Mets Chat Room: Wrapping the first half edition.
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- July
- 13
Quite simply: What is your greatest disappointment and pleasant surprise of the first half?
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on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 7:58 pm by John Delcos.
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Pleasant surprise: Pelfrey.
Biggest disappointment:
Well… it’s not so much a disappointment but… the way that all the age and injury on this team collapsed all at once as any front-office without rose-coloured glasses on should’ve seen a mile away.
Castillo, Alou, Pedro, El Duque, Delgado… that’s 20% of the roster just being useless because they were hoping they’d magically become young again.
For Disappointment, it would be a toss up between Pedro, El Duque, and the man made of glass, Alou.
For Pleasant Surprise, I agree with Pelfrey with an honrable mention to Church and Pagan who were both injured because of their hustle.
Biggest Disappointment:
That Willie Randolph couldn’t adjust his way of managing to the teams’ needs.
Pleasant Surprise:
How much I am enjoying Jerry Manuel and his interaction with his players.
Biggest disappointment: Alou. I was expecting at least a half a season of his lightning fast swing.
Biggest surprise. Jerry Manuel. He was made for New York. Hes just doing everything right.
Disappointment: Wagner – this team would be in first place if he didn’t have 6 blown saves, which is probably more than you want over the course of a full season, let alone a half season.
Surprise: Pelfrey – he’s proved me wrong, and I couldn’t be happier.
Oh, and I don’t care how many times you say it, it doesn’t make it so: Jerry Manuel has made a difference with this team where Willie could not, embrace it.
And you gotta love that one of the people who won’t give Manuel any credit is Jerry Manuel.
I’d also give The Warthog some credit and his upgrade over The Jacket, letting the young pitchers do what comes naturally and not try to… uh… Straight Jacket them with a preconceived notion of pitching.
I like that, the Warthog.
He aint gonna win no beauty contests, but the staff has been pithcing beautifully since he got here.
I cant think of anybody I would trade for Pelfry right now.
Biggest dissappointment – They waited too long to fire Willie. I hate to say that but they did. It wasn’t just this year let;s remember. It was over a year and let’s not even mention September, OK?
Greatest surprise? Manuel, Pelfrey, Heilman’s resurgence, and Ryan Church.
Go Big Pelf!!!
Disappointment: That it took so much time for Minaya to see the obvious. Randolph was NEVER suited to be manager of the Mets.
Surprise: Ryan Church. I didn’t know that – when healthy, he would be our best outfielder and one of the best players on the team. A smart, sound ballplayer. (Honroable mention: Easley and Tatis. Where would we be without them?)
Please Surprise: Noone could of expected this type of run from Pelfrey.
Disappointment: Well im sure I’ll take some heat for this answer but comeing off of his 15 win season and in a free agency year. I expected a lot more from Ollie. I know he’s picked it up lately but i cant judge the first half of this season 3 starts.
As for some of the others i wasnt expecting much from the AARP crew so im not really disappointed…
Biggest disappointment: Abraham Nunez. Hitless as a Met.
Most pleasant surprise: Giuseppe Franco. I never get tired of hearing him say he doesn’t own the company.
Actually, on second thought, I think Wayne Hagin has been more of a disappointment.
Biggest disappointment:Pedro not being injury free like i thought he might and Alou out for the year.
Most pleasant surprise: Tie. Carlos Delgado’s resurgence and Mike Pelfrey coming into his own.
And so, Howie has put the last chapter of the first half of the season in “the Book” as the sweep continues. Next game, Thursday July 17th in Cincinnati at 7:10 PM. Enjoy the All Star Break.
Tiffany – I mean who has time for that nonsense? – Giuseppe Franco
Ho hum, another Mets win. This is getting boring.
Most Pleasant surprise: Initially Ryan Church, but now it’s gotta Pelfrey. The way he turned it around from looking lost to suddenly looking dominating is something you have to like. Right now I put him as #2 on the staff behind Santana
Dissapointment: Delgado, Willie, Wagner. Some people say Pedro, but I honestly didn’t expect much from him coming into this year so I wasn’t surprised with his lack of production. Delgado’s anemic hitting and Wagner’s choking have cost us a number of games. As for Willie…I really thought he’d be able to turn things around but ultimately he lost this team and couldn’t get them back. It didn’t help that management didn’t back him up…maybe if they did it would have helped
Greatest disappointment: All the fans at Shea in April, booing Show on opening day , booing Santana and just the general bad attitude displayed to all the players.
Surprise: Manuel being able to change the attitude of the team. I know they have to lose a game soon, but he stopped the downward spiral and righted the ship.
