Overachievers Anonymous

Like Rod Serling before me, tonight I submit something from your approval. I will present to you the pure statistics of two Major League Baseball teams, side by side (or on top of one another...but format is semantics at this point). I'll strip the names from the uniform and heck, I'll strip the uniforms in general (I'll also strip the players from beneath the uniform, because if you're looking for a column about nude baseball players, you sir are in the wrong place.) I'll then ask you, the loyal reader, to make a judgment call about the two squads. The lineups are the most recently "regular" lineups posted by the teams...let's call them, "Team A" and "Team B" (creativity, thy name is Mike)


TEAM A:
C: 3 HRs, 9 RBIs, .267 BA .321 OBP
1B: 11 HRs, 55 RBIs, .262 BA, .330 OBP
2B: 8 HRs, 40 RBIs, .274 BA, .340 OBP
SS: .1 HR, 13 RBIs, .260 BA, .293 OBP
3B: 2 HRs, 23 RBIs, .261 BA, .321 OBP
LF: 17 HRs, 50 RBIs, .304 BA, .386 OBP
CF: 12 HRs, 47 RBIs, .308 BA, .362 OBP
RF: 8 HRs, 56 RBIs, .290 BA, .350 OBP

TEAM B:
C: 4 HRs, 23 RBIs, .262 BA, .297 OBP
1B: 5 HRs, 26 RBIs, .246 BA, .313 OBP
2B: 0 HR, 17 RBIs, .276 BA, .374 OBP
SS: 0 HR, 11 RBIs, ..251 BA, .345 OBP
3B: 5 HRs, 43 RBIs, .325 BA, .413 OBP
LF: 10 HRs, 31 RBIs, .277 BA, .387 OBP
CF: 1 HR, 8 RBIs, .176 BA, .242 OBP
RF: 2 HRs, 21 RBIs, .285 BA, .337 OBP


Woo! I smell World Series!!! But seriously, take a look at these two clubs. Neither of them is particularly good. Team A has some nice pieces, but seems to have as many holes as a WWE storyline. Team B, however, looks like the away box score for a Triple A game. Here's another statistic. One of these teams is 38-47 and 13.5 games behind their division leader. The other is 40-43 and 4.5 behind their division leader. Neither of these teams are "good" by definition. One of these teams doesn't have a playoff prayer. One of these teams is in a race.

Give up? Team A is the Baltimore Orioles. Team B is the official whipping boys of the Gotham media, the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace, the biggest New York tragedy since Bernie Madoff made a few withdrawals...Ladies and gentlemen, your New York Metropolitans.


Let me follow this little prologue with a disclaimer...I know I have at least one rabid and open Oriole fan who will read this (and another who is so far in the closet, Tom Cruise is ashamed of him...but I won't name names)...I was simply using the O's as a reference point. I don't think they are a joke. They are probably the best last place team in the majors (aka the tallest midgets), they have very nice young building blocks, and Dave Trembley is a ruggedly handsome man. So PLEASE click unsend on the hate mail.


This, unfortunately, is not a column on those lovable Birds. This is an investigation into baseball's biggest paradox this season...Los Mets. Let's get one thing out of the way...I am not a Mets fan. I am not a Yankee fan. I am not a Phillie fan. I am (sadly) a Mariners fan. That *SHOULD* make me unbiased, but alas I am not. As long as its all on the table, I'll readily admit to you that I don't particularly care for the Mets. Never have, never will. Don't ask me why...

That being said, we in the tri-state area have become so inundated with columns/articles/monologues/cave paintings on how tragically bad the Mets have been in 2009. The back page of the New York Post screams it. The hosts and callers on (non Shore Sports Report) talk radio preach it. Opposing fans revel in it. The misfortune of the Mets has become something of a Thanksgiving feast for the sports media...everyone's got their forks out, ready to dig into a delicious Omar appetizer, a succulent entree of Jerry, and a tantalizing David desert (all served with a side of Ollie). The whole thing got me thinking...is the feast really there? Or are we fattening up on a spread of wax vittles?

Fred Wilpon famously said at the end of the 2008 season that he believed his team, fresh off their second consecutive humiliating collapse, had "overachieved" that season. Wilpon was roundly mocked (and justifiably so) for this...With two legitimate MVP candidates, the best all-around center fielder in baseball and arguably the most talented leadoff man in baseball, the Mets lineup looked like a championship contender. The pitching rotation, which shouldered the blame for the '07 collapse, was anchored by the newly acquired Johan Santana and he did not disappoint, finishing 3rd in Cy Young voting. Of course, their bullpen featured such luminaries as Luis Ayala, Jorge Sosa, and everyone's favorite Met...Aaron Heilman. Lead after lead was blown by this bullpen and everyone from the press to the peanut vendors screamed "SAVE US OMAR!" Save them, he did not. The season, as it had the year prior, ended with the Mets choking away the playoffs yet again on the last day of the year. Mets fans braced themselves for the backlash and New York Post headlines writers were drooling at the wealth of puns that was to come. But it never came....Fred Wilpon came out, called the team overachievers, announced that both manager Jerry Manuel and general manager Omar Minaya's jobs were safe, and then left the press conference to go drop off another check at Bernie Madoff's office. As Citi Field was being constructed, Minaya went to work on constructing the team that was to play there...in his mind, a championship team. He did not dissolve the young core that had played in NLCS two years prior as some called for. Instead, he plugged the holes in 'pen, adding the best reliever on the market and a top 5 closer in the game Francisco Rodriguez for what many considered a bargain. He added another former All-Star closer in J.J. Putz to be the set-up man via trade. With the bullpen un-sucktified, he turned an eye to the lineup. With Wright, Reyes, Delgado and Beltran, he figured he had a championship offense and instead chose to build up a bench adding utility man and Peter Gammons text buddy Alex Cora, everyone's favorite paranoid Gary Sheffield and utility outfielder Jeremy Reed. With his lineup, bullpen, and rotation (with the questionably newly minted Oliver Perez) set, O-O-O-Omar and Metssss (apologies to Sir Elton) were ready to rock. Fans were excited and various publications were predicting the Metropolitans to christen Citi Field with a World Series trip. But, as is usually the norm with New York's red-headed step child, it didn't go exactly as planned.

