For the Mets, these are different times

There was a press conference yesterday, at which new/returning Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes appeared in the flesh – rather than as a disembodied voice from a Charlie’s Angels-style speaker box. Many in the fan base thought this was not going to happen. Actually, any of it: few thought Cespedes would return at all, and when [...]

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Contemplating life after Sandy Alderson

The General Manager of the Mets had himself a pretty good weekend amid the snows. On Friday night, he secured the services of Yoenis Cespedes for another year, on the Mets’ terms. On Saturday, he was the life of the party at the annual Baseball Writers Association of America dinner at the Waldorf, cracking jokes [...]

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Have the Mets done enough to repeat?

The Mets are fresh off a National League pennant, you may have heard. Their remarkable play down the stretch to win the NL East fueled a surge in attendance, which will have a concomitant up-tick overall for 2016. They outpitched the Dodgers – crowned by most in the MSM as having the best starters in [...]

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The Yo-Yo Existence of Yoenis Cespedes

Whither Yoenis Cespedes? At the end of the 2015 season, it was all but a foregone conclusion that he would not be returning to the Mets. He was great to have around for the stretch run and his production propelled an erstwhile feeble offense to heights not seen around here since 2006. He just hit [...]

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The Mets won the Pennant, but the cycle continues

A really quick hitter today… It’s a pretty special day today. It’s Christmas Eve, the most wonderful time of the year, as it says in the song. For Mets fans, the most wonderful time was October 5 through November 1. That’s when the team breezed through the NL playoffs and came up just a few [...]

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Michael Cuddyer confounds us again

Last year at this time, it was all the rage. Early in the 2014 Winter Meetings, the Mets signed Michael Cuddyer and the media loved it. A veteran hitter, former batting champ and mentor to David Wright in his youth, Cuddyer was seen as the piece that would get the Mets to at least .500 [...]

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Mets’ management continues to defy expectations

Here in New York, we fans pride ourselves on being knowledgeable. We’re hip, we’re savvy, we know what’s goin’ on, man. We’re not like those blindly devoted followers in St. Louis or Cincinnati, who show up in droves, decked out in red, whether their team is in contention or not. No, we “know” better. We [...]

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Fans still don’t trust Mets management

As this is written, MLB executives throughout the land are packing their bags and preparing for their annual swap meet/trade show, the Winter Meetings. Fans of downtrodden teams – as the Mets had been, until this year – hope to see their squad make a splash. They hope their team will suddenly become “relevant” with [...]

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Letting it sink in: the Mets were in the World Series

Hi! Happy Thanksgiving! You haven’t seen me in awhile. A nefarious set of circumstances has kept your intrepid columnist away from the keyboard these past three Thursdays and it’s good to be back. At long last, finally thawed out and recovered from some wintery exercises at Citi Field – among other activities – a post-season [...]

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The Mets’ World Series trip is taking an unpleasantly familiar route

The 2015 World Series is all of two games old. The Mets have lost both of them. These are irrefutable facts. We fans always look for what it all means going forward. We look for portents, patterns and trends. If you ask most Mets fans in the aftermath of being nickel-and-dimed to death in game [...]

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The Mets’ future is here

When Sandy Alderson became general manager of the Mets, he begged us fans to be patient. It would be a long road to “changing the culture” of a dysfunctional, losing clubhouse, full of bloated contracts and outsized egos. Disaster seemed to follow this franchise like a parasitic twin. If it wasn’t a shirtless minor league [...]

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