The news broke Thursday night that Mets’ Ace Johan Santana had retorn the capsule in his left shoulder and will be heading for season ending surgery. This is just another big blow to a Mets team that looks destined for another long summer of losing. Even before Johan went down, the Mets faced a litany of challenges in their quest to win the NL East this season. GM Sandy Alderson has admitted that the franchise is in a bit of a rebuilding phase and the team still faces some economic uncertainty in the wake of the Wilpon/Madoff affair. Unfortunately, all of that has led to a less than ideal product on the field for 2013. Without Johan and without recently traded reigning Cy Young award winner RA Dickey, the rotation is very thin and the Mets already lack lineup depth behind newly resigned and newly minted captain David Wright. Lets take a look:
Projected Lineup:
- Rueben Tejada Ss
- David Murphy 2b
- David Wright 3b
- Ike Davis 1b
- Lucas Duda Lf
- Marlon Byrd Rf
- John Buck C
- Kirk Nieuwenhuis Cf
Projected Rotation:
- Jon Niese
- Dillon Gee
- Matt Harvey
- Shaun Marcum
- Jeremy Heffner
Strengths:
Travis d’Arnaud: d’Arnaud is the catcher the Mets got from Toronto in the Dickey deal. Though he won’t make the roster for opening day, he is the catcher for the future and will be a fixture in the lineup for much of the next decade. Paired with Wright and Davis, he could help make a potent 3-4-5 in 2014 or 2015.
Young pitching: Matt Harvey will start the season in the minors and Zach Wheeler isn’t far behind. The two have the potential to develop into one of the top 1-2 combos in all of baseball. Harvey throws very hard and has a plus breaking ball as well. He’s made six pretty good starts in spring training and last season boasted a 2.73 ERA over his first 10 MLB starts.
Jordany Valdespin: Valdespin is a quality backup at second, short, or center and his name is very fun to say.
Wright and Davis: Wright is one of the best five or six third basemen in baseball and is the face of the franchise. Davis hit more than 30 homers last season and if he can hit more consistently for average he has a chance to be a great all around first basemen.
Weaknesses:
Where to begin…
Outfield: Byrd is washed up and best suited as a 5th outfielder on a deep NL team. Nieuwenhuis is good but young and not ready yet. Duda is inconsistent and not a big league quality starter at all. Baxter and Cowgill are, as of right now, pretty decent AAA outfielders and nothing more. This team’s outfield three are by far the worst in baseball. They have exactly no one who should start at the Major League level. The worst part? This isn’t a new issue. They’ve known about this problem since last season and have done nothing about it.
Lineup: It’s just not very good. Wright is a top notch hitter but other than him, everybody is either a project or a year away or just bad. Every player in the Mets starting nine (other than Wright and maybe Davis) is the type of guy that you could get away with if you had nobody else at that position and had to hide him in a good order. Together, they make up a bad big league team.
Bottom line: The Mets are bad. They are better than the Marlins but the Marlins are historically bad. They don’t have the roster to compete this season, or anything close, but there is help on the way. Wheeler and d’Arnaud are top prospects and the core of Wright, Harvey, Wheeler, Davis, and d’Arnaud can win at some point over the next few years if Alderson builds around with some semblance of aplomb. But for now they have to just focus on putting people in the seats at Citi Field.
Storylines:
Citi Field is nice. You should go there.
Will the cumulative WAR of the Mets outfield be able to say positive?
Last season, Terry Collins managed to coax his team to a pretty good first half. Can he pull that magic off again or will the disaster that is this roster bring him down?
Bobby Parnell is pretty good. He throws hard.
What kind of impact will Wheeler and Harvey have? Will we see d’Arnaud this season?
Prediction:
71-91, 4th Place, NL East. Better than the Marlins, worse than everyone else.
Bold Predictions:
- The Mets will go 1-161
- David Wright will be named the player-manager by June 11th
- Ike Davis will hit 33 homers
- Jon Niese will go 11-15 and make the All-Star game
-Max Frankel
Shoutout of the Day: Hey Griff. Here’s the Mets preview.
