The Good

There isn’t much that I’d define as “good,” but how about we go with “encouraging” instead? Let’s apply that to the fact that General Manager Omar Minaya has decided to infuse a touch of youth onto the roster. I don’t know if there’s anybody who doesn’t like Alex Cora, but we all know he wasn’t going to start the amount of games necessary for his vesting option to kick in, and he wasn’t very effective anyway. Jesus Feliciano is a guy who I’ve never seen swing so hard to hit a ball 6 feet in front of him. The Mets welcomed Ruben Tejada and Fernando Martinez back to the Majors, and Luis Castillo has been delegated to a bench role. Is this the answer? No. But it is encouraging that some young guys are here to play.

The Bad

Can anybody answer what the hell’s going on with Mike Pelfrey? Anybody? Bueller? I remember how, after a month of a half into the season, Small Pelf was a part of early Cy Young and All-Star game discussions. Any discussion concerning Pelfrey now pretty much always starts with “I don’t know…” Why? He’s a guy with all the talent in the world, and clearly has the ability to be an extremely effective pitcher. His fall from grace this year has been nothing short of alarming, and if the Mets are going to at the very least make the last two months of the season remotely interesting, they need him to return to form.

Other problems with the team pretty much all concern the heart of the order. I’m talking about Carlos Beltran, David Wright, and Ike Davis. This trio are 11-62 over the last week, with Ike responsible for 6 of those hits. Together, they have 3 RBI. If you’re head didn’t just completely explode, and I hope it hasn’t, you’re probably thinking that that is completely unacceptable. Because it is.

The Ugly

Jose Reyes has been absolutely brutal with the glove - and more confusingly, his arm - last week. The only thing that’s worse than Reyes making an error is the fact that it seems as if it always leads to at least a run, and usually more.

Someone needs to teach Jerry Manuel how to use a bullpen. After walking Chipper Jones in the Mike Pelfrey game, why he was left in to pitch to Brian McCann, who already had 2 hits on the day, is beyond me. How about leaving him in long enough to hit a batter with the bases loaded to force in a run? The only thing I’ve been able to say whenever the manager makes a mistake like that is: “Oh, Jerry.”

Then, there’s this:

Looking ahead to the offseason, I have totaled up the numbers of the contracts for players that are on the books for next season. The most interesting part of it is the fact that it only takes seven players for the Mets to exceed the $100 million mark.

Johan Santana: $22.5 million

Carlos Beltran: $18.5 million

Jason Bay: $16 million

David Wright: $14 million

Oliver Perez: $12 million

Francisco Rodriguez: $11.5 million

Luis Castillo: $6 million

The Mets total payroll for 2010 was only about $126 million!

Not only is this a starting point for the offseason, but the Mets still have to figure out what to do with four key players in Jose Reyes ($11 million club option, $500,000 buyout), Pedro Feliciano (FA), Angel Pagan (Arb. Eligible), and Mike Pelfrey (Arb. Eligible).

Whether it be Omar Minaya or a new general manager, they are going to have the huge task of finding ways to remove some of these high-priced veteran players that should not be on the team (Perez, Castillo, etc).

The Mets can choose to non-tender Jeff Francoeur, as he earned $5 million in 2010 in arbitration and will again be arbitration eligible this year. John Maine’s $3.3 million will almost certainly be off the books next season as well. The Mets also still owe $1 million to Gary Matthews Jr. in 2011.

It’s quite simple. The Mets have their work cut out for them this offseason. Fans are demanding changes and something will need to be done.

The rumors have been circulating. Jerry Manuel is on the hot seat. As well he should be, but it should not stop there.

Sure, Manuel isn’t the greatest manager. He can’t get his offense hot, he continuously tinkers with his batting order, and his bullpen is as taxed as ever. What else can be wrong?

You can change the manager, but it’s not going to solve anything. The problem lies within the front office.

Omar Minaya took over in the end of 2004, hired his manager Willie Randolph, and survived another managerial change when the team switched to Manuel, and now with Manuel on thin ice, is Omar really going to get another opportunity to switch managers? How many chances is this guy going to receive?

While it’s not over yet, the Mets appear destined to miss October baseball for the fourth consecutive season. Since 2005, when Omar’s tenure started, the Mets have made it to the postseason just once. How can any fan support this? How can any fan constantly make excuses for Omar? If the Mets do not make the post season this year, they will have only made it once in the past ten years.

I’m sure Omar is a nice guy and terrific person (though Adam Rubin would say otherwise), but it is absolutely time for the Mets to move on and make a change in the direction this team is heading.

Applaud Omar for building a team that got the Mets to within one base hit from the World Series in 2006. Applaud him for bringing in essentially the best pitcher in baseball in Johan Santana.

Give me a glimmer of hope in the future. Please move on.

We made it. We’re at the All-Star break, Carlos Beltran’s coming back on Thursday, the team hasn’t lost 17 players to injury, and they’re 8 games over .500, good for 4 games back in the NL East, and a game back in the Wild Card standings. So what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s badder..er (ugly)? Let’s discuss:

The Good - Santana’s becoming Santana

Johan Santana has given up only one run in his last 23 innings, and none in his last 16. He’s got 2 straight wins, which has pretty much been unheard of during his time with the Mets (though through nearly no fault of his own), and his ERA is now 2.98. It’s funny that, while his greatness is appreciated, it hasn’t been mentioned as often as his line drive home run down the right field line, against the foul pole, in his start against the Reds. What I’d like to mention, though, is the reason I love the guy. In the 9th, when Jason Bay (who I’ll get to very, very soon) FUBAR’ed an easy fly ball, Jerry Manuel went to the mound to take Santana out of the game. The meeting on the mound lasted about as long as a sneeze, as Santana looked his skipper right in the eye, and said “I’m finishing.” and Mr. Overmatched himself immediately went running back to the dugout. But a couple pitches later, the game was over. That’s an ace.

