than not this year. Against Philadelphia and the Yankees, he gave the Mets a free pass through the tough lefty parts of their line-ups in late innings. In neither case could the team come back. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. He finally took a loss (his 2nd of the year — in 40 appearances, mind you) in Baltimore.

As I might have mentioned earlier in the season, this team’s only problem was not the bullpen. It was a chronic inability to hit baseballs late in games. This has not changed. They no longer have the bullpen as an excuse to fall back on for being .500. Going in to Sunday’s game, the bullpen has posted a better ERA (3.40 to 4.57), a better WHIP (1.40 to 1.37), a better K/9 (7.2 to 6.4), and a better K/BB ratio (1.81 to 1.75) then the starters. Yet they’ve taken 16 losses as compared to the starters’ 17. The bullpen works under an insane amount of stress considering if they give a up a run, the team loses.

I’m curious — what is the new excuse when the bullpen is no longer the boogeyman?

The weekend couldn’t have started any better. I couldn’t find someone to go out with, so I instead decided to watch the game at home. It was just as well. The Mets and the Yankees playing AL baseball featuring Livan “Full Count” Hernandez and Joba “Fuller Count” Chamberlain guaranteed three things. 1) The Yankees would be in the bullpen by the fifth (they were). 2) The Mets would need all the offense that bullpen would provide (they did). And 3) The game wouldn’t be over until after 11 pm (it wasn’t).

The consensus was they had to steal one of the first two games and then they’d be a shoo-in to beat AJ Burnett with Johan Santana on Sunday and take the series. I thought differently. I thought the Mets had to keep up with Joba and the pen on Friday — then rely on the Yankee tendency to be flummoxed by pitchers they’ve never seen to steal the win on Saturday. This would make the Santana’s start less important. There was no way Santana was going to have a good game in the Bronx. Anyone who’s paid attention this year would know it. Santana gets two fly balls to every one ground ball. Fly balls to right in the new Yankee Stadium go out. Santana doesn’t throws balls (to a fault, really) and has started pitching to contact in Yosemite National Citi Field. Counter-intuitively, the game with the best pitcher was the one with the worst odds of winning. That park was not going to hold fly balls. They needed to steal the first two. And it went according to plan.

Almost.

For 9 and 5/6 innings, the Mets played a great game. Then Luis Castillo dropped a ridiculous fly ball and Mark Texeira, earning those “gamer” and “plays the game the right way” tags, scored from first. The Mets lost a terrible game. The fans freaked out. Calls for Luis Castillo’s head were plentiful. On Facebook, I suggested he should light himself on fire. Yankee fans celebrated. Some even had the stones to call it a good win. In reality, the Yankees lost five consecutive games to their division rival and their crosstown rival and then did what the Yankees do — unleashed a dozen runs on an unsuspecting pitcher to kinda/sorta hide their pitching deficiencies. They did it with the Orioles in the first series this season (5-10, 5-7, 11-2), to the Tigers (11-0) following their first sweeping in Boston, and to the Rangers (12-3) after dropping a home series to the Phillies. Which is fine. As the Rangers proved last year, scoring a lot of runs with terrible pitching is a perfectly valid way to win a baseball game.

I didn’t listen to WFAN today. I knew it would be a predictable day of calls to trade half the team and releasing Luis Castillo. Basically, an overreaction to something that really isn’t all that bad. Just magnified because it was against the Yankees.

Castillo made a terrible error. It’s no worse or forgivable than any lollipop that loses a game; be it in the fifth, seventh, ninth, or fifteenth. But, as I said in the May wrap-up — the team still doesn’t know what it needs. It’s playing without its opening day shortstop, first baseman, setup man, and two starters. No one is asking for sympathy, but it’s not unreasonable to be satisfied with .500 baseball until players start returning. Anything the Mets do right now — especially trading prospects for a marginal rental — would be nothing more than overreacting to a freakishly bad week. They need to treat Friday as a win in every way but record. In that case, it’s a 3-3 week; par for what was expected in a week filled with the Phillies and Yankees.

This upcoming week is a bit different. Three against the pitiful Orioles with the Mets’ best current line-up (Fernando Martinez in left, Ryan Church in right, Gary Sheffield at DH) followed by a ten-game home-stand in which they MUST go 6-4 to make up for Friday’s loss. Taking the Orioles’ series and a 6-4 homestand is not unreasonable. That’s 8-5 through a week where the Phillies will be playing the Rays, Blue Jays, and Orioles.

