Tag Archives: Review

2011 Season Review: Part 2 Pitching

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Ok here is the final part of the season review. Our Pitchers. Let’s just cut to the chase and get started.

The Starters:

Here is who impressed me.

Jon Niese is the first guy. He really showed the ability to pitch this year. His velocity on his fastball rose and he really located his curveball all year long. The one issue I had with him is that he tired towards the end of the year. Until he can prove to me that he can pitch well for a 162 game season. He is not good enough in my book.

Dillon Gee also impressed. This is a kid who can throw all of his pitches for strikes and pitch to contact. I see him developing into a workhorse innings eater. Sort of like a Carl Pavano in the future.

Capuano also showed that he can strikeout many more batters than I originally thought. I expected so much less out of him.

Dickey was great as we expected this year. That is pretty much it.

Who disappointed:

Mike Pelfrey sucked this year. He has A big league pitch with his fastball/sinker thing. Besides that he has a crap slider, crap split, and a curveball which I personally like but he throws about 3 times a game. I hope we non-tender him this year.

The ‘Pen

Our bullpen was iffy this year. The only guys I really like out of our bullpen are Manny Acosta, Tim Byrdak and Danny Herrera. Parnell throws hard, but can’t pitch. Beato struggled towards the end of the year. This bullpen is going to look 100% different in 2012.

Grade for the Year: B-

We had a better year than I thought we would. We had surprising pitchers and hitters along with our defense. The catalyst for this team all year was Reyes. Now it is just time to see if he will resign with us. Can’t wait ’till 2012!

Mets Post Game: Mets 4, D-Backs 1

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The Numbers:

  • Mike Pelfrey started and posted a line of 7 innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, and 4 strikeouts.
  • Ike Davis hit a go ahead 2 run home run in the 7th inning that just cleared the orange line in center field.
  • Carlos Beltran went 1 for 3 with an RBI single.
  • Jason Bay hit a double and struck out twice.
  • Reyes, Murphy, and Nickeas also had hits tonight.
  • Wright went o for 2 with 2 walks and a steal.
  • Izzy pitched a scoreless 8th and K-Rod pitched a scoreless 9th to get the save.

This was a huge start for Mike Pelfrey, after runners were on first and third with nobody out to start the game, he retired the side without a run scoring including a strikeout of Justin Upton. This was also a team that he has never beat, until tonight. He looked so much better tonight than he has all of this year. Hopefully this will stay.

Ike has been such a clutch hitter all year hitting a huge homer to straight away center field. He is leading the Mets in RBI this season.

This lineup looks more confident with Bay in that they feel they can score whenever. Hopefully Bay can show us some power this year.

Izzy has been a force in the ‘pen this year showing that he is not done yet in the majors.

Grade for the Game: A

Player Review: Jose Reyes

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Jose Reyes missed the first 4 games of the 2010 season with a thyroid issue and when he came back, struggled mightily. This corresponded with Jerry moving the speedy shortstop from 1st to 3rd in the order. He was hitting popup after popup after popup. After he was moved back to leadoff, he kicked it in gear becoming Reyes again.

Season achievements:

  • He hit over 10 homers this year and stole about 30 bases.
  • He stayed healthy.
  • He did not have as many mental lapses this year.

Grade for the Year: B+ hopefully he is a Met next year.

Player Review: Ike Davis

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Ike Davis came up with a boom going 2 for 4 with a hit in his first at bat and an RBI single in his first game. He brought youth, power, and a spark to this Met lineup. The Mets won 9 straight games after he came up. Also, it seems every time he hits a ball, they have extra carry to them and go a long way. His first career home run almost hit the shea bridge. The only players that have hit it that far are Delgado and Adam Dunn. This kid’s got a bright future and a ton of power.

Season Achievement:

  • He hit about .260 this year which is respectable for a rookie.
  • He got 2nd in the Mets rookie home run list by hitting 19 big flys.
  • He drove in over 70 RBIs.
  • He hit lefties very well.
  • He grew into a leader of this team with his strong defense and home runs.

Grade for the Year: A

Player Review: Oliver Perez

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For some reason I have been so excited to so Ollie’s player review that I made it earlier than I originally planned it. Oh well, here it is Oliver Perez’s season.

