Enter The Hammer

For the third year in a row, the Mets are poised to add a prized pitching prospect to their starting rotation in the middle of the season, in spite of heavy debate as to whether or not said pitching prospect should be in the Minor Leagues at all. But so far, this has been the plan the regime has stuck to, and as such, Noah Syndergaard was sent down to Minor League camp earlier in the week. This was mere formality; in spite of the Mets need for some juice in the early going this coming season, it behooves them not to rush Syndergaard too much in the name of a team that's still not quite ready to contend. Plus, to this point, he hasn't pitched above AA, and, sure, while the Marlins shit a diamond with Jose Fernandez in this instance last season, the Marlins were grasping at straws (and given the Marlins state of affairs, he'll end up getting traded to Detroit that much sooner). The Mets appear to have a much more measured approach to this end.

That being said, we can expect to see Syndergaard dropping his hammer at Citi Field some time around June or July, and the Mets seem to be prepping for him to be able to extend himself once he gets called up. It's a bit of a bizarre plan that Paul DePodesta laid forth on Wednesday, but, hey, it might just work. The idea is that the Mets will potentially carry a 6-man starting rotation on their AAA team, in addition to a 5-inning/60-pitch limit until he's called up to the Majors. This isn't optimal when you take durability into consideration, but maybe the plan will be relaxed to give him more innings/more pitches just to get him stretched out shortly before he's recalled.

The hard cap on Syndergaard's innings this season is 150, which is certainly a low number for a guy who's going to be 22 at the end of August. But given his career path to this point, it's probably smart. Syndergaard, for all his hype, only threw 117.2 innings in the Minors last year, and in 2012 only 103. The thought process is to try to extend by about 20 or so innings each year, so it may yet be a few seasons before we really get to see just how durable Syndergaard can be. He's built in a similar mold to Mike Pelfrey, sort of a large (6'7"), loafy (240lb) type, and that certainly served Pelfrey well as an innings-eater for a few seasons until he fell victim to the dreaded elbow reconstruction. Of course, Pelfrey had large innings jumps early in his career with the Mets due to the team being in a pennant race and the lack of other options, and ended up with a 40+ inning jump between 2007 and 2008, which could have contributed to later troubles. But that theory only works if you really believe in it, and aren't convinced that elbow injuries are just random things that happen frequently if you repeatedly use your arm to continually repeat an action that the human arm isn't necessarily designed to do.

Point is, the Mets are once again being excessively cautious with a young arm, which is fine for now. We can expect a nice soupcon of Syndergaard some time this summer, and I'm sure it will be tantalizing, just as Harvey in '12 and Wheeler in '13. And it's nice that the Mets are sort of thinking that saving his innings for when he's called up will get the fans juiced up that much more. But in the larger scheme of things, it's not going to make much difference until these three guys are performing up to the expectations everyone has for them.

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).

Back In Playing Shape

Once again, I had these great grand ideas about keeping up with things to talk about here and there through February and bridging things in to Spring Training as opposed to last year where I didn't write anything for a month, and, of course, I did none of it. And now Opening Day is less than two weeks away and I'm out of condition for the daily grind of Blogging after several months of Football and not much to write about, at least as it pertains to the Mets.

The new faces in camp, a majority of whom I'm only vaguely familiar with, don't merit great amounts of discussion, or at least not until I see them lining up along the first base line at Citi Field on March 31st. Other, bigger names were either discussed (Granderson), or not, because I could say everything that needs to be said about Chris Young and Bartolo Colon in a few sentences. Chris Young: Get your act together and show what you are, otherwise you're gone (and on a 1-year deal he's got a lot to prove). Bartolo Colon: Lay off the clubhouse spread. Or not, if that's what's doing it for you.

Young and Colon aren't going to make or break the Mets this year. I had, in February, some blind thought that maybe there was something to the 90-win talk. But a lot had to go right for that to happen. Based on what little I've seen (and lots that I've heard) from Spring Training, it seems like things are already off to a bad start. Jonathon Niese, the de facto Opening Day starter, is suffering from some sort of general malaise that's caused him to pitch poorly and return to New York twice for MRIs that have proven inconclusive. Ruben Tejada, who's in every Mets fan's doghouse, has done nothing to inspire any confidence that he'll return to the form he showed in 2012 that had us all excited. Regardless, it seems he'll be handed the Shortstop job, over Wilmer Flores, who if nothing else is a change of pace, or Free Agent Stephen Drew, probably because a move like that makes too much sense. Travis d'Arnaud, in spite of taking control of the pitching staff, hasn't hit like we hoped he would. Laverne and Shirley (or, more appropriately, Ike Davis and Lucas Duda), haven't even set foot on the field. And the back end of a rotation that was supposed to be pretty damn good is now looking like a mishmash of retreads because nobody among John Lannan, Jenrry Mejia and Daisuke Matsuzaka has stepped up. So, you know, we can look forward to Mejia ostensibly being wasted in the bullpen while Lannan pitches to a 6.34 ERA in 5 ill-advised starts and Matsuzaka only does slightly better.

