Worst Spring Training Ever?

It's like clockwork.

Each morning I watch SportsNite, and each morning I hear the story of another Mets starting pitcher getting rocked.

It's not just in my head; consider the stats:

• Oliver Perez: 8.66 ERA
• Mike Pelfrey: 7.97 ERA
• John Maine: 7.94 ERA
• Johan Santana (!): 6.75 ERA
• Jon Niese: 5.65 ERA

Now, any baseball fan learns at a young age not to read too much into Spring Training. For all I know, the inflation in ERA is due to one particular inning when the pitcher decided to only throw offspeed stuff, just because he wanted to work on it.

At the same time, for a team desperate to give its fans reasons to believe, the showing from our starting five has been anything but encouraging. We all knew the rotation was the team's biggest question mark, but were any of us prepared for Pelfrey's 8 home runs allowed in 20.1 innings? (Regrettably, chances are we were all perfectly prepared for Ollie's 10 walks in 17.2 innings).

In answer to the question posed in the title of this post, I think the worst spring training ever would require injuries to key players, the freakier the better. Jose Reyes's gigantic thyroid was about as freaky an injury as you can imagine, but it appears that he'll be good to go by the second week of the season (which in Mets doctor speak probably means July 1).

Also on the plus side is that David Wright and Jason Bay are having good springs, and the fact that our key minor league talent (Jenrry Mejia, Ike Davis, and Fernando Martinez) all had terrific springs.

But the bit about our pitching is really discouraging. I've been saying it the past several months: my hope for the 2010 Mets is that they produce a season like the 2005 Mets. That is, I want them to keep things interesting, stay above .500 and in contention, and ultimately set the stage for 2011.

That's a tall order if indeed our pitchers are this bad. Surgery or no surgery, I think we all have confidence in Johan. The other guys have to earn it, however, and so far, through 15-20 innings of Spring Training, none of them has earned it worth a damn.

Come April 5, all the ERAs go back down to 0.00; if they all come out of the gates pitching effectively, none of this will matter.

But as we sit here now five days or so before Opening Day and contemplate the team's chances for the year ahead, the poor performances from Pelfrey et al doesn't do anything to bolster confidence about what lies ahead.

- A.F.O.M.G.

2010 NL East Preview

Hey folks, Cheddar Ben back for a season preview post. Exciting, right? Well, kind of. Most Mets fans I've talked to recently are of two minds about the start of the season. Obviously, everyone wants to get past the disaster that was 2009 as quickly as possible. Nobody associated with the team is interested in reliving last year with the possible exception of the vendors at Citi Field's Shake Shack stand, who took a fair bit of change off of me. But for the most part, we want to exchange our lingering, sour memories for some new, sweet and tasty ones.

Problem being, nobody can be sure that 2010 will be as sweet and delicious as we hope. Obviously, it's highly unlikely that things will go as poorly as they did last summer, when Murphy's Law was in full effect. Things can't always go wrong to the maximum extent, or else how would anything ever go well for anyone? (In fact, let's go ahead and coin another Irish-sounding maxim to counteract the old one. We'll call it McDowell's Law, and its rule is "those repeatedly victimized by that jagoff Murphy get a break from time to time." Fair enough.)

But if the situation improves from "dire" to "okay" or "mediocre," is that really a development worth having a parade over? Would a (substantial) improvement to .500 ball really be something to celebrate? This explains a lot of the apathy from the Mets faithful that I've been sensing.

And unfortunately, a look at the division reveals that the team (and its fans) probably do have good reason to expect mediocre returns for 2010. Here, then, in expected order of finish, are the denizens of the National League's East Division.

The Illadelphia Phillies

2009 record - 93-69 (1st)

2010 projected - 91-71 (1st)

Garbage out - 3B Pedro Feliz, SP Cliff Lee, jheri curl Pedro Martinez

Garbage in - SP Roy Halladay, IF Placido Polanco, C Brian Schneider (good luck with that)

I didn't get any sort of consensus from my Mets fan friends during the 2009 World Series. Maybe you did -- the opinions I heard were all over the map. I heard people say they always root for the New York team over the non-New York team. I heard people claim indifference. I heard people say they hate the Yankees more than anything, and would grit their teeth and root for the Mets' hated rivals regardless. I heard people say they were going to watch old figure skating tapes instead of the baseball games. (To be fair, the only person to tell me that was Young Sip.)

