It is hard not to put a negative slant on everything Mets related these past few months. As afforded to me by my other line of employment, I got a chance to listen to Darryl Strawberry’s comments to reporters during yesterday’s Thurman Munson Dinner in Yonkers. Despite his pulling no punches, the Straw Man created some positive vibes for me….a glimmer of hope that the Mets prospects of recovery are not as dreary as we all think. Not surprisingly, Darryl believes it all starts with the guy at the top of the lineup.

“You got Reyes coming back. He’s a big part of what they do, getting on base, running, getting him back at the top of the order is a plus. David Wright, I believe he is going to bounce back and have a great year. I mean he struggled last year because there was no pieces in the lineup for him. No protection. There wasn’t Carlos Beltran. There wasn’t Carlos Delgado. They have the capability. It’s just a matter of  ’are we confident enough?’…’do we believe in ourself’?'…’are we too sensitive about dealing with the media?’”

So obviously Strawberry, who we must note is now employed by the Mets, was doing his best to say that not all is lost with this franchise. On the flip side of the coin, Darryl wasn’t shy when assessing his disappointment over what the Mets “accomplished” in the offseason.

“It could have been better. You could have put a couple more pieces in the puzzle. I know they signed Jason Bay, but the big loss was the Beltran situation. This team if they want to get over the hump, they need Carlos Beltran in the lineup and to perform like he’s capable of performing to help this team move forward. When you look at pitching (they need) a little more pitching. Hopefully guys will bounce back. Pelfrey , Maine will bounce back this year. (Johan) Santana’s gonna be Santana. You gotta get other guys in the rotation to be able to come through and I think that is important for them.”

Darryl hit on what every other Mets fan is thinking at this point. They have Johan and then four other big, fat question marks in the rotation. To that point, Jon Heyman in his latest SI.com column agrees with Darryl in his assessment of the Mets offseason failures.

Man! I was trying my hardest to be positive for a change in this space and low and behold, the conversation gravitates toward negativity. You just can’t escape it as a Mets fan these days. The only cure as we all know….winning.

(Adam Garnett is the lead blogger for Rising Apple.  Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)