Thursday, April 30, 2009

A fork in the road

The Mets have been terrible this season.  They are 9-12.  They have been bad in every way (especially David Wright, the "face of the franchise").  

There are two ways I could react to this.  I could pound on the negative.  I could obsess over how they have started a trend over the last two seasons of being a bunch of choke artists.  I could write them off, and I could write off the whole season.  

(It'd be easier if this was a financially blue collar team.  But we know that's bullshit.) 

Or, I could recognize that being a Mets fan is about being able to endure pain.  I could realize that the money spent is basically irrelevant.  These are the Mets.  

I could recognize that with the Mets - it is not, and it never was, nor is it ever supposed to be, easy.  Even in 1986 when they dominated the regular season, they had to endure Mike Scott.  They had to endure game 6 against the Red Sox.  They had to endure the brink of elimination.  

I'm tired of this team.  I'm tired of caring about them.  I'm tired of caring about a bunch of millionaires.  

But I love the Mets.  Maybe they really do suck.  Maybe they are a bunch of choke artists.  Maybe they will amount to nothing, and the whole team will be blown up at the end of the year, including David Wright and Jose Reyes.  

But as long as this season is still alive, I don't give a flying fuck.  I love the New York Mets.  Unconditionally.  And until they are mathematically eliminated, I will believe in this season, and I will believe in this team. 

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Mets 10-Game Report: Volume 2

Hello, boys and girls, and welcome to the second official installment of the Mets 10-Game Report, brought to you with the confidence that Johan Santana will make it 2 series wins in a row today for the Amazins and get them off on the right foot for Volume 3.  

Previous Results:
Volume 1: Games 1-10: Record: 5-5

And the latest:

Games: 11-20
Record: 4-6

vs MIL W 1-0
vs MIL L 4-2
@ STL L 6-4
@ STL L 5-2
@ STL L 12-8
vs WAS W 4-3
vs WAS W 8-2
vs WAS L 8-1
vs FLA W 7-1
vs FLA L 7-4

Runs Scored: 41

Runs Allowed: 48 

Team BA: 92/330 = .279

Team BA with RISP: 28/100 = .280 (really? that high? strange.)

Team BA with RISP and 2 outs: 16/55 = .290 (sometimes, the numbers just don't tell the whole truth)

HRs: 3 (Citi Field seems to be more conducive to triples than homers.  I mean, Sheffield and Delgado each have a triple at Citi.  But yeah - it is hard to hit the ball out of this park.  Which I much prefer to a bandbox wind tunnel like they have in Philly and in that gaudy monstrosity in the Bronx.)

Team ERA: 87IP, 47ER = 4.86 

Starter ERA: 55IP, 32ER = 5.23 (Considering that Johan currently has an ERA of 0.70, this does not speak well of the other starters.  But as of late they have actually come around a bit.  More on that in the analysis.)

Bullpen ERA: 31IP, 16ER = 4.65 (Sean Green = bad, very bad.)

HRs allowed: 10 (way too high)

BAA: 91/335 = .271 (way too high)

Errors: 5

GIDP: 9

Fielding DP: 8

SB: 6


Volume 2 MVPs:
Starter: Johan Santana: As advertised.  His ERA is 0.70.
Reliever: Bobby Parnell:  This young kid has got nasty stuff.  He's got a hard slider, and a 96 mph fastball.  And he's our 7th inning man.  Parnell, Putz, K-Rod.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  And we have yet to see this fearsome threesome really prove their value to the Mets.
Hitter: Carlos Beltran: He's hitting .400 and has just been totally locked in at the plate lately, which is nice, because he usually gets off to slow starts.  Beltran is not the flashiest of players, but he's by far the best defensive center fielder in baseball.  And when he's locked in at the plate as he is right now, he makes it look easy.


Volume 2 Maker's Mark Specials:
Starter: Oliver Perez: He's gone from good-Ollie/bad-Ollie to just plain bad-Ollie.  But we all hope that his start against the Phillies this saturday will get his season finally going.  Last year he gave up a total of 1 run to the Phillies.
Reliever: Sean Green: Well, this worthless arm is the only guy who brings back memories of last year.  No more, please.  And Jerry - NEVER bring this guy in to protect a 1 run lead in the 7th again.  
Hitter: David Wright: I hate to pick on my boy, but he deserves it.  He's off to a slow start.  He can't get a hit with runners in scoring position.  He's late on the fastball.  He whifs at the low and away slider.  His last two games he has looked a bit better.  But in any case - in 2007, DW hit .240 in April with o homeruns.  He looked even worse then.  But he fixed it and went on to have one of his signature 25+ HR 100+ RBI seasons.  He will do it again.  I'm not worried about David Wright.  

