The problem with being a prohibitive favorite to win is that anything less than triumph is bitterly disappointing. Had you told a Mets loyalist three, or even two, years ago that in 2007 their team would finish two games shy of the best record in the league; that David Wright would stake a claim to being the best player in the league; that Jose Reyes would walk 77 times, and that they would end the year finishing up successful negotiations for Johan Santana, that loyalist might not have thought this sounded so bad. One doesn’t need to dissipate the Mets’ failings away with hand-waving and witless optimism to notice that fans of probably 14 or 15 National League teams would gladly trade their problems for those on offer in Queens.

Still, if finishing out of the money last year was disappointing, doing so this year would be calamitous. Last year, the Mets were favorites; this year, with the addition of Santana and the maturation of John Maine and Oliver Perez, they’re vastly better than any other team in the division, with only Chicago anywhere close among all NL teams. Even a season-ending injury to one of the team’s four best players would leave them at rough parity with Atlanta and Philadelphia. This has obvious advantages, but it also puts great pressure on the team — not something they handle well, on evidence of last year.

Talent usually wins, and the Mets have the most talent. This is reason for cheer. But one hates to think of what will happen if talent, for a second straight year, isn’t enough — perhaps a repeat of 1969’s on-field fan riot, only this time conceived in anger rather than joy.

MANAGER

Willie Randolph, as you know, has to win and keep winning if he’d like to keep his job. This is as it should be. The manager always gets the credit when things go right and the blame when things go wrong, and in both cases this is often unfair, but Randolph was directly accountable for several inscrutable choices that directly cost the Mets a playoff spot and millions upon millions of dollars in associated revenues last year. His inexplicable willingness to repeatedly hand the ball to bad relievers in tight games down the stretch in September, his refusal to give Lastings Milledge the playing time he’d earned, and his inability to dispel the evil funk that settled on the team in the last weeks of the season could, individually and collectively, be fairly said to be why the Mets aren’t now gunning for a third straight NL East title.

In two of three seasons, the Mets have played below their talent. Whatever his strengths, this is good reason to think that Randolph isn’t a good enough manager to actively improve his team’s chances. Fortunately for him, all he has to do is not actively damage them. If he can’t do that much — and all that would take is an ability to learn from past mistakes — he has no business running the Mets.

BENCH

Three Mets regulars are fragile, a fourth is a platoon player, and a fifth can’t hit. This makes the very concept of a Mets bench something of a polite fiction. Endy Chavez, Marlon Anderson, Ruben Gotay, Ramon Castro, and the rest will all get plenty of playing time, including many more starts than would be considered ideal in the abstract. Happily, this isn’t really a bad thing: While none of them are outright good hitters, Castro is a good hitter for a catcher, and Chavez is so good in the field that his comparatively weak bat isn’t much of an issue. In fact, given the core strengths of the lineup, defense should dictate the reserve’s playing time. The team’s real weakness in the second half last year was the decline in fielding that accompanied injuries to Chavez and Carlos Beltran, which especially affected the team, given its many fly ball pitchers. In light of this, the team’s fondness for former second basemen seems more than a bit odd (why not get outfielders to play the outfield?), but overall, the team’s benches have been strengths despite on-paper weakness over the last few years, and that seems likely to continue in 2008.

BULLPEN

Past Billy Wagner and Aaron Heilman, the Mets’ bullpen is merely adequate. Pitchers such as Pedro Feliciano and Scott Schoeneweis won’t sink the team, but they aren’t significant assets, either. A big problem is that the relief staff is almost bizarrely homogenous, comprising almost nothing but sinker/slider pitchers, which leaves Randolph and pitching coach Rick Peterson short when it comes to playing tactical matchups to their advantage. This could be fixed in-season with a few shrewd pickups, but over the last few years, Omar Minaya has proved far more adept at surrendering talented relievers in minor trades than acquiring them at all. None of this will likely prove very significant during the season, as with four strong starters and another two (Orlando Hernandez and Mike Pelfrey) laying around with no concrete job assignment, the Mets will be less reliant than usual on relief pitching. In the playoffs, though, the bullpen counts for a lot. This is, and will remain, a serious concern.

