Mike's Mets

Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets
By Greg W. Prince
Hardcover, 320 pages, Skyhorse Publishing

I'm going to start off this review with a disclaimer. Thanks to a Federal Trade Commission rule that went into effect in December, I'm supposed to inform you that I have received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. I'll have more to say about this in a future post, but I promise you that the only thing receiving a copy of the book guarantees from me is a review. I don't feel any pressure to present any book in a more positive light than it deserves, as the cost of a book is considerably lower than the price I would put on my integrity.

Actually, while we are disclaiming I must also add that I consider Greg Prince, the book's author, a good friend. I would feel truly bad if the book wasn't great and had to share that opinion with you, but share it with you I would.

Fortunately, Greg is a fine writer, and his book is of the quality anyone who loves Greg's blog writing has come to expect.

I've always felt that baseball is the most intensely personal sport from a fan's perspective, for the simple reason that a baseball season is so much bigger than the season of any other major sport. For a fan, baseball dominates our lives from April - October. It's there virtually every day.

Also, for many of us of all ages summer represents the best time of year: vacation, adventures, cookouts, travel, the beach, and those long, lazy days. I can't even begin to count all of the times going back to childhood that one of those summer events was punctuated by the sounds of a ballgame on the radio.

From spring right into fall, baseball intertwines itself into our lives in a way that the other sports can't. When I look back on those seasons gone by, I think of hard sliders and late-game rallies, long fly balls that just could be gone, and slick fielding plays. Merged right in with those memories are ones of awkward moments from adolescence, loves found and lost, marriage, divorce and all the other things, good and bad, that life has thrown my way.

As a diehard Mets fan, I take what happens to the team I root for personally, because it is personal to me. Being a Mets fan is not only something that I do, it's something that I am.

In the second chapter of his book, titled Taking It Personally, I think Greg expresses this perfectly:

We look at the script Mets on those uniforms and that's our name. That's us. However it happened, we became Mets a forever ago. We don't get paid. Doesn't even occur to us how much being Mets costs us in dollar terms let alone man and woman hours devoted to this cause we've made our own across each and every one of our lifetimes. We bleed, we sweat, we cry because, c'mon, what else are we gonna do?

We can do everything for our team except hit, hit with power, run, throw, catch, and pitch. So we do what we can. We wear them and we hope them and we yell them and we live them and, in cases like my own, we write them. We do it with only limited promise and no guarantee of success most years. We do it on the slightest chance that every now and then we can call ourselves the champion of something. It's not a dealbreaker when we can't, but it surely serves as a contract extension into perpetuity for us when we do.

Greg's book is about his life and how thoroughly the Mets became integrated into it. The remarkable thing about it, though, is that it's so easy for the fan who shares Greg's love of the Mets can see themselves in the pages of this book.

Personally, I'm about four years older than Greg and grew up in a middle class Italian-American family outside of New Haven, CT while Greg grew up in a Jewish family on Long Island. Our lives weren't all that similar.

Yet I constantly saw myself in the pages of his book, as even those of you whose lives share even less in common with Greg's are sure to do. As Greg himself puts it early in the book: "If you're a Mets fan, you know me. How could you not? I'm you."

I'd go even further than that, though. I think this book would be a hit with anyone who wakes up one day to find that the baseball team he loves and roots for has integrated itself completely into their lives, no matter which team they love. It's a shame that fans of most other teams probably won't think to give this book a look. There's a lot in this book for any real baseball fan, even those not discerning enough to be Mets fans.

Still, for Mets fans like us, Greg's book is a treasure. I give it my highest recommendation. I've read some very good books on what it means to be a baseball fan, but I've never read a better one.

Buy Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets from our Amazon.com store

More Book and DVD Reviews

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 6:14 PM Sunday, March 14, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I started a new job this week that was supposed to be a few part-time hours. It hasn't quite worked out that way, however, as I'm unexpectedly covering for someone who is out. I believe it will get easier next week (especially if that person returns), but in the meantime I don't want to let too many days go by without checking in with some content.

