Horribly Terrible

The above photo of Erik Goeddel basically sums up the weekend, doesn't it.

In the recurring theme of "I didn't see the game," I watched none of the Mets/Pirates series in total and I think I'm probably better for it because the way things turned out, I can see I probably didn't want to see any of this. In their three-game obliteration of the Mets, the Pirates scored 21 runs to the Mets 4, they handed Matt Harvey the worst beating of his career and they underscored just how troubled and in need of a boost this Mets offense is.

The Mets have sort of been dancing and jabbing at their opponents for the past few weeks, ducking their underlying issues and surviving because, let's face it, their pitching is really really good. But this can only get so far, and this weekend, the Pirates delivered a haymaker. This is now getting to the point where good pitching isn't good enough, because for as good as the Mets pitchers can be and often times are, they can't outpitch their own offense and if by some chance they don't have it, you may as well throw the entire game down the shitter.

The Mets starters didn't pitch well this weekend in Pittsburgh, but even if they had, would it have made a difference? I know injuries are a problem but I'm not sure that the injured guys would be making much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. To this point, I'm comfortable with the offense I've seen from Lucas Duda...and that's about it. Curtis Granderson, perhaps, if only because he's certainly provided a good spark in the leadoff spot. Juan Lagares and Wilmer Flores have provided some nice moments, too, if you're willing to look past Flores' defensive foibles (and unfortunately it seems like most Mets fans are not).

That leaves half a lineup of dreck. Eric Campbell has fallen victim to the Endy Chavez Corollary (overexposure), and probably shouldn't be playing at all. Kevin Plawecki plays like a 22-year old that's been in the Major Leagues for a month, and this is acceptable only because that's what he is. Michael Cuddyer has scuffled, and Daniel Murphy I'm convinced is just a total lost cause. The other problem is that the depth behind these guys hasn't materialized. John Mayberry Jr has done nothing, Kirk Nieuwenhuis did even less than that before getting shipped out of town, and the rest of the mob of Johnny Monell-types seem to be mostly adept at hitting into Double Plays more than anything else.

The solutions aren't much of a solution because right now, they're all hurt. Dilson Herrera, who I believe is the future of the team at 2nd Base is hurt, Travis d'Arnaud, who was off to a great start is still a week off, and who even knows when we're going to see David Wright again what with this whole spinal stenosis business. Thing is, none of these three guys by themselves will make that much of a difference, I don't believe. Nobody is going to come back and immediately start carrying the Mets offense to more victories. David Wright, as much as we'd like to think he's The Guy, just isn't that kind of player. His best seasons, which now seem further and further away than we care to remember, came when he was surrounded in the lineup by Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado, and anyone can look good when they're surrounded by that kind of talent. And if Wright's going to be out indefinitely, prognosis undcertain, well, then the Mets need to make some kind of move, don't they?

I don't know who the hell is available right now, but if Sandy Alderson is conscious, he might want to think about trading Daniel Murphy, and for that matter he can trade Jon Niese and Dillon Gee, too. Murphy seems to have a nice career ahead of him as a Designated Hitter somewhere, so he ought to be useful to some well-meaning AL GM. If people aren't too convinced that Jon Niese is just White Oliver Perez, he might have some value too. I mean, management usually will trip over themselves for Left handed pitchers. Dillon Gee hasn't done anything wrong per se other than not be Harvey, deGrom, Syndergaard or any other exciting young pitcher the Mets have. You'd think this kind of a market exists, because what the Mets are putting on the field right now isn't sustainable for success. Nobody's buying the charade.

Aw, Geez

Injuries, particularly devastating ones to the elbows of pitchers, seem to have become as much as part of Baseball as, say, the Designated Hitter. Nobody likes it, it causes divisive amounts of controversy and there's no good solution to stop it. The Mets have had plenty of their own pitchers shelved due to major elbow injuries that required the Big Boy Surgery over the past couple of years and now they've been hit twice more in the past couple of days. Josh Edgin was diagnosed with a ligament injury apparently caused by a bone chip that was cutting into the ligament and after a second opinion decided to go under the knife. That was bad enough. More disheartening to the Mets chances this season was the news this morning that Zack Wheeler had been diagnosed with a torn ligament in his elbow and would need his own operation.