Love an 88MPH fastball? How about the command of an 8-year-old? If any of those match the type of pitcher you want then go and acquire Perez from the Mets. He’s a bargain!! But, in all seriousness, Oliver is a MLB baseball player so he deserves a professional(ish) review.

Season accomplishments:

  • Almost set an MLB record for not appearing in games for more than a month…twice.
  • Won 0 games this season.
  • Blew a ton of extra inning games including the one on the final day of 2010.
  • Lefties couldn’t hit him when he threw strikes.

Grade for the Year: F….is there anything lower?

Review: The 2010 Season (Part 2 of 2)

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In part 1 of the 2010 season we reviewed the offensive point of view of the season, however that was not the entire year. Now we will review the pitching aspect of 2010. So, let’s get started…

The Good:

  • When you label a 2010 player as “god send” or “surprise” the absolute first thing that comes to mind is RA Dickey. He was arguably the only reason why the Mets finished near .500.
  • The overall rotation was great no one stable starter was terrible this year.
  • Takahashi, Feliciano, Dessens, and Parnell all had terrific years so far.

The Bad:

  • Ollie Perez, Ollie Perez, Ollie Perez, Ollie Perez, Ollie Perez…have I made my point? The Mets had only a 24 man roster basically this year.
  • K-Rod was bad this year having an up and down season that basically had a terrible ending to his Met career.
  • Anybody remember John Maine this year? Yes, he was a Met. His velocity sucks and he is the least durable Met on the roster.

Pitching Grade for the Year: B+

Click Here to read Part 1

Player Review 2010: David Wright

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David had a tremendous rebound year this year posting a line of .283 with 29 homers and 103 RBI. His power, as predicted, came back this year as he hit 19 more homers than 2009 where he was obviously intimidated by Citi Field. Did you hear that Jason Bay? It is possible to hit 30 homers at Citi. The only thing that suffered this year was the batting average and strikeouts. David set a new career high in strikeouts with 160 and a career low batting average of .283. When your worst ever batting average is .283, your one hell of a player.

Season Achievements:

  • Reached 100 RBI on the year. He is the first Met to get to 100 RBIs in the “Citi Field Era”
  • He was elected to the all-star game and started the game at third. He helped the NL win for the first time in what seems like forever.
  • He was the player of the month of June.
  • A successful bounce back after being hit in the head by Matt Cain. It seems as he is finally over it.

Grade for the Year: B+

Review: The 2010 Season (Part 1)

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Well, it’s over, the 2010 season is done. It seems like it went by so quickly going from David Wright’s first inning homer opening day, to the call up of Ike Davis, to R.A. Dickey and Jon Niese’s one hitter, to Beltrans return, and finally to Oliver Perez pitching the last inning of 2010. ALOT happened this year and it seems like it just went by so quickly. It’s sad. Anyway, part 1 of the season review is all about the offense as a whole. Baseball is a team sport, individual evaluations will be saved for the player by player evaluations.

Record- 79-83

The Good:

  • The pinch-hitting was great this year whether it was Chris Carter, Josh Thole, Mike Hessman, or Jesus Feliciano someone always seemed to get the job done.
  • The Mets led the league in stolen bases this year which means they are the running team that they had to be in order to be successful.
  • Many players turned it on late in the year including Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Josh Thole, and Ike Davis.
  • The Mets had 4 walk off homers this year Rod Barajas, Henry Blanco, Ike Davis, and Josh Thole all hit them. The Mets were the first team ever to have 3 catchers hit walk off homers in a season.
  • The Mets used the triples alley in their park to rack up a ton of triples from Pagan and Reyes.
  • The Mets had more players hit more homers and more players have higher RBI totals.

The Bad:

  • The Mets were the worst team with the bases loaded this year hitting 0 grand slams and hitting around .200 all together.
  • The Mets had too many players who struck out, don’t get me wrong they aren’t the Diamondbacks, but they were wild swingers who struck out too much and didn’t walk enough.
  • The lineup was never the same, it seems that they could never find out who would be a good cleanup hitter. Carlos Beltran, Chris Carter, David Wright, Ike Davis, Jason Bay plus others all hit cleanup this year.
  • No Met hit over .300 this year.
  • No Met had over 30 homers this year.

