Jose Reyes leaving: Sad, but not a travesty

Even dormant Mets blogs need to get in on this Jose Reyes action. For my part, I am sorry to see him go. He was homegrown, is really good at a scarce position, still on the right side of 30, and a fun guy to watch. I think from the Marlins standpoint, $106 million over six years is actually a decent bit of business. The Mets are far crappier for having lost him, obviously.

But disappointing though the fact of Reyes leaving may be, I don't see how people can be furious with Alderson. Sure, the division rival aspect makes it marginally worse, but winning an open bidding war for a hugely expensive star is not always and everywhere a blessing for a franchise, even if that franchise isn't effectively owned by the Madoff victims' trust, which of course the Mets are.

Another big consideration has to be "Is this player going to be in the core of the next contending Mets team?" For me that's a negative. The boys acquitted themselves well last season, but Santana is probably done as an elite pitcher, the guy right behind him in the rotation is R.A. Dickey, Beltran is gone, and Bay has by now put in a huge amount of really terrible work.  Even assuming very good years from Reyes and Wright next year, you've still only got a decent team, not necessarily a winning team and certainly not a plausible rival to the Phillies.

If I had my druthers, the Mets would be flush with cash, and talent under contract that's just entering its prime. But they're not. At all. So I say Sandy was right to let nature take its course on the Jose Reyes Era (2005-2011). Plus, will there be any more festive sight in baseball than Jose in that new Marlins uniform?

Mets miss the playoffs on the last day, again.

You know how sometimes when you have a nightmare, but you forget some of the details until you go to bed the next night? Pretty much the same situation today with the last day of the regular season coming against the Marlins, with an occasionally surprising but unreliable lefty on the mound for the Mets.

Last year, Tom Glavine wasted no time putting the faithful out of their misery. This year, it was a close game throughout, with the Mets falling behind by two before tying in the bottom of that very inning with a Beltran two-run home run. Having regained the momentum, Charlie Manuel called on the inexcusable Scott Schoenweis to maximize the Marlins' chances of hitting one out (which Wes Helms did). Luis Ayala was then brought on to surrender another solo homer to Dan Uggla. The Mets threatened but didn't score in the bottom of the 8th and 9th, and that was all she wrote.

Seriously, I want the Wilpons to fire Minaya and get someone who knows what they're doing.