The boss is out of the office today and there's not much going on around the internet to entertain me, so I might as well write a blog post. As you may know, I work for a huge government-run entity in the personnel security office and a large part of my job consists of fingerprinting employees, volunteers, contractors, etc. who work for this organization. Well when we receive the results of those fingerprint checks most people have no records and we simply close their case and let the coordinators know that they're ok to bring on board--these people are CLOSED FAVORABLY. Sometimes the fingerprint checks reveal a criminal/arrest record that forces us to review their files (some of the more interesting marks on people's records this week: forcible sodomy and
uttering)--when we can't in good conscience let these people work for our organization they are deemed UNACCEPTABLE. Sometimes we fingerprint old and/or sweaty people and their prints do not come out clearly, meaning that a check is done based on their name, SSN, date/place of birth, etc. These "name checks" are not always accurate and thus we may have to re-print somebody whose prints were garbage--they were considered UNCLASSIFIABLE.
We can ignore 3B, SS, CF, 1B and Johan for the time being (they were simply ID renewals that had a previously acceptable investigation). Here were the 2008 Mets' problem areas, as determined by me: Bullpen, 2nd Base, Left Field, Rotation (behind Johan), Catcher. And remember, we can adjudicate Mr. Minaya's moves in three ways: closed favorably, unacceptable, or unclassifiable.
BULLPENWhere we stood: The 2008 Mets bullpen was retardedly atrocious. Wagner got hurt in August, leaving a cast of LOOGs and ROOGs trying to preserve precious leads. They all failed pretty miserably. Heilman was all-around shitty, Dirty Duaner got tired as the year wore on, Schoeneweis and Feliciano couldn't retire righties to save their lives, ditto Joe Smith but with lefties,Luis Ayala was a National castoff who was thoroughly mediocre...you get the idea.
What we did: Clearly the bullpen was the Mets' biggest flaw in 2008 and Omar got right down to business fixing it. He signed K-Rod for 3 yrs./ $37 mil, which ain't half bad considering he dit it before the FA market bottomed out and early prediction had K-Rod looking for 5/70 or thereabouts. Omar also unloaded Heilman and Joe Smith, along with Mike carp and some lower-level prospects (and, alas, the lovable Endy Chavez) in exchange for JJ Putz and Sean Green (and Jeremy Reed, who ain't no damn Endy, lemmetellya). The Mets also threw out some minor league deals to no-names and picked up a guy named Rocky Cherry in the Rule 5 draft.
Adjudication: We picked up the best free agent closer and traded for an arguably better closer to set him up. Green is essentially a Joe Smith replacement and should be adequate. I expect a healthier and better year out of Dirty Duaner. If Wagner comes back in August the Mets could have the best bullpen in recent memory, and even without Billy that's still a hell of a one-two punch. CLOSED FAVORABLY.
SECOND BASEWhere we stood: 2nd base was a miasma of suck for the Mets last year. Castillo could barely hit his weight and couldn't move more than a few steps in either direction to field(great signing Omar!), Damion "GIDP" Easley actually tangibly looked like replacement level personified, and Argenis Reyes was an all-field no-hit bleach blonde dumbfuck.
What we did: Easley's gone, and in his place is...Alex Cora! Hooray, a 33-year old life-long bench player with a .245/.313/.348 in 2800 at bats. Alex Cora, come on down and collect your 2 million dollars.
Adjudication: Looks like Omar's crossing his fingers and hoping for Castillo to justify that contract. And $2 million isn't a ton, but I really think Omar could have allocated that money elsewhere. It's not like I wanted to go throw a bunch of money at Orlando Hudson (who might wind up being really cheap considering he's still unsigned as of this writing), but as long as Luis Castillo is hobbling around with an orange NY on his hat there is only one adjudication possible. UNACCEPTABLE.
LEFT FIELDWhere we stood: Left field was a revolving door of players of whom nothing was expected, because what the Mets and Mr. Minaya expected was for Moises Alou to play more than a couple of games. Fernando Tatis and the Superman music shocked the shit out of every one by playing quite well for several months before separating his shoulder in mid-September. Daniel Murphy burst on the scene in a big way, hitting very well in 131 at-bats during August and September. Nick Evans looked rather benchy, but hit lefties well in his limited playing time. Angel Pagan (definitely a member of the Brooklyn Cyclones Hall of Fame) had a hot start before falling over a railing at Dodger Stadium in May and ending his season. The Mets actually got OK production out of LF last year despite Omar's efforts, but none of these guys really seems like a big league leftfielder.