Word later in the day revealed that Wheeler's elbow had been of concern to doctors, but that a major injury didn't appear imminent. It just required "monitoring." These kind of situations, however, tend to not end well, and that being said, perhaps it's not totally surprising that this is the end result for Wheeler. That doesn't make it a positive by any stretch of the imagination, and in fact for a team and a fan base that's constantly had to deal with injury after injury and disappointment after disappointment it's downright disheartening.

But in the big picture, it's not the end of the world.

When Matt Harvey went down with the same injury in August of 2013, that was really bad. Harvey had emerged among the Best pitchers in Baseball over the course of his brief career, and he was expected to lead the charge when the Mets eventually returned to prominence. His injury for all intents and purposes put things on hold for the team and basically threw the fan base off a collective cliff. Zack Wheeler's emergence helped to lessen the sting of losing Harvey in 2014, but ultimately his strong finish to the season didn't immediately turn the Mets into contenders. Wheeler's larger problem among fans seems to be basically that he's not Matt Harvey and he didn't come up and produce the same results. Wheeler in 2014 had a good season but pitched like a young pitcher who was still trying to figure it out. There were moments where he looked very good, but also moments that he was pretty bad and the goal for this season was more of the former and less of the latter. Matt Harvey came up looking like such a finished product that it was easy to project the same hype onto Wheeler. Not the same kind of pitcher, not the same kind of results.

Point here is that the loss of Wheeler is frustrating and annoying and a sizable chunk of the Mets fan base is probably yelling about "AW THERE GOES ANOTHER SEASON (these are the same people who think they can force the Wilpons to sell the team and continue to harp on how the Mets need to fire Terry Collins and hire Wally Backman tomorrow)," but in the grand scheme of things, starting pitching is the one area where the Mets could absorb a major injury. Wheeler's gone for 2015, and that sucks. Fortuitously, the Mets have a major league quality starting pitcher who can slide right in and take his place in Dillon Gee. Imagine that. For once, the Mets actually have a contingency plan! Sandy Alderson hasn't hit on everything, but the non-move of dealing away Gee or Jon Niese showed a good bit of temperance on his part. Gee won't be Wheeler but in this rotation he doesn't have to be. Gee just has to be Gee, and in certain periods of his career he's pitched rather well. He'll get the first crack at holding down this spot in the rotation, but if it doesn't work out, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz are also primed to move up the ladder this year.

So, don't panic just yet. If anything, the Edgin injury is more difficult for the Mets because they don't have another lefty reliever to replace him, or at least not one with any kind of Major League experience. But on the other hand, relief pitchers are like elbow injuries. Annoying and unpredictable.

Filling In The Gaps

The signing of Michael Cuddyer, much like the signing of Curtis Granderson last season, won't make the Mets better by itself. But what these signings have done is added the presence of useful, helpful veterans that know how to succeed and win on the Major League level to a team that's generally comprised of younger players still figuring it out.

The Met outfield, particularly Left Field, was a point of contention throughout the 2014 season. Chris Young didn't work. Neither did anyone else they tried out there, whether it was Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Matt den Dekker, Andrew Brown, Josh Satin, Eric Young Jr., or the rest of a forgettable runaway mob of guys that weren't ever going to be an every day solution. Young was a strikeout waiting to happen and didn't finish the season. den Dekker struggled to bat his weight. Eric Young was exposed and returned to the super sub role he was better suited for. Satin, Brown, and other such memorables bounced between the minors and majors all season without making much impact. Thus a better answer was needed.

