A farewell to Ollie

I guess we can blame that cab driver in Miami. If it weren't for that accident that cost Duaner Sanchez the final two months of the 2006 season, Omar Minaya wouldn't have had to make the trade for Roberto Hernandez, who didn't come to Queens alone. Whether Hernandez himself wasn't enough value for Xavier Nady, a starting right fielder, or whether Oliver Perez was a throw-in, the young lefty came along with the setup man needed to fill a hole in the bullpen and help the Mets end the Braves' run atop the NL East.

In baseball, young, hard-throwing left-handers are sexy by nature, so we didn't think of Perez as a throw-in or an extra piece at the time. Hernandez was old -- 41, in the penultimate season of his career -- and Perez seemed to be the future benefit of the trade, a potential rotation stalwart ... if he could only harness his heat and learn to control that fastball.

By the end of the 2006 season, the future seemed to have arrived. Perez started two games that postseason, earning the win with 5 2/3 servicable innings (despite giving up five runs) in the Mets' 12-5 Game 4 victory in St. Louis and pitching a stellar six innings, allowing one run on four hits, in that fateful 3-1 Game 7 loss. All told that postseason, he walked three in 11 2/3 innings.

He went 15-10 with a 3.56 ERA in 2007, striking out 174 in 177 innings and maintaining a manageable 1.31 WHIP, thanks to 79 walks. There were 22 home runs allowed, too. But in 2008, despite a league-leading 34 starts, he was just 10-7 with a 4.22 ERA and an alarming 1.40 WHIP. The 180 strikeouts in 194 innings still looked nice, but a league-leading 105 walks and 24 home runs stood out more.

Yet there was something -- the .158 batting average left-handers compiled against him? -- that still made him attractive to Minaya and the Mets but, it appeared, to no other team. At least not to the tune of three years at $12 million per. What I would give to see the binder compiled by agent Scott Boras that offseason that convinced the Mets that such a deal was worth it.

And here we are today, the day the deal no longer became worth anything -- the headaches, the frustration, the stubborn refusal to accept a Minor League assignment. It's still worth $12 million to Oliver Perez, but today was the day it was decided that money was better spent ensuring he would not pitch than when or where he would. In the end, the Mets got next to nothing for their $36 million, and broken down into yearly increments, the best $12 million spent is probably this year's, the season that brings peace of mind knowing that we won't have to watch No. 46 throw the fifth pitch of the game (or an earlier one) from the stretch.

(Quick side note: I have a promise to myself to buy an authentic Mets jersey with the name and number of the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter for the franchise, in the style worn when he accomplishes the feat. And yes, that means if it happens while they team is decked out in those horrendous black tops, I will purchase a black jersey. But more than that, I feared that somehow, it would read PEREZ 46 on the back. Hey, if Edwin Jackson can do it, and if A.J. Burnett can work around 10 walks to do it, anyone can.)

Looking back, the last good game Perez pitched for the Mets came on either Aug. 7, 2009 (6 1/3 innings, two hits, one run, two walks and seven strikeouts) or April 16, 2010 (6 1/3, four hits, one run, three walks, four strikeouts). The Mets lost the 2009 game, 6-2, to the Padres and dropped the 2010 game, 4-3, to the Cardinals, but neither one was on the starter. Those two games mark the only instances Perez recorded an out beyond the sixth inning of a game he started over the life of his three-year, $36-million deal. Let that sink in for a moment.

His last win as a Met (as a Major Leaguer?) came on Aug. 18, 2009, after five innings and four runs on five hits and a walk against the Braves in a 9-4 triumph. Of his 17 appearances in 2010, only one came in a Mets win, his fourth game (and start) on April 27 in the second game of a doubleheader with the Dodgers. He allowed three runs on three hits and four walks in 3 2/3 innings in a game the Mets went on to win, 10-5. And how appropriate that his final official pitch in a Mets uniform was ball four with the bases loaded to force in what would prove to be the winning run for the Nationals in the final game of the 2010 season.

And so we now close the book on Oliver Perez, New York Met, for good. For the greater good, actually, of the team, of the fans. Unless the Mets return home from their season-opening road trip with an 0-6 record (crap, it just hit me that such a scenario shouldn't be waved aside), we should be able to get through team introductions on April 8 with minimal booing. (I wanted to write "without any booing," but then I remembered that it will be the first time we see Francisco Rodriguez in uniform since last August, so ... yeah.)

