Am I crazy?..

Fact is the Mets have been extremely unlucky with injuries to key players over the last 3 seasons. At the same time – except for Reyes in the 1st half of 2011 – there really haven´t been any “career type” seasons produced by anyone where you´d expect a significant natural regression.

Of course, this trend may continue. Santana is weak and he throws less than 50 IP, Niese or Dickey blows out his elbow and is gone for the year so Chris Schwinden and Miguel Batista become fulltime rotation members, Ike Davis´ ankle issues recurr and he has two lengthy DL stints, Daniel Murphy shows early he´s absolutely unable to play 2b so Justin Turner has to take over there for good, Lucas Duda breaks his leg falling in the outfield and Scott Hairston takes over, Ruben Tejada breaks his arm on a collision at 2b and Ronny Cedeno becomes the SS – and voila, the Mets indeed may struggle to win 70 games. Unfortunately, bad luck like this is expected by Mets fans.

Just like a heavy attrition rate for top flight pitching prospects is already expected as well – ever since “Generation K” basically flopped (not counting Izzy´s later success), Grant Roberts´ elbow didn´t hold up, Phil Humber blew out his too and Mike Pelfrey merely became Mike Pelfrey and not Roy Halladay. While things like that happen, it´s not automatic. Sometimes a trio of high-end pitching prospects becomes Tim Hudson – Mark Mulder – Barry Zito or Tim Lincecum – Matt Cain – Madison Bumgarner or at the very least Josh Johnson – Ricky Nolasco – Anibal Sanchez and things suddenly look a lot better. Sure, odds are that of Harvey – Wheeler – Familia – Mejia, only one becomes a quality SP and maybe more a # 2/3 instead of a front-end type and another one a solid RP while two others never have a meaningful career while struggling through various surgeries. However, sometimes things go right and all of a sudden you may get two quality frontline SP and a shutdown closer from such a group and even get some value back while trading the 4th of them. Is it likely ? No. But it has certainly happened in the past.

All in all, if the Mets core players like Wright – Tejada – Davis – Duda – Murphy – Niese – Dickey manage to avoid the DL except for maybe a couple of normal 15-day stints and Santana is able to make 25+ starts and throw 150+ innings, then this team has a very realistic chance to play .500 or better Baseball.

While the NL East improved, there is no ueber-team in this division either.
The Marlins won 70 games in 2011 and while they improved, it seems like a very volatile group of players that could easily implode and turn into a cast of missfits.
The Phillies average age is now well into the 30s and their offense is a Chase Utley injury away from totally collapsing. And while they do have “3 aces”, what if one of them finally suffers a serious injury ?
The Braves have strong pitching but their offense isn´t all that exciting with a hole at SS, brittle Chipper Jones at 3b only good against the Mets and really all hopes resting on Jayson Heyward breaking out in a big way.
The Nationals have some highly promising young talent too and could have the makings of a strong rotation if everyone stays healthy. They have a bunch of offensive and defensive question marks too though and are no guarantee for 85+ wins either.

All in all, the 2012 Mets should win somewhere between 70 and 85 games. If you´re a pessimist and expect things to go generally go wrong, then 70 wins is probably closer to reality. If the core players finally stay healthy and a couple of young players like Niese and Davis take a step forward, this could easily be a .500+ win team, maybe more if there are a few career years in between or Bay surprisingly bounces back, Santana pitches like Pedro Martinez of 2005/2006 and starts 30 games and someone like Jeurys Familia emerges by the 2nd half as either a strong surprising SP or shutdown reliever.

So, to answer your question: No, you are not crazy. You are merely taking the optimistic approach that generally hasn´t gone all that well for Mets fans over the past few years.

The main problem I think the 2012 Mets will have is a lack of depth. On paper, they could be a 90+ win team IF Wright, Davis, Murphy and Bay all return to form, if Torres shows that 2010 wasn’t a total fluke, if Thole and Tejada can be everyday players for the first time in their careers and IF Santana’s arm doesn’t fall off, Niese makes the leap and Franky leads a revamped bullpen. As each one of those things falls a little short, 90+ starts to creep ever-closer to 70 because there is no legit plan B for any of them.