Michael Cuddyer, at age 35, isn't a long-term solution for the Mets, but he comes at a reasonable price, 2 years, $21 million, for a guy that's coming off some fine seasons with the Colorados after many years playing for the Twins during an era in which they enjoyed more than their share of success. An All Star in 2011 and again in 2013, Cuddyer's accomplishments have long been in the spirit of the team; more about the whole than the sum of the parts. The numbers are solid, but not eye-popping, the man not flashy, just consistent.

This is sort of what the Mets need. While Cuddyer isn't going to hit 35 Home Runs, there's nobody readily available to the Mets that's going to, for one. For two, unlike the pu-pu platter the Mets kept throwing out in Left Field last season, Cuddyer will actually play every day and more than likely will not hit .200 and strike out a third of the time. Though Cuddyer was limited to 49 games last season due to injury, his career track has generally been pretty healthy, and in his 49 games, he hit .332 with 10 Home Runs and 31 RBI—numbers that were markedly better than anyone the Mets were able to toss out in Left Field any of the last 3 years.

The argument on the other side of this of course, is everything I just stated. Cuddyer is 35, which is old as ballplayers tend to go, and he was injured for a majority of the last season, which isn't a good sign, and also that the Mets just haven't had a great deal of luck with Free Agent Left Fielders in recent memory. Some of us are still scarred from their last dalliance with someone of this particular ilk. Then, there's the whole draft pick issue. Cuddyer received a qualifying offer from the Colorados before bolting town, which meant that whoever signed him and a bah blah blah. The Mets, with their middling finish from last season, had the #15 pick in the draft which now goes to the Colorados. For a system that seems so predicated on prospects and developing talent, why give that up? Alderson wouldn't budge on this for someone like Michael Bourn.

And so here's why it makes sense now, Charleston:

By this point, the Mets and their fans are sick of rebuilding and waiting for prospects to pay off. All the prospects they have are just about to hit the scene in the Majors, if they haven't already. The farm system has been rebuilt and there's even more prospects on the horizon. There's enough prospects here already, and the Mets don't need one more, especially if the idea of a potential prospect is going to prevent the team from making a move that will help to bring in a player that's going to help the team Win. Now. Not that it hasn't already been discussed, but 2015 is no longer about waiting to see what the hell we have here, it's time to start filling in the gaps at the Major League level to make this into a complete, cohesive roster that will contend. Whoever the #15 draft pick in June 2015 ends up being, that guy isn't going to help the Mets in 2015. Michael Cuddyer is going to help the Mets. And that's why now, it makes sense to sacrifice the pick and get the player. And maybe do it again if the right player presents himself.

See It Through

I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like the Mets have managed to avoid rainouts this season. I know the Mets haven't played very many doubleheaders to this point this year, and I believe they only had one make-up game this year, which was in Philadelphia, after a series when they were already scheduled to be there, so they didn't have any random 1-game stopovers like last year when they had to go to Colorado on their way home from Los Angeles and Minnesota on the way home from San Diego. So Wednesday night's rainout in Washington seems like a bit of an anomaly. Of course, Playoff-bound Washington gets to act all salty and nick their fans for a Day-Night Doubleheader tomorrow, even though I think we all know that there's going to be approximately 20 people at the opening game.

But, even without a game to watch, the Mets still managed to keep themselves in the general consciousness by announcing that both Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins would be returning for 2015. Alderson, in fact, earned himself a nice 3-year contract extension. 

I'm guessing that the skeptics among us aren't too thrilled by this news, but I can see why the deals were done. True, in the 4 years of the Alderson/Collins regime, the Mets have been pretty bad. After basically laying down and dying in the second half of 2011 and 2012, the Mets were perfectly middling throughout the season last year, and though they stand to tick upwards slightly this year as far as wins and losses are concerned, there wasn't exactly much in the way of suspense when it came to the Mets' chances of making the postseason. So, after 4 years of basically nothing and a streak of lost years that has now reached 6 seasons, why keep these guys around?