Add this all up, and this Spring Training hasn't exactly shown much for me to get incredibly excited about. And that sucks, because I was actually starting to believe that the corner had been turned. And that may yet be the case, but after 5 lost years, I think I can be excused for being a little impatient. The upshot is that by 2015, the Mets hold the potential to have some seriously good pitching at the top of the rotation, if Wheeler builds on last season, Noah Syndergaard ascends as advertised and Matt Harvey returns strong, leaving a back of the rotation that features Jonathon Niese (if he can get his shit together) and Dillon Gee, no slouch in his own right. The best part about this equation is that it means no rotation spots will be wasted on John Lannan-types. The downside is, of course, that this is at least a year away, and that's assuming things go right.

Unfortunately, for the Mets, things going right has been a dicey proposition in recent seasons.

30 Days In October?

A most interesting question was posed today by Greg over at Faith and Fear in Flushing, asking Mets fans which, of the seasons that resulted in Met Playoff appearances, would you choose to go back and have them win the World Series. The options, of course, 1973, 1988, 1999, 2000 and 2006, all of them beloved seasons in their own right, but of course a difficult question to answer.

My first thought upon reading Greg's post was to think 2006, of course, that was the most recent and a World Series Championship paints the Willie/Omar era Mets in a different light. Perhaps the subsequent years play out differently and instead of the Black Hole that eventually occurred, the Mets could have become a dynasty in their own right. 1988 was also an attractive choice. It could have profoundly affected 9-year old me as a Mets fan. The Mets loss in that year's NLCS in many ways ruined a once-happy childhood and led to years of Met-induced frustration and embarrassment, and Dodger-loathing that exists to the current day (at least by 2006, I already hated the Cardinals).

But in the end, I come back to 1999. I keep coming back to 1999.

It's no secret that the 1999 Mets are my favorite edition of the team. The 1999 Mets kept absorbing blows and indignities from external sources all season long, and yet every time managed to get up off the mat and fight back, resulting in a 173-game wild ride that provided endless heroics and memories that live on in team lore. That season, I attended 29 games in the regular season, plus one Postseason game that I rank as the single best Mets game I've ever attended. The season ended bitterly, but in a manner that left such an immense feeling of pride. I've lionized that team to the point where, several years ago, I attempted to recapture the emotions of that memorable October run in a 9-blog "Miniseries," that I titled "20 Days in October." But what if that run extended beyond October 20th? How would that have played out?

Here's what I think happened. You can read about the first 10 2/3 innings here.

Kenny Rogers attempts one more time to try to slip that slow curve past Andruw Jones. Jones swings at the 3-2 and cracks a line drive that appears destined for Center Field and a game-winning hit. But Rogers sticks his glove out and snatches the ball out of the air. With the runners taking off with the pitch, Rogers has ample time to throw to John Olerud at 1st and double off a sorely confused Brian Jordan.

Energized by yet another great escape, the Mets charge off the field and rally against Russ Springer in the top of the 12th Inning. Daryl Hamilton leads off with a single, his 4th hit of the game, and Benny Agbayani works his 3rd walk. Rey Ordonez, who'd been bedeviled by the sacrifice bunt throughout the series, finally lays one down to move the runners up and set the stage for Melvin Mora, the upstart who'd been stealing the show in this series in spite of only appearing in 66 games and 31 At Bats in the regular season, to continue his heroics by nailing a 2-run single that gives the Mets a 11-9 lead. In the bottom of the inning, Octavio Dotel relieves Rogers. He strikes out Greg Myers before allowing a 1-out single to Ryan Klesko. Ozzie Guillen, who tied the game off Benitez in the 10th, pops out to Olerud. The pitchers' spot follows for Atlanta, but Bobby Cox, who's already exhausted the entirety of his bench, is forced to counter with Greg Maddux (his only other options being his Game 7 starter Tom Glavine and Kevin McGlinchy, who lost Game 5 along with his manager's confidence). Maddux is able to get his bat on a couple of pitches from Dotel but ultimately can only ground into a Fielder's Choice to Ordonez, ending the game and giving the Mets a heartstopping 11-9 victory, knotting the series and setting up what looks to be a Game 7 for the ages.