Obviously, the latest news about Jose Reyes is not good. I find it disturbing how many of the local media are using this for endless speculation on whether Reyes' condition is due to HGH without a shred of evidence other than a connection to that Canadian doctor. Newspapers used to report news that was back by solid reporting and some evidence -- not anymore.

If Reyes really does have involvement with HGH, do some real reporting and find some actual evidence. If Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds weren't able to dodge the truth of their own PED usage, I doubt somehow that Jose Reyes is more diabolically clever if he had HGH use to hide.

Lacking that, I wish the media would go back to some actual ethics system based on the fact that they are reporting on real people with real lives -- these athletes don't exist merely as topics to fill a lazy column.

As for the Mets, I'm tired of reading how snakebit they are. I've been through a rough few years in my own life, and I know that when I start to feel that way about myself things only get worse. Determination to get past obstacles always works better than self-pity.

Off to work. More when time permits this weekend.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 11:47 AM Friday, March 12, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Despite the fact that he has made only one spring training start we here at Mike's Mets are ready to completely give up on Oliver Perez.

Sure, at first we actually were impressed that Perez was pitching with better balance and throwing strikes. We were also happy that he was hitting the low 90s on the radar gun and thought he was showing some progress with his changeup -- a pitch that will be vital to any hopes of Ollie improving his splits against right-handed hitters.

Indeed, I have to confess to you that I actually was feeling decent about Perez' 3 innings against the Nats on Sunday after it was over, especially since it was only his first official outing of the spring. The combination of common sense and four decades of being a baseball fan had lulled me into a false sense of belief that spring training was about working on things that will help you win games when they count.

I want to thank the local media for waking me up and showing me the error of my ways. Already in midseason form with predictions of gloom and metaphoric Armageddon, particularly the New York Post, I promise to spend the rest of spring training living and dying on every pitch, batted ball and play in the field.

If a rookie gets a couple of hits one day, I will demand a roster spot for the kid. Of course, if he goes 0-10 later in the spring I will with equal force insist that Minaya trade him before his value plummets to nothing. I'm confident that heavy consumption of alcohol will get me past any misgivings my rational mind may have about such irrational thinking.

Bill Madden, who is certainly old enough to know better, has taken a precious day away from his endless Yankees coverage to remind Mets fans like myself that we have no reason for optimism, and who am I to argue with such a venerable representative of the local fourth estate?

Fortunately, I feel if I can make harsh judgments about Perez based on so little, I can allow myself to indulge in some Hisanori-mania based on the Japanese southpaw's impressive 3 innings in relief of Ollie.

If we take Mr. Takahashi's stat line and project it out over 200 innings, we can expect him to allow only 67 hits while striking out an amazing 400 batters and walking none. Now I know what you're thinking, it's probably unreasonable to expect him to not allow an earned run all season, but I'm confident that very, very few of those 67 baserunners will ever reach home plate.

Obviously, the Mets have now found the number two starter they have been looking for -- Johan Santana. With him slotting in behind his fellow southpaw Takahashi, the Mets are now the unmistakable favorite to represent the National League in this season's fall classic.

This should also get Santana off the hook for allegedly answering "Johan" when posed the question who was the best pitcher in the NL east. Clearly he had answered "Hisanori" and the reporters misquoted him.

If any of you think me rash for basing the preceding four paragraphs on only 3 innings of pitching, I would have to point out that the guys at the Post felt they could make their pronouncements about Perez based on the same amount of data.

For now, I think the only way forward is for the Mets to cut their losses with Ollie and release him immediately. Meanwhile, let's make sure to schedule upcoming spring starts so that Takahashi will be in line to pitch opening day against the Fish and Johan is ready for his start two days later.

Of course, I reserve the right to absolutely and completely about face on all of this if Perez pitches well next time out and Mr. Takahashi returns to earth. After all, that's what spring training is all about -- not the players preparing for the season, but for the local media and some fans to make snap judgments on anything that fits the narrative they're trying to create.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 2:15 PM Monday, March 8, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. We had a probate hearing for my mom on Wednesday and I've picked up a new part-time job. I'll be heading to that in a few minutes.