For years, we've been hearing about how Alderson and Collins haven't had much to work with at the Major League level. Even this year, the roster has been limited (lest we forget starting the season with Jose Valverde, John Lannan and Ike Davis on the roster and Andrew Brown hitting 5th on Opening Day) amid some good stories of younger players finally starting to show their potential. But that's probably the key reason these guys are staying around. The Mets were already dead when Jerry Manuel was at the helm in 2010, and there was no particular hope in sight. Whether it was Collins, Manuel, Wally Backman or whoever, very few managers would have been able to save the team over the past several seasons (even Bobby Valentine would have been hard-pressed). Alderson has come in and basically rebuilt the farm system from the ground up. He wasn't nearly as dramatic in doing so as the Houston Astros have been, but that's basically what he did. And slowly but surely, these prospects have begun to ascend to the Majors, and we're starting to see a little bit of payoff. Matt Harvey was obviously the first to hit the scene, and while it remains to be seen just how he comes back from a lost year, we know what he's capable of being. Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom took major steps forward this year. Travis d'Arnaud and Lucas Duda found themselves after slow starts. Juan Lagares, Jeurys Familia and Jenrry Mejia thrived in their roles. These are all guys that are key pieces in the future of the team. Others, like Dilson Herrera and Noah Syndergaard are ready to ascend.

The majority of these names, of course, were brought in by Sandy Alderson. Not all of them, but most of them. But now that the foundation is laid, it's time to get serious about bringing in the necessary parts to make the Mets a winning team again. It's no longer going to be acceptable, with a healthy, young pitching staff, to throw a lineup bereft of talent in several spots, out there day after day. And that's going to be the big story of the coming offseason. What is Alderson going to do to improve a lineup that's been without much teeth on most days? We've been going over the problems with Shortstop and Left Field and Right Field for a few years. It's high time something substantial was done about it. What that's going to be, I don't know. But instead of Alderson leaning back and working on minor deals to patch holes, now he's going to have to make some impact moves that will make a difference.

Rearranging

By all rights, Jacob deGrom should have picked up his first Major League win in Monday afternoon's game. His 6.2 innings of shutout ball represented his best outing to date since being recalled and furthermore, he's stabilized the pitching rotation from the gaps left by Gee and Mejia. He's unfortunately been given a grand total of 0 runs to work with over his first two starts, and so the two runs the Mets scored for him today certainly must have felt like a boatload to young Jacob.

Of course, the Mets bullpen did their best to ensure that deGrom would have to wait one more turn around the rotation to get that first win. Scott Rice started the 8th inning by allowing a Home Run to Gaby Sanchez, which isn't that big of a deal since it's more or less prerequisite that Gaby Sanchez hit a Home Run against the Mets (much better Sanchez than Ike Davis, who received a warm welcome in his return to Citi Field—much warmer than, say, the one afforded Oliver Perez over the weekend). Rice got the next two batters out, but Terry Collins then decided to remove Rice in favor of Jose Valverde.

Jose Valverde, as of about 5 minutes after the game, was then an ex-Met.

In between those two points in time, Valverde sealed his fate by allowing 4 hits, 1 walk and 4 runs while managing to get only 2 of the 4 outs necessary to seal a Met victory. Valverde allowed a spate of hits of the annoying variety, two of which served to tie the game in the 8th, the 3rd set up the lead run in the 9th, and the final one to—guess who—Gaby Sanchez—which gave the Pirates the lead and when Valverde failed to properly back up an errant throw from Curtis Granderson, allowed one more run to score and Sanchez to make it all the way to 3rd, where he would score on a sacrifice fly after Valverde was properly removed from the field.

Up until that point, the story of the game might have been the Mets netting a 5th inning run thanks to the never-before-seen Catcher's obstruction replay reversal that gave Juan Lagares a run. Instead, the tale of the tape involves the departure of Valverde, the return of Vic Black, and the dispatching of hitting coach Dave Hudgens.