I’d be lying to say I don’t have concerns about the team’s playoff caliber. But, as previously mentioned, I still don’t know what, if anything, they need. Sending a group of prospects to the Nationals for 1.5 years of Adam Dunn would be a panic move. Sending the remaining farm system to Cleveland for Cliff Lee and Mark Derosa would be a terrible idea. Cliff Lee has to come back to Earth eventually and the idea that Mark Derosa answers anyone’s prayers is idiotic. Besides, the claim that Indians are even going to sell at 6 games back is itself dubious.

Sad they dropped the series to the Yankees? Sure. Happy they’re playing .500 ball missing their starting shortstop and their only true power threat? Absolutely. But the Mets aren’t at the point where it’s time to make a panic trade. WFAN callers seem to think “big bats” are plentiful and free.

They’re not.

Current Record: 28-21
May Record: 19-9
GB (NL East): 0.5 (Philadelphia)
GB (Wildcard): 1 (St. Louis)

1) I’ve decided that one Citi Field feature I dislike is the 16-foot wall in left field. While it managed to steal four home runs from various right-handed Marlins over a three game series, it pretty much destroyed any chance of fun defensive plays and home run robberies. It also makes the corner a nightmre to see for anyone not in the front row. Weird design decision, but ultimately a small complaint.

2) When Carlos Delgado went down, I figured a trade for Nick Johnson would happen relatively quickly. After all, Jerry Manuel doesn’t seem to have much use for Ryan Church and they could probably have stamped him “Return To Sender” and been done with it. The problem is that Daniel Murphy has turned out to be a much more competent first baseman than left fielder. After that happy discovery, they definitely needed a corner outfielder. Then the shortstop got hurt, and the backup shortstop, and the backup backup shortstop and they were definitely going trade for a middle infielder. Really, people are desperate to make a trade right now. Unfortunately, no one really knows what the Mets need. There’s an injured 36-year-old first baseman who may be out for the year, a set of middle infielders who alternate between injured and slumping, and a few corner outfielders who are either hurt or on the manager’s sh*tlist. There’s no one “fix” deal right now and, if there is, no one knows what it is yet.

3) The more I watch Jerry Manuel, the more I’m having a really hard time getting on board with his management style. He’s a terrible slave to lefty/righty matchups — even if it means pulling your starter with two-out in the fifth against Boston’s 9-hitter. Or yanking your rookie walk machine in the sixth inning for someone with some “righty pop”. I can only describe the feeling watching him seemingly pinch hit at random as “frustrating.” I could also use the term “overmanager.” It stinks and I don’t like it.

4) More on Manuel. I really wish he’d give Daniel Murphy a solid two week run at 1B to see where he is and what he can do. Murphy’s average peaked at .320 in early May then he went 0-for-Atlanta and was immediately turned in to pinch hitter on their west coast trip. Since the 1B experiment started (which went surprisingly well defensively as his natural position is 3B) he struggled with a terrible 1-for-16 stretch. He responded with an insane 5 RBI, 3-for-4 night with a walk, double, and HR. Manuel’s response the next day — bench him in the name of the platoon match-up. I don’t understand what this terrible platoon situation is supposed to do. The team’s never going to know what they have alternating Murphy and Fernando Tatis every day. Neither guy can get in a rhythm and one gets pulled for the other in the name of a match-up at random points in the game.

5) Even more on Manuel. Trap Jaw Castro was 1/2 of of the Jerry Manuel Alpo Dog House List (yeah, it has a sponser. What doesn’t?). When Brian Schneider came off the DL, the Mets’ roster move was to ship Trap Jaw to the White Sox for Triple A pitcher Lance “Best Porn Name In Mets History” Broadway. I really hated this move for a few reasons. 1) The Mets inexplicably think Schneider is better defensively than Castro, which is mostly untrue. 2) They bit on Triple A call up Omir Santos remarkably fast. Santos endeared himself with everyone with an incredible knack for getting clutch hits in big spots. However, his career line in the minors is .258/.303/.348 in 8 YEARS of minor league games. He’s been great, but something tells me the league is going to figure him out. 3) I loved using the term “Trap Jaw” and I like sending joke texts to Hulse like “he got his jaw in to one” when Castro hits a home run. 4) There is no earthly way that Brian Schneider doesn’t take at least one more trip to the DL. I really hope there’s another catcher in the system. 5) We kept Schneider whose current line is .185/.313/.222. On the upside, he’s tremendously injury-prone and 32 years old. Great for catchers.

