Break up the core….wtf?

Not even some, but many, many people seem to be suggesting that the Mets should ‘break up the core’ and that they are not going to win anything with players who lack ‘heart’ and ‘grit’. This ire seems mainly focused on Wright who, just like every year, has had a (relatively poor) April, with many strikeouts and few home runs – but he is still hitting aroun .300 with a .380 OBP. Omar Minaya doesn’t help with these kind of comments – watching the ‘collapse’ last year, no player looked as upset as Wright, and arguably no Mets player had a better September. And did Omar really bring in Cora and Sheffield to make up for the lack of heart of Reyes and Wright? Surely all Cora and Sheffield bring to the team is age and declining skills?

The Mets clearly have some problems, or else they wouldn’t have a 10-12 record. But these problems are not the core (Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Santana) but many of the other 21 players on the roster. Consider this: While 2007 was a collapse, in 2008 the Mets arguably overachieved. Remember, this is a team that missed out on the playoffs by one game, and finished 2 games behind the World Series Champions, and did this while having half a season of Willie Randolph’s mismanagement, half a season of a useless Delgado (and half a season of a good one), no regular RF after Church was concussed, an underperforming Castillo, John Maine on the DL and four of Omars aging veterans, who were supposed to form 2/5 of the rotation and the starting LF (El Duque, Pedro, Alou and Marlon Anderson) sucking because they were too old. And still, if Wagner hadn’t broken down, the Mets would surely have blown one less save, and made the playoffs. This suggests to me that either the Mets were extremely lucky in 2007, or the core is really, really good. I’d go for the latter – Wright is second only to A-Rod at 3B, but is considerably younger, Beltran is the best CF in the game (toss-up with Sizemore), Reyes is second to Hanley Ramirez at SS, but may be able to stick at the position longer, and Santana is the best SP in baseball. So on a day when Santana is starting, 4 out of the 9 positions in baseball are filled by pretty much the best player possible – I don’t think any other team in baseball can claim that, and therefore this should not be a team that struggles, but should be a lock in for the playoffs every year.

But, if the Mets overachieved in 2008, they clearly had problems that needed to be addressed in the off season. The bullpen, the most glaring problem, has been upgraded, and looks significantly better. However, one of the reasons the bullpen was so bad last year was because it was so overused (Feliciano appeared in 82 games last year, the most of any pitcher, Heilman wasn’t far behind). One of the reasons for this was because aside from Santana and Pelfrey, no Mets pitcher could go with any regularity into or beyond the 6th inning, and relievers were often pitching more than 3 innings in a game. Bringing back the same rotation as 2008, with Livan Hernandez replacing Pedro Martinez, and expecting an improvement was not a good plan – this required Pelfrey to continue to be as good as the latter part of 2008, and Maine and Perez to improve. This is why resigning Perez was a mistake – even if he was as ‘good’ as in 2008 (when he was exactly league average), his inability to pitch deep into games would still wear out the bullpen and hurt the Mets. Unfortunately Omar’s neglect of/inability to build a farm system leaves the Mets with no ready in house solutions (Niese, Gee and Holt may be ready someday). In the off season Lowe, Sabathia and Burnett would’ve been an improvement over Perez, while the likes of Randy Wolf, Randy Johnson and Jon Garland could have been as average as Perez for less money.

The other problem seems to be the large number of runners left in scoring position; I think this may mainly be a case of small sample size and bad luck – Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Church and Murphy have decent averages, so are getting the hits. However, it may also be that the Mets are not getting the ‘big hits’ – singles and ‘productive outs’ are moving the runners, but without extra base hits, the Mets are not getting the runners home before they run out of outs. They need another big hitter – if Delgado, Wright and Reyes aren’t getting these big hits, they struggle. The power hitters in a team are usually hidden in the outfield where any defensive liability is hidden. The Mets have a CF who has much more power than your average CF, but Murphy (2 Hr in 2008, 2 Hr in 2009) doesn’t have the power to be a LF, while Church in RF has 1 Hr so far, and doesn’t seem to have rediscovered the pop that made him the Mets most productive player before his concussion. With Castillo and Schneider completing the line-up, no wonder the Mets don’t score runs.

So what should the Mets do now? Sign Ben Sheets once/if he is healthy. Look to pick up some pitchers who have fallen out of favour (like Perez and Maine when they originally came to the Mets). And clutch at straws and hope Perez improves (he can hardly get worse), or that Redding and Niese come up and can pitch deep into games. Tatis should probably play more, Sheffield should pinch hit rather than actually play in the outfield. And the Mets should also consider trading Murphy. As a 3B he has no place on the team, while he lacks the power to be a LF (although given a chance he could be valuable as a 2B). If the Mets carry on playing as they are, and are close to .500 at the trade deadline, what they absoultely should not do is decide they are in contention and trade their farm system for a rental to get them into the playoffs. Instead they should become sellers, and offload any of the old guys they can – Delgado, Feliciano, Schneider, Castillo, Sheffield, Cora, Perez(!), Tatis, Castro etc, giving up on 2009 to be ready for 2010 and beyond.