It’s been a long time since the Mets were in the situation they’re now in: 20 years, in fact. Don’t mistake this team for another in the long line of uninspired crews of rent-a-Mets like the notorious Worst Team Money Could Buy or the ill-fated last gasp of the Steve Phillips era that saw Mo Vaughn and Roberto Alomar headline an attempt to recreate the 1997 All-Star team.

Those teams were awful for a simple reason: The expensive imported talent wasn’t matched to a homegrown core of young players in or nearing their primes. They were Potemkin villages; the aged veterans weren’t support players, but the centerpieces.

This year’s Mets have far more in common with the 1986 Mets than with either of those two teams. Like the last team to bring a world championship to Queens, the fundamental bedrock of the team is young talent: David Wright, Carlos Beltran, and Jose Reyes, along with a host of lesser contributors from bullpen ace Aaron Heilman to right fielder Victor Diaz to rookie second baseman Anderson Hernandez.

The veterans are, of course, important: Pedro Martinez may be the most important player on the team, Carlos Delgado will likely prove its best hitter, and the value of Billy Wagner, probably the best closer in the league, can hardly be overestimated. But for their athleticism, energy, and most important, their capacity for improvement, it’s the younger players who are the heart of this team, just as the 1986 Mets were at heart Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry.

There are flaws here, huge and glaring ones, and it’s entirely possible the hype is out of proportion to how good this team is. The bullpen is shaky, every key veteran has dealt with a potentially serious health problem in camp, and it’s possible the team could get completely unacceptable hitting from catcher, second base, and right field. And, as everyone knows, the Mets are just flat out cursed. But looking at things with the coldest possible eye, this team is easily the equal of Atlanta and Philadelphia, and looking at things with a bit of optimism, it’s hard not to get excited about the possibilities of a team really coming together and seizing the city’s imagination with the kind of lively, joyous play that hasn’t been seen here in years. Whether or not that translates to success we’ll see this year; I think it will.

MANAGER

Willie Randolph may get more undeserved guff than any manager in baseball. Presented last year with a team that was building toward a serious run this year and was missing several serious parts – like a bullpen and a right half of the infield – he distributed playing time well, juiced unexpectedly fine performances out of pitchers like Jae Seo and Aaron Heilman – whom most had given up on – and dealt with the end of Mike Piazza’s career as a Met and the beginning of David Wright’s equally well.

All this was taken for granted as fans jumped all over him for some occasionally daft bullpen maneuvers and a bit of overzealousness with the hit-and-run. Take all his real flaws – a bit of stubbornness, a bit of unimaginativeness, and a taciturnity that doesn’t always play well in New York – and compare them to those of a truly bad manager like the Cubs’ Dusty Baker (who would probably have platooned Wright with Marlon Anderson last year and waged a public campaign to resign Doug Mientkiewicz), and his virtues become more clear.

Whether or not Randolph is truly the man to take the Mets to the next level remains to be seen; we’ll find out this year.

BENCH

Somewhat surprisingly, the Mets have a perfectly acceptable bench. Whichever of Xaiver Nady or Victor Diaz isn’t playing will make a fine pinch-hitter if an extra-base hit is needed; seven-position man Chris Woodward can fill in all over, lay down a bunt, or work a hit and run, Endy Chavez is a perfectly reasonable defensive caddy and pinch-runner, and Ramon Castro is one of the more effective backup catchers in the league.

The difference between a bench like this and that of the Yankees isn’t so much the quality of players as the way they’re used; the difference between a guy like Chavez being your fourth and fifth outfielder is a lot bigger than people realize. A better defensive infielder than Woodward wouldn’t hurt, but he’s a useful player and if that’s the worst thing you can say about a bench that’s not bad at all

BULLPEN

The Mets bullpen is something like the definition of a “Yes, but” situation. Yes, the Mets have an excellent pen, but they traded away two quality starters in Kris Benson and Jae Seo for much of it. Yes, Billy Wagner is a great pitcher, but he’s also 34 years old. Yes, Aaron Heilman was an exceptionally dominant set-up man last year, with a 0.86 ERA after the All-Star break, but wouldn’t he be even better as the fifth starter?

