Changing Metstory

Jessica D Leave a comment

The other day on Twitter, the Twitter account @BMoSports214 posed an interesting question: “If you could change three sports moments from the past, what would they be?”

I responded very simply:

  1. Mets win 2015 World Series
  2. Mets win Subway Series
  3. Carlos Beltran swings

Obviously, I don’t ask for much here. Lets go into depth on why I would change each of these three things to swing in our favor, besides from there being a couple of shiny trophies in the Mets Hall of Fame Museum.

Mets win 2015 World Series. We all know what happened in late July. Wilmer Flores cried on the field, I sat in the rain for three hours to watch the Mets lose 8-7 to the Padres and we got Yoenis Cespedes. Then we started winning baseball games while the Nationals started losing baseball games and Jonathan Papelbon choked Bryce Harper. We shocked every sports analyst by even making it to the playoffs; this was supposed to be the final year in the five-bajillion-year long rebuild. Then we beat the Dodgers in five games, which also wasn’t supposed to happen because everyone hates the Mets, especially Chase Utley. The Mets advanced to the NLCS and nobody thought the Mets would beat the Cubs. Hadn’t the poor Cubs fans suffered long enough? Update: 2016 thought they did but 2015 said, “Meh, let them suffer” and the Mets pitching beat the Cubs hitting to shock the baseball world. The Mets had advanced to the World Series where their opponent was the Kansas City Royals, who admittedly had momentum on their side and that’s the only nice thing I’m going to say about them. After that, if you ask “analysts” like Joe Buck and Harold Reynolds, they say Kansas City fought back this entire series and blah blah blah but every single Mets fan knows they beat themselves. Daniel Murphy forgot how to baseball, Lucas Duda had that costly error that allowed Eric Hosmer to score and Juerys Familia couldn’t save a game if Dan Warthen held the gun to his head. The Mets, at one point, had leads in all five World Series games. Game 2 wasn’t gonna our way anyway but yeah, I would definitely change the outcomes of games 1, 4, and 5. And maybe Daniel Murphy would have remembered how to baseball. The only good thing about the 2015 World Series was that it brought us an onslaught of Pete Rose memes. Never die, Pete Rose memes, never die.

Mets win Subway Series. For Mets fans born after 1986, and even those Mets fans that were too young to remember the awesomeness that was the 1986 team, this was our first real heartbreak as Mets fans. It was our second year in a row clinching the Wild Card berth and we made it past the Giants and the Cardinals to face our crosstown rivals in the Subway Series. The Mets played five close games with the Yankees but it ultimately ended with the Yankees celebrating their victory at Shea Stadium and Derek Jeter winning World Series MVP honors. You couldn’t even hate the guy other than the fact that he played for our rivals, so thanks a lot Jetes. I was 11 going on 12 during the 2000 playoffs and I can’t help but to think that if the Mets had won the World Series this year, the entire trajectory of my sports-loving childhood would have been totally different. Instead of trying to get redemption, the Mets went on to average 74 victories over the next four years and became a laughing stock again, which really rubbed salt in the wound. Not only was the game five defeat the last hurrah in the World Series for players like Edgardo Alfonzo, Mike Piazza and Al Leiter, it was also the last World Series game at Shea. The only good thing that came out of the 2000 playoffs was that Mike Hampton’s performance was good enough for him to choose the Colorado school systems over the Mets and then the Mets used the extra draft pick to get some kid from Virginia named David Wright.

Carlos Beltran swings. The 2006 NLCS just hurt a lot. I’m not even gonna recap this torture. Because that’s what it was. Scott Spezio’s stupid red beard still haunts my nightmares. It’s hard to pin all the blame on Carlos Beltran, but he’s the face we have to equate to our defeat. It’s easy to make an argument for blaming Aaron Heilman, Guillermo Mota and Scott Spezio’s stupid red beard but every Mets fan will say, “Beltran could have at least swung.” They’re absolutely right. At best, Beltran would have fouled off the pitch and at worst he would have missed but even if he fouled off the pitch, he would have still been alive in the at bat. I’m sorry, but you can’t have Endy Chavez make the greatest catch ever, Oliver Perez actually pitch decently, be the home team and still lose the game! I would like to think that if he swung and missed, blame would have been put elsewhere but at the same time, I’m still a proud user of the #blamebeltran hashtag. I’m not saying we would have won the game if Beltran had swung, but I would have wanted to see how it played out.

