Hope springs eternal.
For 29 of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball that annually-spoken phrase applies once again this March. Each of these 29 teams, if you listen to their fans and/or the national media, has a shot of being great, good, or least surprisingly competitive this season. Heck, in the past week I have read articles touting the Pirates and Diamondbacks, two teams that combined for over two hundred losses last year.
What’s the one team out of 30 that has no shot according to the critics, you ask? The New York Mets, of course.
While every other team is surrounded by some level of sunshine as spring training kicks off, the Mets are being followed by a consistent forecast of doom and gloom. All of the good will and optimism brought about by the regime change quickly dissipated in favor of the Madoff/Wilpon scandal, questions about the pitching staff, the return of fan favorites Ollie and Luis, and so on. Even the news that Carlos Beltran agreed to switch from center field to right, a move that Mets fans have been awaiting all winter, immediately went from a headline of “Beltran Takes One for the Team” to “Beltran Must Still be Hurt”. All of the above, combined with two collapses, two fourth place finishes, and countless embarrassments, makes it easy and understandable to doubt the Mets chances in 2011.
But it is our goal at Mets Kool Aid to find the silver lining hidden in the perpetual dark cloud, and that’s what we are going to do this spring (even if sometimes it’s tongue-in-cheek). While most see a patchwork rotation with little chance of succeeding, we see a group made of two young studs, a wily veteran, and plenty of high-upside options with a chance to hold down the fort until Johan Santana returns. While most predict another underachieving year from overpaid hitters, we see a well-rounded lineup that, if healthy, can score runs with the best of them. While most think the Mets will be stuck in years of mediocrity, we see talented and exciting young players like Davis, Niese, and others who can ignite the Mets for the next decade.
Basically, while everyone else has very low expectations of the Mets this year, we prefer to view the 2011 season as their chance to surprise the baseball world with nothing to lose. When big things were expected the Mets failed, so why can't the opposite happen this year when nothing is expected at all? We will try to help you see the silver lining, and if that never appears we will try to help you forget that the Mets are not very good.
If that doesn’t work either, we can at least all agree on one thing – Oliver Perez stinks.