While all of this is true, the end result is that, in Wagner and Heilman, the Mets have two top line relievers, and in Jorge Julio and Duaner Sanchez they have two pitchers capable of closing for a second-division club. Julio has hard, nasty stuff, and it’s possible, if you squint, to see a bit of Armando Benitez in him. Sanchez can pitch literally every day, though he has a problem getting lefties out, as does rare righty situtational reliever Chad Bradford. This weakness is part of what made the Mets put Heilman in the pen (his changeup makes him tougher on lefties than righties), and it also makes the lack of a quality lefty more glaring.

Still, this is a durable pen full of good-to-great pitchers, and if a few things fall right it could well be the best in the league. If nothing else, the improvement from Braden Looper, the worst closer in the league last year, to Wagner should be worth something like 3 or 4 wins, comparable to replacing Steve Trachsel with Roy Oswalt.

tmarchman@nysun.com

Jose Reyes
[2006 PROJECTION: .279/.317/.397, 57 SB]

So Reyes doesn’t walk -if you had his kind of plate coverage and pitchers refused to pitch around you because they didn’t want to put you on base and weren’t afraid you’d hit a home run, how much would you walk? He also doesn’t strike out a lot, and he has a lot of growing to do; the idea is that his speed and contact ability should make him a .310 hitter, enough to get his on-base percentage to an acceptable level and allow him to score 120 runs a year, and that as he fills out he’ll develop 15-home run power. He has a good chance, in other words, of becoming Barry Larkin, and if he doesn’t improve a whit over last year he’ll be a solid regular. More than his walk totals, keep an eye on how he moves to his left. His defensive difficulties are matters of technique and experience, not ability.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
696 190 7 58 .273 .300 .386

Paul Lo Duca
[2006 PROJECTION: .275/.327/.373, 45 R]

Much beloved by Los Angeles beat writers for his intensity, hustle, scrappiness, and so on, Lo Duca is the kind of perfectly adequate veteran who can become an utter millstone if he loses just a little bit of edge. His entire game is based on batting average – every year he hits .285 with just enough walks to post an average on-base percentage and just enough doubles to drive in a few runs. The smallest little dip in that batting average and he’s going to be chewing up outs at a Reyes-like pace, without the power or the speed. He does have an excellent defensive reputation, but frankly, so do most catchers who hit enough to start. Lo Duca is notorious for wearing down in the second half; I’m nowhere near so high on Ramon Castro as many are, but Willie Randolph would be very wise to spell Lo Duca early and often to keep his bat quick and his batting average at the level he needs to be an offensive contributor.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
445 126 6 57 .283 .334 .380

David Wright
[2006 PROJECTION: .299/.385/.530, 17 SB]

The Franchise, and already the best player on the team, Wright has every chance to become the best position player in Mets history. He’s slugged .524 in 229 major league games before turning 23, and still has a few ways to get better – he’s going to develop a bit more opposite field power, move from the 70-walk to the 90-walk level, and start the double play as well as he makes the over-the-shoulder basket catch in foul territory. That’s not to say he’s going to see vast improvements in his game; he’s so mature and well-rounded that there aren’t really many areas where he could get all that much better. The improvements are going to be incremental, more a matter of mastering all the subtleties of the game than seeing a massive development in his ability to hit for power or average. Still, if he just has a normal career path from here on out he’ll be a Hall of Famer. Having a player this good and this cheap gives the Mets an enormous advantage, and the point can’t be emphasized enough that in going for it all while Wright’s salary is still under their control they’ve gotten the most important thing right.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
575 176 27 102 .306 .388 .523

Carlos Beltran
[2006 PROJECTION: .283/.365/.479, 19 SB]

As much of a disappointment as Beltran was last year, he played Gold Glove caliber defense and hit about as well as the average player at his position. That’s not worth $19 million, but when you’re paying David Wright the league minimum and you have “New York” on your hat, you don’t have to win any prizes for efficiency. Considering his track record and the fact that he was playing injured through much of last year, there are real reasons to expect Beltran to play like Bernie Williams in his prime this year. Doubtless if he does it will be chalked up to getting more comfortable with New York in his second year here, despite the plentiude of more plausible explanations.

