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It is a debatable topic, but after Chris Young’s first Mets start against the Philadelphia Phillies some can and will make the case that, just maybe, he can win 15 games. Is it possible?

Just as it is with the team in general, Young was not expected to be a huge part of the Mets’ starting rotation coming into this season. After all, Young has been sidelined with injuries that have depleted his number of starts the last two season (32 starts with San Diego).  

However, with what you saw against the Phils, as Young was able to navigate his way through one of the toughest one through five hitter lineups in the game, just maybe with some consistency and some confidence, a gem could emerge. 

Just as it was with Mike Pelfrey before him, Young has yet to win 15 games in his career. Pelfrey did it last year, and while you can make the argument that the two are at different places in their careers, at the age of 31, perhaps now is the time for Chris Young.

Now, the biggest key for Young will be, in addition to his confidence, continuing to rebuild his arm strength to where he can maybe get to 200 innings this season—something he has not done—which would be a big key to him achieving that 15-win total. 

I’m not worried about his pitch selection, nor the execution of his pitches. Endurance and health are the big keys here. We’ll see where it goes. A few will say yes; most will say no. For Chris Young after one start, so far, so good, but some would say, so what?

Korbid Thompson can be found at the Extra Bases with Korbid Thompson blog, and also heard on the New York Mets Audio Minute at Lexy.

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With spring training now in the books, it’s time to look ahead to the 2011 baseball season for the New York Mets, which will be a pivotal year for the franchise—both on and off the field.

Remember that there are serious issues with ownership that will be looming over this team the entire season.

Unfortunately, that’s only the beginning.

There will be plenty of other people with their previews and opinions on the season. While I have my own, I wanted to put out some thoughts in the form of bullet points to make it a little different.

• With Jason Bay on the disabled list and Carlos Beltran probably not being at 100 percent for the entire season, throw in Angel Pagan and a potential back issue, you will need more than angels in the outfield. Biblical proportions will not begin to describe the trouble that the Mets will be in if these three guys are not healthy enough to give it a go. Injuries have a tendency to linger, especially on this team.
• Jason Isringhausen staying in Port St. Lucie for extended spring training could be interpreted in a lot of ways. For now, I’ll take it for what it is—Izzy getting his elbow in shape, which the Mets will need desperately if the bullpen should falter in the early stages of the season.
• I do have concerns about only one lefty in the pen with Blaine Boyer, but I’m willing to let it ride for the time being.
• I’m not looking for a whole lot from Brad Emaus at second base right now. Not because I don’t like Emaus, but I don’t really know him. It’s just that he’s the biggest unknown right now in the starting eight for this team.
• I do think that the power guys (Wright, Beltran, Davis, Bay) will put up their regular numbers, or at least close to it. I just don’t know if the Mets have the other guys around them to make it work for 162 games, in terms of a run at the NL wild card. It does help that Jose Reyes is playing for a contract.
• These are just a few of the issues that the Mets will face going into the season. I haven’t talked about the competition in the NL East, although it may not be as tough as it looks. Let’s just hope that the Mets can keep pace and catch lightning in a bottle. If so, maybe Mets GM Sandy Alderson will be a miracle worker, after all.

Korbid Thompson can be found at the Extra Bases with Korbid Thompson blog, and also heard on the 2011 premiere of the New York Mets Audio Minute at Lexy.

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If there’s one thing that I know about the New York Mets, it’s that there is always drama. So, every once in a while, I’ll throw out some random observations during the course of the season and see if you guys feel the same way. Here are some bullet points, with less than a week remaining in spring training.

– I was just thinking about this: How does Sandy Alderson pick up a guy in Ronnie Paulino who is currently under suspension for drug use, which means he missed the final 42 games of last season, and he now has bloodwork issues? This one appeared to be a bad deal from the start. Mike Nickeas had a rough spring at the plate, so the backup catching situation behind Josh Thole does not look very good.

– Carlos Beltran still has not played a Major League spring training game since March 6. That’s not a good sign for your Opening Day right fielder. I’m probably not saying something we don’t already know here.

