Mets Off-Season Review as of May

First of all - not to toot my own horn here (OK maybe i do want to toot my own horn) but the Daily News back cover yesterday was good but not that original.  Check out my previous post where i discuss the SI cover jinx before Pettite got hurt. Anyone can say things after the fact but to say it before - now thats something. So yeah - Watch out Derrek!

Now on to todays post.

In the off-season many baseball fans tend  to act as if their General Manager has no idea what they're doing. I myself have asked many times "How can i see what the right thing is to do and Omar Minaya cant see it?" For example - I couldn't for the life of me understand why the Mets were not signing Jason Marquis when they knew that he wanted to sign with them. It just didn't make sense. Or why they didn't bite the bullet on Castillos contract and sign Orlando Hudson.
Well we are now one month into the baseball season and we can take a look back at how their off-season looks from this view.
We will start with some (not all - because that would be impossible) of the more prominent names that were mentioned this winter.

Joel Pinero 2 - 4 5.30 ERA - leads the league in hits given up
The thing about Pinero is that he seems tailor made for Citi Feild. On the other hand, was he simply a Dave Duncan project? It certainly seems that way so far.
Bengie Molina .333 2 HR 10 RBI 
His numbers look good and in fact he and John Lackey were the two free agents that fans seemed to want the most.
But lets look at who they did get: Henry Blanco - who throws out every guy that try to steal on him - and Rod Barajas who has hit 7 HR! Both have been tremendous behind the plate (Especially Blanco who has caught all of Mike Peflreys games this year) , seemingly good locker room guys (and by the way i think we can put to rest the whole "bad locker room" thing - dont you think?) and at least from Barajas weve gotten some good pop which we desperately need as we patiently wait out Jason Bays HR funk.
John Lackey 3-1 3.89 ERA
What can you say? Hes been good (aside from one terrible outing) I always thought he was a bit overrated and I get the feeling he never really wanted to be here in the first place.
Jason Marquis 0-3 20.52 ERA
Sometimes you cant go by what the numbers say - in this case you can. He was terrible until he went on the DL. Can you imagine if the Mets had signed this guy?
Chin Min Wang DNP
I suppose the jurys still out. He wasnt supposed to back until May so we'll see what happens there.
Orlando Hudson - .280/.366/.373 2 HR 11 RBI 3 SB
Ok - hard to argue this one but would it really have been worth it to dump Castillo?
Here are Castillos numbers- .269/.359/.308 0 HR 7 RBI 4 SB
Ben Sheets 1 - 3 7.12 ERA 1.912 WHIP
I guess well wait and see but early results are not good. Especially when you compare him (or the other pitchers on this list) to John Maine and Ollie Perez who Omar kept saying were just as good.
Ollie - 0 -2 4.04 ERA
Maine 1 -1 5.97 ERA but looking much better in his last two starts.

And all this is not even metioning the Japanese imports who have been very good - especially Takahashi who has been a bullpen savior.

What im getting at here is that maybe the Mets didnt do such a bad job after all. Also something to understand is that its not fantasy baseball. There could be dozens of reasons why an acquisition doesn't happen. From salary constraints to the player not wanting on the team in the first place.
One month into the season it seems like the Mets did an OK job.