I have something that I've been working on that I expect to get posted this weekend. While I probably won't be able to post daily during the month of March I do have reasonable hopes of being able to post 3-4 times a week. I promise not to disappear again. This week was just truly insane.

If anyone has any thoughts on the first week of spring training games leave a comment below.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 2:24 PM Friday, March 5, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I decided to start blogging again early last month I felt that my starting point would have to be the Mets' bizarre hot stove strategy of allowing almost all of their targeted free agents to sign with other teams at relatively low cost. The things that the Mets did and didn't do this winter will certainly prove to be a huge story as this season plays out. If I didn't write about that, what am I even doing here?

It seemed to me that there was something strangely cynical when Mets management is insisting to fans that the team was going to go all out to win in 2010 and then failing to make at least a couple of relatively low cost moves to address starting pitching and bullpen concerns. Because of that, most of what I wrote in February had a more negative tone than my typical blogging over the years. I was even accused by one commenter of not being a "true Mets fan" and (for some reason) borrowing my thoughts from the negative stuff others were writing.

The plagiarizing thing was fairly ridiculous. I have many faults as a person, but one of them most decidedly isn't an inability to form my own opinions and then express them. I spend a lot of time thinking about the Mets, even during periods like last year when I didn't have much time to blog.

There was a lot the Mets did (and didn't do) this winter that would lead anyone following the club to come to certain logical conclusions, and I think many of us who blog or write or talk about this team came to many of the same conclusions, and had many of the same questions about what happened. Still, any opinions expressed by me on this blog are most decidedly my own.

I do think there is some tendency in segments of the Mets blogosphere and especially the local media to embrace a style and tone that is cynical and sarcastic and critical of everything. Maybe that's why over the years my tendency is to lean towards the optimistic and find something good to write about. I know a lot of my regular readers appreciate that, and I appreciate that my writing contributes even a minute amount to your fandom of the Mets and baseball.

My primary purpose for anything I write, however, is not to set a certain tone but to share a truth as I see it. I've always considered one of the biggest insults to a reader's intelligence is to tell you what I think you want to hear, either positively or negatively, or write something that I didn't absolutely believe to be true just to elicit a reaction and artificially build my readership.

If you find something useful from what I do here you will continue to come back and read my words. In turn, having a decent sized audience does provide a little more incentive to do what I do as well as I can, which satisfies me. I do appreciate you giving me some of your valuable time to read what I have to say. The reason I'm back at all is because of you guys.

On the other hand, if you're that (unfortunately) not uncommon reader who gets mad and likes to toss accusations around when someone isn't telling you what you want to hear, why don't you just move on? There are many different voices in the Mets blogosphere.

Anyway, now that we have taken what I believe to have been a fair look at what went down this winter, we stand at the start of spring training games and just over a month away from real games. As a fan, my natural instinct is to look to the positive now and to root for my team.

I'm not going to pretend that the Mets are favorites to win the series, and I'm not going to credit ownership or manager Jerry Manuel with genius every time they don't do something stupid. But I'm also not going to spend a spring and summer alternately whining about and making snarky remarks over everything that happens. I think it's possible to be honest without being overbearingly down on everything.

When I was a kid in the early 70s I rooted for some Mets teams that were inept offensively. They had no power, couldn't get on base and couldn't score any runs. Other than that, they were great.

Yet somehow, thanks to the optimism of youth, I could convince myself that guys like Dave Schneck, Teddy Martinez, Benny Ayala and Bruce Boisclair were on the verge of breaking out as superstars. I believed in a team where Ken Boswell managed to earn almost 250 plate appearances in 1974 with a batting line of .216/.277/.279. You could cheat and add all three numbers together and barely come up with an acceptable OPS.

The kind of optimism it took to believe in such miracles is long gone, so I'm thankful that I root for a Mets team that, despite all of its flaws, requires much less self-delusion on my part to picture a happy outcome to the season.

