FLUSHING, NY – The way things are going, the Mets will pretty soon be calling out ticket numbers and give some lucky fans a chance to play.
Another one bit the dust yesterday as Carlos Beltran landed himself on the 15-day disabled list. For those keeping count at home Beltran joins Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, John Maine, and Oliver Perez on the shelf, as the Mets find themselves scrambling to get someone to play.
And to add insult to injury, Reyes’ car was rear-ended on the Robert F. Kennedy (formally known as the Triborough) Bridge by a fire truck. Don’t worry he wasn’t hurt.
In a normal year, all this would mean the Mets would be safely out of the race and you would just chalk it all up to a bad year and move on.
Yet, this is not a normal year. Because the rest of the National League East stinks, the Amazins find themselves 1-1/2 games out of the lead. Even with the whole team on the shelf, they still have a chance to win this thing.
Omar Minaya needs to be careful, though. The temptation of the division may force the team into an ill advised trade and all of a sudden Scott Kazmir becomes Victor Zambrano. See, everyone knows the Mets have players on the disabled list, so right now almost every general manager will be calling Minaya and asking for the world, just to see how desperate the Mets are.
So Minaya needs to avoid the temptation and hope that he gets a number of players back by the All-Star Break. It sounds like Beltran’s injury is temporary, while Maine and Perez have been rehabbing. And Reyes is starting to begin to hit and throw.
If that happens then Minaya should just wait and maybe home that some of the spare parts come through in order to raise their value to use them as chips. If the Mets do something it should be without trading some of their top chips like Brad Hold or Fernando Martinez. And even secondary prospects need to be held on to because some eventually blossom, just look at Daniel Murphy.
Rather Minaya should look towards depth when upgrading this roster, rather than going for a star. Barring other disasters, the Mets should be pretty healthy soon and when Delgado comes back in August, if the Mets are only a few games out, they will be sitting pretty.
But a rash move only will hurt the Mets in the future only for a real short term gain. It makes no sense to force the situation, especially if the team is staying afloat with the current roster.
And if another team starts to pull away, then just cross 2009 off the list. Injuries happen and they are happening to the Mets right now. But trying to fix an injury plagued roster through rash trades would just be unwise.
They would be better of just grabbing some fans from the stands and putting uniforms on them.
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