A BRIGHT FUTURE

With all the negativity currently surrounding the Mets organization, I felt I needed to highlight a few positives so we can all collectively exhale. Here is a list of things we as fans can really get excited about:

1) The rebirth of Angel Pagan.

2) Jose Reyes is finally healthy again.

3) David Wright has regained his power stroke.

4) Ike Davis has brought stability to a position that has been lacking power and defense since the departure of John Olerud.

5) Jon Niese has emerged as at the very least a bona fide #3 starter.

6) Mike Pelfrey seems to have made some adjustments, and although he hit a rough patch, he looks like he’s putting it together. Either way, he has given us a solid year thus far with an 11-6 record and a solid 3.95 ERA.

7) Josh Thole is developing more and more each day; let’s not forget that he recently made his transition to catcher in 2008. Although he lacks the power of a Victor Martinez at this point in his career, the 23 year old possesses a tremendous ability to handle the stick as his current .323BA suggests. The future is bright for this kid and his gap power plus high on base percentage are a perfect match for CitiField.

8) Ruben Tejada has shown flashes of defensive greatness as a 2nd baseman.

9) Carlos Beltran struggled in his 1st year as a Met and rebounded to be an All-Star the following season and hopefully we can get the same kind of turn-a-round from Jason Bay.

10) Fernando Martinez will be our starting right fielder next year and quite frankly, I’m very excited about seeing him in our everyday lineup for the whole year. His latest resurgence in (AAA) really has flown under the radar, over his last 11 games at Buffalo before his call-up; he was batting .324 with three doubles, three HR and four RBI. Toby Hyde on MetsMinorLeagueBlog does an excellent job discussing how Fernando Martinez might be underrated by comparing him to some big prospects down on the farm.

So, in light of all this, we as Mets fans need to realize that at some point the Sun always shines after a storm! Barring any trades it excites me to know that our 2011 starting lineup could look something like this:

Jose Reyes SS
Angel Pagan RF
David Wright 3B
Carlos Beltran CF
Jason Bay LF
Ike Davis 1B
Josh Thole C
Ruben Tejada 2B

And our starting pitching could look something like this:

Johan Santana
Mike Pelfrey
Jon Niese
Jenrry Mejia
RA Dickey/Pat Misch

I left out John Maine and Oliver Perez because I am hoping the Mets muster up the courage to just cut ties with them. Regardless, it feels good to know that the majority of our roster will be comprised of quality young players from our farm system. Despite the negativity surrounding this team, I feel they are headed in the right direction as long as they cut bait with the obvious bad apples. There is a popular saying which states that “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch”, well hopefully, Wilpon will subscribe to the American Journal of Botany, and skim to the section discussing this process and cut ties with Ollie P., the clear source of the foul gases infecting the Met bunch.


Nonetheless, our young talent is finally starting to sprout, and even with this plethora of young talent on the Major League level, we’ll still have highly rated prospects down on the farm like Wilmer Flores SS, Brad Holt RHP, Reese Havens 2B/SS, Juan Urbina LHP, Jordany Valdespin 2B/SS, Dillon Gee RHP, Kirk Nieuwenhuis OF and Matt Harvey RHP.

To those long suffering Mets fans out there: YA GOTTA BELIEVE!!!