– If the Mets are going to have any kind of bullpen success, then Jason Isringhausen has to be healthy—at least for the most part this season.

– Even at this point in the spring, Jason Bay remains a huge question mark. You really don’t want to wait until the games count to find out if he is 100 percent. He sat out Saturday’s game against Atlanta with a stiff back.

 – Mike Pelfrey got his last start before Friday’s season opener against the Marlins. He pitched a pretty good game against the Braves on Saturday, giving up only two runs in 5.2 innings. Can he carry that momentum into the regular season?

As I said, just some random thoughts heading into this last week of spring training. Take them for what you will. Time will answer a few questions, and also create a few more bullet points.

Korbid Thompson also has written pro wrestling articles on the Bleacher Report, including his latest, Black Stars of Professional Wrestling: Part II, a conversation with author Julian Shabazz.

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In one of my previous articles, “New York Mets and the Power of Belief: Will It Work For Sandy Alderson’s Team”, I talked about the fact that Alderson and his crew firmly believe that they can make this organization into a winner, despite all of its internal and external issues. You would have to think so, otherwise they would not have taken the job.

However, there are five main questions at hand for Alderson, at least for this season. Don’t worry. He does have the entire season to solve them.

1) Are Chris Young and Chris Capuano both ready? It’s a risky move, bringing in two pitchers, when both are recovering from injuries and your ace is going to miss at least half the season. They will both be counted on at some point this season to produce. If they don’t, it could be a long season for the bullpen, and remember, “Perpetual Pedro” Feliciano is not there to pick up the slack.

2) How much input will J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta have? These three men do comprise the super think tank that is now the Mets front office. Can they mesh well enough to get some good mileage in this regime?

3) If the lawsuit against the Wilpons goes south, will Alderson be forced to make any drastic moves? I would not anticipate it, but I’m sure the question will be out there, especially as the season goes on.

4) On the other side of it, if the Mets are a serious playoff contender, will Sandy have the flexibility to go for it? Again, you would think not, but depending on how desperately the Wilpons want to win, and sell tickets, that could quickly change.

5) Is Terry Collins the right man for the job? Ultimately, Alderson’s tenure with the Mets will be heavily weighed by not only his player moves, but his choice of manager as well. He dug up Collins out of moth balls to run this team. That means either genius, or doofus—one of the two.

I’m sure that a lot of people have a lot of questions. After all, it would not be New York if there weren’t. For Sandy Alderson, in year one of his reign as Mets general manager, he had better hope his almanac of baseball knowledge still works.

Otherwise, the media will not hesitate to make what looks to be a long year for the New York Mets even longer.

In addition to the New York Mets Audio Minute at Lexy, Korbid Thompson can be found on his blog at Extra Bases with Korbid Thompson, where you’ll see five questions that Terry Collins needs to have answered, before spring training is over.

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In the past few days, Sandy Alderson has made two decisions that New York Mets fans wanted the previous regime to make virtually all of last year. Bottom line: Cut Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez.

What that says to me is that Alderson does take public perception seriously, whether it be the right or wrong thing to do. Alderson and the Mets brass have made it clear that they will work within the framework of what they have, even if it means eating close to $20 million of salary on two players who are no longer with the team. So, I will at least give them credit for that. It’s refreshing to know that money is not the dominating factor in certain personnel decisions.

This also leads me to believe that the triumvirate of Alderson, J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta at least have a plan. After all, you don’t look to eat that much money without one. Evidently, there is a belief that the Mets will be able to move forward in 2011 with a revamped bullpen (now minus Perez), and a new second baseman. Even more than that, the brass believes that the leaders and veterans on this group will bounce back from down and injured years.

Make no mistake that the power of belief can do more wonders than anyone thinks is possible. For me the only question is, does Alderson and company really believe what they are selling to the public, or are they tremendous actors? I have to think they believe in their plan. Fred and Jeff Wilpon have to believe in their plan. Their future as Mets owners could depend on it.