But to end on a positive note, I will say this about Oliver Perez: If it's true that the Mets' starting pitcher is the one who decides what uniform the team will wear (and there are conflicting reports on who has decided that over the years), I've seen very few images of Perez pitching in the black jersey. And for that, I can say, Thank you, Ollie.

See for yourself (the first nine photos, up to and including the foul-line leap, are mine):

(Yes, that was meant to be ironic ... or not, if you know the true title to the song.)

The shadows are creeping in

Some fans and beat writers are looking at this road trip to Atlanta and Philadelphia as a make-or-break stretch of six games in the Mets' season.

But I think it's already broken.

This isn't just about yesterday's debacle against the D-backs, which, had things been a bit different (say, New York had won five out of six from Arizona, with yesterday being the one loss), might otherwise be looked at as just a learning experience for Jon Niese. The young lefty still threw 51 of 83 pitches for strikes and should soon learn how to get a left-hander out even after two straight hits. Mets Police and Metsgrrl (not to mention a kick-ass headline on the game recap) have summed up pretty well how I felt sitting out there in Queens yesterday. I'm sure there are plenty of other good summations, but I can't bring myself to read anymore.

But yesterday's events confirmed for me what might be the core problems of this team.

I'm not part of the camp that thinks a roster overhaul is in order, that trading David Wright or Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran is what is needed to get things going in the right direction. Those guys -- particularly Wright and Reyes -- are the core and that's who they need to build around to get back on top of the NL East. And I'm glad they stood their ground at the trading deadline, not making a move for the sake of making a move (which it sounds like this one guy behind me yesterday wanted to see). Dealing a few mid-level prospects for a Jake Westbrook or Ted Lilly or Chad Qualls wasn't going to make up four or five games in the standings. Besides, it sounds like whoever the Mets contacted to sniff out a trade was asking for Niese or Ike Davis -- or both -- as a starting point. No, thank you.

And I'm not sure the Mets had too many tradeable veterans to send away to bring back a young player or two. Pedro Feliciano was probably the most attractive candidate, and maybe he could have been moved, but relief pitching is at a premium, and if this team is a few offseason moves away from fielding a legitimate contender, Feliciano is going to be part of that foundation. Francisco Rodriguez is probably untradeable (and, I'm sorry, for all his faults, he's not really any worse than most other closers. Overpaid? Sure, as are pretty much all ninth-inning guys not named Rivera). Jeff Francoeur? He can be dealt in August -- and he just might be, once we all get a look at the standings on Sunday night.

So I'm fine with the lack of activity at the deadline, because these three key problems aren't solvable in a July trade or two.

1.) Three particularly bad contracts are holding Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel hostage. That is, they don't have the flexibility to improve the roster with the three-headed albatross of Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo and Alex Cora. Ollie and Castillo are untradeable, unless the Mets get another bad contract back in return. And for the money they're making -- at least that Perez is -- it's hard to designate them for assignment and eat that money, whether or not you believe the team is in financial straits because of the Madoff mess. Still, no one who was at the ballpark yesterday would care if they heard tonight that one or both was booted off the roster. And Cora, as a versatile backup infielder (even if he can't hit), isn't a bad contract for one year, but when he's starting 41 of the 61 games he's appeared in (numbers that should, at the very least, be reversed) and when he has a terrible vesting option that becomes guaranteed as soon as he plays in that 80th or 81st game, then it's a bad contract, because then you're stuck with a .200 hitter again next season.

The one tarnished silver lining I can find in these deals is that Omar stood his ground when Bengie Molina wouldn't take the Mets' one-year offer. (Though Cora's deal was also done this offseason, which doesn't help matters.)

2.) The faith in John Maine in the rotation -- and, relatedly, Perez, too -- helped sink the Mets this season. I don't think there was any question as to whether Maine would make the rotation this spring, or that he would be the No. 2 starter. Maine's ceiling may have once been as a No. 2, but he had done nothing since 2007 to show that potential. Going into spring training with Maine and Perez as the Nos. 2 and 3 didn't help. A contending team needs those slots to be rock-solid firm, not based on potential and hope for a bounce-back season. Mike Pelfrey and Niese certainly pitched like consistent top-of-the-rotation starters in the first half, but if Pelfrey doesn't get over this dead-arm period (or whatever it is) and Niese doesn't rebound from Sunday, the Mets can't go into 2011 with those two as the rock-solid Nos. 2 and 3.

