I could hear fans thinking aloud last night: How did we not get this Robertson guy? And why didn’t we do something about the rotation during the off-season anyhow?

Answer: They couldn’t. And considering the market, they shouldn’t have. The conscience decision was made to see just what they had in John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez.

Fortunately, the Mets wanted Jon Niese to make the rotation and he did. He demonstarted last night that he is a fine alternative as a third or fourh starter. But unfortunately, the rest have shown no reason to feel they are even remotely worthy of a number two slot behind Johan Santana.

Maine’s start illustarted the concerns the club has had about him for some time. He couldn’t thrown many first pitch strikes and often fell behind 2-0. Coupled with less than desirable velocity, this is not a template for winning.

Fans have similar lack of faith in Perez and Pelfrey. More so the former than the later. We’ll see Pelfrey tonight and hopefully he performs much like he did in his last spring start. It’s going to be hard enough to withstand the early season failures of Maine and Perez as it is.

But the Mets may have anticipated this scenario and are prepared to make the year a psuedo rebuilding season. Are their replacements already on the current staff in Fernando Nieve and Hisanori Takahashi?
Tobi Stoner was effective in his rain-shortened start last night in Buffalo. It may be telling that he got the opening night start in AAA.

Still, the names Stoner, Takahashi and Nieve are not part of any reasonable calculus ending with a Mets play-off run this season.

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I love Joe Janish’s cynical assessments of the final roster. He convinced me about Nelson Figueroa. Figueroa should have made the club instead of Sean Green.

I also think he was correct about Ruben Tejeda. He’s not likely to get alot of time and the arbitration clock begins. The only explanation I can make is that the Mets had some roster problems and couldn’t keep Russ Adams.

As it is now, along with Tejeda, Mike Jacobs, Jenrry Mejia, Frank Catalanatto and Hisanori Takahashi have to be added to the 40-man roster. This would put them at 2 over. With Figueroa coming off, it would still leave them with one over. I wonder if the last one will be Omir Santos.

I’m going to depart from Joe on Mejia. I think he’s ready and in the role he needs to be in. He won’t get the 8th inning yet. That will be Pedro Feliciano’s for now. Maybe Fernando Nieve’s. The Mets wanted for Ryota Igarashi to take this in camp, but he didn’t.

The Mets seem to be saying that Feliciano will have this role early on, but I just don’t feel he gets right-handed hitters out well enough. Unlike Bobby Parnell, Mejia has a second pitch. Mejia can be that guy.

Of course all of this is moot if the Mets starters don’t keep the club in the game. Aside from Johan Santana and Jon Niese, the other three didn’t pitch this spring as if they would. So it will come down to the questionable rotation that Omar Minaya failed to bolster in the off-season. They will have to be better than they were in the spring or the clock will begin ticking on both Minaya and Jerry Manuel.

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So its time to chronicle the thinking of Mets’ brass with respect to Jenrry Mejia. Clearly those whom felt that Jenrry Mejia was best suited as a reliever won. There were not enough naysayers that felt that an upside existed to send him out to make him a starter. The former was correct. Mejia is indeed the club’s future closer and will emerge as Francisco Rodriguez’ set-up man by May.

Now about that rotation.

It doesn’t look good at all. The decision to not acquire talent during the off-season looks to be a poor one. Johan Santana is a given and the Mets committed their money well. He’s a Hall of Famer, but could be a 1970′s version of Steve Charlton if no one else emerges to get outs beyond the first five innings of games.

Thus, the Mets have to end their past formula for winning games which dictates just getting five innings from starters and following it up with three relievers working an inning a piece. Aside from Santana, no other starter has demonstrated the ability to do this. A change in philosophy is in order, but the Mets have not shown any inclination to change.

Perhaps they should ask a few of their current employees who do television about it. Bobby Ojeda and Ron Darling understood their role as a starting pitcher very well. They both started for a club that won a World Series, won two division titles and finished second three other times.

