Oct 6, 2008 - 1:08 AM
0 shoutsBy Tom Covill PA SportsTicker Assistant Baseball Editor
There were many disappointing teams in baseball this season. The Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres all had high hopes and sub-par results.
But only the New York Mets took their fans to the brink of the postseason only to rip their hearts out for a second consecutive season.
The Mets owned a 3 1/2-game lead in the National League East on September 10, only to finish three games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the division.
They had a shot at the wild card but, for the second year in a row, lost to the Florida Marlins on the final day of the regular season to watch their playoff hopes slip away.
New York managed five runs in dropping two of three to the Marlins, watching the wild card slide into the waiting hands of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Mets' bullpen was the big issue down the stretch and finished the season with a club record 30 blown saves.
Luis Ayala, Aaron Heilman, Duaner Sanchez, Joe Smith and Scott Schoeneweis formed the corps of the bullpen, which finished the season 13th in the National League with a 4.25 ERA.
WHAT WENT WRONG?: Once again, New York played tight down the stretch and grossly underachieved based on its talent.
The bullpen was abysmal in the second half and it didn't help when closer Billy Wagner was lost for the remainder of the season on August 3 due to an elbow injury that required "Tommy John" surgery.
Willie Randolph was fired as manager at 3:00 a.m. on the day after Father's Day, drawing the ire of fans and media.
The club was constructed with the misguided belief that fragile veterans Moises Alou and Orlando Hernandez would provide power in left field and stability in the rotation. Alou played in 15 games and Hernandez did not make an appearance.
Oh, and they managed to score only five runs over the last three games of the season.
MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER: Plenty of deserving candidates. Pedro Martinez and John Maine were both expected to have big seasons in the rotation and both missed significant time due to injury.
Lefthander Oliver Perez managed to stay healthy all season but regressed from his 2007 form, when he went 15-10 with a 3.56 ERA. Never the best pitcher as far as command was concerned, Perez marked a career-high in 2008 by issuing 105 free passes in 194 innings to lead the NL.
The extra baserunners helped push his ERA up to 4.22.
But picking on the rotation would be ignoring the real problem, which, of course, was the bullpen.
Heilman ranked 87th among NL relievers with a 5.21 ERA and posted a 3-8 record while walking 46 batters in 76 innings - the highest walk total of his career and tops among NL relievers. The 29-year-old also yielded 10 homers.
Once a highly touted prospect within the organization, he served as a valuable middle reliever for New York in each of the previous three seasons. But Heilman took a turn for the worse this season, failing in middle relief, the eighth inning and the ninth inning while regularly leaving the Shea Stadium mound to a chorus of boos.
Sanchez, Smith and Pedro Feliciano also performed below or near their career-worst levels.
BEST PLAYER: Johan Santana. After the Mets' collapse in 2007, when they blew a seven-game lead with 17 to play due largely to the fact that their starters faltered down the stretch, the team decided to ante up and get the best pitcher on the planet from the Minnesota Twins in a five-player trade right before spring training.
The move paid off, as the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner did his best work in the second half of the season.
Santana did not suffer a loss after June 28, going 9-0 with a 2.09 ERA and a .219 batting average against in his last 17 appearances. With New York's season on the line in the penultimate game of the season, the lefthander took the mound on three days' rest and held the Florida Marlins to three hits in a 2-0 shutout, striking out nine. The effort was more admirable when it was learned the lefty had pitched with a torn meniscus in his left knee that needed surgery at season's end.
He finished the campaign 16-7 and led the NL with a 2.53 ERA.
The offense was full of stars as well, with third baseman David Wright, shortstop Jose Reyes, first baseman Carlos Delgado and center fielder Carlos Beltran all turning in productive overall seasons - despite some stretch-run failures.
REASON TO BELIEVE: Santana, Wright, Reyes, Beltran and Delgado should all be back next season, giving the Mets a core of star players that rivals any other team.
Wright will play all of next season at age 26 and Reyes won't turn 26 until June 13.
Righthander Mike Pelfrey, 24, began to live up to his first-round pedigree in 2008, going 13-11 with a 3.72 ERA and emerging as a solid mid-rotation starter.
General manager Omar Minaya and manager Jerry Manuel were just signed to contract extensions, so at least there is some continuity at the top.
Perhaps most importantly, New York always has the most money in the division and could go out this winter and throw piles of it at the bullpen, at the outfield corners and at the back end of the rotation.
FUTURE BRIGHTNESS: Not much. The Mets have some talent in their farm system, though most of it is way down at the lowest levels.
Fernando Martinez is the closest to the show, having spent the 2008 season at Class AA Binghamton as a 19-year-old. Projected as a power-hitting left fielder, Martinez hit .287 with eight homers and 43 RBI at Binghamton.
Further down is and shortstop Wilmer Flores, a 17-year-old from Venezuela who hit .307 in 68 games between three Class A stops and has drawn Miguel Cabrera comparisons, and third baseman Jefry Marte, a 17-year-old from the Dominican Republic who hit .325 in the Gulf Coast League.
While proving strong in the international market, New York has not fared as well in the draft. The 2008 class included Ike Davis and Reese Havens, both of whom were drafted in the first round in June and had forgettable debuts in the New York-Penn League.
Pelfrey is the only player from the top four rounds of the last four drafts making a significant contribution on the major league level.