6) The other half of the Jerry Manuel Alpo Dog House List is Ryan Church. This is still one I don’t understand and one Manuel won’t expound on despite Mike Francesa’s weekly quiz on the matter. Church’s trip to the DL finally caused the Mets to pull the trigger and call up Tiffany’s Crown Jewel Prospect Fernando Martinez. F-Mart’s book is a mediocre defensive corner outfielder with a huge bat. So far — not so much. He went 0/9 to start and then 4/11 since. This isn’t the guy the team’s planning on going to war with for the rest of the season since the plan was to keep him in Triple A all year. Injuries forced him up. If he shows even flashes of competence, Church’s ticket out of town will likely be punched. I mean, why wouldn’t Church be in the Alpo Dog House? He only hit .350 through April until Manuel inexplicably started giving his playing time to Gary Sheffield. I suppose Church may (rightly) have complained about this which apparently punched his ticket out of town in favor of a 42-year-old man who will be gone at the end of the year. Sweet work! As for Martinez, if he gets sent back down soon he’ll be remembered for not running out a pop-up which ended as a 2-3 put out instead of a two-base error.

7) I’m not quite sure what it is about the Mets 8th Inning that turns pitchers in to simpering shells of themselves. I don’t understand it. If I were to include the first day of June in this posting, JJ Putz’s last 29 pitches have led to five hits, three walks, and six earned runs. That’s not good. And I have to listen one more time to him talk about “the adrenaline just isn’t the same in the 8th as it is in the 9th” I’m going to throw something — possibly with better location than Putz currently can. This stupid “closer mentality” has been talked up so much by so many people that the pitchers themselves believe it. Full credit to Ron Darling for finally saying what most of us have been thinking: “At some point, you have to go out there and get three outs, adrenaline or not.” If Manuel wants Putz to find “the adrenaline” then he should start pitching him in the 6th or the 7th when the starter has walked two and had them sacrificed over to 2nd and 3rd. Is one out with two in scoring position adrenaliney enough for you closer guy? Or maybe he can start using the Billy Wagner excuse: “unless you put me in at the beginning of the inning for exactly three outs in the ninth with no one on base, I will walk two and give up a 500 foot home run.”

8) Every team deals with injuries. All a team can hope for is that they fall at the right time. This three week stretch was truly the best time for this many guys to be hurt. Any stretch which features the Nationals, Pirates, and Marlins is just peachy for most of your starters to be out. This last game against Pittsburgh, there were TWO starters from the opening day line-up. Everyone else is either hurt or infected with Pigflu. If it keeps up through June, the team’s totally screwed. Two series with the Yankees, four games against the Cardinals, Tampa, Milwaukee, and two series with the Phillies. The only “break” is a series in Baltimore. And, of course, due to the nonsense that is MLB scheduling, the Phillies draw two series against Toronto and none against the Yankees. Awesome.

9) I gave Omar Minaya a lot of crap in the offseason. I need to take it back. As it turns out, not signing Manny was an excellent idea. Also Alex Cora, Gary Sheffield, and Livan Hernandez have turned out to be tremendous pick-ups. Cora comes off the DL to fill in for still-injured Jose Reyes and has been filling in for Luis Castillo’s absurdly broken knees. Gary Sheffield has been perfectly content and happy to be a four or five day a week player and has been terrific filling in as an every day player through the corner outfield injuries. Livan Hernandez has been, well, Livan Hernandez. In May he threw one trainwreck, three six or seven inning quality starts, and 127-pitch, 1-run complete game. These were the type of pick-ups that flew under the radar in the offseason but have been huge.

10) I’m holding out hope that the team doesn’t make a panic trade. The problem I’m having with that hope is the team seems very willing to ship out guys who the manager doesn’t like without asking questions. I’m worried that this will lead to something like a “Ryan Church and Daniel Murphy for Nick Johnson or Adam Dunn” trade when it’s clearly a bad idea in the long run. Worse, I’m expecting Omar to be on the phone to Cleveland sometime soon to find the asking price of a Cliff Lee/Mark DeRosa deal. While I don’t necessarily think that either of those guys would be bad for the Mets, the idea of Omar pulling off another Bartolo Colon deal (ironically with one of the same players) with the Mets’ prospects isn’t really something that gives me the warm fuzzies.

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