The 2011 season began when Omar Minaya (general manager) and Jerry Manuel (manager) were fired from their duties by the New York Mets on October 4, 2010. Who would replace them?

On October 27, 2010 the Mets got their first piece for the 2011 season. A new general manager, and his name was Sandy Alderson.

Quickly after that, Terry Collins was hired for the manager position on November 21, 2010. Many thought Wally Backman would end up with the job, but the Wilpon's saw something in Collins. Terry Collins previously managed in Japan, and hadn't managed in the MLB for 12 years. He got his shot, and wanted to prove that he was the right choice.

The Wilpon's were caught up in the Bernie Madoff fraud on December 11, 2008 when they realized they could lose $700 million after Bernie Madoff was arrested.

Last December, Irving Pacard, a lawyer at the Baker and Hostetler who is the bankruptcy trustee, filed a lawsuit against Wilpon and company. Picard wanted a refund of the Wilpon's profits, which is alleged to be around $1 billion.

News was going around quick that the Mets could be bankrupt, and that they would need some help to fill a large payroll which is 7th in the MLB at $118,847,309.

Meanwhile, no one knew how the Mets would ever be a .500 team again. They were 79-84 last year, but the Mets had no money to acquire a big player, such as Cliff Lee, this offseason..

Before Spring Training began, the Mets knew their ace pitcher Johan Santana wouldn't be back till at least late August.

Alderson knew it was going to be tough this year knowing he had two Mets stars that had expiring contracts, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran.

Alderson had to find guys cheap that he thought would be a good fit for the organization.

He brought Chris Young, Chris Capuano, Taylor Buchholz, D.J. Carrasco, Jason Isringhausen, Tim Byrdak, Taylor Tankersley, and Blaine Boyer to help the Mets pitching woes.

Alderson also saw the Mets struggles at catcher and second base, so he picked up Ronny Paulino and Chin-Lung Hu.

Many fans wanted Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez off the roster, and Alderson did just that, eating up $35 million this season.

Before the season even started, outfielder Jason Bay went on the DL because of a ribcage injury. Bay had a year to forget last season, and definitely didn't start the season off the way he wanted to.

Ronny Paulino was suspended before the season because he used a subsistence that was banned by the MLB. Paulino said he used it for dietary reasons and he had no clue that it was banned at the time.

Because he sat out a most games with the Marlins, he only had to sit out 8 games this season. He didn't step into the batter's box until April 30th.

He was first delayed by visa troubles in Dominican Republic. After that he got held back with anemia, a blood disease. After that he injured his oblique while trying to get back in the big leagues, rehabbing in Buffalo (Triple A team).

Closer Francisco Rodriguez missed the end of spring training after two of his brothers were in a car accident in Venezuela, but he made it back in time for opening day.

The season began with a 3-1 record through their first 4 games, but after that they went downhill.

Blaine Boyer wasn't pitching well and was let go, as the Mets brought up former Met Jason Isringhausen.

Then on April 17th, Dillon Gee got the call to stop the bleeding. He got his first win of the season on that day.

Rule V pick Pedro Beato had a 18 2/3 scoreless streak, being the only reliever to pitch well during that stretch.

But then the unwatchable Mets brought their record to 8 games below .500 (5-13), and Fred Wilpon had had enough.

Wilpon had some things to say about his players crediting Jeffrey Tobin from the New Yorker.

First to Jose Reyes, "He thinks he's going to get Carl Crawford money, he's had everything wrong with him. He won't get it." hinting that he couldn't and wouldn't give Reyes a seven year $142 million contract. After those 18 games, Reyes was batting .329 having a very good year. Little did Fred know, Reyes would have an MVP caliber season through the first half.

Then to Wright, "A really good kid, A very good player. Not a superstar." At that time, Wright was batting miserably at the plate with a batting average of .229. To start the season, many fans, and Collins depended on Wright to have a great season. He was never able to get it going.

The seven-year $119 million player, Carlos Beltran got the worst of the verbal beating. "He's sixty-five to seventy percent of what he was." Wilpon said. Referring to himself, he said, "We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series."

There were two playoff series in 2004, a contract year for Beltran with the Houston Astros. He batted .435 in the 12 games he played in the playoffs. In each series he hit 4 home runs and was a large threat.

Ike Davis was Fred's favorite player that night, "Good hitter, shitty team."

Wilpon also said that the Mets are a lousy club and that they are snake-bitten. 

Can you blame him for saying any of this? He is caught up in a fraud and his team is in last place at this point, struggling to do anything offensively with big hitters in the line-up.

The first big move of the season came on April 18th when the Mets cut ties with Brad Emaus, calling up Justin Turner to the Mets roster from Buffalo. Ken Oberkfell, the Mets bench coach wanted Turner to play second base the whole time throughout the spring, but Emaus won the job because of his Rule V status.

