But That's Just Me: - 2011, Johan, FMart, and Orlando Hudson

2011 Expectations
I had an early dinner last night at my local haunt, Gruby’s Deli, which is a hangout for Yankees and Mets fans. The bartender, who is a big time Mets fan (always tells me as I’m leaving… “Mets forever, Mack”) is thrilled with what’s going on in the off-season. His take is the fact that all the pressure is off to have a good season and fans like him can just lay back and enjoy the kids representing the team in 2011. According to him, no expectations equals lots of fun.


I reminded him that there might be some illogical reasoning in this statement and I trying to apply it to his business, not mine. I reminder him that knowledge of bad pastrami on two pieces of decent rye bread doesn’t mean a customer will lay back and enjoy eating it because there are no expectations that this was going to be a decent sandwich.


He answered with “yeah, whatever…” and went on to the Yankees portion of the bar.


Does he have a valid point? Can Mets fans actually just sit back for a year and let these kids mature until 2012?




Metstradamus

 As I’ve said before, Sandy and Company have, IMO, done nothing wrong let this off-season. My problem remains that they haven’t done enough.


That being said, they are being prevented from doing more than looking for a hidden jewel in a box of coal. The Wilpons have put salary restraints on Alderson and it will be interesting if his bag of tricks wind up as effective as Omar’s were last year. Remember, it wasn’t the Wright’s and Reyes that had this team I first place at one point in the season. It was the Dickey’s and the Dessens.


Reports are coming in the Johan Santana is ahead of schedule and Fernando Martinez is once again not complaining about some part of his anatomy. What if both these guys come out of the box on a high note? All of a sudden, you don’t need another rotational pitcher for this “off” year (Santana, Pelfrey, Niese, Dickey, Gee), knowing both Matt Harvey and Jenrry Mejia will enter the 2012 rotation.


You also won’t need a new 4th outfielder, who, if he actually begins to play like we’ve been waiting oh so long for, could push Angel Pagan back to the bench.


They have catcher figured out, there’s plenty of decent guys that can fill in the utility positions, so that leaves a couple of slots open for the pen and a decision on who is going to play second base.


Me?


In an “off” year?


Screw the rotation. They don’t have the money for the Cliff Lee’s so develop your rotation from within. Concentrate your draft effort on another pitching hunk, like Matt Barnes, make sure guys like Greg Peavey, Brett Mitchell, Chad Sheppard, and Erik Goeddel start off above the rookie level, and put what monies you do have for this year into ending all the second base speculation.

Orlando Hudson is a very young 32-year old that can put the Mets second base in his back pocket for the next three years and let the Mets get on to developing eventual replacements for Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran. A healthy Daniel Murphy would make great trade bait to an AL team looking for a DH and you could throw in either Zach Lutz or Kirk Nieuwenhuis and get yourself a decent pitching prospect or two.


But that’s just me.