For some reason, I thought to compare our team to the 1997 club.  I feel like we match up pretty nicely.  They were 88-74 that season.

C John Buck < Todd Hundley

Although d'Arnaud could flip the advantage to the 2013 side.

1B Ike Davis < John Olerud

Although Davis will surpass Olerud's power numbers.

2B Daniel Murphy > Carlos Baerga

Murphy will hit for higher average and similar power.

SS Ruben Tejada > Rey Ordoñez
Tejada's defense is almost as good, although nowhere near as flashy.  Offense is no comparison.

3B David Wright > Edgardo Alfonzo
Though Alfonzo was underrated at the time, the face of the franchise should outperform a 23-year-old Fonzie.

OF  Lucas Duda = Butch Huskey
Actually the reason I thought to compare these two teams.   1997 was Huskey's best season, I expect Duda to put up '96 or '98 Huskey numbers.

OF Kirk Nieuwenhuis/Colin Cowgill < Lance Johnson
Johnson hit .309 after his career year a season earlier.

OF Marlon Byrd < Bernard Gilkey

Gilkey was coming off a career year too, but struggled in '97.  Still, Mets would be lucky to get Gilkey's power numbers.

SP Johan Santana > Dave Mlicki
Mlicki gave them 32 starts, which seems unlikely for Santana.  But he'll put up better numbers when healthy.

SP Matt Harvey = Rick Reed
You may expect more from Harvey, but 1997 was the underrated Reed's best season.

SP Jon Niese = Bobby Jones
Jones was an All Star that year.

SP Shaun Marcum > Mark Clark
If healthy.

SP Dillon Gee > Brian Bohanon
If healthy.

SP Jeremy Hefner = Armando Reynoso
Hef says he's ready to go if Santana starts the season on the DL.

 

CL Bobby Parnell = John Franco
Franco put up good numbers that year.  I can see Parnell matching the ERA, but probably not staying closer all season.

The 97 Mets got some career years from their pitching and from Huskey, but I still think the 2 teams match up pretty well.  I have a soft spot for Bobby Valentine, but I'm not sure he was any better of a manager than Collins.  Anyway, discuss!

Greater than/less than leaves a ton to be desired when you're looking at some of those outfield spots. Lance Johnson and Bernard Gilkey was a LEGIT major league outfield at the time, the former being one of the best leadoff hitters in the game at the time. Todd Hundley was coming off a 40 HR season and backed it up with 30 more, an all-star catcher. And there's nothing close to John Franco ANYWHERE in this bullpen right now.

I actually think Niese is more comparable to Reed and Harvey can be better than Jones. And I don't think Tejada's defense is anywhere close to Ordonez', you're selling Rey short. Rey was viewed as "flashy" but it was never his primary intention. He just understood that since he didn't have the best arm, he had to be FAST. so he worked until his release was lightning fast, and one of the things he did to facilitate that was come up with creative ways to alter his momentum, like sliding in the hole, planting a leg, popping up and releasing quickly on the throw. Rey did an awful lot with not a ton of physical tools. He wasn't fast, he didn't have a strong arm, but he just worked and worked on his defense.

Love your optimism, but can't agree with a lot there. I'll grant you Duda and Huskey may be a wash, but the difference between Gilkey/Johnson and today's two will be the difference between A and AAA. I do not believe Parnell has shown he can = Franco, he has no intestinal fortitude and has failed every time he closed, though he has been decent as an 8th inning guy. I don't know at this point that Johan will be better than Mlicki, he may not. Rest of current bench is awful and bullpen largely unproven. I will flip your number and say they will be 74-88 this year.

i was never a john franco fan but saying parnell is his equal is not fair at all.

Catcher and 1B in '97:

hundley ops .943

olerud  ops .889

doubt ike matches olerud and the offensive production hundley gave you from behind the plate was in the top 5 in all of baseball in 1997.

Outfield in '97:

gilkey .755

johnson .788
huskey .822

I'd like to see this outfield even come close to '97 production. Not sure they'd match that in Las Vegas this year.

I'm 28, and Rey Ordonez was the best defensive shortstop I ever saw. He was better in his prime than Omar Vizquel.

Despite being a defensive wiz, Ordonez was such an offensive liability that Tejada is just as valuable if not more so based on balanced production alone.

I have to say saying Tejada is close to Ordonez with the glove was the thing that stood out to me the most.  And also saying D'Arnaud can come close to Hundley too.. Tejada is no where near as good with the glove as Ordonez.

the 97 team was one of my favorites, alot of nice memories. But I really dont see this squad reaching near 88 wins. We wont be absolutely terrible (I have us at that 71-76 win level, depending on luck and variance), but anything in the high 80's is a pipedream, unless we get extremely fortunate with some career years.

danfran wrote: Love your optimism, but can't agree with a lot there. I'll grant you Duda and Huskey may be a wash, but the difference between Gilkey/Johnson and today's two will be the difference between A and AAA. I do not believe Parnell has shown he can = Franco, he has no intestinal fortitude and has failed every time he closed, though he has been decent as an 8th inning guy. I don't know at this point that Johan will be better than Mlicki, he may not. Rest of current bench is awful and bullpen largely unproven. I will flip your number and say they will be 74-88 this year.

Gilkey & Johnson actually regressed quite a bit in 1997 after a strong 1996 season. Johnson was traded that summer in the deal that brought Brian McRae, Turk Wendell and - gulp - Mel Rojas to the Mets.

The young talent on the 2013 Mets definitely looks more exciting than on the 1997 Mets - at least as long as Zack Wheeler and Matt Harvey manage to avoid having to visit Dr.Andrews.