Surprises are Pelf turning it on so quickly (I expected he would, but it was overnight). And the corpse formerly know as Delgado coming back to life.
Dissapointments? Castillo (although I expected him to stink, so not a surprise) And Alou not even giving the team 40 games.
Delgado’s “resurgence”?
Leeeeeets not get ahead of ourselves here. Even today, he looked lost against the lefties and just cranked one against the rightie.
If by “resurgence” you mean “hey, he’d be solid if Manuel had the guts to platoon him”... sure? But other than that, c’mon.
Bit of a Disappointment: Oops. I forgot to mention John Maine as a bit of a disappointment. I love the guy and think he’ll eventually turn it around. But boy, I expected him to be further along at this point. Five innings and he’s at 100+ pitches. What’s the deal?
disappointment- wagner, and santana. with the money we pay santana, he should have more wins than he does and fewer losses. and i dont even think i need to elaborate on why i think wagner is a disappointment. i agree with whoever said this team would be in first place without him, because mathamatically, it’s true.
my pleasant surprise- the firing of randolph, pelfrey coming on of late, and this little 9 game streak.
overall however, this year has been a stunning disappointment.
Pleasant Surprise—Pelfrey! Manuel! Nine-game win streak! (Didn’t think it was possible for them to win more than 2 in a row with the way they’ve played this first half.)
Biggest disappointments—their record at the break; the level of play and number of injuries for all their elder players: Martinez, Alou, Delgado and Hernandez. Pagan’s injury after his good start; the number of blown saves for Wagner; Reyes not making the All Star squad; lack of run support for Santana.
Pleasant Surprise: Fernando Tatis. I thought he was done, but my dad kept telling me he had something to give. I was wrong and I am pleasantly surprised. Giving some life to LF. The guy busts hit butt and had brought a lot of hustle to this team.
Biggest Disappointment: John Maine. I know, this is nitpicky, but we all knew Alou and Duque would be hurt. We all knew Castillo would break down. And we all knew that Ollie is a roller coaster ride. But after the spring training he had, following a very solid first full year as a starter, I was expecting a big year from Maine. He’s been solid, but not spectacular.
As for Pelfrey, I mean, the kid throws 95 with about as much effort as I use to toss socks in the hamper. His power sinker, when thrown down and in to righties, is unhittable. He has NEVER given up a HR to a RH hitter in his MLB career. Is it any surprise that once freed from the Jacket and allowed to be himself (ie: allowed to mix in his curve) that he has blossomed? Dude has serious stuff and was widely considered the best pitcher in the ‘05 draft. He barely started in the minors before being promoted to the big leagues and he has started to figure it out in his second full season. I love watching him pitch. No more BS mouth piece… grew out a beard… pounds the heck out of the zone, and just dominates hitters when he’s on. I am so happy Minaya held onto this guy.
I need to add one more to the disappointment list:
The way Omar Minaya handled Church’s second concussion.
After suffering a second concussion a short period of time after a serious concussion, Church should have been put on the 15 day DL instantly and allowed to properly recover.
as expected-Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Delgado (he will never be as consistent as he was 5 yrs ago but as a 6th place hitter 30/90 is fine by me)
Surprise-Pelfrey (who by the way started his surge under Jacket)
Disapointment-Maine and OP (they have not really built upon last yr, but perhpas OP will now that his head is not filled w/so many thoughts from Jacket)
Most pleasant surprise might be Gary Busey’s appearance in the Giuseppe Franco ad. I thought he was dead.
Pleasant: Pelfrey. Recent surges by Delgado and Heilman. Church first 6 weeks. Manuel seems a good fit. Santana being very good (he wasn’t too good in the second half last year). Easley. Reyes can hit although he still has flaws in his game.
Disappointments: Alou being injured so much (I expected 80 games). The Church concussion syndrome. Randolph being a misfit as manager and the way it was handled. Lack of hustle at times
Expected disappointment: Phil Mushnick in the paper founded by Alexander Hamilton, tells of a rich friend giving up season tickets to four box seats because of rising costs.
1993 $5,837
1998 $11, 836
2007 $23,702
2008 $33,300
2009 $60,000
Good thing he’s not a Yankee fan or he would be charged even more.
My answer to both parts of the question would have to be Ryan Church. I didn’t think he would be a full-time starter, especially not playing this well, and now he has been felled by a freak injury that was not diagnosed properly.
I still believed Pelfrey would have a chance to turn last season around for the better, and this nice little win streak is a good surprise, too. My disappointment in Willie comes in second, but the way the team has played under Manuel, at least in the last couple of weeks, has to wash that feeling away.
I am disappointed to find out through a little reading yesterday that Pelfrey has Scott Boras as his agent.
