Fact: the Mets bullpen has fallen apart over the past week or so, hemorrhaging runs like a wound that just won't clot, regardless of how much dirt you rub in it or makeshift bandages you fashion out of paper bags and slug guts. A lot of theories have been floated that purport to explain the recent underwhelming play of the relief corps, from fatigue to poor supporting defense just regular crappiness. I just wanted to take a quick look at the state of the bullpen to see if they've really been overworked, or whether it's something else.

Dan Scotto made his case for improving the infield defense, particularly the right side, where Carlos Delgado has lead boots and Damion Easley doesn't quite move around like he used to. Anecdotally speaking, David Wright and Jose Reyes haven't been spectacular this year, but they've been at least decent and, well, they're not going anywhere. There's a little room for negotation at first and second, especially in the late innings, where maybe a run or two could be saved here and there. As Dan points out, the Mets' bullpen is chock full of groundball pitchers, which are an asset when your fielders are adept and less so when they're sluggardly oafs.

The idea that the Mets' starting rotation hasn't gone deep into games as an explanation for the bullpen's malaise has been bandied about quite a bit, but I don't know how much validity there is to it, really. We've all heard how Bob Gibson used to throw 93 complete games every year and how Cy Young would pitch nine days a week, but running the numbers shows that the Mets' bullpen hasn't been especially overworked relative to the rest of the league. Here are the average innings pitched per game start (IP/GS) for NL teams:

NL Rank	Team	IP/GS
1	Milwaukee	6.08
2	Arizona	6.02
3	Philadelphia	5.98
4	Chicago Cubs	5.97
5	NY Mets	5.87
6	St. Louis	5.83
7	San Francisco	5.82
8	San Diego	5.73
9	LA Dodgers	5.71
10	Colorado	5.67
11	Houston	5.63
12	Atlanta	5.62
13	Cincinnati	5.59
14	Washington	5.56
15	Florida	5.54
16	Pittsburgh	5.43

The Mets rank fifth in the National League in starting pitcher longevity, their rotation tossing more innings on average than all but four NL teams. That shouldn't be too surprising if you actually sit down and think about the construction of the Mets' starting staff. Sure, Pedro Martinez has been a crapshoot as has the fifth starter spot in general, but aside from that you've got four young-ish guys in John Maine, Oliver Perez, Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey. Not too many years or innings on any of those arms, so it shouldn't be so much to ask them to buck up for six innings at a shot.

So the starters have been pulling their weight, what else? At first I thought that maybe the Mets had played a ton of long extra-inning games, so even if the rotation was going deep the bullpen could still be screwed if the Mets were constantly playing more than nine innings. Well, turns out that's not really the case, either:

NL Rank	Team	IP/G
1	Arizona	2.95
2	Philadelphia	3.00
3	Milwaukee	3.02
4	Chicago Cubs	3.06
5	San Francisco	3.13
6	NY Mets	3.20
7	Houston	3.23
8	St. Louis	3.23
9	Colorado	3.31
10	LA Dodgers	3.31
11	Cincinnati	3.31
12	Atlanta	3.34
13	Washington	3.39
14	San Diego	3.40
15	Florida	3.43
16	Pittsburgh	3.60

The Mets are right about where they should be in terms of innings thrown by their relievers en masse. Their starters are fifth in most innings thrown and their bullpen is sixth in fewest innings per game. So, overall the Mets' relievers haven't been especially taxed.

What about individually? Well, Aaron Heilman has been abused. He has thrown 60 innings to this point, which actually only ranks him sixth in the NL. Still, that's an awful lot of innings through 111 games, so Heilman has probably been overworked a bit.

As for the rest of the bullpen, the next most-used Mets relievers are Billy Wagner and Duaner Sanchez at 47 innings apiece, tied for 40th in the NL. It may seem like a lot of innings for Wagner to throw as a closer, but fellow closers Salomon Torres, Kevin Gregg, Jose Valverde, Francisco Cordero and Brad Lidge have all thrown more. Sanchez, on the other hand, is a concern.

