You ever get that feeling that maybe 2006 was it? That maybe Yadier's big fly and Cliff's big K will be looked upon as the only chance the Mets had for greatness in the 2000's?
You ever think that maybe the core that was assembled by a guy that recalled Abraham Nunez from AAA just isn't good enough to compete with the Chutley/Howard/J-Roll trifecta? That if the Phillies ever find another decent - and consistent (sorry, Brett Myers) - pitcher to go back-to-back with Cole Hamels that the NL East is in trouble for a while?
Nah, me either. I trust my guys.
5 comments:
Nunez...
Wow.
I never thought I'd actually been hoping for Valentin to come back.
Omar is a lucky idiot. There were reasons to give him the benefit of the doubt before, but time has a way of bringing things to their level.
Soon, Omar will cease to be a lucky idiot; when this happens, the more permanent condition will persist.
With the Mets, the sad fact is, the worse the better. Willie and Omar will keep this team in 2nd-3rd place with a 140M payroll for their entire tenures. (Imagine Omar competing with a small-market franchise.) Their departures (Omar more than Willie) are NECESSARY for the team to take the next step.
Nunez...
Wow.
I never thought I'd actually been hoping for Valentin to come back.
Omar is a lucky idiot. There were reasons to give him the benefit of the doubt before, but time has a way of bringing things to their level.
Soon, Omar will cease to be a lucky idiot; when this happens, the more permanent condition will persist.
With the Mets, the sad fact is, the worse the better. Willie and Omar will keep this team in 2nd-3rd place with a 140M payroll for their entire tenures. (Imagine Omar competing with a small-market franchise.) Their departures (Omar more than Willie) are NECESSARY for the team to take the next step.
ketchup on my ice cream?
more like the piss in my cheerios.
its the first week of june, 2008 and i like the chances of this team to find itself in the next four months.
as far as looking into the future with the phillies, who knows what kind of bitterness will grow with ryan howard wanting to be paid like a superstar in his prime and the phillies' continuing to undervalue him (he was stuck behind thome in the minors for 3 or 4 years). will he force a trade? get paid like a superstar? what does that do to their budget for a second decent and consistent starter?
also, as far as omar being an idiot...huh? he's probably better pegged as slightly uneven but certainly a middle-of-the-road gm. theo traded hanley ramirez, josh byrnes lost dan uggla for nothing. billy beane swapped aaron harang for 2 months of jose guillen and got nothing back for tim hudson. he traded nick swisher, and the centerpiece of his return is having arm surgery this year. larry beinfest is very good and his ownership situation is a joke, but his teams are also-rans more often than not and the results are the results. no gm is even remotely perfect. sure he's had his bad moments (the trading of young bullpen arms in 07, waiting too long to trade milledge-- though i am a big ryan church fan and enjoy watching schneider catch and throw) but they're relatively minor in the scope of what goes on around the major leagues. and he is shrewd: maine, ollie perez, the package we gave up for santana. lets give the man some credit.
I've already made the case against Omar countless times.
(Theo got effin' Beckett and Lowell for Ramirez and Hannibel (I believe) and won a championship dude; what are you talking about?)
There is no excuse for Omar to have sent out a lineup including Castillo, Tatis, Chavez, Schneider, and Easley with a 140M payroll.
There is no excuse for bringing up Nunez when Pascucci is available and raking in the minors.
There is no excuse for burying Keppinger while dreaming about Anderson Hernandez (for crying out loud) being your 2nd baseman of the future.
There is no excuse whatever for letting Jesus Flores slip away in the rule 5 draft for the priveledge of signing a catcher who puts up a line of .240/.300/.320 for 3M/year more. (Perhaps you're willing to live with that line for an above-average defensive catcher having a below-average year. Some of us are less sensitive to PR.)
or for trading away the useful Sean Henry for Jeff Conine's corpse.
or for signing Castillo to a 4 year, 24M deal.
and we have not seen the last of Milledge, trust me.
OK, Omar deserves credit for spotting Maine and Church-even though the Mets will almost certainly lose on that trade in the long run, he could have done worse than Church. He also deserves credit for not giving in and dealing FMart or Pelf. for Santana. He was in the perfect position to get Santana because nobody wanted to give up their best prospects and Omar's secondary prospects were better than everyone else's. (Of course, those were Omar's primary prospects; they would have been secondary prospects for a real GM.)
This is because Omar's minor league system is in a shambles.
Let's call your bluff. Even if Omar is in the middle of GMs, the crop of GMs is so bad, that anything less than excellent (relatively speaking) is useless. The Mets will not win anything until Omar is gone and replaced with someone competent.
Name me a good trade Omar has made instead if naming the bsd moves of other GMs.
Maine and Perez were throw ins. Lets not pretend Omar's shrewdness is what got them. They were both fledgling pitchers in organizations who had given up on them.
The package he gave up for Santana was arguably the best he could have done minus F-Mart. The only reason Johan is a Met is because Theo and Cashman realized neither of them was going to pull the trigger and backed off.
I'm not saying Omar is an "idiot." It could be worse, he could be Brian Sabean. The fact remains that he's made some mind-boggling moves (Nunez is just the most recent) and he continues to foster an organizational philosophy that will hurt the team in the long run.
And as to the Mets chances in 2008 - I absolutely think they have a shot. I'm not saying they're going to finish behind the Gnats, I just don;t think this team can win in the playoffs.
And thanks for reading, I appreciate all the new readers - if you have any input for anything you'd like to see just drop a comment.
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