It's the Core, Stupid!

A day of rest, that’s just what the Mets needed, and that goes for their fans too. I know I surely needed one. That last loss to the Padres was excruciating. One strike away from the win they were, and just little David Eckstine at the plate. Oh well.

I won’t be picking on anybody today, not even Ollie Perez. I’ll try to stay away from Gary Matthews too. The fact is that they’re just a .500 team, one among many it seems in a league that’s showing a lot of parity this year. Once you accept that simple truism, the team is a really interesting one to watch, even when Keith (Hernandez, the 3rd guy in the booth) takes still another day off.

I mean….what other team has every player on it being almost psychotically streaky . Name me one everyday player who shows any consistency. Bay? Certainly not. Reyes? Oh please. Wright? I don’t think so. When Barajas, the catcher, leads the team in rbi’s, that’s pathetic, I’m sorry, even if the total number is pretty high.

Yeah, I guess Castillo and Ike Davis have been consistent, but even as good as they’ve been, their total potential impact just isn’t that great (although Ike has won a few games for them, come to think of it).

Right now, for example, Reyes is hot. Francoeur is hot too but those two are five spots apart in the batting order. Even Reyes doesn’t steal home that often. He may have stolen 2nd and 3rd and induced a balk to get home once or twice, but it’s a 162-game season. They just, as a team, don’t score that many runs(17th), especially when Santana’s on the mound.

A typical batting sequence might have Reyes getting on, Castillo moving him over, Bay striking out and Wright popping up. They just don’t put things together that often. And they don’t get big hits. But when the pitching is good, as very often it has been, the whole team plays a lot better, not at the plate certainly but in every other aspect.

Their core players are just not getting it done, or, I should say, haven’t got it done so far this year.

Bay, for example, is hitting a respectable .295 right now and leads the team in runs scored but his OPS is just .829 while his average career OPS is .892. He’s the type of hitter that hits a lot of long balls that get caught. When they’re not caught, it’ll be a double. He just hasn’t been able to get that ball over the wall this year. I hate to say he’s got “warning track power” but that’s been his story this year.

David Wright is hitting .267. He’s got a marginally better OPS than Bay, and 9 home runs, which is probably better than many fans expected, but he just hasn’t produced as often as you’d expect. If he were better in big spots, the low batting average wouldn’t make as much of a difference, but alas, he’s been the guy who strikes out, the guy who pops up, the guy who makes that final out.

Reyes’s numbers are very revealing. He’s batting a paltry .248. And, even with 30 runs scored, that’s just not enough from a player such as Reyes has been. It surprised me to discover that Reyes’s career average OPS is .764, pretty impressive for a shortstop, but his current OPS is a ridiculously poor .638. That’s 150 points off his average.

That’s the real story of the Mets season thus far. That’s not what you’ll read in the news stories though. You’ll hear about Perez refusing to get sent down and Francoeur fixing his swing, even though he’s always fixing his swing. You’ll see stories about Pelfrey, who has been a great revelation this year, or Takahashi, who has generally been good wherever they’ve put him in the rotation. You’ll see stories about the need for another starter, arguably the biggest Mets story of the year.

But it’s all baloney. The Mets are currently 12th in ERA in both leagues, just two spots down from the Yankees, who can boast of possessing Sabathia and Burnett and Pettitte and Hughes. And that nice ERA number has been achieved despite the woes of John Maine and Oliver Perez, both who have been predictably horrible.

The pitching staff deserves kudos for their resiliency, at the very least. A big reason for that is the fact that the Japanese duo of Takahashi and Igarashi have been great, although Igarashi obviously returned to active duty too soon after his injury. Recently R.A. Dickey, the knuckleballer from the minors, has been great. Niese, before he got hurt, had been a pleasant surprise.

The Mets now have a rotation of Santana, Pelfrey, Niese, Takahashi and Dickey. That’s not too shabby. On the relief side there are K-Rod and Feliciano, and Igarashi, who should return to form soon. Then take your pick of Nieve or Mejia or even Dessens. Valdez has been a disappointment, but, in the grand scheme , it’s been a small thing.

Another huge distraction has been Carlos Beltran’s continued absence from the lineup. But Angel Pagan has done a great job in centerfield. He’s also been pretty damned good at the plate, presently sporting a .784 OPS. I consider him a mini-5-tool-guy. The guy does everything pretty darned well.

So I don’t pay too much attention to the stories. The real problem has been the core, or what’s left of it, after the loss of Beltran and Delgado. I’ll ignore the melodrama surrounding the return of Niese and who’ll get dropped from the roster as a result. It just isn’t that significant. Gee, maybe they’ll drop Matthews, who’s deserved a much worse fate than he has thus far experienced.

Reyes has to keep his recent hot streak going. Bay has to start hitting the ball with authority. Wright has to hit the ball more often.

It’s the core, stupid!