Reese Kaplan -- Did We Awaken From Our Sub-Mendoza Nightmare?

One of the things Mets fans are very fond of doing is picking at the scabs of what might have been in terms of bad personnel decisions regarding players who were simply over the hill, plagued by injuries or unable to face the intense media pressure of playing in New York.  There have been a large number of professional baseball players who stumbled, bumbled and tumbled their way into inadequacy once they donned the orange and blue (or orange and black or whatever other uniform combo of the day was popular).  

The first that immediately comes to mind was the Mets free agent signing of in-his-prime outfielder Carlos Beltran.  He was inked to a $119 million contract spread over seven years which at the time represented the largest deal in Mets history.  He was just 28 years old, hit with power, played stellar defense and could steal bases with the best of them.  On the surface it looked like a winning maneuver.

Unfortunately, Beltran was one of those folks who didn’t have his mojo working in his first year in Queens.  After ending his 2004 season with 38 HRs, 104 RBIs and 42 SBs, he launched his Mets career in 2005 with 17 HRs, 78 RBIs and 17 SBs.  The only area in which he maintained parity was batting average with .267 in 2004 and .266 in 2005.  That kind of production was surely not what the Wilpons had in mind when they lured Beltran to the Mets.  The team was blasted more than was Beltran about having wasted money.  

Of course, he adjusted nicely and in 2006 he posted an 8.2 WAR rating after slugging 41 HRs, driving in 116, stealing 18 bases (and caught only 3 times) while hitting .275.  Oh yeah, he also got his first of three straight Gold Gloves for the Mets that season, too.  Now if only he could have learned to swing the bat against Adam Wainwright…

Major injuries derailed several Mets from the career numbers that were expected of them.  Most recently, of course, there was the very expensive IL-resident, Jed Lowrie.  Prior to that was the infamous Jason Bay contract.  There was the trade to get Mo Vaughn.  There were the pair of Indians who seemed to forget what a bat was designed to do, Carlos Baerga and Robbie Alomar.  This list gets longer and more stomach-churning the more you think about it. 

Many were quick to classify both Francisco Lindor and James McCann the same way after their respective April and May Arctic starts.  Lindor was clearly the best all-around shortstop in the AL for the past several years and McCann had logged two straight commendable offensive seasons to accompany his stellar defense. 

Needless to say, neither did much for their first eight weeks in Queens, but guess who turned up the heat once the calendar flipped to June?  Maybe it was just shaking off rust, maybe it was the return of their teammates from tape, casts and splints, or maybe it was just a matter of time, but both have shown their new team what they’re capable of doing.

Along with these newcomers, you know who else has been highly entertaining and valuable the past few days in Arizona?  Both Pete Alonso and Dominic Smith have shown once again what they’re capable of doing when they’re swinging effectively.  Either one of them could be a cleanup hitter on most clubs when they’re hot, so the offense is most definitely welcome for a team that was treating every home pitcher lately like he was Jacob deGrom when it came to wanting for runners to cross the plate.

There are a lot of Mets fans anxiously awaiting similar returns from Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo, too.  While the Jonathan Villars and Jose Perazas and Tomas Nidos provided some recent offense, the inked-in regulars were the ones the team banked upon to take them into the postseason.