Jeff Francoeur always seemed to be in Bobby Cox's dog house.

BY JOSEPH STONE
STACHE WRITER

Jeff Failcoeur, everybody. Put your hands together for him. Some people call him “the best defensive right fielder in baseball.” Note that there is no mention of what he brings to the table offensively. Free swinger, I believe, is the colloquialism.

I could give several more, but I’ll bite my tongue. What a snowjob. Omar learned how to sell from this guy. Hey, Omar’s been in the Daily News before too, old guy! It’s too bad this gentleman just passed away, Omar could have used someone like him to sell tickets for this team in the second half. He’s gonna need some silver tongued devil.

So, Ryan Church, locker room cancer, according to posts on Metsblog and reports on SNY, is gone. Praise Jesus! Now that the problem has been rooted out, this team can achieve the heights of .650 ball it had been meant to play all along. No more mushhead holding us back. I kid, I jest. This “trade” will be talked about ad naseum, probably on this very site. Will it change the team? I don’t know, that’s why they play the games.

We will see. One last point though on this topic, and that is that in about another week you could have had Frenchy (Wow, I hate that nickname already!) for a bag of balls and a fungo bat to be named later. Bobby Cox, one of the easiest managers to play for, wanted to run Francoeur out of town on a rail. “6 ain’t got your back no more.” Just sayin. Enough about that. Time to shift focus back to the living.

With Carlos “Robot Legs” Beltran out until at least St. Crispen’s Day, the Mets are going to have to rely on some(warm)body to fill the hole. This is where we play really bad dance music as we introduce the pretenders contenders.

Angel Pagan vs Jeremy Reed!!!! Who ya got?: The backup smackdown edition.

In this corner, we have Pagan, fleet of foot, smooth with the leather, but lacking in the offensive numbers stat heads like to call “hits”. In the other corner, we have Reed, fleet of foot, smooth with the leather, but lacking in what psychologists call a personality.

Seriously, I’m not sure either of these guys could get picked out of a lineup by their mothers. So, with that being the case, what makes we the fans think Jerry will actually put them in one? They are both too logical of choices. “They’re not core talent,” he’ll think in between AHHHHs, so he’ll put Tatis in center because he doesn’t want to lose our man Fernando’s bat.

Tatis should only be seen with a bat in his hand when the Topp’s guys show up. That way, it minimizes damage. At this point in the season, it wouldn’t surprise me if Jerry, in a swerve straight out of wrestling, ripped off his warm up jacket to reveal a Phillies jersey and the Mets hater he seems to be.

Then he would taunt the crowd with laughter, as we all stood slack jawed and dumb founded, weeping into our Rheingold’s. It would definitely explain the constant line up changes so nobody can get comfortable and get in a groove. No man could be that incompetent and keep their job, right?

All right, back to the point of the post. With the Church experiment in center over, Pagan, who makes a Ming vase look sturdy, has to take over as the main guy. I have no stats to back it up, gut feeling tells me he’s just the better choice. He’s done nothing to distinguish himself at all, but it is what it is. The hyperlink on his name was seriously what came up in a search.

The Pagan page for USA Today doesn’t even mention him until halfway down the page. Reed’s was just a joke, because his sucked just as bad. I just thought the pic was golden, though. Maybe he can read excerpts, and lull the other team to sleep, literally. This is what we are reduced to. Choosing between the two. I think the only way this team wins now is to play a zone trap with both of these two on the field in center and left, with Sheff as a pinch hitter for late in the game.

Keep dumping the puck, keep it as close as possible, and try and win games late. These two can cover huge amounts of ground, their defense is plus, and hopefully, combined, they can muster some base knocks. Neither strikes out a ton, and couldn’t possibly ground into as many DPs as 6-4-Tatis. It will be difficult, to say the least, but it’s doable.

By finally putting emphasis on defense and plate discipline-81 games too late, mind you-this team could get above .500 again. The second half schedule is not nearly as daunting as the past month and a half has been. They play the dregs of the West, a mediocre Cub team, and in their own division. If they are going to make a move, no better way to do it.

The talent is there in the field, it just has to be arranged correctly and used. Now, fixing the rotation, that’s another story….