What Were The Real Expectations?

The Mets have had a rollercoaster of a season.  That includes the team as a whole, and the players individually.

David Wright is back where he belongs, hitting enough home runs and keeping his batting average up.  Jose Reyes has been up and down with his health, but when he's healthy he's been performing.  Ike Davis was a surprise and anything the rookie does this year is above expectations.  Nobody could've asked for anything more from Angel Pagan.  2nd base has been a game of musical chairs and there isn't much that could be said about any one player.  And Carlos Beltran hasn't played long enough to know anything.

There are three players I want to focus on: Jeff Francoeur, Jason Bay, and Rod Barajas.

When the Mets acquired Jeff Francoeur in the middle of last season he was better than ever could've been imagined.  I think that contributed to the higher expectations coming into this season.  His stats are down but he's the kind of player he was towards the end of his time with the Braves.  Nobody can say Frenchy hasn't done this before.  It's fair to say he's below expectations but he's not the only one.

Jason Bay stands out more than anybody else when thinking about expectations.  His home runs, RBIs, batting average, and OBP are all down.  He's being paid a ton of money for his offense and it simply isn't there.  A lot of Mets fans want to believe he will perform eventually.  It would suck if he became a total bust, but it happens.  If Jason Bay is going to start hitting like he has in the past I don't think it will happen this year. I hate it, but Jason Bay isn't going to be Jason Bay until 2011.

Finally, Rod Barajas may surprise you.  Right now Rod is doing better than both last year and his career averages.  It seemed like he didn't get a hit in the month of June, but he had a hot start to the year.  The recent lack of offense from the rest of the team, combined with the fact that Josh Thole has gotten hits as a catcher has magnified Rod's recent struggles.  If there is anybody to go after for not producing, you can't go after Rod unless you expected him to have a major career year in 2010.

Most of the Mets have been fine this year.  The team is falling fast and people are looking for a scapegoat.  Jeff Francoeur has become that scapegoat.  He is performing below what people expected after the second half of 2009 and he isn't paid a ridiculous amount of money.  Coming into the season Jeff wasn't supposed to be as big a part of the offense as Jason Bay.  With both of them under-performing I honestly think Jason Bay deserves more blame.  And if you take the time to look at the stats from Rod Barajas this season you will see why he isn't even included in this discussion. 

Let's Go Mets!