Hudgens' removal is probably not as impactful, since the hitting coach doesn't actually take the field or hit the ball, but the performance of the team's offense has been pretty lousy of late and when they were going good, they were kind of sporadic. I don't know much about Lamar Johnson, but sometimes a new voice and a new philosophy can help a team that's scuffling. Whatever Hudgens had to offer wasn't working for guys like Lucas Duda, Chris Young and others.

Try To Go To Rehab

I'm sort of baffled as to why there's any news whatsoever in regard to Matt Harvey beyond him rehabbing his elbow and things going good or bad as such. But since this is the Mets, an organization where the team's General Manager once called out a reporter for intentionally attempting to get his batshit crazy assistant fired so he could angle for the job, I suppose nothing's shocking anymore.

That's why I suppose it makes sense that the news out of the Mets today involved Harvey getting into an argument with management about his speaking with a Daily News reporter. I'm not sure why the Mets want to put this media blackout on Harvey. It seems to me that when you have a star player who enjoys the public attention, he ought to be allowed to embrace that, even if he's injured and doesn't have much to discuss beyond his own rehabilitation. Ultimately, Harvey met with Sandy Alderson and cleared things up, but once a story like this catches on, it's easy for it to blow up. In the NFL, players are fined if they don't make themselves available to the Media, but here, the Mets are trying to squelch one of the few players that inspires genuine fan excitement. This baffles me, but whatever. I'm a bit beyond trying to figure out what goes through the heads of upper management.

This ties in neatly to the reason Harvey was airing his general gripes to Andy Martino in the first place. Harvey was initially miffed that his locker was moved away from the rest of the players on the team. I suppose that's neither here nor there, but as he's out for the season, this apparently is standard procedure. Harvey was also under the impression that the Mets didn't want him to do 1-on-1 interviews with the media. Alderson contends that this wasn't quite the case; the Mets wanted him to hold group interviews for ease of PR, which, you know, really is the first consideration of a 24-year old superstar in the process of recovering from major surgery.

The larger issue here is the age-old disconnect between what Mets Management thinks is best and what the player thinks is best, and in this instance it's where Matt Harvey should be allowed to rehab. Ultimately, Harvey has final say, and if his preference is to rehab in New York with the team, then he should be allowed to. Why not? This is his comfort zone, he'll be in his element with his teammates and his coaches, and not out in the wilderness that is Port St. Lucie. The Mets want him in Florida where he's away from distractions and able to focus solely on getting himself ready to pitch come the opening bell of 2015.

Alderson's stance on the matter makes sense from a logic standpoint. Harvey happens to disagree. In a vacuum, this issue is probably very easily solved; just sit down in a room for half an hour and work out a schedule that makes everyone happy. I'm sure that this is exactly what's going on with the similarly rehabbing Jeremy Hefner. This snafu gets all the ink because this is Matt Harvey we're talking about, and Matt Harvey is a headline-grabber, even when he's hurt.

Ultimately, though it may not be the best idea, it's probably the wisest idea to just let Harvey rehab where he wants to. By foisting a particular option on him, you run the risk of alienating him, and this could prove problematic, particularly considering the fact that Harvey is well aware of the rights afforded to him by the Player's Union. Going further, this could be problematic come contract negotiations if Harvey feels that the Mets don't respect his wishes. So, fine. In the long run, an issue like this is really much ado about stuffing. If it's a bad choice, it's a bad choice, and just like any 24-year old that makes a bad choice, he's got to have that experience in order to realize it's a bad choice and not make the same mistake the next time around (hopefully there is not a next time around in this particular instance).

In a Future Age

I'll put it rather bluntly: I am going to miss having R.A. Dickey on the Mets. I'm sure just about every Mets fan will. Dickey was the kind of player that you couldn't possibly dislike, and the reasons for that went far beyond the success he found in his 3 seasons with the Mets. He turned from a journeyman to a star, a quirky, quotable personality with a story of survival like no other. Mets fans rallied behind them and, in 2012, they were treated to the kind of special season only comes along so often. But, Baseball being the fickle business it is, just as Dickey's amazing story was reaching its culmination, he was dealt away before the Mets and their fans ever really had a chance to celebrate his Cy Young Award with him. I'm sure I'm not the only Mets fan who aches sorrowfully about this, and Dickey himself tweeted as much earlier this afternoon. I'm thankful that we had this time together. 

