"F**ing Shocker"
The 2008 Mets have zoomed past Art Howe's clowns and are starting to compare negatively with the 1992 edition--the Worst Team Money Could Buy-- at least those guys were a team. You could fire Willie, rehire him, and then fire him again and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to these unlucky, complacent, elderly, highly remunerated jokers. At this rate, the Wilpons might consider booking the Ice Capades, Harlem Globetrotters to play Citifield, because ain't no one paying to see these chumps. Other than that, I refuse to put more effort into blogging about a team then that team expends playing a child's game for millions upon millions of dollars. That is all.
Labels: get ya bags out, luis castillo and the horse he rode in on
posted by I.M. Forme @ 11:11 AM
7 Comments:
At 1:09 AM,
springsandra said…
Please don't go! I don't think I can survive what's left of the season without your sardonic take on it all.... ::sigh::
At 12:28 PM,
Anonymous said…
You have to at least come to the meets. You want to be able to say that you were there when Willie managed his last game.
Lets not forget that Willie was a member in full standing of the worst team money could buy
At 3:56 PM,
Vain Saints said…
This is very unfair to the team.
They are losing because they are a 85-90-win team that Randolph singlehandedly turns into an 80-85 win team.
If the Mets were playing with the same level of energy, focus, and passion or whatever and winning, nobody would be thinking twice about it and everyone would love their winning team. This is very possible because the Mets are only marginally more unfocused and dispassionate than other teams in MLB.
The issue is not passion, but talent and performance.
Beltran and Reyes have not been playing very well, although they have not been playing nearly as poorly as people have been making them out to be playing. Reyes, for crying out loud, is batting .270/.345/.450 at the shortstop position. Those aren't the superstar numbers he's capable of, but he's a far cry from where he was last September. Beltran's OBP is at .370 when his average is barely above .250. He is being exceptionally selective at the plate (not too selective...his Ks are down). What Beltran has been most of all is unlucky. His line-drive% is hovering at around 25% I believe, though I may be mistaken about this).
It is unfair and inaccurate to treat the Mets as a 100 win team that is turning itself into an 80 win team because it is going through the motions and does not care. It amazes me how unforgiving and fickle fans can be. Reyes doesn't run hard on two automatic outs in 2007 and he's tarred for life. Guess what. He didn't run hard because he was exasperated with himself. He does care, very much, and if he had kept up the #s he had put up from May '06 to May '07, everybody would have forgiven his lapse of concentration. But he's putting up only good, rather than great, numbers now, and Met fans take it to him, pretending that they are demanding effort, but in reality demanding that he be Omar Vizquel on the field and Hanley Ramirez at the plate. Do that, or we'll run you out of town, say the Met "fans".
(Delgado and his clean uniform are a somewhat different story, but I've been running my mouth off for too long.)
At 11:51 PM,
I.M. Forme said…
don't worry spring, i would never leave you alone with this crappy team.
keyser, i'll try to make it sunday to share the misery.
well brian, thanks for your input. My problem with Reyes has been how dumb he plays, swinging and popping up so many damn first pitches, etc. balk or not, he did it again last night getting picked off of second and very possibly losing the Mets the game. He needs to get his head in the game.
This team was bored last year, and now they're panicking without any leadership. It doesn't seem to have a clutch bone in its body.
At 12:20 PM,
Vain Saints said…
I was not referring to you personally as a "fan" in scoff quotes by the way, and my apologies for coming too close to doing so. That was more directed at the legions of fans who take vitriol to a whole other place.
Reyes does not seem to be the smartest baseball mind around; on that, you do have more than a point. I think most fans are on edge about Reyes because they don't know who he really is. If he is a star who is "underperforming" (to the tune of a 105 OPS+ at shortstop--really not that shabby) the Mets will be in good shape in the years to come, regardless of what happens this year. If this is who Jose Reyes is, then the Mets better rebuild around David Wright NOW, because along with the ludicrously underappreciated John Maine, who has done nothing except perform as the best pitcher on the Mets since he got here, and that counts Johan, he's all they've got.
In this way, Jose Reyes represents the franchise in general, which is probably why he is so unfairly reviled in so many quarters. Reyes and the Mets in '06 were great. Reyes and the Mets in '07 began great and then plummeted. Reyes and the Mets in '08 are agonizingly and tantalizingly average. And Reyes and the Mets will be synonymous in the near future.
All in all, the issue is not hustle, leadership, concentration, or clutch. These are phantasmas that people tell themselves because they don't want to acknowledge the truth. The Mets are a team at risk. They are at a nexus right now whereupon they have the opportunity to cut their losses (i.e. Luis Castillo) and lay the groundwork for a very good team, but they are just a couple of bad contracts and missed opportunities away from trapping themselves in mediocrity for a long time, and wasting the bonanzas of Wright, Maine, and possibly Reyes. Omar has shown no capacity to pursue a sound long term strategy and Willie has shown every capacity to minimize the effectiveness of whatever Omar gives him. My prediction is that the Mets will pursue and sign Teixiera and continue to employ patchwork solutions to their other issues, resulting in a team that is always in contention, but never good enough to really have a shot at the world series, and that things remain this way until Wright retires and we really have to start over.
At 1:20 PM,
I.M. Forme said…
No offense taken, Brian, I thank you for the thoughtful commentary.
"Omar has shown no capacity to pursue a sound long term strategy and Willie has shown every capacity to minimize the effectiveness of whatever Omar gives him."
.com
...that should be the name of a blog, it's so correct.
I agree with most of what you say, but i still feel the team lacks leadership, however ephemeral a term that is. A star who also has the ability/luck to come through when the chips are down. David Wright is still a boy. Or maybe it's chemistry that lacks. It seems like a long time since the Ct REd Ass cover of sports illustrated.
In retrospect, we can see Omar shit the bed for this season. The Br*ves are too well-run to be down for long, the Marlins are recently the most successful team in the division, and the Phils have a core primed for long term success. Besides being very unlucky, our team relied on Pedro, Alou, Delgado and Sanchez. And that was dumb. Heilman should have been moved upon the acquisition of a new set up man.
The Mets next manager needs to have the ability both to enable its solid stars and protect more sensitive players (Reyes, Beltran); Reyes sorely needs coaching, or less kindly, babysitting. As everyone has been saying for years (at least since ElDuque pulled up lame for the very playoffs he was signed to excel in), the team needs to get younger, less diva-y.
Right now, the team seems like a machine built such that each part puts pressure on the other--system failure is always just around the corner.
I hold out hope that once expectations are lowered/firings begin, the team can remain 5 or so back of whoever rents first place in the East, and make a late season drive. But that is uncharacteristic of this team and will be difficult if they can't beat the Br*ves or Nats at all.
As attractive as Teixiera is as an option to fill delgado's slot, the Mets probably better off finding a cheaper, more modest, more flexible option. But we know that ain't happening.
At 3:23 PM,
Vain Saints said…
Looking at the energy that Evans brought to the game today, and the lack thereof that we've been seeing from the hired guns like Delgado, I begin to see your point much more clearly. (Of course, it's easy to be/look energetic with 3 doubles and excellent defense. But Delgado and Alou have not hit such energetic doubles in a long time.--I'm only half-kidding.)
Evans/Murphy/Carp forever?
One can only hope.
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