The Final Countdown: Who Do the Mets Want To Play?

With three games left in the season we are basically down to this question: will it be the Cardinals or the Giants facing the Mets in the NL play-in game.

The divisions arranged themselves like Russian dolls two weeks ago. The pretenders, having hung around mostly due to contender inconsistency, are finally out of runway. The Blue Jays and Orioles, in whatever order, have separated themselves from the rest of the league. It will take a three-game meltdown on one of their parts and a surge by Detroit to upset the current arrangement.

So the only team with a post-season question is NY. Would they rather play the even-yeared Giants or the perennially-contending Cards. (This assumes, by the way, that the Metroplitans don't gack it up in the final three days of the season. It would take a whitewashing by the incompetent Phillies, accompanied by a trio of St. Louis wins and at least one win for San Fran, and then a tie-breaker loss, to fritter away their current edge. They are rated as 96.5% likely to take the Wild Card.)

On the surface, the Mets would much prefer to avoid the three-armed Giant monster of Bumgarner/Cueto/Samardzija to anything the Cardinals could throw at them. Then again, since their win totals are so close, the Redbirds must be compensating in some other way, like hitting 220 homers as a team without a single 30-home run slugger. (BTW, no one has ever done that before.)

The Mets are 4-3 against the Giants and 3-3 versus St. Louis. The Cards have prospered on the road, so playing at Citi Field is a wash. The Giants and Mets have little to offer in home-road splits, so the home field issue feels pretty moot.

What isn't moot is what a dumpster fire Bruce Bochy's team has been of late, 27-42 since the All-Star break. In addition, the Giants and Cardinals have mostly feasted on bad teams, with St. Louis 11 under against .500+ teams and San Francisco 9 under. The Mets have played good opponents to a draw, but aren't on the plus side only because the Nationals and their ultra-motivated second-baseman have owned them.

It's all an effort to find the two-percent edge and that effort doesn't appear to have come to much. If you bleed orange and blue, well, first of all, see a doctor. But then take your pick. Would you prefer to face a team that's scuffling or avoid a pitching ace. Either way a victory brings you to the ornery and talent-rich Cubs.

Meet the Mets

The Mets won 90 games and the NL East last year, and rode a magic carpet to the World Series. Wilmer Flores even won our hearts with his tears.

The franchise re-signed Yoenis Cespedes, replaced Daniel Murphy with Neil Walker, and looks forward to full seasons from Michael Conforto, Steven Matz and Noah Syndergaard. Yowzah, right?

So say most analysts, who've tabbed the Mets as favorites in the striated NL East.

Well. You might want to hold off on ordering those playoff tickets.

The Metropolitans are certainly an enticing squad, particularly on the hill. They should have high expectations. But before you Bobby Valentine all over yourself, let's consider the following:

1. They couldn't hit a lick last year and they have basically the same lineup. Cespedes injected a spark over the last 57 games, but he's not slugging .600 over a full season this year. Their offense has to be giving Terry Collins heartburn.
2. Cespedes is slated to handle center this season, for which he is clearly not equipped. That's a big drop off from Gold Glover Juan Lagares.
3. The Dark Knight is a health risk, having endured TJ surgery in 2014.
4. Zack Wheeler might be back mid-season. I might learn Sanskrit this year.
5. Thor and Steven Matz have yet to pass through the danger zone for pitchers. Research shows that hurlers are most likely to suffer serious injury before age 27; surviving that is evidence of the skill of health.
6.  Matz, upon whom one-quarter of high hopes rest, has made all of six Major League starts. They were potent performances, but this is the franchise of Isringhausen, Pulsipher and Wilson.
7. The Nationals made the bookies look like fanboys last season. Maybe they were just conserving their wins for this year.
8. Last year the Mets were upstarts. This year they are favorites. Let's see how they respond.
9. It's baseball: you just never know.

Can the Mets win the division this year? Sure, but so can the Nats and even the Marlins. Without big bats, the boys from Flushing have less margin for error than most partisans recognize.

Peering Into Mets' Colon

Ha! This isn't about a body part. It's about a whole body, a substantial amount of body, 285 pounds worth of location and command from the fertile pitching fingers of Bartolo Colon, the 42-year-old rotation mainstay in New York's northeast outer borough.

Colon stymied Baltimore last night on a few feeble singles and an eighth inning home run en route to a Mets 3-2 triumph. Colon has now spun victory against the Orioles for seven different teams, a record for any pitcher against any team. Too bad the Expos didn't play Baltimore during Colon's stint there in 2002.

As any baseball fan knows, Bartolo Colon's career has followed a serpentine roller coaster path. In his early career he anchored the Indians' pennant-winning teams of the late 90s, going 135-75 with an ERA 19% below average, a Cy Young and as many as 10 strikeouts per nine innings.

Then from 2006-2010, injury, ineffectiveness and a year out of the league seemed to doom his career. In just 257 innings over those five seasons he was 14-21, 5.18.