This has been discussed elsewhere this season, but the Mets are pretty lucky that they didn't overpay (in dollars or years) for some of the free-agent pitchers that we were all clamoring for in the offseason, myself included. Jason Marquis hasn't pitched for the Nationals since April, I think; Ben Sheets is done for the year; and John Lackey would have been way too many dollars for certainly too many years. Joel Pineiro (10-7, 4.18 for the Angels) and Jon Garland (10-7, 3.60 for the Padres) would have helped keep Hisanori Takahashi in the bullpen, but would either have really made that much of a difference? (Both might have, but then Niese would be something like 12-2 for Buffalo right now.) Which brings us to my third key problem that has soured 2010 ...

3.) Why can't this team win on the road? At 20-33, the Mets are playing .377 ball on the road. Want to know who has better winning percentages away from their home parks? Toronto, Kansas City, Cleveland, Oakland, Milwaukee, the Cubs, Houston, Houston, Colorado and the Dodgers. The Mets are playing .635 baseball at home, better than everyone but the Braves, Phillies, Yankees, Cardinals and Rockies. If the Mets could play just close to .500 on the road (I'm talking 26-27 at this point, if they'd won six more games -- how about three in Arizona, one in Puerto Rico, and one each in San Francisco and Los Angeles), they'd be a half-game out of first as they begin a three-game set at Turner Field.

With such a difference in home and road winning percentage (at a .257 difference, the only teams with bigger gaps are the Tigers, .346; Braves, .285; Cardinals, .275; and Rockies, .276; and Atlanta leads baseball with a .723 winning percentage at home!) I don't know how that can be explained by anything other than the manager and coaching staff. As explained in Nos. 1 and 2, Manuel is a bit hamstrung because of some of the players on his roster, but if they can win 63 percent of their games at home, they shouldn't be losing 63 percent on the road. As much as I love Howard Johnson, he has to shoulder some of the blame when the team is shut out three times on the same road trip for the first time since the early '90s, or whenever it was. And then they added a fourth shutout for good measure. And Manuel, who I gave credit to when he had the team in first place back at the end of April and within half a game as late as June 27, has to do something to get this club a winning road trip. His refusal to use K-Rod for anything but a save situation in a tie game on the road is maddening. What's the point of keeping Rodriguez for a save situation that only might appear when Ryota Igarashi or Raul Valdes is taking the loss in the bottom of the ninth or 10th?


And so that's how I see it. Others may not agree, but for some reason I like to find two or three points that seem to be the root cause of the problem. I guess it's something of a baseball butterfly effect -- had things been different in these particular instances, then maybe, just maybe, everything would have turned out better in the end (or to this point).

As for this road trip, I can't see how anyone thinks this time will be any better than the last one. It's now August. There are two months left in the season, 29 home games and 28 road games (if I counted and subtracted correctly in my head). If the Mets play at their current rates at home and on the road, they'd go 51-30 at Citi and 30-51 on the road. Yes, folks, that's a .500 season. Except, for this road trip to "make" them, they need to do no worse than 4-2. There's not enough time left to break even in six games in Atlanta and Philly, not when there is another trip to each one still to come. They have to make close ground, winning two out of three at each stop this week. They can't afford any steps back.

And I don't think they can do it. The sun may not have set on this season, but it's casting some very long shadows.

My one final thought to wrap up this discourse is this: After the heartbreak of 2007 and '08 and the frustration of nothing going right in 2009, I just wanted a competent, competitive team. I let myself get excited over first place at the end of April and half a game out five weeks ago. I enjoy it when my teams are winning and I can't stand to criticize and nitpick their faults. I know someone who gets worked up over every at-bat, nearly every pitch. I just can't be a fan like that. I just wanted a team that had a chance to finish a strong second in the division, to look down on the Braves or Phillies, even if it meant the other one was on top and some team from the West was the Wild Card winner.

So much for that. Guess I'll have to look for some room on that Reds bandwagon. It'd be nice to see some fresh blood make some noise in October.


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Banking on the signing of Bay

I like the Mets' signing of Jason Bay. I really do. I know they need a starting pitcher, because Oliver Perez has a long way to go to prove he's anything more than a cash suck and Jonathan Niese is probably not the No. 5 starter they need right now, but Bay was another big piece.

SI's Lee Jenkins puts it well:

By reportedly agreeing to a contract with left fielder Jason Bay on Tuesday, the Mets do not necessarily change the power structure in their city or their division. But they do change the conversation. The Mets, and not the Yankees, have made the splashiest move of the offseason in New York. The Mets, and not the Phillies, have made the most significant offensive addition in the National League East. At a time when other big-market teams are hoarding nickels, the Mets identified the player they wanted, pursued him aggressively but not foolishly, and landed him for a relatively fair price.

