Placing the blame

As the dust settles and I begin negotiations with the devil to acquire opening day tickets for next year, I think its time to look at the top three reasons at why this team failed.

1. Willie Randolph:  Willie was a burden on this team. He represented the collapse in my eyes and was pretty much the worst manager I have ever seen in a Mets uniform (1994 – present).  A mistake was made when it was announced that he would be back in 2008. He gave us 69 games of management that would eventually cost the team its playoff hopes.

2. The Offense:  This team scored 4 or runs in 78 games this season.  They scored a grand 183 runs in those 78 games. That translates to 2.3 runs a game. In the remaining 84 games, they threw 616 runs on the board. 

They scored a bunch of runs but were just frustrating considering the talent they had. It is understandable that you are not going to hit the ball hard every time out, but some consistency would have been nice. The main culprit of that is obviously Carlos Delgado. Jose Reyes was guilty of it in April. Beltran had a down month. Wright was erratic.  Castillo, Alou and Schneider/Castro were essentially worthless. David Wright was also atrocious at times, just not over long stretches.

3. The Starting Pitching: This may surprise many but the starting pitching was actually worse than the relief corps. Outside of Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey, no starter was consistent this year. Maine and Perez took substantial drops in performance and their 5+ inning outings were frustrating. Pedro gave you a high wire act every time out.

The biggest factor in having an effective bullpen is limiting its use. We saw too much of Pedro Feliciano, Scott Schoeneweis and Joe Smith.  The starting staff did not give the Mets enough innings and it came back to bite them in the ass.

Most people blame the bullpen, but I really cannot get mad at them. Wagner, Sanchez, and Heilman were all hurt. Feliciano, Schoeneweis, and Smith were out there just too damn much. That adds up to a bad pen. Sure they pissed us off and were hated but they were not in a position to succeed if you really think about it.

Minaya deserves some blame but this team had enough talent to win. He did not add anyone in the pen, but besides Chad Bradford, I cannot think of anyone who was moved. Maybe Ayala was all that he could land on.

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I think it is done and settled with… Carlos Delgado cant hold Ryan Howard's jock strap.

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I am officially rooting for a Dodger-Red Sox World Series.