Matthew Deutschman's New York Mets fan blog

Part Four:  The Maestro

           Has Omar Minaya been a good general manager of the New York Mets?  Well, for one, he didn’t trade Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano.  No, when he traded the Mets’ top prospects, he got a much better return—Johan Santana anyone?

           Since Minaya took over GM duties for the Mets, Santana hasn’t been his only impressive acquisition.  He also brought in Pedro Martinez, who restored the Mets to some respectability and allowed him to sign Carlos Beltran, and he traded for Carlos Delgado, another instrumental part of the core of the Mets team that has been competitive every season with Minaya on board.  Other useful acquisitions include Paul LoDuca, Darren Oliver, Jose Valentin, Duaner Sanchez, John Maine, Oliver Perez, Endy Chavez, Ryan Church, Damion Easley and Fernando Tatis.

Continue reading "In The Aftermath Of The Collapse - Part Four: The Maestro"

With the regular and postseason over, and the hot stove not quite on fire just yet, it’s a perfect time to pick my regular season award winners for the 2008 season.  Here are my MVP picks.

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

American League:  Justin Morneau (1B, MIN) .300 BA, 23 HR, 129 RBI

           For the second time in three years, the Twins’ Justin Morneau put together an MVP season.  On a team largely dependent on speed, pitching and defense, Morneau led the way offensively with 187 hits, 47 doubles, 23 homers, 129 RBI, and an .873 OPS.  The only Twin to play in all 163 games, he was by far the most potent bat in Minnesota’s lineup and carried the team to a surprise appearance in a one-game playoff with the White Sox for the AL Central title.  Morneau scored 97 runs and was the only player on the Twins to drive in more than 85 runs, and one of just three Twins to hit double digits in home runs.

Continue reading "MVP Award Picks"

           On June 16 the Mets defeated the Angels to pull within one game of .500, at 34-35, but more importantly they made a managerial change that would alter the scope of their season.

           Up until that night in Anaheim, the underachieving Mets seemed to be playing through a haze, still haunted by the demons of the 2007 collapse.  Each and every loss was rife with heartbreak and every win included threats of the same.  Starting with the first loss of the season, rumors and uncertainties about Willie Randolph’s job security swirled around the Mets and ran rampant throughout the intense New York media.

           With every loss Randolph moved closer and closer to the edge, and became more and more noticeably distressed in his dealings with the prodding media.  His insecurity came to a head in early June, when he mistakenly made some off-hand remarks that were construed to mean he thought he was treated unfairly by the SNY broadcast team, the media and the Mets’ organization in part due to his race.  Naturally, his comments, although somewhat taken out of context, did nothing other than add fuel to the fire.

Continue reading "In the Aftermath Of The Collapse - Part Three: The Skipper"

Part Two:  The Core

     After the Mets collapsed in 2007 Omar Minaya made several changes to the roster, the most notable of which was, of course, acquiring Johan Santana.  The Mets came one win shy of a post-season berth in 2007, and the obvious presumption was that Santana would have increased the Mets’ win total by, at the very least, one win.  So after going 88-74 in ’07, the Mets went 89-73 in ’08, and once again coughed up a division lead late in the season and finished one win shy of the promised land.

     With Willie Randolph already fired mid-season, fans and media types have had to search elsewhere for a scapegoat.  As a result, many have opined that the Mets’ core of offensive talent (Jose Reyes, David Wright and Carlos Beltran) is simply unable to take the team to the next level, and should be broken up via trades.  Let’s take a look at what getting rid of those players would mean for the Mets, one by one.

Continue reading "In The Aftermath Of The Collapse - Part Two: The Core"

    First of all, sorry again to those of you who were reading my blog regularly and missed it (if there are any of you out there).  I'm actually working on another project right now as well.  For those of you who are into fantasy sports, check out www.FantasyPhenoms.com.  I've been writing weekly fantasy football columns previewing and recapping each NFL game from a fantasy perspective, and I may be writing other various articles for both fantasy football and fantasy baseball.  Fantasy Phenoms is a really great resource for fantasy advice and insights, especially for baseball, where we have provide some really in-depth sabermetric analysis.  A lot of the articles are free to access but some require a membership.  If you're interesting in a membership (very cheap), shoot me an email (mdeutschman@gmail.com) and I'll give you my promo code.

Continue reading "In The Aftermath Of The Collapse"

    Flash back to five days ago:

    The Mets just swept a two-game series from the Nationals, scoring 23 runs in the two games, and stand 3.5 games atop the National League East.  The Phillies, who just dropped back to back games against the Marlins, are four games behind New York in the loss column.  The Brewers, who are in the midst of a rough stretch, themselves, are still four games up on the Astros and Phillies in the Wild Card race, but who cares about the Wild Card?  The Mets don't need to worry about the pity playoff spot when they're poised to win the division, right?