Matt Holliday would not have come for a fair price (and would not have been as good a fit, as Jenkins goes on to say), and the perceived remaining top starter available, Joel Pineiro, is not available for a fair price at the moment, either. As I wrote earlier, I think the Mets missed their window to get a reliable starter at a fair price, and now they'll have to look to more reasonable alternatives to Pineiro (unless his demands come down). Maybe incentive-laden deals to the likes of Ben Sheets and Erik Bedard are in order, but I'm sure fans would prefer to see someone who comes into Spring Training with no recent surgeries from which to rehabilitate.

In joining the Mets, Bay comes full-circle. This may not be the final stop of his career, but for now he's back with one of two teams that had him before he first became known as a prospect in the Padres' system. As many have noted, Omar Minaya was the Expos' GM when Bay was in their organization, his first. Then Minaya traded him to the Mets, who sent him on to San Diego. It was with the Padres that his potential was revealed, and Kevin Towers used Bay -- and Oliver Perez -- as the key prospects in the deal to land Brian Giles. That's one of the few trades in the last decade in which Pittsburgh truly got the better end.

Falling short once again

I've let time pass and decided I'm ready to write this post. It's hard to watch your team come so close to the postseason and not close the deal. It's particularly tough when your boys have it in their control -- all they have to do is win -- and it still gets away. But as time passes, as the days go by and we get deeper into October, we get further from the season and reality sets in. Baseball fades as teams drop from the playoffs, football rises, and sad thoughts of this year become hopeful wishes for next year.

This year's fall wasn't as bad as last year's. It didn't hurt as much. While I hoped the Mets would erase the bad taste from 2007, this year's team wasn't as good. It didn't have the depth to overcome all the injuries. Bringing back Moises Alou probably wasn't a good idea from the outset, but losing him wasn't the worst thing to happen. But losing Angel Pagan and then Fernando Tatis, well, that exacerbated the problem. John Maine's absence in September wouldn't have been crippling if Billy Wagner hadn't gone down and blown up the entire bullpen. With Wagner on board, that bullpen lines up much better and fewer games get blown; more close losses instead to go the Mets' way and -- perhaps -- they edge out the Brewers by a game, instead of the other way around.

The 2007 Mets were on top of the NL East -- and the National League -- for the bulk of the season. They led until the final week. They were the better team. The 2008 Mets, though, weren't as good as this year's Phillies. Nevermind the postseason, where anything can happen (note the 2006 Cardinals and '07 Rockies, to name just two recent hot-at-the-right-time teams).

What we can hope for, as Mets fans, is that this year taught management a lesson. Luis Castillo is a black hole in the lineup and at second base. The bullpen needs an overhaul. Oliver Perez, for all his inconsistency, should probably be brought back. It'll be easier to fill that fifth-starter's position than both slots four and five. Ryan Church can be an everyday right fielder so long as he isn't concussed, and while Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans could probably be a serviceable left-field platoon, an everyday replacement there would probably be a better move.

I'll use another post to go through the free-agent options, but one thing is clear: The Mets are probably going to have to open the checking account to bring in Francisco Rodriguez or Kerry Wood. A closer is needed, and there aren't many available. Brian Fuentes may be had in a trade, but if the fans got on Wagner just because he put two runners on base before getting the last out, what will they do when Fuentes turns two-run wins into one-run wins? Or worse?

And I'd love to see them revive a possible acquisition from three years ago: Rafael Furcal to play second base. Castillo would have to be traded (and his contract paid for), but I'd rather spend throw money at the solution than throw losses at the problem by starting Castillo everyday.

So now we're left with another offseason of waiting, watching, wanting. The Phillies are up, 2-0, in the NLCS and appear headed to the World Series. Those fans will be even more obnoxious and unbearable if they get there. As for us, we'll just have to anticipate the Winter Meetings, wait for the New Year and long for Spring Training and then the coming of Citi Field.

Shea Goodbye: 67 to go

I knew something was up at 1:05, when Oliver Perez still hadn't warmed up for a 1:10 first pitch. Moments later, the announcement came: A water main break cut off water flow to Shea. So the game is being delayed because the field is too DRY.

The game is now set for a 1:50 start -- and I wonder when these groups of school kids have to leave. They may only see an hour, and then there won't be as much screeching in the upper deck, or the annoying packs clogging up the concourses.

Unfortunately, I'm losing my sun over the top lip of the stadium and any light breeze makes it colder -- almost too cold. Damn me for ignoring my First Rule of Going to Shea: It will be 5-10 degrees colder there than it feels at home.

This one got ugly fast, so there's not much to say. Damn Bucs.