I am reminded of a saying I once heard with respect to company performance, that the enemy of being great is not being bad, but rather being good. The reasoning is quite simple: if you are bad, everyone knows it and it is easy to justify the radical restructuring necessary to turn things around and become great. When you are good, however, performance improvements are much harder to undertake. Who wants to rock the boat and risk making things worse when they are already good?
The problem is that good is not good enough. The Mets must strive to be great. A lot of people say keep player 'x' or 'y', for example Glavine. While it's true that Glavine is certainly an above average pitcher and certainly good, what he is not (anymore) is great. And the Mets need great. If Glavine is in our top 3 starters next year, we will not be great. Same goes for the collective lot of Green, Delgado, PLD, Duque, Castillo, Chavez, and Heilman. They are definitely good, no question. But they are not great. Not once you factor in either the extended time off they each face due to injuries or drop-off in performance due to aging.
This will be the biggest question confronting Mets management and fans - do they want a good team, or a great team? Picking up re-treads is simply not a way to be great. I hope the Mets try to next-level it in '08 and '09 and go for being great.
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I agree with much of what you have written here, but allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a moment. What about A-Rod? Jeter? Posada? Are they not great?
Baseball's a funny game. Teams like the D-Backs and Rockies are in the NLCS and teams like the Mets and Phils are playing golf.
I guess my point is that, I agree, the Mets should not pursue retreads. But at the same time, the "great" players on paper are often the great players of yesteryear, and not the great players of next year. Carmona, anyone? Jeff Francis?
What your call for greatness definitely does endorse is the strategy Omar has pursued w/r/t the pitching staff: going after live arms with the potential to be great, instead of steady arms who are good but never going to blow anyone away.
I think the answer to the Yankees is quite clear: pitching (almost) always dominates in the playoffs. It always has, and always will. Three years in a row now the vaunted Yankees offense has failed to make any noise in the playoffs. Why? B/C Yankees have not had good enough pitching.
To be honest I was surprised that the Yankees basically kept the same team after it was proven in last year's playoffs that their approach doesn't work. I was positive they would not be outbid for Daisuke, and/or they would go after other pitchers hard via FA or trades. In two of the 4 years they won the WS they had #1 and #2 ERA in AL, in the other 2 they were #5 and #6. This year they were #7, not good enough. One of the years they won WS they were #9 in AL in runs scored. So I think the answer to Yanks (and to Mets and everyone else) is clearly pitching. That's why Red Sox look stacked.
A-rod is great in regular season, but clearly he is not in the playoffs. So that's one less great player on your postseason roster. Which is one reason why I think Boras is out of his mind, and I hope no one even comes close to the payday he is calling for (see my previous post).
I think the Mets should focus most of their future $$ on pitching. They are a long ways off from having a great staff, unless (and this is a HUGE if) pedro stays healthy all next year; maine and ollie figure out how to control their pitches, stay consistent, and dependably last at least 7 innings per game; and at least one of pelfrey or humber really develops. If all of that happens, I think we are in excellent shape. But the law of averages says that's a real long shot.
Agree with both your points: pitching dominates hitting, and the Mets will likely need to add arms to have a great staff.
Unfortunately, spending $$ doesn't solve the problem, b/c of the lack of available arms.
Francesa made an interesting point on the thin FA market yesterday. He was pointing out that since Selig changed the luxury tax/revenue sharing arrangement, the approach of small market teams has changed. They are now able to retain their young arms, and choose to, even at the expense of keeping their better position players. As a result, the need to develop home-grown pitching has really increased.
I definitely agree that Omar is in a tight bind in offseason. FA market is thin to non-existent at the positions we need, and our farm system does not have enough volume to give us sufficient currency for more than one blockbuster trade. If we make a move for Santana, for example, that pretty much guarantees we lose at least 3 of our ~5 prospects, leaving us with no more players to trade. The '08 Mets (and possibly '09) are really going to be banking on most of our prospects panning out.
I'm not sure what the solution is, but the problem for Omar & co. is double. First, given the hideous collapse this year, Mets fans are going to be in no mood to hear about a thin FA market or why the Mets failed to put together a solid playoff team next year. I think if we had made playoffs this year, it cuts them some slack for next year to say realistically the team is old and with so few prospects we are going to have a possibly weak '08, but we'll be back again in '09. Number two is that Wilpon definitely does NOT want to head into a new stadium in '09 on a down '08. He needs to sell boxes and high attendance. The Mets over the past few years have really increased their attendance dramatically, but may have dug themselves into a bit of a hole with this collapse.
A prediction: if we get Santana, and he pitches the whole season, we're going deep in the playoffs next year no matter what.
Omar's going to have to decide which OF and which P prospect he wants more---Gomez or Milledge, and Humber or Pelfrey---right soon.
I'd have to agree. Barring unexpected extended injuries to 3 or more key players, I would say the addition of Santana puts us into at least NLCS, and hopefully WS.
If you assume Pedro is a decent #2 and healthy, then Santana / Pedro / Maine / Ollie / Pelf is excellent. Probably the best 1-2 in NL, and hands down the best 1-5. Especially if Maine really did fall off in 2nd half due to hip injury and that gets properly treated in offseason. I also imagine no one next year will "lose focus" partway through a game or month given what happened last year.
I'd like to keep Duque and put him in the pen, even though he is a bit expensive for that. I think he gives us an unbelievable long relief asset.
The question is, what would you be willing to lose for Santana? And do we know if the Twins would be looking to dump salary? Since Torii and Santana are by far their two highest paid players, if they dump them would they be: (a) looking to maintain a substantially lower payroll and thus only want low-paid rookies in return, or (b) would they use that freed-up money to take on more payroll? Which of the following would you be willing to lose for Santana?
1. Pelf + Humber + Gomez
2. Milledge + F-mart + Pelf
3. Reyes + Humber + F-mart
I have a hard time ranking these b/c I can't really get a read on the true upside of any of our prospects. Pelf and Humber are supposed to be great, but except for Humber's K:BB ratio, I haven't really seen any signs that they will ever be better than #2. Will pelf develop a #2 and #3 pitch he trusts? What about Milledge / Gomez / F-mart? very hard to classify. Will milledge always be a head case, or with some strict (i.e., not Mets current mgmt) discipline and guidelines will he fall in line? Or will he never fall in line in a city as big as NY? Gomez has speed, but not much power. What about expected BA and OBP?
Now I'd also take a look at making a play for D-train, and as well seeing if Kazmir goes to arbitration and TB doesn't want him at that salary trying to make a trade there as well. I think this gives us a huge # of options, assuming we have to part ways with Pelf + Humber. With d-train and kaz we'll have a lot of years left, especially since pedro may only have 1-2 more in him (at least the way he talks).
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