Offensive Grade for the Year: C….Needs ALOT of improvement

Click here to read part 2

Review: The First Half

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Sunday marked the end of the first half of the Mets 2010 season so, I thought it would be a good idea to review what happened.

Record: 48-40

Place in NL East: 2nd

Games Back: 4

What was Good:

  • First of all, the pitching staff has been spectacular especially with the emergence of R.A. Dickey and Hisanori Takahashi.
  • Angel Pagan more than filled the shoes of the hurt Carlos Beltran finishing the first half with a .315 batting average which is 5th in the NL.
  • David Wright is having a bounce back year hitting .311 with 14 homers and 65 RBIs. He will be the starting 3rd baseman for the National League on Tuesday.
  • Mike Pelfrey went through a dead arm stage at the break but, is having a breakout year finishing the first half with a 10-4 record.
  • After a slow first month after a year-long return to the bigs, Jose Reyes hit great down the stretch and seemed to score every game.
  • The emergence of Ike Davis was huge as he hit 11 homers this year. All of which seemed to have gone very far.
  • Rod Barajas showed that he had pop as he hit 11 home runs in the first half for the Mets.
  • Chris Carter, Alex Cora, and Jesus Feliciano gave the Mets a huge lift in big pinch-hitting spots.
  • The 2 catchers for the Mets handled the pitching staff great and showed some pop hitting 2 walk off home runs.
  • Bobby Parnell and Elmer Dessens have come up and pitched great. They both have very low ERAs.
  • Ruben Tejada filled in great for Luis Castillo showing off his glove many times.
  • The Mets have had great defense starting with David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Angel Pagan.

What Was Bad:

  • The worst part of this year so far have been the performances of John Maine and Oliver Perez. They were terrible in the first half of this year.
  • Gary Matthews Jr. did not work out for the Mets as he struck out pretty much every at bat.
  • Mike Jacobs was terrible this year hitting 1 homer and hitting about .130.
  • The offense of Jason Bay was terrible, he hit 6 home runs in the first half this year. Still he drove in 45 or so RBIs. He could not put the bat on the ball towards the break.
  • The Mets decided to start the year with Jenrry Mejia in the bullpen. He was brought up way to early for this game. He should have been starting all season long.

The Top 3 Moments:

  1. That one game after John Maine threw 5 pitches all below 85 MPH and Jerry took him out. This strict decision by Jerry showed that they were tired of the bad performances. This turned the Mets around this year.
  2. The Mets started to play well as soon as Ike was called up to the bigs. He brought youth, spirit, power, and defense. This is shown by his many spectacular flip over the dugout plays.
  3. The 3 game shutout-sweep of the Phillies showed that the Mets were for real and in my opinion, brought the team together.

I look forward to a big second half for the Mets and hopefully some October baseball. They are getting a superstar back in Carlos Beltran and are in the trade market. I am very excited to see big second half from Reyes, Bay, Wright, and Davis. This is the part of the season that matters so let’s make it a good one.

Review: Spring Training

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What was good:

There were many bright spots this spring. It seems as David Wright has his power back and that Jason Bay will hit well for us. We had good performances from Ike Davis, Jenrry Mejia, and Ruben Tejada. 2 out of 3 of those players played their way onto the 25-man roster. Those players were Jenrry Mejia and Ruben Tejada. The Mets ended the Spring with a 14-16 record, and are coming off an 11-0 loss going into the regular season.

What was bad:

The Mets pitching did not fare well this spring. Most of the starters had an ERA well above 5 and did not look ready. The one bright spot was when Pelfrey threw 6 shutout innings of 3-hit ball. The starters did not look ready but hopefully they will get into shape when the season begins. We had the injuries to Murphy and Reyes, but they should not hold us back for too long.

That one moment:

That one standout moment that I still can’t stop thinking about is when Ike Davis hit that home run that was over 400 feet. It showed us how much power this kid has and that our future looks bright.

Grade for the spring: B

Our pitching was terrible, but great rookies emerged and our offense looked good. We got a look into 2011 with Thole, Davis, Mejia, and Tejada at least. More rookies could emerge for the Mets by then.