After having not thrown a pitch in a big league game since July 28, 2006, Sanchez has been one of the most oft-used relievers on the Mets this year. I'm not sure who's to blame for that, but I'm sure if you asked the Mets collectively at the beginning of the season whether they expected Sanchez to be so active by the first week of August I don't think many would have been on board with that plan. Even well-seasoned relievers wear down in the dog days of summer, so for someone who was basically out of baseball for 18 months it's probably too much to expect Sanchez to hold up under such circumstances.

Joe Smith could also be wearing down a bit, though he's young and has a couple of years of professional ball under his belt at this point. Pedro Feliciano, too, has shown signs of wear, and though he has appeared in just one fewer game than Heilman (58 to 57) he has thrown more than 20 fewer innings because he has been used far more selectively (i.e. often just against lefties and with runners on base). Feliciano has also been dreadful against righties this season, getting knocked around to the tune of .333/.416/.538 (!) in 90 plate appearances. That's like every righty who hits against him is Manny Ramirez. Feliciano has historically been at least decent against righties, but right now it's just an invitation to an ass-whooping to leave him out there against anything but lefties. The blame goes to the manager for not recognizing his utter ineffectiveness against the platoon advantage.

Aside from the relief appearances themselves, another thing to look at is the relative stress of those appearances. All appearances aren't created equal; I don't doubt that high pressure situations are more draining -- both physically and mentally -- than lower pressure spots. One easy way to compare relative duress is by using pLI, an indicator of mean leverage via the leverage index, an invention of Tom Tango. Thanks to the awesomeness of FanGraphs.com, we can easily compare the average pLI of all NL relievers. For the purpose of this exercise I've only included those pitchers who have compiled at least 40 innings pitched in relief.

The king of pLI has been the Giants' Brian Wilson, who has pitched in an average leverage situation of 2.35. Anything higher than 1.00 is considered high-leverage, though that scale is skewed somewhat for relievers since they tend to pitch in many more high-leverage situations than starters (late-game at-bats are typically more meaningful than early-game ones because of the reduced likelihood of coming back with so few innings remaining). Of the 62 pitchers who qualified for the above criteria, five are Mets. We can reasonably expect every team to have around four pitchers on the list (62 divided by 16 teams), so the Mets have one extra guy on there. Wagner is the highest at 14th overall (1.71 pLI). The next Met is Sanchez at 29th (1.34 pLI), then Heilman at 33rd (1.22 pLI), Joe Smith at 44th (1.05 pLI) and Scott Schoeneweis at 51st (0.88 pLI). I guess the good news is that the Mets' best reliever (Wagner) has been pitching in the most important situations. The bad news, at least in terms of figuring out what the problem is, is that the Mets' relievers don't seem especially taxed relative to the rest of the league. No clues here.

I guess fatigue seems like the most likely culprit at this point, though for different reasons for different pitchers. Wagner has actually been mostly terrific this season, though his last couple weeks have been particularly bad and that may be more due to injury than anything else. So, to summarize a bit:

Wagner: good, now hurt
Heilman: overused
Sanchez: too much, too soon
Smith: overexposed, maybe
Feliciano: something, ineffective against righties?

Wagner may be headed for the disabled list one way or another, and if the Mets can find an excuse to put Sanchez there to give him a breather it'd probably be for the best. Heilman could benefit from not pitching every day, and the Mets could consider calling up one (or both) of Jon Niese or Robert Parnell to get some work out of the bullpen if/when the aforementioned duo goes on the DL. Eddie Kunz will be a help, though he's not going to be used more than a couple of times a week, I wouldn't think.

So that's what I've got. Any other theories out there?

The trade deadline is fast approaching and the list of available players is growing shorter. At the same time, the Mets continue to pitch and hit effectively and areas of greatest need are not as considerable as they were as little as a month ago. Then again, winning cures all ills and great play can often mask shortcomings.

Area of need: corner outfield

For instance, Fernando Tatis is hitting .318/.370/.520. Fernando. Tatis. Career .263/.345/.443 hitter. Much worse than that since 2000. He's hitting lefties and righties equally well, and he hasn't completely embarrassed himself in the field. We're only talking 160-some-odd plate appearances, though, and small sample size red flags abound. He's been a great story and a huge lift for the Mets with Moises Alou out for the season and Ryan Church still out as he recovers from the effects of his second concussion this season. Church may be back soon, but neither that nor his long-term status are guaranteed.

