Scrapin' the Bottom of the Barrell: When Is It Not An Upgrade

Today there have been some interesting people connected to the Mets. Metsblog.com, linked the Mets to Josh Fogg, here. And another one that I read on MetsFever, citing Seven Train to Shea (who cited ESPN), the Mets may be interested in Braden Looper and Felipe Lopez.

I'm concerned that these are the only options we have left, which got me thinking, Why do the Mets keep sliding down the free agent list? Do we really need to add this "type of depth"? The short answer is yes, but there is a caveat here. I think Mets fans are so sensitive about last year's injury riddled lunacy, that we're basically looking for back-ups that can start for other teams. That's just unrealistic. Felipe Lopez and Braden Looper are not great, or upgrades persay, but they fit what the Mets fan is looking for, a safety blanket. It may be a realistic option to get Fogg on a minor league deal, which I say they should go for. But he should NOT be taking up a gauraunteed roster space that could potentially be taken up by a young player who is ready to blossom.

I'm not promoting the Mets sit on their hands more than they already have this offseason, but I am saying that anything we do should be to upgrade our bench/'pen/rotation, not as a just in case. The "just in case" guys are minor leaguers, right? Isn't that the point of a farm system.

Mets fans, we need to sit down, take a deep breath, and realize we're not going down the toilet if we don't sign Felipe Lopez to patrol the bench for a bunch of money just because we can. We're not going to crap the bed if Braden Looper signs somewhere else. We have enough guys capable of pitching to a 5.22 ERA while striking out 100. In fact, Tim Redding almost did that in 17 less starts than Looper last year.

The point here is this, let's stop going down the list of available free agents, just because we feel like we need to do something. It's not worth the stress. I feel funny because I've been just as guilty of doing this as anyone else. But realistically, the only free agents available that could really UPGRADE something for us, are Wang (which is a risk), Washburn (although I'm not sold on that) and potentially Smoltz.

The truth of the matter is that the Mets need to upgrade their rotation and trade Castillo more than anything else, and I'm starting to get the feeling those things will only happen if we're still in it in July...