A Look Back

Every once in a while — particularly in the offseason — it’s fun to look back at what we discussed here and see how things panned out.

I took a look back to posts from October and November 2007, and found some interesting “predictions” and analyses.

On the Mark

Mike Sweeney seemed to me to be a good pickup for the Mets. I thought Troy Percival, Octavio Dotel, and Kerry Wood were good gambles for the bullpen. See: Favorite Free Agents

In fact, I was hot on Percival going back to 2006. (Not to mention Mark DeRosa, J.C. Romero, and Carlos Lee)

I thought the Braves trade of Edgar Renteria was genius. It seemed to me that Yunel Escobar was ready to take off and that Jair Jurrjens would step right into their starting rotation “and be the pitcher that Kyle Davies couldn’t”.

I thought the Mets needed to get as many bullpen arms as possible, and not count on Schoeneweis, Feliciano, and Heilman to throw the bulk of the team’s middle innings

I didn’t think Kosuke Fukudome would be a big star. Here was my projected stat line for him:
.280 AVG. | 75 R | 30 2B | 12 HR | 75 RBI | 40 BB | 8 SB | 125 K | .365 OBP | .440 SLG

This was his actual:
.257 AVG. | 79 R | 25 2B | 10 HR | 58 RBI | 81 BB | 12 SB | 104 K | .359 OBP | .379 SLG

Off the Mark

I didn’t think Joe Torre would make a difference to the Dodgers

http://www.metstoday.com/hot-stove/2007/reaction-renteria-girardi-torre/

I thought Carlos Silva and Livan Hernandez were great ideas. But then, Mike Pagliarulo also liked Silva at the time. Further, both Pags and I thought Silva needed to go to the NL to succeed.

Curt Schilling seemed like a good idea, too. But hey, I didn’t get his medical report!

I believed Paul LoDuca was the Mets’ best option behind the plate. Many readers agreed.

You Decide

I thought it was imperative that the Mets re-sign Luis Castillo, mainly because a.) there was no one in-house to replace him, and b.) the next-best options at the time were Mark Loretta, David Eckstein, and Tad Iguchi.

For the record, I’ve been pining for Loretta for years. That link, in fact, goes back to 2006 — and the title is “Mets Need a Gamer”. Huh.

I was sort of torn on the idea of Eckstein, thinking he might be OK on a one-year deal, and thought four years was way too much for Castillo.

Also for the record, several of us were in agreement that the deal for Castillo was one that had to be swallowed.

Yes, Castillo turned out to be a bust, but even looking back at the options available, what could the Mets have realistically done differently? Signed Eckstein?

Interestingly, we fully discussed the idea of bringing in a “leader” such as Eckstein or Aaron Rowand this time last year. There are some great points in the comments section by RockStar, SinceKindergarten, and Isuzudude.

(The idea of a leader or gamer has been an issue going back to 2006. Will the Mets ever address it?)

I suggested that if the Yankees signed A-Rod, that would keep them from bidding for Johan Santana after the 2008 season — and that as a result, Santana would be “the Opening Day starter for the first game ever played at Citi Field”.

Also regarding Santana, I said this as early as October 2007 :

“… That said, I believe the Mets could — but might not want to — put together a package of Lastings Milledge, Mike Pelfrey, plus two or three prospects that would likely have to include Humber, Guerra, Mulvey, and/or other top prospects at lower levels. The issue, however, is do the Mets want to sabotage their farm system for the next three years for Johan Santana? Probably not.

If you think this is interesting / entertaining, I’ll post more “flashbacks” next month. Personally I enjoy re-reading the conversations we had — there were a lot of eerily on-target comments made by several readers.