Kuzul

Free agent pitcher Cliff Lee agreed to a five-year contract with the Philadelphia Phillies Monday night, just the most recent example of Major League Baseball being incredibly cruel to New York Mets fans in recent years.

Carlos Beltran was caught looking at strike three in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS with the bases loaded. Then the Mets had back-to-back September collapses. The Phillies went on to win the World Series and faced the Yankees in the World Series the following season. 

Mets fans have spent a lot of time hating the Phillies over the last few seasons, and with good reason. A long dynasty was supposed to start for the Mets in 2006.

That dynasty crashed before it even got off the ground. 

Instead the Phillies have won the division ever since, they’ve won a World Series and returned to the World Series the following season. They have been in the NLCS three years in a row. 

With Cliff Lee joining a Phillies rotation that already features former Cy Young award-winner Roy Halladay, former World Series MVP Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt, the Phillies are becoming a more hated team then the Yankees and are drawing comparisons to the Miami Heat.

But while all of baseball is busy sympathizing with Mets fans, it is no longer possible for the Mets to hate the Phillies.

The Mets and Phillies do not have a storied rivalry. In fact, their rivalry has been very brief and recent. Up until 2006, one of the two teams, if not both, was always terrible. In 2006, the Mets were dominant while the Phillies were becoming good. In 2007, it picked up when the Phillies overtook the Mets for first place in September.

By 2008, every Mets fan hated the Phillies, and vice versa, and the Phillies once again overtook the Mets in September.

But by 2009, the Mets were once again awful. The only people who could believe there is still a rivalry between the two teams are people that are living in the past.

But that’s not a reason why Mets fans can’t hate the Phillies anymore, there is a bigger reason there.

This isn’t a rivalry between two relatively evenly-matched teams with one team just constantly getting the better of the other.

For example, until 2004, whenever the Red Sox were good, they always ran into the Yankees and fell to them. Red Sox fans hated the Yankees, as the Yankees were always in their way, Yankees fans, meanwhile, just laughed at Red Sox fans. 

The difference between the Mets and the Phillies is not on the field, but rather in the management of the clubs. 

In the last few years, the Phillies have built an incredibly strong team. They grew homegrown talent and went out and got the right pieces to complement them. They locked down Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels.

They won the World Series with that team. 

But after they won, they decided they needed to get better—they went out and signed Raul Ibanez. When the trade deadline came, they weren’t afraid of what kind of prospects they needed to give up when they traded for Cliff Lee. The following season, they spent big on Roy Halladay. 

When that didn’t work, they opened the checkbook for Cliff Lee.

Meanwhile, the Mets are constantly passing on making moves at the trade deadline. The Mets are saying they don’t need to bring in free agents, that they are happy with what they have. The Mets are handing massive contracts out to Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez. When the Mets needed pitching, they threw $66 million at outfielder Jason Bay. 

The Mets stayed out of the free agent market after the season. It is no secret that Fred Wilpon, the team’s owner, lost a lot of money in the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, but Wilpon constantly says the Mets still have money, even though they won’t spend any of it.

Wilpon is simply lying to his fan base to keep up the illusion that the Mets could make a splash every offseason, so fan interest and ticket sales will go up. 

The Mets are tied down by bad contracts to old players. Players that hurt the team just by playing. The team would be much better off losing because they are rebuilding and have young prospects on the field.

Instead, the Mets opt to play these bad players because of their contracts. 

Whether these players remain in the lineup or get released, the Mets would have to pay them. If the Mets were committed to winning, they would pay them to leave and give their young players a shot. 

In Philadelphia, there are no doubts about how committed management is to winning. They will spend the money on players and are not afraid of shipping away prospects if it will give them that piece that will put them over the top. 

The most telling tidbit is this: last season, several free agents turned down the Mets even though the Mets offered the most money. They wanted no part of this organization.

This season, Cliff Lee left $50 million on the table just to return to Philly. 

While there may be a lot of animosity between these two teams and their fan bases, as a Mets fan who roots for a team who’s management is not committed to winning, how could you hate a team who’s management is committed to winning. 

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Cliff Lee has bounced between four different teams in the past two years, making it to the World Series both times.

In 2009 it was a trade to the Phillies where he helped Philadelphia capture a second straight National League pennant before losing the Yankees in six games.

This season, a trade sent him to Texas where he led the Rangers to their first ever American League pennant. 

During this process, he established himself as one of the greatest post-season pitchers of all time; despite a poor outing in Game 1 of the 2010 World Series. 

