When the manager says last night’s loss reminded him of some of the games when they collapsed down the stretch, you know it was bad.
I am aware of the need for patience and understand pennants aren’t decided in April. However, bad habits and attitudes can be forged early and the Mets aren’t playing well.
-Aaron Heilman is a serious issue and they won’t win anything until he’s fixed.
-Carlos Delgado is also a problem, but the option is to hope for the best.
-Oliver Perez reminded us again of his unreliability. Get used to it.
-Situational and clutch hitting is erratic.
-We’re not seeing Jose Reyes at the top of his game.
-Jorge Sosa is getting hit hard.
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Of all the issues JD mentioned in this post, Reyes is the most disturbing. Jorge Sosa stinks, but he always has, so that should not come as a shock. Delgado is simply past his prime, and is probably finished, but at 36, with a balky hip, that shouldn’t be such a surprise, either. Perez has never been anything but erratic, so again, why would you expect him to be consistently focused all of a sudden. Heilman’s struggles are definitely a surprise, but I truly believe he will overcome them.
As for Jose Reyes, it is just really sad. I don’t know what has happened to him, but he went from the verge of absolute dominance to mediocrity. Someone needs to shake him and make him realize the player he should be. Again, Reyes is the most disturbing trend b/c it is least susceptible to rational explanation.
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
sloppy, don’t you think Lowell stayed in Boston because they won the world series? also, while I”ll give Theo props for putting together a good team, you fail to mention he also signed JD Drew and Julio Lugo to ridiculously bad contracts, and while he got Becket, its not like it was a steal, he gave up one of the best young players in baseball for him and a guy who’s pitched a no-hitter since then. I give him props, but I don’t think he’s as fool proof as you make him out to be. Also, Lowell knows he had a big season because of the green monster, thats no secret.
Scott—last year after they fired Down, Omar wanted Rickey to be hitting coach. Willie wanted HoJo. Willie won on that one, and I’m glad he did. I’m pretty sure of this. I think it was Heyman who reported this.
And I’m also pretty sure that Manuel was selected by Omar. This was reported in a Newsday story. Omar has exercised considerable influence over the makeup of Willie’s coaching staff.
Unless Reyes wakes up and the Mets starting pitchers pitch in to the seventh, the Mets will be the team we all saw at the end of last season.
How was HoJo originally made 1st base coach. Was that Omar or Willie ?
You could be right on Manuel but they look way to comfortable in the dugout for me to believe he was not hired without Willie’s ok.
I am sure we agree that Manny Acta was not hired by Willie.
tomg,
You pretty much said it, friendo. The pitchers in our bullpen, and really in any bullpen, always look their best when they stay there. Willie doesn’t have a choice but to throw these guys in there when Perez pulls the crap he did last night. That is inexcusable from Ollie, he has to be better than that, and on average, he hasn’t been. You can slam Willie, and Heilman, and Delgado, etc., but this team needs length out of its starters and it really hasn’t gotten it w/ the exception of Santana, who has been a rare bright spot.
All of this talk about the staff is pure speculation. None of us know anything about how the coaching staff was constructed.
Good article on a potential replacement for Jorge Sosa at http://www.metsmonkeys.blogspot.com
Let me know your thoughts.
Heilman needs to practice throwing change-ups until he can throw them at the knees every time. Whether he needs to throw 100, 500, 1000, 10000 or 100000, that’s what he needs to do. Because he can’t get it there consistently. Its a HR waiting to happen. If you took him in the bullpen and said throw me 10 change-ups at the knees I guarantee 5 would be waist high or higher. He doesn’t have good enough control of the change-up and that’s the big problem. It has to be low. It must. But he can’t bounce it up there or they’ll never swing at it.
Delgado is sitting tonight. Anderson at 1B. Schneider has a staph infection. How the hell does this crap happen to our players?
Scott—My guess is that HoJo being named first base coach was a mutual decision. But Heyman says that after Down was fired, Omar wanted Rickey to be hitting coach and that Willie talked him out of that and wanted HoJo. Here is the link to that article:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jon_heyman/07/19/scoop.thursday/index.html
As for Willie’s initial staff including Acta and Manuel, I would think he agreed with all the choices whether or not they were initially his. Even Acta. I don’t think he dislikes Acta in any way. He just dislikes the way Bernazard and others fraternize with Acta when the Mets play the Nats. I don’t blame him.
metsfan: did I say Epstein was perfect. NO I DID NOT… I said he drew the line with an aging player and didn’t buckle like the crappy GM we have. He also didn’t destroy his farm system to get crappy over the hill players like our crppy GM did. He over paid for two guys. At least they weren’t broken down down has beens like our crappy GM constantly picks iup.. Omar whines that the Red sox bid to much for matsuzaka. Well, they didn’t give up their farm system for them did he. Our crappy GM gives away kids left and right for over the hill guys weith bad contracts like LoDuca dn Delgado….. And when Epstein got Beckett he didn’t get a guy who was over the hill did he… He got a young ace for a young SS…..
And how do you know Lowell stayed because he got a ring there???? The fact is he caved while Minaya caved to a guy with one tenth the talent of Lowell…. Then he gives Anderson 2 years, 2 freakin years to a guy he wouldn’t give 2 years two years ago, that’s of course after he gave Franco 2 freakin years. You have no basis to compare Minaya to any GM who has ever won a WS ring, much less 2.
Thank you Keith: This reporter made up story A That reporter made up story B. Bottom line is who really give a damn about who picked which coach. They have combined to create a team that doesn’t play sound baseball with a GM who gave them guys who are certsainly old enough to know how to play…....
c’mon, without Lo Duca and Delgado in ‘06, we don’t have the ‘06 season we had. The players we gave up would not be doing much for us, don’t tell me Jacobs would have been as good, he sucked in ‘06, and sure he’s gotten better, but he’s not a good player. If we had him last year, we would have been complaining just as much about him. You have to give up players to make yourself a good team, that’s what Omar did, and we got the ‘06 season. The Red Sox have obviously done it better, but Omar hasn’t been around THAT long. He had to give up draft picks to sign free agents to make this team a contender. Sorry to inform you, but this team is a contender, which it wasn’t in ‘02, ‘03, and ‘04.
random… but did anybody hear about “Brian Bruney and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”
poor guy
http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/brian-bruney-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day/
Omar has made some mistakes (Bannister, Bell, Castillo’s contract), but he also has some steals, including Santana, which was highway robbery. Sloppy, his performance as GM is not as black and white as you make it out to be. And this is not a team that can always wait for youth like Jacobs and Milledge to find themselves. Omar saw an opening in ‘06 w/ Delgado and Lo Duca and he went for it. It was the right move then, and Delgado’s struggles, which you can bet were predictable even to Omar, does not change that now.
Damn. Sure didn’t take long for Pelfrey to start walking people, then giving up a run. I wouldn’t care if he started the season 10-0. I’ve got zero confidence in him.
This team seems flat no fire no killer instinct no swagger. which makes me wonder what’s going on in the clubhouse even though it doesn’t matter. These players get big bucks to play a hell lot better than they are.
Bring in young blood from AA, they can’t be worse than Delgado
and Sosa.
JM and metsfan: Defending Omar belongs on a comic strip blog, not a baseball blog….. Omar is the worst GM in the world but you metsies deserve it I guess. No even you little metsies don’t deserve the worst GM in the world. Want to see the ramificatins of Omar, the worst GM in the world, no talent, no farm, no future… come to DC, you’ll see what the big metsies are going to look like for years to come…....
As always love and kisses, and even though you are blind to Omar the terrible, I still love you metsfan. don’t ever forget that!!!!!!