Korbid Thompson can be found on his Extra Bases blog, or the New York Mets Audio Minute at Lexy.

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As I was watching today’s spring training game on SNY between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, Mets GM Sandy Alderson spent some time in the broadcast booth with Kevin Burkhardt and Keith Hernandez.

Alderson was asked by Hernandez about defense vs. offense at the second base position with the earlier release of Luis Castillo.

Alderson’s answer was pretty interesting. He said that you need at least a little bit of offense at every position, which provokes an interesting thought with this team. Can the Mets’ offense do enough to keep them in contention this season?

Initially, I would say no. I did not see a lot over last year to make me think that there’s enough offensive consistency to last for 162 games.

Now, in all likelihood, nobody is going to tear it up from wire to wire. However, with the Mets, it just seems that when it falls apart, it all falls apart.

Last season, the Mets were 22nd out of 30 Major League clubs with a team batting average of .249.

For now, you can leave Ike Davis out of this conversation, as he was a rookie last and he actually made it a good one.

Now, I know that, towards the end of the season, that number was skewed by the fact that the Mets were out of contention, and a lot of younger players got some unexpected playing time. Therefore, the numbers would not be where you would like.

However, David Wright had 161 strikeouts, which places him third on the Mets all-time list for strikeouts. We all know about the injury plights of Jose Reyes, Jason Bay, and Carlos Beltran. Throw in sub-standard offensive in 2010 from Jeff Francoeur, Luis Catillo, and Rod Barajas—all of whom are no longer Mets—and you had some dreadful numbers.

Now, let’s get to the positives.

We already mentioned Davis. You figured that there’s no way the other guys could have such debacles from last year on both the offensive and injury fronts, and Davis will look to bump up his power numbers.

Wright will look to cut down on his strikeouts, which could result in more RBI. Bay needs to show that he is still a legit slugger, Reyes needs to be healthy in order to be productive, and Angel Pagan needs to continue his surge that ultimately landed him the center field job.

That brings us to Carlos Beltran.

Assuming that he can recover from his lingering injuries, you figure that Beltran will at least be two-thirds of what he was in his prime. If you can get that, it will be a welcome sight for Mets fans and Beltran, who is in the walk year of his contract.

After all, he will most likely be the buffer between David Wright and Jason Bay in the middle of the Mets’ lineup, when healthy.

Josh Thole will provide a nice spark at the bottom of the order, but don’t ask me who’s playing second base and hitting eighth.

There are a lot of questions to be answered by this Mets offense.

Sandy Alderson can answer a couple. Terry Collins can answer a couple. Maybe even hitting coach Dave Hudgens can answer a few, as well.

When it’s all said and done, the answers will come on the field. Just look for the numbers one through eight on your lineup card.

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In this particular piece, I will try to connect the dots here as to why Johan Santana’s shoulder injury—which is now speculated to be a lot worse than originally thought—could be the final piece in a chain of events that will lead to not only yet another full-season demise of the New York Mets, but ultimately lead to a fire sale of epic proportions, which would spell the end of what was once a greatly anticipated era of David Wright and Jose Reyes.

Right now, the New York Post, among other sources, have been reporting that Johan Santana will not pitch for the New York Mets in 2011. While Santana has refuted such stories, they are still out there.

Given the reputation of the Mets’ team doctors, nothing surprises me anymore. These are the same people who have miscalculated injuries to both Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes (more on them in a minute). After all, the Mets have pinned a lot of their hopes on Santana, and rightfully so. However, when you enter consecutive season-ending shoulder injuries into the equation, all bets are off.

Santana finished at 11-9 with a 2.98 ERA in 2010, hardly the numbers you thought you would see. In Minnesota, Santana reached the 15-win plateau four times. He’s only done that once with the Mets, back in 2008, with win No. 16 coming in the next-to-last game of the season to try to avoid another late-season collapse. As the saying goes, the numbers do not lie.

