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Mets 1B Carlos Delgado recently appeared as a guest on 
WFAN, and talked about being a new father, why teams love beating New York, the attitude in the Mets clubhouse, and he had the following to say about the ‘collapse,’ and his poor performance last season…
“I’m ready to go…It was very disappointing for us. We were definitely better than that…You put it behind you, learn from it and make it better next year…We can analyze it all we want, but it’s not gonna do us any good…I’m personally hungry and looking forward to next season because we are better than that…We try to do the absolute best we can to win for the fans, win for us and win for the city. I won’t lie to you. It was tough. The same way they looked in the stands, so did we. The one message we have is that we’re gonna make it better, we’re gonna play better next year. We are not happy about what happened last year, it was terrible for us and for the fans, but we’re definitely gonna make it better in 2008…
“This is the same team that was playing in April, May, June and July. It didn’t have anything to do with passion. Every body was fired up to get back to the playoffs and finish what we started in 2006…
“I showed up in spring training and felt good. I had a bad year. My timing was off. I didn’t make adjustments as quickly as I needed to. I didn’t have a good year. I’m preparing myself to having a better year, like I am used to having and that’s my goal for 2008.”
Delgado also discussed Extra Bases, his charity that has raised and will present $500,000 in mid-January to youth and education organizations in Puerto Rico.
To listen to Delgado’s entire interview, go to WFAN.com.
By the way, earlier today on a conference call with reporters, Delgado said that, while it would be great if the Mets acquire Johan Santana from the Twins for the right price, he believes the team can win as is.
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A nice job by Mike and the Dog today with Carlos.
He answered the questions in a very straight-on manner. Made no excuses.
Stand up guy.
Not cheap either
;)
PS. Sorry if my attempt at humor this morning offended anyone…. I was only going for a laugh.
The only thing I believe about his comments is that he is hungry.
“I’m personally hungry ”
for mofongo
I hope Carlos is “hungry” this year…he looked mad skinny last year. Let’s hope he eats, and stops getting eaten up with knee- or goatee-high breaking stuff.
I wonder why he didn’t refer to his wrist injury as an excuse for his timing? That seems to be the general thought. He wasn’t in pain, but I thought that his quickness took time to come back from surgury
the funny part of the whole lo duca thing is delgado probably speaks better english that paulie, and without bugging his eyes out every four seconds.
if delgado could just not swing and miss at the up-and-in fastball 8 times a game he’d be one of my favorite players
This is why I like Delgado. For some reason, he got a bad rap last year. People quickly forgot how good he was for us in the playoffs. He said some stupid things late in the season, but that was after people had already gotten on his case.
I do believe that he will be back next year….. .285, 35HR, 110RBI
You’re crazy if you think he’s going to put up those numbers. We endured a season long slump where people continually said, “Carlos is going to snap out of it, he’s going through a slump.” Well, sorry to say he didn’t go through a slump, he’s done, he needs to hang them up and we need to get younger at 1b. Enough of the excuses, the baby, the wrist, the surgeries, the quotes, all of its BS, the man just can’t play anymore. He had a good career, its now over, time to move on. Sad thing is, Willie has too much pride in his guys and will trust his gut too much, he’ll keep running delgado out there for a .240 100k+ year. We’d get better production if we signed Green for a 1 year deal, played him at first, cut Delgado and went after Texiera in 09.
I hope the Green comment was tongue in cheek. I am definitely crazy, but not because I really believe he will put up those numbers. More because I let your name calling bother me. Delgado is way too good and smart a hitter to be that bad. I think he will make the adjustments he needs and have a monster year. Not to mention the amount of errors he saves David Wright from. But nobody talks about Prince Wright’s throwing woes.
I dare you to go after Texeira in ‘09. Get ready to pay him $20Mil/year after a bidding war with the Yanks. Good luck with that one.
The Mets will definitely have to go after *someone* for 1B next year as I don’t see them re-signing Delgado. He has DH written all over him for 2009.
I’d love for them to go after Tex, but with the Yanks and Bora$ in the mix, it will be a very expensive proposition indeed.
heres hoping your right!
