Keidel: Is It Time For The Mets To Wave The White Flag?
By Jason Keidel
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Now the Mets are an object of the abject, a montage of misery, a study in dysfunction. They are in fourth place in the NL East, the only division with just one team over .500.
And from where is the help to come? Yoenis Cespedes? He's back. Doesn't matter. Zack Wheeler was finally back. (Until he went on the disabled list this week.) Didn't matter. Matt Harvey is pitching every fifth day. Doesn't matter. Jacob DeGrom is healthy ...
Let's be fairly realistic or reasonable. When the Mets botched Noah Syndergaard's arm, shoulder, elbow, latissimus, etc., it was a wrap. Without Thor, his hair or his hammer, the Mets are doomed.
It's fair to declare the Mets (31-41) have been biblically plagued by injuries, with their latest pitching casualty, Wheeler, the last in a laughable list of maladies. And maybe they could not, ultimately, have scaled the mountain of mangled limbs on their way to the playoffs. But the Syndergaard situation just italicizes the Mets' allergy to success.
At what point does "next year" become a yearly refrain rather than the exception?
By any objective measure, the Mets were the now team in New York, the core of the Big Apple for at least this year and the next. But it's not in their nature. Sure, the Yankees wound up being exponentially better than we figured, but the Bombers are only 39-31, hardly going Secretariat on the AL East (in a virtual tie with the 40-32 Red Sox).
The Mets' nostrils should at least be above the .500 waters. They should at least be in wild-card chatter. At least be confident. At least be competent. At least be relevant. At least share the back page with the Yankees, not nestled between horse racing and high school wrestling. You know it's bad when the Knicks are getting more local ink, talk and time than the Mets, who were bona fide playoff contenders in March. Then came April and May.
The Mets were 8-13 the day Syndergaard was scratched from that April 27 start because of "arm fatigue." And they were 11-14 on May 1, when he went on the DL. So maybe they were doomed with or without Thor. But when you have a laughable pitching surplus as the Mets have -- well, had -- then much can happen between May 1 and July 1. No such chance now.
The Yankees had lean 30-1 odds to win the World Series on April 1, according to OddsShark.com. The Mets were almost twice as likely to win the Fall Classic, at 17-1. From Fall Classic to just fallen.
Though the Yankees just blunted a seven-game losing streak, they generally have the horses to keep such streaks to a minimum, even with their ace, Masahiro Tanaka, pitching like Steve Trout. The Mets (allegedly) had the very thing that made them streak-proof: four aces in one rotation.
So it begs the question: Is it time to time to wave the white flag? Do they unload some golden arm for a bat? Do they bring up a conga line of kids to see what they have? There's no Gleyber Torres (yes, he's hurt, but you get the drift), no wild fruit to bear from an absurdly fertile farm system, as the Yanks and Braves have. But the Mets surely have bats and arms itching for auditions.
You wince when thinking of next season before this season is even halfway through. In just a couple days, the Mets have plunged two places in the standings, while going from a half-game behind the Marlins for second place to laughably behind Washington, Miami and, now, Atlanta. And thus comes all the attendant headaches and headlines. Like how hard or smart are they playing? Like how did they bollix Syndergaard, from possibly skipping a start to the pitcher ordering the Mets, his employer, not to give him an MRI, then sending him to the mound too soon and -- poof! -- off to the DL until brown leaves and long sleeves?
Like the manager. Without being an ageist, Terry Collins just turned 68 and is clearly on the back nine of his managerial career. He has no contract for next season and no serious bond with his boss, general manager Sandy Alderson.
So the Mets are weak, wounded and getting worse. And they are rudderless, sweating under the summer sun for a lame-duck manager. They've lost four straight, are 2-8 in their last 10 games, and you don't hear a single soul painting a remotely sunny picture.
Do they look to peel off some pitching? Should they take flyers on Wheeler or Harvey or even Steven Matz? (Word is the Astros are drooling for deGrom.) Or do they reboot and give it one more shot with their seemingly endless line of sublime pitchers.
The future looked so bright two years ago. Even last year. Even this year.
Now we're back to "wait till next year."
Please follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
