Duh.

Dickey will be the last Mets-related entry in the TedQuarters Top 10 Things of 2010. I considered including the hiring of Sandy Alderson somewhere, but it seems inappropriate to bestow such a weighty honor upon the decision (and the general manager) until we see the team Alderson constructs play some ballgames and everything.

And R.A. Dickey, certainly the shiniest bright spot in a mostly dark season for the Mets, deserves recognition here. A 35-year-old journeyman with no ulnar collateral ligament, Dickey harnessed the mesmerizing powers of the knuckleball and enjoyed a career season: He posted a 138 ERA+ in 174 1/3 innings, induced a ton of groundballs and kept runners off base. Mixing speeds with his signature pitch, He flummoxed Major League hitters from May to September.

Dickey’s on-field contributions didn’t end there. A ferocious competitor, he swiftly established himself as an excellent defensive pitcher. And at the plate, Dickey posted a .296 on-base percentage, equaling or bettering the season line of five position players in the Mets’ Opening Day lineup (!). Got the bunts down when he had to, put the ball in play when he had to, even smacked a couple of doubles. Just a good baseball player.

All of that, in sum, probably would have been enough to help Dickey crack the Top 10 Things of 2010. We like redemption stories, after all, and in a purely baseball sense his is a great one. Former first-round draft pick develops a knuckleball late in his baseball life, figures it out, dominates.

But then on top of all that, there’s R.A. Dickey the dude. Turns out the Mets’ knuckleballer himself recognizes the universal appeal of the knuckleball. He loves literature and poetry, and he reads before games. His last name is “Dickey.” He would like to be a ball boy at the U.S. Open, but he’s unwilling to part with his beard. He makes an awesome face when he throws. He is accessible to blogger and Burkhardt alike. The guy is a fan’s dream; great story, obvious dedication, interesting fellow.

Still, I’m certain that the most endearing thing about Dickey, to fans, is the outstanding performance in 2010. Moving forward, if Dickey regresses a little bit as the league catches up to him, it will be interesting to see how fans react. Naturally some of us will always have a soft spot in our hearts for a pitcher/poet, but I wonder if, at some point after two lousy starts happen to fall on consecutive outings for Dickey, we’ll have to suffer WFAN callers and incensed Tweeters demanding Dickey take his head out of his Dumas and start watching more game film, or something stupid like that.

For now, though, we can hope that never happens, and that Dickey only continues to baffle opposing hitters and enthrall adoring fans.

Over at MetsBlog today, Matt Cerrone took issue with Ben Shpigel’s assertion that the Mets, “in all likelihood,” would not contend in 2011. I can’t fault Shpigel for the prediction — the Mets, as we all know, are coming off two sub-.500 seasons, have made few roster moves, and will start the year without Johan Santana in their rotation.

But as Matt points out, unpredictable things happen in baseball all the time. I didn’t talk to Cerrone about the post, but if I had to guess I would assume it was at least in part motivated by the sense of fatalism that seems to be growing in Mets fans, especially since the Phillies signed Cliff Lee. There’s nothing wrong with making predictions and taking stabs at what will likely happen, as Shpigel does. Writing off any team entirely before the season even starts is silly.

For what it’s worth, last winter I listed both the Reds and the Padres as “unlikely to contend” in my National League preview for the Maple Street Press Mets Annual. Captain Hindsight can look back now and identify the ways in which both clubs were primed to compete, but at the time it hardly seemed I was taking controversial positions.

Anyway, on to the point. If we’re talking optimistically and trying to figure out the things that reasonably could happen to launch the Mets into contention, I’ll point out that the Mets might have a very good offense next season.

Fangraphs currently lists two 2011 projections for most players — Bill James’ version, and their crowdsourced fan projections. In most cases, the two are reasonably similar. Because I’m trying to see the cup half-full for the sake of this post, I took the better of the two projections for everyone slated to be in the Mets’ lineup and plugged them into David Pinto’s lineup analysis tool.

I even gave Josh Thole a bit of a boost, figuring Ronny Paulino will take some at-bats away against tough lefties. Since Thole was projected at a .358 OBP and a .378 slugging by the fans, I unscientifically bumped those numbers up to .360 and .415, seeing as Paulino has a lifetime .390 OBP and .490 slugging against lefties. I’m painting in broad strokes here.