Lee’s contract has now expired and the pitcher is ready to hit the free agent market. The best option, Lee is set to become one of the highest paid pitchers in baseball; if not the highest. 

WIth all the moving around, it is time for the pitcher to find a permanent home. 

Here are the five most likely places where Cliff Lee will land. 

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The World Series hasn’t even started yet and already MLB rumors about trades and free agents are heating up. Texas Rangers pitcher Cliff Lee is once again at the forefront of the offseason rumors as he will be a free agent this offseason, and many teams are lining up to get his signature. 

Besides Lee, this years crop of free agents is one of the weaker ones we have seen over the past few years. 

In recent years, a weak group of free agents has led to teams overspending for mediocre talent. However, due to downfall of the economy many teams have less money and will be less willing to spend big on players. 

This could lead to more players taking one year contracts to wait another season to test the market, which will lead to more players switching teams. 

While it is still early, everything is speculation at this point. Here are some educated guesses on where 10 players will end up next season. 

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Buster Posey has announced himself to Major League Baseball. The San Francisco Giants rookie catcher broke out for the Giants in game 5 going four for five with two RBI’s, in the Giants 6-5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. The Giants now lead the best of seven series three games to one. 

It was Posey’s at-bat in the bottom of the ninth that was the biggest, as Posey singled to right off of Roy Oswalt, sending Aubrey Huff to third, to set up Juan Uribe’s sacrifice fly.

The entire country now knows of Buster Posey, here are some highlights of this young stars career. 

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I don’t want to defend Omar Minaya. I don’t want to defend anything about the Mets front office. I think they are all terrible, and the Mets won’t win anything until the entire organization is overthrown, which starts with the Wilpons selling the team.

However, I am going to make one daring statement: Is it possible that Omar Minaya has actually been doing a good job this season?

The 2010 Mets have been consistently inconsistent. Odds are they will finish somewhere right around 81-81.

During the last offseason, fans cried for the Mets to either trade for or sign a premier starting pitcher. Everyone who follows the Mets knew that pitching was going to be the Mets’ biggest weakness in 2010. What did Omar Minaya do? He decided not to acquire a pitcher and instead spent his money on OF Jason Bay.

Fast-forward to this season; the Mets are playing very well at home and awful on the road. As the trade deadline approaches, both Roy Oswalt and Cliff Lee are available. Mets fans are begging the Mets to spend the money and acquire one of the two.

After all, both Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana are pitching like aces, and R.A. Dickey is proving to be a very pleasant surprise. Everyone believed the Mets were just one starter away from being a legitimate playoff contender.

The trade deadline came and went, and the Mets remained quiet, not making any moves.

When the Mets did nothing at the trade deadline, many fans had had it with management. Many fans were calling for Omar Minaya’s head, claiming both he and manager Jerry Manuel needed to be fired.

Many began to think that Minaya was only employed because he was keeping his mouth shut on the amount of cash the Wilpons were allowing him to work with, a number that many people believe is much smaller then the Wilpons are letting on. But perhaps Omar knew exactly what he was doing.

While the fans have believed all season long that pitching is the Mets’ problem, the truth is that hasn’t been the case at all. While the Mets did start the season with both John Maine and Oliver Perez in the rotation, now they are both gone and have been replaced by a very good R.A. Dickey and occasionally the solid Japanese rookie Hisanori Takahashi.

Mets pitching has the seventh-best ERA in baseball at 3.72. Furthermore, the Mets also have thrown a league-high 18 shutouts this season. The problem the Mets face is their manager gets matchup-happy and often goes to the bullpen too soon, causing relief pitchers to become overworked; therefore they are unable to hold on to leads.

The biggest problem the Mets face right now is with their bats, a problem that Omar tried to address during the offseason by signing Bay. Mets pitching has been unbelievable this season; the hitters, however, seem unable to get a hit even if the other team was only playing with six guys.

During the offseason Minaya tried to address this by signing Jason Bay, who just hasn’t been hitting. While third baseman David Wright is seventh in the league with 77 RBI, his 126 strikeouts are not only staggeringly high, but often cost him RBI, which cost the Mets runs.

The Mets simply are not getting offense from any part of their lineup. While they have pitched 18 shutouts, the Mets have also been shut out too many times for a fan’s liking, as well as losing several games by a 2-1 score. Mets pitchers are putting the team in a position to win; it’s the hitters who have been unable to come through for this team.

While I do think that Omar Minaya has made several mistakes during his tenure as Mets GM, his move of not panicking at the deadline and giving up prospects for unneeded starting pitching should be met with cheers, rather then the boos that it has been getting.

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