If this is to be the end of an era, think about the aforementioned Carlos Beltran, and the way team doctors have mishandled his knee injury. Think about Jose Reyes, and the way he was diagnosed as day-to-day last year, only to be out of action for several weeks. Even this year, Beltran went 1-for-3 in his only spring appearance on March 6 before he was shut down. Let’s not even go back and drudge up the Reyes injury history.

Did I fail to mention Jason Bay and the 95 games he played last year before his season prematurely ended, thanks to the left-field fence at Dodger Stadium? Bad luck and bad performances conspired to destroy the Mets in 2010. This year doesn’t appear to be that much different, and I have yet to say a single word about the ownership situation.

There is also speculation that the Mets will not want to pay Francisco Rodriguez the $17.5 million he will get in 2012, should he finish (and not just save) 55 games this season.

So, let’s see. Reyes (salary dump), K-Rod (salary dump), Beltran (salary), Luis Castillo (salary), Oliver Perez (salary)—should I continue?

Given the injury histories of the primary stars, along with the underachievement of 2010 for David Wright, is it any wonder that one more straw will break the camel’s back? Right now, the Mets have every reason to pack it in this year, which they won’t, at least not in March.

However, flash back to 2006, which was the height of the David Wright/Jose Reyes era, as the Mets celebrated their first National League East division title in 18 years. Paul Lo Duca and Billy Wagner started the celebration on the mound at Shea Stadium—is it a coincidence that Wagner, Lo Duca and Shea Stadium are long since gone?

Think back to those days, and think about what could have been. It’s a whole lot better than where this franchise is at right now—the end of the Wright and Reyes era.

Korbid Thompson can be found at the New York Mets Audio Minute for Lexy, as well as the Extra Bases with Korbid Thompson blog.

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Well, up until now, I haven’t felt compelled to put anything down on “paper” when it came to the New York Mets, as the majority of my thoughts can be found in my post game reports that I share with Matt Dagastino on the New York Mets Audio Minute, over at Lexy.

However, for some reason, as I sit and think about where this team is currently situated, I can’t help but to reflect over the last few days about the annual mess that this franchise seems to get themselves into, year in, and year out.

I won’t even go into how ownership doesn’t know how to produce a winning baseball franchise—at least not yet.

I’ll start with Jerry Manuel. My first example starts with the lineup that he is putting out there for the upcoming game against the Philadelphia Phillies, a team that the Mets MUST defeat, in order to remain in contention for any type of playoff berth in the National League.

Here is your bottom of the order, Mets fans: 5)Mike Hessman, 6) Jeff Francoeur, 7)Henry Blanco, 8) Rueben Tejada, and of course, the pitcher hits ninth. Now, as a Mets fan, you could probably pick apart any piece of this equation, but I’ll center in on the number five spot, and Mike Hessman.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with Hessman, per se. The problem is your potential National League Rookie of the Year candidate, Ike Davis, should be hitting in that spot, and not a career minor leaguer. I understand that Ike may struggle against left-handed pitching, but tonight’s opposing starter, Cole Hamels, is no Sandy Koufax. He’s 7-8 on the season, and 2-6 lifetime vs. the Mets. Davis should be playing, period.

As Jerry continues to mix and match an often times over-matched lineup, he has failed miserably to find an eighth inning guy to get the ball to the recently incarcerated Francisco Rodriguez.

In the two-plus years that Manuel has been the skipper, he has not found the guy to get the job done. Some of the blame goes squarely to him, and some of it doesn’t. Omar Minayatakes a hit, because he failed to bring in that guy to get the job done. Having said that, let’s go back to Tuesday night’s 6-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies, which was the catalyst for the now infamous FamilyGate, involving K-Rod and his common-law father in-law. Instead of staying with Hisanori Takahashi(who I am not a fan of) to finish the eighth inning—as he pledged to the media that this was “the guy”, Manuel got an itchy trigger finger, and decided to bring in Manny Acosta, who is certainly not proven in New York to be ready for prime time. Subsequently, Acosta gives up the grand slam to former Met Melvin Mora—his third home run of the season—and the Mets lose. What a shock there. We Mets fans know what happened in the clubhouse after that.

