Archie Bunker's Army

The key man to Major League Baseball's 2010 season has finally decided on which team is the lucky winner in the Fernando Tatis Sweepstakes . After months of nail-biting competition, the NY Mets finally emerged as the victors, securing the signature of baseball's most coveted player and virtually guaranteeing their first World Series appearance since 2000. YES! The man who can walk and somehow balance a batting helmet on his head at the same time is nearly a Met...

One can only imagine, watching the parade of free agents either ignore the Mets or be ignored by the Mets, that there is an ongoing Free Agent Conspiracy meant to disable any early Spring hope Mets fans might be silly enough to feel inspired by as the doldrums of winter rattle on. Give me happiness or...Give me Mets... Granted, each free agent pitching pursuit came with his own set of problems. Ben Sheets is injury-prone. Randy Wolf was overpaid (3 years $30 million to the Brewers who are becoming the Mets of the Midwest having given Willie Randolph and Rick Peterson jobs), Joel Pineiro's name was too confusing too spell plus he wanted to get paid on the basis of a career year he's not likely to repeat (yes, before last season, his ERAs in the previous five seasons: 5.15, 4.33, 6.36, 5.62, 4.67...) Then you had Jon Garland going to the Padres for pennies which was the signing the Mets are going to regret not making all season. Not that Garland is going to win th...

Well since there appears to be a day or two pause in the incessant march of incompetence in the Met front office have some Tom Waits instead:

I've always just assumed Omar was going to sit pat and point out best case scenarios rather than get down to adding some shade and depth to the starting rotation. I mean, not dealing with problems and taking the most impractically optimistic position is his speciality, is it not? So I wasn't too enamoured with any of the rumours. Until this one . Actually, it's not even a rumour, it's just an observation. Work horse starter for a rotation that chocka with question marks and guys who rarely pitch very far out of the 5th inning. For a second, I almost got excited. Then I remembered that Beltran is already going to miss the first month of the season and predictably, the Mets front office fumbled even something as simple as surgery in spectacular fashion. At least they are consistently incompetent. You just know you needn't bother raising your hopes and can instead raise the white flag before the season has even started.

I'm going to enroll in the school of thought that says let's piss off the guy who pretends to be the team leader but bunts with men on base instead of going for the multi-run homer . Please let Carlos Beltran play mad. He owes the team some leadership. Being content hasn't worked. maybe being mad will.

In a weak effort to see what, if any prospects there are to resolve the dismal prospects for the 2010 Mets and in particular, the shambles that is currently the pitching staff, I've unearthed the following: The Mets, to put in it in the local parlance, are fecked. Although Chewy hasn't pitched in organised baseball in several years, he is rumoured to be on Omar's radar having recently thrown two innings in the Inter Galactic Winter Leagues this month... First of all, what they desperately need as you all know, is at minimum, starting pitching, ideally, a strong number two starter and innings eater. Newsflash: there isn't one available and the one guy, Jon Garland , who at least qualifies as an inning eater (though certainly not a number two starter), is rumoured to want to stay on the West Coast. What that means is that barring some unforeseen miracle, as in ANY of the Mets starters not named Johan Santana suddenly learning how to pitch more than five or six innings,...