Where Will Mets Finish?

With Opening Day just a few ticks away in the auld Daylight Savings scheme, (noting that we in the UK have already set our clocks ahead last weekend and remain at the moment, six full hours ahead of EST,) we thought it might be useful to have a brief overview of how others are assessing the Mets chances this season...

El Hombre, CBS Sportsline's baseball version of Andy Milonakis, is out with his preseason predictions with a special rant against the Mets:

"It's bad enough that Yankees fans have been riding high for more than a decade. But what's worse than a stadium full of Dese and Dose types trying to have their insipid chants of "Let's Go Mets!" heard over the din of the 7:45 to Chicago gunning it out of LaGuardia? Only a 21st century Ben Affleck film festival, that's what." Ohhhh, you funny, Joe. But that's one vote for the Mets as NL wildcard.

Baseball Perspectus has the Mets winning the NL East.

"New York's winning percentage has increased each of the last three years and the Mets' 83 wins last season were the most since 2000, the last time the Mets were in the playoffs."

Another hopeless unfunny muppet, John Donovan opines that "The Mets spend money like Ivana Trump and the Braves still are the team to beat."

Armchair GM has the Mets finishing third behind the Braves and Phillies.

Dana Perry at Fox Sports predicts a more realistic wild card for the Mets and further, names Carlos Delgado MVP.

Gotham Baseball gets even jiggier with the NL East, going as far to ponder a postseason with the Mets for the first time since 2000, the Phillies for the first time since 1993 and minus the Braves for the first time since 1991."

Jeffrey Pohlmeyer of E sports has the Mets winning the East but losing to the Cardinals in the NLCS. That'd be a nice step forward.

Only 2 of 6 at Mets Geek think they will win the NL East though the other four all picked the Mets to take the Wild card. The Army considers this to fall under the category of realistically managed expectations.

Over at It's Mets For Me says the Mets will beat the Yankees in another Subway series.

Certainly no bigger wet dream for a Mets fan than that.

Not to be outdone, Metsradamus has also predicted first for the Mets.

The Metropolitans isn't buying the auld picking the Braves until they lose. I agree. In fact, my pet theory over the last half dozen season has been to keep picking the Braves to lose until they finally do. After all, this isn't the Tausendjähriges Reich we're contemplating, and even that turned out to last less time than the Braves stranglehold on the NL East.

As for Archie Bunker's Army, we predict a riot.

I'm not one for "fair and unbiased" sports journalism when it comes to predicting the Mets' season. Alot of baaad things could happen this year but let's face it, when you're one of the few teams in MLB with a realistic chance at winning the World Series, how can you pick anything else but the Mets beating the Yankees in the World Series?

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April's Schedule:

The battle for a .500 April looks to be fought with a weekend in Atlanta but nice to get 6 games with the Braves out of the way before May.


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Wednesday, Tom Glavine warmed up for his Opening Day start against former teammates, the Atlanta Braves. Supported by a skeletal starting lineup which contained only battery mate Paul Lo Duca, who was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in Tom's favour (his third consecutive Spring Training getting ejected,) Chris Woodward, Victor Diaz, Endy Chavez and Jose Valentin among Mets expected to head north, the Mets predictably lost 4-1.

Glavine allowed 2 runs on 3 hits over four innings facing the more-or-less real Braves lineup containing the likes of Marcus Giles, Edgar Renteria and Larry and Andruw Jones.

Glavine is 3-3 with a 4.42 ERA in his career Opening Day starts. One might optimistically expect against the Nats, 5 IP, 6 hits, 3 runs and no decision on Opening Day.

Speaking of Opening Day, Metsville helpfully points out that:

"QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate will sing the national anthem at the New York Mets/Washington Nationals game Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York on April 5 at 7:10 p.m. According to a posting on QUEENSRŸCHE's official web site, the anthem will be aired live during the radio broadcast and after the anthem, a mention will be made of the group's new album, "Operation: Mindcrime II".



*****No More Mrs Benson?

From the Department of Schadenfreude, Metsblog reports that Anna Benson is taking her big mouth elsewhere, putting Kris on irrevocable waivers. Is this an early April Fool's joke or just wishful thinking?