Carlos Delgado
[2006 PROJECTION: .279/.378/.525, 31 HR]

An absolute monster of a hitter, Delgado ranked third in the league in OPS last year despite playing half his home games in a park even more punishing for hitters than Shea. Despite that, he’s not a great player. He’s possibly the worst first baseman in the majors and a true liability as a runner; he loses enough value with his glove and on the bases that even hitting as he did last year, he’s more an All-Star than an MVP candidate. That’s the bad. The good is that he’s replacing the most miserably inept crew of first sackers in the game. No amount of defensive butchery or tentative turns around the second base bag will ever begin to hurt the Mets the way playing a bunch of second basemen at first did last year. A lot of huff surrounds Delgado, from his feuding with the front office over their negotiating style last year to his refusal to stand for “God Bless America.” None of that will matter to fans as he nears his 35th home run.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
521 157 33 115 .301 .399 .582

Cliff Floyd
[2006 PROJECTION: .275/.359/.485, 23 HR]

You have to wonder if Cliff Floyd has another season like last year in him. It’s not just that he stayed healthy, playing 150 games for just the second time in his career; it’s not even a matter of offense, as he’s had many seasons in which he was better on a per at-bat basis. It’s the defense. Perhaps it was because he was able to cheat over towards the left field line because he had two center fielders to his left; perhaps it was just because he was basically healthy for the first time in a long time; perhaps it was just a fluke. (One thing we’re coming to understand about defense is that fielders have fluke seasons, just like hitters.) Cliff Floyd was, whatever the reason, a marvel in left field last year, chasing down balls in the gaps, pegging runners, backing up Reyes and Wright and generally performing in a way one would think impossible for a 32-year-old man of his size and with his injury history. It was hard to believe he came up as a first baseman and only switched to the outfield after a brutal collision at the bag.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
550 150 34 98 .273 .358 .505

Xavier Nady
[2006 PROJECTION: .274/.332/.447, 11 HR]

Office politics stink, no matter your line of work. Xaiver Nady is a perfectly decent hitter-his career .263/.320/.414 line isn’t very impressive, but consider he’s compiled it in San Diego, home of the most brutal pitcher’s park in the league, and it looks a little better. He can’t run, isn’t a good fielder (though he’s willing to stand in center field and at third base, which helps), and isn’t about to break out and become David Ortiz, but he can help a team. Victor Diaz is the exact same player, save for being 3 years younger and having slugged .477 in the majors. Why is Nady, who had an awful spring, looking like the starter? Because the Mets traded Mike Cameron for him, inspiring widespread disbelief and ridicule. It’s not fair to Nady and it’s certainly not fair to Diaz. There are those who think prospect Lastings Milledge will take over in right by midsummer, but considering that a great deal of his value is in his center field defense and that he’s hit 10 home runs in his last season’s worth of at-bats in A-and AA-ball, it’s not anything I’d get too excited about.

