Delgado and Castillo’s skills have degraded with age and injury to the point where… except for their ridiculous contracts… they really both should have retired last year. Ditto for El Duque.

Alou can still hit and Pedro can still pitch… but only when they’re healthy, which is basically never. Heilman seems to have given up on trying unless he is magically made the closer or a starter. Schoeneweis WILL be exposed as crap once he starts getting put into high-leverage situations against righties.

The bench was built as pinch-hitters and spot starters for a healthy club, none of them are competent everyday players when the injuries come down.

However, all of this said.

Reyes, Beltran and Wright are All-Stars. The Mets have some potentially outstanding starting pitching. Most of the bullpen are guys that should be very competent.

That core? Discounting all the old-and-injured crap that Minaya hung onto for their “names” and Willie loves for their “experience”?

That core alone should not be THIS bad.

That core has given up on Willie.

And Willie needs to go.

...then if this keeps up, Minaya needs to leave in October.

http://www.myteamrivals.typepad.com/mr_mets_daily

This is what fun feels like?

Good Lord.

I sure don’t wanna know what “awful” feels like, then.