Two years ago, he rejuvenated his career with Oakland, going 18-6, 2.65 and garnering Cy Young votes again. At age 40 he might have authored his best season.

And now this year, at age 42 and with the body of a mall cop, he's 5-1, 2.90. But he's doing it differently. Colon no longer brings heat; instead, he commands his pitches and ping-pongs the batter's eyeballs with his location. He hasn't fanned 10 in a game in eight years. After averaging three-and-a-half walks per nine in his early career, he's down to one-and-a-half now.

Last night Colon whiffed nine without walking anyone, bamboozling O's catcher Caleb Joseph with his high 80s tepidness. You couldn't have predicted it early on, but Bartolo Colon is a pitching savant.

Intriguing Teams of 2010 - Not

“It’s sad, so sad. What a sad, sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd.” –Bernie Taupin

Meet the Mets. By far not one of the most intriguing teams of 2010, unless you’d pay money to read a train wreck’s box score. This simply derails the annual Met query.

For sure, the Mets have a power core at #1 starter, shortstop and third base, two outfield slots and closer. If healthy, Santana, Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Bay and KRod are a sextet of All-Stars, but if healthy, my great-great grandfather would be 150. For the Mets, the page is mostly blank after that, and the problem with the stars and scrubs approach to team construction was vividly displayed last year when most of the stars turned into white dwarfs and black holes.

Worse, the prospects for those six are iffy this year. Reyes and Beltran begin the year on the DL. Age and arthritis add a layer of doubt to Beltran’s recovery as a balky thyroid does to Reyes’s return. Wright’s 2009 Ichiro imitation is a mystery, and while I expect his power to bounce back, it’s only because that’s what great players do, not because there’s some objective data suggesting last season was an aberration.

Beyond that, Met fans should invest in Bayer. The rest of the squad is an Oldtimers Game waiting to happen, combined with youngsters whose upside is a Major League paycheck. If your idea of a great catching tandem is a 29-year-old with a .290 OBP, and a 39-year-old with a .292 OBP, then you’ll love Omir Santos and Henry Blanco.

And you’ll positively erupt with glee over the non-Santana section of the pitching rotation, which is to say, 80% of Met starts. Last year’s version of Isringhausen and Pulsipher – Mike Pelfrey and John Maine – kept the metaphor vibrant with injuries and ineffectiveness. After that, what? Oliver Perez? The guy needs GPS to find home plate. Convert reliever Kelvim Escobar to the rotation? He’ll be pitching for the Disabled List to start the year. Rookie Jon Niese? The 6’4” lefty showed flashes in five starts last year, but relying on him would constitute wishing, not knowing.
 
Citi Field will mask some of that defensive ineptitude with its pitcher-friendly confines, but it won't make any difference in the standings. Flushing's best will have to contend with Philly's Murderers' Row and Atlanta's depth on the hill, not to mention that enigmatic Miami squad that stays in the hunt every year on a Motel 6 budget.

The Mets can claim the title Least Value Per Dollar Spent unless the Cubs begin their 2010 hibernation in July, but that’s the only thing for which this sad outfit is likely to contend. As the song says, Met fans, “sorry seems to be the hardest word.”

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Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay Signing

This is exactly what I recommended the Mets not do -- sign a 31-year-old with bad knees and no glove to patrol Citi's expanse in left and try to match his impressive early production as his body turns to jelly.

It's not that Jason Bay is a wooly mammoth; his career so far (.280/.376/.519) is worth five years and $80 million.  It's just doubtful that Bay in his 30s is going to resemble Bay in his 20s.

Moreover, Citi is the wrong field for  Bay and he's the wrong guy for the Mets. For the pitching staff of Johan Santana and the Seven Dwarfs to improve, it needs better pitchers, not weaker outfielders. Bay's glove will replace Angel Pagan's or Jeff Francoeur's, which is a regressive tax that somewhat offsets the offensive profits. And those profits might be diminished in that homer suppressant of a park.

All that said, this isn't a horrible deal, which Omar Minaya certainly has in him. It ends before Bay's AARP card gets printed and the money isn't crazy talk. Adding him to a rejuvenated Wright, Beltran, and Reyes fattens the lineup, so if the mound corps can't get anyone out, at least the offense has a chance to bail them out.

Still, the Mets are trying to catch the two-time NL champs and they have no idea whether they're bottom-dwellers or contenders. With all the uncertainty in that lineup, it may be that one more good player simply puts them a few more games clear of Washington. I'm not sure that with Bay they can catch the lumberjack-laden lineup in Philly, not to mention improving squads in Miami and Atlanta. That's why I advised the Mets to chill until mid-season, when they can shop, if warranted, at the inevitable fire sale in Cincinatti or Houston or wherever it's going to be this year. It might just be in Queens.

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One note about JBay's career worth mentioning: his 66 steals in 80 attempts is the sign of a very smart baserunner, but it understates the case. In his second year, he made six outs in 10 attempts. Besides that one year, he's earned 62 steals and eight outs. Those kinds of players can never hurt a team.

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