New York Mets

As Thanksgiving approaches, the Mets are still two reliable starters short, with only Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey and John Maine assured of spots in next season’s rotation. Oliver Perez remains unsigned, and if the season opened today, Jonathon Niese (total career starts: 3) would likely be the number four man.

Meanwhile, embattled reliever Aaron Heilman has reiterated his desire to start for the Mets or be traded to a team that will use him as a starter. Despite the fact that Heilman suffered through the worst season of his career in 2008, New York General Manager Omar Minaya has reiterated that the team sees him as a reliever, and most observers believe Heilman will be traded at a time when his value is at a low ebb.  read more »

Time to Say Goodbye to Pedro.

Pedro Martinez’s agent said this week that while several teams are interested in his client’s services for 2009, the Mets remain his top choice. And on the surface, Martinez is still a good fit for the Mets.

Even if New York re-signs Oliver Perez, their fifth starter remains a question mark, with Jonathon Niese (with his three career major-league starts) the heir apparent. The Mets have little depth beyond Niese at the position, and it would seem that the finest pitcher of his generation would be a tremendous luxury in that final spot.

But the very reasons that Martinez would be superficially attractive are what make bringing him back such a bad idea.  read more »

As the Mets assess ways to improve their pitching staff this offseason, Oliver Perez, who has been a mainstay of the starting rotation, is mentioned as one of several options. But if the Mets are serious about consolidating 2008’s gains, they have no choice but to sign Perez, who is the best of their plausible alternatives, both in 2009 and beyond.

The Mets, despite a laughably poor bullpen, remained in playoff contention until the season’s final day for two reasons: the offense and the starting pitching. And the three starters that kept the Mets in the race were Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez.  read more »

So what are the poor, pathetic, sidelined Mets to do as they approach roster decisions this winter?

At first glance, their options for building a team that can play consistently good baseball for an entire season are grim: A weak free agent class provides little in the way of help, either offensively or with starting pitching.

Fortunately for the Mets, though, these were both strengths in 2008, and figure to be again in 2009.  read more »

It’s not just that the Mets lost to the Florida Marlins Sunday, 4-2, to finish out of the playoffs—it’s how they lost.

There was little question that New York’s bullpen would provide an obstacle for the team’s stellar starting pitching and offense to overcome. But in the final three games of the season, while the starters and relievers held to form, the offensive production that made the Mets a playoff threat simply disappeared.

In the final weekend of the season, New York lost two of three games to the Florida Marlins. The starting pitching, a strength for much of the season, ranged from good to spectacular.  read more »

The Mets continued their season of stupefying depths and dizzying heights with arguably their most improbable win yet—a 7-6 result over the Cubs on Thursday night, one night after a 9-6 loss to the Cubs that saw the team strand a runner at third in each of the last five innings.

The ups and downs have, against all odds, put the Mets in a tie with the Brewers for the wild-card playoff spot, and just one game behind the Phillies for the National League Eastern Division lead. And somewhere along the way, both their victories and losses stopped making sense—never more than during Thursday night’s farce.  read more »

It has been argued (by me) that overcoming a bullpen as terrible as New York’s this season is a tribute to both the tremendous offensive talent and frontline starting pitching the Mets possess.

But as Sunday’s 7-6 loss to the Braves demonstrated, the reverse is also true. It takes a historically awful Mets bullpen to undo the great work by New York’s offense and starting pitching. If Sunday--which saw the bullpen allow four runs (and an inherited fifth runner) in just two innings—is any indication, the Met relievers are up to the task.

The basic horror is easy enough to document. Despite an offense that is second in the league in runs scored and a starting rotation with a second-half ERA of 3.  read more »

The Mets don’t look like a winning team customarily looks. It seems impossible to imagine that a team with a bullpen so unreliable, and utterly devoid of quality performers, could manage to make the playoffs, let alone contend for a championship.