On April 19th, David Wright made a diving tag on Carlos Lee after an overthrown ball. Wright was hurting but didn't think anything was wrong with his back. The Mets believe it may have been on this play that he suffered a stress fracture in his back.

Jason Bay made his 2011 season debut on April 21. Ever since that point, the Mets have played much better baseball. In Bay's first 6 games, the Mets went 6-0, making their record 11-13 on the season.

On April 22nd Angel Pagan injured his ribs in a collision between Justin Turner and himself, landing him on the disabled list.

The Mets weren't pitching that well without Johan Santana.

D.J. Carrasco made a spot start after Chris Young went on the DL and Carrasco was sent down after making 7 pretty appearances allowing 7 runs in 10.2 innings of work. Young was outstanding coming back from bicep tendinitis. He pitched 2 games after coming back, both resulting in wins.

But then on May 8th, he was put on the 60 day DL after re-injuring his shoulder. That was the end of his comeback story.

On May 10th, Ike Davis and David Wright collided in the middle of the diamond by the pitcher's mound. Davis injured his ankle and was later put on the disabled list.

Right after that, on May 15, Justin Turner broke out with 4 runs batted in. After the injury to Davis, Daniel Murphy moved to first base and Turner stayed at second base every day. Murphy being the everyday 1st basemen.

More bad news came, David Wright's MRI on May 16th showed a stress fracture in the lower back. There was no rehab assignment for him, it was just to wait and let it heal for now. It was painful for the All-Star to not be able to play, sitting in the dugout watching.

Willie Harris, after getting 1 at bat per week until then, took Wright's role at 3rd base initially.

The Mets were now without Angel Pagan, David Wright, Ike Davis, Chris Young, and of course Johan Santana.

Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Daniel Murphy, and Justin Turner took over with the absence of those players.

When Wright left, Reyes' average was .313, Daniel Murphy's average was .248 and Jason Bay's average was .218.

The Mets seemed hopeless after Wright left, their pitching struggling (except for rookie Dillon Gee), and their bats not doing much of anything.

On June 1st, with the Mets record at 25-30 after their loss to the Pirates, Terry Collins went on an outburst during his press conference.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” Collins said in his meltdown. “I’m sick of trying to describe seventh innings. (Chris Capuano) pitched his butt off. You have to take a kid out who pitches his (butt) off. The Pirates played the game the right way. That’s how we have to start playing.

“I’m running out of ideas here. Do we play hard? Absolutely. That’s not the issue. It’s about execution. We have to add on runs when we get the lead. We can’t make careless mistakes. We can’t give up at-bats. We don’t have that type of team.

“I sit up every night thinking what can we do to get us over the top. Should we hit-and-run more? You have guys up there you shouldn’t hit-and-run with. Should we bunt more? We don’t get bunts down. ...

“I don’t have the answers,” Collins continued. “I’m sick of ringing the rag dry. I come in here having (the media) look at me like I’m a stinking fool. I’m not pointing at the players only. I’ll take the blame you guys want to hand out. These are big-league players. They should be able to do it. I told the guys this isn’t good enough. We have to play the game right. We can’t continue to make foolish mistakes.”

At that time, the Mets lost 10 of their 25 losses by one run. In that Pittsburgh series, Reyes was put on the bereavement list and wasn't activated. Their lineup was a bunch of no bodys at that point, but on June 2nd, when "ace" pitcher Mike Pelfrey pitched awful yet again, and the Mets down by 7 runs early in the game, they came back and won 9-8.

After Bobby Parnell had a month to forget in April, he landed himself on the disabled list after his game on the 19th of April. He came back on May 31st, and also had a bad performance, but ever since then, he has been unstoppable. He has reached 103 MPH and his slider is moving much better then it was. Many believe he will take over the closer role if K-Rod is traded.

From that point on the Mets continued to win for the most part.

On June 25th the Mets were 2 games away from being .500 and they were playing the AL Champion Texas Rangers in Arlington.

They went on a tear in the last 2 games against the Rangers scoring 22 runs in 2 games, moving themselves back to .500 on the year.

Yet all they had was Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and scrubs.

Then they moved to Detroit in Comerica Park. In the first 2 games, they continued their tear, scoring 30 runs in 2 games, both were wins. The Mets were now 2 games over .500 on the season, something they hadn't achieved yet this season.

In that series, June 28th, Jason Bay hit a grand slam, the first grand slam by a Met in 299 games. The next inning Carlos Beltran hit another one.

They hit a record with 52 runs in 4 games.

But right after that series, the Yankees were up next. Jose Reyes got injured in the final game of the series landing him on the 15-day disabled list.