Me, I was pulling for the Phils in the end, but only after I ruled out a stadium collapse on collateral damage grounds. This wasn't a total loss -- you could kind of shoehorn it into a "rooting for the underdog" framework given how dominant the Yanks were, and Cliff Lee was kind of on a hot streak, which made it a nice story... . But it left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I've vowed never to do it again. If there's a World Series rematch this fall, I'm going to take a leave of absence from school, find the cheapest flight possible to Barcelona, and go into a soccer coma for two weeks. I'll get to learn some Catalan out of the deal, boom.

In the end, I just hate these fuckers so much that I've lost all ability to think rationally about the subject. Case in point - Chase Utley. Everyone likes this dude. Fantastic, game-changing player, yet he's still underrated (check out his finishes in the MVP voting, if you even want to call them that). Does everything well, hustles, picks up his team, doesn't complain that Fatty Howard and Jimmy the Mouth and his pussy-whipped ace get all the attention. And Fangraphs actually projects him to be the most valuable player in baseball this coming season.

Well fuck you, Fangraphs. Come up with a different valuation system that incorporates "being a total cock" into the measurement. And the rest of America, stop being fooled by Utley's rugged good looks and suface-level absence of assholish behavior. It's there, if you squint and look hard enough. He drops F-bombs in public every once in a while! That's unforgivable, for fuck's sake. He, um ... doesn't tip bathroom attendants enough! Yeah, I know bathroom attendants are totally unnecessary and more than a little creepy and anyone just wants to get out of that damn marble prison as quickly as possible ... but still!

This is what I'm reduced to -- fishing in empty waters for reasons to hate guys I have no business hating. The Phillies make me that angry.

As for the team, my prediction for them incorporates a basically flawless season from Halladay, who's going to love pitching against the likes of the Mets offense. But I see possible regression across the board from the Phils' hitters, especially Jayson Werth and Howard, who is all but useless against left-handed pitchers at this point (.209/.298/.356 in 222 ABs in 2009). I'm also going to go out on a limb and say J.A. Happ isn't going to post another sub-3.00 ERA. I don't mean in 2010; I mean ever, and that includes when he's washed up and playing for the Long Island Ducks in four years. But all the same, you don't figure Rollins is going to repeat his ice-cold start, and Brad Lidge could only be as atrocious again if he dyed his goatee dark and changed his name to Armando. Polanco should function as a decent substitute for the departed Feliz - more OBP, less pop and defense.

Basically, I see the Phils as a slightly less capable version of their 2009 selves. That should be enough to take this lousy division. Disgusting.

The Hotlanta Bravos

2009 record - 86-76 (3rd)

2010 projected - 90-72 (2nd)

Garbage out - SP Javy Vazquez, RP Rafael Soriano, RP Mike Gonzalez, 2B Kelly Johnson

Garbage in - 1B/3B Troy Glaus, OF Melky Cabrera, RP/tobacco stain Billy Wagner, RP Takashi Saito, OF Jason Heyward

Very interesting group. They underperformed their Pythagorean W-L by five games last season, and Baseball Prospectus had them as the best third-order team in the NL (third-order being the number of runs scored vs. allowed if you look at the number of hits, walks, earned and allowed, and punch them into a formula). So, given there's an argument that this was already among the best teams in the league, you'd want to ask if they've improved themselves or not.

And ... I'm not sure. On the one hand, I find it hard to argue against dumping Javy Vazquez after he has his career year (2.89 ERA in 219 IP, 238K). But they dumped him for a whole lot of nothing -- the Melk Man and a bag of party favors -- and are replacing him with the ghost of Tim Hudson, who missed the bulk of the 2009 season with Tommy John recovery. Another half-season of the terrifying Tommy Hanson will be nice -- the kid punched up a 2.89 ERA and 116 K in 21 starts. But Jair Jurrgens' 2.60 ERA is almost certainly unsustainable, and so you're left with the impression that the team's main strength from a year ago is at least something of a question mark.