This is the time of year that I am happy to put aside much of my skepticism. In a baseball season, March and April are always about hope, at least to me. Even in years where the team isn't very good you hope that they will play hard, acquit themselves well and maybe even win a few more games than expected. You hope a young player comes along that you can root for, and your team takes a step closer to being a real competitor.

For all of the flaws of this 2010 edition of the Mets, they are a team with a real chance to compete for something. David Wright and Jose Reyes are two of the finest position players the Mets have ever developed and Johan Santana is as good as any pitcher not named Seaver the Mets have had. If they can stay healthy and be as productive as they were in 2008, who knows?

John Maine and Oliver Perez are question marks, but they both have managed to put together seasons in a Mets uniform that are what I would hope for this year. Let them both win 15 games and stay fairly consistent as they did in 2007 and this team has a chance.

For all the questions about the bullpen, there were at least as many going into the 2006 season, and that bullpen held up fine.

If I was to put forward my own definition of a "true Mets fan", it wouldn't be someone who blindly believes because he or she is somehow "supposed to", but rather someone who chooses to believe because that's part of the fun of being a baseball fan.

Yesterday was the first day in over a week where I live that the temperature got over 40 and the sun shone for most of the day. Jose Reyes hit a triple in his first AB in the intersquad game. This afternoon there is a game on tv. That feels like spring, and spring feels like hope. My head may not be totally buying into this, but I'm looking for 90 wins and the playoffs.

Play ball.

By the way, if you're looking for tickets for a game that sells out early (like vs. the Yankees or those "other" NL east teams), remember my friends at Ticket Solutions have single-game Mets Tickets available for virtually any game.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 1:24 AM Tuesday, March 2, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's become a common practice these days for spammers to attach comments to blog posts that are merely attempts to hijack some free advertising. The problem has become so prevalent that these comments, if completely unchecked, would quickly overwhelm most legitimate comments on a blog.

I've been using Movable Type's built-in anti-spam plugins for quite a while, and they do a good job weeding out most of the hundreds of attempted spam comments every day. Still, I'm spending too much time manually removing the ones that get through each day. That obviously cuts into my blogging time, and that's unacceptable.

As of today any comment with a link in it will be held for moderation, which means that it won't show up live on the site until I approve it. This will include web links in either the URL field or directly in the Comment itself.

Sorry for the need to do this. I'm on the site a few times most days, so I promise to approve all comments ASAP. If I can figure out another way to do this I will, but for now please bear with me.

This will not affect comments that contain no links.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 6:52 PM Sunday, February 28, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Back in high school there were always a few people who liked to instigate fights. They would go up to a guy and ask, "Did you hear what Jimmy is saying about you?" He'd say something back, which of course would get back to the other guy, and eventually this would escalate into a fight on the back field after school.

The thing that strikes me most about those fights looking back on them was they rarely were over anything of substance. Also, as I recall, the guys who most often instigated the fights never seemed to get into fights of their own.

As I read about the somewhat manufactured controversy over who exactly is the best pitcher in the NL east, I can't help but thinking how very "high school" this is getting. When reporters asked Johan Santana the loaded question of who was the best, and he picked himself, these guys couldn't wait to get over to Phillies camp and try to make the story have some legs.

But Roy Halladay is a few years out of high school now, and had no interest in participating in this "story".

At that point you might hope that the silliness would be allowed to die, but somehow you know better. The local dailies were counting the seconds until Jimmy Rollins, who enjoys the sound of his own voice more than anyone, reported to camp.

Even Rollins seems kind of bored with the same old, same old, though. His response was pretty mild, and you might hope that the high school stuff could die quickly this year. It really is getting old.

There seems to me so much of interest this year. People are fighting for jobs, guys trying to prove they're healthy, other guys trying to prove they belong here.

Some springs are boring with almost no jobs up for grabs, no farmhands generating excitement and managers and GMs that are fairly secure. Whatever else you can say about the 2010 Mets, you can't say that.