    Flash to the present:

    The Mets have lost three in a row and four of the last five.  The Phillies have won five straight, including a four-game sweep of Milwaukee, and start the day in first place in the NL East by a half game.  The Brewers, who are in a freefall, have sunk to a half game behind the Mets in the Wild Card race.  Good thing there's always the Wild Card, because otherwise the Mets would be out of a playoff spot.

Continue reading "Mets In First Place...For The Wild Card?"

    The Mets have lost two in a row and three out of four, and have watched their lead in the NL East shrink to just a half game over the Phillies.  New York's 13 remaining games include three with the Nationals, three with the Braves, four with the Cubs and three with the Marlins.  You can't put an exact number on how many games the Mets will need to win the rest of the way in order to make the playoffs--one more than the Phillies will suffice.  Mike Pelfrey, Johan Santana and Oliver Perez, the Mets' three most dependable starters, will likely combine for eight starts down the stretch, with Pedro Martinez, Jon Niese and anyone's guess filling out the remaining five.  New York will need strong, deep outings from their big three, and lots of offense in the other five games in order to avoid leaving their playoff hopes in the hands of the bullpen.  Of course, a little help from Philadelphia's opponents couldn't hurt, but the Mets need to be able to take care of their own business.  If they can't win enough games on their own to hold their divisional lead, then they don't deserve to play baseball in October anyway.

Continue reading "Mets Cling To First Place With Lucky 13 Games Left"

I apologize to those of you who have missed reading my blog over the last couple of weeks.  But I'm back with a vengeance, and I'll be writing through October and into the hot stove off-season.

    Since coming over from the Nats, Luis Ayala turned his season around and looked great in the closer role for the Mets.  Until last night.  Casey Kotchman, who was 6-9 in the series despite his .219 batting average since joining the Braves in the Mark Teixiera trade, and pinch hitter Kelly Johnson, the resident Met-killer, led off the ninth with back-to-back singles off Ayala.  Then Greg Norton stepped up to the plate as a pinch hitter, and belted a line drive over the right field fence on the eighth pitch of the at-bat.  The home run gave the Braves a 5-4 lead, and the blown save was Ayala's second, and the 27th of the season for the Mets' bullpen.  The two runs Atlanta tacked on against Pedro Feliciano were just gravy, as the Mets came up empty in the bottom of the ninth against Mike Gonzalez.  Meanwhile, the Phillies swept a double header from the Brewers to pull within a game of the Mets (two in the loss column) for the lead in the NL East.

Continue reading "Ayala Joins The Blown Save Party"

    With two outs in the top of the eighth inning it looked like the Mets would leave Philadelphia last night with their collective tail between their legs.  Brad Lidge, who still hasn't blown a save all season, was warming up in the Phillies' pen, and the New York offense had only mustered two runs and 12 hits in the previous 16.2 innings, going back to the fifth inning of Tuesday's game.  But Carlos Delgado, who had homered in the sixth to cut Philly's lead to 3-2, sliced a liner over the left field fence to tie the game at three and spark the Mets's offense.  Carlos Beltran followed with an infield hit, and stole second.  With first base open, Brad Lidge walked Ryan Church intentionally, but Daniel Murphy made him pay, doubling down the right field line to bring home Beltran with the go-ahead run.  The hit parade continued with Brian Schneider's flare to left, which put the icing on the cake.  New York's four-run eighth inning clinched a two-game split in Philadelphia, and catapulted the Mets back into first place by a half game.

Continue reading "Delgado's Two Bombs Save The Day"

    Remember July 7, when the Mets nearly blew a 10-1 lead against the Phillies, and barely held on by the skin of their teeth to win 10-9?  Well last night was very similar--but not similar enough, because the main difference was that yesterday the Mets actually pulled off the monumental collapse that they were able to avoid on that July night.  Although the bullpen will probably take the most heat for this loss, every facet of the Mets' play was at fault last night.  The 8-7, 13-inning loss highlighted the Mets' three biggest problems throughout this season.

1)  Starters not going deep enough into games:  Lately this has not been as much of a problem because Jerry Manuel has been pushing his starters farther, and the rotation has simply been pitching well enough to warrant that kind of confidence.  But Pedro Martinez's horrendous five innings last night were unacceptable.  Pedro is a very important part of this team, especially now that John Maine is hurt again.  He tends to give up runs early, and then settle down, but when he loses steam, he loses it very quickly.  After working out of a jam in the first inning last night it seemed as if Pedro had found his groove, but he ran up his pitch count early and by the fifth inning was throwing batting practice.  If Pedro is healthy (and he says he is), he will need to give the Mets more quality innings going forward.  Five-inning starts expose a bullpen as unreliable as the Mets'.

Continue reading "Seven Runs: Too Little, Too Early"