Even if Tatis were somehow able to sustain anything resembling his current level of production, Endy Chavez continues to be an offensive sinkhole in right field. Sure, the defense is great and the .272 batting average is decent, but the .316 on-base percentage is 13th among 17 National League right-fielders with at least 250 plate appearances. His .329 slugging percentage is 16th of 17, besting only Washington's Austin Kearns. Endy's .644 OPS is likewise 16th of 17. I don't know which is more astonishing: that Endy is so bad at hitting or that he's managed to accrue 250 plate appearances while being so bad at hitting. That's a poll for another day, I guess. Regardless, Endy's defense is probably good enough to justify carrying his anemic bat as a fourth or fifth outfielder, but as a starting corner outfielder he is pitifully feckless.

Area of need: relief pitching

Billy Wagner's propensity for eating it hard in big games notwithstanding, he's the Mets' best relief pitcher and still one of the best closers in the National League. Aaron Heilman has been a lot better of late and is probably the Mets' number two, which is far preferable to just plain number two, which was Heilman's nom de fan for the first two months of the season.

Duaner Sanchez is a mystery right now. He was effective if unspectacular for the season's first three months, but has been mostly horrible for a couple of weeks now and is suffering a loss in velocity and deterioration of confidence. After missing a year and a half there's no telling what shape his shoulder is in or whether his arm can hold up for an entire season. Maybe it's just a matter of fatigue and he needs a little time off. At all events, he's a definite question mark moving forward.

Pedro Feliciano is still murder on lefties, but unlike the past two seasons, this year he has been downright awful against righties, who have rocked him to the tune of .342/.419/.553. There's nothing wrong with having a lefty specialist in the bullpen, but the Mets already have one guy -- Scott Schoeneweis -- who can't get righties out, and despite his dramatic platoon splits this season I'm pretty sure Jerry Manuel still thinks that Feliciano is a quality guy to throw out there against all comers. Then again, two full years of competence is more meaningful than one half-year of ineptitude, but you still have to assign greater weight to the recent performance, and that's not good news for Feliciano or the Mets.

Joe Smith is the opposite of Feliciano: he dominates righties and has a tough time with the southpaws. Righties have hit just .190/.271/.302 while lefties have gone .293/.408/.415. If only he and Feliciano could play the field I might be inclined to pull Tatis in the late innings and alternate lefty-righty with Smith and Feliciano for an inning or two. It all comes down to how Manuel decides to use them, so let's hope that his inquisitive mind and nerd glasses mean he knows a thing or two about platoon splits.

Area of need: first base?

A month ago this would have been an obvious need, but with Carlos Delgado swinging a mighty big stick I'm not so sure any more. Given how precipitously he declined last year and how quickly he has resurged, you really have to wonder if those nagging injuries were bothering him more than he let on. The elbow in particular caused him a lot of trouble the last year and a half, and if he is finally out from under those problems then maybe it shouldn't be so surprising that he's back to mashing the ball. He's not going to OPS 1.200 the rest of the way as he has during July, but he has finally pushed his OPS over the league average for a first baseman and there's reason for optimism that he might keep it there.

Mark Teixeira and Adam Dunn will cost an arm and a leg to acquire for the remainder of this season and both will be free agents at season's end. They'll both be on the Mets's radar come November, but I think they'll stand pat this summer and hope that Delgado's resurrection is for real.

Area of need: bench

Marlon Anderson is terrible, and needs to be jettisoned as quickly as possible. I like to think that if the Mets could find anyone else worth plugging into that prestigious 25th spot on the roster that they would have already done so, but right now the dried up husks of Lenny Harris and Matt Franco both look like better options. The rest of the bench is serviceable, with Damion Easley and Argenis Reyes both providing decent production. Nick Evans and Robinson Cancel are nothing special, but the Mets seem inclined to give Evans a few looks at the big league level, and as far as Cancel is concerned, well, they would otherwise just be throwing away the rest of the post-game buffet.

Area of need: catcher?

This one's a trick, because the Mets don't actually need to acquire a new catcher; they just need to play their best catcher more often. That means more time on the pine for Brian Schneider and more cracks at the starting lineup for Ramon Castro. Here is my entire argument:

Ramon Castro: .290/.365/.538
Brian Schneider: .247/.337/.300

So, as long as Jerry Manuel continues to read this blog I think the Mets will be fine at catcher. Or, at least, have the RSS feed in his Google Reader. Either or.

