By now, we’ve all heard the rundown. Of the Mets eight starting position players, five of them are suffering with some form of injury, and one of the supposedly healthy is Moises Alou. Of the Mets five projected starting pitchers, one is hurt, and another is Pedro Martinez. Of the 12 bench players and bullpen members, at least four are dealing with injuries. All this, and we’ve got four solid weeks before the games start.

“I’m sure they will all be fine,” my colleague Matt Cerrone writes over at MetsBlog. I wish I could share his optimism. Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo, Ryan Church, Brian Schneider, and Carlos Beltran, the five nicked-up starters, have an average age of about 31 and a half. It’s pretty reasonable to assume that one or more of them will have trouble staying healthy throughout the season, given that they’re hurt already. Then of course, Alou is 157 years old, and a mortal lock to visit the DL at some point in the near future. With the bench players almost equally banged up, and the AAA replacement options mostly traded away, and two-fifths on the starting rotation taken up by frail old guys, we’re on very thin ice here.

It gets scary when I start asking myself the what-ifs. What if Marlon Anderson actually has to play first base for the entire season? (I assume everyone saw the collision in right field, yes?) What if Church really can’t hit lefties, and no one on the bench can either? What if John Maine or Oliver Perez can’t repeat their successes of last season? And, heaven forbid, what if Jose Reyes or David Wright is actually not as good as we think he is?

We are the clear favorites in the NL East, but anyone who’s treating this season as a celebratory march into the playoffs is out of his mind. It’s easy, ridiculously easy in fact, to envision a scenario where we win between 83 and 87 games and have to endure another offseason of hand-wringing.

So, everyone please get healthy. Everyone please get ready. And please guys, get all the wins in April and May that you can. We may very well need them in September.

Tomorrow, the Mets take the field against players in opposing uniforms for the first time this year, and few outside of Port St. Lucie will care. It’s merely an exhibition with some college kids, and the Mets will feature at least two pitchers I’d never heard of before a few days ago (apparently Nate Field is a 32-year-old who spent a couple seasons in the Royals bullpen and has a career ERA over 5, and Ryan Cullen is a 28-year-old who has spent eight years working his way from rookie ball to AAA—he actually pitched well in relief for New Orleans last season). But then there’s Friday. Ohhhhh, Friday. Friday will feature the first game we New Yorkers actually get to see (1 p.m., SNY), and it will feature the Mets debut of starting pitcher Johan Santana.

This will be the most anticipated spring training game in Mets history. There, I said it. I don’t mean that it’s a must-win spring training game, or even that I will care who wins the game. The days of important exhibition games died with the Mayor’s Trophy, and the beginning of interleague play and the regular season rivalry with the Yankees—though I still remember gloating to Yankee-fan friends over an 11-0 Mets spring training victory in the early nineties (if anybody finds a date for that, you’re my hero). I mean that I’m looking forward to this spring training game as I’ve looked forward to no other.

First and most obviously, Santana, the biggest offseason acquisition in Mets history, takes the mound. Never before has there been so much hype around seeing a player in a Mets uniform. I’m sure people were excited back in 1966 when the Mets won the Tom Seaver lottery, and I know people were excited when the Mets signed Bobby Bonilla and paid him (what was then) a ton of money, and of course we can all still remember the Carlos Beltran and Pedro Martinez celebrations. But Seaver was just a college pitcher, and though the other three were elite players, none of them could’ve be considered the best in the game at the time we got them. In Santana, the Mets have the best pitcher in the game, at his prime—or at least, that’s what everyone (including me) seems to think. We get to see him on Friday.

Second, this is a sorry time of year for sports, made even sorrier because the NCAA hoops schedule is running really late this year. We should be getting ready for conference tournaments this Saturday March 1. Instead, we have another entire week of regular season still to go. The major conference tournaments don’t start until March 12, and the NCAA tournament doesn’t start until March Freaking Twentieth. With nothing else to focus on, I’m certainly more excited than I ordinarily would be to watch the orange and blue on Friday.

Finally, this is our chance to lose The Collapse once and for all. The last time any of us watched a Mets game was on that fateful Sunday, when by 1:30 p.m. the big decision became whether to go somewhere to catch the Phillies game, or to stick it out with the likes of Jeff Conine, Jorge Sosa, and Sandy Alomar Jr. In the end, of course, it didn’t matter which game we watched. We all found out the result. On Friday, we get to see something completely different.

