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My real dream is that Omar gets fired and the new GM gets rid of Willie but I know Wilpon doesnt have the guts or brains to do it.

Before being called up by the Royals, who notoriously have brought their players up before they were major league-ready due to a lack of funds to sign placeholding free agents to let them develop in the minor leagues, Gotay was one of their top prospects.

He was called up at the tender, young age of 21 after posting a .290/.373/.441 line in AAA, and put together a pretty decent season for his age, hitting .270. The next season, he hit .227 and was sent down, then traded to the Mets the season after that.

If you read only that paragraph, Ruben Gotay is a failed ex-prospect.

Of course, as you know, he had a very useful season with the Mets last year, hitting around .340 until the acquisition of Luis Castillo, after which his playing time vanished and his average suffered as a result. It’s hard to pinch-hit, guys. Not everyone is Marlon Anderson.

What’s really interesting, though, is two things: One, the excellent at-bats he had last season, working the count and displaying the kind of plate discipline and maturity you’d love to see Jose Reyes have; and two, the fact that at age 19, in A ball, he hit 42 doubles and 9 home runs, good for a .285/.377/.456 line. That’s 42 doubles, in case you missed it the first time. Do you know how insane that is for a 19-year-old? That’s insane. And it shows that he’s got a lot of pop in his bat — which we did see last year, because he hits the ball hard.

So what, you ask, is Ruben Gotay’s upside?

Brandon Phillips, says I.

Phillips, the top-prospect-turned-bust-turned-budding-star, had some real tough times when the Indians brought him up at ages 21, 22 and 23, hitting for very low average and very low power. He was then acquired by Cincinnati, and there he has developed into one of the best-hitting second basemen in all of baseball.

Interestingly, most of his minor-league numbers are significantly worse than Gotay’s. The career parallels are, I think, pretty close, and if you put a Gotay/Easley platoon out there in ‘08, you’ll lose a little defense, but you’ll gain a lot of offense over a guy like Castillo or Eckstein, singles hitters both. Because if I can point to just one problem with the Mets’ offense over the past several years, it’s that they’ve had too many guys who just hit singles. Castillo, Lo Duca, Green, Delgado… TOO MANY SINGLES.

Extra bases are the name of the game, baby.

Free Ruben Gotay.

The offense should have been addressed more forcefully coming out of the gate in the FA signing period. The greatest offensive force of our time was available for the 2nd time, and again the Mets couldn’t even cobble up an offer. To me, Omar saying “we’re monitoring the situation” means “we have no clue.”

It can’t be so easily brushed off that the real changes have always had to be with the pitching. That’s addressing half the problem, at best. The Mets choked in addressing the manager/pitching coach situation after the season. That was an easy move they’ve flubbed. They are choking in addressing the offense. That was harder, but there was the elephant in the room they ignored. Fixing the pitching is the hardest to do with the fewest options out there. We’ve all seen elite playoff level Mets teams disintegrate quickly in front of our eyes from a combo of relying on players who got old and brittle with Mets ownership/management’s disturbing tendency to do a Lemony Snickets (A Series of Unfortunate Events). Omar’s on that Lemony path now: his horrible bullpen tweaking last winter, the Padres deal, the Bannister deal, the rule V Flores flub…. just tiny stuff innocuous by itself but adds up to create nightmares. That’s why it’s scary that his only real options to address the pitching is to overpay for some career submediocre innings eater or trade away 3 or 4 bodies for another.

What are realistically the METS needs?

1) Ace Level Starting Pitcher
2) Solid 8th inning capable Reliever
3) Acceptable #5 starter
4) Long man to be better than Aaron Sele

I see the above 4 things as the most important areas on the team to address.

CF, SS, 3b, 1b, LF, and Bench (all better than league avg)
Ca, 2b, RF (assuming Milledge) all about league average

With the 4 most pressing needs listed above, where are the guys on the FA list that can make it happen for us????

Linebrink, Prior, Wood, Benson, Silva, Livan, Colon, etc, etc. NOne of them really improve anything other than perhaps signing some of the starters would probably improve our options at the number 5 spot in the rotation.

i think they prefer to fix the long man in the relief role from within with either Duque or Jorge Sosa

Now…according to your logic, we should have paid the years and money necessary to get Posada to Catch and Mariano to be our closer. Posada signed a big deal as a catcher which takes him to the ripe young age of 40 as a catcher. It would have required us to pay him til at least he was 41 to come here. I don’t want that and you should not either. Same arguement can be made for Mo. He is 38 now. He has been offered a 3 yr deal with the Yanks. If we want him to come, we must offer at least 4 years taking him to the ripe young age of 42. Do you realistically think he can be effective at the conclusion of that contract?

Bottom line..i get your frustration but to fix the problems we have, we need to make trades and they require other teams to make it happen. You know this but you prefer to continue to rail the same lines over and over for the past week to simply make the same points. In the end, you know I speak the truth. You can’t fix this problem with money alone

Last year Kepp batted .332 with a .400 OBP 5 hrs and a .877 OPS in 60 plus games as a starter for the Reds

Gotay conversely ended up at .295 with a .350 OBP 4hrs and a .772 OPS in about 70 less at bats