Game 7, on a Wednesday night, pits Rick Reed on 3 days' rest for the Mets against Tom Glavine. The Braves fans, who haven't exactly made their presence felt throughout this series, are barely audible as the game begins. Multitudes of Mets fans have made the journey south and the "Let's Go Mets!" chants have begun to drown out the tomahawk chop. Having finally broken their Atlanta hex and one win away from accomplishing what's being widely discussed as the Greatest Comeback in Baseball History, the Mets storm Glavine early. Edgardo Alfonzo hits a solo Home Run with 1 out in the 1st, and John Olerud follows with one of his own. Reed, who pitched so well through 7 innings in Game 4, is masterful against a Braves team that's completely shell-shocked. The Mets extend their lead in the 5th, as the Mets load the bases against a tiring Glavine, then see them cleared when Robin Ventura hits a 2-run Double, Benny Agbayani follows with an RBI Sac Fly and Melvin Mora knocks an RBI single, extending the Met lead to 6-0. There's some tension in the late innings, though. Reed gives up a 2-run Home Run to Chipper Jones, who'd been mostly silent in this series, in the 7th, and is pulled for the Dennis Cook-Turk Wendell-John Franco combo. In the top of the 8th, John Rocker enters the game and petulantly throws at Ventura, who laughs as he trots to first and then laughs some more when Agbayani belts the next pitch into the seats in Left. Bobby Cox immediately removes Rocker, who's booed off the mound by both Mets and Braves fans who have grown tired of his act, and in the dugout, he's shunned by his teammates and eventually slinks off into the clubhouse. In the end, it's Franco on the mound in the 9th who gets Brian Jordan to fly out to Mora, closing out an 8-2 Mets victory. They've accomplished what many thought was impossible and rallied back from a 3-0 deficit, winning the last two games in Atlanta to move on to the World Series. The scene in the locker room is bedlam. Bobby Valentine proclaims this "The Greatest moment of my career," and "All year long I told you about the character these guys have, and they've proved it every step of the way." Series MVP John Olerud, in his normal taciturn fashion says, "It's great." Turk Wendell takes a shot at Chipper Jones, saying "Maybe the Yankees will send him a cap!"

The scene in New York is electric as the City gears up for the first Subway Series since 1956. Though the Yankees are slight favorites, and well-rested, the Mets Mojo is virtually unstoppable. In the opener at Shea on Saturday night, October 23rd, Masato Yoshii is brilliant over 6 innings. Edgardo Alfonzo hits a 4th inning Home Run off Orlando Hernandez and the Mets cruise to a 4-1 victory. It's El Duque's first ever postseason loss. Armando Benitez allows 2 men on in the 9th inning, but strikes out Paul O'Neill on a high fastball to close things out. Al Leiter, who was hit hard on short rest in Game 6 in Atlanta, comes back on full rest in Game 2 and continues on his hot streak, pitching shutout ball into the late innings. David Cone is sharp, too, and the game is scoreless going into the last of the 7th. The Mets are finally able to break through when Joe Girardi throws a Rey Ordonez sacrifice bunt attempt into Center Field. Melvin Mora hits for Leiter and does what it seems he's been doing all Postseason: get hits with men on base. His 2-run single breaks the ice. A solo Home Run by Derek Jeter off Wendell in the 8th is all the Yankees can muster and the Mets win 2-1 as the series moves to the Bronx with the Mets leading 2-0.

And just as quickly, the series is tied. Andy Pettitte shuts out the Mets on 5 hits in Game 3. Rick Reed only allows 3 runs in 7 innings but takes the hard-luck loss. The Yankees batter Rogers in Game 4. Mike Piazza, who continues to battle despite nursing several injuries, hits a Home Run off Roger Clemens for his first hit of the series, perhaps a sign that he's starting to come out of his slump, but it's not enough as the Yankees win 7-2. Game 5 is a tense battle. Yoshii and Hernandez match up again and pitch well, but the Yankees grab a 3-2 lead in the 8th inning off of Dennis Cook. Things seem grim for the Mets, they're primed to drop their 3rd straight game in the Bronx as The Great Rivera takes the mound to close things out in the 9th. Edgardo Alfonzo works a 1-out walk, but Olerud is jammed by a cutter and his slow roller to Tino Martinez is the second out. This brings up Piazza, who earlier in the game just barely got under a pitch from El Duque, flying out to the warning track in Right. Fans of both teams are on their feet, too tense to sit down. Piazza waves at a cutter and watches a couple more, leaving the count at 1-2. We all know what pitch is coming. Rivera deals and Piazza takes a mighty hack. This time he connects, a towering blast headed straight down the Left Field line towards the corner. Piazza grimaces and tries to use a little Carlton Fisk-esque body english to nudge that ball fair, and he's successful in doing so, as the ball lands in the Upper Deck for a 2-run Home Run that amazingly gives the Mets the lead. Stunned, the Yankees go down meekly in the 9th.