Summary Analysis: Oddly enough, despite the terrible 4-6 result, this volume has me feeling better than volume 1 had me feeling.  Volume 2 was pretty lopsided, with the Mets putting themselves in a hole by starting out 1-4, and then going 3-2.  You can pick on the offense about not getting the clutch hits, but at the end of the day - it's all about pitching.  Starting pitching, in particular.  And the Mets starting pitching has been just awful.  With the exception of Johan Santana, these guys have all pitched to ERAs over 6.  

Now, there is some good news on the horizon.  Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, and Livan Hernandez all had good starts their last times out.  They were awful in their starts prior to those, which is why Volume 2 is so lopsided.  I'm more worried about Big Pelf and Johnny Maine.  Hernandez is what he is.  But Maine and Pelf looked very solid their last times out and I'm confident they will now get on track.  Once the starting pitching gets consistent, this team will start to roll.  The bullpen is top notch.  The numbers are skewed for them this time around because Sean Green really stunk a couple times and gave up a whole lot of runs, but this bullpen is not Sean Green.  This bullpen is Parnell, Putz, and K-Rod.  Once the starting pitchers start doing their thing and give these guys a chance to really do their thing, the Mets will start rolling off those 4-6 game winning streaks and play.600+ baseball.  

The offense still concerns me as far as the clutch factor goes.  And - they still are not able to dig deep late in games when they are down by 2 or more runs.  That's a mental thing that they must get over.  But as far as the basic numbers go - everyone in this lineup, for the most part, is hitting well.  I love that Jerry Manual has put Beltran in the 3-hole and Wright back in the 5-hole.  This is the formula that worked so damn well in 2006.  

All that said, I do still worry about the overall sense of urgency and psyche of this team.  I'll have a better sense of all this, as we all will, once April turns into May and May turns into June.  

Next on the docket for the Mets in Volume 3 is the final game of the Florida series, then what I'm sure will be a fun weekend in Philadelphia, then Atlanta, then back home for Philly and Pittsburgh.  This, in my view, is the Mets' first real test.  Division rivals.  The defending champs.  the hated Braves.  It's time for the Mets to make their mark.  6-4 is not going to cut it.  I mean, that would be fine, but that would put the Mets at .500.  We need a nice 7-3 or 8-2.  

Records of other teams of interest:
Phillies: 4-6, 7-2 
Braves: 5-5, 5-5
Marlins: 9-1, 3-7

I hate the Phillies.  All they do is win when they are clearly not supposed to - like when they are down by 1000 runs in the 8th inning.  But when you play in Citizens Bank Park, where routine pop flies turn into homeruns, anything is possible.  The Braves continue their half and half play, while the Marlins finally come down to earth.  And in the American League, the Yankees are sitting at 10-10 while the Red Sox just had their 11 game winning streak snapped - a winning streak which included a pretty nice beat down of the Yanks - a sweep - which surely pleased the Fenway faithful.  Jacoby Ellsbury stole home on Andy Pettite.  He stole home!  Who does he think he is, Jackie Robinson?

And speaking of the Yankees - they are lowering their ticket prices for those "Legend" field level seats.  You wouldn't believe this, but even with all that tradition, even with all that history, all that mystique; even with all that pride, all that power, and all those pinstripes, people still don't want to spend 2600 bucks a pop to watch Chin Meing Wang give up 8 runs in the first inning.  Now, normally, major corporations would be buying up these seats and send their CEOs to go there and type away on their blackberries while they entertain clients.  But thanks to the fact that said corporations have all been bailed out courtesy of the US taxpayer, less money seems to be available for luxuries like 2600 dollar Yankees seats.  IMAGINE - the Yankees might actually try to sell these seats now to real Yankees fans.  

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Double Secret Probation

Last year, in early July, after a dreadful loss to the Cardinals in a game they should have easily won, I lost it.  I lost it, and I placed the Mets on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION.   (You can see the post here: http://trippingac.blogspot.com/2008/07/and-its-same-old-song.html)

From that point on (until their mid-september slide anyway), the Mets went on a fantastic run and played great baseball.  So, even though it's only April - even though it would be rash to get too upset about how amazing the Mets have been at finding ways to blow leads and lose games - I am taking a preemptive measure here.  I am now placing you, NY Mets, on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION.

Because I cannot take watching this bullshit from now until July.  