On offense, everyone wants to talk about the possibility that Hulk will smash. Wait, I mean the possibility that Jason Heyward makes the team out of Spring Training and dominates out of the gate. Now, I understand that this guy is going to be the most dynamic athlete in Atlanta sports since Mike Vick. I understand he's denting cars in Florida parking lots. Understood. No argument here about his long-term potential.

But to me, it's a lot more important that Chipper Jones -- team stalwart, Met killer, and all-around hick -- hit a cool .236 after the All-Star break and has been openly discussing retirement. With all due respect to J-Hey, Chipper has been carrying the Braves' lineup for half a decade now, and his loss -- in addition to whatever other bonuses you want to give him for leadership -- and any lineup without him is going to look quite a bit less scary to me.

And then there's the Atlanta bullpen. Wagner, who I assume is down with the whole Tea Party thing, is slated to be the closer. Obviously someone was going to sign him after he looked fine in 15-odd innings last year after coming back from injury (and probably even if he didn't), but this is obviously a high-risk area. Oh, and he's a "proven" closer. That and $4 will get you a cup of hot water filtered through ground-up beans. The backup plan is Saito, who came over from the Red Sox, where he had almost no high-leverage work, and then the Moylan-Medlen-O'Flaherty gang. I don't trust this bunch at all.

If everything breaks right for the Bravos -- Heyward is an easy ROY pick, Hudson returns, Tommy and Jair don't suffer any kind of slump, Billy and Chipper have another good season in them old legs, Martin Prado continues to do a passable Polanco impression -- this team is going to crush the Phils and everyone else in the league for that matter. But my guess is that at least one or two things will go majorly wrong, and the team will have to settle for a Wild Card chase, probably taking it home.

The Metropolitans

2009 record - 70-92 (4th)

2010 projected - 81-81 (tie, 3rd)

Garbage out - Wagner, Schneider, 1B Carlos Delgado, OF Gary Sheffield, SP Livan Hernandez

Garbage in - OF Jason Bay, P Kelvim Escobar, C Rod Barajas, nuisance Gary Matthews, Jr., RP Kiko Calero, possibly two Japanese guys

I knew the Metsies were in trouble as soon as they signed that damn Livan Hernandez. He has a loser's stink on him, all those mediocre years removed from the '97 win. Nobody wins anything with Livan. More likely you're the Nationals and he's starting from you on Opening Day. That was always a bad sign.

No? Alright, let's try this one. Carlos Delgado's career is probably over at this point, and for a guy who's got a real Hall of Fame case (if not a good one), he went out with a whimper, giving the Mets only 26 games due to injury in the final leg of his four-year stint with the team. Remember how excited we were when that trade when down? In the end, Carlito put together two good seasons in Mets colors: 2006 (131 OPS+) and 2008 (127 OPS+). The HR numbers were good, he was a threat, he was totally worth the money. In '07 he was totally mediocre, and last year basically was off the board. Here's the shitty thing -- his awful '07 campaign (.258/.333/.448, 102 OPS+) is a good sight better than what sweet swingin' Daniel Murphy did last year -- .266/.313/.427 -- and is essentially what Fangraphs predicts for him in 2010. Would people say right now that Delgado was a totally successful trade? No, because of the down year and last season. But just know that it may be a good long time before a Mets first baseman hits 38 homers.

How about this -- Jeff Francoeur's good run with the Mets was almost totally a product of good luck. No, wait, I take it back. It was 100 percent a product of good luck. Check out this if you don't believe me. (The part that makes me vomit -- "In other words, his overall .280/.309/.423 ... is a pretty accurate reflection of his talents." Somebody give this man $5 million!)

How about this -- among the symptoms of hyperthyroidism are: difficulty concentrating, fatigue, frequent bowel movements, nervousness, restlessness, increased appetite, and irregular menstrual periods. This has me convinced that Jose Reyes is going to turn into Manny Ramirez. I know that's probably not right -- that's just how I feel.

OK, how about this -- how are the Mets going to find 11 additional wins on this roster? Well, I tend to think Jason Bay is going to have a big year -- I think moving from the AL to the NL will give his numbers and confidence a bit of a bump, and he was already pretty good to begin with. Maybe Year 4 of this contract won't work out so well (see above), but I think we can look forward to at least a few dingers out to left in Citi Field. Weird, I know. The same goes for D-Wright, who will bounce back to 20+ HR form in '10.

