Mets fans who come on this website and act and sound like Phillies fans are fucking morons who don’t understand baseball, and for that on behalf of Mets fans who know the game i apologize. I am not going to compare rosters that is pointless, when the games count then we will see who wins, talk is cheap.

your rotation sucks. its only hamels. and im not impressed with him either.

now that rowand, ur only all-star is gone, i’ll expect a 3rd place finish.

The Mets haven’t had a phront line dominant ace of the staff since Pedro went down in the summer of 2006. Remember they went into the playoffs that year minus Pedro, minus el duque, and had to rely on a bullpen by committee because duaner sanchez got hurt in a taxi.

Don’t talk to mets fans about injuries, 2006 we ran away with the division and got to the league championship with no pitching.

2007 we had injuries to most of our everyday players, all the while not having a phront line ace. The only 2 everyday players who didn’t get hurt were Wright and Reyes.

Did the phillies deserve to win the division last year? Yeah, they won it fair and square. No bulls**t, no excuses. However, you cannot p**s on my head and tell me it’s raining.

You cant say the phillies starters and bullpen is equal to the mets. The phillies have a better everyday offensive lineup. They are deeper, and truth be told, i don’t want either of the managers.

The reason most mets fans are coming on this phorum and trolling is we phinally have an ace, and no its not Hamels. When Hamels pitches a phull season and maybe wins a CY Young then maybe we can say he is even up with Santana.

What having an ace does for us is it allows Pedro to come back slower, and takes pressure off the kids.

Also we wont have anymore starts by Brian Lawrence Dave Williams and others who belong selling sheet rock to construction workers, not pitching major league baseball.

I like your phorum, I respect people who can root for their team without acting juvenile, and i really cant wait for the season to start.

Sorry for trolling, just wanted to add my piece.

Now if the Mets go through injuries as all teams do, they have no back ups b/c they’ve traded all there minor league guys that might have been able to play. Can’t wait to see Johan and/or Pedro go down…. ahhh the sky is fallinggg run run..

“Im not sure that this is really that strong of a point. Normalize for park effect and the Mets and Philies had roughly equivalent offenses. Just look at the home/road splits for 07:

Mets: 437 RS
Phillies 441 RS”

How in the world is taking the runs scored on the road “normalizing” for park effects?

If you really wanted to compare apples to apples, you need to take the road runs and subtract runs scored in Shea for the Phillies (45) and in CBP for the Mets (62).

So if you’re controlling for ballpark (this is not accounting for the differences in pitchers faced), the phillies scored 396 runs and the mets scored 375. That’s several games worth of runs.

As for the person who predicted that Howard, Utley, Myers and Rollins can’t do more than they’ve been doing. I agree that Rollins may not be able to, but if you take a look at the projections for Howard this year…all I have to say is watch out.

And for all of you idiots who are talking trash about the Rockies dominating the Phillies. I can’t wait until the Rockies kick your asses all year. During the stretch run, and up until the long break between the NLCS and World Series, there wasn’t a team in the majors that could’ve beaten that team; they epitomized “clicking on all cylinders.” They got all the breaks, got timely hitting from the least likely players, etc… If the Mets were in the Phillies’s place, they would have lost in 1 game because they would’ve been beaten so bad in that first game they would have forfeited the rest of the series.

As for this Santana business. Good luck with him. He’s a great pitcher no doubt. But no one, not even the great Santana, can pitch with a severe forearm tendinitis, a frayed rotator cuff, and a torn elbow ligament.

Pedro is back and proved at the end of the season he is very capable to win.

Santana takes the pressure off of 15 game winner John Maine who struggled down the strech.

But count on the effect Johan will have on Perez…lefty schooling a lefty.Look for the consistency to improve in a guy that is in his contract year.

And then there’s El Duque…bunions gone and possibly moving to the pen if Pelphy can win a spot.

The Question is how are you gonna handle the two lefties with the best stuff in the league?

