Last year at about this time I made a lengthy post outlining what I expected from the 2009 team and what we would need to do to compete. My number 1 "key to success" was our ability to stay healthy. Boy, was that prohetic or what? So naturally this is what will lead off my list of what the Mets must do to have success in 2010:

1. STAY HEALTHY! Lord we've had some rotten luck with the injuries the past 2 years, huh? Meanwhile the Phillies stars have kept nearly perfect health. It just ain't fair! That more than anything has been the largest factor in our struggles over the past 2 years, so the number one thing we must do to compete for a playoff spot in 2010 is to keep our players on the field. Over the offseason the Wilpons hired a new strength, conditioning, and health team with the mantra "prevention and recovery," so hopefully that will help. I want to see lots of stretching before games! Another way we can keep everyone on the field is to sometimes take them off the field. We can afford to sub Beltran out for Pagan/Matthews a few times when they return, we can afford to give Barajas and Blanco's aging knees a rest by platooning them a bit, we can afford to let one of our abundant OF stand in for Francouer or Bay every now and then. These occasional off days can keep morale up and our DL small.

2. Our rotation must silence its critics. Easily our biggest ? heading into 09, Mike Pelfrey is the only member of our rotation that didn't spend much of the season on the DL last year, and he didn't perform particularly well. If we are to succeed in the season or especially the playoffs, we need consistent, healthy innings from out pitchers. Honestly, I think we might have one of the most talented SP rotations out there, it's just that in recent years our 2-4 starters (Maine, Olly, and Pelfrey) haven't lived up to their potential. They need to put it all together this year. One could argue that each and every one of our SP is a ?, and we need at least 3 of them including Johan to be on their games in 2010 if we have any hope of making the playoffs. Poor spring statistics for all of our SP don't instill me with confidence, but we do have a bunch guys who aren't in our rotation now (nieve, figueroa, takahashi, misch, holt, even mejia) who all have starting experience and who could step in for a spot start if neccessary.

3. We must end the power outage. So it turns out Citi Field is a pitchers park, eh? Who cares. Away teams hit plenty of homers in it, so the problem was more with our lineup than with our dimensions last year. Less than 100 home runs, dead last in the MLB, is not tolerable for a team with our payroll. Daniel Murphy leading the team with 12 homers is not tolerable. With Beltran out for at least a month and questionable thereafter, and with Delgado and Sheffield gone for good, one can hardly say we are a much more powerful team now than we were then even with Bay. I doubt Bay hits another 36 homers now that he's out of Fenway, and so we need Wright, Francouer, Murphy, and maybe even Reyes, to bring the pop if we're going to score runs. Jerry Manuel's emphasis on pitching, defense, and speed is all well and good, but one of the worst mistakes Tony Bernazzard made last year was instructing our players to take it the opposite way and hit for average in Spring Training. It worked in that we had one of the highest team batting averages, but it totally screwed us over in the power department. What we should instead focus on is plate discipline. A walk is as good as a hit, and our 3-4-5 hitters (Wright, Bay, Francouer) are notoriously free swingers. That must change! Idk if our averages sink a bit, we need to be selective and wait for our pitches. If they don't come, take a base. If they do, take it out. That's how the best teams get their RBI's in today's MLB, and we must get on board if we are to have success in this power-friendly era.