Daily Archives: October 3, 2007
Beltran is expected to be ready to play in time for spring training.
John Maine also had an MRI on his left hip, which revealed that he does not have a sports hernia.
Tagged Regis Courtemanche |…i don’t want to beat a dead horse, but what’s being called by many to be the third biggest collapse in baseball history behind the 1964 Phillies and 2004 Yankees, may actually be a blessing in disguise…
…as badly as i wanted the Mets to go all the way this year, their lackluster play over the last few months certainly lowered my confidence in their ability to do so…i felt much more heartache last year when i actually believed them to be the best team in the National League, not just on paper…their regular season shortcomings are exactly what needed to happen for management to address the issues at hand…
…if the mets had actually progressed to the NLCS as they did last year, perhaps Omar Minaya would overlook some of the pressing issues this team has, which as we all know includes their aging players, bullpen, and starting rotation…but now, the glaring deficiencies on this team cannot be ignored…the team’s failure to even make the postseason sent up some necessary red flags that team ownership must acknowledge…
…changes will be made, and perhaps these are the changes that should have been made last winter…hindsight is 20/20, but hopefully minaya and the wilpons won’t let history repeat itself in 2008…
Tagged Regis Courtemanche |
Willie Randolph will be a guest on WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog Show today at 5:05 pm EDT.
To listen live, go to WFAN.com.
Tagged Willie Randolph |
…i need a break from the keyboard…i have written over 550,000 words in the last two months, or basically the equivilant of War and Peace, seriously, and so my writing is starting to not make a whole lot of sense, which tends to happen from time to time…over the next few weeks, while teams are unable to make trades, sign free agents or make any major announcements, i will step back, stop writing and let my brain get it’s act together, while also cleaning up my office and working on some new bells, whistles and ideas for MetsBlog.com…in the process, i intend to have conversations with every single baseball person, reporter and fan i know, in an effort to formulate a better sense of what went wrong with this team, and what needs to occur to get it back on track…
…in the meantime, my associate bloggers will carry the torch lightly in my absence, although i will certainly make the occasional post from time to time, particularly in the morning…however, i do not expect us to be making 15 to 20 posts a day like we had been doing over the last few months, mostly because news will be sparse…but, we will be writing every day, letting you know our individual thoughts while linking to other information around the web so to keep the conversation warm until November, when the Hot Stove Season will officially begin…at which point we will turn the heat up under talking trades, rumors and free agents on a full-time, non-stop basis…and i suspect it will get pretty crazy around here, as it has every off-season for the past four years, chock full of buzz, arguments, ideas, news and solutions…and i can’t wait…it’s always a ton of fun…
…so, keep checking in with MetsBlog.com, but patient with our slower pace while we recouperate from a very long roller-coaster of a regular season, and get ready for what i suspect will be an equally long roller-coaster of an off-season…
Tagged MetsBlog |…i am a fan of Omar Minaya, mostly because he had brought a new sense of local and national credibility to this team, and a level of buzz and excitement that i had not seen as a fan since the 80s…that being said, his poor decisions over the last year ultimately helped to contribute to the team’s biggest embarrassment since its first season in the league, and they cannot be ignored…
…it should be noted that omar was not helped out by Paul Lo Duca, Carlos Delgado, Guillermo Mota, and especially Jose Reyes, all of whom underachieved following strong seasons from the year before…also, as Moises Alou hit the disabled list, as we all expected he would, nearly every single player on minaya’s back-up list hit the disabled list, nearly all at the same time, including Endy Chavez and Lastings Milledge, among others…frankly, the loss of endy cannot be overstated…neither can the loss of Jose Valentin, who, from what i can gather, had a super-positive influence on reyes, who has been accused of breaking down mentally this season, either from exhaustion, a long pennant race, or, according to bouncers on Long Island, from partying way too much, none of which can be proven, but all of which seem plausible…
…by the way, i enjoy watching alou and Orlando Hernandez, and while i believe it is very important to have a strong number of winning-oriented veterans on the team, no team should ever rely on winning-oriented veterans who have a history of being injured…it’s one thing to have alou and el duque on the team, it’s another thing to be leaning on them with so much weight, because they will break beneath it and will take the team with them…alou is wonderful, but he can never be the center of the team’s offense…the same can be said for el duque…as i wrote the other day, while i have no problem with el duque coming back next season, especially with his current one-year, $6 million deal, at no point next season can he be considered the team’s best pitcher…if he returns as a fifth starter, occasionally as a reliever, all under the notion that he will certainly miss a chunk of the season, maybe even the playoffs, that’s fine…but if it’s mid-summer, and for whatever reason he is this team’s best option at anything, they’re going to be in trouble again…
…in other words, omar did a lot of gambling this last off season…while he gambled that John Maine and Oliver Perez would rise to the challenge, and that Shawn Green, Damion Easley and Jorge Sosa would settle in to new roles, all of which panned out, he also gambled on Duaner Sanchez and Guillermo Mota, among others, which did not…
