Shame on you, MLB

Photo credit: AP

So tonight the Mets wanted to wear caps representing local public safety agencies as their 2001 predecessors did following the World Trade Center attacks.  MLB, in its infinite wisdom, denied the request, citing a desire to not show bias to any one team and maintain uniformity throughout the game.

Yeah, right.  Surely, it has nothing to do with MLB's promotion of the special edition flag-patch caps that the Mets wore instead along with the rest of baseball to mark the date.

Since, as explained in the product description, a portion of the profits go to 9/11 memorials in New York, at the Pentagon, and the site of the United Flight 93 crash, maybe the directive isn't all just MLB playing Scrooge.  However, if it were about the charities, why not a) say so, and/or b) give the team or individual players the option of wearing the fire, police, EMT, Port Authority, etc. caps in exchange for a donation to make up for the supposed money that might be lost if the team didn't actually wear the caps on TV?

No, I'm afraid common sense tells us that the charitable "portion" of the profit on a $37 (seriously, that's what 5950s go for now?) baseball cap probably wasn't the issue.

While I'm wagging my finger at MLB, though, I'll add I'm a little disappointed but not at all surprised by the team's obedient compliance and that the best protest they could muster was David Wright wearing an NYPD cap in the dugout for a half-inning.  The 2001 Mets were given the very same order 10 years ago and simply thumbed their nose at it.  Heaven forbid this era of Mets display one fraction of the heart and stones of the Valentine-era group under this or any other circumstance.

Credit where credit is due, though:

I salute the Mets organization for the pre-game ceremony, which was very classy and a great tribute.  If the Mets ran a ball club as well as they put on commemorative ceremonies, they'd be annual World Series contenders.

Wright steps up and does what a man's gotta do...and it doesn't work (not even a bit)

ESPN New York: Collins appreciates Wright's leadership in initiating one-on-one meeting

Metsblog.com: ensuing Mets contest "as ugly and frustrating as a game can get"

Note that these two pieces were posted exactly 3 hours apart.

Collins really just needs to shut up for a while.

More on the fences

OK, this is starting to get ridiculous.  I can't run through my daily Mets internet rotation without coming across something about if/how/why the dimensions of Citi Field need to be changed.  We've already experienced the ultimate irony on the subject, but I feel compelled to go more in-depth on what a waste of time the whole thing is.

Quite simply, this is yet again one more thing to talk about in lieu of a pennant race, one more distraction away from how to actually fix the franchise, one more case in which everyone in Metsdom has the answer and very few are asking the right question in the first place.

MLB home run/scoring information is not hard to find on the world wide web.  I perused some this morning and discovered the following (click for the source):

1) The Mets' home runs per game rate is actually higher at Citi Field than on the road.

2) There are 5 National League parks more stingy with homers than Citi Field.  Where's the outcry for the Pirates, Dodgers, 2010 World Champion Giants, and 2009 Division Champion Cardinals to reconfigure their fields? The Marlins, of course, are altogether moving out of their stadium (in which they won two World Series, by the way).

3) In terms of scoring, Citi Field is about as average as it can be.  A score of 1 is the standard.  Citi Field scores .973, placing it 16th out of 30 ballparks, which is incidentally all of one spot below the bandbox in Philadelphia.

Interesting sidebar: The Phillies' staff ERA is is better at home than it is on the road.  Amazing how unlike Mets' hitters supposedly are, Philadelphia's pitchers aren't intimidated by the park in which they play 5 times as many games as anyone else.

All that said, yes, the Mets do struggle a little more to score at home than on the road.  If you sort the stats here, you'll see as of this morning, they're scoring 4.25 runs per game at home and 4.63 (rounded) per game on the road.  But 1) that only amounts to roughly one run every 3 games, and b) we already established above that as compared league-wide, scoring for ALL teams at Citi is perfectly normal.  Also, the point of the game is to score more runs than the other team, right?  Well, Mets pitching is slightly better at home, with a home ERA of 4.03 and a road ERA of 4.42, almost exactly the same 4/10ths or so of a run per game difference on offense, only this time in the Mets' favor.

If somebody wants the walls moved in just to see more homers hit, fine, just don't kid yourself that it's going to help the team all that much.  It's just not that big a factor.  Even to the extent it is, David Wright and Jason Bay being "robbed" once or twice a month is the least of your worries when the pitching staff is putting forth a daily effort to compile the league's 13th-worst ERA.

Collins laments Citi Field's offensive stinginess, 20-run game ensues

My nominee for Quote of the Season, from Jeff Bradley of the Newark Star-Ledger:

“It’s very difficult to play here if you’re an offensive player,” Terry Collins admitted today, before the Mets lost, 11-9, to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Seriously, you can't make up this stuff....

All you need to know about the Mets, right here:

Over the weekend, this tweet from Peter Gammons popped up around the internet (cap tip to Metsblog):

Interesting Elias note: since 2005, Mets are a .542 team with Wright, Reyes and Beltran in the lineup together, .480 with one or more out

Obviously, the point there was to illustrate how different a team the Mets are with and without those 3 cogs in the machine.  Personally, I find the stat meaningless since you have no idea what the team's comparative ERA might be or who else is in the lineup during those games, but I'll play along.  The Mets are a far better team with Reyes-Wright-Beltran than without.

The problem is, it's still not good enough a team.  During that same period of 2005 through today, a .542 season would not have been good enough to win a single playoff berth out of the N.L. East.  The worst winning percentage among  East Champions during that span was the Phillies' .549 in 2007, and the worst of the wild card teams was the Dodgers at .543 in '06 (N.L. standings from 2005 onward start here).  So per the figure quoted by Gammons, the safe expectation for the Mets when they have Reyes, Wright, and Beltran all playing together is to narrowly miss the playoffs.  Wouldn't you know it?  In addition to the one division title, that's exactly what happened--twice--during the peak of the Reyes-Wright-Beltran era with The Collapse and Shea Goodbye.

I almost tire of saying it: As good as these three guys may be individually, what the Mets have been doing with them simply hasn't worked, and it's past time for a new approach.

Now, what I'd really be interested in knowing is the team's record with and without Paul LoDuca.