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Opening day. The start of yet another season…a fresh start. A new manager…a mostly new coaching staff. A few new players...and another one brought back after being traded away. But the fact is that new manager Mickey Callaway will have the same dilemma that caused former manager Terry Collins such grief – how to deal with a club that is not constructed very well, is not very deep, and is just an injury or two away from suffering another disappointing season.
The key will, of course, be the health and performance of the starting pitching. After seeing each of the Fab Five – Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, and Zack Wheeler – suffer some form of malady during the course of 2017, it appeared that after newly acquired Jason Vargas went down with a broken hand the quintet would finally be all together in the rotation at the same time. But Wheeler’s poor performance derailed that and he is not only not in the rotation...he is not in the major leagues. And neither is Hansel Robles. And Rafael Montero would have been cut loose but the need for Tommy John surgery gave the Mets another option on him. So Seth Lugo takes Wheeler’s place who would have been out of the rotation anyway had Vargas not been hurt.
Alan Karmin is an award-winning journalist and author. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his life growing up in the New Jersey suburbs. Alan's family were avid Brooklyn Dodgers fans and when the Dodgers moved west, the Mets became the team to root for. The Mets have always been a true focal point, Alan even wrote a term paper in high school to analyze what was wrong with the Mets. While at the University of Miami, Alan honed his craft covering the, gulp, Yankees during spring trainings in Fort Lauderdale for a local NBC affiliate, as well as the Associated Press and UPI. He broadcasted baseball games for the University of Miami, and spring training games for the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. New York Mets Mania is a forum for Alan to write about his favorite team and for baseball fans to chime in and provide their thoughts and ideas about New York's Amazin' Mets.
