Pick your poison...

Well my fellow Mets fans, the time has come. Yankees vs. Phillies, Game 1 of the World Series is set for tonight... and it's time to decide who to pull for to win this thing. Let me just state for the record that for me, this match up is not nearly as bad as a Yankees/Braves series would be - apparently I have some deep psychological scarring from the John Rocker era. And I don't buy into that "I'm a New Yorker" crap - doesn't anyone else feel intense hatred for all the Mets 'fans' who have gone out to buy Yankees gear?? That's just ridiculous. So for this series, I will be rooting for the Phillies/National League to win it all. I admit that I am a sucker for the underdog, but another World Series win can only help our league gain some much deserved respect. Now, I know a lot of people who disagree with my point of view on this, and their World Series picks are amazing. Some of the ones I've heard so far are as follows:

I told one Phils fan I'm friends with that as a Mets fan, I was pulling for the NL and got this response: "I know a few others going for the National League thing, although most I know want it to rain for a month, end in a tie or have an earthquake happen."

Another Mets fan had this to say: "This World Series is going to be torture. I hope a plane crashes on the world series.. But like a remote control one so no one ON the plane would die."

And Benny B. from weretheteamtobeat.com (a Mets/Phillies rivalry blog that I am now in love with) compares the two choices to deciding between death by fire or drowning.

We might not have much at this point... but at least we're creative in our despair. I'm sticking with my league on this one - nine guys play the field, and the same nine bat. Baseball the way it was meant to be played. Let's go Phils!

Time to clean house!

Since my last post focused on Jerry, now it’s Omar’s turn. Omar has been far from blameless in the debacle formerly known as the New York Mets. He has definitely had some bright spots with free agent signings, but there have been mistakes too. I guess we could chalk that up to human nature, but where’s the fun in that?

The reason why I believe that Omar should no longer have a job comes down to appearances. Is it superficial? Probably, but that’s the way it is. My confidence in Omar Minaya is long gone. When did this man stop understanding how to give press conferences? Even scarier, maybe he never knew how to give them in the first place. His handling of the Tony Bernazard/Adam Rubin fiasco alone was an all around embarrassment. How do you keep your job when you have forced your boss to make a public apology on your behalf? Minaya's good moves and signings have become obscured by behavior like that. He has lost the respect of the fan base through decisions like that and apparently giving up on our season this year. This is not entirely his fault, because he only has so much freedom with the Wilpons running the show. But again, this comes down to appearances – and it appears that someone threw in the towel on the 2009 season in June (just to be fair, I have no idea how big a role Minaya actually played in that decision) and that is beyond frustrating to me as a fan.

On top of that, this ridiculous coaching staff the Mets have assembled in recent years is getting a mulligan on this season. Part of me understands the argument that they their influence can’t be assessed properly based on the injuries. But then why were there ludicrous “shake ups” on the staff the day after the season ended? For the record, I do not believe that either Luis Alicea or Sandy Alomar was the problem for the Mets this year. But we should keep Razor Shines around. That guy’s a winner. How could anyone think it was a good plan to keep the man responsible for the poorly handled base running on staff? (I have zero confidence in Shines in any major league capacity. Hide him in Buffalo.) This team is run based on relationships. That’s a real problem because regardless of the fact that the objective is to assemble a group of guys to play a game, at the end of the day, it’s a business. It shouldn’t matter who you like the most because it’s not personal. It’s strictly business. At least it should be.

Lately, it just seems like incompetence is radiating from the Mets front office. Maybe it’s not something we’d really notice if the season hadn’t been a disaster on so many levels. I’m a firm believer that the Tony Bernazard mess would not have gotten anywhere near the amount of press that it did if there had been anything else to write about (which would have also had an effect on Omar’s public appearance). And I think that as much as I would like to see Jerry gone, Omar is definitely up there too. They are in this together, even though the manager in situations like these seems to take the brunt of the blame, probably because of his visibility. I’m tired of the Mets looking like they are out of their league in baseball. They put too much faith in too many question marks and expect that to translate into winning. And that just looks bad all around. Change the appearance of this team and give us someone who can restore our confidence in the Mets front office.

Why Jerry's gotta go....

I’ve heard a lot of arguments for why Jerry should be gone – fundamentals start with the manager, the manager sets the tone in the clubhouse, time to clean house and start over, etc. I agree with all that, but for me, there is one more reason to add to the list: he isolates his own players.

I know everyone remembers Ryan Church for reasons other than the fact that he missed third base in Los Angeles once. He was a solid defender with some power and Jerry didn’t like him. Granted, I don’t know anything about what goes on behind closed doors. Maybe Ryan Church is a jackass who showed up his manager while simultaneously turning everyone in the clubhouse against him (I seriously doubt this). Manuel was against Church in March. He made public statements that right field was going to be a platoon position before spring training had even started! Within the first two weeks of the season, Church was taken out of the starting line-up even though he was batting .400. Then he started slumping, which was another reason to keep him off the field. Jerry was either unable or unwilling to notice that inconsistent at bats probably contributed to these issues. Church is not the first guy this has happened to (anyone see Pat Burrell this year?), and he certainly won’t be the last. But Jerry isolated him, and it earned Church a one-way ticket to Atlanta.

Ramon Castro is another guy who seemed to fall out of favor with Jerry for no real reason. He’s not exactly an All-Star, but for goodness’ sake he was better than Brian Schneider. This situation was less noticeable because Castro wasn’t supposed to be a starter like Church. I wasn’t the biggest Castro fan either, but I realized that he was a decent backup who was probably more consistent than our starter. And what did that get Castro? A trade for Lance freakin’ Broadway.

