Today the New York Times has a story about all the bitter Mets fans who can’t decide who to root for (or against) in the World Series.

Mets fans, let me make it easy for you. (Don’t worry, I won’t use any big words.)

The unfortunate reality for everybody in America who isn’t a fan of the Phillies or Yankees is that no matter who wins, you all lose.

One of the two fanbases is about to get insufferably obnoxious. You thought Boston was bad after the Sox won their 2007 World Series? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

It’ll take the Yankees fans about five minutes to go back to being every bit as insufferable as they were in the late nineties, when winning was their birthright. There is no chance — none — that nearly a decade of playoff stumbles has humbled this bunch. They do arrogance like Bob Ross did puffy clouds.

When the Phillies won their World Series last year, we Phils fans viewed it as nothing short of a miracle. We didn’t boast too much, because we understood that whoever or whatever higher power is in charge of dolling out karma clearly fell asleep at the wheel and we got lucky. But this year, if the Phils beat the Yankees there will be one inescapable conclusion: our team really is this good. And we’ll make sure you’re reminded of it often.

Like I said, either way one group of fans will get a much unneeded ego boost.

So who to root for? Simple. There are a lot more Yankees fans than Phillies fans. A lot more. If you want to minimize the level of obnoxiousness in America, the Phillies should be your choice to win the series.

Sure, there are other reasons to root for the Phils. A Phillies victory would further chip away at the notion that the AL reigns supreme. And it’s always nice to remind the Yankees that money can’t buy happiness. And wouldn’t you just love to see a close up of Kate Hudson consolling her man as he cries into her surpemely toned shoulder?

But really, it all comes down to minimizing assholishness. That’s what a Phillies victory would do.

My reactions to today’s press conference at Citi Field with Mets’ COO Jeff Wilpon and GM Omar Minaya. Consider this my quick and dirty obituary of the 2009 New York Mets:

1. Mets’ front office execs using the word “inexcusable” in October is officially an American tradition. Greeting cards soon to follow.
2. “The payroll is what Omar needs” = “let’s lock up Alex Cora and Jeff Francoeur to three-year deals”
3. If you go from a line of .313/.397/.473 in 2008 to .266/.313/.427 in 2009 like Daniel Murphy did, Omar Minaya will be “encouraged”  by what you showed him.
4. “Minaya believes he and his staff must look at every aspect of the team, while putting better talent on the field.” This is a brilliant plan. Follow it. Can’t go wrong.
5. And clearly, I’ve wasted my time even paying attention.

It’s been going on for over a year now, but the multitude of man-crushes heaped upon Mets first baseman Daniel Murphy still perplexes me. There is, of course, the website ohmurph.com, which has apparently decided to take it up a notch and literally sniff the inside of Murphy’s cleats.

But it’s not just these guys. Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog.com, which is probably the best place to go to gauge the opinions of the average Mets fan, will not give up on Murphy. Yesterday, Cerrone wrote (italics and lack of caps his):

i think, with protection in the lineup, and a more stable season, using what he’s learned and lived through this year, murphy can hit above .280 with at least 30 doubles…

I have several issues with this mindset. For one, Murphy is on pace to hit 34 doubles already this year, so he’s already hit one of those qualifiers and we’re still not happy with his performance. He’s also on pace to have 510 ABs, which means that for him to bat over .280, he would have had to have roughly 145 hits. So assuming that he won’t magically become speedier and start racking up triples, in Cerrone’s estimation (he also thinks Murphy can hit 15HRs), Mets fans can hope for 232 total bases (92 from singles, 68 from doubles, 12 from triples, and  60 from HRs). Over 510 ABs, that’s a .454 slugging percentage… which would be “good” enough for 20th among the 24 qualified first basemen in 2009.

What about OBP in this instance? If he maintains his current walk rate of 7.5% as well as his HBP and sac fly numbers, that would still only give him a .334 OBP, which is 22nd among the 24 qualified first basemen. And what if I were to assume that his walk rate will improve to say 8.5%? That’s a .346 OBP (21st out of 24).

So really, even in this possible-but-optimistic scenario, Daniel Murphy would still be among the worst regular first basemen in baseball. And it’s not like his minor league numbers were good enough to project him as an average first baseman so his current performance is really what you’d expect against superior pitching. He can potentially give you numbers that would be quite good if he were a middle infielder. Problem is, he’s not. He wasn’t able to handle third base in the minors so they moved him to left. He couldn’t cut it there either so they moved him to first and now he has nowhere else to go.

Despite their troubles, perhaps the best thing that the Mets have going for themselves is the abundance of talent at premium positions. With third base (Wright), shortstop (Reyes) and centerfield (Beltran) all manned by potential All-Stars, the Mets have a distinct advantage over many teams that would kill to have that nucleus. But by running guys like Murphy, Jeff Francoeur, and Angel Pagan out there to play positions typically fielded by the best hitters that MLB has, they give that advantage right back. I’m not saying that the Mets need Albert Pujols. But if they’re serious about winning in 2010, they should have someone better than Daniel Murphy at first.