If you've been following baseball this year, you know exactly what happened. As the season began, it became apparent that the architects behind Citi Field had used Petco Park as their template. "Fine then!" said the boys in blue and orange, "We'll win with pitching and defense!" A lovely idea, but a seemingly impossible one, as Oliver Perez turned into circa October 2000 Rick Ankiel and the defense (specifically "Murphy's Law" Danny Murphy) turned into a Buster Keaton film. Injuries piled up and with them came misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis by the Mets medical team of Doctors Howard, Fine, and Howard. Suddenly, it was June and folks who looked at a box score the morning after a Met game were treated to the Triple A lineup we have grown to love...Where was Jose Reyes? Carlos Delgado? Carlos Beltran? Daryl Strawberry? Mets fans would have even been happy to see George Foster's name in the lineup...at least he had some power! In the words of the grand philosopher Michael Ray Richardson..."the ship be sinking." There was more gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts in Queens than in the Old Testament...things were bad for the Mets and there were only getting worse and worse each passing day. But a funny thing happened...they never went away. They never had that 12 game losing streak that buried them. Perhaps its an indictment on the top of the division (I'm looking at you, champs), but the Mets never fell out of contention. Despite all the injuries, all the laughable failures, and all the apparent apathy from the front office, the New York Mets have kept one foot out of the grave. Don't get me wrong...the other foot is indeed in the grave and sinking. As the offense continues its silent protest against violence on baseballs and the pitching staff continues to struggle, the Mets come closer and closer to their appointment at Willoughby Funeral Home. But it hasn't come yet. Yes somehow the Metsises have remained psuedo-competitive despite a lineup that features has-beens, never-wases, and David Wright. I've always been a big proponent of Bill Parcells' credo..."pass the rolls." I also enjoy his other credo..."You are what your record says you are." That is absolutely true. Right now, the Mets are sub .500 team. 5 games under, to be exact. But if I told you at the outset of the year that a team was going to run Alex Cora, Gary Sheffield, Fernando Tatis and a slew of minor leaguers onto the field every day and on any given day could have the names "T. Redding", "L. Hernandez" or "F. Nieve" in the pitching form, what would you have predicted their record as? I'll answer that for you...ATROCIOUS. Refer back to the top of this post. On most nights, the Baltimore Orioles run out a team that, aside from David Wright, would not have a starting spot for ANYONE currently in the Mets starting lineup. The O's are 13 games out of 1st place. The Mets are 5.5. Perhaps that is misleading, as the Birdies in Black play in the best division in baseball, while the Mets play in the worst. So here's another one for you..."Tale of the Tape" wise, there are four positions that the putrid Washington Nationals have an everyday advantage over the Mets in (some might even argue five...the Wright/Zimmerman debate is going to be the DiMaggio/Williams of the '10s!)

The Mets are not a good team. The Mets are a bad team. That's why they are under .500. But they are not a TRAGIC team. At 4 games under .500, by the grace of God, they are still in the race for the National League East. If someone had told me in March that that was going to be the state of affairs in Queens, I would have (after chuckling) shook my head and said "How is that even possible?" So yes, where the Mets sit right now is disappointing. That being said, if someone had told me in March that the Mets were going to lose Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Brian Schneider, Ryan Church, Oliver Perez, and J.J. Putz to moderate to long DL stints before the All-Star Game, I would have (after chuckling) made the sign of the cross and given last rites to a team that would CERTAINLY (in my simple mind) have been 10-15 games off the division lead and d-e-a-d.

Perhaps the Mets will only sink further and further into the grave, ala the last few years of Zsa Zsa Gabor's life. Perhaps, like Godot before them, the reinforcements will never arrive. Perhaps the season is indeed lost. For the record, my gun to the head prediction would be that this team doesn't sniff the postseason. However...the Mets (provided they do not get swept by the Reds this weekend) sit in a position wherein if the reinforcements DO come back and Omar actually DOES get off his kiester and make a trade...perhaps we won't have to fire up the Chopin's Sonata No. 2. Perhaps the Song of Shea this year will be a refrain of early season collapse with a crescendo of late season run. Yes, you aren't going crazy....a New York/New Jersey sports guy is writing a POSITIVE column about the Mets. Kudos to Jerry Manuel for not letting the ship go entirely under. Kudos to Omar Minaya for building a championship bench (he can get a few more kudos if he actually...oh I don't know, DOES SOMETHING before its too late). Kudos to David Wright for doing his damnedest to keep the team afloat. And kudos to guys like our buddy Pete from Howell for never giving hope on this rag-tag team of minor leaguers. As they say in the Shawshank Redemption...."Hope is a good thing...maybe the best of things...and no good thing ever dies."

Its a long season folks.