What’s Wrong With the New York Mets?

A quarter of the way into the 2008 Major League Baseball season, the New York Mets stand 2.5 games behind the juggernaut known as the Florida Marlins.

At 20-19, fresh off losing three out of four games at home to the lowly Washington Nationals and with a payroll four times as high as the fish, Mets fans are left scratching their collective noggins wondering what is wrong with their team.

To be honest, I really don’t think there is anything wrong, per se, with the 2008 incarnation of this team, other than the simple fact that the team really isn’t as good as their fans expected them to be.

Not that they’re bad, but competitive balance has crept it's way into the National Pastime over the last few years and the Mets just have too many holes and not enough patches to fix them.

Yes, the Mets have two legitimate “Aces” in Johan Santana and John Maine, but what about the other three spots in the rotation?

Oliver Perez, the most inconsistent pitcher this side of Chad Billingsley, can be as bad as he is good.

I think Rick Peterson and the 2006 playoffs have done wonders for this young man’s confidence, but the fact that he gets rattled very easily, and tends to lose it very quickly is not a good sign. Just look at the number of unearned runs given up by Ollie during the last two seasons (25).

I really feel bad for the team that Scott Boras convinces to give him a five-year, $60 million contract to front their rotation once the 2008 season concludes.

And I’m just not a believer in Mike Pelfrey. Watching him pitch once every five days, the one thing that comes to mind is the old saying “It’s better to be lucky than good”.

Remember “Generation-K”? Enough said. 

As for the revolving door known as the fifth starter—Kyle Loshe’s one-year, $4 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals and Livan Hernandez’s one-year, $5 million contract with the Minnesota Twins, look pretty good right now.

The bullpen isn’t really anything special either. The Mets have a very good closer in Billy Wagner, a man who does have a little bit of “Benitez-Looper Syndrome”, albeit not as severe. But he has been utterly brilliant thus far, but outside of Wags the relief core is pretty mediocre.

Over-used and over-exposed Aaron Heilman isn’t as bad as he’s performing right now.

And little-used and protected-for-good-reason Scott Shoeneweis isn’t as good as he’s appeared either. In the end what you have is a bullpen that is no better than average, something this team cannot afford considering it's many other shortcomings. 

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