Why the New York Mets won’t have a winning record
The New York Mets are re-tooling — but they won’t have a winning record
We can’t be fooled. We won’t buy into it; we just won’t. We’re sports fans, we—well, most of us—understand the tactics teams use before a season starts to hype up their chances at postseason success. The Mets have been using these strategies for years; this time we won’t fall for it.
The unbalanced Mets are claiming they will play baseball in October. Yes, they’re right, they will; they will play regular season games at the beginning of October, but that’s it. They’ve already dug their 2015 grave; hopefully they’ve booked vacations for the rest of October.
Newly acquired outfielder, Michael Cuddyer, said to ESPN.com that he believes the Mets can compete with the Washington Nationals. General Manager, Sandy Alderson, has been talking about the Mets competing for a playoff spot the entire offseason. He believes that he has complied a team that will be capable of competing with the Dodgers, Padres and Giants. Yes, his team of homegrown talent—most under the age of 25, and most only in the majors for two-three years—will compete, but are not suited to win more than 75 games, at most.
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Cuddyer was acquired this offseason to supply another bat to the middle of the lineup. In 2013, he won the batting title—hitting .331. Last season, he was sidelined for most of the campaign and only played 49 games. Before 2013, Cuddyer, never hit above .300, actually, he never even hit above .285. His monster offensive year in 2013 seems like a fluke year for someone on the downside of his career. The 35 year-old will receive 8.5 million dollars this year, and will probably struggle dealing with Citi Field’s dimensions. He’ll also miss Colorado’s thin air, which carries a fly ball into the seats.
Matt Harvey, the 2013 All-Star starting pitcher, returns this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He’s a lights out ace. He heads one of the youngest starting rotations in the big leagues. Zach Wheeler, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee and NL Rookie of the Year, Jacob deGrom will be behind Harvey. These are all solid pitchers, but it’s the only place the Mets have stability. It’s also possible for Noah Syndergaard—noted as better than Harvey—and Rafael Montero to make the team, or be called up sometime during the season. This may be the Mets only upside of the season.
The pitching staff is stacked, but it would have been smarter for the Mets to trade one of their starters for a shortstop. Their opening day shortstop will likely be Wilmer Flores. In 78 games last season, he hit .251, with a horrible OBP of .286. He’s not fit to be a starting shortstop. He’s just another hole in the Mets’ Swiss cheese lineup.
Then there’s David Wright, he’ll always be star of the wrong team. I’m not saying that if he were on another team he’d be more successful; I’m saying he’d be better of on a contending team. But Mets fans really need to calm down about Wright. He’s a good player, but great players lead teams and lead the league in different statistics. Wright, well he’s led the league twice in a stat—Sacrifice Flies. He’s the guy that came out of his corner swinging, but could never find that knockout punch; he’s never made it over the hump, and has never joined the league’s greats. When he was starting to look like a homerun hitter, the Mets moved into the bigger stadium, and his home run number dropped from 33 to 10.
Power hitting, something that’s been dissolving from every lineup in baseball, certainly is hard to locate on the Mets. Lucas Duda crushed 30 homers last season, followed by Curtis Granderson, who smacked 20. Granderson’s power has dropped since leaving the Yankees—where he had two 40 home run seasons—partly because of the big dimensions in his new home park. Granderson needs to learn to utilize the gaps more, while using his speed to dig out extra base hits.
Listen, Terry Collins is the luckiest man in New York history. He’s never had a winning record, and has had a secure job since 2011. I’m curious to just how jealous guys like Mike Woodson, the Knicks’ former head coach is. He won 53 games, then had one losing season and was quickly fired. Collins is coaching in a city that fires coaches for getting the wrong haircut. If I were him, I’d be in Vegas every weekend.
Talent exists on the Mets’ roster, their roster just isn’t complete; there are too many holes. Their offseason wasn’t very successful, but there’s still time. For a team that’s developing players from their farm system, the Mets are in good shape; for this season, they are going to in a rebuilding phase. In a few, long years, the Mets will be atop their division, in the playoffs, competing for a title. They are a model franchise for any sport, but will not have winning record this season.