So to everyone who swears we have no chance, Wont make any moves, Will stink be below .500 ETC ETC you need to understand THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES!!!!!

Thole hit well in 2011, Not good at all in 2012 so maybe he hits maybe he does not, MAYBE!

Duda hit good then fell off, Maybe we get first half duda maybe second half,

The pen was garbage for the first half the offense and rotation were good,

The pen and rotation were good the second half the offense stunk,

What this season will hold has yet to be decided but EVEN if we started the season with the same pen that we ended last year with, Even if the rotation remains as it ended 2012, Even if we replace Bay with turner, Torres with Capt K and leave Duda out in RF and our catching is Thole and a back up there is nothing to say that this team would not be a contender,

Pitchinn wins and we have it in the rotation and have seen some good arms for the pen at the end of last year,

So while I think we will either bring in two mid teir FA OFs and trade prospects for a catcher or trade Dickey or Neise for an impact bat and sign another even if we dont the 2013 story has yet to be written so IF you are a fan you can hate the Wilpons but you must go into 2013 with high hopes, it is the very definition of the word FAN!

And every fan knows nothing is ABSOLUTE in the world of baseball, One years dud is another years stud, Our closer was good in prior years but had a really high ERA this year, so should we assume 2012 was the real FF and those other years were just "luck"? Well maybe he gets lucky this year.

Bottom line the winter meetings just ended Sandy and staff have to go back and figure everything out, The offseason still has 3 months before pitchers and catchers and 4 months before opening day so lets let the offseason play out and be optimistic as NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE IN BASEBALL!

"Even if the rotation remains as it ended 2012, Even if we replace Bay with turner, Torres with Capt K and leave Duda out in RF and our catching is Thole and a back up there is nothing to say that this team would not be a contender,"

HAHAHA

Point is there are no absolutes.

This team isn't going to the playoffs

Correct. The main assumption I see is that the Nats will be good. On the surface, that looks inevitable. In reality, they may suffer a collective slump and greatly under-achieve. Same for the Braves and Phils. The Mets don't look good "on paper", but people do not realize that several players will step up to levels they have never played at before. Things are looking up.

Clearly missing the entire point of this thread.

Mets rotation is clearly very good,The pen has already been improved from opening day 2012 and the offense was lacking falling 50 runs short of the Braves who were in the top tier in offense,

Torres and Bay will be replaced so even if we just replaced them with league average guys or guys like Ross or even if we used minor leaguers the offense would STILL be better.

Good rotation
Potentially good pen
average offense that would not need a lot to be much better

Case in point Cody Ross in 476 ABS produced 70 runs, 34 2b, 22 HRs and 81 RBI
Our entire RF platoon in 601 ABS (about 25 % more ABS) produced 74 Runs, 26 doubles, 20 HRS and 67 RBI

So in 25 % more ABS last years RFs produced 4 more runs (less then 5% more) 8 less doubles, 2 less HRS and 14 less RBI

Projecting him to 601 ABs and we get 89 runs, 43 doubles, 28 HRS and 103 RBI

How much different might the offense looked like had we had an extra 15 runs and 36 RBI???

Remember we missed the top tier offenses of 700 runs or more of which there were only a few but 50,

If Ross got 601 ABS inplace of Bay and the rest how different would the offense have been?

It is hard to put an exact number of it because while the additional runs are clear 15 the effect those extra 36 RBI would ahve had on additional runs scored is not clear, Lets just say 50 % of thsoe RBI resulted in runs that would not have otherwise scored Ross alone would have made the difference between us being a 650 runs team and a 683 run offense,

Now factor an addition OF inplace of Torres and a new catcher and it is easy to see how this 650 run offense could become a 700 + Run offense

I have said this before but people ignore it

There were 6 teams in the NL that scored 700 or more runs Braves scored 700, milw SCORED 776, (and most of these 6 teams hit in hitter friendly parks)

The next teir is 650 to 699 and there were six teams including the Dodgers 637, Mets 650, PIT and SD 651 and the Phils 684,

Then there was the bottom tier teams Asstrolls 583, Fish 609 and Cubs 613

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAHBLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAHBLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAHBLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

4TH PLACE. There's yer freaking absolute pal

Troll.

You're the effing troll - you been posting the same fantasyland unicorn dream for the past few seasons. Look, you believe in the Bad News Bears scenario coming true, where a group plays WAYYYY over their heads....and manages to finish 2nd.

I believe in baseline talent, and pal, a check of that shows we have the 4th best level in the division. If that makes me a troll, this entire board are trolls because most of us believe this is a 4th place team.

Lets see I post positive things you post how "we" stink and you have the ignorance to call me a troll? You are such a pathetic joke of a poster, You are not even smart enough to know how to troll correctly.

Go home kid you are not ready to post with adults yet.

In 228 road ABs Cody Ross hit .232/9/32 with a .294 OBP and an OPS of .684. Of his 34 doubles 25 came at Fenway.

If you told me his HRs were greatly affected I would be more worried, Citi happens to be a very double friendly park,

That said here are his exact splits

H/A
ABs 248/228
Runs 44/26
Hits 74/53
2b 25/9
HRs 13/9
RBI 49/32

Fenway is a more doubles friendly park for a right handed hitter and his BA split was .298/.232.

You post delusional bulls hit and you don't have the sack to admit how badly wrong you've been the past few years you gutless wonder so don't get on me for being less than optimistic about a team that finished 4th last season. There's koolaiders and then there's delusional jokes- that's the category you fit into.

One absolute is that Saz is ALWAYS wrong.

Excellent post. I bet you made saz cry.

So you dont think he will be better then Bay?

Wow is the little troll getting his panties in a bunch?

There are no absolutes in baseball-- clearly-- but without adding any bats to this lineup, this team will not be very good.

The rotation--

Dickey
Niese
Harvey
Santana
Gee

-- is pretty good, especially if Harvey, Niese progresses and Dickey is at least as good as he was in 2011.

The bullpen is a crapp-shoot so who knows.

IF they don't add one more hitter this team might win 75 games