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Offensive Offensiveness: Welcome to Mets-Land

In their 4-2 loss to the Brewers today at Citi Field, the Mets were 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position, and 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position and 2 outs.  The Brewers got an insurance run in the 9th to make it 4-2.  But in the 7th and 8th innings, it was a 1-run game.  The Mets loaded the bases in the 7th with 1-out, and Delgado grounded into a home to first double play.  Then in the 8th they got the first two runners on.  Fernando Tatis struck out.  Then, with 1 out, Omir Santos drilled the ball right at the 3rd baseman for a line-out double play.  

These are the sorts of things that make you think your team is cursed.  But while you can blame some of it on bad luck, there is no excuse for this stacked offense to come out 2 days in a row and absolutely shame themselves.  They have been great at putting men on base so far this season.  But they have been embarrassingly pathetic at getting the hits that count to bring those men to the plate.  I'd rather have seen them lose 15-5 today than see them completely waste every blasted chance they had to win the ball-game.  

This sort of offensive ineptitude went on for a long time last year - it went on for basically the entire first half of the season.  But the current offense is so much better than that offense of the first half of last year.  Last year, in the first half, Beltran got off to a very slow start, and Delgado could barely keep his average above .200 (then, when the middle of July came around, he started hitting like Babe Ruth).  That's what is so frustrating about the offense now.  Everyone is hitting, just not when it counts.  

They all need to look themselves in the mirror, break the mirror with a baseball bat (if they can even do that; I'm sure David Wright will find some way to screw that up), and start over.  Because this sort of offensive nightmare cannot continue.  

Idiots.  You're millionaires.  Grow up, and start hitting like men.  


Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Mets 10-Game Report: Volume 1

Greetings, friends, and welcome to the first official installment of the 2009 Mets 10-Game Report.  

Games: 1-10
Record: 5-5

@ CIN W 2-1
@ CIN W 9-7
@ CIN L 8-6
@ FLA L 5-4
@ FLA W 8-4
@ FLA L 2-1
vs SDG L 6-5
vs SDG W 7-2
vs SDG L 6-5
vs MIL W 5-4

Runs Scored: 52

Runs Allowed: 45

Team BA: 96/339 = .283 (not bad)

Team BA with RISP: 25/88 = .284 (why doesn't it feel like it was this good?)

Team BA with RISP and 2 outs: 13/47 = .276 (really? this felt more like .001)

HRs: 9 (nice)

Team ERA: 87.2IP, 35ER = 3.61 (decent)

Starter ERA: 54.2IP, 33ER = 5.47 (wow.  yeah, this was bad.)

Bullpen ERA: 33IP, 7ER = 1.90 (wow.  yeah, this was good.  nice change from last year!)

HRs allowed:

BAA: 78/331 = .235 

Errors: 6 (too many)

GIDP: 8 (too many)

Fielding DP: 5 (too few)

SB: 4 (Jose is off to a really slow start with his base-stealing.)


Volume 1 MVPs:
Starter: Johan Santana:  Every starter has had two starts, and he's the only one who produced two quality ones.  
Reliever: K-Rod:  Just about everyone in that bullpen is deserving of this.  
Hitter: Luis Castillo:  I know, I know... there were many other hitters in the lineup deserving of this, especially Delgado, but I gotta hand it to Castillo.  This guy was my personal whipping boy last year, and I'm pretty sure he was everyone else's too.  But he has had a really, really good start to the season this year, and has provided the lineup with some serious depth since he's hitting 8th.  The guy is hitting .387.  And he's dropped about 15 lbs since the end of last season.  And he got the game-winning hit tonight against the Brewers.  


Volume 1 players making me drink:
Starter: Oliver Perez:  Same old Ollie.  Looks terrible one day, giving up 8 runs, and looks like a world beater the next day.  This is what he is.  And we just have to accept that.  At the end of the year, his numbers will mostly be solid.  
Reliever: Pedro Feliciano:  It figures that the only guy in the bullpen who would drive me to drink would be the only guy left over from last year.  He balked in the go-ahead run the other night against the pathetic Padres.  
Hitter: Brian Schneider: He's pretty much the only guy not hitting.  And now he's on the DL.  That's fine.  Ramon Castro has some pop.  