It’s time to enjoy baseball again. It’s time to watch what might be the best Mets team of the last 20 years. It’s time for us to see this new pitcher we’ve been hearing so much about. This Friday, it’s time to get started.

Baseball Prospectus has once again made its painstakingly-considered PECOTA projections for the new baseball season. Happily, the Mets are projected to finish first in the NL East by ten games. Based on this projection, some might even consider us “the team to beat.” (Hah!)

Last year I made my own predictions for each hitter’s OPS and each pitcher’s ERA and tracked my progress against BP’s throughout the season. In the end, BP came closer on nine of the 16 players for which I made my guesses, but at least I put up a respectable fight.

While we’re at it, let’s look at some other things I said in columns at various points last year.

“I expect us to be in the top three (in the NL) in runs allowed.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG. Six freakin’ teams (the Padres, Cubs, Giants, Dodgers, DBacks, and Braves) all alowed fewer runs than we did.

“I expect to be in the top three (in the NL) in runs scored.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG. We finished fourth behind the Phillies, Rockies, and Braves. You could argue that we had a top-three offense and that the Phillies and Rockies were benefited by hitter’s parks, but I specifically predicted runs scored.

“I expect us to win a lot of games–more than 90.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG.

“I expect Mike Pelfrey to have a fantastic year.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG.

“I expect Lastings Milledge to play the bulk of the innings for us in rightfield.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG. Man, that one still hurts.

“I expect Paul Lo Duca to have a down year.” (March 13, 2007)
RIGHT. In poker, we say even a blind squirrel can sometimes find a nut.

“I expect Carlos Delgado, who quietly played hurt most of last season, to have a big year.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG.

“I expect Jose Valentin to fall off considerably.” (March 13, 2007)
RIGHT.

“I expect Jonathan Adkins to prove more valuable than anyone thinks he will be.” (March 13, 2007)
WRONG. Boy, why did I ever think that Omar Minaya might’ve traded Heath Bell and Royce Ring for somebody halfway decent?

On projecting Jose Reyes - “This is one where I’m quite confident I’m going to beat the staff of Baseball Prospectus.” (April 23, 2007)
WRONG. As we all know, Jose got off to a torrid start, only to be mired in a second-half slump that eventually dropped his season-long OPS to a mere 775. I had predicted 890. BP had predicted 766 (these guys are good).

“David Wright is not going to hit the 29 home runs that BP projected” (April 23, 2007)
WRONG. Hey, he hadn’t even hit one at the time I wrote that!

“I have a lot of confidence in Aaron Heilman, and predict that he will end the season with a lower ERA than he has now (3.07).” (May 10, 2007)
RIGHT. He ended with 3.03. Phew.

OK, so I was wrong about a lot of things Mets last year. The only good news is, if you look at the stuff everyone else was writing, I wasn’t the only one. So why, then, would I keep making predictions about stuff when it seems pretty clear I don’t know what I’m talking about? Answer: because it’s fun.

I’m not quite ready to make this year’s predictions just yet, but I do want to post some leanings I have about BP’s new numbers.

David Wright: OVER 21 SB. BP projects David to steal 13 fewer bases than last year, and I just don’t see it. He was successful on 87 percent of his attempts last year, and he’s still young. There’s no reason for him not to steal.

Moises Alou: UNDER 406 Plate Appearances. He didn’t have that many last year or the year before, and he turns 42 in July.

Ramon Castro: OVER 256 Plate Appearances. God willing.

Johan Santana: UNDER 2.94 ERA. I read about this guy somewhere. They said that in 16 career starts against NL teams, he has a 2.16 ERA and a 0.83 WHIP. Also, apparently fewer than half of those games were played in Shea Stadium.

Oliver Perez: UNDER 4.22 ERA. He posted a 3.56 last year, though he gave up 20 unearned runs, which is never a good sign. Still, I see Ollie improving, not regressing, and would be very surprised if he doesn’t beat his 4.22 projection in 2008.