…in fact, the loss of sanchez may prove to be most costly of all, since i suspect it helped pave the way for minaya to trade Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom and Henry Owens, all of whom had success this season for other teams, while the players who were acquired for them all faltered or got hurt…i understand trading all three of these pitchers, especially when under the assumption that sanchez would be healthy, because not one of owens, bell or lindstrom had been touted by minor-league experts prior to the season – and if they were so valued one year ago, how come a) they had yet to succeed in the major leagues by their late 20s, and b) why did the Mets get so little in return…it’s an open market, remember…it’s not a free for all…our perceived value of them today is all based on hindsight, but try to recall their value from 12 months ago…that being said, these players would almost certainly have been helpful this season, considering the loss of sanchez and their eventual lack of options in the bullpen…at the time, i had no issue with trying to trade a 28–year-old pitcher, who had never shown any sign that he could succeed in the big leagues, for a pitcher with much more of a ceiling…i mean, who knew the team’s major-league bullpen would be such a disaster…but, there in lies the problem…while i am not a major-league general manager, and minaya is, and that lack of preparation and foresight ultimately came back to hurt him, although there is still plenty of time for Jason Vargas, and Ben Johnson to help out in future seasons, though i’m not holding my breath…
…for the record, i wrote the following on the day that Brian Bannister was traded for Ambiorix Burgos…
…i am disappointed to see bannister go…however, the Mets have a lot of bannister’s at this point, be it John Maine, Oliver Perez, Philip Humber, or Mike Pelfrey, i.e., young, very promising, highly-sought-after starting pitchers…what they do not have is a collection of strong, power-arms in the bullpen, and burgos is just that…in other words, the Mets traded from strength to fill a weakness…and i am cool with that…
…also for what it’s worth, you’ll be hard pressed to find a fellow blogger who was overtly passionate about seeing bannister go…frankly, i liked bannister, not only because he is into photography, like me, but because i always admired his poise and pedigree, two things that can never be underrated when staffing a team in new york…that being said, there is no way to know that bannister would have duplicated his impressive stats from the last-place Royals here in new york, for the Mets, in a ridiculously wild pennant race…
…lastly, i worry that minaya has created an awkward and embarrassing environment for his manager, allowing his assistant Tony Bernazard, among others, to regularly communicate with team’s players…i understand that tony b once worked with the Player’s Union, and that he can connect with the latin players in a way that maybe willie cannot, but that doesn’t make it right or effective…
…for more on this, read Bill Madden’s outstanding column for the Daily News…
…now, i understand that this may have been a good idea during willie’s first season or two, to help ease him through his first experience as a major league manager…however, this will be willie’s fourth season at the helm, and i believe he has earned the right to command his locker room and dugout as he sees fit with no downward or outside influence…he’s with his players every day, all season, and is being charged with getting the most out of that talent, and to truly be effective as their leader he has got to be their only leader…the players have got to know who is boss, otherwise pulling a player from the field for not running out a ground ball will not matter…i mean, if i’m the player, why do i care what willie thinks if i can so easily go over his head for justification and approval…minaya and his assistants should certainly keep a watchful eye, that is their responsibility, but if it is determined that their presence is undermining their manager in any way then they have got to pull back to arm’s distance…it’s only fair…willie has earned this leeway and will never succeed if he’s limited in how much respect he can command from his players…
…at the end of the day, minaya took some risks, and left himself very, very little room for error this season – as he did in the previous season, as well, by the way…this year, though, those gambles came back to bite him…i still trust in his command of the open market, his ability to work with other teams and the creativity and passion that he brings to the job…however, to bring this organization to the next level, and move past this current bump in the road, he has got to acknowledge and learn from his mistakes, which, from what i can tell, are a) putting t oo much responsibility on older players with a history of injury; b) not giving his manager the proper distance for total and necessary control; and c) not allowing for ample back-up plans at the team’s most important positions, that is to say if the bullpen is most important, then back it up and back it up again with players who are ready to contribute, if it’s the rotation, then back that up, but since you can’t back up every position equally, he must focus on what is most critical and the biggest risk and committ to it…if he does this, when coupled with his special ability to solicite opinion, evaluate talent, creativly and aggressively pursue free agents, and connect with people while always keeping the lines of communication open for trades, i have total faith that this team will return with more than enough talent to win the NL East next season, and for many years to come…
Tagged Omar Minaya |…earlier this week, an e-mail was forwarded around the internets containing alternative lyrics for Meet the Mets, which mock the team’s failure to win the NL East…
TBS’s Braves announcer Skip Cary sang the song on air during Atlanta’s final game on Sunday, which you can listen to here:
…way to be professional, skip…unreal…this, by the way, coming from a team that has finished in third place the last two seasons…some one tell this guy it isn’t the mid-90’s, please…
Over at his blog, Mets Lifers, Dave creates a list of demands for Willie Randolph now that he will remain on as the Mets Manager.