All that being said, we have to be careful, as fans, not to become overly sentimental about the Dickey trade. Or any trade, for that matter. It's the way Baseball works. Things may not seem so great now, but I'm of the belief that sometime in the near future, this trade will end up making a lot of sense for the Mets. The reality of the situation is that Dickey wasn't going to get any better than he was last season. Yes, he's a knuckleballer, and knuckleballers can go on forever, etc, etc. But wisely, Sandy Alderson dealt Dickey when he was at the peak of his value, and the haul of prospects he brought back is clearly evidence of this. Sentimentality aside, this trade was a no-brainer for the Mets. The arguments I've heard, and there have been several, against the trade seem to come from 3 places. 1) People thinking with their hearts rather than their heads, 2) People who don't seem to realize what the point of making this trade was for the Mets, or 3) Complete ignorance.

With Dickey, the Mets were able to deal from a position of strength. The Mets were not a good team in 2012, and the chances of them being a good team in 2013 are fairly slim, Dickey or no Dickey. The Mets have many, many problems, like the lack of a decent Catcher or a viable Major League Outfielder. But one thing they did have was plenty of good starting pitching. Dickey was the headliner, obviously, but behind him, Jon Niese was beginning to come into his own. Matt Harvey ascended and immediately showed he belonged. Dillon Gee was proving solid before injury struck. Johan Santana was there too, and pitched really well for a couple of months before things unraveled for him. But while the Mets got a lot of really good starting pitching, most days they didn't hit and the end result was a lot of Met losses by a score of 3-1 or 4-2. The Mets will bring back all four of these pitchers next season (My somewhat blind and also probably foolish hope that they would bring back Mike Pelfrey ended today when it was announced he'd signed with Minnesota). In addition, other pitchers in the vein of Zach Wheeler and Jenrry Mejia are ready to ascend. Point is, the Mets don't really need to worry a great deal about their starting pitching, unless injuries strike, and that could, and will, happen to anyone. Dickey was at a point where he became expendable. Not because he did anything wrong, but because he happened to be a commodity that could bring back good value.

The prevailing thought is, obviously, that you can never have too much pitching, and that's true. But as I keep saying, you can't win if you don't hit, and the Mets offense was pretty miserable, enough so that it just doesn't make sense for the Mets to keep all this starting pitching at the expense of being able to generate any runs to back their starters. David Wright and Ike Davis will hit, but they appear to exist as an island in the middle of the Mets lineup. Being able to bring in a prospect the stature of Travis d'Arnaud is huge for a multitude of reasons. Those unfamiliar with d'Arnaud should know that he was originally drafted by the Phillies in 2007. He wound up in Toronto prior to 2010 in a trade whose centerpiece was none other than Roy Halladay. In AA ball in 2011, d'Arnaud blossomed, hitting .311 with 21 HRs and 78 RBI, and was off to a fine season in AAA in 2012 before a knee injury undercut his season. Prior to 2012, he was ranked the 17th best prospect by Baseball America, and the top prospect in the Blue Jays system. And, he's a Catcher. Last time I checked, the Mets were throwing out a virtual shit stew at that position, involving the punchless Josh Thole, the talentless Mike Nickeas and the retread Rob Johnson, all of whom combined to generate absolutely nothing worthwhile. d'Arnaud is projected for stardom, and even if that doesn't come immediately, I see no reason why he shouldn't start immediately and why he couldn't easily surpass the production from the iron triumverate. Conveniently, the Mets shipped out Thole and Nickeas with Dickey, so d'Arnaud shouldn't have much of a challenge earning the role as starting Catcher.

