Sadly this Mets season has me reminiscing about Major League. As you may recall the premise of the movie was about the Indians' ownership wanting to tank the season so the team could move to Florida. They stacked the lineup with has beens and inexperienced players to make sure they had a losing season. Of course, the underdogs prevailed and happy endings abound.
While the Mets are not moving to Florida, there are some similarities here. I don't believe ownership is trying to tank the season, but there's an underlying feeling that if given the opportunity ownership may look to unload.top talent to free up payroll. The Mets roster is already chock full of has beens (Jason Isrinhausen as Eddie Harris), worthless players (Willie Harris/Scott Hairston as Roger Dorn) and unproven youngsters (Justin Turner as Willie Mays Hayes).
The real test of how close the Mets will come to Major League is if the Mets get their full roster back and make a play at inching closer to the Wild Card. What will happen if in 30 days from now the Mets are at .500 and 5 games out of the Wild Card? Let's assume Ike Davis is about to return, David Wright is back, Reyes is Reyes and Beltran is Beltran. Johan Santana could even be a week or so away from returning.
With the Wild Card in reach, what do you do? Do you leave the team intact, please the fan base and have some entertaining baseball the last few months of the year? Or do you dismantle the teams production to unload payroll and get something in return before they bolt for free agency?
These are big "ifs" as the team currently doesn't look like a Wild Car contender, but this dilemma is the last thing Sandy Alderson wants to face.
I doubt the team will have a cardboard figure of Fred Wilpon in the locker room that they rip off a piece of after every win....ok, that's not totally out of the question. But it will be quite a predicament if this scenario unfolds.
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