Omir Santos' homer against Jonathan Pabelbon was one of the few Mets' highlights last season. (PHOTO BY ICON SMI)

BY MICHAEL GANCI
EDITOR

Last season, Omir Santos was one of the few guys that was a breath of fresh air. He hit a game-winning homer against Jonathan Pabelbon, and now, Santos finds himself as the likely odd man out for a spot on the major league team. Does that seem fair?

While Santos did what he needed to do with the bat, he wasn’t the most successful catcher with working with a staff. Sure, he was single handedly responsible for driving Ramon Castro out of town, but he was often on a different page as the pitchers that he was catching, and the Mets need someone who can be a general on the field.

They had a guy last year who was good with the pitchers, and that was Brian Schneider. Unfortunately for Schneider, he couldn’t hit a ball of a tee, and it almost seemed like he was more of an automatic out than the pitcher’s spot in the lineup.
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Omir Santos is definitely getting the short end of the stick. (PHOTO BY ICON SMI)

BY MICHAEL GANCI
EDITOR

When Omir Santos emerged onto the scene last season, nobody really knew what to think of him. He was an unproven career minor leaguer that had limited experience in the big leagues. Nobody in their wildest dreams expected that he would be the guy to eventually run Ramon Castro out of town, and he would also become the Mets’ primary catcher.

He did a very nice job in this role considering the circumstances. He hit .260, which is definitely a respectable average. He also hit seven homers and drove in 60 RBI. On the down side, he rarely walked and had a putrid .296 on base percentage, but that does not justify the fate that seems to be coming to him for the 2010 season.

With the signings of Henry Blanco and Chris Coste, it seems like the Mets are positioning with depth. The Mets are also rumored to not be done at catcher, and their interest in catchers Bengie Molina and Ivan Rodriguez is well documented. It seems like the Mets are looking to pair one of those guys up with Blanco, meaning Santos’ ultimate destination would be Triple A.
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How many game winning hits will Omir hit in 2010?

BY ANTHONY LAFAMAN
STACHE WRITER

It’s a dream to have a catcher that can impact the offense. Unfortunately there aren’t many of them that can. Most catchers are under .300 in career batting average, don’t have much pop in thier bat and are slow. This doesn’t mean they are not important to a club. It’s quite the opposite. They are paramount, they play a huge role in the clubs ability to win, day in and day out. But finding a Victor Martinez or Joe Mauer doesn’t happen easily. This is why I was for, giving up anything the Indians wanted in return for Martinez. Currently the Mets catcher position is up in the air but I ask the real question.

Do the Mets REALLY need a catcher?

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Time for Hot Stove Baseball folks.

BY ANTHONY LAFAMAN
STACHE WRITER

Well, I am glad that ordeal is over with. Yankees won, blah blah blah. You can’t get away from it. They’ll have a parade and they will get some keys to the city and then hoepfully them and their rotten fans will go to sleep until April. I mean all I heard from my Yankee friends was how long it’s been since they won a championship. Puh-lease. The only good thing that came out of this is that Pedro lost and the Phillies are not champions. Oh and now the Mets are not mentioned everytime someone says “the last time the Yankees won was against the Mets in 2000″. So thank the good lord for not making me a Yankee.

I want to move on to the off season, Nov 9-11 are the GM meetings in Chicago, great town. Maybe one day Ganci will get some press credentials and then we can really get this ball rolling. The winter meetings are mid December I think (too lazy to check) and that’s always interesting. In my opinion the Mets needs to address the following positions.

After the game you and your friends could always enjoy a nice game of online poker.
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One of the best moments of the year was when Omir Santos homered off Jonathon Papelbon. (PHOTO BY ICON SMI)

BY MICHAEL GANCI
EDITOR

When the Mets signed a guy named Omir Santos last off season, I had no idea who the heck he was. I figured he was this year’s Robinson Cancel. He was a guy that would be counted on for depth, but he wasn’t someone who should be taken very seriously. Never in a million years would I have been able to imagine that he would have 281 at-bats during the 2009 campaign with the Mets. I was wrong on that one.

Not only did Omir come to the big leagues, but he made an impact. This is a guy that has been a career minor leaguer. He made his major league debut last year in a brief stint with the Baltimore Orioles. He appeared in 11 games, and he had just a single in 10 at-bats, but the Mets clearly saw something they liked when they took a waiver on him, and they were rewarded for giving the guy a chance.

