It has now been one week since Reyes made it clear that he was going to become a Miami Marlin.
At this time last week, I, like many Mets fans, was just depressed. I thought the Mets would have no chance in 2012, that it would take years to win again, that the offense would never be the same, and that the Mets lost a key part of their identity.
I'm not going to say here that we are a playoff caliber team, but after losing Reyes, Alderson did make the necessary moves to make the Mets a better team, and we will still be competitive. When it comes to reality, even with Reyes signing, we probably were not a playoff team because our problem wasn't the offense! Last year, with Reyes having a career year, we were 6th in scoring. However that includes Reyes, Murphy and Wright missing considerable time. Most importantly, it includes Davis missing almost the entire season. There is enough evidence that even without Reyes, we can still have a strong offense.
The downfall of the Mets last year was an ineffective bullpen and a mediocre rotation. The only improvements the rotation has made this offseason is hoping that Santana is ready for next season (and then, of course, we lost Capuano). The bullpen did go through significant improvements with Rauch, Francisco and Ramirez. It's not the best, but a lot better than what we had before.
The other aspect holding the Mets back is that the NL East is a very strong division. The Phillies are still the Phillies with an amazing rotation. The Marlins are set to have a lot of new talent to a lineup that was already good and rotation that was already good. Finally, the some of the best bullpens are in the NL East. It is just tough to be in the NL East.
We have a lot of talent coming up, we have a lot of talent, some undervalued, at the Majors right now. As someone said on Twitter, and I forgot who, the Mets won't go 40-122 just because we don't have Reyes. We are not a playoff contending team, there are problems with ownership, but at least, right now, we can still play competitively.