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Its the cover-up and not the crime.

So through Johan Santana we learn that all is ok with Kelvim Escobar’s shoulder. “On target” was the description only one day after hearing that he couldn’t even grasp a baseball.

So which is it?

Fans are able to understand that Escobar was an uncertainty to begin with, but will be intolerant of an attempt at controling the spin. They will need to get out in front of the story today.

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Joe Janish does a good job in extending my own remarks. I agree with him that Putz probably should have been shut down when persistent pain surfaced in his elbow. I’m hesitant to comment in depth as I was not there to hear Putz’ own feedback of how he was feeling. There is no way of knowing what he was saying to the Mets staff as he was aware of his own contract situation.

Reagrding Putz further, a question should be asked at as to whether of not the Mariners were candid with the Mets about Putz’ health. That does not absolve the Mets, however, from doing their own physical exam like they did before signing Pedrom Martinez in 2004. Did they receive his medical records? If they recieved accurate ones, they should have been concerned as it would look much like Janish’s timeline. Putz was apparently hurting enough when he arrived in camp for it to be an issue during his spring training physical exam. Consideration via hindsight does not reflect well on the Mets. But the Mariners were indeed aware of Putz’ history and can be said to have knowingly traded damaged goods.

The rehabilitation for removal of foreign bodies from of the elbow is relatively short, and in hind sight a more prudent decision would have been for an arthroscopy when pain persisted. A noteworthy comparison is that a similarly injured Johan Santana is doing so well right now. I have no way of knowing why that decision was not made.

Dr. David Altcheck took over for Dr. James C. Parkes after the 1991 season. Altchek was a departure from the conservative Parkes in that he appeared to recommend surgery for players much quicker than would have Parkes. Whe Joe McIlvaine returned to the Mets as GM in 1993 he asked Altcheck why there appears to have been so many surguries. The Mets contracted their physician care out to a hospital that payed them a lot of money for a few years before they turned to Altcheck before the 2004 season.

In the cases of Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and Putz there seems to be a change in philosophy to opt for surgery. I doubt that that philosophy is driven by Altcheck. Last season the Mets also clearly displayed similar hesitancy in placing these same players on the disabled list. Observers are probably wondering outloud about how long Santana was hurting before it was decided to perform surgery on him.

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With Joel Piniero and Doug Davis gone to the Angels and Brewers respectively, the Mets suddenly find themselves with few free agent options left to bolster their starting rotation. Coupled with the loss of catcher Bengie Molina back to the Giants, a once promising off-season has hit a wall.

What now?

Jon Garland, an excellent option for Citi Field, seems to want to pitch on the west coast. That leaves Ben Sheets and John Smoltz, both with significant health issues. It was clear that the Mets were offering competitive salaries to both, but weren’t willing to go the extra mile to get either. Unless they can somehow get Garland, they should gamble on Sheets. The Mets only appear to have interest in Smoltz as a reliever, but the future Hall of Famer may be looking to start. He left Boston last year because they wanted to use him in the bullpen after he failed as a starter.

Word this morning is that the Mets will be making a hard push for Ben Sheets. In the event they sign Sheets, it could tun out that that they backed into the best guy. Potentially lightning in a bottle, Sheets has the the ability to emerge as a co-number one with Johan Santana.

Its the kind of move that make the Mets a contender. A healthy Sheets could turn around the energy lost from Carlos Beltran’s absence.

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Bill Madden throws cold water on the chances of the Mets signing Jason Bay.

Can’t say that I blame Madden. The Mets haven’t really made a good deal since bringing Johan Santana to New York. Jeff Francoeur fell in their lap. Their questionable frugality in signing amatuer talent was on display when they gave away Billy Wagner who will be closing this season for a division opponent.

