Waiting For The Mets To Get Good

The Mets dropped another game in the standings yesterday, losing to the division-leading Nationals pretty decisively. It wasn’t all that long ago when the Capital Boys stunk and the Mets were pretty decent. Early in the 2009 season – which turned out to be a terrible year for New York – whether it was the Mets or Phillies leading the way was determined by who was playing Washington. Such is the nature of the game that if you’re terrible long enough, you will eventually accrue enough high draft picks to turn your fortunes around. It may not be quick, but barring total ineptitude in your front office, it is inevitable. The Mets are now on the verge of the inevitable. We’re just not sure exactly how inevitable.

There is a rumbling that General Manager Sandy Alderson – now that he is out of the running for the Commissioner’s job – will be re-upping with the Mets for another four years. That would seemingly take him up to his retirement and allow him the latitude — timewise, anyway – to see his brand of franchise-rescue through. He has fulfilled his mandate so far, whittling payroll down to its barest bones and it remains to be seen if he will be as adept at building it up again prudently. Meanwhile, there are hopeful signs. It starts with young pitching, of course. We all know the names by now: Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard, Rafael Montero. These are projected to by the top five starters by no later than 2016, coolly disregarding the fact that Montero has yet to prove an effective MLB starter and Syndergaard hasn’t even sniffed the Show yet. The thinking goes that once these guys get established and if a proven big hitter is acquired – one with a better pedigree than Chris Young, one would hope – then look out: the Mets will become a northeast version of the Tampa Bay Rays and steamroll the NL East for the foreseeable future. That’s the rosy picture.

For now, though, all a fan can do is wait and pine and hope for better days. The flip side, of course, is the cold fact that not all the pitchers are going to pan out. Young arms are the biggest crap shoot in the game today, whether from a health standpoint or a miscalculation of overall ability. There’s also no guarantee that it would be oh-so-easy to bring in that coveted big bat. We – and I include Alderson in this – really have no idea if the Wilpons actually have the resources to make that happen. There will be rumors, to be sure, to carry us from now until the gates open in Port St. Lucie next March, but we’ll never be sure until the trigger is actually pulled. The Mets could find themselves stuck in a painful limbo of not being good enough to truly contend, nor bad enough to merit a top-five draft pick. It’s pretty uncomfortable up on that fence and we all have to wait and see on which side they’ll fall.

As has been the case for the last five years, there’s nothing to do but wait.

Follow me on Twitter @CharlieHangley.