But as the Mets showed again Thursday night in a 7-2 victory over the Nationals, good starting pitching and good hitting can often overcome even a horrible bullpen. And unlike 2007, when the Mets had intermittently effective offense and thin starting pitching, this group excels in both areas. The fact that they trail the division-Phillies by just half a game, and lead the Brewers by 1 ½ games for the wild card with ten games left is no fluke.  read more »

The great parlor game of New York’s 2008 season has been seeing whether a team can overcome criminally negligent pitching out of the bullpen and win a division title. But as the Mets showed Tuesday night in a 1-0 loss, and over their last five games, a bullpen may be overcome—a bullpen and offensive drought cannot. With Philadelphia’s 8-7 win over Atlanta, the Phillies took over first place by ½ game with 12 to play.

Make no mistake, New York’s bullpen is as terrible as ever. New York lost games to Atlanta on Saturday and Sunday despite entering the late innings with leads.  read more »

Total Chaos for Mets Postseason Pitching Generally, the roster questions facing a first-place team are few. The Mets, who lost 7-4 to the Atlanta Braves Sunday, lead the Phillies by one game, yet the pitchers who would make up their postseason staff are still largely a mystery.

Between the 18 pitchers currently with New York since rosters expanded on Sept. 1, as well as the currently injured John Maine, there are just a handful of definite Mets should the team make it to October. For everyone else, the final 14 games of the season won’t just determine whether the Mets can do what the 2007 team did not, and advance to the playoffs.  read more »

All season long, the 2008 Mets have been invariably compared to the 2007 version that lost a near-certain chance at the playoffs. Every series, particularly against Philadelphia, the team that benefited from New York’s late collapse, has been inspected for signs of a return to last year’s disappointments, or definitive proof that the Mets had moved beyond their 2007 failings.

But in the two-game series with Washington Tuesday and Wednesday night, which New York swept, 10-8 and 13-10, the Mets did more than just win a pair of important September games. If one didn’t know better, it would seem that the Mets were determined to actually relive last season’s worst games, and this time, get them right.  read more »

It was easy to think back to New York’s epic collapse in 2007, when the Mets lost a seven-game lead with seventeen left to play, after New York lost to the Phillies on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. The results allowed Philadelphia to move within a game of the Mets, before the series conclusion on Sunday night.

But from start to finish, the Mets showed in their 6-3 victory over Philadelphia on Sunday night that however the season turns out, their 2008 club is a different model from last year’s.

Most obvious among these differences is the presence of Johan Santana, who entered the night with an ERA at Shea Stadium of just 1.  read more »

New York’s 8-7, 13-inning loss to Philadelphia Tuesday night played out like a single-game version of the Mets’ 2007 collapse. In fact, the Mets even managed a miniature replica of last September, when they blew a seven-game lead with seventeen games to play, by losing a seven-run lead with seventeen outs to play.

But while the Mets won’t – shouldn’t -- stop hearing about their 2007 collapse until they clinch a division title, Wednesday night’s 6-3, come-from-behind victory was much more indicative of the season New York has had, both against the Phillies and as a whole. Despite New York’s bullpen struggles, 2008 simply hasn’t been 2007.  read more »

The struggles of the Mets’ bullpen in the season’s second half astounding even by comparison to the very worst teams in recent memory. Following Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Houston, in which the bullpen gave away a 4-3 seventh-inning lead, New York’s bullpen ERA since the break is 5.89. To put this in perspective, no National League team has a higher full-season ERA than Pittsburgh, at 4.44.

The bullpen is awful by the standards of the very worst teams in Mets history. Only once in New York’s existence has the team posted a half-season bullpen ERA over 5—in New York’s very first year, the Mets had a bullpen ERA of 5.  read more »

In the Mets’ tiered ticket pricing plan, only Opening Day, the Subway Series and the final regular season game at Shea Stadium cost more than a ticket to any of the three games this week, a series New York swept with a 5-4 walkoff win last night.

While in years past, a sweep of the Braves would have been greeted by some of the season’s most enthusiastic cheers, reaction to Thursday’s win, which dropped the Braves 15 games behind New York, was muted.  read more »

With injuries to veterans like Moises Alou, Ryan Church and Luis Castillo, the Mets have taken to using a number of young players in an attempt to patch right field, left field and second base. The result has been increased playing time for Argenis Reyes, Nick Evans and Daniel Murphy, who have combined for 208 at-bats this season.

Since Murphy’s call-up, with all three playing major roles, the Mets are 12-6. Both Murphy and Reyes had hits Wednesday night in a 6-3 win over Atlanta. (Murphy’s was a two-run single.)

