The Onion Headline read, “Struggling Mets Combine To Form Carlos Voltron,” and the article that follows is a classic.

Here’s the opening paragraph:

Facing the Cubs in the midst of a three-game losing streak, the desperate Mets sprinted out to the field Tuesday, launched themselves high into the air above Shea Stadium, and combined their bodies to form a 400-foot tall fielding robot called Carlos Voltron.

And another brilliant paragraph:

While Cubs batters had taken early advantage of the Mets pitchers on Monday, the towering spectacle of Carlos Voltron proved to be an imposing presence on the mound, as the force of his foot slamming into the ground after the windup of his first pitch knocked the batter and umpire into the third row of the stands. In addition, the seismic energy unleashed by Carlos Voltron’s follow-through created several deep cracks in the foundation of Shea Stadium, and accompanying atmospheric disturbances caused a 747 in a holding pattern over nearby La Guardia airport to plunge from the sky.

Wednesday night I wrote: “I’ll be watching the next four games of course, and dreading the last four innings. I don’t think it’s going to be great fun.” I was wrong. Thursday was great fun, at least when Jose Reyes scored the winning run. That’s a great kind of natural high.

During the eighth inning, in an email to friends about Jerry Manuel letting Ramon Martinez bat, I wrote that Manuel, “CANNOT let him bat here.” I was wrong again and I’m thrilled about it.

If you had Ramon Martinez and Robinson Cancel saving the Mets season with back-to-back singles on September 25, in your preseason pool, you must be divine or completely nuts. And that’s very cool.

How was Ryan Church’s escape from Koyie Hill and flop into home not the top play on SportsCenter? #5? Really?

I thought it was interesting that Carlos Beltran, after his slam against Florida nearly a month ago, said that he had learned from the way 2006 ended, on a called third strike from Adam Wainwright. That’s a pretty good lesson to learn. I was impressed that an MLB star admitted to learning that kind of lesson. And it seems the lesson continues to pay dividends. One of the interesting themes of the 2008 season has been Mets’ fans belated appreciation of Beltran. Perhaps it’s accompanied by Beltran’s own appreciation for big moments.

LF Chris Aguila – R/R – 5’11” 200 – MiLB FA – 2/23/79

AAA: .295/.378/.560 20 2B, 2 3B, 29 HR, 53 BB, 102 K, 13/17 K – 420 AB, 116 G

Like Pascucci, Aguila will be 30 heading to spring training 2009, and like Pascucci, there’s no guarantee he’ll do so as a Met.

BP’s translated EQA suggests that Aguila would provide something like MLB average production, had he played in the big leagues all year.

OF/1B Valentino Pascucci – R/R – 6’6” 260 – MiLB FA 08 – 11/17/78

AAA: .290/.410/.553 23 2B, 27 HR, 77 BB, 109 K – 396 AB, 114 G

The Mets brought Pascucci in to AAA on April 30 and the big guy did exactly what he always does: hit for power, walk a lot, and crush lefties while waiting for another big league opportunity. Pascucci picked up his last big league AB in 2004 with Montreal.

BP’s translated EQA suggests that Pascucci would put up an MLB EQA of .280 in the big leagues against a .260 average on the strength of a .244/.351/.460 batting line. Would any team take a gamble on that?

He’ll be 30 heading to spring training 2009. Will he go hoping for an MLB shot or will he head off to Japan to some guaranteed cash? Tough choice.

CF Jesus Feliciano – L/L – 6’0” 174 – MiLB FA – 6/6/79

AAA: .308/.366/.383 21 2B, 4 3B, 3 HR, 41 BB, 57 K, 12/26 SB

He can play an ok centefield, but it’s not a special center, but doesn’t have enough secondary skills, power or discipline, to be a productive big leaguer.

3B Fernando Tatis – R/R – 5’11” 195 – MiLB FA 3/07–1/1/75

AAA: .242/.345/.592, 6 2B, 12 HR, 17 BB, 23 K – 120 AB, 37 G

MLB: .297/.369/.484, 16 2B, 1 3B, 11 HR, 29 BB, 59 K – 273 AB, 92 G

Tatis was one of the great stories of 2008 for the Mets after a July in which he hit .397/.463/.767. Take a closer look at his performance in the majors versus the minors. Despite a higher batting average in the bigs, his walk rate and ISO SLG declined.

SS Anderson Hernandez S/R – 5-9 150 – Trade w/ Det for Vance Wilson – 10/30/82

AAA: .203/.262/.307 21 2B, 7 3B, 5 HR, 38 BB, 95 K – 125 G, 479

MLB (WAS): .306/.383/.333 2 2B, 0 HR, 9 BB, 7 K– 25 G, 72 AB

Hey, who would you rather have: Luis Ayala or Jesus Flores? That’s Luis Ayala of the 5.40 ERA or the 23-year old Flores who hit .256/.296/.402 for the Nationals in 301 AB this year. False choice? Not really. Hernandez was added to the Mets 40-man roster during the 2005 season. In 2006, he hit .249/.285/.295 in 414 AB in AAA at Norfolk and then .152/.164/.242 in 66 Big League AB. He was on the 40-man roster when Flores was not, in December of 2006 when the Nationals stole Flores from the Mets in the rule 5 draft.

