Mets: Light at the End of the Tunnel
Here’s Mike Francesa on the Mets’ future after his interview with Terry Collins today:
“But I’ll tell you what, Met fans, you are going – it is going to be appointment television when Harvey pitches because he’s that good. And when you have a pitcher like that, that really gives you excitement, it gives you something to build around. And knowing you have an all-star catcher coming, and knowing you have another ace coming in Wheeler, and having Niese as your third guy. And thinking, if you’re the Mets – and I want to – on a spring day, on the first day of spring – and the Mets have had nothing to think about positive for a long time – if your core is Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Ike, Wright, D’Arnaud, you have the core of a winning baseball team.
“You have two top right-handed hurlers, who could be Ones, a lefty who can be a legitimate Two, an all-star catcher and two corners who can be all-stars. You can build a team around that. You take like an Ellsbury and put him in center field and start to build around that team, put a closer in there, sprinkle in the other parts, and you have a 90-win team there with that team.
“Now Wheeler’s got to be the real deal. You’ve heard Terry say he is. Terry told you that D’Arnaud is a no-brainer. I’m telling you this, Harvey is going to be a big star. A big star. And I think you’re going to see it soon. And that’s got to give you some excitement. When he goes to the ballpark – Mets should pitch him on opening day just to bank on the excitement – but Met fans are going to – and the Mets fans have flocked to the ballpark at times in their lives for pitchers, you know that. He’s not going to be electrifying like Doc, he’s not going to be Dwight Gooden. He’s not going to go out there and be Dwight Gooden, but you know what, he’s going to go out there and be an ace, and go out there and expect to win. And you know what, he might be a Verlander. And that’s pretty good. I mean that’s as good as it gets right now. I mean Verlander and Kershaw are the two best pitchers in baseball. Throw Strasburg in there, that’s probably the big three there right this moment as Halladay, Doc Halladay, gets older and seems to have lost a little something. But this guy, he can be that good.
“And the Mets, you see a little future here now. They still have to go out and purchase some outfielders in the worst way, but you can see a little bit of a future here now for the Mets because of the fact that you have Wright, who’s an all-star, you have Ike, who can hit home runs at first, Niese is a good, solid pitcher. And if you put those two kids who can really pitch at the top of the rotation and then put an all-star catcher behind them. Good building blocks, legitimate building blocks. You might finally see the light at the end of the tunnel here.”