Second, the Mets are due for a Japanese contribution of value. Ken Takahashi, thanks for coming, don't forget to have your visa stamped. Ryoto and Hisanori, welcome. One of these guys reminds me of Kaz Sasaki; I just don't know which one yet. Get back to me in May.

Beltran and Reyes I don't want to talk about, it's just too terrifying. That leaves the rotation, which will improve by default. I'm counting on McDowell's Law a little bit here -- obviously injuries are possible again, and maybe this time Johan gets hit by a Jet Blue flight trying to make a deadline. But we can expect better. How much better? Ehhhhhh. Take, for example, Mike Pelfrey, he of the 5.03 ERA and strikeout allergy. Do I think his ERA will be above 5.00 again? No I do not. But Marcel is the most bullish of the projection systems, and it pegs Pelf for a 4.40 ERA. We'd probably take that in a heartbeat. That says something, I think, when Pelfrey is the nominal No. 2 starter in the rotation.

More importantly, The Maine Event and All-or-Nothing Ollie will improve things by simply being on the mound as opposed to the training table. Again, those circa-4.50 ERAs aren't going to move mountains. (And anything who thinks you can expect anything more from these clowns is lying to themselves.) But note again that 4.50 is not 5.47 (Livan, in 135 IP); it is not 5.10 (Tim Redding, in 120); it is most definitely not 7.30 (Bobby Parnell in eight starts we will never again discuss). Regardless of what Nieve or anyone else does in the No. 5 slot, it is likely -- not definite, but likely -- that the Mets will at the very least have four actual major-league starters in their rotation, which will tend to drag the team upwards into the realm of the generically crappy.

Kiko Calero may be involved. That's a fun name to say. Kiko. Heh. Also, you might not have noticed, but Kiko had a nice little year in 2009 (1.95 ERA, 69 K in 60 IP). He won't have a sub-3.00 ERA again, but at least he strikes some guys out, and for a free reliever, he's not a bad bet.

Will the summer be fun as a result? Hey, it's gonna be better than last year, when the mood was borderline suicidal during some losses and maxed out at "apathetic" after the All-Star break. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that means the team will be competing. It has major holes in Frenchy, Murphy, catcher, and probably Castillo, and we've already had a weird injury. The Metsies will be okay this year, and okay is okay for now. They're simply not worth tearing off your shirt and challenging anyone to a fight over.

The Miami-Dade Suckers

2009 record - 87-75 (2nd)

2010 projected - 81-81 (tie, 3rd)

Garbage out - Calero, OF Jeremy Hermida,

Garbage in - 3B Gaby Sanchez

Wait, you gave the Marlins how much to build a new stadium? Did you say $347 million? Plus $10 million to tear down the Orange Bowl? Are you out of your mind?

It's really the same team, with Hermida departed to play as a fourth outfielder in front of actual fans in Boston. The Fish will play Cody Ross less and Cameron Maybin more, which could work out, as Maybin is all sorts of speedy, but doesn't really know how to hit quite yet. They'll play ROY Chris Coglan and his .365 BABIP the same, which is unlikely to produce similar results the second time around. They're letting it ride on Jorge Cantu, which will work just about the same as when I let it ride in casinos. Moreover, I'm betting this is the year the Dan Uggla facade comes crashing down, and we learn that the previous four years were, in fact, all a DARPA-funded experiment into smoke, mirrors and the gullibility of the American baseball-watching public. Fastest second baseman to 100 HR in history my foot. Nobody would ever fall for that.

If I were Hanley Ramirez, I would get frustrated as shit on this team. What is there to look forward to? What exactly is the endgame? Yeah, you can hope for some crazy improvements and lucky breaks and a wild card berth and maybe a playoff run. But there are other baseball teams that are actually willing to spend money on major-league talent instead of just running a guy out there because they cost nothing. They will make trades to improve a team when it has a chance of winning something (yeah, yeah ...). Wouldn't you want to play for one of those teams? Wouldn't you try to get your very reasonable contract traded to one of those teams? If he's actually happy in Miami, I have yet to hear a good reason why.

