2008 New York Mets

In 2007 the Mets had one of the biggest collapses in baseball history. The Mets were up 7 games with only 17 games remaining in the regular season. Next thing you know they lost their last game of the season to the lowly Florida Marlins and the Philadelphia Phillies were all the sudden the division winners. While many believed manager Willie Randolph would be the scapegoat after seasons end, but he will be back in 2008 to lead a revamped Mets team. The main reason that the Mets believe that last year won’t happen again is because of the acquisition of the best pitcher in the game in Johan Santana. So with a brand new ace to lead the pitching staff and an explosive offense still in tact 2008 should bring a lot of wins for a team in desperate need of making up for what happened last year.

Pitching:

With the addition of Santana this becomes a much better overall unit. Santana is not only the best pitcher in the game, but he will get to face the weaker NL lineups that don’t have the DH in the lineup. While Pedro Martinez is expected to be close to what he once was, he most likely won’t be able to start every fifth day. A lot of pressure will then fall into the hands of John Maine, who struggled the second half of the season. Maine and 4th starter Oliver Perez were both 15 – 10, and will need to at least need to come close to those numbers in 2008. Veteran Orlando Hernandez will finish up the rotation and the team really just needs him to be healthy and eat up some innings. Closer Billy Wagner, who saved 34 games last year with a 2.22 ERA, leads the bullpen. The rest of the bullpen is pretty good, but really struggled down the stretch during the team’s collapse of first place. The bullpen will need to improve and be able to hold on to leads if this team wants to win the division in 2008.

Offense:

Though this unit is really starting to get old in a few positions, it still has some big young bats that can do damage at the plate. Most notably is all-star third baseman David Wright. Wright can put up MVP type numbers and we wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t win one soon. They still have great speed at the top with SS Jose Reyes who hits for good average and steals a good share of bases. The team is hoping CF Carlos Beltran will be back to full strength and not only hit more HRs but steal more bases as well. Veteran power hitters 1B Carlos Delgado and LF Moises Alou are getting old. While Delgado’s numbers are going down, Alou had a big year in 2007 hitting .341. The team brought in C Brian Schneider and RF Ryan Church from a trade with the Nationals. This should be a very productive unit and should help the pitchers greatly by putting some big numbers on the board.

Defense:

The defense is led by Gold Glove winner Carlos Beltran and is also solid up the middle of the infield with Castillo and Reyes. Wright plays a pretty solid third base, but Delgado is a pretty weak defender at first base. Though Alou is pretty old he has great instincts, and still plays a pretty solid left field. Overall this was a pretty average defense and will probably be pretty average in 2008.

Prediction:

We really like this team and what Santana can do for a ball club. We expect the Mets to make up for the bad ending to last year’s season and win the NL East. We also like the Mets to beat the rest of the Nation League, but we have them losing to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

2008 New York Mets Odds to Win World Series 4 - 1

For every team’s odds head over to Sportsbook.com and check them out. You can also go to Sportsbook.com to look at the odds for teams to win their division or league pennant. Feel free to leave any comments in the comment section.

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