Views from the Promenade

After yet another crushing Mets loss, and the news that Jose Reyes now has a torn right hamstring, I can’t blame you if you just want to get the season over with. I’m not planning to head down to Citi Field this year, and to be honest, I’m not sure if I’ll see another minute of Mets baseball on television this season — at least not live.

But, of course, the Mets still want to sell tickets, and without a team that people want to see, that means there are some interesting promotions on tap for this weekend’s final three games against Houston (October 2-4 at Citi Field). The promotions, outlined in this Star-Ledger piece, are interesting to say the least. While some of you might like German folk dancers or characters from Peanuts, the main draw will likely be the chance to get your hands on an actual game worn Mets jersey. At each game, 25 lucky fans will be selected; each gets a number from 1-25, and then will have the chance to pick a game jersey from a Mets player in that order.

I’d love to know what the pick order ends up like. Oh sure, it’s easy to say that the David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Fransisco Rodriguez jerseys will go early. I’m more interested in who lucky #25 will get. A game worn Nick Evans or Tobi Stoner would make for a great story someday, if not a high-demand collectible. I know that when I was a kid, I would have loved a David Cone jersey, but that’s not to say a Mackey Sasser jersey wouldn’t have made me happy. Good luck to any fans who make the final trek out to Citi Field this weekend!

The Mets 2009 season is (mercifully) drawing to a close, but the team showed they had one last good weekend in them by taking two of three from the Florida Marlins. The games may not have meant much for the Mets, but it did allow them to get a measure of revenge against the Marlins; the series more or less took Florida out of playoff contention, dropping their elimination number in the wild card race to 2.

The biggest negative of the weekend came in the form of mental errors on the basepaths by David Wright, who promptly apologized. Of course, these sorts of mistakes are inexcusable, particularly the lack of hustle shown coming home from third; however, if a lesson was learned, it’s better that it was learned now rather than in a game that would ultimately effect a pennant run. On the bright side, Pat Misch had an incredible performance on Sunday to deliver the Mets first complete game shutout of the year.

As the season winds down, there’s not much excitement for the Mets fandom, which has led to smaller crowds at Citi Field. In fact, a friend suggested I change the name of the blog to Views from Field Level — after all, with plenty of tickets available, shouldn’t I be able to get better seats? If you don’t mind a laugh at the Mets’ expense, the satirical newspaper The Onion recently had a different take on the situation.

I’ve said several times that there’s no excitement left in the 2009 Mets season, but it’s possible that one last twist remains before this year draws to a close. This weekend, the Mets will have a chance to reverse roles from the last two seasons and take a measure of revenge on the Marlins by playing spoiler and dashing Florida’s playoff hopes.

The situation isn’t completely analogous: the Marlins are a longshot right now, trailing by four games in the Wild Card hunt behind the Colorado Rockies. That said, any hopes they still have rest on a good showing against the Mets this weekend; if they lose 2 of 3, their season is essentially over. Even just one win by the Mets would put a huge damper on any remaining hope for the Marlins.

So while it’s not exactly the same, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about winning this weekend. After torturing us on the final day of the season the last two years, it would be nice to give the Marlins a little taste of their own medicine. Their best chance for a win might come Saturday, when John Maine takes the hill against Sean West. Tonight’s game (Tim Redding vs. Ricky Nolasco) is also promising, while Sunday’s matchup between Pat Misch and Josh Johnson looks like a huge mismatch.

After a disastrous start by Pat Misch, I think Kevin Burkhardt put it best on his twitter feed:

When its 8-0 Braves, and I didn’t even get out of the sushi line, its a problem.

With just a couple weeks left in the 2009 season, it seems that Carlos Delgado is still holding out hope that he might play again this season. That said, as the setbacks pile up and time grows short, it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing Delgado in a Mets uniform this year. I doubt most Mets fans are losing sleep over whether or not he plays this season; if I was forced to have an opinion on it, for his sake, I’d say he should sit out and make sure he’s 100% before attempting to play again.

The more interesting question going forward is whether Delgado should be playing for the Mets in 2010. From 2006-2008, Delgado was a critical part of the Mets lineup, and his numbers were good again this year before his hip injury. While Daniel Murphy has potential, he will not provide the kind of offense the Mets would like to see out of the first base position next year. With rumors flying that the Mets may not want to spend a lot of money this off-season, outside options may be limited.

So, what about Delgado? He will be 38 next season, and it’s unreasonable to assume he won’t decline. While last year was something of a resurgence for Delgado, he is still well past his prime years of production, and there aren’t many players who keep their numbers up into their late 30s. Even worse, Delgado will be coming off a serious injury, and we’ll likely have nothing to judge his post-injury production on. Even if Delgado does play a little before the end of the season, it’ll be such a small sample as to be meaningless for projecting what he might do next year.

Unless the Mets can get a very significant discount on Delgado, there’s no reason they should pursue him in the off-season. Then again, the same goes for every other team who might have some interest in the veteran first baseman, so it’s likely that Delgado’s asking price will be low enough to be within the Mets’ budget.

In the final analysis, I’d have to side against pursuing Delgado for 2010. Even if he’ll still be productive (a big if), he’ll also need to stay healthy to make a significant impact. The Mets would be better off spending money on other areas and just living with what they have in Murphy — not a great option, but it is an option — or signing a less exciting but solid free agent who can play the position. After this season, the Mets must understand the importance of being able to depend on your starters staying in the lineup, and that’s a level of confidence Delgado can’t provide.

If you’re ready to look forward to next season, the Mets are one step ahead of you! Earlier today, the Mets released their tentative 2010 schedule. The entire schedule can be viewed at Mets.com, but here are some of the highlights:

• The Mets open their season on April 5th, hosting the Florida Marlins for a three game series. This is the first time the Mets have started the season at home since 2006.
• It’ll be hard to get a ticket at Citi Field in late May, as the Mets face the Yankees from May 21-23, and then host the Phillies for the first time in 2010 on May 25-27.
• The Mets interleague schedule includes home series’ against the Tigers and Twins, and road trips to Baltimore and Cleveland.

With tonight’s 1-0 loss to the Phillies, the Mets have been officially eliminated from playoff contention. At least it wasn’t a heartbreaker this time around. Wait ’til next year…

Just a quick addendum to my last post: today’s game turned out to be anything but ugly. The Mets made a dramatic comeback against the Phillies today, giving them a little taste of their own medicine. Sure, this loss is unlikely to have any impact at all on the Phillies’ playoff chances, this still might give their fans some idea of how we’ve felt the last two years.

The big hero was David Wright, who had his first two HR game of the year along with 6 RBIs. The capper was the go-ahead home run by Wright with two out in the 9th off of Ryan Madson.

Does this win really mean anything? Of course not. But there’s no denying that it felt good when Wright parked that ball in the left field seats. And the Mets could still do some serious damage to the Phillies if they could somehow sweep Philly tomorrow — the Phils only have a 5 game lead over the Marlins, so it’s still a little early to call the NL East race completely over.