"I think we are the team to beat in the NL East -- finally."
-- Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins, on Jan. 23
Well, as of tonight Jimmy Rollins is no longer a liar. It took the worst late-season meltdown in the history of baseball and the worst baseball I've ever seen in my life at any level, but the Mets managed to make an honest man of Rollins. Well played Jimmy, well played.
At least the Mets will always have '06. Oh wait, that didn't work out either.
Oh, and luckily thanks to their 12-6 record against the Mets the Phils are now in the driver's seat.
3 comments:
The Mets stink. The reasons have been obvious all season.
1. Omar assembled an old team, very prone to injuries. They all got injured.
2. Our young, alleged top-shelf talent failed to contribute in any meaningful way this year, exacerbating point (1). Specifically Milledge, Chavez, Gomez, Pelfrey, and now Humber were in no way helpful.
3. A stupid decision to trade away proven pitching talent or very promising pitching talent, and replace it with smoke and mirrors.
4. No plate discipline, poor hitting all year resulting in losses that should have been wins.
5. Poor decisions by Willie on how to use bullpen, and more importantly not resting key players like Wright and reyes more frequently during the year. In addition, Willie's unwillingness to ever discipline anyone by benching them for poor decisions (e.g. hacking on pitches in the dirt on 3-1 counts; looking for HR on 0-2 count with 2 outs and RISP.) He needed to set the tone for this type of thing early in the season, but he took no such action. He's too hands off for my liking, I think he gives the players way too much latitude to make their own decisions in too many situations where he needs to make the call.
So this is what the #1 payroll in NL buys you. Great. Money well spent.
I think Omar would do us all a service if he would acknowledge that we can't just patch up these holes with a few players on the cheap here and there; this team is far from complete, and only getting older next year.
BTW, I see this season as being the type of season that causes a team to go into a multi-year downward spiral (see Jets post Dan Marino fake spike; see Mets post-2000 WS).
To suffer such a humiliating and inexcusable meltdown really crushes a team's psyche, and could result in a few years of poor play. I think they have no choice but to swap out a major portion of this team to avoid negative vibes from this season rearing their ugly head in the future.
I will tell you that if the Mets fail to reach the playoffs, there will be reprecussions. I do not say this lightly, because if you've followed this blog at all you know I'm a huge Willie fan and think that he's a great asset for the Mets and a good manager.
That said, you can't preside over the biggest collapse in ML history since divisional play began and walk away unscathed. I know Omar gave Willie a vote of confidence a few days ago, but if the Phils take the division and the Pads take the WC, there's no way around the fact that there will be immense pressure to fire Willie.
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