As the New York Daily News had shown in 2007 on the front page of their paper, the New York Mets had indeed thrown away a division lead only to miss the playoffs. History repeated itself in 2008 as once again they squandered a late season division lead. Now the lead wasn't as big as the one they let slide the year before, but still.
This week, a story that has been getting a ton of press is Cole Hamels, aka best pitcher of the Philadelphia Phillies, saying the Mets are choke artists. If this causes an uproar it's one of those head-scratchers. Mets fans know better than anyone, even Hamels, that their team is almost on par with the Cubs in terms of pathetic losers...okay, no one is even close to the Cubs losing ways.
So when the Mets saw seven...count em, seven late inning leads for pitcher Johan Santana be squandered by their bullpen this past season, they needed to adress the issue. Without so many words, GM Omar Minaya admitted they were choke artists by signing one top closer and trading for another.
Great news! Oh shit, what do you mean we only have three starting pitchers with major league experience? Uh-oh. If Johan could start all 162 games I'm sure the Mets would do fine, but sadly it's not the case. Sure Mike Pelfry started to show his potential in 2008 and John Maine can certainly toss a solid six or seven innings from time to time, but they are in trouble if they think that's enough.
Minaya has decided against pursuing any of the remaining top free agent pitchers like A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe or Ben Sheets in lieu of either finding cheaper options or building from within the organization. One NY Post columnist thinks Lowe is still an option though, attributing it to rope-a-dope strategy. I'm not sure if this has anything to back it up or if it's just speculation.
Not to bring up ancient history, but trading Scott Kazmir all those years ago must really sting now.
The Putz trade doesn't make sense, at least not the timing of it. Sure I'm no MLB GM but there are warning signs abound in this. Putz missed a ton of time this season, and my fantasy team suffered because of it. Incidentally my other closer was Francisco Rodriguez...but I digress.
So trading for Putz raises the question of whether or not he's healthy or if he'll even be half the pitcher he was in 2007. As a mid-season acquisition it would have worked. Minaya could have monitored his progress and see if he was worth acquiring at all. Of course it appears that Putz was on the move regardless as the Detroit Tigers were pushing hard to land him. It didn't work and the Mets appear to have been forced to jump the gun.
Spending big money on relievers is a crapshoot. The Mets have had bad luck and poor performance in the bullpen for a couple years and now they overcompensate for it without addressing a glut of other problems. Other than Jose Reyes, David Wright and maybe Carlos Beltran, the team doesn't have a reliable offense. Sure, Carlos Delgado had a nice comeback year and Ryan Church when he wasn't suffering from concussions did a fine job too. Even if you count those two, the Mets still don't have a full lineup and the rotation is worse.
So Cole Hamels has every right to call the Mets out, because he's being truthful if a little malicious at the same time. It adds a little fuel to the fire and it gives Mets fans another reason to hate Philly (as if stealing two consecutive division titles wasn't enough).
If the Mets land Lowe like Joel Sherman of the Post pontificates about, then maybe my tune will change. Until then they're still the second unluckiest team in baseball.
No comments:
Post a Comment