There's no such thing as an idea too good to "adapt" (you know, the way Rickey Henderson would "adapt" bases). In 1980, when a baseball strike loomed, Joe Gergen of Newsday started the Short-Season Awards, honoring the best players in the game from Opening Day to late May. A strike was averted, but he brought back the SSAs in '81 as play was halted. He kept it going for several springs thereafter.

Great idea, Joe. In your honor, we are rushing to judgment and honoring the Mets who have defined the first four weeks of the 2005 season. The rules are simple: We react/overreact to what we've seen over the first 25 games. We try to be so fair that it hurts. And we make no guarantees that anything we've seen will carry over to the next 25 games or 25 minutes.

Besides, around here, it's never too early to reminisce.

Mets Valuable Players
1) Cliff Floyd: Has anybody noticed this is the guy we used to fear when he was a Marlin? We haven't had anybody this hot since, well, Cliff Floyd in August '03, but that almost didn't count since he was taking some farewell swings before going in for more surgery. He's healthy and he's spectacular.
2) Pedro Martinez: Turned the season around in his second start. Turned the franchise around the same day.
3) Victor Diaz: Eight miles high and falling fast, but what a ride while it lasted. (We rush to judge, so we've already put him in the past-tense; we can be dissuaded.)
4) Doug Mientkiewicz: How many errors do the second baseman, shortstop and third baseman have? How many would they have without Minky? Bonus points for the way the "Z" on the back of his road uniform is practically shaking hands with the "N" on the front.
5) Roberto Hernandez: He is what stands between this being an adequate bullpen and a fire hazard.

Not So Much Valuable Players
1) Victor Zambrano: Nobody's done more to advance the cause of On-Base Percentage.
2) Kaz Matsui: He was considered one of the best infielders in Japan. Turns out infielder is a very unimportant position in Japan.
3) Tom Glavine: It's not the strike zone, Tom. It's you.
4) Mike Piazza: There used to be an all-star here.
5) Jose Reyes: Nobody's done less to advance the cause of On-Base Percentage.

The Season's Still Young (Cy)
1) Pedro in Atlanta.
2) Pedro in Atlanta (it was that good).
3) Heilman's one-hitter, particularly for the 99% of Mets fans who fret their pants over the "matchup" with Josh Beckett.
4) Ishii matching zeroes with Clemens, the Hall of Fame jerk.
5) Seo cruising in his first game back (to think it was almost Manny Aybar taking the start).

The Season's Still Young (Anthony)
1) Looper Opening Day; he's still not quite forgiven.
2) Any Zambrano start. Any.
3) Tom Glavine is The Manchurian Brave.

Short-Term Memory Memorial
1) Willie Randolph can't double-switch.
2) Heath Bell is being held hostage.
3) Mike Cameron will be ready for Opening Day.
4) David Wright can't get out of his slump.
5) Jose Reyes has to keep being aggressive.

Trend of the World As We Knew It
1) Mets Can't Win (0-5 start).
2) Mets Can't Lose (6-0 response).
3) Mets Can't Be Gotten Out (second game in Philly).
4) Mets Can't Score (particularly in Washington).
5) Al Leiter Won't Shut Up (but we don't care anymore).

Suspiciously Absent From Conversation
1) Carlos Beltran, but he'll be loud enough in due time.
2) Mike DeJean.
3) Eric Valent.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things
1) Leaving the Basia concert at Westbury to learn Aaron Heilman one-hit the Marlins.
2) Leaving Shea after the Pedro-Al hookup and joining in a mass wave-and-shout at the first 7 train we saw.
3) Leaving John Franco talking to himself after giving him a nice hand.
4) All the new bench guys: Anderson, Castro, Cairo, Woodward; they rock.
5) Those eighth-inning rallies which briefly became habit-forming.

These Are Not
1) Those Subway commercials.
2) Looper Opening Day (nope, still not forgiven).
2) That tease of a ninth-inning uprising against Kolb and the Braves.
3) Finally realizing just how much Shea blows, even if RFK is worse.
4) No starts from Trachsel or Benson.
5) We're still paying Art Howe.

OK, I've officially had it with the cable blackout. This was my first chance to see a full game in a week, and it brought home how many things I've missed and how many things you can't tell from the radio, even when you're in good hands with Gary and Howie. Like except for his wheels-fell-off inning, Aaron Heilman's stuff looked good -- life, movement, mixing fastball and change effectively, hitting spots, and most importantly he didn't seem scared of his own repertoire. And watching David Wright suddenly snapped him back into focus for me -- I love the way he holds his bat vertically before him, like a knight with a broadsword, and seems to commune with it before stepping back into the box. I should be used to that sight by now, and filing it away in my mind as the thing that identifies Wright as Wright, letting me know him from even a split-second glance. Fricking Dolans.

And, of course, it was nice to see the team show some fight beyond indignation amid the death throes. They hung tough, pounced and won, and something told me they would once Heilman rebounded. It was nice to watch a game with some confidence. (It'd be nicer to put .500 solidly below us, of course.)

Semi-random observations:

* Joe Morgan is even more of a dolt than I'd remembered. I thought his defense of Reyes was nonsensical, and suspect it's one of his reflexive I-hate-stats-geeks bloviations. (The great irony about his hating Billy Beane's Michael Lewis' book is that Morgan was a terrific "Moneyball" player, but that's well-trodden ground, so I'll simply register my disapproval and move on.) Don't tell me insisting Jose Reyes learn the strike zone and get the most out of his considerable talent will somehow ruin him by "taking away his aggressiveness." Somebody better take away some of his aggressiveness -- he's popping up 0-1 sliders two feet off the plate and seeing a Ryan Thompsonesque number of pitches. This team isn't going anywhere with a leadoff hitter with a .265 OBA. Time to rein him in, preferably by hitting him eighth. And Ol' Joe apparently doesn't look at the monitor, either: Cristian Guzman's infield single didn't happen because Mientkiewicz slipped and Roberto Hernandez had to slow down to take the throw. It happened because Hernandez got caught spectating on the mound and broke for the bag late -- even if Minky fields it cleanly, Guzman gets to the bag first. I think the long-dormant portions of Joe Morgan's brain are swelling up and scrambling the signals traveling along his optic nerves. Maybe that elbow pump was an early sign of some kind of neural trouble.

* Speaking of Cristian Guzman, he plays this game like the drunk guy on the company softball team. He'll get the most heat for his attempted steal of third with one out in the seventh (apparently Guzman missed a sign -- what's the Nats' signal for "Don't do anything dimwitted"?) but going for the triple in the ninth was silly too. Tiny upside, basically infinite downside. It's like some mean teammate told him there are cookies hidden under third base.