Plus the unthinkable…who really wants to play for the Mets right now? Minaya’s powers of persuassion are not what they once were, thus putting the Mets in the position of having to clearly outbid for the services of talent. The Mets could meerly be used just to drive up the market for players whom have no intention of signing on to what can understandably be looked at as a dysfunctional organization. A seasoned observer such as Madden is sure to be aware of just this possibility.

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I’ve always been a fans of Matt Cerrone’s use of polling data of Met fans. One today gives me a reason to believe I’ve been right about something. I wrote the following in a post last week:

The Mets’ historical identity of being built around strong starting pitching has always appeared to be absolute. Last year’s failure of any starter to assume the role of a #2 behind one of the game’s best necessitated the club’s turn it’s attention to acquiring one. Met fans have a comfort level when their clubs are built around it’s stating pitching.

Metsblog offers a choice to fans to select between John Lackey, Matt Holliday and Jason Bay. Lackey leads all with 44%.

The Mets are an organization with a relatively short history in that there are fans alive who were there at the beginning. The first taste of glory came with a team built on strong starting pitching in Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Jon Matlack. No one will never forget the Dwight Gooden led staffs of the late 1980′s. It was the Mets dependency on starters which prompted Joe McIlvaine to give up Rick Aguillera along with four other players to get Frank Viola during 1990. Reacquisitions of Seaver, along with such pitchers as Brett Saberhagen, Al Leiter, Mike Hampton, Tom Glavine and Johan Santana support this hypothesis.

Even after a season such as 2009 that witnessed such offensive impotence, Met fans still put a premium on starting pitching.

I voted for Holliday in the poll, as I see the Mets need for a right-handed bat to be the greatest. They must compete with the Phillies whom have very good lefthanded pitching in Cliff Lee, Cole Hammels, J.A. Happ and Jamie Moyers. Righthanded hitters like Holliday and Jason Bay may not be available again.

Maybe I’m being allowed to buy into the weakness of catching last year and am optimistic of a positive return of some of the starters – except for Oliver Perez that is. And don’t get me wrong, if it’s any of these three, I’ll be pleased that the Wilpons are trying to win.

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Somehow, its louder and more personal if you are sitting in a dugout.

Matt Cain never meant to hit David Wright, but was forced to deal with the fact that he did. His body language conveyed as much, but the code had to be addressed and Johan Santana answered even though he knew that it wasn’t warranted. A “Just in case” thinking prevailed and Pablo Sandoval’s skip out of the way thankfully ended it all.

I’d imagine that Santana knew that Matt Cain didn’t intend to hit David Wright, but its been a long and painful month. The losses and all that crap back in NY with the Cradinals and Albert Pujols still lingers.

Damned code.

I heard that sound three times in my career from a dugout as an athletic trainer in professional ball when a pitched ball hit the helmets of three good men. One was an accident, while the other two were, well, likley to be something else. I’ve had major league pitchers tell me they intended to hit a batter because a hitter had done something. I’ll not share their names and don’t enjoy knowing what they are.

An idescribable beauty of baseball exists that players and fans share. It bonds them as there’s not a player alive that cannot share some unforgetable moment with a dad or mom.

My mom placed two ticket stubs over a large photo from a game my late father and I went to in 1974 and had it framed. She gave it to me at Christmas. It was the game that Hank Aaron hit his 715th homerun. Dad checked me out of school and we went up to Atlanta for the series hoping to see Aaron’s homerun. We saw it and I’ll never forget the smile on my Dad’s face when he realized what we just shared. My son has the framed photo displayed in his room.

A raw human experience always exists in any sport that forces reality on us all. David Wright will be ok, but that word, “perspctive” comes to mind.

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Good job by Miniya to pick him up. But the Mets still cannot count on Pedro Feliciano, Bobby Parnell and K-Rod to pitch in every game they win. The starters are pogrammed to pitch only 5 to 6 innings and its a prescription for bullpen failure collapse by August. The Mets will finish out of the play-offs again if someone besides Johan Santana can get into the last third of the game.

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