The Big advantage for the Mets going into the offseason is that the core of the lineup, and the core of the starting rotation are intact. Our 1-2-3 guys in the starting rotation will be here next year (that is saying that Pelfrey rose to 2 and Maine going into the season last year before his injuries was projected at 2 or 3 depending on Pedro). In terms of the lineup, the leadoff hitter, the 3 hole, the cleanup hitter, the RBI spot (5th) are all there as well. This is great for the Mets because the core is still around.
If the core is around, that is a reason to be optimistic and happy, why doesn't it feel that way?
Thats because our strength, our core, is also our biggest weakness mentally. Mentally, we would all like to see something or see a player overhaul that would make the Mets look very different on paper. Looking different takes away the memories. Looking different allows us to forget that much sooner. However much the heart wants to forget, wants to move on, the brain, the baseball brain, knows that is impossible because our core set up is one of the best in baseball, it doesn't make sense to remove it or change it because of how good it is.
Our solution this offseason has to be little tweaks. We will probably be keeping Smith, Feliciano and a few others in the pen and the pen still might be overhauled, but its going to feel like little tweaks. Mentally, we are going to have to digest these tweaks as the solution to the problem and convince ourselves to be optimistic because we have every reason to be optimistic.
In other words, worrying so much about next season right now is the natural thing to do right now, but it also still very close time wise to the depressing event of not makign the postseason. We havn't given ourselves yet the time to move on and we havn't given ourselves the oppotunity to look at solutions on how to fix the Mets through an objective analysis. I am guilty of immediatly thinking of ways to fix the Mets. I am always thinking of ways to fix the Mets, but I am also mentally fighting this feeling that we need time to move alway from the depressing events of last season just so we can give ourselves the chance to keep our biggest strength from staying our biggest weakness.
