State of the Mets, Thursday July 29th

After today's series win, the Mets sit at 52-50, 6.5 games back from the 1st place Atlanta Braves, and 3 1/2 back of surging 2nd place Phillies. The Mets have 60 games to play. The Braves are on pace to win 93 games, Phillies 88, Mets 82.5.

There is very minimal (sub 5%) chance that the Mets can win 92-93 games and win the division. In order to do that, they'd need to go 40-20, or .667 winning percentage for the rest of the year. Don't hold your breath.

So let's see if they have a chance at the wild card. Right now the Giants are in the lead for the Wild Card, and are on pace to win 91 games. Last year's wild card winner had 92 wins. 2008 had 90 wins. Ditto for 2007. Again, I see less than a 10% chance that the Mets can get to 90+ wins; they'd have to go 38-22, and that's a 633 winning %. Just as a point of reference, the Yankees have a .640 winning % right now...The most I could possibly see the Mets winning is going 36-24 the rest of the way, which is still very impressive and probably not practical, but that puts them at 88 wins.  I think 32-28 is more realistic, and that's good for 84 wins, and an early tee-time for the players.

Bottom line: Mets would need to play out of their minds for the next 60 games in order to play in the post-season and to save Omar and Jerry's job. I hope I'm wrong, but with these numbers in place, I can't justify the Mets making any trades in the hope of saving the 2010 season. If anyone has any value and not part of the long-term plan of the team (Francoeur, Cora, Castillo, Feliciano, Valdes, even Beltran), then I would be open to trading them to add depth to the organization.

As far as the blog goes for this weekend, I will have the scouting reports posted, but limited pre and post-game updates. I will be in a wedding in CT this weekend (congrats Rebecca and Andy!) So make sure you check out citislickers.com, or metstoday.com for more coverage.

LET'S GO METS!