This team just has no offense!
You pitch around Beltran Wright and Reyes (if Beltran is healthy and Reyes isn't being streaky at the moment) and you are left with...
Moises Alou, who can still hit when he's healthy but he's never healthy. Lucky to get 80 games.
The ghost of Luis Castillo, who is trying to set some kind of record by having an AVG of .280, an OBP of .280 and a SLG of .280 all at the same time... the emptiest kind of singles hitter along with his deteriorating defense and deteriorated speed because of his shot knees.
The ghost of Carlos Delgado, who will be lucky to hit .250 with 20 homeruns he's so spent.
Ryan Church, who could be struck out by your gramma provided she's a southpaw.
Brian Schneider, who could be struck out by your gramma provided she is conscious.
The Mets have a superb lead-off hitter in Reyes, three-hitter in Beltran and clean-up hitter in Wright... Alou will be a solid five hitter until he goes out for the season in May and then...
Nothing. A bunch of number eight hitters.
If they had kept Milledge and Estrada, they would've at least had two legitimate complimentary hitters to plug in at the two and the six (or five once Moises is down) to hit .280-.290 with a decent amount of extra bases on top of that.
Hide the shambling husks of Castillo and Delgado down by the pitcher and hope for the best.
Great pitching is wonderful but if you can't score any runs, it doesn't mean a thing.
The woe of losing Milledge is less that he could be an All-Star in three years and more that he could've been a decent support bat in 2008 but no.
No, Minaya likes his "good clubhouse guys" and his fuck*ng Expos.
Getting Santana is three steps forward, definitely.
But pretending that Schneider and Church as major-league starters and locking in Castillo long term, they set themselves back two steps earlier in the off-season.
So it is... y'know... it negates some of that Santana bounce.
This is all I'm saying.
The Mets spent the off-season wrecking themselves offensively and so the huge upgrade in starting pitching is somewhat cancelled out.