And finally – where the hell was Nick Evans this year? This is a guy who probably should have made the club out of spring training and was sent back to the minors instead. He’s a young guy, so you kind of take that with a grain of salt. But there was no excuse not to give him at-bats and experience at first base when (A) the Mets were already playing with a mostly minor league line up, (B) they were completely irrelevant, and (C) Daniel Murphy is by no means a Gold Glover. Sticking Evans in the line-up could not have possibly hurt the Mets, and yet he spent the season either in the minors or on the bench.

Jerry creates an “us vs. them” atmosphere that is awful for a clubhouse and shreds the confidence of anyone who falls out of favor with him. As my baseball buddy/sounding board put it – he doesn’t pull guys together, so there is no accountability within the team. That kind of attitude would normally end in a last place finish... so I guess we can thank the baseball gods for one thing this season: bringing a team back to the DC area.

Why can't the Mets tell the difference between the Major and Minor Leagues?

The Mets have released reliever Ken Takahashi. I’m happy about this for two reasons: 1. it is a step in the right direction and 2. it brings me to my next topic: minor leaguers that only the Mets believe can play at the major league level.

Ken Takahashi was absolutely one of them. I have a friend who is convinced that the Mets only brought him up because of his name and unfortunately there might be some merit to that. Newsflash to management: you want to know why a 40 year old pitcher is just now making it to the majors? It’s probably because he shouldn’t be there. At least the Mets kind of realized this and designated him for assignment/stopped using him in important situations. But that could just be because the Mets stopped playing in important situations in June.

Next, my personal pet peeve: Angel Pagan. I understand that Pagan has potential and is a decent defender who can cover Citi Field. He always seems to get on base, which is normally great except this guy runs himself into more outs than anyone I can even think of right now. Pagan could quite possibly have the worst baseball instincts in the majors… and you can’t teach that stuff. Angel Pagan is a fourth outfielder at best. So why has there even been discussion about him competing for a starting spot?

More guys that fall into this category: Elmer Dessens, Pat Misch, and any other pitcher you had never heard of in the Mets system prior to all the 2009 injuries. It’s not like the Mets weren’t touting these guys because they were developing them as secret weapons down on the farm. I don’t care about flashes of brilliance – these guys belong in Triple-A Buffalo.

The one player that could be an exception to this is Nelson Figueroa. I’m still deciding on whether or not he is talented enough to pitch in the big leagues or if it just looked that way because of the state of the rest of the rotation. It’s pretty easy to look like an All-Star when you are surrounded by an injured ace, two head cases, and a revolving door.

My request is simple: stop trying to shove career minor leaguers down our throats. Go find a decent second starter to take the pressure off of Santana. I actually like some of Joel Sherman's suggestions regarding this.. basically go after an AL fly ball pitcher off a down year (Ervin Santana is on this list and I could definitely get behind that choice). Bring in some guys to up the intensity level and bring some power back to the line up. I do still like Matt Holliday regardless of his poor showing in Oakland, but I have a feeling the Mets won't play hardball with Scott Boras for him. And finally.. memo to the Wilpons: just consider your fan base ONE TIME this off season.

The Intangibles All-Stars

One quick note about this blog – while it’s going to be Mets-centric, I’m also going to hit on some overall baseball issues and discussions. I might even try to analyze some of our less-sane players. And there is the potential for some guest bloggers as well. I’m going to try to find silver linings following the 2009 debacle (the jury’s still out on how successful that endeavor will be) and I’ll be touching on some of my favorite topics this off season while we wait patiently for something good to happen. First up: the Intangibles All-Stars.

Now, we all know that the New York Mets have a love affair with bad contracts (see: Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez). We also know that, for some inexplicable reason, the team actually seeks out aging superstars that no one else wants a la Gary Sheffield (were those 10 home runs and .276 average really worth it?). But let’s be realistic here – that hasn’t been working for us. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for a new approach. I think we should go after an entirely different type of ball player, the kind that I call Intangibles All-Stars.

The Intangibles All-Stars are the guys that might not lead the league in stats but they get under your skin with their gritty, hard-nosed, never-say-die attitude. You won’t see these guys “forget” to run out a pop up or have to watch as their egos take over the clubhouse. Some of my favorites that fall into this category are David Eckstein, Dustin Pedroia, and Carl Crawford. They are the guys you don’t want in the batter’s box, because every at bat turns into an epic battle that wears down your pitcher (especially if he’s Mike Pelfrey... but we’ll get to him some other time). On the bases, they are alert, aggressive, and – get this – they make smart base-running decisions! It’s a problem when your base-running decisions are so bad that people “watching” the game on Gamecast can pick up on them. This actually happened to me on a Jose Reyes dumbass moment in May. Over the years I’ve become more and more convinced that Reyes actually makes more dumbass base-running decisions than anyone realizes because he has the ability to outrun being an idiot (which could be an issue in 2010 given this whole hamstring-tendon-surgery inducing injury disaster).

Whether management realizes it or not, the Mets are desperate for Intangibles All-Stars. Citi Field is huge, which means we should be building around speed, defense, and those often overlooked intangibles like grit and hustle. Hate the Phillies all you want, but we need our own version of Chase Utley or Shane Victorino – they both fall squarely into the Intangibles All-Stars category. How many Mets would have had the presence of mind or motivation to run out Utley’s foul ball single against the Rockies in the NLDS? And that’s just scratching the surface of what is intrinsically wrong with this team. It’s time to stop putting our faith in players that no one else would trust for a second, let alone a 3-year deal. We need someone to come in and shake things up by going the extra mile and lighting the proverbial fire under his teammates, and that’s who we should be targeting. A few guys who could potentially be a good fit come to mind, specifically Chone Figgins, Nyjer Morgan, and Crawford. While I doubt the Mets will be able to entice the Angels, Nationals, or Rays to give up these guys… it’s nice to dream.