What a beautiful day in New York. The temperature is about 79 degrees and there is no humidity, the skies are blue and someone has found enough valid information, to write a very positive article about the future of the New York Mets. I am talking about Rich Mancuso in today’s posting here at nysportsday.com. This has been a challenging year for both the Mets and the reporters who cover them. Trying to find something that was not bleak and destructive has not been easy.
The thought that there is a bright future for any baseball team usually comes in the spring. That is when everyone thinks that their team has a shot at the pennant. That is when we think of nothing but winning, having a Cy Young pitcher on the staff and an MVP in the outfield. Usually that is just pie in the sky thinking at he beginning of every season. Everyone is healthy and ready to go as they come to the complex with smiles and great expectations.
To try and find that same enthusiasm and hope at the end of a dismal season such as the Mets debacle this year, is next to impossible. Mancuso is his piece today has said some interesting things about the make-up of what, as he puts it, is now a very young clubhouse. It makes sense that Michael Conforto will soon be one of the new veteran leaders on this club as a three year player who is already an Allstar.
I can see potential in prospects all the time and we all make comparisons of them to star players playing now or former big leaguers. But they are just that, prospects. When you think of how many players have come and gone with the tag good prospect, the list is mind boggling. In the case of the Mets though, Mancuso brings out some valid points about this new crop of young kids. The fact that they will be getting valuable playing time over the last five weeks of this season, puts them a few steps ahead of every other teams prospects who are headed to the instructional league at the end of the minor league season, which ends soon. Playing in the big leagues is a big difference. Maybe it is not so bleak after all for the boys of Queens. We have all been (Me included) so negative about the Mets this year, albeit for good reasons.
Mancuso has done the impossible, he has found good things about the future of this team. This type of thinking, gives fans a good reason to go see their “New Team” play out the remainder of the season. As Rich points out, this is a team that is all of a sudden getting younger. These are not just pie in the sky thoughts, they are valid points that came out of hard work and insight from a veteran reporter. Now if he can just find us a good Italian restaurant in Flushing.