In summation and in conclusion: improve the corner outfield and bench if doing so would come at minimal cost to the farm system. A solid reliever would be nice, but given the going rate of solid relievers I would be more inclined to go with what we've got or, possibly, promote from within. Perhaps Eddie Camacho, Eude Brito or Eddie Kunz -- all currently with Binghamton -- could be given a shot. They can't be much worse than Carlos Muniz has been. Stay the course at first base and catcher, giving more playing time to Castro at the latter.

I didn't see any of it. I *did* see The Dark Knight at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, where you can eat and consume adult beverages while watching a moviefilm. So I watched the latest Batman installment (editor's note: it rocked), blissfully unaware of the brilliant catastrophe taking place 1,800 miles away. Even as we left the theater and I pulled up MLB.com mobile on my iPhone I had no idea that the Mets' disappointing 8-6 loss was anything but a typical 2008 New York Mets letdown. I figured Johan Santana had a blah start against the Phillies and the Mets weren't able to put enough runs on the board against Joe Blanton to overcome an early deficit.

Again, I saw none of the game, and the internet connection at the Embassy Suites here isn't really strong enough to support the archived video feed from MLB.tv. Nor, for that matter, is the wireless connection I'm stealing from the Mexican restaurant adjacent to our hotel. With that in mind, what follows is based solely on what I've been able to glean from reading the boxscores and the wire service recaps of the game.

I can probably skip the first eight innings, since nobody really cares what happened before the ninth. The pertinent details of those glorious eight frames can be distilled to the following:

1. Johan Santana allowed two runs
2. Johan Santana threw 105 pitches

If there's a corollary to those points it's that Billy Wagner was unavailable for the game because he's old, but that's okay because, as I just read on Mets.com, "Manuel [is] confident [that] Sanchez can close". Duaner Sanchez. I kid you not: that article appears on the Mets' homepage, a few links down from last night's recap. From that article by Jon Blau:

"Duaner is a guy who has a tremendous makeup for that particular role," Manuel said. "I have no hesitation about that. His makeup is really off the charts."

*flips to boxscore* Yes, here it is. Duaner Sanchez, in his first taste as closer in absence of Billy Wagner: 0.000 innings pitched, three hits, three runs, three earned, tremendous makeup, zero outs recorded, every batter reached base, off-the-charts makeup. You just can't make this up. Unfortunately, I have no quote from Manual suggesting that Joe Smith and Pedro Feliciano would also make great closers because of their great strength of character, so they have to settle for simply not getting the job done and can only hope that Jerry Manuel's ironic touch can strike them down some other fine day.

I got an e-mail from some dude last night about signing a petition to stop the pitch count, and I guess you can go sign it if you want. Then again, if you're simply dead set on wasting your time you might as well just go pull the internet's finger and at least get a few cheap laughs out of the deal. I can buy the argument that Santana should have been left in to pitch the ninth with a three-run lead and a high-but-not-Livan-Hernandez-high pitch count. Even if you want to give him fifteen pitches -- bumping him up to 120 for the game -- to try to get through the inning, that would have worked for me.

A lot of people are going to pillory Manuel for taking Santana out of the game, and there is plenty of merit to that argument. The other side of the coin is that the burden of responsibility for this loss is on Sanchez, Smith and Feliciano (Sanchez in particular), for allowing six runs while recording just two outs. Randolph Manuel made a questionable bullpen decision and it backfired, but I don't think it was clearly the wrong decision. In retrospect, sure, it looks terrible, but it's not totally unreasonable to expect your bullpen to get three outs before allowing three (or six!) runs to score. Without the data immediately available to corroborate this, I bet that nine times out of ten, a decent non-closer late-innings guy will get the save with a three-run lead in the ninth. It didn't happen this time, and I think that's on Sanchez et al.

This was an awful, awful loss that will linger for a long, long time, or at least until tonight's awesome win/horrible loss, but it wouldn't be baseball if we didn't dwell on the past a bit. I wanna hear in the comments who you think is to blame for this loss and why. If you think it was Manuel's fault, don't just say that it was clearly the wrong decision. I want to know why.