He hit seven homers and knocked in 40 runs in limited action, and he was the guy who drove Ramon Castro out of town. I was at the game in which Santos hit a walk off single to send the Mets to victory earlier in the year. Steve Somers told us on the drive home that the Mets had dealt Ramon Castros to the White Sox for some guy named Lance Broadway, who we wouldn’t see any of until the season was down the tubes.
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A home run off of Jonathon Pabelbon got people talking about Omir Santos. (PHOTO BY ICON SMI)

BY MICHAEL GANCI
EDITOR

Before this season, Omir Santos was an unknown. If you mentioned him to fans around baseball, people would probably shrug and say that they had never heard of him. Luckily for him, that isn’t really the case anymore. Thanks to his excellent play early in the year, people started taking notice. Ramon Castro was shipped off of Broadway for Broadway, go figure. But I am here to explain to everyone why this guy is not the long term solution at catcher.
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Some Mets fans still have their Heads in the Clouds

BY JOSEPH STONE
STACHE WRITER

This might have been funny, if there was a punch line. Oh wait, at this point “Mets” is a punchline. Bleh. Another beating at the hands of one of our fellow second division friends. At least we all now will be able to appreciate the plights of the Third World fans located in such exotic locales as the Repulic of Pittsburgh, the sunny tropical island of Kansas City, and that lovable military junta on Washington, D.C.

Thank God beer is sold by the case. Too bad Budweiser hasn’t started putting morphine in there, too. This has passed brutal and gone into unimagined territory. The 2009 season for the New York Metropolitians is officially over. Oh, I know several of you old fashioned fans will look to your calendars and say, “Hey, dumbass, there’s still a month and a half left of games.” I’ll counter with a witty rejoinder, such as “Well, DUH!!!”, or some such statement expressing my disgust at your bourgeois thinking.

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Building a Team after this Moment has been very hard for the Mets (Courtesy of Boston.com)

BY JOSEPH STONE
STACHE WRITER

I have heard it said the the Mets mission statement over the last two years was to win Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. That they wanted to eradicate the memory of the loss and somehow change the course of history. I don’t think that’s quite true. I think that was something we the interactive fans and the professional writers inferred upon the team, that that particular game was somehow still winnable.

The Mets, in a wise move, just stuck with the core of a team over the next three years that was thisclose to the World Series in 2006, and are just now feeling the fallout from a long barren run at post-season success. After the outcome of the 2006 season, obviously the Mets, as an organization, felt that essentially standing pat with a team that was so close to the promised land was the right choice, hence the Alou signing as a stopgap to shore up RBI production and keep the train rolling.

Management felt that the veteran presence would assist, and not even a beat would be missed on the march back to October. They were absolutely correct. The 2007 season was going along according to script until…no need for specifics in rehashing at this point, we are all well versed. The team that had steamrolled along all year hit the wall and blew up. It happens. Only once in a blue moon, but strange things can happen in baseball. Ask the Cubs, or the Phillies.

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Brian Schneider is one of several guys who could be heading out the door. (PHOTO BY ICON SMI)

BY MICHAEL GANCI
EDITOR

The Mets have certainly had their fair share of mishaps this season, and there are many things that it can be blamed on. The most popular reason for the Mets’ struggles seems to be the injury bug. With guys like Reyes, Delgado, Beltran, Perez, Maine and Putz all missing extended time, the Mets are having trouble competing, and they sit 10 games behind the first place Phillies.

It is time to accept reality. This year just isn’t going to be our year. We would be better off looking ahead to free agency to make some infield additions to prepare for the 2010 season. But first, let’s take a look at who will be coming off of the books at season’s end.
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Omir Santos' homer of Pabelbon seems like the only time the Mets have beaten a closer. (PHOTO COURTESY OF NEWSDAY)

BY ANTHONY LAFAMAN
STACHE WRITER

Without looking this up, when was the last time the Mets came from behind to win a game after the seventh or eighth inning? Forget the ninth. They go down 1-2-3 faster than Prince Fielder eats a red devil cupcake.

This team has no comeback ability. No magic. Outside of Santos jumping on Papelbon’s first pitch fastball in Boston a couple of months ago I can’t remember them beating the opposite’s team closer at all this year.

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