Johan Santana • STARTING PITCHER (L) 2008 Projection: 17–7/3.01 ERA/230 IP

There are two basic ways to build a perennial winner. The first, exemplified by Oakland earlier this decade, focuses on gaining every possible marginal advantage in every decision you make; the second is to keep four or five players who rank as the best in the league at their positions on your roster. (If you can do both at the same time, you can build a dynasty.) The Mets take the second approach, and so now boast the most durable and most effective starter in the sport, who happens to have pitched brilliantly in pennant races and playoff games, and happens to have stuff and an approach that make one think he’ll age especially well. One such pitcher can make up for an awful lot of short-sighted decisions.

Pedro Martinez • STARTING PITCHER (R) 2008 Projection: 8–5/3.47 ERA/125 IP

If Martinez has proved one thing as a Met, it’s that unless he’s trying to pitch through a career-threatening injury, nothing really affects his performance. The most encouraging thing about last year’s comeback from a 2006 arm surgery wasn’t his 2.57 ERA or 32/7 K/BB ratio in 28 innings, but the fact that he seemed to have rediscovered some of the zip and movement on his fastball, and thus gave up not a single home run. When he was pitching while hurt, Martinez became unusually prone to the long ball, because he was unusually prone to throwing pitches with nothing at all on them. That problem fixed, there’s no reason to think the maestro won’t pitch near a Cy Young level. He’s at risk of injury, but so are all 36-year-old pitchers, very few of whom can compete for ERA titles.

John Maine • STARTING PITCHER (R) 2008 Projection: 10–7/4.13 ERA/160 IP

Last year, Maine gave up five or more runs in a game twice in the season’s first four months, and five times in the final two. At times throwing while visibly fatigued, he nonetheless pitched his heart out down the stretch, and struck out 14 while giving up one hit on the next-to-last day of the season, keeping the Mets alive to fight down to the last. Having for the first time endured the rigors of a full season in a major league rotation last year, he’s now ready to add the consistency that’s the last missing element in his game. If he does, it will do an awful lot to allay concerns about a thin bullpen and ease pressure on the still-fragile Martinez; if he merely repeats last year, it will be far more than most teams get from the no. 3 spot.

Oliver Perez • STARTING PITCHER (L) 2008 Projection: 9–7/4.30 ERA/150 IP

Like Maine, Perez battled fatigue late in the season, and when tired he’s prone to lose the strike zone entirely. This was a problem, but it’s one that can be solved. Last year was the first in three years he’d spent entirely in a major league rotation so, like Maine it’s reasonable to expect that he’ll show improved durability this year, having a better idea of what it takes to pace and sustain himself through a full year of high-pressure pitching. Two things to keep in mind are that Perez is a strict fastball/ slider pitcher on a staff with two of the great changeup artists of modern times, and that he’s in his walk year and looking at a nine-figure contract if he can put everything together this year at 26. Making the logical connection between these two points will make him fabulously good and fabulously rich.

Billy Wagner • CLOSER (L) 2008 Projection: .290 AVG/.350 OBP/.438 SLG, 62 SB

Wagner, 36, has lost a tick on his fastball over the last few years, which in his case makes the difference between an utterly unhittable closer and a merely excellent one. The main problem is that any period where his arm is sore and his fastball isn’t jumping as usual will leave him a basically ordinary closer, vulnerable to another stretch like the one late last August in which he gave up runs in five straight appearances. More rest may be in order, but there’s no real solution to the problem of a pitcher just getting older, and that’s what’s happening to Wagner. Given his approach, it’s not something he’s likely going to be able to solve with a new trick pitch or deeper study of batter tendencies; if he’s not throwing deadly flames, he’s a middle reliever and not an especially distinguished one.

Jose Reyes • SHORTSTOP 2008 Projection: .290 AVG/.350 OBP/.438 SLG, 62 SB

So much was made of Reyes’s season-ending slump — he hit .205/.279/.333 in September, looking worn down and truly lost for the first time in his career — that one might easily overlook the extraordinary gains he made last year. He improved his defense to a Gold Glove level and, granting that many of them were intentional, he also drew 77 walks last year, against 78 strikeouts. Together with his speed, this kind of ratio implies a much higher batting average than last year’s .280, and I expect him to settle in at or above .310 for the next few years. Even if he doesn’t improve to that level, either a slight gain in power or improved consistency will result in a monster campaign this year.