I'm still in Austin. Anything interesting happen tonight?

Big winners: Johan Santana, +28.0% WPA, Endy Chavez, +14.1% WPA
Big losers: Pedro Feliciano, -53.1% WPA, Duaner Sanchez, -23.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Delgado two-run bomb, +19.2% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Taguchi two-run double, -38.6% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -64.0%
Total batter WPA: +14.0%

---

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by LOUtheMETfan; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

Name	# of Posts
LOUtheMETfan	117
BobbyV_Incognito	76
itsmetsforme	46
pingel	24
Prince	22
DoctorK16	15
Rod Gaspar Fan Club	15
Endys Game	14
Greenpoint Ian	12
englishgrey	9
ZaBlanc	6
Shomov	5
metsexile	3
JE	2
jemagee	1
elifriedman	1

I managed to catch a few minutes of the game from my hotel room thanks to Slingbox, but the Mets were actually winning 1-0 at that point. Perusing the boxscore seems to reveal that Oliver Perez was decent, not spectacular, while Pedro Feliciano was a bona fide run-hemorrhager. The biggest transgression came via the Met's offense, which managed practially zippo against Josh Emmereffing Fogg and his seven-plus ERA. It's terrific when Endy-Tatis-Easley are miraculously playing well, but when they turn back into pumpkins I don't think anyone can be surprised when it all turns to crap. And why is Brian Schneider back to playing every day? He has a .629 OPS! Ramon Castro is at .818. Jerry, you're killing us.

Big winners: Argenis Reyes, +11.0% WPA, Jose Reyes, +9.2% WPA
Big losers: Damion Easley, -20.0% WPA, Pedro Feliciano, -17.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: David Wright goes yard, +12.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: David Ross RBI single, -15.9% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -26.0%
Total batter WPA: -24.0%

---

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by DoctorK16; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

Name	# of Posts
DoctorK16	27
itsmetsforme	25
Prince	18
JohnPeterson	13
Shomov	11
Greenpoint Ian	8
pingel	3
ZaBlanc	1

What the hell was that crap about? I don't know why I bother sometimes, because staying up late to watch this team give it up like that as often as they do really takes a lot out of me. This loss was such a wretched, phenomenal failure, but none of us can say that we didn't expect the game to end poorly, at least a little bit. This team seems to be a magnet for suffering, and if there's a reasonable way to lose a game they can usually find it.

Pedro was terrible, then it rained, and then he was much better. Overall, still terrible, but he showed signs of putting things together after giving up four runs in the first. I don't know if he's still tipping his pitches or disguising them well but executing them poorly, but last night's poll still stands as a big question mark for the remainder of the season.

This loss really hurts. The Mets haven't won a single game this season during which they've trailed by more than two runs at any point. Last night they were down by four runs and they charged all the way back to take a two-run lead in the seventh. They'll kick themselves because they had a couple of chances to pad that lead: first in the seventh when Jose Reyes lined out to center to end the inning with two runners on base, and again when David Wright hit a one-out triple in the eighth, only to be stranded when Carlos Beltran struck out looking and Ryan Church grounded out to second. The Beltran-haters will come back out of the woodwork to pillory him for failing to get the runner home from third with less than two outs, but the guy has come through in that situation something like 65% of the time (per the on-screen display SNY flashed right before the whiff).

An extra insurance run or two would have made a big difference, obviously, as Pedro Feliciano promptly gave up the lead in the bottom of the eighth when this fucklick hit a two-run homerun to tie the game. Chris Duncan is generally as bad at hitting southpaws as Brett Myers is good at hitting his wife, and Feliciano has been murder on lefties this season (and in general), but those two facts blatantly disregarded each other and conspired to screw the Mets and left me with no choice but to pathetically cry myself to sleep. Again.

