This snowbound day has made for a flurry of writing.
A-hem.
Anyway, Ted Berg's thoughts about the Mets' offseason prompted me to comment (along with 56 other comments, if not commenters, to that point), but as I thought more about it, I thought I'd elaborate (beginning with what I wrote over there).
With all the doom-and-gloom discussion of this offseason (and I've been there myself), Berg's thoughts needed to be said. Thanks for that. At this point, with Spring Training about to start, I feel the need to step back and not worry about what could have or should have been done (though, to me, the biggest mistake was not bringing in a whole new medical staff), and instead let this team get through the spring and start the season. What they have now is not that much different from 2008, when they went down to the last day of the season in the race. Of the changes between then and now, most of them are upgrades: Jason Bay is an improvement over Moises Alou & The Replacements, Jeff Francoeur is better than Ryan Church and K-Rod tops the Bullpen by Kablooey (trademark pending) that was the undoing in '08.
I think the 2010 Mets will fall somewhere between disaster (2009's 70 wins) and excellence (2006's 97 wins). With their luck, it will probably be heartbreak (2007-08's average 88.5 wins). And there's a lot that can happen between now and October 3, not just for the Mets (good or bad), but four other teams in the NL East and 15 others in the National League. Who knows -- maybe we're in for a surprise, a team no one thought much of that gets every thing it needs from each component to put together a season it has no business having.
Dare to dream.Labels: Hot Stove, Mets