Luis Castillo • SECOND BASE 2008 Projection: . 289/.361/.341, 77 R

Castillo may not be durable, may not hit for much more power than Pedro Martinez, may be all reputation and no performance in the field, and may be a terrible bet to do anything useful after next year, but the Mets want to win a flag this year, and his on-base skills and speed make him better than other realistic options. That said, Jeff Keppinger is likely to match Castillo’s OBA and top his slugging average by at least 100 points while playing shortstop for the minimum salary in Cincinnati this year. Like several other of their problems, this one is of the Mets’ own making.

David Wright • THIRD BASE 2008 Projection: .276/.363/.501, 91 RBI

While it’s now remembered dimly if at all, when Wright went the first month without hitting a home run, extending a power outage that reached back to the 2006 All-Star Game, there was serious fretting among Mets fans over the possibility that he’d come down with some variant strain of Steve Blass disease. As it turned out, this was all part of the process of maturation and adjustment all young players go through; he tore the league apart over the last five months and staked a claim to being the best player in the league, a claim I expect him to firmly cement this year by playing at his best for a full season. Wright is what distinguishes the Mets from a half-dozen good but flawed National League teams, and he’s become a franchise player in every possible sense.

Carlos Beltran • CENTER FIELD 2008 Projection: .276/.363/.501, 91 RBI

When Beltran signed his $119 million contract, many if not most observers thought he was grotesquely overpaid, an impression not helped by persistent rumors that he’d begged the Yankees to sign him for $30 million less. Three years later, the contract looks like a ridiculous bargain next to the likes of Barry Zito’s $126 million deal. Beltran is the best hitter and best fielder in the league at his position, and his only real flaw is his penchant for missing two weeks every year. Given his broad range of talents and unusual athleticism, he’s an excellent bet to stay at his current level for years to come.

Carlos Delgado • FIRST BASE 2008 Projection: .265/.343/.471, 74 RBI

At this point, Delgado is a liability relative to the average first baseman, and with any slippage from last year, he’ll be one relative to the average hitter. This comes as no surprise, given the aging patterns of slow first basemen in their mid-30s, but the Mets are committed to him for this year and have to hope for the best. As much of Delgado’s decline is the result of his decreasing ability to hit left-handed hitters and increasing susceptibility to injury, probably the best thing would be to only him against right-handed hitters, thus protecting him and giving him regular rest, but as of now there is no reason to think this will happen. Still, if Delgado is among your weaker hitters, your lineup is fine, and there is even a chance that we may see something of a dead cat bounce from him this year.

Moises Alou • LEFT FIELD 2008 Projection: .307/.368/.485, 45 RBI

Alou’s annual sabbatical comes early this year, as he’ll miss at least the first month while recovering from hernia surgery. Over such a short period of time, the drop-off between him and the assortment of fourth outfielders who will replace him won’t cost the Mets much more than a win or so, but it does highlight the problems inherent in relying on players who are excellent when healthy but aren’t good bets to be healthy very often. The Alou injury makes the decision to trade off Lastings Milledge look even more questionable than it did in December. Every team should be wary of trading off young, cheap players with star potential, but contenders with thin, brittle outfields should be especially so.

Ryan Church • RIGHT FIELD 2008 Projection: .267/.349/.472 16 HR

It’s easy to understand why the Mets didn’t want to put up with Milledge’s antics, and traded him this winter. The line between being vaguely inflammatory but basically harmless and actively damaging a team’s reputation is a thin one, but if you accept that the Mets are touchy about these things, trading him for Church and Brian Schneider is understandable. The ironic part of it is that Milledge’s bad reputation came about largely as a result of being clueless, while Church got into trouble in Washington for making actively offensive religious comments. The silliness of the situation shows why — unless a player is doing something like beating his wife or driving drunk — it’s probably best just to on on . a good player who can’t hit lefties, but otherwise won’t be much worse than Milledge this year.

Brian Schneider • CATCHER 2008 Projection: .242/.319/.344 34 RBI

You can be sure that much will be made of Schneider’s on-field leadership and grittiness this year, given that he carries a rolled-up newspaper to the plate. With the injury to Alou and Delgado’s decline, the Mets would really be well-served to give the bulk of the playing time to Ramon Castro, but between concerns over how he’d hold up under a full workload and concerns about his defense, a starting job just doesn’t seem to ever be in the cards for him. This could be a problem — Schneider’s slugging average could be lower than his OBA, and his OBA will most likely be below .330. Think a slow Rey Ordonez.