The Strasburg Strasburgs

2009 strasburg - 59-103 (5th)

2010 strasburg- 69-93 (5th)

Strasburg out - 1B Nick Johnson, OF Elijah Dukes, C Josh Bard

Strasburg in - STRASSSSSSSSSSBURRRRRRRG!, Pudge, SP Jason Marquis, RP Matt Capps, RP Brian Bruney, 2B Adam Kennedy

Strasburg strasburg strasburg? Strasburg. Strasburg. Strasburg strasburg strasburg, strasburg strasburg starsburg strasburg, strasburg strasburg.

Strasburg.

Where was I? Oh yeah. My bet is the interest level in a certain somebody's start drops by mid-July, after it becomes clear that, oh yeah, this is a rookie pitcher, and he's not the second coming of anything. This probably wouldn't happen anywhere but D.C., where baseball seems to operate as antimatter, in both the geeky sci-fi sense and even geekier pun sense. Yes, I'm running out of things to write about.

If you look at the names on the incoming list, they actually resemble real live baseball players for the first time in a while. Everything I wrote about the Mets rotation goes double for the Nats' rotation. Marquis isn't my idea of a gem, but he pitched well in Coors Field last season, and to Washington he might as well be Robin Roberts. The only exception is that poor John Lannan, who seems like a pretty nice guy through my TV set, might have just had his career year (3.88 ERA in 206 IP, 89K). Capps had a down 2009, but he and Bruney are very serviceable in the bullpen. Recall that the Nats allowed a whopping 874 runs in '09; that was more than ALL BUT ONE AMERICAN LEAGUE TEAM (thank Jesus for the Orioles, am I right?). The Brewers were the only other NL team to allow 800. So some TARP money was in order here.

However, I wouldn't say I'm pleased with some of the other decisions they made. Cutting Elijah Dukes just because he's a totally unstable wild card seems like something of an overreaction to me. (The Mets should pick him up. Totally serious.) That leaves them with an outfield of Josh Willingham (sneaky good in '09), Nyjer Morgan, and I guess a Willie Harris/Jason Maxwell platoon in right. Yowch. And then there's Pudge, who has been cooked for years but doesn't want to hang 'em up yet. I guess it makes sense that he would wind up in Washington, where hanging on after you're wanted is a way of life.

I will, however, pay to see at least one Strasburg start this summer. So there's that.

Christmas Come Early

It is a common refrain for baseball fans that Opening Day is like Christmas in April.

Just like when we were kids waiting for Christmas morning, the wait for Opening Day can seem impossibly long, endless even. The butterflies dance in your stomach as you contemplate all the possibilities of the impending baseball season, just like you used to dissect all the possible goodies you'd find under the tree.

This morning, a taste of Christmas came early for the Glass Man in the form of my softball team roster and schedule.

Regular readers will remember A.F.O.M.G. suiting up last fall with Sip and our old English teacher, Smitty, in the Eastern Athletic Softball League. On the strength of the Glass Man's stellar Rookie of the Year campaign (sorry Sip), our team went all the way, bringing home the championship New York fans so richly deserved.

I've been dreaming of the Spring softball season ever since that sun-drenched November morning. Then, first thing this morning, I saw the email from the "Commishna". My eyes were blurry, and the iridescent glow of the blackberry made them hurt, but I scrolled down and found my team, Team 3.

There won't be any Sip or Smitty this time; Sip was lost to inertia, Smitty to Team 5. That said, I want to say I recognize several of the names on my team, good guys all and some of them real good ballplayers. We take to the field Sunday morning at 10:15.

For the Glass Man, this morning was a taste of Christmas morning. The real thing comes Sunday, and as I think about it, all of a sudden it's like I'm transported back through time. I'm a young and fiery A.F.O.M.G., it's December 23 and I'm at the old house in Ohio. The anticipation is killing me.

Two more days, youngin', just two more days. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

Joy (For Once) in Metsville

It's been a long year for Mets fans. Scratch that, it's been a long three or four years for Mets fans. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but it's all been downhill for us since that fateful night at Shea Stadium in October 2006.

Since then there was the collapse of 2007. Then there was the bullpen meltdown of 2008. Then there was the injury fest of 2009. Let posterity show that I'm not being dramatic -- it's really been that bad.

And so, when Jose Reyes went down with thyroiditistitis (or whatever the hell it was), it just seemed like another typically dreary moment in what's become a long, sad chapter in Mets history.

