Yes, the Mets and Phillies have made tons of improvement to their respective lineups, but is that good enough to become "the team to beat".

1st: Mets

The Mets have obviously made a big improvement to their pitching staff by picking up Johan Santana, so that means, Johan will be at the top of the staff, Pedro will be right behind him, im assuming John Maine will be number three, most likely El Duque as the fourth, and finally maybe Oliver Perez. The one question I have with this rotation is consistency, Johan hurled 235 strikeouts (which is good), he had a 3.33 ERA which is relatively high compared to his other seasons (with the exception of the 2000 and 2001 season), and he went 15-13 which is very un-Santana like. Plus, (this may have nothing to do with this) I'm just worried that since this is his first year in a new league because of what happened to Barry Zito. Zito, a usually dominant pitcher went 11-13 with a 4.53 ERA with 83 walks. I'm just wondering if maybe the league change would help or hurt Johan.



Onto Pedro, if you remember last year Pedro battled a torn rotator cuff he seemed to do fine...well he only made five starts last year, but he did have a 2.57 ERA and only gave up 7 walks. and gave up 33 hits...but Pedro is getting older and I really want to see more of Pedro in Spring Training to see if he's back to the Pedro before the injury.

John Maine has shown previous history of doing just bad. Just look at his 2005 season, he pitched 10 games, he went 2-3, with a 6.30 ERA, gave up 28 earned runs and gave up 24 walks in 40 innings...that's insane! In 2006 when he was starting some games(he pitched in 16) went 6-5, 3.60 ERA and pitched in 90 innings (a little better). 2007, his first full year as a starter was good, 3.91 ERA, 15-10 record and 180 strikeouts, but the question lingering around is "Was 2007 a fluke?". Let's wait and see.



If El Duque did good with that style of pitching he does he'll do good in 2008. Mets fans dont get you're hopes up.

The Mets' hitting shouldn't be too much of a problem, but I do think people are putting too much into Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado. Delgado is injury-prone plus, he's getting a year older and his numbers show that. In 2006, Delgado had a monster year, he hit 38 homers and 114 RBI's. However in 2007, he only hit 24 homers and drove in 87 runs. David Wright and Jose Reyes should be okay. I really liked how the Mets added Brian Schinder to their lineup.

Anyone who watches baseball knows how Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa are two of the most controversial players out there. Reguardless of that, I'm still wondering why no team has made a single phone call to Barry or Sammy. Even though Sammy had a .252 batting average as well as 104 hits, he still jacked out 21 homers and 92 RBI's. Not to mention he had 24 doubles and at his age that's good. Barry didn't have a great year compared to Sammy. But Barry had ad .276 average, he left the yard 28 times, and had 66 RBI's. Plus, for teams that are gonna struggle to get runners on base, Barry gets walked many times. So, for you teams that are gonna be challenged offensively...why not? The vets can still get the job done.