With so much that is real to talk about, I can only hope that the contrived high school controversies between the Mets and Phillies go away. Let's talk about some real stuff. Please.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 4:46 PM Thursday, February 25, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his Daily Scoop column today at SI.com, Jon Heyman doesn't travel very far out on a limb when he pronounces Mets manager Jerry Manuel as "on the hot seat."

I'm going to preface what I say next by noting that I am not a "quick trigger" guy when it comes to managers and coaches. Too many get fired simply for the sake of making a change, and usually any improvement in the team's performance that comes as a result of these firings inevitably proves to be short-lived.

Count me among those that believe that managers don't make a huge difference in baseball. The vast majority of the games are won by players on the field, with in-game strategy counting for a tiny percentage of all decisions. I'll take a very good team with a mediocre manager any time over a mediocre team with a top manager.

That being said, managers tend to outlive their usefulness at a rate inversely proportional to whatever skills they bring to the table. That's why Davey Johnson was here for so many more years than Jeff Torborg or Art Howe.

I'll give Jerry Manuel credit for lightening the mood of this team when he took over for Willie Randolph, but there was always a question of how much of that was due to Manuel's talent as a manager and how much was simply the pressure released when Mets management finally made a decision on Randolph.

When Manuel took over in June of 2008, the Mets did start playing a lot better not very long afterwards. While the club's ultimate failure to make the playoffs was mainly due to a bullpen that suffered from a little too much wishful thinking and the loss of its closer for the last two months, I felt Manuel's inartful management of that 'pen contributed to its ultimate failure.

There was no doubt that Manuel was playing a bad hand with that bullpen down the stretch, but his "playing the hot hand" and quick trigger led to an exhausted bullpen that compounded its own inadequacies.

Manuel had a much better bullpen to at least start 2009, but some of the same tendencies were there. For instance, when Bobby Parnell got off to a strong start he was out there almost every day, and I believe that contributed to Parnell's later struggles.

While it is a fair argument to give Jerry some slack for all of the injuries the Mets suffered, the Mets didn't exactly exude the aura of a team that came to play every night once the bottom started falling out. In that respect, I can't give him a complete pass based on injuries.

So, essentially in a season and a half at the helm, Manuel has demonstrated to me below average skills in managing a bullpen, a tendency to overuse some players while practically forgetting others, and no particular ability to get the most out of the players he has.

He's made some strange statements to the press about some of his current and former players. If these statements were for motivational purposes they've failed and, in the case of former Met Ryan Church, have come across as weirdly spiteful and purposeless.

Other than the fact that he can be very funny and personable most of the time with the media, I can't really think of one skill that Manuel has demonstrated that have earned him one last shot as a manager this season. What I fear is that, as with Willie Randolph before him, Manuel will be fired at some point this season and we'll all be wondering why so much time and energy was wasted before the inevitable became reality. Jerry comes across as a nice guy, but so did Art Howe.

The Mets would have been better off with a clean slate and a new manager who wasn't forced to try to win this season with a team that doesn't really look like it's built to win this year.

Even if things go really well -- say Pelfrey, Maine and Perez pitch well, the bullpen performs and the Mets get enough offense to truly contend -- how much more I'd hope for a stronger and more capable hand on the tiller.

I suspect the real reason Manuel was brought back was to provide Minaya and the Wilpons with some cover. If things get ugly they could buy themselves some time by firing Jerry, then if they don't turn around the Wilpons will still have Minaya's head to offer to the angry mob.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 11:44 PM Wednesday, February 24, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Note: This is the conclusion of a 2-part article. For Part 1 of this article, please click here.]

For all appearances, the Mets operated this past winter without a real plan. Despite claiming that they were putting together a team that would contend for the division title in 2010, management did little to address their starting pitching concerns. Indeed, other than Jason Bay there was not a single addition to the roster this winter that is likely to have a major impact on the Mets' fortunes.

As I have stated in part 1 of this piece, I was not a believer that the Mets could add a couple of pieces and be assured of contending for the title. Even if they had traded for Roy Halladay or signed John Lackey, I thought their bullpen questions and other weaknesses made them anything but a slam dunk to compete against a Phillies team that was more intelligently put together -- and this was before we got the "good news" on Beltran.

