Mets Rant

I don't want to get off on a rant here, but I'm having a crappy enough week as it is without my favorite baseball team piling on with their supremely sucky play. Bugs and Cranks today lists six things they'd do to fix the Mets. I started to write a comment there, but it ended up turning into a longish rant, so I figured I'd just post it here instead. Their six:

1. Trade Carlos Delgado, Aaron Heilman and ___ to Cincinnati for Adam Dunn
2. Demote Mike Pelfrey
3. Trade Carlos Beltran
4. Find another home for Moises Alou
5. Two catchers at a time, please
6. Promote from within

While I agree wholeheartedly with #4, #5, and #6, #3 is just silly, we have no real replacement for #2 and #1 doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of happening. I'd love Dunn on the team, but unless the Mets were willing to give up F-Mart (and they aren't), they ain't getting him. Pelfrey is starting to look like a bust to me, since he still can't throw a breaking pitch for a strike, but he's young, cheap and doesn't come with a giant, expensive boot on his foot *seething anger at Omar*. And trading Beltran doesn't make any sense - he's third on the team in VORP this year at 14.5, low for him but still good, and he's under our control for the next three seasons.

The Mets do, however, need to purge all the old bench scrubs on their team. Since they currently sport one of the worst benches in baseball, why not bring up a bunch of young guys and give them a chance? It'll certainly be more entertaining to watch them fail than Fernando Tatis and Raul Casanova. Who knows, it might give the team some badly needed energy. Did anyone have any faith in Marlon Anderson when he came up last night in the ninth? I certainly didn't - he's been injured and awful this year. Seems the shine's off Endy too, dead last on the team with a -7.3 VORP (although he at least can still play defense).

They also need to start shopping people. Alou, Heilman and Schoeneweis all have less-than-negative value right now. Oliver Perez could interest a contending team. Luis Castillo has actually been reasonably productive and maybe could get a suck...er, team to take on that horrible contract of his. Delgado should just be cut outright and Mike Carp should be brought up. Even if he fails, it's still better than watching Carlos' corpse flail at another double down the line.

If I were Wilpons, I'd get rid of Omar too. I'm not a huge Willie fan, but I'm convinced Omar is more of the problem than Randolph. Omar simply places too much value on players he's familiar with and is obsessed with going with experienced veterans instead of youngsters. Yes, yes, he can sign the big-name free agent and maybe without him we wouldn't have Beltran or Santana. The trade for John Maine was also a steal. But think about this bench he's assembled. Think about the contract he handed to Castillo this offseason, El Duque last season. Think about Heath Bell, Brian Bannister, Ruben Gotay. Think about his fascinations with Brian Lawrence, Chan Ho Park, and... *shudder*... Jose Lima. I really think the main reason this team is struggling is because of how it's been assembled, not how it's being managed.

But the biggest problem here is that the Mets are trapped. Aside from Carp (who probably isn't ready yet, but couldn't be much worse than what they've got), they really have no one in the minors they can turn to for reinforcements. And it's too early in the season to start selling off players (although you can start gauging interest now). But the team needs a shakeup in the worst way, so here's what I'd do:

1. Release Delgado, call up Mike Carp from AA
2. Release Tatis, demote Casanova. Call up Chris Aguila (LF, .968 OPS) and the awesomely named Valentino Pascucci (RF, 1.008) from AAA
3. Start shopping

And, if this team doesn't improve by the break, Jeff and Fred need to find another general manager to run the mid-summer fire sale in Queens.

ADDENDUM: Ask and you shall receive. The Mets call up Aguila, DFAing Abraham Nunez. Hey, it's a start.