Moves, Cuts, and Hires: What the New York Mets Must Do to Improve Consistency

Move Nelson Figueroa to the bullpen. It made for a nice story for Figueroa to return home and put on a couple of decent performances, but he doesn't last deep into games. He can probably fill Aaron Sele's role from last year.

Get rid of Jorge Sosa. He can barely find the strike zone, and when he does, the ball ends up closer to Citi Field than the catcher's mitt.

Speaking of catchers, now that Ramon Castro is healthy, platoon him with Brian Schneider. Schneider has a decent average thus far, but has no pop. Castro is at least a threat to get an extra-base hit now and again.

Get rid of Carlos Delgado. The only league this guy could possibly play in is an over-30 slow-pitch softball league; and he'd probably still hit into the shift.

Teach Moises Alou to play first base. He's one of the few guys on the team that can actually hit on a regular basis, but is a liability in left field. Too many balls are rolling into the corner, and he can neither come in nor go back on a ball.

Pagan should be the everyday left fielder, and Endy can be reserved for pinch running and resting Carlos Beltran when he suffers from a strained cuticle.

Hire John Olerud as hitting coach. Here's the problem with HoJo. He's a switch-hitter, so he has no idea how to teach a major league left-handed hitter how to hang in there against even a mediocre left-handed pitcher. Johnny O never bailed out against lefties and could rake.

Give the relievers set roles that make sense and stick with them. The last thing this erratic group of flat slider-throwing, dead change-up tossing misfits needs is to wonder when Willie is going to summon them from the bullpen. Pedro Feliciano and Scott Schoeneweis are lefty specialists! They should primarily be in there against lefties. Joe Smith is a righty specialist. He should be in there to face righties! Read the stat sheet!

[Dan Siegel apologizes for this departure from his normal style of journalism, but one only has so much patience after seeing the Mets fall to the Washington Nationals 10-4 on a cool Monday night in May.]