The Mets and Yankees recently started selling fruit at their new stadiums. Is it about time? Or is it sacrilege? You decide.

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Check out today’s starting lineup for the New York Metropolitans…

CF Angel Pagan
SS Wilson Valdez
1B Daniel Murphy
RF Jeff Francoeur
LF Cory Sullivan
3B Fernando Tatis
C Omir Santos
2B Anderson Hernandez
P Tim Redding P

Worst lineup ever, in the history of ever?

Seriously, let us know in the comments if you can ever remember seeing a worse lineup than that one (or can dig one up somewhere like Retrosheet).

I think that lineup’s collective OBP must be something like .280.

Update: Hahaha, wow, the Mets scored 10 runs with this lineup since I posted this!

Baseball is indeed a strange and beautiful game.

Don’t get too excited though – it doesn’t mean this isn’t still one of the worst lineups ever.

So the news just came down that Johan Santana has a serious elbow injury that will require surgery, and is likely done for the season.  Added to the news that Jeff Francouer has a torn ligament in his thumb, it is just ridiculous how injury-bitten the Mets have been this year.

But the bigger story here is how horribly the Mets have mismanaged Santana.

Last time I checked, Johan Santana is under guaranteed contract for four more seasons after this one, to the tune of a whopping 98.5 million dollars. But even though Santana has been experiencing sever pain in his elbow since at least June, the Mets have continued to allow him to keep pitching all the way to the end of August, even thought this season has been a total lost cause for at least two months now.

Jerry Manuel admits that he has been “terribly concerned” about the pain in Santana’s elbow. But apparently not concerned enough to take the obvious step of shutting Santana down for the season and protecting his team’s massive $100 million plus investment.

Santana never complains, so he just kept pitching through the pain, and Manuel never shut him down until Santana himself begged out of a start. And if Santana himself begged out, you know it’s got to be crazy amounts of pain. It should never have even gotten close to this point, especially in a completely lost season.

Look it would be one thing if there were vague mentions of “discomfort” or something, which Manuel just wrote off.  Even that would have been bad, but in this case we hear in a direct quote from Manuel himself that “He has not been throwing between starts for quite awhile. I would say since before the All-Star break.”

Your ace is not even throwing at all between starts for two months, your ace who is under contract for four more years, and yet you keep running him out there? Rob Neyer recently wrote a column calling Jerry Manuel a “medieval manager,” but it turns out we really had no idea!

But ultimately, blame for this ridiculous situation has to go all the way up the chain to Omar Minaya and ownership. No matter which way you slice it, there is some serious idiocy going on here, because how dumb do you have to be to not take steps to protect an investment like that, in a lost season? Whether they knew about the injury and did nothing, or somehow are so oblivious that they didn’t know about the injury, Minaya and the front office have been totally negligent.

Tim Redding is a very bad pitcher and the only reason he’s still starting in the major leagues is that the Mets just cut Livan Hernandez and they’ve gotta throw somebody out there every five days.

But Redding, despite his general craptitude, absolutely kills the Phillies.

His career record against the Phillies is 5-3, and if that doesn’t blow your mind let me remind you that in his nine major league seasons Redding has a winning record against only four other teams.

His career ERA against the Phils is 3.34, compared to total career ERA of 5.07.

Over his career, the Phillies have hit a putrid .216/.292/.318 against Redding. This season they’ve hit only .222/.214/.296.

And that was before Redding pitched five innings of one-hit shutout ball tonight, recording a no decision.

So Gary Sheffield is upset at the Mets for placing him on waivers and then pulling him back when a team claimed him, and now Sheffield is apparently demanding that the Mets either sign him to an extension, or grant him his outright release.

Sheffield has pulled these kinds of stunts often enough in the past with other teams, that it’s tempting to blame Sheffield for being a dick and to tell him to just shut up and play.

But this time, for once, Gary Sheffield is right.

Because on what planet in the universe does it make sense for Omar Minaya and the Mets to pull Sheffield back from waivers? By pulling a player back from waivers, the team is no longer allowed to trade him for the rest of the season, so the Mets missed out on a chance to trade Sheffield for a prospect.

This makes no sense at all, given that the Mets are way, way out of it this year, and also have apparently told Sheffield that he is not in their plans for next year either. If that is true, then why in the world would Minaya hang on to Sheffield and prevent him from playing for a contender when you could have at least gotten something for him?

The only thing I can sort of vaguely see as being a reason is if the claiming team were somebody like the Phillies or the Braves, who are rivals with the Mets and in the same division. But even so, the Mets are waaaay out of it this year, so cares? Take a prospect and let the Phillies or Braves have him.

There is a possibility that we may not have all the information here, but based on everything we know, Sheffield has a right to be pissed. Sheffield is already 40 and it’s not like he’s going to have too many other chances to play for a contender after this season.

Even his demand for an extension from the Mets makes sense, because the only valid reason not to let Sheff go would be if the Mets really, really want him for next year, and want to have the exclusive negotiating rights window.

Clearly Sheffield is wanted by at least one other team, so the Mets are just being petty and stupid by keeping him on a team going nowhere when they could have gotten at least something for him.