d'Arnaud is the impact player that Alderson was after when he shopped Dickey, but for good measure, Alderson managed to poach another top prospect from the Jays' organization in 20-year old Pitcher Noah Syndergaard. Syndergaard is still a ways from being a factor, having just finished a season in A ball, but he's built like Mike Pelfrey, boasted a K/9 rating of over 10, and has drawn comparisons to such pitchers as Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay. By time he ascends, he'll probably have learned a bit more stamina and polish, the kind of things necessary for a front of the line starter. Plus, by then, we'll know for sure what the Mets have in Harvey, Wheeler, Mejia and whoever else is kicking around the organization.

The bottom line here is that yes, Dickey will be missed. It sucks that this deal had to happen, but I trust what Alderson is doing here. This is exactly in line with the plan he's set forth ever since he took over. Alderson has targeted specific guys and held out until he was able to get the trade he wanted. So he's flipped Dickey and Beltran and acquired multiple pieces that stand to help the Mets for several years looking forward. It's a slow, tedious process, and it's going to mean another year of probably not competing very much. There are still a lot of holes. But the Mets, as built, weren't going to be any better if they didn't make the trade. Alderson has dealt depth for improvements at a sorely needed position. There are still holes here, but for the first time in several seasons, I think we can actually begin to feel slightly optimistic about the Mets chances. The hope, I think, is that 2013 plays out something like this:

1) The Mets tread water for the season and hopefully finish around .500. Maybe those 3-1 losses start to turn into 4-3 wins every so often.
2) Ike Davis plays healthy all season long and develops into one of the NL's best 1Bmen, like I think he's capable of.
3) Ruben Tejada builds on his solid 2012 season and, to some degree, Daniel Murphy does as well (I'm more optimistic about Tejada than Murphy, but at least Murphy won't embarrass himself).
4) Matt Harvey continues to step up and Zach Wheeler ascends.
5) Someone in the Nieuwenhuis/Duda/Valdespin Pu-Pu Platter turns into a reasonably respectable OF (smart money is on Nieuwenhuis I suppose, but none of them appear likely to pan out).
6) Come the offseason, once Santana and Bay come off the Books, and the Mets can go after a bigtime Outfielder and a solid Starting Pitcher (assuming this is necessary based on the performance of the current rotation).
7) Contend seriously in 2014.

World Series Championships have been won on similar lines of thinking. But in order to get to that point, the person driving the bus has to be willing to make a move that's unpopular or risky. Alderson has made a name for himself making moves like this just about every team he's worked for. Yeah, these are calculated risks he's taking with the Mets. It may not work. But I trust his judgement. He has made the moves necessary to rebuild a farm system stripped bare from mismanagement and short-sighted thinking. This will begin to pay off eventually. It won't be immediate, but this too shall pass.

Bill of Goods

I don't want to piss on the Colin McHugh parade, but when you go up against the Triple A lineup that the Colorados put out this afternoon, it's not so difficult to have a historical Major League Debut. I wouldn't go crazy comparing McHugh to anybody spectacular. Let's see what he does after a couple of times around the league. There's a reason nobody had heard of McHugh until about 2 days ago, and it's because he's not Nolan Ryan. He's not Tom Seaver. I don't even think he's Matt Harvey right now. He had an excellent start today. I get it, I understand it. But I'm tired of being sold this bill of goods. There's probably only one team that McHugh might have pitched better against, and that's the team he was playing for. The team that managed 6 runs in 4 games against the worst pitching staff in the league, a staff so bad that they pull their starters after 3 innings and just let relievers try to figure it out. A team that came into Citi Field on Monday with a record of 46-73 and left 4 victories richer.

The Mets were flawed to begin with, and their solid first half was something that surprised and tantalized everyone, but it's ancient history now. It's safe to say that every ounce of good vibes the Mets had generated earlier this season has been erased. Right now, the Mets look about as miserable as they did in 2009, and maybe that's being kind, because they're generating the kind of results that look like something out of 1993 with a roster that's a little bit 1982, a little bit 2003, a lot miserable.