The real hero last night was Jerry Manual, who deftly displayed the same lack of managerial ingenuity that made Willie Randolph the target of much fan ire. With the game tied at seven in the bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals were set to bring up the meat of their order: Pujols, Ankiel and Glaus. Fine, tie game, other team's best hitters coming up, rollercoaster of a game possibly hanging in the balance. What to do? If you're Jerry Manuel, you bring in the worst pitcher in your bullpen and a dude who sauntered around the field before the game wearing a Hello Kitty backpack (that, of course, has nothing to do with his crappiness). Billy Wagner is twiddling his thumbs in the bullpen, and he's the best pitcher you've got, and I don't care that it isn't a save situation or that you might have a save situation next inning or the inning after. If you don't get through their team's best hitters RIGHT NOW then there won't be a game to save later. I've basically accepted the fact that a manager will never bring in his best reliever to pitch to the heart of the order in the seventh or eighth inning, even though it may be the highest leverage inning of the game. It's the right thing to do, but it doesn't happen and it might never happen because closers like to pitch the ninth inning. But this *was* the ninth inning, AND it was the highest leverage situation of the game, and Manual still made the absolute wrong decision and the Mets lost the game because of it. There were other things the Mets screwed up, and even if Muniz (or Wagner) came in to shut down Pujols, Ankiel and Glaus, there's no guarantee that the Mets would have won the game anyway. But you've gotta give them a chance, Jerry.

Of course Carlos Muniz retired Pujols and Ankiel, and of course Glaus hit his second homerun of the game. Of course the Mets lost, and of course I'm moving on.

Big winners: David Wright, +22.5% WPA, Damion Easley, +18.5% WPA
Big losers: Carlos Muniz, -35.8% WPA, Pedro Martinez, -25.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Damion Easley two-run double, +14.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: You know what, -46.3% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -80.9%
Total batter WPA: +30.9%

---

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by JoshNY; his effort in last night's game thread embiggens us all.

Name	# of Posts
JoshNY	25
Prince	19
JohnPeterson	12
ZaBlanc	11
DoctorK16	10
metsexile	4
gogomets	4
itsmetsforme	4
Reg Dunlop	4
LOUtheMETfan	3
goth brooks	1

Everybody else is doing it, so why can't we? Forty-one-ish games into the season and the Mets have had an up-and-down three months to say the least. Things could be a whole lot worse, though, even if the Mets have fallen well short of expectations to this point. That's what these mid-season report cards often come down to: how did Player X perform relative to what could have been reasonably expected of him? So with that as our lead-in, here are my first-half grades.

Rotation - C: The starting rotation appeared to be a strength heading into the season, and I guess relative to the offense it *has* been pretty good, but again we're talking about expectations and in that regard the Mets' starters have disappointed as a whole. Mets starters are eighth in the league in ERA and ninth in WHIP, which is fine for a middling team with a small-town payroll, but these are the Ny Effing Mets with more money committed to player salaries than any other team in the National League, so middle of the pack isn't going to cut it. Pedro has been either awful or injured and, while I think he'll pull out of it alright, he's giving the Mets nothing right now. Santana has been fine; unspectacular, but still very good. Oliver Perez, save his most recent outstanding start against the Yankees, has been equal parts terrible and inconsistent. Maine has been pretty good, though not last night.

Rock stars: Mike Pelfrey, I guess

Boxcar hobos: Pedro Martinez, Oliver Perez

Bullpen - B-: This grade could be a bit higher because most of the bullpen principals have been quite good. Billy Wagner, with the exception of that execrable stretch of three games at the beginning of June, has been awesome. Scott Schoeneweis's low-three ERA seems unsustainable give his 12-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio, but he's been solid despite any smoke and/or mirrors he keeps stashed in his locker. Joe Smith has been inconsistent, but his numbers are pretty good across the board. Feliciano continues to walk a lot of guys, but his ERA and strikeout rates are very strong again. Duaner Sanchez was said to be the key to this relief corps heading into the season, and he's been decent. Like Smith, his numbers are mostly solid, though his ERA is nigh four and his strikeout rate is unspectacular. Aaron Heilman was horrendous in April and May but ungodly in June, so there may be hope for him yet.