Scott Schoeneweis: OVER 4.05 ERA. I have no confidence that Willie Randolph will use him correctly (i.e., he’ll put him in against more than zero righties), and therefore predict doom for his ERA.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Fuller predictions coming soon. Enjoy spring training!

It’s just three short days until pitchers, catchers, and David Wright report to Port St. Lucie to start their work. What a glorious time to be alive! The expectations for the 2008 season might be higher than any I’ve experienced in my 24 spring trainings as a fan. This is a Mets team that is supposed to win the National League, and is supposed to have an excellent chance of taking the whole damn thing. Wow.Some might say that nothing short of a World Series win can be considered a success for this club. It’s true that a championship would be the ultimate accomplishment, and gratify us as fans for years to come. After all, none of the teams I root for, in any sport, has won a championship since 1986—and even if they had, I would trade any number of victories in the lesser sports for just one more New York Mets World Series championship. Having said all that, I disagree that nothing less than a championship will do. I tremendously enjoyed the 1999, 2000, and 2006 seasons. Sure they were bittersweet in the end, but they were great rides while they lasted.

How much better is it, then, to have not just a great ride, but a title to go with it? I mentioned in my last column that it’s hard to evaluate how good a trade is from a fan’s standpoint, because we don’t really have a metric for measuring fan gratification. Indeed, most of the analysis of the Johan Santana trade fell into two camps: “Yeah, we got Johan!” or “Boo, we spent way too much to get Johan.” In my view, neither camp has it quite right. The “Yeah!” camp overlooks the idea that it might be tougher for the Mets to compete in the future because of the Johan trade and signing. The “Boo!” camp overlooks the idea that Mets fans don’t care if we paid a little too much to get Johan, so long as we still have money to spend, and so long as Johan brings us a championship.

The fans mostly only care about what happens to the product on the field, not what it cost to put it there. To evaluate the Johan trade in terms of dollars doesn’t really make sense. It would make more sense to evaluate the trade in terms of what it brings to us, as fans. In an attempt to come up with a measure to accomplish this feat, I propose the following totally arbitrary point system for fan gratification:

World Series championship: 1,000 points
LCS win: 50 points
Divisional series win: 50
Division title: 100 points
Wild card playoff appearance: 50 points
Regular season win: 1 point

The championship is the mother lode, but getting to the playoffs is still far better than not, and winning a playoff series enhances a fan’s enjoyment that much more. The 1999 season is far more memorable to me because of Todd Pratt’s walk-off homer in the divisional round, and the 2000 season would sit far differently in my mind without John Franco’s strikeout of Barry Bonds, or Mike Hampton’s complete-game shutout against the Cardinals. Also, even if you don’t win a playoff series, getting to the playoffs as a division winner is better than getting in as a wild card. (The clinching celebrations in 1986, 1988, and 2006 seemed far more warranted than those of 1999 and 2000.) To fans, getting to the playoffs matters, how you get there matters, winning playoff series once you’re there matters, and winning world championships matters a lot.

Based on this system that I just made up, here are fan gratification point totals for some Mets seasons.

2007: 88 points
2006: 246
2005: 83
2003: 66
2000: 244
1986: 1,258
1969: 1,250

The two championships are each more than five times better than any other season in our history—as it should be. 2007’s dismal ending made it only about a third as gratifying as 2006, but still 33% more gratifying than 2003, when we won a mere 66 games. If we ever do win a World Series in the current playoff system, it will likely be more gratifying than the championships of 1986 and 1988 because of the extra playoff series involved. This seems right to me. It’s a lot tougher to win three playoff series than two. Also, even though we got to the World Series in 2000, that season scores about the same as 2006. The playoff run in 2000 was great, but so was the regular season/division title of 2006. The scores reflect this fact.

The system isn’t perfect; for example, Robin Ventura’s grand single is nowhere accounted for, and that ain’t right. But while it’s not perfect, and while I completely pulled these numbers out of…the sky, I like this system that I’ve invented. If someone could tell me accurately what our chances of winning a title, a division championship, a playoff series, or a playoff berth were before and after the Johan trade, and then do that for every season of Johan’s contract, I would feel comfortable applying my own system to form an opinion about the trade. Without that information, however, I think I might’ve just wasted some time playing around with numbers before the season starts. Oh well. I guess the point I was really driving at is this—let’s win the World Series this year, shall we?

