The Defense Doesn't Rest

A renewed emphasis on defense would be a good thing for the New York Mets.

Mike Vaccaro had an interesting column in the New York Post about the rather dull first winter of David Stearns's tenure, compared with the splashier debuts of some other recent Mets GMs. Back in the offseason of 2004-05, Omar Minaya famously hit the ground running, signing Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran in his first offseason in charge. In his inaugural hot stove as GM, Brodie Van Wagenen swung a deal for Edwin Díaz that, unfortunately, also saddled the club with the Albatross of Robinson Canó's contract.

Bad Actors

Bad Actor: a mean, ill-tempered, troublemaking, or evil person.

Dictionary.com

As the 2023 New York Mets' season grinds down to what surely will feel like a merciful death, most of us Mets fans are hoping and praying for a 2024 season that is at least compelling, if not triumphant. How that plays out depends on who suits up for the team next year, and that, of course, will greatly depend on who is making what is sure to be a series of significant decisions this offseason. David Stearns, or whoever calls the shots, must hit on most of those calls. The implications of those choices go way beyond 2024 for the Mets. The idea of sustained winning still feels like the ever-elusive white whale for long-time fans like myself. And even Steve Cohen isn't going to stomach massive deficit spending forever.

The Sun (and the Mets) Will Rise Again

Don't give into the despair that some pundits wish to inflict on Mets fans. There are tough decisions to be made, but the future is still bright.

The New York Mets' 2022 season came to a disappointing end at Citi Field Sunday night. In their first playoff appearance since 2016, the Mets didn't look much like the club that won 101 games in the regular season. This is too bad. They were an entertaining team to follow this summer, but they will likely be remembered for a couple of consecutive bad weekends in October.

Happy Trails, Robinson Cano

Steve Cohen's Mets are making "baseball decisions" these days, proving that the Wilpon era is mercifully behind us.

I have to admit that I didn't see this coming. Before Sunday night's game, I thought a demotion to Syracuse for Dominic Smith was the most likely scenario. However, it's mighty tough to demote a guy after a 4 for 4. After Dom's big night, I thought it would be Travis Jankowski receiving the pink slip. Jankowski may be a useful player, but he's the last guy off the bench for the 2022 Mets. It sure would have cost the Mets a lot less to release Jankowski. Instead, Steve Cohen instructed Billy Eppler to "make the baseball decision." With those powerful words, Robinson Canó's Mets career came to an inglorious conclusion, and I found myself falling in love all over again.

So Far So Good

The Mets' opening series in Washington went as well as we could hope for, but now a real test begins.

The 2022 season got off to a much better start for the New York Mets than 2021 did. If you remember, the Mets were supposed to begin last season with a series against the Nationals, but the entire series was postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak among the Nats. MLB did their infamous "abundance of caution" thing by canceling all the games, and the Mets wound up sitting around for an extra 4 days before beginning their campaign. I always believed that the delay played a part in the Mets' slow start last year, although I would hardly hang all last year's woes on that one thing.

And So It Begins

Will this be the dawn of a new era where the Mets finally turn the corner as a franchise and leave "LOL Mets" behind?

The New York Mets' 2022 season gets underway tonight in Washington, provided the storm clouds that have taken over the eastern section of the country decide to allow it. The threat of bad weather and some of the recent injury news have combined to dampen the spirits of Mets fans a bit. But optimism always reigns supreme at the start of a new baseball season — and this has the potential to be the year where the Mets finally leave the Wilpon era in the rearview.

How Much Is Enough?

The Mets did so much to improve this off-season. Is it terribly greedy to wish they had done just a little more?

We're just over two weeks away from the New York Mets' season opener in Washington on April 7. With only 3 exhibition games under their belts, the Mets really don't have much time to prepare for games that count. The offense hasn't looked very good in the early going, beyond a flurry of home runs in the first game.

The Ballad of Robbie Cano

Robinson Cano's life is a fascinating moral story. For the 2022 Mets, the big question is, can he still hit?

As the New York Mets prepare for the season to get underway, one of the big questions lingering over the club is whether 39-year-old Robinson Cano can contribute anything of value coming back from a 1-year steroid suspension. There are still two years remaining on Cano's contract. While Seattle will be kicking in $4 million per season, the Mets are on the hook for $20 million this year and next. It's quite unlikely that Robinson Cano will play at the superstar level that would justify that kind of money, but that's really not the point. However you might feel personally about the man, there's no doubt that the most desirable outcome for the Mets would be for Cano to hit well enough to provide value as a part-time DH.

Andy Does It Again

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This famous phrase was coined by a French journalist more than 170 years ago, but it's never seemed more timely than right now. First, I read a piece by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich in The Athletic, puncturing the small amount of optimism I was clinging to regarding MLB baseball being played. Then I came across an Andy Martino column for SNY pondering why "so many fans dislike Robinson Cano." As soon as I saw the title, I thought to myself, "let me guess — could it be racism?"

Game Changer

Apologies for not posting for a while. I'm going through a difficult time personally. I had to endure another back surgery on December 16 — my fourth since September 2020. It's been a lot to deal with. It's been hard to maintain optimism to get past these problems after many setbacks. I have to admit that I was down in the dumps for a while.

