Welcome to The Summer of Our Disconnect

(The following Mets are exempt from this: Johan, Frankie and Gary Sheffield)

Like so many Met seasons of the past, the 2009 edition of the New York Mets died in Turner Field this evening as they lost 3 of 4 to the Braves to start the 2nd half. Sure, they may have been kept alive by the machines (the Phillies struggling for a month), but this team has been a goner for awhile now. After the first post All-Star break series, they sit 10 games back of the Phillies in the loss column, are once again the weak punchlines of bloviating windbags in the sports media and with the trade deadline 11 days away, it's highly unlikely the Mets will be buyers.


Following the trauamatic endings of the last 3 seasons, having the Mets going into the tank now seems almost welcome by comparison. If 2006 was walking in on your wife screwing your best friend, 2007 was getting screwed in the divorce and last year was losing custody of the kids, then this year has been akin to living in a motel off I-95 in Palm Coast.

Now admittedly, I haven't been as diligent this year since I don't have the luxury of Extra Innings, but I still follow as closely as I can by watching online, analyzing the boxes, the transactions and the rumors. Every time I watch a Met game on ESPN or catch a look-in on MLB Net, the place just sounds comatose. Part of that can be blamed on the ridiculous ticket prices of Citi Field that has welcomed the Bailout Crowd, whose conferences are being interrupting by a baseball game, but the holdovers from Shea have been silent as well. Before the injuries, I felt like the fans and players shared the same attitude of "Who cares? We have to wait 5 months to make everyone shut up anyway." After one crunch-time failure after another, it's pretty easy to be jaded and after 3 spectacular chokes, Met fans are as bitter as Keith Olbermann these days.

It would be easy to blame this on all injuries like many others, but there's a lot more to what's currently going on in Flushing than just the disabled list. Management will take a lot of the blame as they're responsible for the roster. It's been New York's dirty secret that the Wilpons were one of the biggest victims of the Madoff scheme (some estimates range as high as $700 million, nice to know you can lose that and still own a team in the biggest market), which along with the injuries may explain why Mets have been hesitant to pull the trigger on any deals.

Omar Minaya is fortunate that he has the injuries to fall back on this season becuase he certainly is not without blame for this mess. You can't blame him for not having depth from a free agent standpoint because how many capable backups can you find on the market that can be a starter for an extended period as well? He can blamed however for the deals not made (Derek Lowe, Edwin Jackson for Ryan Church) and not having an adequate minor league system to go to in case of emergency.

Since Minaya's arrival in 2005, here are the list of Mets who came up through the system: Heath Bell (before he became the second coming of Trevor Hoffman, go figure), Royce Ring, Anderson Hernandez, Mike Jacobs (played 1 month in '05), Brian Bannister (was a starter for the first month of 2006, got hurt, traded that offseason), Phillip Humber, Henry Owens, Mike Pelfrey, Lastings Milledge, Carlos Muniz, Joe Smith, Carlos Gomez, Eddie Kunz, Jonathon Niese, Bobby Parnell, Argenis Reyes, Nick Evans, Daniel Muprhy, Fernando Martinez.

Out of that entire group, they only players that can still contribute are Pelfrey, Parnell, Murphy and F-Mart. That's 4 out of 19....below average production, right? Even if the Mets were in contention to make a big trade, there's such a dearth of talent in the minors (and hope pinned on the ones who can make a difference), that they couldn't swing a deal for a chase-changer.

The onus is on the players too. At some point, you have to stop making excuses and play full-out. Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez are major league pitchers with front of the rotation material and have double-digit win seasons to their name, yet every time something doesn't go their way, they throw a pity party and make a potentially bad inning a disasterous inning. Daniel Murphy never had an issue with defense last season, but he let everyone's suspicions and criticisms get in his head, and I say that as a Murphy fan.

The Cardinals had plenty of injuries in 2006, the Phillies have had their share of injuries the last 3 seasons, but that didn't stop them. This is just a team that feels sorry for itself and it's pathetic.

Oh well, at least I'll be able to enjoy August and September for once.