Summary Analysis:  The gist of what we have seen so far is as follows: bad starting pitching, great bullpen, very solid yet very un-clutch offense.  Now those numbers with RISP are not too shabby.  But as Lou Pinella once said, "Statistics are like bikinis.  They show a lot, but they don't show everything."  The Mets have perfected the art of not doing squat when the bases are loaded.  And, as they did so many times in 2007 and 2008, the Mets have - in this first 10-game stretch - scored a lot early, and then... zilch.  And of course, the opposition takes advantage and eventually takes the lead.  So frustrating.  

I believe in the concept behind the 10-Game Report.  It keeps things in perspective.  Now, 5-5 is nothing to get too excited about.  But it's not terrible, and what we Mets fans have to keep in mind is that every little thing that goes wrong with this team is magnified 10-fold because of the way they finished the last two seasons.  Anything that remotely reminds us of the last two seasons, like the lack of clutch hitting and the lack of late-hitting after early success, makes it seem like the world is ending.  Well, the world is not ending.  

Though the offense has been frustrating during this first 10-game stretch, the biggest problem by far was the starting pitching.  The numbers don't lie at all in this case.  That starters ERA is putrid, and must improve.  And it will improve.  Oliver Perez is not going to be as consistent as we would like him to be, but he is going to give us similar results to what he gave us the last two seasons - which, I think, all of us Mets fans will gladly accept.  Maine had one bad inning yesterday in which the Padres got a bunch of softly hit singles.  It happens.  Pelfrey has some tendonitis, which is worrisome for sure, but you saw what this guy did last year when he got in his groove.  You saw him blast through the opposition from the end of May to September.  He has the stuff, and he will be fine.  Livan so far looks like a good number 5 starter, and we all know what we have in Johan Santana.  The starting pitching will come around.  

Since the Mets only went 5-5, the fact that the Bullpen was so good will go overlooked for this first 10-game stretch.  But don't overlook it.  The success of that bullpen is going to pay HUGE dividends over the course of the whole season.  For the first time in a LONG time, I feel good when the Mets have a lead late in the game.  At the very least, I don't feel tempted to pour myself a tall glass of bourbon.  And for a moment - think back with me to 2006.  With the exception of the first couple months of that season, the Mets basically had no starting pitching outside of Tom Glavine.  They won that year with a great bullpen and a clutch offense.  Our starting pitching this year is light years better than our starting pitching was in '06.  

The Mets' offense will get on track.  Hell, if you look at the individual batting averages so far, you would think the Mets should have scored 100 runs by now and should be 10-0.  What encourages me so much about this offense is its depth.  With Castillo hitting well, 1-8 in the lineup is solid.  And, how nice is it to see the Carlos Delgado we all know and love?  The middle of the order is solidified, thanks to him.  

Last year the Mets were a .500 team until mid July.  Yes, we all know how they finished last year.  But they seriously turned things around, especially offensively, at the mid-season mark.  It's early, folks.  Keep things in perspective.  

Some thoughts on Citi Field: I haven't been there yet, and I won't until I see the Mets play the Yankees on June 27th.  I can't wait to see my fanwalk brick.  I have to say - I cannot believe how many Mets fans called up WFAN to complain about the new park.  The main complaints have been: 1) obstructed outfield views; 2) not enough Mets' paraphernalia; 3) green seats instead of blue and orange seats.  C'mon, folks.  The only complaint that seems valid here is 1).  Do we really want bright and tacky blue and orange seats??  We didn't even have that at Shea!  The classic dark green looks fine.  As far as there being not enough Mets' stuff in the park, to some extent I can understand being upset with that.  The Wilpons definitely went heavy on the tribute to the Brooklyn Dodgers.  But that's okay with me.  The Brooklyn Dodgers are the bloodline and heritage of the New York Mets.  And Mets management has recently said that they plan to put in a Mets museum in Citi Field, so hopefully this will make everyone happy.  

Now, it will take some time for this place to feel like home.  But eventually, it will be home.  And nothing will expedite that process better than Ws.  Just win, baby.  

Oh, and congrats to Gary Sheffield for hitting his 500th homerun.  Not only was it his 500th, but he did it as a Met, and in a big spot.  He tied the game.  (Funny, he seems so much more likable in blue and orange than in pinstripes.)


Records of other teams of interest:
Phillies: 4-5
Braves: 5-5
Marlins: 9-1

Well, relatively speaking, the Mets really are doing fine so far.  The Phillies and the Braves are off to lukewarm starts.  The Phillies seem to have problems both in their starting pitching and in their bullpen.  But the big story here is the Marlins.  Those guys just won't lose.  No one should underestimate them.  They have very solid starting pitching, and lots of power in that lineup.  Of course, their defense is just awful.  But still, they are contenders.