The analysis of the Mets in the Baseball Prospectus 2008 doesn’t factor in the acquisition of Johan Santana, so it’s a little more understandable that they would write of 2008, “They won’t blow another late-season lead, because they won’t have another late-season lead.” However, even without Santana, who helps the Mets to a 96-win season and an easy division title according to BP projections, it’s hard to imagine the Mets not being in competition anyway.

BP’s analysis turns on the age of the Mets, which had the oldest pitching and the third-oldest hitting in the National League last year. They write that “having an old team doesn’t necessarily mean having a bad one,” but “older teams run an increased risk of injury or sudden erosion of skill, and that risk compounds with each additional elder added to the ranks.”

I’m nodding along in agreement—after all, this is the point of criticism I push over and over again—until I realize that such an epic, compound failure is unlikely at this point. It’s true that the Mets’ long-term strategy is inadequate, even seriously harmful, but in 2008 they are still good enough to win the division easily, even without Santana. BP is “deadly accurate” and remarkably poignant as always, but here it almost seems that they are trying to fit 2008 into last year’s thesis: “The Mets have finally gotten out from under the Braves only to find they’ve already peaked.”

After all, a team with such a poor strategy of player development and acquisition can’t stay on top for long, can they? Well, yes: they can. They can because (1) they have a powerful base of position players, two of whom are very young and very good, and (2) no one else in the division is smart enough to catch up. It will catch up with them eventually, but for now the Mets’ “vague, crepuscular time” is still fruitful.

BP is very critical of manager Willie Randolph and GM Omar Minaya, criticizing the former for his bullpen management and veteran favoritism, while pointing out that Minaya got nothing for Heath Bell, Royce Ring, Matt Lindstrom and Henry Owens before misguidedly trading Lastings Milledge and signing Luis Castillo. But they call both men out on Guillermo Mota, citing “the truly bizarre manner in which Randolph kept going back to Mota,” and writing, “both Randolph and Minaya refused to bail out the veteran reliever, even when he was bailing out on them.”

Despite writing of Luis Castillo in the team introduction that “his offensive value is on the wane due to his declining baserunning game, only moderate patience, and almost complete lack of power,” and that even his strong batting average will likely disappear by end of his contract, BP writes in his player profile that it’s worth paying for the consistency that Castillo provides. Speaking of second base, BP doesn’t “see much of a future” for Ruben Gotay. “If you can’t play on the left side of the infield, which Gotay can’t, then you have to be an everyday player, and Gotay can’t do that either, because another thing he can’t do is hit left-handers.” Kind of like Jose Valentin, right? BP writes of Stache: “The good news is that the injuries kept his $4.3 million option from vesting.” The funny thing is that I would almost prefer Valentin to Castillo or Gotay on two conditions: first, he has to be healthy, and, second, he has to give up switch-hitting, because he can’t hit right-handed. He’s probably still a better defender than Castillo, and if his bat has any pop left, a better hitter too.

BP writes of Ramon Castro, “In this catching-deprived world, there are less productive backstops with starting jobs, and the Mets will keep Castro in an understudy role to one of them: new acquisition Brian Schneider.” Of Schneider: “The Mets are chalking up his valuable intangibles, but they’ll reap what they sow: intangible value.” And speaking of catchers: “For all of the talk that the Rule 5 draft isn’t yielding the same sort of goodies that it used to, there are lovely counterexamples like [Jesus] Flores.” Ouch on all counts.

BP knows David Wright is awesome, writing, “He is just getting warmed up.” They wonder about Jose Reyes but write that “his skills are still coalescing; more important, they’re also still improving.” About Lastings, they write, “the only way to explain that deal is to say there was something else going on with Milledge that we don’t know about.” You see, they don’t read the New York papers at BP, so they aren’t familiar with how baseball writer hacks control our ball club.

On the pitching side, BP provides greater insights into the Mets roster. But before I get to those, I can’t help but summon this quote about Guillermo Mota:

Mota missed the first two months of the season while serving a suspension for performance-enhancing substances. When he returned he wasn’t very good, but he’s big and throws hard and usually throws strikes. The combination proved too big a temptation for Willie Randolph to resist, and he kept going back to Mota looking for results that ultimately proved to be chimerical. The impact was large—when talking about the team’s collapse, Randolph put the blame squarely on the players rather than himself, but his handling of Mota makes him just as culpable.

Such points should not be ignored. Nor is this Randolph’s only infraction; I would place his mind-numbingly exasperating reliance on Mota fourth or fifth on my list of “Reasons Why Willie Randolph is a Bad Manager and Should Be Fired,” but it’s still another thing that he, and no one else, messed up. His refusal to take any blame for anything, an old team hoping to stay the collapse of old age for one more year and a team philosophy and clubhouse atmosphere that encourages a sense of entitlement are all ingredients in a big recipe for disaster. So while I think BP is a little too eager to denounce the Mets, I can see where they’re coming from.

BP has good things to say about the Mets’ starting rotation. Johan Santana “…remains the only pitcher in baseball worth the gamble of a six-year contract.” Pedro Martinez: “Chances are he’ll be worth what he’s going to be paid…” John Maine is “a front-of-the-rotation pitcher” if he can do what he did over 2007’s first four months. BP wonders about Oliver Perez: “If you straighten him out, does he lose his at-times dominating stuff?”

The annual has some good points about the Mets’ relievers. They wonder whether the Mets realize that Joe Smith is a ROOGY, why they ever gave Scott Schoeneweis that contract, and if the team has a backup plan for Billy Wagner when his back spasms act up again. BP advises the Mets to listen to offers for the arbitration-eligible Aaron Heilman, and praises Pedro Feliciano for being effective against right-handers.

All in all, BP is down on the Mets, probably more because of the team’s overall strategy than its actual current major league talent. In some respects they mistake the Mets for the Giants, who have are older, worse team, even sparser in the minor leagues and even more badly managed than the Mets. The book won’t tell dedicated Mets fans much about the team they know, but it might inject some long-term pessimism into an enthusiastic fan base, even if their season prediction is badly timed and laughably wrong: “Unable or unwilling to undertake a needed rebuilding of their aging roster, the Mets will suffer more disappointment in 2008, only this year it will start on Opening Day.”