Biggest surprise: Pelfrey
Biggest disappointment: Brian Schneider’s defense. (But it’s hard to argue with his CS%)
Biggest surprise has to be how Petraglia finessed his way into using Sloppy’s computer. What a charmer.
Biggest disappointment has to the absence of the Mel character…he was my favorite. Hopefully, Buck can come around a little more.
Keith—I was thinking that Perez was, hands down, the biggest disappointment of the first half; but, after reading your thoughts about Pelfrey, I’m now wondering whether the Jacket himself was really the biggest disappointment…
speaking of Sloppy where did he go? Is he dead like it was thought Gary Busey was? Maybe he will reappear in the commercial w/G Franco.
Or did somebody take his computer?
Jacket positives
finding Joe smith’s mechanics again
reinventing Tom G
changing Feliciano into a sidearmer
getting OP straightened out for 1 yr
negatives
recommendation on Kazmir
recommendation on Zambrano
giving too much info and not listening to OP’s needs
trying to make Pelfrey into a one zone pitcher
some good some bad
biggest dissapointment: It took 84 games to start playing the way they’re capable of.
biggest surprise: it only took 84 games for them to start playing the way they’re capable of.
I am glad they are playing better. I am upset I havent seen as many games as i would have liked.
I am upset that people didnt realize Alou is old but he plays to win. but the body lets you know not to overextend. This is the issue with castillo and delgado. we need younger players.
We have a manager with spark and fire.
If the Mets Organization would just be honest and want to win and stay winning this could and should be a great team. Either way, I am blue and orange forever… we need to get back to the basic colors and the basic games.
oh yeah and to hell with the damned pitch count and inter-league. JD: set up those petitions for us to sign!
disappointment – Mets fans who think Santana is a disappointment because he doesn’t have the Wins. Take a look at his other numbers and the lack of run support.
surprise – Pelfrey, Church, Easley, Tatis.
Steve C: C’mon now…give Delgado alittle lovin…I was with you earlier during the year, I still am…but got to give credit where credit is due.
I saw Delgado range far to his left to cut off a ball in the hole last night. He is not just waving at balls going by anymore. Somebody has got him motivated.
Biggest disappointment – Moises Alou – sidelined again, sigh…
Biggest happy surprise – Pelfrey and Tatis.
Looking to the next few months…
Biggest potential disappointment – David Wright – c’mon man, you have to start cranking out the RBI’s again. Too many LOB lately and I fear that this mini-slump may go for a while.
Biggest potential happy surprise – The winning streak continues and the Mets streak goes 13-14 games moving into 1st place as the Phillies lose 5 straight.
JB – David has 70 rbi and is on pace to drive in 120.
that’s pretty good.
Plus, he’s got a couple of days off (he’s not going to play a lot tomorrow). That will help him rest.
Biggest Surprise: We are actually in the pennant race. Thank you Philly.
Biggest Disappointment: Aaron Heilman. We needed him to be the set up man and he failed spectacularly. Cant really say anyone else because they are playing to the level I expected.
Gary Busey – No not dead. But if you look real close he does look dead. Obviously his career is or why would he be on Franco’s commercial.
Uh, I don’t know anything about Gary Busey, I only know he used to act like an actor.
The biggest surprise thus far has been the emergence of Big Pelf. I really hope he carries this through to the second half of the season and is able to pitch well under the pennant race pressure.
My biggest disappointment has to be with the Met’s upper management’s mishandling of Ryan Church’s concussion and Willy Randolph’s firing. Ryan should never have boarded the plane to Colorado and Willy should not have taken the plane to California.
Biggest surprise- That Gary Busey isn’t deade!!! Have you seen him? looks like a zombie.
Biggest Disappointment- That the mets aren’t in first place by at least 5 games over the Philthies!!!
Ed-
I stand by my words.
As I said, it’s a mini-slump that I hope will not blow into a full blown slump. Yes, over the course of the year he’s on a good pace, but the last 6 games he has done absolutely nothing with men on base.
Wright’s last 6 games…
4 for 21, 0 RBI, 17 LOB.
A whopping 7 LOB in last Wednesday’s Mets 5-0 victory.
Over the course of the streak, aside from one 4-5 day against the Phillies, he hasn’t looked too good. I do hope he snaps out of it.
Surprises: Church and Pelfrey. Church was the best player on the team until the concussion and Pelfrey has been incredible lately. Hopefully Ryan can come back healthy.
Disappointment: I was going to say Castillo, but then I remembered that I really wasn’t expecting much to begin with, so I don’t know if he really has done any worse than I thought he would. I’d say the offense as a whole, definitely improved lately and hopefully they will keep it up, but there were too many stretches this season where they really struggled.