Obviously, we can’t change history. These moments in Mets history, whether we like it or not, made us stronger as Mets fans. Moments like these are what will make getting to the top freaking awesome. I can’t wait to see what 2017 brings us.

IdleMets

Jessica D Leave a comment

mets_circle_logoAs someone who spends a lot of time on Twitter, I can get Mets news up to the minute, read other blogs and engage in discussion with fans across the country. However, when there’s nothing to talk about, #MetsTwitter starts to get antsy. Like right now.

Yoenis Cespedes signed his big contract on November 30th. Twitter was overjoyed; our big bat was back and he was staying for four years guaranteed because Sandy Alderson provided a full no-trade clause. It marked two times that Cespedes turned down more money to stay with our beloved Metropolitans. And for a while, the signing of Cespedes kept #MetsTwitter satiated. We knew the team was pretty much complete, but wouldn’t be upset if our fearless leaders added a bullpen arm or two to the mix.

The Mets signed free agent pitchers Cory Burns and Ben Rowen to minor league contracts on December 15th. I’m personally excited that we signed a submariner partly because I feel like Gary Cohen is contractually obligated to introduce them as submariners and partly because it’s fun to watch them pitch. But since December 15th, it seems Sandy Alderson decided to take the last two weeks of 2016 off.

I noticed last week that Twitter was starting to get anxious about the team making a move. I’ve never been one to support the team making a move just to make a move but I do agree that Sandy has been a little too quiet this offseason. There could be a lot of reasons for that.

First of all, the 40 man roster is full. All players that were on the 60 day DL have been activated and the Mets protected five players from the Rule 5 Draft. The Mets could move someone to the 60-day DL because the roster is full but there’s been positive injury updates up and down the roster. The Mets could also put players on waivers, but I don’t think those decisions will be made until spring training because a lot can happen between now and then.

Second, Sandy Alderson has said this winter that any move we make would probably be more likely to involve a trade. Alderson has been trying to trade Jay Bruce since the beginning of December with the Orioles and Rangers expressing interest but nothing coming to fruition. Sandy’s also said that he’s not willing to trade Michael Conforto or top prospect Amed Rosario for a bullpen arm.

The bullpen market has frozen with pitchers looking for guaranteed deals. The Mets and Jerry Blevins are both interested in a reunion but the Mets seem unwilling to pay Blevins’s $15-to-20 million price tag. Alderson seems unwilling to go three years with any relief pitcher, not just Jerry Blevins.

Finally, it just seems like this Mets team is complete up and down the lineup. With Neil Walker accepting his qualifying offer, the infield is set. How long the infield will be complete is a question that remains to be answered but I have a gut feeling the Mets will trade for Kelly Johnson from the Braves next June so not to worry! We have an outfield, we have a bench, we have pitching. There’s probably very few roster spots up for grabs this spring and that’s okay with me.

Can the Mets make a move in the bullpen? Sure. Would we be okay if the Mets didn’t make a move in the bullpen? Sure. Sandy does continue to say that he would like to add one more arm in the bullpen before spring training. I have faith that he’ll continue to operate this team like the contenders that we are and I have faith there will be a new bullpen arm sometime in the next 41 days. Just continue to be patient.

Metsolutions

Jessica D Leave a comment

Happy New Year, Mets fans!

The doom and gloom that was 2016 is over and now we can start fresh in 2017.

2016 had its ups and downs. We clinched a Wild Card berth but failed to advance past the Wild Card game. We didn’t have Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz for the better part of the year but Noah Syndergaard came into his own and we were pleasantly surprised by Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman. David Wright missed practically the whole season thanks to a herniated disk in his neck that did NOT have any relation to the spinal stenosis but I finally achieved my decade-long dream of taking a selfie with him. You catch my drift, ups and downs.

Two days ago on Twitter, I saw a resolutions list on Twitter that completely upset me (Shameless plug, go follow me on Twitter if you don’t already) because it had dumb resolutions like “go to more home games” and “I will not curse at the television.” However, the one that made me sad as a human being was “I will appreciate David Wright.” Like, who DOESN’T appreciate David Wright? Seriously, point them out. I will give them a piece of my mind.

Metsolutions, like resolutions, need to be realistic otherwise two weeks into a new baseball season, we will all be cursing life and making sarcastic comments about the Mets. For example, I don’t live in New York so I can’t go to more home games. I can, however, resolve to make another trek up to Citi Field and catch them when they’re on the road. So, allow me to tear this dumb Twitter (courtesy of @athletelogos) list apart piece by piece, shall we?

