Daily Rant: 2/4/11

How's this for a scenario?? It's April 1st, opening day for the NY Mets and Angel Pagan is playing center field, Jason Bay is in left field and Carlos Beltran is in right field?? Well, that's not much of a dramatic situation, but for Mets fans it is an attempt to move forward and try to make due with what they have. Giving Angel Pagan a chance to control the outfield and discontinue his role as a "platoon" guy is very important.  Beltran, unfortunately, has fallen into the "post-injury-big-contract-hope-to-play-a-full-season" category. He is joined by many other current Mets players, such as Luis Castillo, Oliver Perez, Jason Bay and Jose Reyes. Reliance on these players is a scary thing when it is combined with the absence of any significant free agent signings this off-season. If the Mets do come to terms with their current situation and work with what talent they have, things might not be so bad for them. In the past, when the Mets ignored the back ups and reserves and were just relying heavily on the big names they had, failure was one injury away from being a reality. Role players are as important, if not more than, as the starters and the star names. Because of the financial situation of the Mets, this season, it has become much more apparent that the team will need to get a lot from their unrecognizable players. This season will also be the first time, in a long time, that the team is not having a news conference to introduce a new, big name guy to the public. It might just benefit the Mets to not have all of the extra media attention. Falling under the radar is foreign to the Mets. It's also impossible being in NYC, but with the Yankees failing to upgrade their team as well, the back page will be an easy and welcoming concession for the Mets. It will no longer be a battle for bragging rights anymore in the local NY sports sections. Neither team wants to have the spotlight when both have huge question marks leading up to spring training. The Mets will hopefully just be a blurb on the bottom of the back page of the newspapers, underneath all of the possible Yankeee quotes that we'll see... "Calling for Girardi's Head", "Cashman's Job in Jeopardy", "Jeter Traded to Boston", "NO MO MO RIVERA", etc., etc., etc......