Mets fans have been justifiably excited to see the team turn over a large portion of playing time to youth—under former manager Willie Randolph, it seemed that the primary role of New York’s young players was to wait around on the bench or serve as trade bait.  read more »

The news has been bad and keeps getting worse for Mets closer Billy Wagner. A forearm strain has morphed into elbow pain, and Wagner faces a further diagnosis Tuesday at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. There is no timetable for his return, and even if he does come back, it is far from certain that he’ll be able to take on the regular work of a closer.

This potential loss brings a major flaw of New York’s this season into sharp focus—the team has lacked a single pitcher to hold down the eighth inning all season long. Relievers such as Scott Schoeneweis and Joe Smith are ideally lefty and righty specialists, while Aaron Heilman and Duaner Sanchez have been inconsistent all season.  read more »

Last September, the Mets hosted the Marlins at Shea Stadium, but the cellar-dwelling Marlins could do little besides play spoiler to New York’s season. The 2008 Marlins began a three-game series at Shea Friday night fresh off of taking two of three from the Phillies, and very much in the hunt for a National League East title.

While the Marlins lost two of three to New York this weekend, Florida still stands just ½ game behind New York and 2 ½ games behind division-leading Philadelphia. But the only major change from 2007 to 2008 was dealing Miguel Cabrera, one of the finest hitters in baseball, for a package that has delivered little to the big league club.  read more »

The only answer the Mets have about what they can expect from Pedro Martinez following his outing in Wednesday night’s 4-2 loss to the San Diego Padres is that they can’t know what to expect. As he has throughout his short season, Martinez provided both reasons for optimism and gloom during his 6 1/3-inning appearance. It was his second start back from a layoff caused by a groin injury and extended by his father’s death.

“Well, I can’t be satisfied with the loss,” Martinez (who does not hide his disappointment over poor outings) told a group of reporters in front of his locker following Wednesday’s game.  read more »

Both New York teams hit the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline with multiple areas in need of improvement. The Yankees did something about their problem at catcher, left field and even bolstered a bullpen that had already been effective. Only the largest of the Yankee problems, starting pitching, was left unaddressed.

The Mets, meanwhile, in need of another outfielder as well as an additional bullpen arm, elected to go with what they have.

Both New York teams will be forced to cross their fingers and hope that some critical roles can be filled in-house—for the Yankees, a pair of starting rotation slots, and for the Mets, both starting corner outfield positions.  read more »

Springtime was not kind to New York’s baseball teams. For the Mets and Yankees, April and May brought not hope, but dismay. Both teams looked as if they would be lucky to finish the season without losing more games than they won. Injuries hurt—Alex Rodriguez, Phil Hughes, Moises Alou and Pedro Martinez all went down early in the season—but more than anything else, the teams looked sloppy and apathetic.

Now, in midsummer, the bad old days of spring have been banished. The Mets are in first place in the National League East as of July 29. The Yankees are in third place, just three games behind this year’s surprise team, the Tampa Bay Rays, in the American League East.  read more »

The John Maine the Mets need in order to maximize their potential over the season’s final 61 games returned last night, throwing seven strong innings in New York’s 6-3 victory over Philadelphia.

That Maine was missing in his previous four starts. After pitching at least six innings in 12 of his first 16 outings, Maine had failed to do so in each of his last four.

The difference between Maine’s outing Wednesday and his previous failures is not throwing more strikes, or even more fastballs. For Maine, it is simply a question of when he throws strikes—early fastballs in the zone allow him to succeed later in at-bats with fastballs out of the zone.  read more »

When Pedro Martinez exited his July 12 start against the Rockies after four innings, the Mets were quick to downplay his injury, which Martinez said was tightness in his shoulder as a result of compensating for a groin injury. Manager Jerry Manuel said there was “no doubt” Martinez would make his next scheduled start, which would have been this past Sunday.

But Martinez did not make that Sunday start, nor is he starting Tuesday against the Phillies, which had been the announced fallback position. The Mets have been increasingly quiet on the Martinez front, though he did receive a cortisone shot—not in his shoulder, nor in his groin, but in his hip.  read more »

Once the Mets traded four prospects to obtain Johan Santana this past offseason, the team had more or less cleared out its farm system of attractive prospects, with one notable exception in Fernando Martinez.

