Off Day Blather: To Error is Metropolitan, to Forgive Really Really Hard

Go visit this guys myspace and maybe he'll let me keep the picture.

Willie may be deposed, but there is still plenty to drive us crazy. A#1 on my list is the senselessly bad defense. An under appreciated facet of the malaise of Willie, Wankers and the Mets Losing Factory is the constant mental and physical blunders they specialize in. If I remember correctly, when the man who signed Sammy Sosa took over this flailing franchise, the idea was to have a team with strong defense up the middle, a team that could emulate the Br*ves in an organizational sense. I don't remember the discussion including carrying a million catchers, featuring a bench that can best be described as lame, or running out an elderly scrub filled line-up which seems built to fail or hurt itself or both. We can see that Omar has not made much progress on the Br*ve front, unless giving hicks a media voice or driving fans away are the goals. So how is the team doing with that defense thing? I say mind-blowingly awful.

Shoddy defense and mental errors drive me insane because, unlike pitching and offense, there is relatively little mystery or luck involved in keeping your head in the game and playing solid if not spectacular, consistent defense. Players can be focused, they can be positioned, they can not be sent home on suicide missions by dopey third base coaches. And, on paper, this should be a relatively defensively gifted team.

Let us consider the defensive acumen shown in the Mets Father's Day defiling doubleheader. Jose "Wickets" Reyes and Carlos Delgado letting easy grounders go under their gloves in the first game. Brian Schneider boneheadedly putting an exclamation point on the game by running the Mets comeback into the ground in the first game. Not to be outdone, Damion Easley proved unable to catch a can of corn in the 3rd inning and Reyes demonstrating his disinterest in thinking by going to first too late when the LEAD runner was hung up between 2nd and 3rd. More horrid perhaps, was the Mets showing against the Angels, with Easley and Delgado leading the way. As far as I'm concerned, these dopes are responsible for Santana's loss the other day: giving a team like the Angels a half a dozen extra outs is more than any ace can handle. Forgetting to cover bases, missing easy grounders, good lord I can't take it. Perhaps the fact that these two men are supplying so much of the Mets meager offense lately should take them off the hook, but really we're talking Bad News Bears Replacement level defense (a stat I am in the process of developing). And Reyes has regressed defensively so quickly I can only scratch my head.

Anyhow, I hate this shit.

***
The media feeding frenzy is now at its peak; the beast got what it wanted and now I expect interest to fade as the team continues its slide towards ultimate mediocrity, unless a new era of "meaningful games" dawns somehow or the Phillies team bus goes off a cliff. Despite the overkill, I am still interested in hearing more about the following stories:

*post-Jacket postmortem. How will the organization adopt to not having a "guru" in charge of its pitching system, and just letting an ordinary schmuck run things? Was Peterson rubbing pitchers the wrong way in general? Are there any reforms possible for the pen, or will they wait for the law of averages to take hold in the second half? So far it has been all Murphy's law on the hill for the Mets. How much influence did Peterson have on the draft and in general? Will the Mets let the new manager have his own man in this position, or will they tie his hands again? Will it get better?

*How long will the universal derision last? I'm proud to be a Mets fan come hell or high, rat- infested water, but I'll admit it was nice to be taken seriously for the past 3 years. After a year or so of being recognized as one of the most exciting teams in the MLB, the Mets are back to being a laughingstock, slaves to media, and abusers of their own personnel. This is close to "meaningful games" territory, folks, and if we reflect on the journey, it is looking like the Mets flubbed the GM hire again. Will Omar pull another rabbit out of his hat like Santana after the Collapse? Will this rabbit be a smart, baseball decision rabbit aimed at sustainable success, or will it be another stupid Steve Phillips rabbit? After blowing the era of good feelings out their ass on the eve of their new stadium's debut, will the Wilpons ever get it?

* What the f*** is up with Tony Bernazard? Obviously, a good part of the media has it out for him right now, but the question is, is there fire under this smoke? Stories are tying Bernazard both to Willie's demise and Delgado and Beltran's impotence--I expect to see that Tony has a child out of wedlock with Mrs. Met any day now. I am predisposed to feeling the rot needs to be removed if this ship will ever be sea-worthy, but we really don't know the details yet.

*What the f*** is up with Ken Oberkfell not being named manager but being named subordinate to Manuel? Must the Mets always have a management designed to undermine itself? Blah.