Get used to it

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The alleged "starting 8"
Reyes -- healthy but fouled a ball off his knee
Castillo -- knees
Beltran -- what's bothering him now? Hammies?
Delgado -- hip, hand, etc
Wright -- healthy
Alou -- temporarily healthy
Church -- concussion, out for a few weeks
Schneider -- sore leg and sitting.

The supposedly reliable bench
Anderson -- chest bruise?
Easley -- ankle mangling
Seanz -- fat
Valentin -- knee
Chavez -- 2 hammies in 6 months

This team has a chance to really suck this year

[nymr83]

I would think the bench is Castro, Easley, Anderson, Gotay, Chavez, with one spot open for either Pagan or Valentin, I don't think Saenz makes the team.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Oh yes, Castro: Back injuries severely limiting play for 2 straight seasons.

[Guest KC]

Vegas more optimistic than bucketman ...

Boston 9/2 and Mets 5/1 to win the whole shabang.

[metirish]

Nymr83 wrote: I would think the bench is Castro, Easley, Anderson, Gotay, Chavez, with one spot open for either Pagan or Valentin, I don't think Saenz makes the team.

Minaya was talking about Delgado yesterday( replete with an ugly Citi Field cap)and mentioned " this si why we have guys like Saenz". They bring experience to the team.

[Frayed Knot]

]Beltran -- what's bothering him now? Hammies?

Knees actually.
Had both his patella tendons done over the winter, supposedly to help things in the long run.
I think the mole's still around though.

[Valadius]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Seanz -- fat

ROTFL.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The Goat turned an ankle today.

[metirish]

Isn't every Spring Training like this?

[nymr83]

metirish wrote: Isn't every Spring Training like this?

yes. just as every season has a long losing streak during which you think they'll never win again.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Call me Panicky Pete if you like but I can think of lots of examples of guys who had shitty years that began with missed stretches of spring training including Delgado last year. I just don't like it.

Yeah I know it's March 2.

[soupcan]

="Frayed Knot"] ]Beltran -- what's bothering him now? Hammies? Knees actually. Had both his patella tendons done over the winter, supposedly to help things in the long run. I think the mole's still around though.

It has a name you know.

Enrique.

[smg58]

Didn't the Phillies lose their first five games last year and basically have a terrible April? And today is March 2. I think we need to hide the panic button for the time being.

[metirish]

I'm concerned, especially about Delgado and the fact that so many players are getting injured so early in Spring, I mean didn't they rest up and keep in shape during the off season?

[Frayed Knot]

Hey it could be worse. We could still have Kaz Matsui on the team who missed today's game with .... hemoroids!

Bet ya never thought you'd hear the words Kaz and 'roids together in a headline did you?

]It has a name you know. Enrique.

Sorry, we've never been formally introduced.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

smg58 wrote: Didn't the Phillies lose their first five games last year and basically have a terrible April? And today is March 2. I think we need to hide the panic button for the time being.

I'm not worried about a bad start, I'm worried about an epidemic of bad health carrying over into the season. This team isn't a good enough to be hurt allatime.

[Guest AG/DC]

I sometimes wonder if any team is.

Good luck seems to be a hallmark of any championship team, and it looks remarkable --- though unsurprising in retrospect --- to note how the 1969 and 1986 teams went through almost totally unscathed. I wonder if 1985 may have been a better team with simply less luck, losing Strawberry and Wilson for long stretches and always being one righthander short with Berenyi going down and Sisk pitching hurt all year.

The trick remains, of course, to build in enough redundancy to make your own luck. Wilson went down brutally at the start of Spring 1986, but Dykstra and Mitchell made it minimal issue. He didn't debut until May 9, when the Mets had a five-game lead, and he still got into 123 games. Heck, he had his best batting year to date.

[Guest Triple Dee]

="soupcan"] ="Frayed Knot"] ]Beltran -- what's bothering him now? Hammies? Knees actually. Had both his patella tendons done over the winter, supposedly to help things in the long run. I think the mole's still around though. It has a name you know. Enrique.

I thought it was "Ivan".

[Guest KC]

AD: >>>The trick remains, of course, to build in enough redundancy to make your own luck<<<

"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey

[smg58]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'm not worried about a bad start, I'm worried about an epidemic of bad health carrying over into the season. This team isn't a good enough to be hurt allatime.

No team is. On the glass half full side, I'd much rather have a run of bad injury luck when the games don't count than after the season starts. In the big picture, Castillo's knees will be a matter of concern for the rest of his tenure as a Met, and Alou won't stay healthy all year. The other things have a chance of being forgotten by April.

[metirish]

As bad as things look right now I at least don't have hemorrhoids.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

="Frayed Knot"]Hey it could be worse. We could still have Kaz Matsui on the team who missed today's game with .... hemoroids! Bet ya never thought you'd hear the words Kaz and 'roids together in a headline did you?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7250/news


Misdiagnosed hemorrhoids, which raised the question on Deadspin:

What the hell could be going wrong down there that would make you think it's hemorrhoids, but isn't?

[Willets Point]

A little too early for this kind of grumpiness. I'm just happy that baseball is being played even if it's not real baseball.

[Vic Sage]

With 2/3 of the projected 25-man roster at age 31 or more (at some point this season), injuries are likely to plague us and it's not about "luck". It's about the icky, sticky residue of Omar's design. Sure, if most everything breaks right, we have the talent to win the WS. But how often does everything break right?

I think the only players we shouldn't necessarily be concerned about (health wise) are hitters Wright, Reyes and Church (despite having his bell rung) and pitchers Santana, Perez and Maine. Everybody else has question marks ranging from "slight concern?" to "have the paramedics on speed-dial?"

We're likely to have serious ongoing health issues this year with Delgado, Castillo, Alou, Easley, and El Duque, and possibly with Castro, Schnieider, Beltran, Chavez and Pedro, too. And practically the entire bullpen is over 30, with many having recent injury issues.

This has nothing to do with it being "early", or "this is the same stuff every team has to worry about", because not every team has an average age over 31.

[metirish]

Minaya talking about the age factor with the Mets.

Omar Minaya

[Guest AG/DC]

Why would anyone include Jose Valentin? Just which five is he including among the inner core?

That said, Klapsch saying foolish stuff doesn't bother me nearly as much as Minaya saying, "Believe me, I'd love to have a team of young guys, but in New York, those teams have never won," Minaya said. "The Yankees teams [of the Nineties] were young, but they had veterans, too. Remember [Cecil] Fielder, [Wade] Boggs, Jimmy Key. Even Bernie [Williams] had already been around a few years when they started winning."

Huh?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I doubt that any team, in New York or any other city, has ever won a pennant without having a single player over 30.

[Guest AG/DC]

There's a ton of goofiness in there. How are those the key players of that era? Does he not realize they won not one, but four championsihps? Does he not recall his pronounced agenda when he came here, about establishing specific young building blocks.

[metirish]

Klapisch is way out there, in every column he writes there is always something he writes that makes you shake your head, as with Valentin right here...the core of the Mets is quite young I think.

[Vic Sage]

if by "core" you mean Wright, Reyes and Maine, then you're correct. However, I don't think that's a big enough group to consider a "core". Perez is a FA to be, and everybody else is around 30 or more (give or take a decade or so). so what they've got now is not so much a "core" but moreo of a "co__"