Time for the unrealistic optimism/Lying to ourselves to begin

Right now, the Mets are generally considered as a laughingstock by most experts, expected to lose well over 90+ games.

And without looking closer, why wouldn´t you think that way (note, what follows is not my opinion):
Jose Reyes, a 6 WAR player has departed as a free agent.
Carlos Beltran, probably the team´s 2nd best hitter of 2011 also left in late July, shortly before the collapse of the 2011 Mets which went 78-84. Plus add in K-Rod, a truely proven CLOSER who won´t be there. Meanwhile, besides a solid replacement closer and a couple of setup relievers, plus the neutral Pagan for Torres swap, nothing has changed. Do the math and you probably end up at 68 wins instead of 78 – and with the Mets in sell-mode that probably means 65 wins, lots of fun for Adam Rubin & Co. painting the bleakest of pictures and the Wilpons and their large front office watching the games pretty much by themselves @ renovated Citi Field.

However, what these “experts” generally fail to see is that the Mets went 79-83 in 2010 without getting any sort of significant help from an injury riddled Carlos Beltran, rather pedestrian production from Jose Reyes for his standards that Ruben Tejada should come very close to providing himself in 2012, plus K-Rod being about as good as one would expect Frank Francisco to be in 2012.

As for the offense, I don´t think it´s outlandish to expect David Wright & Ike Davis to combine for 1.000+ AB again in 2012 instead of 500 or so AB that they had in 2011. And considering how well Davis hit in late 2010 and early 2011 until his injury struck, I don´t think it´s overly optimistic to expect Wright (with the fences moved in and the back in better condidtion) and Davis to average an .850 OPS between the two and combine for 50+ HR in 2012. The optimistic view would have Wright returning to his 2008 form with Davis´ last 3 months sample size (mid August 2010 to mid May 2011) .900+ OPS and the two combining for 60+ HR and an average OPS in the .900 range. The pessimistic view probably has Wright merely doing what he did in 2011 offensively and Davis reproducing close to his rookie season totals.
Again, if Davis & Wright play a lot more than they did in 2011 and produce according to realistic expectations, the loss of offense from losing Reyes & Beltran should already be compensated in large parts. Lucas Duda & Daniel Murphy are the other two offensive keys in 2012 and going forward. If they can repeat what they did in 2011 – only while playing more games, the Mets offense won´t be any worse than the offenses of other NL East teams. Even if Jason Bay doesn´t surprisingly return to pre-2010 form, Ruben Tejada & Josh Thole merely repeat their 2011 performance and Andres Torres only plays good defense but doesn´t rebound to 2010 levels. All in all, even without Reyes & Beltran, this offense should – realistically – be better overall than the one that helped get the 2010 Mets to 79 wins in spite of wasting thousands of ABs on the likes of Alex Cora, Rod Barajas, Jeff Franceour, Luis Castillo and others and not worse than the offense of the aging Phillies the somewhat challenged Braves, the up & coming Nationals and even the pimped up Marlins.

The Mets bullpen should also be better & mostly deeper than the 2011 and even 2010 versions.

What will ultimately decide whether this is a 75-win or 85-win team is the starting pitching. And unlike the quite underrated offense this is an area where you´ll need to be an optimist to expect a .500+ finish, especially compared to the generally stronger rotations of the 4 NL East rivals.
How much can Santana pitch and how good will he be ? Santana is the type of SP who figures to do well even with diminished stuff. However, even for that he´ll need to be ready to take the ball every 5th day. I don´t think it´s outlandish to expect him to at least replace Capuano´s 2011 production – but the big health question marks remain until proven otherwise.
RA Dickey is a fine # 2/3 starter now and probably for the next 25 years if he returns alright from his journey.
Jon Niese will have to prove he can pitch a full season of 30+ starts without breaking down. There is potential that as a 25-year-old LH, he´ll improve with age like good wine and perform closer to his peripherals than before. If he does, he´ll be an asset and quite possibly match up well with the Mark Buehrle´s and possibly even Cole Hamels of the world.
Mike Pelfrey is what he is. A solid inning gobbling # 4 starter who lacks a true out pitch. Maybe the improved defense behind him helps him come closer to his 2008 & 2010 totals than the uglier 2009 and 2011 lines. Maybe not.
And Dillon Gee seems like a good warrior who´ll get most out of his fringy stuff and perform adequately at the back-end of the rotation.
Jeremy Hefner and Chris Schwinden aren´t all that sexy as backup-options, but both have done well enough at AAA to at least fill in okay until possibly one or two of the “phenoms” are ready to help by late 2012.

Consideríng the strong competition in the NL East, the Mets probably can reasonably be expected to repeat their 2010 and 2011 performance and win in the upper 70s with this cast of players. With a little luck and especially a solid return from Santana or breakouts from Niese and / or Davis, this team could even sneak into WC contention and approach 85 wins – without having to be an unrealistic fool.