Any hope we'd let ourselves have for the 2010 season was diminished. Hell, we didn't stand much chance to begin with, but if guys like Reyes weren't healthy, then we didn't stand any chance at all.

They said when he went down that he would be out for 2-8 weeks. A "2-8" week diagnosis for the Mets is typically a euphemism for 3-4 months, but Jose Reyes is no ordinary Met. For Reyes, a "2-8" week diagnosis usually means wait 'til next year, I don't care how innocuous the initial injury may seem.

If it sounds pessimistic, it's just how our minds have been conditioned. On the team side, 2006 was so long ago; 2007 (choking away the division to the Phillies), 2008 (the Phillies winning it all), and 2009 (the Mets completely sucking, the Yankees beating the Phillies in the World Series) were all so recent. On the individual side, no one needs a refresher on Reyes' personal injury history (his nickname isn't Mr. Glass for nothing), nor is much refresher needed on the injured list from last season.

It's a potent mix. Add it all together and the worst case scenario can't help but dominate the way we see every situation involving this team.

And then came the news yesterday.

The news yesterday that Reyes' thyroid had returned to non-gigantic proportions doesn't exactly provide recompense for the past three years, but it does offer some small gleam of hope that maybe this year, the worst case scenario won't be the one that wins the day.

Chances are it's just a small, fleeting victory and not the harbinger of some cosmic change in our karma, mojo, or whatever you want to call it.

I wouldn't bet the mortgage on a magical year of Mets baseball. But with Reyes back and hopefully on track for Opening Day, at least the team figures to put on a hell of a lot more entertaining a show than if we'd had Alex Cora out there every day (no disrespect to Cora).

Or at least a blogger can dream.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Latter Day A-Hern?

Let's play a guess-the-player game.

Player A had been considered an all-glove, no-bat prospect, but he silenced those critics by hitting .326 with Binghamton for half a season, and then hitting .303 with Norfolk the other half fo the season. His OPS with the two clubs was ..821 and .733, respectively. Some people questioned whether he was ready for big league pitching, but nevertheless, the next year he was a starter for the Mets on Opening Day.

Player B was beginning to get dogged with the same reputation, but he respondedwith a breakout year with the bat in 2009, hitting .289 with a .732 OPS. Some people were still concerned about his bat, but due to injuries, it began to appear likely that he would break camp as a starter on the Mets' Opening Day roster.

You may have been able to guess that Player B is Ruben Tejada, the 20-year-old shortstop who will be our starting shortshop in place of Jose Reyes, if the early buzz is correct.

Player A was Anderson Hernandez. I'm no scout. I've never even seen Tejada swing a bat. Maybe it's not a fair comparison.

But for some reason, whenever I hear about Tejada I start thinking about Hernandez. There were a lot of questions about Hernandez's ability to contribute offensively at the big league level, but a lot of us scoffed at that; the guy had just hit over .300 in Double A and Triple A after all. 

In the end, A-Hern as he was affectionately known was exactly what the scouts said he was: a good-to-great fielder with absolutely no bat whatsoever.

I remember watching Hernandez in 2006 and thinking to myself that I had never seen a Major League player look so completely overwhelmed by Major League pitching. The only guy that compared, for me, was Al Leiter, which is about as unflattering a comparison as possible.

Again, maybe it's not a fair comparison, but I feel like I keep hearing a lot of the same questions being raised about Tejada. They say he's mature beyond his years, they say he's already there defensively, they say he's been successful everywhere he's gone. They say he's ready for the big leagues.

Maybe he is. But maybe he's the second coming of A-Hern. If he is, he doesn't belong as a starting shortstop on a Major League team.

As we consider our options to fill the void left by Jose Reyes' gigantic thyroid, I hope we look at our players for who they are, not who we hope they will be.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Team Eyeroll

I remember Tuesday.

On Tuesday I was flush with optimism. That evening I wrote a piece comparing 2010 to 2005, saying that this season would be the harbinger of another Mets renaissance (mini or grand, to be determined).

It was a hopeful piece, as hopeful as I'd written in months about this team. 

I'm not saying everything I wrote the other day is down the tubes, it's not, but yesterday's news that Jose Reyes would miss two to eight weeks with gigantism (sorry, but the last 12 months with this team are starting to feel like that softball episode of The Simpsons where each of Mr. Burns' Major League ringers, save Darryl Strawberry, goes down with injury or inconvenience) thyroiditistitis (not a technical term).