I plugged in Daniel Murphy for second base, which assumes he can capably man the position. His Bill James projection seemed so optimistic that I didn’t bother adjusting it for any sort of platoon. James’ system projects Murph to post a .339 OBP and .455 slugging in 2011, which would put him among the top handful of second basemen offensively.

Anyway, with a lineup of Jose Reyes, Angel Pagan, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Jason Bay, Ike Davis, Murphy and Thole/Paulino all performing up to the most optimistic of reasonable projections, the Mets would score just short of five runs per game (4.959, to be exact) according to the tool.

That’s nearly a full run per game better than the Mets scored last season. It would have made them the NL’s top offensive club in 2010.

Obviously the system is not perfect for a variety of reasons. For one, it assumes all players play 162 games at their positions, which clearly won’t happen. There’s a dropoff when you start plugging in bench players for the starters, and even in full health every team needs to plug in bench players with some frequency.

But even despite the team’s impotent offense last year, I don’t think it’s crazy to expect the Mets to score a lot of runs next season. There’s no obvious gaping hole in the lineup, and amazing things can happen when you replace out machines with capable Major Leaguers. Subbing in Jeff Francoeur’s 2010 Mets line for Beltran and Rod Barajas’ for Thole/Paulino would cost the team about a half-run per game, per the tool. (Pinto’s script fails to factor in smiles and leadership.)

If the Mets could only prevent runs as well as they did last year, using the Pythagorean win expectancy formula with that lineup projection, they’d finish with right around 100 wins. So that, well, that’d be cool.

Problem is, it’s just not that likely to happen. The Mets enjoyed very good pitching last year, but they also had a healthy Santana throw 199 innings. Jon Niese and R.A. Dickey, two of the three starters penned in for the 2011 rotation, experienced lasting big-league success for the very first time in 2010. And throwing Murphy in at second base could have repercussions for the defense.

The Mets lineup, as currently constituted, probably won’t score 800 runs. But it will probably be pretty good. That is what we can hold onto until April. That and the knowledge that lots of crazy things happen in baseball.

I’d say neither of those things makes the Mets likely to contend in 2011, but together they should be enough for us to recognize that it’s not downright impossible for the Mets to contend in 2011.

This came up on the Mets Interactive thing today. You’ll see what I (haphazardly) answered later, but I’m curious to see your take.

[poll id=”12″]

One of the overlooked stories concerning the impact Sandy Alderson has already had on the Mets’ roster concerns the values he’s managed to pick up. Saving money at the margins is vital, and quite different from failing to address issues of secondary talent and depth. Indeed, spending less for the same player affords a team the chance to add both depth and a big-ticket item worth signing when one hits the market.

So let’s compare Matt Guerrier, who agreed to a three-year, $12 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and D.J. Carrasco, who Alderson signed for two years, $2.5 million last week.

– Howard Megdal, New York Baseball Digest.

Howard makes some good points here. Guerrier has been a very good reliever in five of the last six seasons and Carrasco has only been doing it for two and a half, so certainly the Dodgers paid for certainty. But given the deals given out to Guerrier and Jesse Crain this week, Carrasco looks like a bargain.

I think for now, optimistic Mets fans like Howard and myself will have to point to Sandy Alderson’s more subtle savvy moves. I spent the last several years bleating on about the way in which the Mets were wasting money and roster spots at the margins of their roster, with the Marlon Andersons and Julio Francos and Abraham Nunezes of the world.

But, as I was discussing with Will Davidian this morning, Alderson has an opportunity to create a pretty fearsome bench on the cheap if he uses the right mix of in-house options and free agents. Ronny Paulino gives the Mets a backup catcher that’s actually a useful hitter against lefties. Likely Brad Emaus or Justin Turner (or perhaps both) will be on the squad, reserve middle infielders that might get on base now and then.

If the Mets pursue and acquire Fred Lewis, with whom they were linked earlier this offseason, they’d have a useful fourth outfielder that wouldn’t be a hole in the lineup when one of the starters needed a rest. Throw in a one or two of the Mets’ young power hitters and corner players from the Minors — Lucas Duda and/or Nick Evans, say — and you’ve got a bench full of guys that present real offensive value. And they’re guys that, unlike Alex Cora and Gary Matthews Jr., show at least some promise that they can be more than bench guys if everything falls in their favor.

So there’s that. They’re still going to need some guys to start games though.