Had the Mets had identified 2010 as a regrouping/rebuilding year, I would have been fine with it. As far as being truly legit contenders this season, however, I can only feel that upper management and ownership is deluding themselves.

If the plan was to compete in 2010, come hell or high water, here's where I believe the Mets missed the boat:

Failure to sign a dependable starter
John Lackey was the best available one out there, but I would have had reservations about the Mets giving a 5-year contract to a 31 year old who has failed to notch 200 IP in his previous two seasons. But there were a lot of guys under Lackey who wound up signing fairly reasonable contracts.

The Mets could have taken some pressure off Pelfrey, Perez and Maine by signing someone dependable to slot behind Santana in the rotation. They would have also had some real depth for a change with Jon Niese and Fernando Nieve ready to fill in. Now it's likely one will be the fifth starter.

Failure to sign a right handed hitting 1B with some pop
I like Fernando Tatis as a PH on the bench who you give just enough starts to keep him sharp. I don't like his offense for anything other than an occasional spot start as a corner infielder. The Mets missed a chance to pair Daniel Murphy with someone who could give them a power boost. In 104 AB vs. lefties in the majors Murph has put up a .240/.289/.442 batting line, so he needs some help.

Some people really like Mike Jacobs to step in an win the 1B job. I don't really see it, but if it did happen it's even more imperative to have a RH first baseman to share the load as Jacobs has a .221/.269/.374 batting line in 420 career AB vs. southpaws.

Failure to replace J.J. Putz
According to Baseball Reference, the 2008 Mets bullpen blew 29 of 72 save opportunities and lost 28 games. They finished 3 games behind the Phillies in the division and a game behind the Brewers for the wild card.

That bullpen had some major problems. Billy Wagner went down for the season early in August, and blew 7 saves even when he was pitching. Neither Aaron Heilman or Duaner Sanchez could solidify the eighth inning early on, and both failed as emergency closers when Wagner went down.

The failure of the 2008 Mets bullpen cost them a division title and playoff appearance. The primary reason for that failure was having relievers in roles for which they weren't suited.

Acquiring J.J. Putz was supposed to solidify the bullpen for 2009. We know how that worked out, but the underlying thinking was correct. It's impossible to mix and match your way through 3 or 4 innings every night and expect your bullpen to hold up over a 162 game season.

Yet the Mets were willing to go into 2010 with the top candidates for the eighth inning as Kelvim Escobar (who has missed most of the last two seasons with shoulder injuries), Bobby Parnell (yet to develop a reliable second pitch) and Jenrry Mejia (20 years old with only 210 minor league IP and control issues).

Even if Frankie Rodriguez shakes off his struggles of the second half of last year, the question of who will get the ball to him in the ninth inning looms as a huge question, with the bullpen looking a lot like 2008 rather than 2006.

So there you have what I consider to be formidable obstacles that the Mets will have to overcome thanks to a winter where these issues were ignored or inadequately addressed. An awful lot is going to have to go right for the Mets to contend for anything.

To make it even tougher, you are going into the season with a manager who almost undoubtedly has to win to keep his job. Moreover, said manager seems over his head in this job, with a penchant for dubious decision making.

Here are just a couple of things that I fear for with Jerry Manuel trying to win (and save his ass) with a team that isn't really equipped to win:

• Gary Matthews gets off to a less-than-putrid start and Manuel decides to go with the "proven veteran".

  Any reputation that Matthews has as an offensively capable major league OF is built almost entirely on his 2006 season in Texas. In the 3 seasons since then, all with the Angels, Matthews combined batting line is .248/.325/.383. At 35 years old he's not the fielder he once was, either.

  I'd rather see Angel Pagan get the chance while Beltran is out. He's younger, has some upside and is a better player right now.
  
  

• Kelvim Escobar's shoulder blows up and Jenrry Mejia pitches well enough this spring to earn a bullpen spot.