So in this June’s draft, New York knew it had to take players that could make quick work of the minor leagues.

The Mets had three of the first 33 picks, and selected first baseman Ike Davis, shortstop Reese Havens, and pitcher Brad Holt. All three played in the Brooklyn Cyclones’ 5-4 loss Saturday night to the Staten Island Yankees. But so far, only Holt has displayed abilities that hint at a fast trip through the minor league system.  read more »

It is not surprising that Billy Wagner pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to save New York’s 10-8 victory over Cincinnati Thursday night. After all, since coming to the Mets, Wagner has been one of the most automatic closers in baseball, converting 87 percent of his save opportunities. To put that in perspective, just under 60 percent of all save opportunities were converted in the National League in 2008’s first half.

But Wagner seems to have his greatest difficulty in games with either higher stakes, or even higher perceived stakes, as he showed Tuesday night, allowing the tying run in the eighth inning of the All Star Game.  read more »

While the streaking Mets actively shop for a corner outfielder to replace the injured Moises Alou and Ryan Church prior to baseball’s July 31 trading deadline, 19-year-old Fernando Martinez, who can be either the long-term solution in the outfield, or the bait for the team’s short-term answer, showcased his talents at the Futures Game Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

Martinez had one hit in two at-bats on Sunday, and as he has done since signing with the Mets, excelled against players more experienced and older than he is. But with a number of injuries limiting him to just 791 professional at-bats, even a team that promotes as aggressively as the Mets has to be reticent about throwing Martinez into the midst of a pennant race.  read more »

A day game after a night game is normally the province of a baseball team’s backup catcher. Why, then, was Brian Schneider, the man Omar Minaya described as his “regular catcher” when the Mets acquired him this winter, in the starting lineup for the July 10 day game against the Giants?

It’s because Ramon Castro, whose strong bat has been a big part of New York’s recent success, had played the night before—a far more regular occurrence since Jerry Manuel took over as manager from Willie Randolph.

“It does feel better to be playing more,” the 32-year-old Castro said as he put on his uniform in front of his locker Thursday afternoon, prior to New York’s game against the San Francisco Giants.  read more »

The Mets did a lot of heavy lifting on their recent road trip, amassing a 5-3 record against the National League East-leading Phillies and the wild-card-leading Cardinals.

The success of the road trip, punctuated by three straight wins in Philadelphia, catapulted New York into the thick of the National League playoff race. The Mets further solidified these gains with a pair of shutout victories Tuesday and Wednesday against the Giants, and they now stand just 1.5 games out of first place in their division, and just 3.5 games behind St. Louis for the wild card.

But how successful the Mets are down the stretch will be determined in large part by the team’s success on and off the field between now and the end of July.  read more »

Oliver Perez is an enigma.

While many pitchers have displayed inconsistency, Perez’s highs and lows are remarkable, not just from game to game, but season to season.

There are endless theories for Perez’s problems, ranging from the mechanical to the psychological, and many prescriptions to solve them.

He showed encouraging signs Sunday against the Yankees, striking out eight and walking none over seven innings, but he’s been so inconsistent that it’s hard to know if it was meaningful progress or just another blip. The one thread running through Perez’s numbers appears to be a simple one—if he throws even a decent amount of strikes, he will be successful.  read more »

Monday night’s 7-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals will be particularly disappointing to fans of the New York Mets, particularly if it provides a harbinger for how the Mets play over the next week.

With another three games against the Cardinals, who lead the National League wild-card race, followed by four with the Phillies, who lead the National League East, the Mets will be facing two teams that stand between them and a playoff berth.

A strong week would likely put New York squarely in the middle of the wild-card chase, and could catapult them into the division lead. But a poor week could leave New York on the outer reaches of the playoff picture; long shots for October play.  read more »

It’s only been eight games. But Jerry Manuel has made it clear that he has a very different plan to manage the Mets than his predecessor, Willie Randolph. These changes range from the tactical to the philosophical, with some tone changes thrown in for good measure.

