Ray Savage - Plan For Next Year

 

SAVAGE VIEWS – Season’s Over – Plan for Next Year

August 5, 2021

Time to face reality.  The Mets are not going to make the playoffs this year.  While they hold a 2 ½ game lead over the Phillies as I write this post, the writing is on the wall.  Both the Phillies and the Braves made trade deadline improvements that improved their clubs.  It appears that the Mets will head into September in third place having relinquished their first place standing.  If we can’t beat below average teams such as the Pirates, Reds and Marlins, how can we expect to compete against the good teams of the NL West?

Of course, hope springs eternal. We will welcome the return of Jake and Thor to shore up the pitching staff.  And there are other arms on the way to strengthen the bullpen.  But, it will fall short.  The lack of timely hitting will continue to doom us.  It’s really puzzling when you look at the starting eight.  Individually they appear to be good to great players but, for whatever reason, don’t mesh as a team.  And, let’s not forget, the starting pitching, so good prior to the All-Star break, has declined precipitously. 

If we continue on this downward spiral and fail to make the playoff, major changes will be in order. 

SANDY AND ZACK

Time to bring in a new management team to right this ship.  The Kumar Rocker fiasco is just the latest in a series of blunders that have put the Mets on the wrong path.  Say what you want about Brodie Van Wagenen, but he did rebuild the farm system by drafting wisely.  Brodie probably would have had a back-up plan by drafting a HS athlete committed to college who could be wooed away with a large signing bonus in the event Rocker was not signed.

I definitely did no care for the Javier Baez trade.  He is an all or nothing player who will dazzle on occasion and let you down more often than not.  I fail to understand why any pitcher would throw him a strike.  Baez will swing at everything thrown his way.  The idea that we will hand him a long-term expensive contract is ludicrous. We already have one bad contract in Lindor.  The worst part was having to surrender our only true CF prospect in PCA.

If we sign Baez to play second where does that leave McNeil – left field maybe.  McNeil is not an adequate third baseman.  Wish we could have landed Trea Turner instead.

LUIS ROJAS

Failure to make the playoffs will mean that the team has underperformed two years in a row.  I understand the argument that these were two difficult and unique years.  However, someone should pay the price.  I wanted Rojas to succeed but his team has fallen short. 

MAKING OVER THE TEAM.

We can’t keep parading out the same players and expect different results.  Except for deGrom, Alonso and perhaps Nimmo and McNeil everyone else should be made available.  We really need to upgrade at CF and third base at the very least. 

Going into the season my hopes were high.  I thought we had one of the best offensive teams ever to play for the Mets only to be disappointed once again.

Sayonara 2021.

Ray