“Basically, the Mets have a strong bench. Unfortunately, it’s starting.” – Sports Illustrated, June 2, 1980. Such was the narrative when the Mets surprised everybody that year by flirting with .500 in mid-June. That gritty, gutty bunch warranted a feature in the leading national sporting publication of the time, on the verge of having a [...]
Two years ago, I wrote a piece about the Mets' 2011-12 offseason. If you've mentally blocked that offseason, it's the one that saw an historic nominal payroll reduction, with something in the neighborhood of $50M net coming off the books. The goal of that piece was to put that immense payroll decrease into perspective by [...]
Don’t worry Mets fans, the Mets will be making additions to their roster. And these moves will be soon. By mid-May, it seems very likely that a young pitcher will be gone and a new shortstop will be arriving. Now this trade could have been done two months ago or Stephen Drew could have been [...]
The Mets have been around for 52 years, and will be playing their 53rd season this summer. Throughout their history, the Mets have had some big name players, from Tom Seaver in their early years, to David Wright who is currently the face of the franchise. Many of these big names have remained a part [...]
Card of the Week's Mystery Met maven has been recovering from trivia Tommy John, and after a winter of long tossing on the back fields, he's ready to take the mound again. So here's the pitch: identify this Met with the sad and soulful spring-training eyes, and you'll win a 2014 Topps Matt Harvey yellow [...]
Spring Training is the one time of year when it is socially acceptable to root against the Mets, for certain players to have an edge on jobs. At this point in the young season, most of the main questions have been answered- some not to the liking of the fans. The shortstop situation has resolved [...]
It doesn’t mean anything. Never believe what you see in March or September. You could write the results on a matchbook. You’ve never heard of any of these guys. It’s all just for fun, just to work on certain things, just to get into shape, just to show management what you might be capable of. [...]
Not everyone is a Starlin Castro fan. He’s a polarizing player who’s had some character issues in the past, but he is also a four-year veteran on a team that is going very young, very quickly. The quick-batted sensation Javier Baez will be up with the Chicago Cubs soon enough. While Baez has been playing [...]
Matt Harvey’s incredible leap forward last season have left Mets fans with perhaps an unrealistic bar with which to judge other pitching prospects by, namely Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero. This, of course is not to say that this young trio of right-handed flamethrowers can’t develop into dominant starters in the near future. [...]
I like Ruben Tejada. However, there’s a big gulf between liking a player and thinking he should be penciled in to start 150 games. And at this point, there’s no reason to think that Tejada has earned the starting shortstop job in any way. It’s my belief that if the Mets open the season with [...]
A breakdown of the questions and answers from our Thursday poll.
I was going through some old game programs and I came across one that stands out in particular. It was a doubleheader; the Mets against the Chicago Cubs on July 29, 1984. Here’s the story: I was able to obtain two Press Box seats to this game before the season even started through the Long [...]