To me, it almost seems fitting that the Mets would pull off an unexpected win (and some excitement) on a day when Mike Piazza is celebrated. Maybe it was in the spirit of the day. So the old story goes, Mike Piazza was basically drafted ONLY as a favor from one friend to another. Only, in the end, that favor turned into a celebrated career for a player who believed in himself. Maybe it is a sign that these current Mets need to start believing in themselves.
What may have been another lost season, could also become a new day in the 'other New York team' era. Instead of heartbreaking losses, injuries, and lost expectations for a dream season (well, at least one where they go over .500), the shift will now further focus towards the future. Sandy Alderson is still around. Terry Collins appears to be back for at least the next 2 seasons, and David Wright is still here (yeah, I keep bringing that up, I'm just still really excited about that).
The all mighty (and publicized) protected draft pick is officially in the Mets possession. So now what? The San Francisco Giants already locked up one of the high priced OF's by resigning Hunter Pence. So there goes that Idea. Depending on who you ask, that $90 mil might actually bump up Choo to over $100 mil. That might price him out of the market, no matter how many times this year he was linked to the Mets.
Oh, and, congrats to me for going 3 whole paragraphs without mentioning the fact that Matt Harvey might still not see the mound until 2015 unless all goes well in the next 6-8 weeks. But the bottom line is that the Mets continued to fight, until the very end. When they were hitting, they couldn't pitch. When they were pitching, they couldn't hit. They started out with too many pitchers. They ended with not enough. But, despite it all, and with another losing season guaranteed, Daniel Murphy hit .305 in September, some kid named Juan Lagares had the most outfield assists by a rookie in 6 years, a dude named Vic showed up and somehow amassed 3 quick wins out of the bullpen, Travis d-Arnoud stopped getting hurt and made his debut, and John Niese ended the season with 4 straight quality starts.
The bottom line is that I'm still proud to be a Mets fan. Maybe we are still the lovable losers at this point, but help is on the way. There are pitching prospects growing like weeds down on the farm. No matter what kind of ownership we have, its hard to imagine not spending at least some of the $50+ mil in extra money this offseason.
Maybe they won't sign a $100 million dollar man. Maybe they shouldn't anyway. Has anyone been watching baseball lately? It seems like every perennial all star who signed a 7-10 year contract faded more and more as time went on in that contract, some a lot sooner then others. Might be time to not rush to judgement in regards to outbidding the Yankees, Angels, Dodgers and Rangers for a high priced talent (see Jason Bay........always see Jason bay in this discussion of spending....always)
For now, let's celebrate what we have. Homegrown talent, young power pitching, a career player/captain in the organization, and highly ranked pitching and hitting prospects who might actually play for the Mets, and not some other club in a trade deadline move to rent a player.
Congrats to the Mets who continued to fight. Congrats to the fans who stuck around to watch it.
And congrats to you for being as positive as you could about this team.
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