Why 2024 Matters

Despite having to dig out of the mess created by the 2023 Mets, David Stearns and the Mets cannot afford to kick the can down the road to 2025.

I had hip replacement surgery last week. Just reading those words on the page makes me feel old. I turned 65 last October. I'm not at death's door, but I understand that the clock is ticking and I won't be around forever. I know this is somewhat of a cliché, but time really does go by remarkably quickly. I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and was surprised at the old face staring back at me. It doesn't seem so long ago that I was still a relatively young man.

Rise and Fall

For my own sake, I'm just refusing to react to every peak or dip in the New York Mets' season.

There have been a handful of times in my life when things are going so well that I wish I had some mechanism to freeze things exactly where they were. Not a permanent suspension of time, of course. Just a long enough period of stasis where I could truly enjoy the place I found myself without having to wonder when the inevitable moment of returning to reality would come. Because, no matter what, something will always come along and knock you back off the pedestal of good fortune. But the knowledge that nothing good goes on forever is also why I've learned to not fast-forward recklessly past a terrific moment in anticipation of the tantalizing possibility of another one.

Man the Lifeboats, Part 2

Today we look at the New York Mets' position players as we search for some reason to hold onto hope for the 2023 season.

We're doing a series of posts looking at the current state of the struggling New York Mets. Yesterday, we discussed the starting pitching, which was supposed to be a strength for this club but has, at least this far, been their Achilles Heel. I intended to move onto the bullpen next, but with today's callup of prospect Mark Vientos, let's look at the position players instead.

Cohen-Vision

While a former New York Met waxes poetic on the vision of the Rangers' organization, things are looking just fine here with the old club. 

In the olden days, hearing the Mets associated with the name of a premium free agent was almost inevitably a precursor of eventual disappointment, even before the Madoff fiasco crippled the team's finances. One of the factors that made Omar Minaya so popular with the fanbase initially was his signings of Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran during his first winter at the helm. I remember feeling electrified by the news of Beltran's signing, fully expecting Carlos to end up elsewhere that winter.

Winning Choices

The 2022 Mets make far fewer mistakes than previous Mets clubs, and it's adding up to many more wins.

As I watch the 2022 edition of the New York Mets, I am constantly reminded of how different this team is from the teams that preceded them. It started with owner Steve Cohen endowing new Mets GM Billy Eppler with an amount of cash that earlier Mets GMs could only dream about. But the direction Eppler chose to take while spending Cohen's money was interesting. I'm not sure that any of the three players that Eppler signed to open the Mets' spending — Starling Marte, Mark Canha, or Eduardo Escobar — were the types of players the Mets would have pursued previously.

The Mets' Fast Start Seems Legit

A mediocre team can fool you for a while, but this New York Mets club is for real.

Despite Wednesday afternoon's clunker in St. Louis, the New York Mets are flying pretty high these days. Their total of 14 wins is tops in all of Major League Baseball. More notably, this year, they pass the eye and smell tests as a genuine contender. That's important, because we've seen the Mets tease their fans in previous seasons with fast starts before dropping like tech stocks at the end of the last century.

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.

Changing Perceptions

Steve Cohen and the Mets have dramatically reversed last fall's negative coverage and the perception around baseball that the Mets were an organization in trouble.

As the New York Mets continue their preparations for the 2022 season, it's startling to see how the perception of the team has changed since last fall. Unfortunately, as has become all too common in recent years, the Mets were again spectators in October while other teams vied for a championship. Steve Cohen's first year as owner of the Mets was a disappointment — not only to fans, but I'm sure to the man himself. Mistakes and missteps were definitely made, but the local and national media were engaging in a frenzy of negativity in their coverage of the team. Much of that negativity was overblown and unfair.

A Very Early Look at Mets Position Players

When last I posted here, I took an early look at the Mets pitching*. This included the additions of Chris Bassitt and Adam Ottavino, but still pending the almost certain addition of at least one late-inning caliber lefty. Today we'll move on to the position players, whose ranks have been substantially overhauled this off-season. Eduardo Escobar will be picking up most of the 3B ABs this year, while Starling Marte and Mark Canha will be joining lone holdover Brandon Nimmo in the outfield. Barring a last-minute change of course, Michael Conforto will not be returning after seven mostly solid seasons in New York.

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.