Do you think Lidge will succumb to your bandbox and the Philly fans?

Is Hammels gonna stay healthy?

How long were you in first place…..a day!

Finally,how many playoff games did you guys win?

Even in a neutral ballpark, the Phils might have the best offense in the NL. But the Mets will still easily fall into the upper third in the division, regardless of ballpark.

Obviously, there are 162 games to be played. Its a lot of time. I think the Phillies are a bit easier to predict, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They’ve been a consistently good team for a few years now. But the “small splashes” are just that, and don’t dilute yourselves into thinking this is suddenly a 95-100 win team. Brad Lidge wouldn’t have that effect even if Rowand was still around, even if it puts Myers back into the rotation. The Phils are what they are. They’re a group of good players in the primes of their career plus Cole Hamels. They are what you’ve seen over the last few years. Howard, Utley, Rollins, and Myers can’t do more than they’ve been doing, and its unlikely Victorino, Jenkins, Burrell, or Eaton will. These are all guys in or past the peaks of their careers. Hamels is the only significant player who has a room for growth. And Lidge is the only acquisition that has any potential positive impact (we’ll see how he handles CBP with those fans riding him when he blows a save). At best, Jenkins and Feliz combine to make up for Rowands production, and even if Victorino’s great in center the defense in the corner OF spots is atrocious, granted your still solid up the middle and on the infield.

With the Mets, there’s more room for margin on either side of the equation. They have more key veterans that could break down as well as more key youngsters who are still growing as players. Still, without Santana, I had the Mets as pretty close to the Phils if things essentially broke even for both teams. A lot could still go wrong with this Mets team, but a lot could go right, and assuming things wind up pretty close to the middle, they could be more than just a good 90 win team.

And go ask Rollins if he has anymore predictions.

Wouldn’t you agree that as WS amalgamates all aspects of the game that it is for a statement as general as “most valuable” the superior stat? I think its pretty obvious that as the purpose of the game is to win, and win shares quantifies how good a player is at contributing to this goal, its best fit to supporting such generalizations…

Frankly if voting was done away with and the MVP went to the player with the highest WS I don’t think many people asides from sportswriters and those they influence would complain.

If it were about head to head competition then Pat Burrell would clearly be a hall of famer.

What my point is — it’s not as cut and dry as “Wright is the best regular.” And yes, I would agree that Wright could’ve very well been the NL MVP.

Against the Phillies, he pitched 8.7 innings, giving up four runs on eight hits and four walks. Yes, best closer in the division, I’m not denying that. I’m just saying he pitched poorly against the Phillies, so to use Wagner as an argument for the Mets being better than the Phillies is a dumb move by Perry.

So what? This does nothing to change the fact that he was by most measures the best closer in 07. There is no such thing as perfection.

Its funny to watch you lament the Fox authors research after making a series of plainly retarded poorly researched statements yourself.

Im not sure that this is really that strong of a point. Normalize for park effect and the Mets and Philies had roughly equivalent offenses. Just look at the home/road splits for 07:

Mets: 437 RS
Phillies 441 RS

Close enough that the difference could be random variation as much as anything else. Not even remotely a position of dominance in offensive production. Certainly not argument to counter the statement of “real problems”

Here are the top 10 from 07:

2007 Wright D NYN
2007 Pujols A STL NL
2007 Cabrera M FLA
2007 Holliday M COL
2007 Ramirez H FLA
2007 Utley C PHI NL
2007 Rollins J PHI
2007 Fielder P MIL
2007 Gonzalez A SD

The result Santanna had an ERA+ adjusted to the NL of 149 in 07 putting him fourth behind Peavy (159) Webb (156) Penny (151).

Now his 07 numbers were way off of his career average. Take any given year for the from 2002-2006 and Santana blows every one of those NL pitchers out of the water.

So if you doubt that Santana will return to his previous norms then maybe he is only the 4th best pitcher in the NL.