Always Look on the Bright Side: Weekly Review
Cheer up Met fans, a special Always Look on the Bright Side edition of the Met Wiki Weekly Quickie!
The Mets showed great fight this week, highlighted by two six-run comebacks. On Tuesday, a 6 run 8th turned a 6-2 deficit into an 8-6 victory. On Sunday the Mets scored six in the sixth and seventh to turn a 7-0 deficit into a 7-6 deficit, on their way to a 10-8 loss. John Maine became the first pitcher in almost 10 years to start a game by throwing 12 balls, but he established himself as the Mets number 3 starter by giving up just 8 runs in 11 innings this week. Niese and Perez combined to give up 17 runs -- only 15 of them earned -- in 9 2/3 over their 3 starts. Jeff Francoeur's .083 On Base Percentage this week was only four points lower than his Slugging Percentage. Over the past month Jeff hit .125 with a .188 Slugging Percentage, with 3 walks and 23 strikeouts. That's good news because it might be bad enough for the Mets to realize they should start somebody else at least against righties, maybe Chris Carter. 
In actual good news, for the third time in his young career Ike Davis made a nice catch falling into the dugout, this time for the final out of a Met victory. Excellent weeks for Johan Santana, Raul Valdes, Jason Bay, Alex Cora, Angel Pagan, Chris Carter, and even Gary Matthews Jr. But just nudging out Bay for the player of week, for the third week in a row, is Rod Barajas. Rod led Met regulars in hitting, On Base Percentage and OPS this week. He also had the big hit in the Mets' victory, the game tying 2 run double, after which he scored the go-ahead run.
Mets schedule week starting May 17
The Mets head north this week, stopping in Atlanta and DC before coming to face the Yankees and then Phillies. Good news: Pelfrey and Santana pitch the next 2 games. More good news: that sets them up to face the Yankees this weekend. Even more good news: that sets them up to miss the Phillies, who hammered them a few weeks ago. Unclear who will join Maine in starting against the Phillies, but it's a good bet that the Mets' long relievers will get a lot of work.
It's looking increasingly unlikely that the Mets will miss the postseason this year because of a late season collapse. By going 1 and 6 this week they dropped to 6 games back of the Phillies. Final piece of good news: all those Met fans whom we thought had no souls because they thought 2010 would be a repeat of 2009? Well, now they look like optimists, so good for them.
This has been the Met Wiki Weekly Quickie. Thanks for reading. See you next Monday.
Mets Would Be Idiots to Buy at the Deadline
The Mets have made some of the worst trades in history. And the 2009 Mets have made enough bad plays to make the early 60s look like their glory days. So But trading prospects for somebody to help them win this year would make those other blunders look small.
Do the Mets have a shot this year? Sure, the Miracle Mets almost invented the phrase Ya Never Know. But you only compromise the future when you're just one guy away from an almost guaranteed deep postseason run. That's not this year's Mets. The saddest thing about the Kazmir trade was how stupid it was to trade a prospect when the Mets were such long shots.
In fact, the Mets would be sellers if they had anybody to sell. But that would require established healthy talent towards the end of their contracts. The Mets have nothing of the kind.
If it's only money, the Mets should buy. They have room before hitting the luxury cap threshold. They're a big market team that can spend a little more. If they can get say Adam Dunn for some mid-level prospects not much better than the guys they'd get as compensation if they lose Dunn to free agency, I'm in.
People like saying New York fans have no patience. First of all, that's not true. Just look at how the fans came out for the Knicks this year. What New York fans can't tolerate is a team with no present and no future that doesn't even make the routine plays. Second, it doesn't matter whether or not New York fans have patience. As the Knicks proved so brilliantly (hey, at least they were brilliant about something) blaming your fans' lack of patience doesn't make mortgaging the future any less stupid and damaging.
The Mets have been devastated by injuries, and their healthy veterans joined in the blunderfest that has been 2009. If they don't recover this year, so be it. If they sacrifice the future to try to salvage this year, they'll have made an even bigger blunder.
Image courtesy of cliff1066
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