What we did: Closed our eyes and pretended Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn, and Pat Burrell didn't exist. Signed a bunch of filler (Cory Sullivan, Rob Mackowiak, Bobby Kielty, etc.) to compete with Jeremy Reed for a 5th outfielder spot and round out the Buffalo roster.
Adjudication: It seems Omar is content with a Tatis-Murphy platoon in left. It seems pretty risky to expect Tatis to replicate last year's magic or Murphy to live up to his great start, and it's disappointing that that's what we have to hope for when Dunn, Burrell, and even Bobby Abreu (not a LF, but still) were had for very little money. I guess the budget is set and we can thank Bernie Madoff for that. Here's hopin that Murphy is the next John Olerud. UNCLASSIFIABLE.
ROTATIONWhere we stood: Johan is a beast. Big Mike Pelfrey was great from some time in June onwards, but he threw a lot more innings than ever before and still can't strike people out. Let's hope he picks up those strikeout rates and doesn't fall victim to serious fatigue or arm issues after last year's workload. John Maine was pretty lousy and then hurt, but he still can be a solid 3 when healthy. Ollie was up and down as usual, with a stretch at the beginning of the year where he was brutal, a stretch in the middle where he convinced us all he'd finnally turned it around, and a stretch at the end where he was pretty blah; and he walked 1700 men. Pedro, as much as I love the guy, was brutally, indescribably awful.
What we did: We watched the Braves over pay for solid consistency in the form of Derek Lowe. After a long and arduously boring negotiation we re-signed Ollie for 3 yrs./$36 mil, which seems ok until you read smart people explain how much he's
actually worth. We signed Tim Redding to a major-league $2.25 mil contract, which seemed fine at the time, but then the market went downhill and I realized we could have had 7 Tim Reddings or maybe even someone better for that. We signed Freddy Garcia to a minor league deal with a bunch of incentives. And for some goddamn reason we just signed Livan Hernandez and invited him to St. Lucie.
Adjudication: I can't help but feel that Omar paid a bunch of money to tread water. I love Ollie and I hate that Derek Lowe contract, but he's a proven commodity and a better bet to be good despite his age. I do like the fact that the Mets actually have some rotational depth this year, with Jon Niese, Redding, and Garcia all in the running for that 5th spot. I expect Garcia to make the rotation and Redding to serve as the long man/injury insurance to start the year. All in all, meh. UNCLASSIFIABLE.
CATCHERWhere we stood: With the trading away of Schoeneweis and my soon to come assassination of Luis Castillo, Brian Schneider is my least favorite Met. Whether it's sour grapes from the Milledge trade, the fact that he hit's like a little bitch, or the fact that he CAN"T BLOCK A BALL IN THE FUCKING DIRT, I can't stand the guy. He clearly is not a good catcher. Ramon Castro can hit some bombs, but he's hurt all the damn time and was again last year. Robinson Cancel looks like a retired-and-now-gotten-fat Ninja Turtle, but that doesn't mean he should be on an MLB roster.
What we did: Not a damn thing, although there weren't really any options. If they could have gotten Varitek for cheap and then fed him to sharks on live TV that would've been OK.
Adjudication: Well there weren't really any great options out there. We didn't really have the prospects to get one of the Rangers' catchers or Montero from Arizona. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that Omar didn't sign PudgeRod. Lest we forget though, Omar traded Lastings Milledge for Schneider and also let Washington scoop up Jesus Flores in the Rule 5 draft two years ago. Thank God we were able to hold on to Julio Franco for half of 2007, where would we have been without him. UNACCEPTABLE.
What have we learned: Nothing really. If Ryan Church and Delgado play like their good halves of 2008 this coming year we got a shot. Otherwise, we're looking at last year's team with a bullpen. At least I'm not LCT, though, because the Tigers are gonna suck.
