Set your expectations on blah!

For over a full calendar year now, the Mets have been a .500 baseball team. That means you can fully expect the Mets to play about .500 baseball for the rest of the season. No, seriously, there's no magical cure, there's no quick fix solution. Maybe Oliver Perez will respond better to the new pitching coach and pitch well more consistently, but he's got a pretty established track record of pitching down to his competition, except for the Yankees against whom for some reason he pitches really well. Pedro Martinez is no longer the Pedro of even 2005, and sadly Carlos Delgado is no longer the Carlos of 2007, who wasn't very good at all. The Mets threw a 4 year contract at a 30-something year old slap-hitting second baseman with arthritic knees who reportedly looks like a mummy after every game he's so wrapped up in bandages. Their offense is almost entirely non-existent outside of Wright, Reyes, and Beltran. They rely heavily on Moises Alou, who's never healthy, and Ryan Church, who is playing better than anyone could have imagined but has yet to figure out that his head is not the ideal point of contact with large, immovable objects. Johan Santana has been great despite his mediocre record, John Maine has been very good as has Billy Wagner, and Mike Pelfrey is showing signs of figuring it out.

The farm system is a little barren at the moment, meaning they cannot be a player for a big time prize like C.C Sabbathia. That means they'd have to part with their top prospects for a bottom of the order older corner outfielder like Xavier Nady, who is certainly not the missing link. Sadly the team looks like it will have to play out the remainder of the season, never really in contention but never really out of it. They will then part ways with Delgado and Alou, eat Castillo's ridiculous contract, figure out if Pedro can settle into a solid middle of the rotation pitcher, and convince Church to start wearing a helmet in the outfield a la John Olerud. It is not outside the realm of possibility that they'll be able to sneak into the playoffs with 87 wins like the Yankees in 2000 or the Cardinals in 06, but the second half of this season should be an open audition for upgrades at the problem positions. In the meantime, remember the Mets have 2 of the top 16 players in the entire game manning the left side of their infield according to the very smart people over at baseball prospectus and a top 15 pitcher having a "down year." This team isn't all that bad, it just isn't all that good either.