Of course, I approved of flipping Hernandez for Luis Ayala. With no power at all, it’s tough to carve out an MLB career, and Hernandez has little offensive unless he can hit .300, an unlikely proposition.

1B Michel Abreu –R/R – 6’3” 255 – NDFA 1/31/06 – 1/2/79

AAA: .285/.343/.447 24 2B, 15 HR, 38 BB, 59 K – 425 AB, 120 G

Abreu closed out the season with a .444/.531/.778 August, but it was too late for the 29 year old Cuban defector. Abreu, who missed all of 2007 with visa problems, will be a free agent after this season.

At Baseball Prospectus, Jay Jaffe wrote about the second half disaster in the Mets bullpen. There are three main pieces of the analysis: 1. Teams with ‘pen this bad rarely make the playoffs, 2. when they get there, they don’t win, and 3. The Mets ‘pen was actually good in the first half.

WXRL measures bullpen performance above replacement level.

Here’s Jaffe:

Rank Team       WXRL
  1  Rays       15.3
  2  Phillies   14.3
  4  Angels     13.1
  5  Dodgers    12.1
  7  Astros     11.0
 10  White Sox   9.6
 11  Cubs        9.0
 12  Twins       7.7
 13  Red Sox     7.4
 16  Brewers     7.2
 20  D'backs     5.8
 25  Mets        4.7

The ranking is by overall standings in the majors, and make no doubt about it where the Mets are concerned—that’s ugly. In fact, if the Mets reach the playoffs without much improvement from their bullpen, their WXRL total would rank among the 10 worst for a playoff team since 1988, a year chosen to represent the dawn of the one-inning closer era:

                    League
Year Team      WXRL  Rank  Won
1997 Mariners   0.3   14   Division
2005 Red Sox    0.5   14   Wild Card
2005 Braves     1.1   16   Division
1995 Yankees    1.8   13   Wild Card
1990 Red Sox    2.3   12   Division
2003 Red Sox    3.9   11   Wild Card, Division Series
1988 Red Sox    4.7    8   Division
1992 Braves     4.8    8   Division, Pennant
2002 D'backs    4.9   13   Division
1997 Astros     5.5    7   Division

Not surprisingly, the teams that made the playoffs despite such bullpen problems didn’t last long; only two out of 10 won a playoff series, and nobody won any championships. Limiting the discussion to teams like this year’s Mets who were in the bottom quartile of their respective leagues in WXRL—as I did in performing a recent postmortem of the Diamondbacks—narrows the list to seven, with one series win. This just in: a bad bullpen isn’t part of a winning recipe.

The sad fact is that through the first half of the season, even with Wagner performing at a level far below his peak, the Mets actually had one of the league’s better bullpens; their 6.1 WXRL through the All-Star break ranked third in the NL behind the Phillies and Dodgers. Since then, they’ve been a league-worst 1.4 wins below replacement level as a unit.

The New Orleans Zephyrs finished the 2008 season 66-75 with a crazy 11 inning win as Hurricane Gustav closed in on the Big Easy. The Zephyrs finished their two-year run as a Mets affiliate with a 141-144 record and the American South Division Championship in 2007.

On April 5^th, 2007, in Nashville, the New Orleans Zephyrs began their time as a Mets affiliate with a 4-1 win in a game started by Philip Humber. Anderson Hernandez played shortstop, while Ruben Gotay was his double-play partner at second base. The real excitement for the team appeared to be in the outfield, where Carlos Gomez was in center, Ben Johnson roamed in right, and Lastings Milledge waited in the wings. However, those three talented players almost never played together thanks to injuries, and big league call-ups necessitated by other big league injuries. The ’07 team made a late run, capturing the division before reaching the league finals.

So on April 3^rd, 2008 the Zephyrs hosted the Nashville Sounds to begin their second year as a Mets affiliate. Anderson Hernandez, leading off and playing shortstop, was the only repeat starter from the previous year. Now, he had Argenis Reyes as his double-play partner and Fernando Tatis, to his right, at third.

It’s impossible to write about a AAA team’s season without discussing the interactions with the big league club. Usually, it’s the players who move up and down, but not for the Mets in 2008. Following Willie Randolph’s dismissal in June, manager Ken Oberkfell and pitching coach Dan Warthen were summoned to fill similar roles for the big league team to be replaced by Marty Scott and Rick Waits.

This Zephyrs team though made a strong run in the early part of August only to run out of gas. The Zephyrs fought back from 11 games back on July 30^th to rally within four games of the first place after sweeping four games from Memphis concluding on August 11^th. The Iowa Cubs then beat the Zs in seven straight games ending any hope the Zs had of a post-season berth in 2008.

The Mets and Zs were a marriage of convenience for two seasons. The Mets did little to help the team win, leaving the Zs with a shorthanded roster for the majority of the season. That’s over now. The Buffalo Bisons will demand better starting in 09.

I’ll be commenting on some individual player seasons here later in the day Thursday. Right now, the list includes:

Fernando Tatis

Anderson Hernandez

Chris Aguila

Valentino Pascucci

Jesus Feliciano

Michel Abreu

Jon Niese

Adam Bostick

Brian Stokes

Brandon Knight

Carlos Muniz

Bobby Parnell

Nelson Figueroa

Minorleaguebaseball.com is running a slide show with some of their best pictures of the year. The fourth in the series is a great close-up of Fernando Martinez shattering a bat.