If you can remember as far back as last week, you might recall that the Washington Nationals were in town for the first time since Opening Week. That series produced no wins for the Mets, and neither did the more recent one. You may have heard that the Mets record in their last 11 games at home vs. the Nats is 0-11. Overall this year, the Mets have beaten Washington twice in 12 tries. There’s a reason for that: the Nationals are a very good, very balanced, very well-put-together team and the Mets are… not…
Whatever aspirations we fans may have had – even at this late juncture, after disappointment has piled upon disappointment – of making a “run” at the division, well, they were obliterated in a hail of homers and strikeouts in early August. Bryce Harper awoke from his season-long funk to punish Mets pitching repeatedly. Adam LaRoche – a latter day Pat Burrell, if ever there was one – continued to use the Mets as his personal BP squad. Over the course of seven innings, Stephen Strasburg sent eight Mets back to the dugout, muttering. And it wasn’t just these larger names that were thrashing the Mets, either. Mets pitchers surrendered homers to such “lesser” lights as Anthony Rendon, Asdrubal Cabrera, Ian Desmond and Michael Taylor. And oh, yeah, the Nats did all this damage without Jayson Werth – that’s why Taylor got to homer in his first big league game – and Ryan Zimmerman.
If you need the gulf between the Mets and the elite teams in the league to show up any more clearly, you need to be fitted for bifocals. The Mets were trying to counter this onslaught with a bunch of raw, young .220 hitters – guys like Matt den Dekker, Wilmer Flores and Kirk Nieuwenhuis – and much diminished versions of David Wright and Curtis Granderson. It almost looked like the ancient gladiators heading into the bowl to face the lions. Guess what? The lions won.
It’s clear now that it will take a Herculean effort on Sandy Alderson’s part to improve the team this winter. Not only does he have to safeguard against being taken to the cleaners by the other teams he’s trying to deal with, he apparently will have to do battle with his own ownership, unwilling to do what it takes to bridge this talent gap. And don’t forget, it isn’t that the Nationals are an aberration – an overly harsh measuring stick, currently sporting a six-game lead in the division. Among non-playoff teams, the Mets come up short against the likes of the Marlins and Cubs on paper, as well. Yes, the Mets have promising young pitching. Yes, they have Daniel Murphy and Lucas Duda, the one-quarter of the lineup that’s actually producing. Yes, they’ve shown flashes of what their potential will look like if it’s ever fulfilled.
Right now, it just isn’t enough.
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The even wider gap is a consideration of what they’re capable of doing Next. Their big talent gap is now in the front office…including Ownership. They have a huge opportunity to move forward…. i have no confidence in their ability to answer to the opportunity.
Fixing the Mets is actually not that complicated. They need one great or two very good middle of the order hitters to reduce the pressure on DW, CG, TDA and others to be something they are not, and return them to roles in which they can be themselves, the way tonight’s opponent the A’s have done. This also means prospects such as MDD and WF might be given a bit of a longer leash to develop at the major league level, rather than being expected to produce big results right away.
Of course, just because the answer is simple does not mean it is easy because of the financial capacity of the owners – not, BTW, their willingness to spend money, because they proved they would spend a lot before Madoff. It’s all on the line this winter for SA. He must be able to convince the owners to allow him to fix the increasingly glaring and obvious offensive deficiencies (and with a lot more money than he’ll save by dumping Colon, for example). And he must then be willing to roll the dice and trade some of his coveted young pitching, because that is all they have to offer in trade in an uninspiring free agent winter. If he can achieve these tasks, he will have a real team. If he can not, everything else is moot and he will be all but finished as a credible GM.
Sadly the pessimism is getting to me. I see so much potential from this core of pitching, but where are the offensive prospects? Travis d’Arnaud came around, but he’s not a prospect of our farm. Flores, den Dekker, Kirk, Puello, Cecchini, these are not everyday players, but this is the kind of talent being brought up in a late losing season. What will they fix? We still have to wait a year or two for Nimmo, Herrera and longer for others, but how much confidence do any of us have that they will be impact players when they arrive? Those arms will have to get traded this winter, hopefully for a more balanced team. But with this manager and these owners?? Ugh, why do I fear 2015 already?
Also, the last player we drafted to accrue more than 5 WAR as a Met was Matt Harvey. Before that, David Wright. That’s 9 years of drafting ineptitude in between.
I truly believe that the Wilpons first prioroity is to maintain control of this franchise. Winning is secondary. Until that changes, the Mets fortunes will keep repeating themselves. Save this article Charlie please. You can post it again next year around this time.
Unfortunately, Pete, you are correct. Every extra penny that comes into the coffers — money not earmarked for the team’s actual budget/payroll/etc. — goes toward relieving the crippling debts on the team, the ballpark and the TV network.
I thought if public funds were used in the building of Citifield that the Wilpons would have to disclose their finances? Or provide some disclosure?
While I agree there’s a big gap between the Mets and Nationals, I fail to see how we’re worse than the Cubs and Marlins. I’m not sure what “on paper” means to you, but even after their recent struggles the Mets’ run differential is better than that of the Cubs and Marlins. Particularly when the Mets were a blown save away from taking 3 of 4 against the Marlins over the weekend.
Been in DC this week on business and caught the Nats v dbax game last night. The gulf between the Mets and Nats is like the Grand Canyon. Their 1-6 in batting order is relentless. Sure they played the dbax, but man…so strong.
Better or worse clearly has some temporal connection whether that be today, this season or a bit of a projection. Miami has been >.500 almost all season and we have not. Loss of Fernandez was not met with collapse like our loss of Harvey. They pitch and have genuine consistent hitting power.
The cubs are not as good as us now, but theo and Jed have built a WS winner recently and have money. In a world short of big hitters they have a handful. They can, and will, buy pitchers through FA. The cubs leash to success is shorter than ours.
Chris I couldn’t agree more. The Mets don’t play in a vaccuum. Their goal cannot be a wildcard. Too many good teams out there who are currently better than the Mets. Just a thought. the Marlins are playing competitive baseball with a 46 million dollar payroll. Even if Atlanta falters you still have 3 solid teams in the Central and San Fran and L.A. in the West.
Bad teams lose close games. They always seem to find a way to “blow’ a game. If as they say winning is contagious then the reverse is also true. These Mets managed 16 hits. That’s 16 hits over 4 games against the Cubs whom most fans would consider to be the worse team in the National league. And the Mets were at home!
Just went back to this. While an excellent post it made my blood boil. We were all anticipating a big offseason move that never happened. We added an injury prone 36-year-old while the Nats added a Cy Young award winner. So much for closing the talent gap!