  Mejia is a terrific young pitcher who has a legitimate chance to be a top of the rotation starter someday. Leave him alone in AA to work on his control and his secondary stuff. As a major league reliever he will have to rely almost completely on his fastball as Bobby Parnell had to last season.

  If you have a young minor leaguer who already has command and reasonable off-speed pitches he might benefit from getting his feet wet in the bullpen in the majors. The Dodgers have done this a lot over the years with their young pitchers. However, taking an unfinished arm like Mejia's and asking him to get out major league hitters with the game on the line is more likely to retard his development.

  Even if Mejia eventually profiles more like a late inning reliever than a starter, he'll only benefit from better control and dependable secondary pitches.

It's no secret that the Red Sox are the best run team in baseball right now. They've done this by building the strongest player development system in baseball that has allowed them to bring up quality players (Youkilis, Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lester, Buchholz, Papelbon) and make trades for missing pieces (Beckett, Lowell, Victor Martinez). This also allows them to be a little picky when going after free agents.

Moreover, they are smart at identifying players to fill their needs whether they come from within the organization, via trade or free agent signing. They're honest about where they are as a team and what they need to do to be better. They make some mistakes (Julio Lugo, Eric Gagne), but when most of your moves are smart you can overcome the ones that aren't.

The Phillies have built a strong team to a great extent by emulating what the Red Sox have done. They've used their farm system both to supply the big league club with talent and make important deals.

I like some of the moves the Mets have made since letting Tony Bernazard take his shirt and go home. Still, their lack of aggressive drafting and signing along with some questionable deals have them playing from behind when it comes to being able to use their system to fuel a championship run.

It seems to me that they are at somewhat of a crossroads once again with the 2006 campaign fading into memory. Rather than trying to delude themselves and their fans that they are a team with a real shot to win I'd love to see them do some of the smart things that build winners.

As previously stated, there are so many things that have to go right for them to get around the 90 win mark and really compete for the playoffs. It could happen, but it's going to take luck.

What the Mets really need to do going forward is to change their thinking and the way they run this franchise. They need to come up with a solid game plan and then stick with it long enough for the plan to succeed. The goal is to win championships, and it isn't wishful thinking that gets it done.

I understand there is a lot of pressure on this franchise to win back the fans after the 2007 collapse, the 2008 bullpen fiasco, and last year's 92-loss season. Unfortunately, Mets management seems to be living in some gray nether zone between really going for it in 2010 and taking the more deliberate, farsighted approach that I'd like to see. Regrettably for us all, halfway usually proves to be half-assed.

Read part 1 of this post

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 11:18 PM Monday, February 22, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Just some quick housekeeping here.

One big mistake I kept making last year when I tried to pick up blogging again was to try to catch up on all of the things I felt that I should have been doing while I was gone.

This time around I have put the blogging first, and I think it would be a good idea to keep it that way.

I have a really large amount of email backed up from all of the time I was dealing with my Mom's problems. It would take me weeks to even attempt to catch up on it, during which time I would, of course, fall behind on all of the current email.

I've attempted to go back and answer what I could, however, if you haven't heard from me please email me again. Barring any further life disasters coming down the pipe I promise to get back to you fairly quickly. And, of course, I apologize for the unintended rudeness of not answering your original emails.

I know I've had some people ask about link exchanges with their blogs over the last few months, but I can't find those emails. If you have asked me for a link and I have not obliged, please email me again.

I'm very liberal in my policy towards linking to sites. There isn't some "test" you have to pass where I have to deem you "worthy" for a link. All I ask is that your blog really is about the Mets (or general baseball for a link from my baseball links).

If you are a commercial site, however, you will need to purchase text link advertising for a link. This includes ticket brokers, betting sites and sites selling baseball memorabilia.

One thing I might still attempt to catch up on is some of the starting pitching stats which I abandoned early in May. I updated Johan Santana's stats for the full season last week and will try to get final stats done for Pelfrey, Maine and Perez, too. When I get one done I'll post info on it.

Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted at 2:52 PM Sunday, February 21, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)