Excerpt: "Offseason Catchup, NL East"

"The Mets should have simply stayed the course with the team they had, and patched with low-level free agents like Young and their own middling prospects. That's how they found Juan Lagares in the first place. No amount of money spent on third-tier free agents was going to change the team's short-term outlook, which was dimmed when Matt Harvey went under the knife. That injury actually gave the Mets an out for 2014, a chance to tell their fans that they're going to be ready for Harvey's return in '15, if the fans will just stick it out one more year. Instead, the front office chased the cheap thrill of signing veterans who aren't going to change things in Queens one iota. It's a shame, because enough good things happened in 2013, in the majors and on the farm, to create hope for 2015. Next year should have been more of the same. Now, it's not clear what it will be, other than more expensive."