METS. WHY NOT?
”The good befriend themselves.”, Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus.

For those of you utterly disinterested in the comings and goings of the Mets future, I promise to intersperse this opinion with philosophical, political, literary and sociological scatology so as to appear to make it interesting, so please bear with it and if you aren’t a Mets fan, imagine your own club’s problems…

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either." -- Golda Meir

BULLPEN: When you’ve got two auld starters who can’t pitch more than 6 innings an outing, you’d better have a deep bullpen. It isn’t hard to burn out a bullpen when half of your regular starters can’t be counted on to pitch the team into your set-up man and closer.

Omar Minaya is the kind of GM who can do much with little and thus, should take that philosophy to his bullpen refurbishment. Middle relievers aren’t overly expensive. Set up men are a little pricier but the majority of the budget should be spent on other needs.

LEADERSHIP: Simply put, the Mets have none, on the field at least. Perhaps Willie Randolph will figure out what he’s doing quickly, but I’m not convinced about this player’s player rubbish. That’s how they described Howe. He understood the players. What is important is understanding winning. By whatever method.

Leadership isn’t running your gob, like Leiter or whingeing, like Floyd. Allegedly, the Mets’ most important player is Mike Piazza, and he too, consumed as he is with playing catcher, no matter how poorly he fields, no matter how weak his arm, is no leader.

So you’ve got first base and rightfield up for grabs this offseason for the field and at least one of them is going to have to be a leader. This is especially important because we don’t really know what kind of manager Willie Randolph is going to be.

Who?

I say trade Mike Piazza straight up for Jason Giambi.

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." --Anatole France

Giambi, free to grow his facial hair again, can repeat his imitation of superstar that he performed so admirably under the dim lights of Oakland. Excluding this season’s walk around the block with ill fate, Yeah, he’s 33, but that isn’t very old for a first baseman. He hit 82 homers in 2 seasons with the Yankees before last year. And frankly, the media microscope is trained much more highly on the Yankees than the Mets so Giambi has a little less on his plate to deal with. So I’d bet on his coming back strong. I’d take the risk if it meant ridding the Mets of a dead era.

"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do." -- Voltaire

Mike Piazza, on the other hand, has a catcher’s body that has been run through the mill and has not responded well, has no leadership qualities to speak of, three hops throws to second, and plays lousy defence in general. What is to like about this guy? That he is quiet, uncomfortable and for two reasons running a disaster as a catcher?

Now you might ask why would the Yankees trade Giambi for Piazza unless they knew Giambi wasn’t coming back strong and didn’t want to waste money on a wasted player.

Answer is: They wouldn’t. Not unless they were wrong. Not unless they were desperate for Beltran and Randy Johnson and would trade Posada to get a top flight starter…all possible scenarios.

I would let Leiter go and sign Millwood.

I would trade Piazza for Giambi.

Jose Reyes’ shelf life is about a half season at this point. If he doesn’t come out this year like hell’s fury unleashed and gets hurt or whatever, his trade value will be a disaster. At the moment, he’d be worth a lot. Hell, if he could go an entire season without getting hurt, I’d venture to say he could lead the Mets to stardom, but that’s a big IF. I rather think he’s just injury-prone and while he might have a career season in him, chances are this injury problem won’t go away for very long, and it’s best to get rid of him now, while he’s still worth something.

Of course, the problem is that the SS market is saturated with free agents.

Could he be traded for equal value? Well, I’d take him with Royce or someone similar for Soriano. Soriano is proven. If Jaramillo is the batting coach wizard his consideration as a Mets manager would lead one to believe, then Soriano must have unlearned a bad habit or two at the plate. But I doubt it. Still, a healthy Soriano is far more valuable than a consistently injured and historically fragile Jose Reyes would be, despite Reyes’ potential.

What I wish for most this offseason as a Mets fan is a reason to feel passion, a reason to believe in them again, believe they have a chance.

There isn’t any one player who will do that – probably the point of the tongue-in-cheek suggestions. An aura has to be created. Omar Moreno, I thought, demanded some interesting things from his potential managers – around the clock coverage including scouting in the Hispanic world in the off season. It’s a wonderful vision of commitment and I hope Willie Randolph lives up to it.