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
326 85 13 43 .261 .321 .439

Anderson Hernandez
[2006 PROJECTION: .263/.309/.351, 19 SB]

Second base was a black hole for the Mets last year, and will continue to be this year. Hernandez is minimally qualified for a starting job in the majors

2005 Stats
AB H HR RBI AVG OBA SLG
18 1 0 0 .056 .155 .056

Pedro Martinez
[2006 PROJECTION:15-8/2.80 ERA/212.3 IP]

Much has been made of the infamous toe injury that’s pushed the start of Martinez’s season back and has convinced many fans that he’s about to collapse into a heap of dust before their very eyes right there on the mound this season. It’s a significant injury, one that has the potential to affect Martinez’s control, command, velocity, and endurance as much if not more so than an arm or back problem. The afflicted toe is the one he rotates as he drives off the mound; go smash your toe with a hammer put all weight on it while grinding it into the ground and whip arm over your head as fast as you can while trying to keep your hips aligned with your shoulders and your head level, and you’ll see what the great man’s problem is. You’ll also appreciate all the more that he pitched with this problem at a Cy Young level last season, shutting out the Braves in late September with a fastball Greg Maddux would have scoffed at. If he can pitch, he’ll be up to his usual standards.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
15-8 217.0 159 68 19 47 208 2.82 0.95

Tom Glavine
[2006 PROJECTION: 11-11/4.02 ERA/211.1 IP]

During the course of a season, a write makes many predictions, very few of which redound to his credit, and very few of which he or anyone else remembers. So I look back on my prediction that Tom Glavine would turn it around after a miserable couple of months last year fondly. The problem, I claimed, was that he had a kink in his delivery that was preventing him from nicking the outside corner, leading to him being behind in the count unusually often. Once he made the minute adjustment that would fix that, he’d be one of the better pitchers in the league. So it was, as the archetypal crafty lefty, whose ERA at the break was 4.94, pitched 2.22 ERA ball after the break. There’s no real reason to expect anything other than 200 innings and a 3.50 – 4.00 ERA this year.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
13-13 211.1 227 83 12 61 105 3.53 1.36

Steve Trachsel
[2006 PROJECTION: 7-7/4.40 ERA/118.2 IP]

Mets fans disposed to gloomy thoughts might recall that during their most recent run of success the whole staff was built around the idea that a deep pen and a bunch of Trachsel-types like Rick Reed, Bobby Jones, and Orel Hershiser was a winning formula. It is. No one likes sitting through one of his interminable starts, but he takes the ball, keeps his team in the game, and all the rest. He’s also, somewhat unbelievably, the longest-tenured Met on the roster, with a term of service as long as David Cone’s.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
1-4 37.0 37 17 6 12 24 4.14 1.32

Victor Zambrano
[2006 PROJECTION: 9-9/4.21 ERA/151.0 IP]

If you read enough about old ballplayers you inevitably come across fortuitous tales of fate and mystery – fingers crippled in a tractor accident allow one to throw an unhittable curveball; a grip accidentally applied gives dancing action to a ball, creating a new out pitch; a broken arm sets badly, gifting a young man with an extra 10 mph on his fastball. If the Mets end up winning the World Series this year, it may be because something similar happens to Zambrano, who seems to have every tool he need to win 15-20 games save the ability to aim the ball at the edge of the plate and watch it end up in the middle. Whether he needs to have a frying pan fall on his foot or what, I have no idea, but if something doesn’t happen it’s going to be more of the same – a .500 record, a perfectly decent ERA that masks all the times he loaded the bases with no outs and ended up leaving after 4 1/3 IP, and much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over what remains the most clearly insane trade in Mets history.

2005 Stats
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
7-12 166.1 170 77 12 77 112 4.17 1.48

Brian Bannister
[2006 PROJECTION: 7-9/4.65 ERA/128.2 IP]

Like Hernandez, Bannister is probably underqualified for his job. As a long man and spot starter he can help a team but there’s just no reason to think that his moxie and 73 moving pitches are ing to be enough for him to be anything more than occasion ally wonderful and occasionally the recipient of brutal thrashings. The upside is that he’s more Jae Seo than Tyler Yates, but this organization hasn’t really put a lot of value on being as good as Jae Seo over the last few years, much to its discredit.

2005 Stats (Double-A)
W-L IP H ER HR BB K ERA WHIP
9-4 109.0 91 31 11 27 94 2.56 1.08