Honorable Mention: Angel Pagan has been the greatest and most pleasant surprise of the team this year, by far.

The Bad - Where art thou, Jason Bay?

There it is. There’s the line that nobody seems to be willing to say, and why is completely beyond me. He’s now hitting .265, with 6 homers (4 of which came in 2 games), and 44 RBI. I don’t think I need to tell you that this isn’t his usual pace, and the streaky hitter hasn’t hit a streak that’s lasted more than 5 minutes. He’s got 2 hits in the last week, none in his last 10 at-bats, and sat yesterday on his own bobblehead day to give him that much more rest over the All-Star break. He looks completely lost at the plate, and finally, the boo birds have started to swarm him during this homestand. Beltran’s going to bring a huge boost to this lineup, and hopefully take some pressure off of Bay, allowing him to get back to basics and work on getting back to being productive. What I’d like to know though is why Beltran was absolutely murdered his first year here, as he was struggling yet stoic, and everybody thought he didn’t care, while Bay, who’s also struggling and also stoic, has gotten a pass until very, very recently.

The Ugly - Are the Mets broke or not?

First we heard that the Wilpons lost a ton of money because of Bernie Madoff, then we heard that they actually gained money because of him, before hearing that really, they lost money. Schwa? Which is it? Attendance is dropping, and Bob Klapisch has reported for the Bergen Record that the Mets are losing around $10 million a year because of it. What’s worse, the wide perception is that the team will not be able to add payroll dollars by the trade deadline. This is concerning because, while the Mets are definitely contenders and will remain that way through September, I don’t believe that, as constituted, this team will be able to gain a playoff spot without adding another arm. Hopefully, if this is the case, Omar Minaya and the Wilpons get clever and add another piece while not having to dip into the coffers.

Apologies for taking a short hiatus last week from providing the masses with my Man Crush and Dog House Resident of the Week, but I’m back, and decided to share a quick little review of the last week in a bit of a different way.

The Good

I’ve been sternly in the camp of Mets fans that were completely confused as to why Jenrry Mejia was in the majors as a reliever, when he really should’ve been in the minors as a starter. At least, in baseball terms. As a business move, it made perfect sense. His stuff looked good, he threw hard, and he looked like a piece that would help the club in the later innings, not to mention help Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya keep their jobs. The problem with all this was, he just wasn’t panning out as a dominant reliever. He’s got 15 walks and 3 hit batsmen in 27.2 innings pitched. The bigger problem I have with Jenrry being in New York as late as yesterday involved the spots that he being used in. He was brought into games that were essentially over, stunting his development. Baseball America’s #1 rated Mets prospect had no business being in the Major Leagues, so I was pleased to hear that he was optioned to AA Binghamton following yesterday’s conclusion to the 2010 Subway Series. There, he’ll be converted back to a starter, and perhaps will help the big league club in the future, or, as is being speculated, will be used as a trading chip for a starting pitcher before the deadline.

The Bad

Is Johan Santana ok? This is the question everybody’s asking today after the “ace” of the staff got touched up for 4 runs off the bat of one Mark Teixeira in yesterday’s loss to the Yankees. Granted, it all came on one pitch, and someone can argue that he was fine if you erased that one pitch. But guess what? That pitch happened, and you can’t erase it. His velocity has dropped, he looks eminently hittable, and frankly, I don’t remember the last time I didn’t hear the following: “Santana’s battling through this start like a true ace, because he clearly doesn’t have his best stuff today.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t know what that even means anymore. His “not best stuff” has recently become “his stuff,” and I’m more than a little bit concerned. The good news is that he’s known as a second-half pitcher, so there’s still time for him to look like Santana again. Is he capable, though?

The Ugly

Who in the blue hell came up with that awful, awful Go Gaga For Wright promotion? Who thought it was a good idea to give fans a blue foam finger to fans to hold up to ramp up support for an All-Star Game appearance? That person needs to be fired, and banned from being within 250 feet of any Major League ballpark. If you ask me, David Wright’s made a great case to go to the All-Star game in June, but this promotion is just… you know what? I have no words. Oh wait, I do. Horrible.

It’s been a week since the 2010 season began, which means it’s time to crown my first Man-Crush of the year. For the uninitiated, the Man-Crush of the Week is someone who’s been playing at a crazy high level for the previous week. And the choice was incredibly easy to make: Jeff Francoeur.

Probably the last great move that GM Omar Minaya made was trading Ryan Church for the effervescent Frenchie, who, so far in 2010, does three things:

1. Hits the ball hard.
2. Throws with a cannon of an arm.
3. Smiles.

His play today on Adam Dunn basically left my jaw agape, and his hitting stats are nothing to shake a bat at:  .476 BA, 2 homers, 6 RBI, and a 1.538 OPS. It’s been a stressful season so far, with the Mets showing that they still have trouble hitting with runners in scoring position, and managing to lose in even more clever, amazing ways, but Jeff has been nothing but a blindingly bright spot in an otherwise very cloudy week (save for the much-needed return of Jose Reyes). For that, Jeff Francoeur is my first Man-Crush of the Week of 2010.