Dave’s list of demands for Randolph include, bunting more, defending his players and having more faith in his younger players, such as Carlos Gomez and Ruben Gotay.
…i agree whole heartedly with dave on bunting more…i would have loved to see willie put the squeeze on more often, especially when Luis Castillo was at the plate…it’s such a dynamic play that puts pressure on the other team to make a play and with the Mets speed it should be utilized more often…
…i highly recommend you head on over to dave’s blog, it’s full of quirky posts that provide a different perspective…he also has a nifty logo for his blog…great job, dave…
Tagged Mike Nichols, Willie Randolph |…i am tired of this team’s younger players being criticized for how they occasionally celebrate after scoring a run…
…yes, it can be a bit much at times, and not because of how loud and flamboyant it can be, but because they just look so dorky doing it…but it can also be entertaining…and, by the way, this is not isolated to the Mets…have you watched Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano lately, from that so-called ‘classy’ organization in the Bronx…earlier in the season, Miguel Cabrera picked up a teammate and literally carried him off the field in celebration…did you watch the Little League World Series, i mean even those kids are show boats, and they’re not yet even teenagers for pete’s sake…this is not to say that every single young player is a show boat, but to isolate it to the Mets, especially in an effort to assign blame for their ‘collapse,’ is unfair and most likely hypocritical…
…that being said, if Willie Randolph and the team’s veterans determine that these top-step celebrations are getting in the way of success, be it because the opposition is throwing at players and starting fights, like Paul Lo Duca has suggested it could be, well, that’s a different story…otherwise, who cares…i mean, one of the most celebrated and cherished groups in team history is the 1986 Mets, and no team was more controversial and crazy than those guys, but we loved them because they won…reyes was dancing around last year, when the team won and he was doing well, and nobody cared…this season, they lose and he struggled and it’s suddenly a problem…give me a break…that is so transparent it’s blinding…seriously, if people are so concerned about the integrity of the game and the team, how come i was never sent one e-mail on this subject last season…
…lastly, to those who believe these ‘antics’ helped to motivate the Marlins on Sunday, i say so what, who cares…seriously, is that what it comes down to now, the Mets can only beat a last-place team if the opposition is unmotivated and careless…again, give me a break…if you’re the better team it shouldn’t matter…stop making excuses and catch the ball…it’s that simple…
…at any rate, i actually believe this argument is not really about the Mets anyways…instead, i suspect it is a proxy fight between fans who are ‘old school,’ i.e., people who like the quaint pre-ESPN game from yesteryear - you know, like with Reggie Jackson and Rickey Henderson - against those who are ‘new school,’ i.e., fans, like me, who like a bit of flash and fun with their baseball…
…one of the most common questions i get during the season is about the songs each player steps in to the batter’s box to…the following video, from PressPassTV, gives a bit of insight in to how players on the Mets choose their music…
…rickey likes MC Hammer…how perfect is that…i miss 1989…
…over the last day or so there have been many, many columns written about us, the fans…among them, i encourage you to check out the following…
At SNY.tv, Ted Berg walks fans through the five stages of grief.
In the Bergen Record, Jay Levin gets advice from a clinical psychologist, in an effort to help fans cope with this team’s recent failure, which, by the way, is the Worst Day in Mets History, according to 80 percent of readers at the Daily News.
For more therapy, read Bill Hutchinson’s column for the Daily News, as he speaks with a collection of experts, including Dr. Judy Kuriansky, a New York clinical psychologist and Columbia University professor, who says, “If their team’s losing, they feel like a loser themselves and it can spin them into all kinds of emotional distress…It’s important to separate yourself from the team’s losing, to not think that you’ve lost in your own life.”
In the Daily News, Lisa Olsen writes that the disconnect between the team and its fans is an ‘outrage,’ adding, “Fred and Jeff Wilpon talk often of creating a connection between the club and fans, an affair built on community, charity and trust. That affair has been broken, the trust destroyed, and the Wilpons need to explain how they plan to repair it.”
Lastly, Daily News copy chief Adam Sommers should be banned from Shea Stadium for what he wrote in yesterday’s edition of the Daily News. According to Somers, he is officially done rooting for the Mets, and will now switch allegiances to the Yankees, because, “They have character and class, not to mention 26 championships.”
…good, hit the road…what a joke…what an absolute joke…nobody respects a traitor, adam…not even Yankees fans…jeez, talk about taking the cowards way out…oh well, you will not be missed, i can tell you that much…
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