In an effort to give credit where credit is due, kudos to you, Omar Minaya, for building a team around pitching, speed and defense as you had promised to do. Many Mets fans have a bizarre hatred for Minaya that I've never quite understood. Yes, he has made his mistakes. But he has undoubtedly made some really good moves for this team, as well.
Pitching - The Mets currently stand at 7th in the majors with a 3.70 ERA despite losing 40 percent of their opening day rotation. Also, they are currently tied for 2nd in the majors with 8 shutouts. They are second in the majors in walks, but we basically have Ollie and Maine to thank for that. Yes, they're Omar's guys. But so are Takahashi and Dickey. So moot point there. They're also 7th in the majors in strikeouts with 462. They are 13th in the majors in wins, but you gotta believe a lot of that comes from the slow start the offense got off to this season.
Speed - The Mets currently rank 2nd in the majors behind the Rays (68) with 64 stolen bases. However, the Mets have been thrown out seven less times than the Rays and are tied for 2nd with the Twins in stolen base percentage at 83%, behind only the Phillies. However, the Phillies have only 30 attempts and their steals are mostly driven by Victorino as well as a propensity for stealing signs. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this category is that 14 of those 64 stolen bases came from Bay and Francoeur. They've only been caught once between them both. This is a testament to how intelligent baseball can create speed where there seemingly is none.
Defense - The Mets are currently 7th (noticing a pattern here?) in the majors in errors committed, or 24th if you choose to look at it that way, with only 32 errors. That's the lowest total in the NL East and the next closest is Philly with 38. No need to expand on this stat as it's very straightforward. Mets just simply are playing smart, solid defensive baseball.
The underlying message here is that Minaya has built a solid foundation of pitching, speed and defense with this year's team. Granted, baseball is unpredictable and that can all change at a moment's notice. But it's certainly nice to not have to hear all the yahoos calling for Minaya's job anymore. Just would be nice if we saw more tried and true Mets fans coming out to congratulate the guy on the job he's done this season. I mean, after all, he did build this current team with the most limited resources he's had since taking over as GM. Thanks, Omar, for building a quality, exciting team. It's finally fun to watch the Mets again.
Pitching, Speed, Defense And A Reprieve For Minaya