DrDooby wrote:

danfran wrote: Love your optimism, but can't agree with a lot there. I'll grant you Duda and Huskey may be a wash, but the difference between Gilkey/Johnson and today's two will be the difference between A and AAA. I do not believe Parnell has shown he can = Franco, he has no intestinal fortitude and has failed every time he closed, though he has been decent as an 8th inning guy. I don't know at this point that Johan will be better than Mlicki, he may not. Rest of current bench is awful and bullpen largely unproven. I will flip your number and say they will be 74-88 this year.

Gilkey & Johnson actually regressed quite a bit in 1997 after a strong 1996 season. Johnson was traded that summer in the deal that brought Brian McRae, Turk Wendell and - gulp - Mel Rojas to the Mets.

The young talent on the 2013 Mets definitely looks more exciting than on the 1997 Mets - at least as long as Zack Wheeler and Matt Harvey manage to avoid having to visit Dr.Andrews.

Not even the most optimistic Mets fan could view this as an 88-74 team, I think. Johnson batted .309 with a .385 OBP and Gilkey put up a 18/78. Huskey was at 24/81. Exactly where is even 50% of those stats coming from in this OF?

It's hard to believe that team won 88 games looking at it now. Although, over a three year period Olerud was among the best Mets ever.

Our SP has so much more upside now that that group had. Our OF, on the other hand, is a AAA OF compared to one that included Lance and Bernard.

danfran wrote:

DrDooby wrote:

danfran wrote: Love your optimism, but can't agree with a lot there. I'll grant you Duda and Huskey may be a wash, but the difference between Gilkey/Johnson and today's two will be the difference between A and AAA. I do not believe Parnell has shown he can = Franco, he has no intestinal fortitude and has failed every time he closed, though he has been decent as an 8th inning guy. I don't know at this point that Johan will be better than Mlicki, he may not. Rest of current bench is awful and bullpen largely unproven. I will flip your number and say they will be 74-88 this year.

Gilkey & Johnson actually regressed quite a bit in 1997 after a strong 1996 season. Johnson was traded that summer in the deal that brought Brian McRae, Turk Wendell and - gulp - Mel Rojas to the Mets.

The young talent on the 2013 Mets definitely looks more exciting than on the 1997 Mets - at least as long as Zack Wheeler and Matt Harvey manage to avoid having to visit Dr.Andrews.

Not even the most optimistic Mets fan could view this as an 88-74 team, I think. Johnson batted .309 with a .385 OBP and Gilkey put up a 18/78. Huskey was at 24/81. Exactly where is even 50% of those stats coming from in this OF?

I didn´t say the 2013 team was going to win more games than the 1997 team - but be more exciting. Big difference.

The 1997 team didn´t have many key longterm pieces beyond Olerud, Alfonzo, maybe Ordonez and Bobby Jones. Rick Reed too, as it turned out - though his status entering 1997 wasn´t any higher than, say Aaron Laffey´s status is for the 2013 Mets right now. 

The 1997 Mets overachieved with a rather pedestrian roster, though without serious weaknesses, especially a non-descript rotation that was better than expected thanks to Mark Clark´s career year. The 1999 / 2000 playoff run was largely fueled by adding Mike Piazza, Robin Ventura, Al Leiter, Armando Benitez and - in 2000 - Mike Hampton as further core pieces from the outside.

I´m quite hopeful that the 2013 roster won´t need to add five All Star caliber players from the outside to eventually become a legit playoff contender from 2014 through 2016 in a similar fashion as the 1998 to 2000 Mets.

I have a slightly more pessimistic view:

Hundley > d'Arnaud;
Olerud > Davis;
Baerga = Murphy;
Ordonez < Tejada
Alfonzo = Wright;
Gilkey > Duda
Johnson > Cowgill 
Huskey > Baxter
Everett > Byrd
Ochoa = Kirk
Lopez = Quintanilla
Pratt = Buck
Alexander < Turner

Reed > Niese
Mlicki = Santana
Jones = Harvey
Clark = Marcum
Bohanon = Gee
Franco > Parnell
McMichael = Lyon
Crawford > Edgin
Acevedo = Francisco or Atchison
Liddle = Hefner
Isringhausen = Familia
Kashiwada = Gorski,Laffey, or Feliciano

Man, did I love John Olerud.

..........that is all.

Tejada's defense is almost as good??

Cmon bro.

COOOOMMME OOOOON

You are talking about a guy who at his peak was better than any SS ever in the history of the game. He was like the Sandy Koufax of Shortstops. Short lived...but unbelievably dominant and spectacular.

Tejada isn't even as good defensively as the Mets last SS.


I'll agree I'd rather have Tejada over Ordoñez, but only because of the bat. IMO you can't even mention his glove in the same paragraph with Rey Rey.

Walnutz15 wrote: Man, did I love John Olerud.

..........that is all.

I hear that.  I was bummed when Rico Brogna was traded, but Olerud quickly made everything all right.

of those 88 wins, 29 (29-19) came against the NL east.  i can't imagine anything like that happening.

"of those 88 wins, 29 (29-19) came against the NL east.  i can't imagine anything like that happening."  

Well to be technical-- 29 wins versus the NL East shouldn't be a problem.  They'll play 76 games though, so 29-47 might not be good :)

I'm with BIMM. Ordonez was #1 in Total Zone Runs for SS, #1 in Defensive WAR and #3 in Total Runs Saved in 1997.

erosen wrote: "of those 88 wins, 29 (29-19) came against the NL east.  i can't imagine anything like that happening."  

Well to be technical-- 29 wins versus the NL East shouldn't be a problem.  They'll play 76 games though, so 29-47 might not be good :)

correct - very fair

i meant more % wise, but stated it very poorly