Jose was hitting .353 for the season, with 15 triples (1st in both categories). Reyes also led many other categories, but those two were the largest.

The Mets had only one All-Star playing in the game on their team, Carlos Beltran. He made the team when the manager for the San Francisco Giants, Bruce Bochy selected him as a manager selection. Reyes also made the team, however he couldn't play due to his injury.

Trade talks started to heat up after the selection of Carlos Beltran to go to the All-Star game. There have been talks about Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, and Francisco Rodriguez moving teams by the July 31st trade deadline.

Carlos Beltran has had a very surprising season this season. Beltran was only supposed to play 3 games a week because of his bad knees.

Out of every single Met this season, Beltran has played 89 games, the most by a Met this season. Even more surprisingly, Beltran is batting .285 and in his career he is batting .282. He has gotten 58 runs batted in this season, and might be on pace for a 100 RBI season.

Because Bruce Bochy selected Beltran to the All-Star game, many people believe the Giants are the front runners to get Beltran. He would be a huge help to the 1st place Giants, as they don't have that one big bat in their line-up (thanks to Scott Cousins smacking catcher Buster Posey to the ground and turning his ankle on a play at the plate).

But does Beltran want to stay? Does Alderson want to keep Beltran? Is Beltran going to value himself too high for next season?

"A lot of teams, this time, they're looking to improve, some others are looking to rebuild," Beltran said. "Right now, the Mets are playing good baseball. I'm not saying I would love to be traded or I'm going to be traded, right now, we're playing good baseball. I like where I am. We're having fun and we just hope to continue to improve.

"Hopefully as a team, we can continue to improve, and when David (Wright) gets back, if Johan (Santana) gets back and when (Jose) Reyes gets back, we're going to have a better ballclub than we have right now."

No one knows if this is a fluke or if Beltran is still Beltran. He has played very well in "contract years", but it's not like Beltran didn't do well in all of his years with the Mets, except the last season. Beltran seems likely to leave, but no one knows for sure if he will stay or not.

Francisco Rodriguez seemed the most reasonable player to leave of the three. The Mets closer will likely have his $17.5 million option vested as he would need 55 games finished to have it vest. He has finished 32 games this season, leaving it almost probable that he will be gone by July 31st.

Oddly, 11 of the 32 games finished were in non save situations proving that the Mets had getting rid of "K-Rod" in their plans for the future.

But who will be suitors for him? If he doesn't want to be a set-up man, who would want him? The only team I could think of is the Texas Rangers at this point. Mets fans, keep your fingers crossed.

Jose Reyes will not be leaving by the trade deadline. He has recently said he wants to wait to make any contract negotiations until after the season. No team will get rid of their top prospects if they can't assure that Reyes will sign a contract extension.

Jose Reyes has had an MVP like season as stated above. Since he got injured during that Yankees series, the Mets might be able to get Jose to take "Carl Crawford money" as Fred Wilpon called it.

Wilpon would be ok at this point if Alderson signed Reyes for "Carl Crawford money" as he has been spectacular. But can he afford it?

The consecuences would be absurd if Reyes left, especially for the fans...

Meanwhile, after the Yankees series, with the Mets at .500 and without Jose Reyes, they won three straight games against the struggling Dodgers to make their record 3 games over .500 for the first time in the season.

Their last series, against 3 straight All-Star pitchers in San Francisco, the Mets ended up only winning one of the three games. That brought their season total to 46-45, 1 game over .500 at the all-star break.

Props to manager Terry Collins, because who would have thought the Mets would be over .500 by the All-Star break, especially with this team?

Collins has this team believing in themselves and the fans believing in their favorite team. They are playing great baseball.

Jose Reyes is hoping to return on July 18th, while David Wright is hoping to get back on the field as early as July 22nd. Ike Davis might not need surgery after rolling his ankle and will have a "test" next week to see if he can begin baseball activities again. Johan Santana could be back by mid-August, but a more probable return would be late-August.

Francisco Rodriguez was sent off to the Milwaukee Brewers for two prospects to be named and $4.9 million on July 13th in the morning.

The Mets are 7 1/2 games out of the wild card spot to the Atlanta Braves, even though they have a winning record.

They seem to be fading after their last 2 games. They seemed to show a lack of effort and it looked like they took the all-star break off too early.

Reyes has done everything he could. Beltran has done everything he could. It is time for someone else to step up and put on a great 2nd half performance (Jason Bay).

Will the fresh legs of Wright and Davis when they come back help the Mets in giving guys like Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy some rest?

Who takes right field if Beltran leaves? What about the closer role?

We will find out in the second half of the New York Mets baseball season.

Good Luck Mets.

 

 

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