Rock stars: Billy Wagner, Pedro Feliciano

Boxcar hobos: Matt Wise, Jorge Sosa

Offense - C-: I'm a little torn on this grade because I'm not sure how much blame to assign to the players and how much should be heaped on the front office and ownership. The offense has not been very good, but a lot of the guys who haven't been very good were known before they even took a swing to not be very good. Marlon Anderson, Endy Chavez, Fernando Tatis: these are not good players. I hate them because they suck, but I don't blame them so much because even their respective mothers could have told us they were terrible. I'll go back to my favorite analogy to these bums: I don't blame a spoon for being unable to to cut my steak; it's a tool ill fit for the job, much like Tatis playing baseball. After a slow start, Jose Reyes has been terrific, and is at or around the top ten players in baseball in VORP. His power is much improved over last season and his walk rate has crept back up to the rate he established last season. Wright has been a little underwhelming, but I still feel like he could break out at any moment. Beltran has been his typical emotionally-subdued but otherwise extremely productive self. Delgado drove in nine runs the other day, so he's good for zippo over the next six weeks now. Church has been mostly terrific and partially injured, but his on-field performance has exceeded any expectations I had of him.

Rock stars: Ryan Church, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran (yes, Carlos Beltran)

Boxcar hobos: Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo, Brian Schneider

Manager(s) - C: I don't really know how to evaluate managers, and I don't know if I ever will. Willie Randolph seemed like a nice enough guy, though he had awkward bullpen usage and often relied too heavily on established, ineffective veterans in all facets of play (bullpen, offense, defense). I didn't always care for his lineup construction, and rumors trickled in after his ouster that he had lost his clubhouse. All of this paints a pretty crummy picture of him as a manager, but even considering all of that I still don't know that he cost the Mets any more than a few games over the course of a season relative to a "great" manager, whomever that might be. Jerry Manual took over and has shown a bit more fire and a little less reliance on "his guys".

Front office - D-: Omar Minaya brought in Johan Santana for a truckload of money and a mixed bag of prospects, and despite his best efforts the Lastings Milledge deal has sorta worked out for the Mets so far (though perhaps not in the long run). However, his biggest failing (stop me if you've heard this one before) was his inability to provide reasonable contingency plans for injuries to Moises Alou and continued ineptitude from Carlos Delgado. That the first line of support has been the likes of Tatis, Anderson and Chavez is as big an indictment of Minaya's shortcomings as a GM as anything you could hold against Randolph as a manager. There are some important decisions to be made in the next three weeks about the viability of this team as a legitimate playoff contender, but despite assurances from ownership that his job is safe, Minaya has to feel that this could be a watershed season in his career as Mets GM. The NL East seems weak enough that a small bump could put the Mets over the top, but will Minaya trade away what few chips remain in the farm system for a shot at the postseason? Unfortunately, his short-term outlook and the Mets' long-term success may be diametrically opposed come July 31.

Overall - C-: The Mets are still just three (or so) games out in the NL East, but clearly they have failed to meet expectations in almost every area of their play. There's still a half-season to turn things around, but it'll get late early (Yogi!) if they keep losing every other game.

Agree or disagree, leave your grades in the comments. Or, go one step further and make some prognostications about the next 41 81 (or 40 80, now) games.

Hitters

David Wright is on pace for 126 RBI, which would best Mike Piazza's franchise-best mark of 124 in 1999.
Carlos Beltran is on pace for 98 walks, which would be second all-time behind John Olerud's ridiculos 125-walk season of 1999.
Jose Reyes is on pace for 56 stolen bases, which would be sixth best all-time behind three Jose Reyeses and one Roger Cedeno.
Jose Reyes is on pace for 16 triples, which would be fourth best all-time behind Lance Johnson's 21 in 1996 and two previous incarnations of Jose Reyes.
Jose Reyes is on pace for 74 extra-base hits, which would be sixth all-time.
Carlos Beltran is on pace for 70 extra-base hits, which would be eighth all-time (he is tied for first with 80 in 2006).

Starting Pitchers

Oliver Perez is on pace for 32 homeruns allowed, which would be second all-time (Roger Craig, 35 in 1962).
Johan Santana is on pace for 28 homeruns allowed, which would be sixth all-time.
Oliver Perez is on pace for 104 walks allowed, which sould be fourth all-time (Nolan Ryan, 116 in 1971).
Johan Santana is on pace for 18 wild pitches, which would tie for the most all-time (Jack Hamilton, 1966).
Oliver Perez is on pace for 10 20 hit batsmen, which would be the most all-time (Pedro Astacio, 16 in 2002).
Johan Santana is on pace for 206 strikeouts, which would be second most in the last fifteen years (Pedro Martinez, 208 in 2005).
Johan Santana is on pace for 227.1 innings pitched, which would be the most in the last fifteen years (Mike Hampton, 217.2 in 2000).

