earlier in the article he added this doozy:

That’s the challenge that faces ownership this winter: what to do about the roster’s physical and psychological deficits. The Mets can find a newer, younger pitcher to replace Pedro Martinez, for example, but the real need will be reversing the losing culture that’s kept the current core of Mets out of the World Series four years in a row.

As much as the media idiots have the weird habit of blaming failure on the best players (A-Rod, anyone?) it’s the Mets horrible lack of depth on the bench and in the bullpen that killed them, and that needs to be fixed pronto. You look at the 97-win Rays and see a quality bench (Floyd, Hinske, Aybar, Zobrist) and a quality bullpen (Wheeler, Balfour, Howell, Bradford) and you realize that it doesn’t take too much to put it together.

The Mets need a starting pitcher, some bullpen arms, and some bench/outfield depth. That’s all. Let’s go forward and ignore the stream of idiocy that’s going to be coming from the media in the coming days.

for failing to consistently get in the playoffs. that’s a pretty high standard, no? he surely has some faults, like not filling holes with even mediocre players, but it’s not like the Mets have been bad.

I would not. The way the Brewers abused him this year makes me worry about his long term health. He will probably be good for two or three more years, (especially if he stays in the NL) but after that, given his workload and body type I see a major breakdown.

the fact that relief pitching is such a crapshoot touches on something someone (sorry, I can’t remember who) mentioned maybe in one of the game threads last week about “live young arms” being traded away – the more of those guys you have, the better your odds are in that crapshoot.

not to mention, it seemed like the lack of a real power strikeout pitcher in the bullpen (other than Wagner) was a weakness. here’s my hypothesis: all of the playoff teams have a guy like that in addition to their closer. I’m going to go through them and see what I find…

Tampa Bay: JP Howell, 89.3 IP, 92 K, 197 ERA+; Grant Balfour, 58.3 IP, 82 K, 283 ERA+
Boston: Hideki Okajima, 62 IP, 60 K, 175 ERA+; Manny Delcarmen, 74.3 IP, 72 K, 140 ERA+
LAA: Scot Shields, 63.3 IP, 64 K, 161 ERA+; Jose Arredondo, 61 IP, 55 K, 269 ERA+
Minnesota: Boof Bonser (as a reliever): 52 IP, 55 K; Dennys Reyes, 46.3 IP, 39 K, 180 ERA+
Chicago Sox: Matt Thornton, 67 IP, 77 K, 170 ERA+; Octavio Dotel, 66.3 IP, 92 K, 120 ERA+
Philly: JC Romero, 59 IP, 52 K, 163 ERA+; Ryan Madson, 82.7 IP, 67 K, 147 ERA+
Milwaukee: Carlos Villanueva (as a reliever): 59.3 IP, 62 K
LAD: Jonathan Broxton, 69 IP, 88 K, 141 ERA+; Hong-Chih Kuo, 80 IP, 96 K, 207 ERA+
Chicago Cubs: Carlos Marmol, 87.3 IP, 114 K, 168 ERA+; Neal Cotts, 35.7 IP, 43 K, 105 ERA+

All the playoff teams (including Minnesota and Chicago because I don’t know which of them will get in) have guys you can bring in out of the bullpen to get strikeouts, which are the best way to strand runners. Tampa Bay’s and the Cubs’ and the Dodgers’ in particular are very good; not surprisingly, Milwaukee’s are the weakest and they were the most likely to miss the playoffs. Heilman was the best we had at that this year (80 K in 76 IP) but he walked too many guys (46) and his propensity to serve up the home run this year (10) neutralized a lot of the advantage of the strikeouts. Schoeneweis, Feliciano, Smith = a lot of soft-tossing, Sanchez doesn’t have his velocity back, Stokes throws hard but wasn’t able to convert that into strikeouts (26 in 33.3 IP).

That bullpen needs a lot of work.

That Kazmir trade will be terrible forever. Heck, I watched Zambrano’s last start as a Met, and as strange as it was (a strikeout of Jones, then run off the field!) it does not make up for the loss. The Mets would certainly be a much different team if Scott were still a Met.

That being said, Omar did keep Big Pelf, and that looks like it may be a feather in his cap. Mike may not flirt with striking out 200 batters, but I think he’s good enough for 15 wins, which is not terrible when Santana is the ace of the squad.