How Long Are the Mets Going To Mess Around with the Core of Their Team?

Would McDonald’s ever toy with their Big Mac?

Would Burger King ever mess around with the taste of their Whopper?

Would Taco Bell ever transform into a vegetarian food chain?

Would the New York Mets ever do anything detrimental to the core of their team?

The answer to the first three questions is an almost laughable “no,” while unfortunately the answer to the final question is “yes.”

The core of the Mets’ squad consists of David Wright, Jose Reyes, Johan Santana, Carlos Beltran, and Francisco Rodriguez.

These five players are the equivalent to McDonalds’s Big Mac—you can make additions and changes around them, but they should never be touched, modified, or altered in any way.

McDonald’s understands this, yet the Mets’ front office just cannot seem to grasp this simple concept.

The Mets have spent the last three years taking actions detrimental to five players they are shelling out more than $61.16 million to this year alone.

The Mets finally have a prototypical power hitter in David Wright. So what do they do?

They build the largest stadium dimensions known to man and add a 25-foot wall to boot.

The Mets have a five-tool center fielder in Carlos Beltran. So what do they do?

The string him along for so long with his knee injury that Beltran is forced to go out and get his knee repaired on his own.

In Francisco Rodriguez, the Mets have one of the best and most consistent closers in the game; it’s just too bad that they are still unable to find a pitcher or two to bridge the gap between he and Johan Santana.

Who needs a top-notch closer when you don’t have the tools to put your team in a position where his services are needed?  

And now we come to Jose Reyes.

Ahh, where do we begin?

Reyes went down last May with what the Mets initially described as a mild case of tendinitis in his calf.

A couple of weeks went by, and Reyes was nowhere in sight.

On May 27, Reyes was officially placed on the disabled list.

Okay, tendinitis can be a nagging injury and can often take a little longer than expected to heal.

June passes, the All-Star break comes and goes, the dog days of August arrive, and still no Jose Reyes.

By the start of September, Mets fans had almost forgotten about the fact that the team had begun the season with an explosive leadoff man in the lineup.

In October, Reyes underwent surgery on his hamstring to repair some scar tissue in his hamstring.

Hamstring?

Didn’t Reyes have tendinitis in his calf?

Anyway, no need to harp on details. All the matters is that Reyes is back and healthy in 2010...just in time for the Mets to squash the tools that made him a premier player to begin with.  

Reyes had not yet been in camp for three days when the Mets began talking about batting him third in the lineup until Beltran returns from his knee injury.

Batting Reyes third is the equivalent to McDonald’s removing the sauce from their Big Mac.

Reyes is being paid $6.13 million to get on base and serve as the catalyst for the Mets’ offense. 

In 2009 the team that scored first won more than 60 percent of the time.  

That’s a stat that most teams would want to be on the right side of, and Angel Pagan just ain’t gonna cut it.  

Moving Reyes to the third spot in the lineup is like changing a Kentucky Derby-winning thoroughbred into a Canadian logging horse.

But that is precisely the type of thing we’ve come to expect from the New York Mets.

Is difficult to tell what is more discouraging at this point—that the Mets are continually messing around with the core of their team, or that no one seems surprised anymore by their unwavering attempt to run this team into the ground.

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