The most famous of these changes so far has been Manuel’s freewheeling press conferences with reporters, including jokingly threatening to “cut” Jose Reyes (and not as in releasing him) over an on-field tantrum, and referring to the vocally negative feedback from some Mets fans as potentially helpful “fertilizer” at Shea Stadium.

Manuel’s tactical adjustments—the things that actually relate to baseball—have gotten much less notice.  read more »

With Moises Alou on the disabled list, Mets manager Jerry Manuel has said that the team needs to plan as if he isn’t coming back. And Trot Nixon, who has started in left field eight times since the Mets acquired him from the Arizona Diamondbacks (where he had been playing for Arizona’s AAA club) on June 15, wants to put himself squarely at the center of those plans.

So far, the results haven’t come for the longtime Red Sox standout, whose season line stands at .148/.281/.296. But Nixon, who New York acquired in part for his seemingly endless hustle, said he isn’t pressing.  read more »

If Willie Randolph’s situation with the Mets was most like that of Davey Johnson, who was also fired less than halfway into a season less than two years removed from an appearance in the NLCS, then Jerry Manuel, who was named interim manager of the Mets early Tuesday morning, is Bud Harrelson, Johnson’s replacement.

Harrelson took over a 20-22 Mets team during the 1990 season, and led them to a 71-49 record—good enough for 91 victories, but falling short of the postseason. And this standard—significantly improved play, even if it falls short of a playoff berth—is likely Manuel’s bar to clear so he can remove the interim tag from his job title.  read more »

The last days of the Willie Randolph era, much like the Mets’ historic end-of-season collapse in 2007, were both tragic and horrible to behold.

On June 15, at the end of a long, seven-hour day at a stadium that will be pulverized and paved into a parking lot later this year, the Mets announced their attendance for a Father’s Day double-header at 55,438. That was laughably deceptive.

Seats were empty all afternoon, and by the time the second game started—the Mets dropped the first half of the double-header to the Texas Rangers—it was quiet enough for the players to be able to hear the yelled suggestions of individual fans: “Carlos! Hit it to third base! They got a shift.  read more »

The Mets had no shortage of disappointing losses during Willie Randolph’s tenure, but the team chose to fire him, along with pitching coach Rick Peterson and first base coach Tom Nieto, around 90 minutes after Monday night’s 9-6 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Randolph will be replaced by former White Sox manager Jerry Manuel; Dan Warthen, who had been the Mets’ pitching coach at AAA New Orleans, will assume Rick Peterson’s duties. AAA Manager Ken Oberkfell and AAA coach Luis Aguayo will also join the staff.

Randolph’s fate was the subject of speculation since the end of the 2007 season, one in which the Mets lost a seven-game lead in the National League East with 17 games left to play, one of the biggest collapses in baseball history.  read more »

It’s still too early for the Mets to make the irrevocable decision to be sellers at baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline on July 31. But just barely.

The Mets found themselves seven games out of first place Thursday evening following a 5-4 loss to Arizona, pending Philadelphia’s game at Florida. The wild card offers even worse news; the Mets trail St. Louis by eight games, pending the Cardinals’ game at Cincinnati.

The Mets have lost six of seven games; a similarly poor performance over the next few weeks, or a strong one by St. Louis and Philadelphia, could put the Mets 10 games out of a playoff spot by July 1.

While teams have managed to overcome deficits that large, such stories are rare. And with the team’s depth and talent base depleted by poor drafts and the Johan Santana trade, along with a core—David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, John Maine and Santana—that is still in its prime, retooling for 2009 could end up being their best (only?) shot at getting back into the company of the premier clubs.

If the Mets punt on 2008—and unless things change soon, it will come to that—here are some of the selling options they have if young talent is available in return:  read more »

Martinez is Least of Mets’ Worries There are no shortage of problems for the Mets, from Ryan Church’s concussive complications, to Moises Alou’s inability to heal, and even Billy Wagner’s ability to save his only poor performances for the worst possible moments, as he did Sunday, giving up a home run to Tony Clark as the Mets lost their fourth straight to the San Diego Padres, 8-6.  read more »

Unlike in the NBA or NFL, players selected in the Major League baseball draft are not expected to contribute to the big-league roster immediately, or often for years. But both the Mets and Yankees seemed to draft with the current problems with their respective teams in mind.

