Omar Minaya caused a bit of controversy the other day when he stated the following:
"Some people see edge as leadership. Sometimes, you need a little meanness to your game. Some people perceive leadership as meanness. I couldn't tell you that we have that type of guy. We have leaders. But everyone's perception of leadership is different. ... We have good guys, solid professionals. There is a smile on David Wright's face, a smile on Jose Reyes' face. But there is not an edge to them."
I tend to agree. Reyes and Wright are excellent players. I couldn't imagine them on another team. Sure they will have ups and downs but all players have hot and cold spells. I don't get the feeling that they are leaders yet though. Lord knows it's tough to be a leader on a team where you have vets like Beltran, Delgado and Johan Santana who are superstars. But there are plenty of other impressionable players on the Mets and who better to lead them then young, homegrown stars like Wright and Reyes?
The Mets have needed some real fire on the team for a while now. Think back to 1986 when the Mets had fiery personalities like Ray Knight who were willing to throw a punch at someone who got in their face. That's no way to play ball on a daily basis but every so often players have to be that passionate about the outcome of a game. The Mets are lacking that kind of player right now.
Omar may have been a bit too truthful in his statements because he later backtracked on it, saying "We play the game different from other guys." Jeez, come on. The Mets need to win in 2009. If there's a vacuum of leadership then I think that Jerry Manuel needs to school the appropriate players (Wright and Reyes!) to step up, get loud, get passionate and motivate this Mets team.
What do you think?
you need a trigger
What you say here is accurate, sure, but there needs to be a trigger to motivate this team. Something good to feed off or something bad to respond to--how about a good knockdown brawl? As it is now, they're lumbering along playing slightly sub-.500 ball and let's face it, being 2½ behind the Phillies a month into the season is hardly the end of the world. To listen to a Phillies fan talk, you'd think it was, but I think we're actually doing pretty well after a month of lousy baseball, no clutch hitting and even less starting pitching. There have been plenty of games which were close down the stretch and it was just one run here or there. A bases loaded walk? Killer but you move on. We survived Kenny Rogers' playoff ender and made it to the Series the next year.
We lack an edge, but not leaders
There's a difference. If you pay attention to Omar's quote, he doesn't say reyes and wright aren't leaders, he they aren't mean and in your face type leaders. "Some people perceive leadership as meanness. I couldn't tell you that we have that type of guy. We have leaders. But everyone's perception of leadership is different. ... We have good guys, solid professionals. There is a smile on David Wright's face, a smile on Jose Reyes' face. But there is not an edge to them." That "edge", as he said earlier, is not leadership but meaness, and I while I agree that under that definition they aren't "edgy" they are definetly leaders.
And I don't the lineup is playing lousy baseball, i think its the rotation. When we decided to pass up on the likes of Sabbathia, Burnett, Lowe, and others this offseason and instead signed Olly and Redding and Garcia in the offseason, we were making a bet that those guys could all step into the rotation for us if need be. A month later garcia has been sacked, redding is in AAA, and Perez has sucked so bad he was taken out of the rotation and put in the bullpen. with all the money we have spent on our rotation, we are still starting Livan Hernandez and Ken Takahashi every 5 days, and that's not good. Hopefully Perez, Redding, Figueroa, or even Niese will be able to step into the rotation for us again if Takahashi can't do it, but all of them have struggled early on. Our lineup is getting plenty of guys on base and as the weather gets warmer and the ball travels further we'll drive more of them in via the longball (we had 3 taters last night, a good sign). So our regular position guys are getting it done in my opinion, its our rotation that needs improvement.
The Rotation vs. The Lineup
The Mets starting rotation has had their troubles. The pen to a certain extent too. But I'm more concerned about the lack of clutch hitting. The Mets have left so many runners on base. It's the same problem they had last year. I'm hopeful as well that last night's results are a sign of things to come.
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