JB-
Agreed Wright has been struggling lately, but I wouldn’t read that much into just a weeks worth of games. And its actually good to see that he can struggle and the Mets can still win, b/c for the first 3 months of this season it seemed like if 2 out of the 3 of Reyes, Wright, Beltran didn’t have a great game, the Mets would lose. Now we are getting help from everyone which is crucial. Though I don’t see the Mets winning ways lasting all that long without help from Wright so hopefully the slump won’t last long. He’s probably one of the few on the team who could use the 3 day break right now.
Such a small stretch of time that I wouldn’t even call it a mini-slump. Overthinking it deeply.
Surprise: Church and BigPelf
Disappointment: The whole season except for the last 2 weeks.
Wright against RHP:
2008 .249/.334/.438
career .298/.374/.
.509
Disappointment: the overly what have you done for me lately feeling at Shea.
Boo all April and Cheer all July. Can’t wait ‘till the boo’s reign over Shea and make me embarrassed to be a fan.
Surprise: that Wright never gets boo’d when he hits into a rally-killing double play.
A unexpected comment from Larry, “Lots of players are wistful about Yankee Stadium being replaced in 2009. Atlanta third baseman Chipper Jones is one of a small group of people who are sorry to see its New York neighbor, Shea Stadium, go by the wayside.
The Mets’ home park will give way to Citi Field next April. That’s a sad development for Jones, who has a career .310 batting average and a .561 slugging percentage at Shea Stadium. He’s so partial to the place, he named his third son Shea.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things,’’ Jones said. “I hit my first major league homer there, and the Mets and Braves have had so many epic battles over the years. It’s a place where I really enjoyed playing. And I love the name, so it made sense.’’
On Monday, Jones approached Mets PR director Jay Horwitz about getting a Shea Stadium seat or sign that he can put in his son’s room at home. Sometime this summer Jones hopes to bring Shea—who’ll turn 4 in August—to Flushing Meadow for a farewell tour.
“I want to get him up here and walk him around before they tear it down,’’ Jones said.—Jerry Crasnick
Went to the parade today.
Saw the kid and hammerin hank. we were chanting home run king for him
also saw the cincy hustler, no one seemed to care.
Ol’ sneaky pete never made too many friends in New York. Hope to see some Orange and Blue in the game today. NL must win today!!
Tiffany, my biggest disappointment with the Jacket was trying to bend everyone to his will. For a dude who is supposed to be Zen, that seems to be a very un-Zen like way of going about things.
Ultimately, he had a good run here, but I think guys like Pelfrey and Ollie just got tired of his act and started to tune him out. My biggest problem with him was taking guys like Maine, Pelfrey, and Ollie (all guys with plus fastballs and plus stuff) and turning them into control guys. These guys, with their rising fastball, power sinker, and slider respectively, have filthy pitches they can just throw to an area and let their movement/stuff take over. By making these guys nibble they were constantly behind in the count and were not pitching aggressively.
The bottom line with these three is if they would just challenge hitters they would win the battle on pure stuff alone, more often than not. They got into trouble when they got into hitters counts and had to throw meat.
Keith—I agree regarding Peterson’s attempts to turn that trio into control pitchers, rather than just letting them getting by with their stuff. That said, it’s worth noting that their pitchers weren’t suffering any significant arm injuries during Peterson’s tenure. I cringed the other night watching Pelfrey throw almost 120 pitches with a seven-run lead, and I have to wonder whether Ollie’s new delivery is an injury waiting to happen. Peterson tended to error on the side of caution, and I’m wondering whether there was some wisdom to his approach.
Would’ve been nice if Wright actually had a three day break. But he batted 4 times last night, much more than he expected, I’m sure.
I was happy that he got a hit, even if it was a blooper. It would have been a shame had the game ended after he struck out twice.
Tiffany, I disagree on OP’s new delivery. if anything it should put less stress on his arm b/c he is not throwing acrossed his body and he is using more of his legs (his velocity is up)...
Tiffany and “no arm injuries”: Pedro and Zambrano don’t count, I guess?
I liked Peterson, and was a bit wary when they dumped him, but so far it looks like Omar’s still smarter than me…
Biggest Surprise—That the Mets’ highest-paid position player is mentioned only twice on this thread.
Both Zambrano and Pedro arrived with their respective arm injuries. In Pedro’s case, they knew he had a frayed labrum and still gave him the fourth year. With Zambrano, his elbow was so bad that he avoided his throwing his most dominant pitch, the slider. Can’t blame Peterson for veteran pitchers who were already hurt. Maine, Perez and Pelfrey are the guys to watch.