I'm being awfully cynical, but how can you not be when we keep getting told about the prospects and the pieces of the future that are here now? I said it yesterday and I'll say it again; who on this team would you want to have back next season? At this point, you could count them on one hand. Wright, Ike, Tejada, Dickey, Harvey, Niese...And who else exactly? The rest can be fed to the wolves. I can't even dump on the Jason Bays anymore because it's too easy. How about Josh Thole? Has he had 2 hits in the last month? I was skeptical about him last season because his defense had gotten sloppy and he spent the entire season hitting about .240 with no power. This season? Same thing. Not an everyday Catcher. Stop telling me he is. Jordany Valdespin? Infectious, Jose Reyes-like energy? Got a few long hits at opportune moments? Can't field any position adequately? Misplays routine fly balls? Runs into outs with frightening abandon? Swings for the fences every time up? Lacks a general sense of logic and basic Baseball discipline? Not an every day player. Barely passable as a reserve. Bobby Parnell? Electric Fastball? Consistency of Oliver Perez? Not a future closer.

More than half the team looks like it's going through the motions. Players like Torres, Murphy, Baxter and Hairston aren't every day players. Murphy's close, but he can't go through these 2-for-20 streaks that he's always going through. The stink that this team is generating isn't the same kind of stink we've endured in 2009, because that was because of injuries, or 2007, because that was complacency. This is the stink of suckitude, and it's gotten so bad that it's dragging down the good players on the team. David Wright was hitting everything in sight in the first half. Now, teams are just pitching around him, and when they're not, he's gotten back into that old habit of killing himself trying to carry the team on his back. He's just not the kind of player who can do that. But since nobody else around him seems to be able to hit, or in many cases pitch, here he is again, pressing. Can you blame him for grousing about being tired of losing? Aren't we all tired of losing?

Terry Collins is just as culpable for this mess as anyone. If we're all going to heap praise on him for the job he did keeping this team together, keep them fighting and scrapping for every win they got in the first half, then he deserves blame for letting it all crumble in the face of adversity. He mismanaged the bullpen because he couldn't trust anyone, and then he started getting stuck in situations where he had to go to the bullpen and it was damned if you do, damned if you don't. The personnel he's given isn't his fault, but when I routinely have to question removing the starting pitcher, and immediately being proven right because the bullpen immediately fucks it all up, something's wrong. Terry Collins said he wouldn't tolerate exactly the kind of play he's now tolerating out of his team. So...which is it? Or has he just lost the clubhouse? If that's the case, then, hey, we may as well have just kept Jerry Manuel around chortling in the locker room.

I've been told, and believe myself, that the only way to change a lousy team is if they are completely humiliated. That's beginning to happen to the Mets right now, in the midst of this 10-32 12-30, 2 wins at home since the All Star Break stretch. Everyone watching certainly knows this, and I certainly hope people in the organization get it as well. Sandy Alderson even said as much, but does he have the leeway he's supposed to have from the wonderful owners? The hot word is that the team payroll isn't expected to increase much, and most of it is still going to be tied up in 5 or 6 players. So, what sort of freedom do the Mets have to bring in someone who can make a difference? How can they bring in real, actual Major League talent to bolster this roster? There's not much tradeable in the Minors, I don't believe (still), so will the Wilpons actually let Alderson spend some money this offseason? How long do we have to keep asking this question? It's getting  a little tired. If the great owners don't have the money to field a competitive team, then do us all a favor and get lost. Go away. Sell the team to someone who, hopefully, cares about building a winner. Because there's only so many times you can sell the same rotten stew to a long-since disenchanted fan base.

Phew. This rant might not be quite as impactful as the one Mike Francesa unleashed on the Mets earlier today, but it comes from the same place. He's tired of watching this, and he's not even a Mets fan. How do you think the Mets fans feel?