Here’s what we know: Johan Santana is a Met. Over the last three seasons, he has probably been the best pitcher in baseball. Just look at the numbers: 100 starts, 684 1/3 innings pitched, 144 walks, 718 strikeouts, 2.99 ERA, 1.01 WHIP. Staggering. Mind-blowing, really. When you consider that he’s moving from a pitcher-neutral park in a hitter-friendly league to a pitcher-friendly park in a pitcher-friendly league…well it just makes Mets fans drool.

Here’s what we don’t know: Was the Santana trade a good one for the Mets organization? Wait a minute, didn’t I just get finished telling you how great Santana is? Yes I did, but there are many other factors that play into evaluating a trade like this one. First, we must consider the price. We gave up four prospects in order to get the trade done. Evaluating prospects is an inexact science, but none of the four we traded were considered blue-chippers. So far, so good. Next, we have to consider what we got. Wait, we got Johan Santana, right? Not exactly. We got Johan Santana for this year, and the rights to exclusively negotiate a contract extension for him.

Some people marvel that we got Santana for less than the Diamondbacks paid for Dan Haren, and less than the Mariners will likely pay for Erik Bedard. One difference is that Haren is under contract for three more years. Bedard is a little tougher to explain, as he will become a free agent after this season. Maybe the Mariners will overpay. Maybe the deal won’t go down at all. The point is, a team doesn’t just trade for a player, it trades for his contract. The Mets could’ve decided to wait a year, and then tried to land Santana via free agency. The downside was that Santana’s contract would’ve cost more, we might not have been able to sign him even if we’d made the best offer, and the Twins might’ve traded him to another big market club, taking away our chances to ever get Santana. The upside was, we could’ve potentially landed Santana and kept our four prospects. This is why I disagree with my colleague Matt Cerrone when he writes, “instead, we could have collectively hoped and prayed that one of Mike Pelfrey, Phil Humber, Kevin Mulvey or Deolis Geurra would turn in to Santana.” No, it wasn’t that black-and-white. We could have possibly had Santana, and still had all those guys. Just not in 2008.

So how do we analyze the trade? I don’t think we, as fans, are interested in whether the Santana trade will be a profitable one for the Mets organization in terms of dollars and cents. As fans, the value of our team should be measured in championships, and to a far lesser extent divisions titles, playoff appearances, and wins, probably in that order. A championship is the ultimate prize, though. Most fans I talk to would probably enjoy a championship ten times more than a mere playoff appearance. Just ask those of us who were along for the ride in 2006.

If Johan Santana appreciably increases our chances of winning the World Series, then I am all for the trade. The problem is, it’s very hard for one megastar to appreciably increase a team’s chances of winning the World Series. No matter how good a player is (and as I noted above, I think Santana is a masterful pitcher, the best in the game), there is still so much luck in baseball’s playoff system that no team can have more than, say, a 25 percent chance of winning the title going into the season. If we’re going to be optimistic, the Mets went from about a 10 percent chance to a 20 percent chance of winning the 2008 World Series with the Johan trade. (These are not scientific calculations, they’re just numbers I’m using to make a point—but I do believe those guesses are pretty reasonable.) But we don’t know the front office’s plan for 2009 and beyond. Pedro Martinez, Oliver Perez, El Duque, Carlos Delgado, and Moises Alou all become free agents after this season. With our prospects now depleted, it will be very hard to replace these guys from within. Do we really have enough money to replace all these guys with quality options via free agency? Are there even enough quality free agents out there to do it? Does the Santana trade double our chances of winning the World Series of 2008 at the expense of lowering our chances in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013? Do we drop back down to a 10 percent chance in all those years? And if so, should we have maybe held off a year and tried to pry Santana loose via free agency?

I don’t know these answers, and because I don’t know these answers, I objected to many of the trade offers I heard rumored for Santana. Specifically, I was against including Jose Reyes in any trade, I was against any four-prospect trade that included Fernando Martinez (who is supposedly the only blue-chip prospect we have), and I was against any trade that involved more than four prospects. Let’s give Omar Minaya some credit. He got the deal done for four second-tier prospects. Omar’s refusal to give up Martinez means that this trade clearly wasn’t a bad one for the Mets. But it wasn’t clearly a good one either.