Delgado, like most power hitters is a streak hitter. With him it is either feast or famine. When he was on (like 2006 playoffs) he is a beast. When he is not in his groove (like most of 2007) it is absolutely torturous to watch him.
I do believe that he will come back strong and have a very Delgado-like year.
What makes you believe that?
injury + all his numbers dropped so much from the season before…he’ll be better this season
He has been too consistent for too long to just fall off the table so suddenly. Im sure that things like all the surgery he had as well as being a first time father were weighing him down. He’s got a long track record of success, and even if hes isn’t vintage Delgado i.e. 45HR 135rbi, I’m sure the above poster’s prediction of 35hr and 110 rbi would be an accurate prediction
How easily you forgive an old player for an ENTIRE season of awful play, but.. for each his own, we all HOPE you are right and I am wrong, we all do.
During that AWFUL season he was still had 24 homers and 87 RBI.
His biggest problem was that his OBP dropped, which makes me think he was less selective this year. If he gets back into his old habits of being more selective then he should have a bounce back year.
i didn’t realize this til recently, but delgado actually had a pretty nice second half. .285 /.375 /.469- makes me feel a little better about him next year. i wish he’d walk more though, he took a big dive in that department in ‘07
I think that has more to do with him pressing and teams pitching to him when they realized he wasn’t himself. Like I said above, the guy is way too good and smart a hitter. He has the tools and the head on his shoulder to do what he needs to do to bounce back.
The guy was villified in the media. Mike and the Pup always talk smack about him, but he showed he’s a stand up guy and got on the show. That’s a strong first step in getting the fans back on your side.
As far as the father thing, lets hope Carlos and the old lady take it easy in January, as 9 months would put us into October of 2008. Don’t want a postpartum slump to take over in the playoffs baby!!
Let’s hope he doesn’t follow Travis Henry’s lead.
I’m personally hungry… for the fans… and… for… youth… in Puerto Rico.
- Metsblog quoting Carlos Delgado on WFAN
Great guy, but his hand quickness is gone. To many hitters, even great hitters, have hit this wall and never “bounced back.” He’s now Mo Vaughn without the paunch and a slightly better glove.
Anything else is just wishful thinking at this point–as much as I’d like it to be otherwise.
You know, Delgado got his stroke back a few times last year> Each time he did, though, he seemed to get injured, miss a bunch of games, and return looking lost at the plate again.
Delgado had a terrible year last year. Whetehr it was his baby or his wrist it really cost the mets. In 06 he was such a powerful offensive weapon. The pitching was mediocre both seasons. He was the difference.
If he has a typical Delgado year we could win 97 games again.
The real difference between 2006 and 2007 for the Mets was the bullpen. Everything else was roughly the same. Wagner, Feliciano, Heilman, Bradford, Sanchez, Oliver, and, yes, Mota, all pitched extremely well in 06.
In 07, we had a merely average bullpen to go with our average staff (total ERA+: exactly 100, league-average.)
If Sanchez can return healthy, and Joe Smith can step up and be what Bradford was for us…and Feliciano and Wagner can bounce back from their second-half woes…and Willie learns to use Show only against lefties…and we don’t trade Heilman away……..then we should be in good shape. Heh.
Those comments made me laugh, considering that they didn’t change FOR TWO MONTHS LAST YEAR after being mediocre for August and September, and nearly made me really cry because of the fact that I know that the Mets won’t really be better than last year.
You say, “Why don’t you think the Mets will be better?”
My response to that is “Why in the world would you think otherwise?”
Carlos Delgado SUCKS PERIOD. He is old and can not play in NY. And trust me, I won’t have to eat my words, Delgado will eat them for me.
Really?
His numbers after the All-Star break disagree with you.
And I’d love to have his 88 RBI any time.
“Can’t play in NY”
Were you alive in 2006?
He had an off year. If he stinks out the house this year…. THEN I will say that he is done.
Man, I don’t get why so many people are hopeful about the Mets when they couldn’t get it done last year when they had two months to do so.
Without an IMPROVEMENTS FOR THIS YEAR that make up for the losses, why would anyone expect them to be better?
They haven’t replaced Glavine, they haven’t got a setup man, the offense just got worse with Brian Schneider which offsets the defensive capabilities of Ryan Church in R over Green, and the bullpen still sucks.