  1. I will go to more home games. Okay, so it’s hard for people to go to more home games whether it be for financial reasons or for travel reasons or whatever life throws at you, but thanks to modern technology, I can get Gary, Keith, and Ron in my living room! So how about resolving to watch more Mets games? It’s doable guys.
  2. I will not curse at my television. HA. HA. HA. Cursing at my television is the cornerstone of my Mets-watching experience. I curse AT the stadium when I’m there; watching the games at home just lets me watch games without a filter. So instead of watching games like a prude and not cursing at the TV every time someone bobbles a ball or David Wright can’t make the throw to first, why don’t we all resolve to be more patient with the team? You can still curse when they do something really stupid, but I’ve gotten really good at shaking everything off as something that would happen to the Mets.
  3. I will stay up for west coast games. We all dread that week when the Mets are on their west coast swing, and this year we play the American League West so that west coast swing became longer. Most of us have day jobs, I get it. But usually, there’s a point where the game is obviously over and fatigue sets in. So, instead of waiting up to watch the Mets lose 3-2 in 16 innings and hating life the next morning, why don’t we all resolve to stay awake until the point no return? It doesn’t make you a bad fan to not watch the game; it just means you’re a responsible adult.
  4. I will avoid Yankee fans at all costs. Impossible. Also childish. We should be nicer to the Yankee fans; not all of them totally suck and it makes us look like the better fanbase.
  5. I will appreciate David Wright. This makes me sad as a human being. There’s people out there that actually hate on David Wright because he either “makes too much money so we can’t sign a free agent” or “he’s wasting a roster space so we can’t make a trade.” Suck it up, buttercups. David Wright is a Met until he tearfully announces his retirement with his wife and his daughter beside him. I just can’t even. Let’s just all be realistic in our expectations.
  6. I will expect injuries in advance. Okay, I can live with this one mainly because #MetsTwitter is notorious for hoping for the best and expecting the worst. We label players “dead” when they pull a hammy. So, I’m putting it on the Mets to hire a new medical staff. Please?
  7. I will wash my lucky shirt. No, I won’t. I will, however, to continue to follow any superstition as long as they continue to work.
  8. I will not insult Ty Kelly. Ty Kelly might be in Vegas next year soooooooo why is this even on the list? And I will insult the suckiest player on the team; it’s in my nature. I will try to be nicer to them in my insults, however.
  9. I will forgive Cespedes for not hustling. Most Mets fans love Cespedes. It’s a Cespedes for the rest of us but if his not hustling costs us the game, then we have every right to be mad. I will have faith that Terry Collins will address the lack of hustle to Cespedes and maybe put in my favorite late-inning defensive replacement, Juan Lagares.
  10. I will not (always) blame Terry Collins. Blaming Terry Collins is in everyone’s nature. Even if it’s not his fault, it’s his fault. What works one day doesn’t always work the next day. We should resolve to analyze the situation for what it was, and if we want to direct blame, then direct it at Carlos Beltran.
  11. I will be grateful for the pitching staff. Sandy Alderson has turned down some great players so that his pitching staff could stay in tact and when they’re all healthy, we will have one of the best pitching rotations in baseball. This shouldn’t even be on the list, but whatever.
  12. I will watch Wright and Reyes turn two. This is 2017, not 2007. Asdrubal Cabrera is the every day shortstop. This goes back to being realistic about our expectations for David. Any day we see Wright and Reyes on the field will be a good day.
  13. I will not cheer for Daniel Murphy. This goes back to being childish. Daniel Murphy single-handedly took the 2015 Mets to the World Series; it’s not his fault Sandy Alderson didn’t offer him a contract past the qualifying offer. It’s also not his fault that he got the best contract offer from a hated division rival. Appreciate Murph for what he’s done, not the uniform he currently wears.
  14. I will practice good fundies. FUNDIES!!!! KEITH!!!! We all love when Keith talks fundies. But there’s good fundies both on and off the field. Stay classy, Mets fans.
  15. I will not cry when Bartolo faces us. Yes I will. We’re all entitled to a good cry but I know Mets fans will be nothing but respectful for Bartolo because he’s a legend. Thanks for one of the best moments of 2016.
  16. I will attend a World Series game. Is this implying the Mets will get to the World Series? They have to stay healthy and get there first. Who knows what will happen over the course of 162 games? Let’s keep the expectations real.
  17. I will always believe. Tug said it best, “Ya gotta believe!” Mets fans always believe. It’s in our DNA. Never give up. Hope is what brings us together as one.