The news on Reyes doesn't obviate the excitement around Jenrry Mejia, Ike Davis, and all the other kids we have on the farm, but that feeling of optimism I wrote about the other day was a two-step process; we still have hope for the future, but what hope do we have left for building organizational momentum in 2010?

Maybe it's the 2009 season talking, but let's treat the "worst case" scenarios as probable. Using that math means no Reyes and no Beltran until around Memorial Day (accounting for rehab assignments).

They say in baseball you can start eliminating teams around Memorial Day, but the way this season is shaping up, that's the earliest we can really hope this team will get on a roll.

Honestly, I never thought this team had a real shot at the playoffs in 2010, but I did have hope that they would keep things interesting in the division/wild card race until September, and that they would be fun to watch.

Without Reyes they're markedly less fun to watch. God knows I'll still tune in every night, but it's just not as enjoyable watching Alex Cora (bless him) as it is watching Reyes; ditto watching Angel Pagan instead of Beltran.

Beyond that, it's beyond frustrating that (ONCE AGAIN!!!!) the Mets have completely bungled the communication around an injury.

Remember when Reyes first went down? All the talk around the team was that this was a day-to-day type of situation, that he would be back in a week at the most.

WRONG!

Why do they set themselves up for failure? Don't they have doctors? Don't they have people who can tell them what some of the worse case scenarios would be? Don't they have a way of communicating reality to their fans, instead of bullshit?

I realize they need to sell tickets, and that in the days when they led us all to believe that this was just a hiccup with Reyes they might have sold some tickets that they otherwise wouldn't have, if the truth had been out there.

But in the long run, fucking with people's expectations alienates more people than it attracts. That's management 101, and yet with these clowns in charge, they just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.

It's all so frustrating.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Like 2005 All Over Again

For a team with a massive payroll, superstar players at four everyday positions with one in the rotation and one in the bullpen, a lot of the emphasis this spring has been on the team's farm system.

Indeed, youngsters Jenrry Mejia and Ike Davis are the toast of Mets camp, earning praise for their blossoming skills and potentially putting management in position to make tough decisions as April 5 draws ever closer.

The storyline surrounding those two, and Josh Thole and Fernando Martinez (remember him?) as well, is the greatest cause for optimism we've got.

I'm on record saying I see this 2010 Mets team as an 80-84-win club. After a 70-win season in 2009, almost anything in 2010 would come as an improvement.

But better than improvement is momentum.

Their minor league system looking not-quite-so-barren anymore, the Mets are starting to look a lot like their 2005 selves again.

I remember the 2005 team with great fondness. Sure they frustrated the hell out of us sometimes. Sure Willie Randolph didn't always know how to call for a double switch. And yes they ran out Kaz Ishii every fifth day for an incredibly long time.

But they also had the look of a team on the make. They'd imported Pedro Martinez (terrific that first year in Flushing) and Carlos Beltran (as bad as Pedro was good). We'd finally seen our first full seasons of David Wright and Jose Reyes, and we liked what we saw. And best of all, free agents at positions of need (catcher, first base, closer) would be available at the end of the season; management snapped those players up, and the result was the magical 2006 season.

After an atrocious 2004, 2005 set the whole thing up. To my mind, 2010 can do the exact same thing for 2011 and beyond.

Between Wright, Reyes, Johan Santana, and Jason Bay, we should have, at least, four very good players on 2011 roster. Depending on what they show us this year, you could very well put Beltran, Francisco Rodriguez, and Jeff Francoeur in that category too.

Imagine if Davis is ready to take over at first base, and if Mejia is ready to slot in as a No. 2-3 pitcher with Thole as his battery mate. Imagine if the Mets complement that group with a stud second baseman and solid arms in the rotation and bullpen.

We'd really be getting somewhere at that point.

Now, I concede that all of this optimism is based on about a week's worth of Spring Training, and I appreciate that Rome wasn't built in a day.

But I, for one, and am starting to look at this team a lot more positively. Even if 2010 isn't the year (and baseball's a funny game, it's not impossible that this team would contend for a playoff spot), it's beginning to feel like a tablesetter type of year.

