2010-2011 New York Mets. The Hoax, The Myth, The Legendary Failure (Part Two)

If you missed Part One (which detailed all infield positions) click here.

Part 2

The New York Mets currently sit 17.5 games behind the Phillies in the National League East and are at .500, which is atrocious considering the team has a payroll of 120 million (7^th in the majors). A feat of such incompetence cannot go unnoticed, and that same feat brought me to write this. My task? Explain to people through every vivid, painful detail just how annoying it is to root for this underperforming yet overpaid team.

Outfielders: Take two teaspoons of pleasant surprises, three bucketfuls of overpaid, and sprinkle in a little incompetence (Ahem. A lot of incompetence.) and you have the Mets outfield. Let’s start with the somewhat edible, shall we? Sure, the actual starters may suck, but the outfielders who were not expected to be everyday players are contributing very well. Willie Harris has been solid when filling in at all positions needed. Lucas Duda has provided good results. (with his game tying HR against Leo Nunez being a memorable moment) Editors Note: We (Dan and Vlad) were at that game. I believe something else happened. Scott Hairston always seemed to come through in the clutch too. (Which isn’t too often because, you know, these are the Mets) Angel Pagan has been disappointing as he’s batting below .250 and leads the majors in Center Field errors; luckily unlike the next two players he is not getting paid in excess of $15 million. Now one can look at Carlos Beltran’s season as a success: he came back from injuries to contribute mightily for a team badly needing offense. Well that’s the “Danya Way” of looking at it. (See: Glossary) My job is to bring you back into the real world: Beltran was getting paid around $19 million: A .289 average with 15 home runs and 66 RBIs is pretty good for someone getting paid, say $8-10 million. Therefore, Beltran is garbage on the “Pay per production” scale, as well as the “pay per play” scalre. Beltran’s biggest contribution to the Mets is getting them Zach Wheeler. For those that may/definantly don’t know, Wheeler is the prospect the Mets got in return for Fed-Exing Beltran’s ass to the Bay Area. Now, the absolute worst player on the Pay per production scale, behind Bobby Bonilla (only a true Met fan understood that), is starting left fielder Jason Bay. He has been awful even on an average player scale, much less for someone making 18 million a year. Here the Mets managed to outdo their crosstown rivals in the “Who can make burning bags of cash look smart” Yankee Fan Editors Note: You will never beat the Yankees in anything! Someone give Jorge Posada $60 million! We already did that? Motherfucker! sompetition by making acquisitions like the signing of Carl Pavano or A.J Burnett look like strokes of genious. Granted I was rooting for the Mets to sign Bay, but I didn’t expect him to fall off a fucking cliff as badly as he did. Its not even that Citi is a pitchers park, as he is hitting .276 at home as compared to .228 on the road. The fact that he makes Adam Dunn look like a Gold Glove outfielder is also a large area of concern. (Adam Dunn just ate me)

Pitching Rotation: This was, before the start of the season, the weakest aspect of the team. They exceeded expectations so far, although they still can’t be called words such as “good” or “competent.” The ace of this staff--- with Johan Santana being out until at least August--- was supposed to be Mike Pelfrey. A former top 10 draft pick, he’s been wildly inconsistent and checks in with an era of slightly above 4.50. To show how inconsistent he has been: “The Big Pelf” (Seriously? Whoever came up with that should kill himself) has 10 starts with 2 runs allowed or less. He has 24 starts in total. And as previously mentioned, he has an era of slightly above 4.50. Do the math. The Mets had a great (good) #2 starter in Chris Young, but just like the past 3 years he went down with an injury and won’t play again this year. Jon Neise is promising, but has yet to put it all together and is a bottom end starter. The rest of the rotation spots are held by a guy with two Tommy John surgeries (Chris Capuano), a knuckleballer who had his first better-than-awful year last year at age 35(R.A. Dickey), and an unheralded rookie who is vastly over performing (Dillon Gee). With this already being a below average rotation, combined with the reality that each starter has been over performing and will thus have a steep regression, it bodes poorly for the Mets already .500 record.

Bullpen: This is (the most) garbage part of the team. This is one of the worst assembled bullpens I have ever seen. Of the only two decent members, one was traded due to being grossly overpaid (K-Rod) and the other, Taylor Buchholtz, has been on the DL for the majority of the year due to depression and anxiety. Seriously? Depression and anxiety? Does it go something like this: “I only make 960,000$ more than the average person, I can support my family, they’re forced to drive in a Mercedes. Do you understand how awful that is???” I get annoyed when people who get paid millions to play a game then CAN’T play beccause they’re depressed. Now back to the awful bullpen: Ryota Irigashi and his 5.03 era joins Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kei Igawa and Hedeki Irabu as lessons that Asians suck in the MLB (Ichiro and Hideki Matsui are exceptions). Bobby Parnell needs to work on a lot of things, most notably being good, but he has potential. Meanwhile the closer, Jason Isringhausen, has a 3.63 era while being incredibly lucky (awful). The dark horse of the bullpen is Pedro Beato. Granted the 3.83 era is far from elite but he possesses tons of potential. In the 2005 Draft he was drafted by the Mets in the 17^th round but chose to attend college. The next year he was picked 32^nd overall by Baltimore. In 2010 he made his way back to the Mets via the Rule V draft, and started his career this year with 18.2 scoreless innings. Although he has regressed a lot since then, he can be the future closer (!).

So if you hadn’t realized already the reasons for the Mets incompetence, I hope this article shined some light on them. Although I’m a Met fan, I have realized that nothing is happening this year and to avoid heartbreak you should look towards the future.

Which is also pretty bleak.

Vlad is the expert for The Daily Danstein in all things angry, Mets, Patriots and Russian. (Not necessarily in that order) Email him at lev42795@gmail.com and follow him on the Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/lev42795.