Shea Stadium is a madhouse on Saturday night, October 30th, as the Mets, behind Al Leiter, close out the Yankees, who come out in a stupor, not having recovered from the shock of Piazza's blast. Robin Ventura hits a pair of Home Runs off Cone and John Olerud adds another, while Alfonzo knocks out 4 hits as the Mets roll to an 8-0 victory, winning the final game of the 20th Century and bringing home their 3rd World Series Championship. Afterward, Bobby Valentine proclaims the 1999 Mets "The Greatest Mets team ever assembled." Reserve Outfielder Shawon Dunston, tears streaming down his cheeks, gives his now-legendary "I am so proud to be a Met" speech. The quote is posted above the doors to the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum at Citi Field. Piazza, who played the entire month on fumes, is jubilant, saying "This is why I stayed here! Winning a World Series outdistances anything I've ever accomplished in my career."

Many Mets fans agree with Valentine. The 1999 team lives forever in the hearts of Mets fans. Players like Turk Wendell and Dennis Cook are treated like folk heroes and Wendell continues to serve as a club ambassador. Melvin Mora goes on to take over as the starting Shortstop after Rey Ordonez's injury in 2000 and ultimately ends up Wally Pipp-ing him. The keystone combination of Mora and Edgardo Alfonzo becomes one of the league's best DP combos. Bobby Valentine is forever remembered as a master motivator who got the most out of his entire roster. Mike Piazza gets elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2013, and the Mets retire his number 31 in celebration. The ceremony concludes with Piazza throwing out the game's first pitch to 1999's World Series MVP Edgardo Alfonzo, then announcing that the Mets will retire Fonzie's number 13 the following season as part of the celebration of the '99 Miracle Mets' 15th Anniversary. And in the Winter of 2007, I write a 14-part epic masterpiece detailing the '99 Mets magnificent October journey, "30 Days In October."

Sound good? I like it too.

Into The Flood Again

Watching the Seattle Seahawks win Super Bowl XLVIII on Sunday night was about as fun for me as watching the Phillies win the World Series in 2008.

This game made me angry. But the more I thought about it, I wasn't angry that the Seahawks, who knocked the 49ers out of the Playoffs two weeks prior, won the game. I was angry at the Denver Broncos, who put forth one of the more pathetic efforts I've ever seen in a Championship game. The Seahawks earned every bit of their resounding 43-8 victory, which was a team effort from the top down. They were the better team on the field and the results showed. I can't take that away from them, much as it pains me to do so.

The problem with the game was that the Seahawks came out and played the game like they were playing in the Super Bowl. The Broncos seemed to move around like they were playing a Week 2 matchup against the Gnats or some similarly terrible team. The Broncos looked comically disjointed, while the Seahawks defense just completely overwhelmed them. The first snap of the game went over Peyton Manning's head and ended up a Safety for the Seahawks, and the Broncos never recovered.

Scant consolation that it was, I had to think that the 49ers probably helped the Seahawks win the game as resoundingly as they did. The Broncos kind of waltzed through their AFC Championship game with the Patriots without ever really being seriously challenged. The NFC Championship game was an all-out war, a life-and-death battle that seemed Operatic in execution, with ebbs and flows in momentum, tragic injuries and a down-to-the-wire finish that I still haven't gotten over (to wit: when asked by a friend if I had plans for the game, I said I hadn't, primarily because I just had no juice left to get excited for the game. I'd burned myself out on the 49ers playoff run). It's not farfetched to think that the pace and intensity of the 49ers game elevated Seattle's play to a level that the Broncos were completely unequipped to match. Richard Sherman, in a rare display of credit to the 49ers, indicated as much on Sunday, saying that the "NFC Championship was the real Super Bowl."

Lost in the hoopla of the Super Bowl itself, and the Sherman hijinx (and Colin Kaepernick's rebuttal) is the fact that the 49ers went into an impossible place to win in Seattle and were one play away from coming away with a win. But they didn't make that play, and instead the Seahawks went on to the Super Bowl and did what the 49ers couldn't do last year: Win it. Richard Sherman said "the 49ers were the second-best team in the NFL," which is hard to argue with, but that's not going to make anybody on the 49ers or anyone who roots for the 49ers feel any better.

This rivalry is only going to get more intense going forward, and certainly Sherman and Kaepernick have become pretty outspoken about it. Certainly, Kaepernick showed a good deal of leadership and moxie by not taking things lying down, but now he's got to go out and back it up. He's got to be the one to kick the door down if the 49ers are going to break through in Seattle. Beating the 49ers in the NFC Championship and then going on to win the Super Bowl gives the Seahawks a serious leg up in this budding rivalry. The 49ers have been on the doorstep 3 years in a row but haven't broken through yet. Though crowned heads roll, I'm certain that neither of these teams are going away and their two matchups will be the most highly-anticipated games of the season. But the difference now is that the Seahawks are going to be coming in as defending Super Bowl Champions, while the 49ers are just a really good team that can't finish the deal. Don't think the 49ers won't be reminding themselves of this at every turn.