I Am A Believer!

Ryan Church is sporting an OPS+ of 144 so far this season and has been the Mets best hitter so far. David Wright is right behind with an OPS+ 0f 139, but it is undeniable that Church has been rather spectacular so far being great at the plate and being extremely solid in right field.

If you add in fielding and go by WARP1, Church is sporting a 2.1 vs. Wright's 1.8. Now I am not saying that Church is a better player than David, but he certainly is a very good ballplayer and far from a platoon player. Against lefties he has a .328/.391/.546 line vs. a .324/.405/.514 line against righties.

It is also certainly worth noting that Milledge is sporting an OPS+ of 75. While I think Milledge is going to be a tremendous ballplayer down the line, I have been resolute in the fact that Chruch will be much more helpful in 2008 and 2009 in getting the Mets a championship.

As far as Omar's other big moves, they have worked out pretty well this season. Johan has been very good, though not great, and Brian Schneider has been very solid and is giving the Mets more offensive value than Lastings Milledge is giving the Nats. All of that has me perplexed as to why the Mets are simply a .500 team. Given the current team that was in place and the fact that Omar's moves worked out so well, you would think the Mets would be far better than they have been so far.

We are at the point when it is not longer early. Enough of a sample size has gone by that you can start drawing some conclusions. Tampa is better than anyone could have expected, the Yankees young pitching woes are probably going to cost them a playoff spot, the Marlins are shockingly legit, St. Louis is surprisingly good, and the Mets are far better than this.

Given they added positively to a team that barely missed the playoffs and they still find themselves in the same spot, something needs to get looked at. The common thread between the two needs to be identified and dealt with. The mediocrity is frustrating because this team should be anything but mediocre.

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Schoenweis is pretty good.

Castillo is down again. So far his four year deal looks like a bad thing. I am stopping short of saying disaster because he is not making all that much in the big scheme of baseball, but it is clearly ugly.

Delgado batting seventh is a positive sign for Willie showing his cognitive reasoning skills. Delgado may be a nice guy, but he is a bad hitter these days.

While Ollie has not been horrible, he certainly has not bee all that great. The good part is becoming more affordable, but the bad part is he is not pitching as good as the Mets need him to.

If there is anything positive to take out of here it is that Pelfrey is willing to change things up a bit.