Relief Pitchers

Pedro Feliciano is on pace for 86 appearances, which would be the most all-time (Mike Stanton, 83 in 2004).
Billy Wagner is on pace for 36 saves, which would be fifth all-time (Armando Benitez, 43 in 2001).

Any others?

This game was a lot closer than I needed it to be. I was really hoping for a laugher here so I could go to sleep on the early side. Obviously, that didn't happen, as MLB's schedule-makers continue to mock me at every turn.

Mike Pelfrey pitched better than his final line would have you believe. His groundball ratio was very impressive -- 13 to just three flyballs -- but he wound up allowing six earned runs thanks to Pedro Feliciano's magnificent bed-crapping extravaganza. Pelfrey had very good control for most of the game, and somewhat amazingly failed to record even a single strikeout. Again, the results were kind of ugly but the process looked good and for Pelfrey that's probably the most important thing right now.

One outing doesn't necessarily make me a believer, but Aaron Heilman was nasty tonight. He basically saved the game for the Mets by striking out Vlad and Torii Hunter with the tying runs on base in the seventh.

Big winners: Aaron Heilman, +19.5% WPA,Carlos Beltran, +18.1% WPA
Big losers: Pedro Feliciano, -16.9% WPA, Trot Nixon, -9.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Heilman strikes out Vlad, +10.9% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Feliciano allows RBI single to Anderson, -12.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +12.1%
Total batter WPA: +37.9%

Good win for the Mets, and now it's time for sleep. I'll have a post up early this afternoon about the origin of each player on the Mets' 40-man roster.

Beating the Phillies is certainly fun, even when it takes seven pitchers to do so.

The arms

Oliver Perez threw 5.2 scoreless innings and struck out seven: Good. He also walked five, including Pedro Feliz on four pitches: Bad. I'm not going to harp on it just yet because the results have been good, but Ollie has walked 12 batters in 21.2 innings this season and sports a gaudy 1.48 WHIP. I'm no baseball expert, but allowing a a baserunner-and-a-half every inning isn't a great recipe for success.

Pedro Feliciano was bad, allowing a single to Greg Dobbs and a walk to Eric Bruntlett (!) to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the eighth. Feliciano left without having retired a batter, and was relieved by Aaron Heilman. Heilman induced a flyball out to left that Angel Pagan bungled into an RBI single. The Bulldog shook off the lousy defense behind him and came back to strike out Geoff Jenkins and Jayson Werth, co-authors of the forthcoming book, How Not to Get the Run in from Third: Ridiculous Spellings of Common First Names and Other Astute Observations.

The sticks

The Mets' 4-5-6 hitters went 0-for-12 with no runs batted in, but their 1-2-3 hitters went 6-for-12 with all four runs batted in. Despite apparently rediscovering his allergy to walks, Jose Reyes continues to swing the bat well since his talk with Carlos Beltran a few days ago. Interestingly, Beltran has been in a funk ever since, so maybe Reyes needs to impart some of his own advice. On the field, Reyes picked up a double and a two-run homer in four trips to the plate, scoring two runs and igniting the offense as only he can.

Luis Castillo reached base twice in four plate-apps. Oliver Perez reached base twice in two plate-apps. Just some food for thought. Meanwhile, Brian Schneider continues to reach base at a solid rate, despite each of his 16 hits this season going for singles and nothing more. A .383 OBP from your catcher is a nice luxury, but the zero extra-base hits still leave his OPS below the .700 mark. Even Paul Lo Duca hit the occasional two-bagger.

Anything else?

Anyone suggesting that Pat Burrell be the answer at first next year should Mark Teixeira sign elsewhere should consider this: He hit .220/.370/.424 away from CBP last season and .295/.430/586 within the friendly confines. He *did* hit very nice .254/.383/.517 on the road in 2006, so maybe last year was an aberration. Burrell has patience and power, and a lead glove to boot. The Phillies have no choice but to play him in left, but the Mets are likely to have a vacancy next year at first. Delgado almost certainly won't be back, and the Mets may balk at a $20+ million price tag for Teixeira. A shorter, cheaper deal to someone like Burrell could make a lot of sense for the Mets, especially with Teix going for 7/$150 or more.