Fernando Martinez the "Anti-Milledge"

Walter Villa over at SI.com wrote a great piece on Fernando Martinez. You can check it out at this link.

I REALLY hope Martinez pans out to be half the prospect the Mets are predicting. Its been a LONG time - like since Darryl Strawberry - since the Mets had a big time outfield prospect that really panned out.

Think of the clunkers we thought we going to be huge: Jay Payton, Alex Escobar, Roger Cedeno... It would be really nice to have a homegrown outfielder with big talent.

I hate to say it, but the Yankees built those great late nineties teams on a homegrown core (Jeter, Posada, Bernie Williams, Pettite, Rivera) and a few quality free-agents (David Wells, Paul O'Neill, David Justice). I feel like the Mets are almost to that same stage. Wright & Reyes are a great home-grown start. In Pelfrey, Joe Smith, and Fernando Martinez pan out, that will give us a base like the Yanks had in '96. You add quality free agents with a good number of years left in 'em (Beltran, Delgado, Santana, Oliver Perez) and the Mets could be as dominant as those Yankees teams.

That's a lot of "ifs", but as all Mets fans, I'm hopefully pessimistic. Inwardly, I always think THIS is the year. Outwardly, I tell everyone that we'll lose. That's our culture! Hopeful pessimism or Cautious Optimism.