Big Changes Ahead After Another Disappointing Season

As I write this post, the New York Mets are in the process of dropping the final game of the season. It's a fitting end for the disappointing club to go out on a losing streak with their offense once again shut down. In fairness, the Mets have found their way to some victories this week — long, long past the time when those wins would have been of any real consequence, of course. I always miss baseball when the season comes to an end. It's the only sport that I still follow with more than passing interest. The close of the regular season also marks the end of whatever tattered shreds of summer remain. Even as the earth continues to get hotter, I still miss the long days and bright sunshine of summer throughout the New England winter.

Catching up on the Mets

The New York Mets are in the midst of their first nice winning streak in months. After today's ugly but ultimately successful game in Washington, they have won 7 straight games they have played. Technically their streak is 6 in a row, as the first of those wins was the final 8 2/3 innings of a game suspended on April 11. Even though only one single out of the game was recorded in April, it goes in the books as a win on that day. Go figure.

Another Hill to Climb

The New York Mets finally added a desperately needed credible starting pitcher to the mix, picking up veteran Rich Hill in a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays. Understandably, this isn't the type of transaction that's going to electrify the fan base. Still, it was a solid deal for a decent veteran starter that didn't tap into the Mets' limited pool of top-tier prospect talent. As we discussed Wednesday, the Mets lack a deep pool of prospects who would be attractive to potential trade partners.

The New York Media's Awful Coverage of Jarred Kelenic

As you probably already know, Seattle Mariners' top prospect Jarred Kelenic failed in his first attempt to establish himself as a Major League ballplayer. An 0-39 stretch was the final nail in his coffin. He'll now try to regroup in Triple-A. Most experts still expect Kelenic to become a very good player in MLB; it's just going to take a bit longer. Not every young player will become an instant star.

Major League Ballplayers Wanted, Enquire Within

While it was gratifying watching the New York Mets win last night, it felt more like a temporary reprieve than the start of something big. Bad news about Noah Syndergaard and J.D. Davis offset some of the thrill of victory. Also, for a very well-pitched game by Jacob deGrom, Miguel Castro, Trevor May, and Edwin Díaz, it didn't feel as if it was safely in the books until about five minutes after the last out was recorded. And this was against a Colorado Rockies team that had only managed two measly road victories coming into the series. The Rockies are in the discussion for the "worst team in baseball" honors, but they're still hard to beat when you're fielding a team of Triple-A ballplayers.

My Nightmare Ended Last November

The New York Post
headline writer

I dislike it when some self-appointed expert tries to make a blanket characterization about what a New York Mets fan thinks. I'm a Mets fan, of course, and I know plenty of others. If there is one great truth about us that I've learned over the years, every Mets fan is different. Sure, we all start with our shared love of New York's "other" baseball team, but I'd rather try to herd cats than find a consensus among a large number of Mets fans on all but the banalest of topics. I even met a Mets fan once who didn't like David Wright — seriously. That's equivalent to a kid disliking dessert.

No Free Pass for Luis Rojas This Time Around

Tim Britton had a good profile of Mets manager Luis Rojas up on The Athletic earlier this week. All in all, Rojas endured a strange year in his first season on the job. It started with Carlos Beltran resigning as manager three weeks before spring training started, thanks to the Astros sign stealing scandal. That spring training came to a screeching halt, but not before it was revealed that his second-best pitcher Noah Syndergaard needed Tommy John surgery. Then, after we all sat around for a few months, waiting to see if there would be a baseball season in 2020, everything ramped up way too quickly for the weird 60-game season that followed. Before that season even began, his now second-best pitcher Marcus Stroman opted out of the season. The abbreviated slate of games was barely underway when his star player, Yoenis Céspedes, also opted out in a manner that was equally poorly handled by the player and the club. To put a cherry on top of it all, Rojas was given a roster, particularly the pitching staff, which proved woefully inadequate, and Brodie Van Wagenen did a poor job of juggling the useful pieces the Mets did possess.

Cheaters Gonna Cheat

When the news of Robinson Cano's PED suspension popped up as an alert on my phone yesterday, my first thought was that it was likely to be a good thing for the Mets, at least for 2021. My second thought was f*** Brodie Van Wagenen. Nowhere in those thoughts or any of the thoughts that came later was even an inkling of surprise. This was news that I've been more or less suspected I would hear since Cano bounced back with strong offensive numbers this season.

The One That Got Away, Part 2

Yesterday I started a piece on the Kelenic trade. I never intended it to be a 2-parter, but I spent quite a bit of time writing about how the New York media uses any young player traded by the Mets that goes on to enjoy success elsewhere to bludgeon the Mets repeatedly. It's always been near the top of the list of things that really bug me about how the Mets are covered. I feel as if I made a reasonable case yesterday on how over-the-top this can be. Please read part 1 first if you haven't yet.

The One That Got Away

I knew when I started blogging again, I was going to have to get to this eventually. I almost returned to blogging in the winter of 2018-2019 to share my personal thoughts on the trade with the Mariners, but work was so crazy at that point that there literally wasn't any free time. Still, I found myself doing something that I actually did quite often during my decade blogging hiatus: composing a potential blog post in my head on the subject of the trade of Jarred Kelenic and Justin Dunn for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz.

The final push to actually write this post today was this article by Joel Sherman in the New York Post yesterday. I did a double-take when I first saw the piece. I gulped and asked myself, is Joel Sherman already saying this trade is the equivalent of the Mets trading future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan for the dried-up husk of Jim Fregosi? While further reading actually contained some good points that I agreed with, the premise was so clearly a bridge too far that it made it very hard to just not look away in horror.