Looks like a worse team to me.
I say that Church is an offensive upgrade, and over the long run the additions of Wise, Sanchez and probably Register will be a contribution to the bullpen.
Pelfrey and Mulvey also have another year under their belts, and now we have Pedro for a full season, which I’d certainly take over Glavine.
And that’s definitely enough to make up for 2 losses, no?
The Phillies lost Aaron Rowand, and have a bottom of the order consisting of the all-star team that is Wes Helms, Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz. They added a failing closer turned setup guy. Whoopee.
If you expect Jimmy Rollins to do half of what he did last year than you are obviously a bonehead.
The Braves have lost Renteria and Jones, but it’s OK! Josh Anderson — THE JOSH ANDERSON — is the centerfielder, they have a young shortstop who has proved to be an above average hitter, and they have added yet another aging hurler. Their bullpen is a joke and so is their pitching staff beyond Hudson.
How easy everyone forgets that it took two things for the Mets to lose the division by ONE game. A huge surge by Philly and a HISTORIC collapse by this team, which is basically the same as was running away with the division before the swoon. In the course of an average season, they will contend and be in the mix all year. What happened last year was a 1 in 20 chance. It won’t happen again for another 20 years.
How easy everyone forgets that it took two things for the Mets to lose the division by ONE game. A huge surge by Philly and a HISTORIC collapse by this team, which is basically the same as was running away with the division before the swoon
The Mets played under .500 for 4 straight months.
The fact is that had the Phils (or Braves) gotten their act together sooner, it wouldn’t be a Mets “collapse’, it would have been a Philly domination.
Again.
You ignore 4 months of subpar baseball.
THAT is the lesson here, not some illusion of a “collapse”.
If you act like the problem as a “20-1 shot collapse” you have learned the wrong lesson from last year.
THIS TEAM WAS MEDIOCRE FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD. Not just a 2-week period everyone wants to focus on.
I totally agree. We need to remember how frustrating this team was last year. They never once got on a roll. Every time they won two or three games in a row, you thought “they’re finally getting it together” then they’d lose three in a row. They were very mediocre, and (I hate to say it) if the Braves played like they played for the 14 years they were division champs, they would have blown us away. The division was weak and that’s the only reason we were even in a position to “collapse.”
I guess they edited out the part of the interview where he talked about how difficult it is to reach pitches low and inside while playing with a fork stuck in his back.
Everyone mentions the wrist injury and his kid being born, but they forget he also had elbow surgery on the same arm (if memory serves) last offseason (tennis elbow).
So he was trying to come back from two surgeries. Throw in the birth of his kid during spring training and he didn’t really have a chance to get in shape for the season. You would think he would be able to come into this season in better shape.
We love you Delgado! Come back and hit 30 some homeruns and we’ll totally forget about last year.
Trumpzilla, that is what I’m talking about.
Why does anyone believe the Mets will be better? And why shouldn’t we expect Jimmy Rollins to be as good as last year?
Not expecting Rollin’s to have another MVP calibur year is just the thing that will make the Mets underestimate them again.
IT IS BETTER TO PREPARE WITH THE IDEA THAT ROLLINS, AND THE ENTIRE NL EAST WILL BE JUST AS GOOD, IF NOT BETTER THAN LAST YEAR. BEING OVERPREPARED IS BETTER THAN BEING THE OPPOSITE.
And to the person that said the Braves “got another aging pitcher,” that aging pitcher that they acquired was the staff ace of the Mets last year. Oh, how we forget so easily huh? And have he replaced Glavine yet? Nope, we haven’t.
There is no reason for optimism. The Mets were terrible in September last year, I mean completely awful.
And all of those conservatives that want to keep Pelfrey, Humber, Heilman, Mulvey, or anyone else from the farm, realize this, JOHAN SANTANA WILL ONLY BE 36 YEARS OLD ONCE HIS 7 YEAR CONTRACT IS DONE. That is how old Pedro Martinez will be this year. Think about it. Having Santana for that long has both short term and long term benefits. Meanwhile, the prospects only have long term benefits.
If you want to think like the Twins and Athletics, who always strive for the future, go ahead. But those that really want to win do it now, right now.