And if we can show strong improvement over 2009 (eminently doable), it would go a long way toward restoring the organizational momentum that's been on the fade since September 2007.

New Mets!

- A.F.O.M.G.

Info Like It Oughta Be

It wasn't too long ago that Spring Training was one of the most frustrating times of the year.

Growing up, I don't want to say I was any more of a baseball fan than I am today, but somehow the advent of Spring Training came with more breathless anticipation than it does for me today. Maybe it's because time seems to move slower when you're young (i.e., I feel like I wake up every other day now and it's Christmas; when I was young the wait seemed interminable).

Back then I was desperate for information, but as I remember it, information was scarce. You had the stories in the local dailies, I'm sure, but the truth is that back then all I really read was the New York Times' sports section (I want to say we didn't start getting the Daily News until I was in high school).

Really my only Mets news came from the Times and from SportsCenter, which back then would give you about 30-60 seconds of Mets highlights in a given day, except for that one AWESOME day each spring when they would go down to Port St. Lucie to profile the Mets in a 2-minute segment.

I needed more; I needed to know everything I could about the team, but information was always scarce. Spring Training was the biggest tease of them all; somewhere you knew real, live baseball was being played, but you couldn't watch it, and you could hardly read about it. 

Zoom forward to the present and the information age has finally met the Mets. The evolution in Mets Spring Training coverage has been going on for years now, but I feel like it's reached another level this year.

That's thanks, in most part, to MetsBlog, which has really done an outstanding job covering the team from Port St. Lucie.

Say what you want about their editing standards or their dot-dot-dots, but the sheer amount of original content they're providing right now is really astounding.

Before the games started, it got to the point where it felt like information overload. There would be random videos of people throwing but you couldn't see the catcher, and videos of hitters swinging but you couldn't see what happened to the ball.

Things have shifted in the past week or so. Cerrone's interviews with the players make for great viewing, and his video yesterday of Jose Reyes really put my mind to ease about that whole last minute doctor's appointment thing. In the past I'd have had a few quotes to go on, but I'm sure I'd have had lingering doubts about his health; this year I could see it for myself.

Anyway, kudos to MetsBlog for keeping us all informed. If only I'd had this when I was 10 years old, then I'd really have been in business.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Beware of Falling Objects

Sometimes I wonder if there's anything the sports department at the New York Post delights in more than ridiculing the Mets.

This is especially true when the topic is the Mets' beleaguered new ballpark, Citi Field. First there was the article about the lack of outlets in the laundry room. Then came the report on Citi Field contractors with mob connections.

Yesterday the Post had (seemingly exclusive) word that the "C" in Citi Field above the jumbotron in center field had come crashing down, shattering into a million pieces and promising fatal injury to any fan who should ever find themselves on the receiving end of a cascading "I", "T", "I", and all the rest. 

"This thing was falling from on top of the stadium," the Post's source said of the 15-foot long, 35-pound letter. "Something falling from that height, it will definitely split your head."

In their defense, the Mets said that no ballgame would have ever been played under the kind of weather conditions that felled the C.

"A baseball game would not take place under such weather conditions," the team said. "No one was harmed, and no one was in any danger. The lens is in the process of being remade, and we are checking similarly constructed signs throughout the ballpark."

Translation: Nothing to see here, all is well!

It really never ends with this team. I'm used to them threatening my emotional and mental well-being, but my life is an entirely new level.

Oh well. For all the Post's coverage of Citi Field's failings, I really don't hate the new park. Like every other fan, there are elements of it that I dislike, some things I find confusing, and other things I would change if I called the shots.

The Post on the other hand seems to have a deep and abiding hatred for the place. Again, none of the other dailies are pushing the "Shitty Field" storyline quite like the Post (does that mean the Post has an axe to grind, or that they're more diligent?), and thankfully/deservedly the Post's readership is low compared to the Times and Daily News. All of which is to say that hopefully this story won't go viral. 

That doesn't make it any less true, however, and the truth in this case is kind of disturbing.

The good news, I guess, is that the Mets have 5 weeks to fix the C and check all the other letters. I'm sure they'll apply that patented Mets diligence (never fails!) to correcting this issue.

Or so we pray.

- A.F.O.M.G.