Jerry Manuel has time and time again failed to deliver, and he will pay the price at the end of the season. Unfortunately, ownership has made the repeated mistake of allowing Omar Minaya to keep his job through contract extensions, and allow him to make more crucial mistakes, going forward.

In the four years since Game seven of the 2006 National League Championship Series, where the defining moment of Carlos Beltran’s Met career still lies, Minaya and this group has failed to deliver a playoff team, as they choked in 2007 and 2008, and wilted earlier than expected in 2009, due to injuries. We all see what’s going on this year. So, in those 4 years, the Wilpons, in their sheer incompetence, have issued not one, but TWO contract extensions to Omar Minaya. When was the last time you were rewarded for failing to meet your goals on your job?

Unfortunately, Mets fans—and I have used that word a lot here, it doesn’t look as though things are destined to change in the future. David Wright, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Beltran have to proven to be players that are All-Star caliber, but not championship caliber. Johan Santana can only do but so much by himself. We have seen the Wilpons make fundamental mistake, after fundamental mistake, and unfortunately(there’s that word again), it will continue, under their regime. After all, they are real estate tycoons, who happen to own a baseball team. At the rate they are going, by the time the All-Star Game reaches Citi Field in 2014, they will be paying you to come to the ballpark. Once again, “the ship be sinking.”

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Well, with 32 games now in the books, we probably have enough of a window to figure out exactly what this team is slated to be for the 2010 season. Approximately 20 percent, or one fifth of the season has come and gone, and the big question to ask is, are the New York Mets a .500 baseball team, masquerading as a contender?

After all, they are 17-15, and struggling to keep pace with the Washington Nationals, much less the Philadelphia Phillies, in the National League East.

I have screamed up and down about the overrated offense of this team for the past three years. Finally, other people have started to see exactly what I’m referring to. This team’s production with runners in scoring position sticks out like a sore thumb.

David Wright is on pace to strike out well over 200 times, which you can tolerate, IF he was a 40 HR hitter. Right now, he’s not. 

Jeff Francoeur and Rod Barajas got off to hot starts, but naturally, that has cooled off. However, I do think they will both be fine, particularly when Barajas gets moved further up in the batting order.

As for Jose Reyes in the No. 3 spot, once again, this has become a forced and failed experiment that will end soon.

Of course, Ike Davis has been a pleasant addition. However, if he has to be moved up to the cleanup spot, because the rest of the offense is ineffective, then this team is in a lot more trouble than any of us realize.

The bench has been solid, as a whole, although it is a short bench with Jerry Manuel and Dan Werthen going with 12 pitchers. Now, the pitching staff as a whole has done well. Problem is, it comes in different spurts, with the starters pitching well, and the bullpen going into the tank, and vice versa.

I was a big skeptic of Hisanori Takahashi in spring training, but he has pleasantly surprised me. He has by far, been the Mets best guy out of the pen. Having said that, they will clearly need to establish an eighth inning guy going forward, which I think will be Jennry Mejia, and Francisco Rodriguez will need more save opportunities—and to convert them.

Some good, some bad. The classic signs of a mediocre baseball team. Unfortunately for the Mets, championships are not won by being mediocre. Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya will find that out the hard way, if this team doesn’t start consistently winning.

There’s still four fifths of a season left to play. We haven’t even talked about the non-existence of Carlos Beltran, and the mighty struggles of Jason Bay. I guess it depends on whether you see the glass half-full or half-empty approach. Right now, I think Mets fans are just happy that the glass isn’t shattered and broken.

For further discussion on all things related to the New York Mets, you can leave me a voice comment on my new online show at Lexy, called the New York Mets Audio Minute, where my partner, Matt Dagastino and I take turns verbalizing our thoughts—and many times, frustrations on the Amazins’. You can catch us at http://mets.lexy.com, or by phone at (888) 660-6907. On the phone, press eight to be a free subscriber, press two to leave a voice comment, and press 11 to share our broadcast with a friend.

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