It's hard to look at a 16-15 New York Mets team and call them over-achievers. The team with the second (or third, depending on your source) largest payroll in baseball made waves during the off-season by trading for Johan Santana, but the performance of some of their highest-payed players has been suspect at best.
For example, their clean-up hitter:
Carlos Beltran: .219 BA, 2 HR, 13 RBI, .369 OBP, .390 SLG
And their number five hitter:
Carlos Delgado: .216 BA, 4 HR, 16 RBI, .308 OBP, .362 SLG
The Mets have had some solid production despite the lackluster efforts of these two, from both expected and unexpected sources.
David Wright continues to establish himself as one of the top players in the game, on pace for another 30 home run, 125 RBI season at third base.
Santana has been very solid for an uncertain pitching staff, posting a sub-3.00 ERA. He's showing Mets fans exciting flashes of absolute brilliance between periods of very consistent pitching, and also making Omar Minaya look like a genius (between this and not signing Barry Zito a couple of years ago, this has been a very good year for Minaya)
Billy Wagner is still sporting a trim 0.00 ERA in 12 appearances, notching seven saves thus far while striking out 13. One unearned run and three hits are the only blemishes on his impressive start.
Some of the most surprising contributions, however have come from Ryan Church, a player who was seemingly an afterthought in the trade that sent Lastings Milledge to the Washington Nationals and brought back Brian Schneider (who has also seemingly overacheived, when he's played).
Church's numbers thus far:
.314 BA, 5 HR, 23 RBI, .379 OBP, .508 SLG
Add in the fact that their starting left-fielder, their number two and number five starters, and their starting catcher have all missed significant time this season, and that 16-15 record doesn't look all that bad.
With Brian Schneider (hopefully) healed, Alou finally taking his spot in left field, and Pedro Martinez on the mend, the summer months look promising for the Mets.
-- Tim Fiorvanti