Meet The New Mets ... Same As The Old Mets

By Metstradamus
Posted Friday, November 9, 2007

Remember when Carlos Beltran became a Met, and he strolled to the podium proclaiming that these were the "New Mets," and we got all excited and thought "Finally! New Mets! Those old Mets were getting stale and just plain disgusting to look at."

So you would think that after this epic collapse that the Mets have been saddled with, we could certainly go out and find ourselves some new Mets this winter, right? (Or would that be called the "New, New Mets"?)

So what have Omar and the Mets done so far this winter? They re-signed Moises Alou, re-signed Damion Easley, and re-signed Marlon Anderson. And they're looking into re-signing Luis Castillo. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with any of these players as individuals, and certainly alone, they're not responsible for the collapse of the Mets by themselves. In Castillo's case, I think it's pivotal for the Mets to bring back a guy who was hit .381 with RISP and two outs, a situation where the team as a whole hit .239 in '07.

But for an organization sorely in need of some new blood, if for no other reason than to wash away some of the bad memories that last season provided for the people inside the clubhouse, and all of us outside, the Mets need some new blood. It seems like an obvious statement to make ... after all, every team needs new blood from season to season. But in the case of the Mets, not only is it crucial, but with each passing minute that something doesn't get done, it looks more and more like we're going to head into '08 with essentially the same cast of characters that there were in '07.

Call me silly for panicking way too early on this. I mean, what's today's date? November ninth? Plenty of time for Omar to put something together, right? Well, with Alou back, that's left field. Carlos Beltran isn't going anywhere. So that leaves right field where it looks like it's going to be Lastings Milledge unless there's a trade. And what they do with Milledge is going to be ultra important to the future of this team, whether it's by keeping him, or by trading him. The way the Mets trade prospects, I have to be honest: I'm a little nervous about just how far under market value the return is going to wind up being for Milledge.

Then there's the infield, where if Castillo returns looks like it's set. Because let's face it, those who want to trade Carlos Delgado have got to admit that there isn't going to be a team alive who is going to take Delgado's declining production at his salary. And what could I say about Alex Rodriguez that hasn't been said already? If you count the catcher as part of the infield, the only catcher that the Mets are looking at over Paul Lo Duca would be Jorge Posada, and we all know that Posada is going back to the Yankees, right? So we can count on having Paulie back.

Then there's the pitching, and the continuing quest for the elusive ace. Sure, Pedro will be back. But will we get the Pedro of 2005, or the Pedro that's having MRIs performed on him every month? With the values of Mike Pelfrey and Phil Humber, the two former jewels of the organization, taking hits this season, options for trading for that ace seem to be limited to Milledge, who might only be able to bring back Joe Blanton at best, Carlos Gomez, or Fernando Martinez. With everybody looking for young pitching back in any deal that involves an ace like, say ... Roy Oswalt or Dontrelle Willis, the Mets don't seem to have a trick play in their playbook. And when you compound that with the fact that the Phillies just made a trade and found their ace (Michael Bourn for Brad Lidge enables the Phillies to not only move Brett Myers back to the rotation, but make room for Aaron Rowand to return), the pressure on the Mets to perform some magic at the winter meetings just went up ten-fold.

And then there's the bullpen.

Sigh.

All I'll say about the 'pen, which was a disaster, is that not only have the Mets lost an opportunity to get maximum value on a guy like Aaron Heilman, but if the Mets were going to get rid of Guillermo Mota, don't you think they would have released him by now? What, are they waiting to trade him?

(Excuse me while I laugh so hard I end up in the hospital. Trade Mota ... HA! That loud thud you heard was the other 29 GMs falling off their chairs laughing.)

While Omar has time to prove me wrong and be creative, I'm skeptical ... partly because those other 29 GMs are smelling blood and aren't going to give Minaya a chance to be creative. But mostly because it seems like, at least early on, the Mets have painted themselves into a corner that's going to be very difficult to get out of. And when it's all said and done, the New Mets will have morphed into little more than the Same Old Mets.

***

Hey, come on over to my home base, where the Same Old Mets will be brought to you by Same Old Metstradamus.