For the Mets, the issues addressed were in the starting lineup and depth of starting pitching. For the Yankees, the effort was made to collect high-ceiling young pitchers, hoping enough will stick to make a pitching staff.  read more »

It is commonly assumed that if Joe Torre had been a free agent, rather than property of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he, and not Willie Randolph, would currently be manager of the New York Mets. That chorus will likely quiet a bit after the Mets completed a 5-2 homestand by defeating the Dodgers Sunday night, 6-1.

But the funny idea of the whole Torre-for-Randolph idea is that there’s no evidence that the aspects of Randolph’s managing that have come under fire most—his lack of demonstrated passion, his deference to veterans and his problems managing his bullpen—would have altered with this particular regime change. After all, Randolph learned his style by Joe Torre’s side as a bench coach for much of Torre’s Yankee tenure.  read more »

David Wright is miscast in a Met uniform.

His youth, affability and seemingly boundless enthusiasm are, by themselves, sufficient to draw a sharp contrast to the gaggle of older, often listless imports that surround him. Add the fact that he’s not only the best player on the Mets but also one of a scant few whose career remains on the ascent, and you begin to understand that by nearly every metric, Wright is the anti-Met.  read more »

The New York Mets are, in a word, awful. After collecting a cadre of superstars with big contracts and making a series of pretty shrewd trades, the Mets have lost more games than they’ve won during the first two months of the 2008 season, this after they made baseball history last fall with an ignominious collapse that cost them a spot in the playoffs.

A good many Mets fans think they’ve identified the problem: His name is Willie Randolph, the team’s manager.  read more »

Speculation about Willie Randolph’s hold on his job as manager of the New York Mets seems to be reaching a breaking point. First, Randolph was forced to apologize for public comments that, among other things, asserted that the SNY network, which is owned by the Mets, slanted coverage against him. Then he and the Mets proceeded to lose six of seven games to the Atlanta Braves and Colorado Rockies.

When Randolph reached out to Mets ownership, his call was reportedly returned by General Manager Omar Minaya.  read more »

Let this be a lesson for managers and coaches in New York: When your team is down, don't pick a fight with the media.

Willie Randolph, the Mets manager whose team is now under .500, has made two mistakes this week, at a time when his job is looking more and more unsafe.

Randolph told the Bergen Record that he was getting a lot of heat from the media because he's black, and that SNY--which the Mets organization owns--delighted in catching him at unflattering moments in the dugout.

He asked to speak with the Mets' owners, the Wilpons, to apologize, and his offer was rebuffed (instead, he spoke to the team's GM, Omar Minaya).  read more »

This weekend, as Mets and Yankees reprised their biannual rivalry, the familiar summer smell of sizzling hot dogs and grilled hamburgers was trumped by the cloying stench of mutual desperation. After 40 games and more than $347 million in payroll, the Mets and Yankees entered the series a combined 40-42. Worse still, they saw their respective divisions led by the Florida Marlins and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, two teams whose payrolls rank last and next to last in Major League Baseball.

So what’s the problem?  read more »

While the Mets and Yankees played just two games this weekend, due to a Friday night rainout, there were a few illuminating aspects to both games for the heretofore struggling New York teams.

Wang’s Increased Use of Slider is Double-Edged Sword  read more »

It is a peculiar irony of this largely disappointing Mets season that one of the loudest sustained cheers any player at Shea received this year was on Sunday, May 11, for left-handed reliever Scott Schoeneweis, quite possibly 2007’s least popular Met.

Schoeneweis kept a sense of humor about the fan reaction. He claims never to hear plaudits, only criticism. Therefore, on Sunday, he heard only an absence of boos.  read more »

It’s open season on Mets starter Oliver Perez.

Billy Wagner ripped him for failing to compete, after Perez gave up five walks and seven runs in 1 2/3 innings on April 30. Earlier, Willie Randolph had criticized Perez for failing to go deep into games, even though Randolph twice removed Perez in the sixth inning when Perez had yet to allow a run. After his recent poor outing, the New York Post led with, “The Mets are running out of patience with the maddeningly consistent Oliver Perez.”