Eleven Takeaways From The World Series

With a hearty congratulation to the Kansas City Royals, a "that was a hell of a season" to the New York Mets, and a "oh crap, 108 days until pitchers and catchers report" for the rest of us:

1. It doesn't matter how good your pitching staff is, it really, really helps if your fielders remember how to catch the ball.
2. It also helps if you remember how to hit. David Murphy may have pounded the hell out of the Dodgers and Cubs, but only one Mets starting position player had a batting average over .250 in the Series.
3. Seriously. Flores, D'Arnaud, Cespedes, Murphy and Wright combined to his .143. By comparison, Bartolo Colon his .138 this year. If you are not outhitting Bartolo, you need to reconsider your approach.
4. Any kind of decent defense at all and the Mets are leading this thing 3-2 and we're headed back to Kansas City and endless sportswriter tweets about BBQ. 
5. I swear. Jeurys Familia's WHIP was 0.60, which will win your fantasy league for you every goddamned year. You want to blame someone in the Mets bullpen for this disaster, blame Tyler Clippard or Addison Reed, both of whom sound like they used to pal around with Gatsby at West Egg.
6. While we're at it, I want to congratulate Addison Reed for accomplishing the rare double play of borking both my fantasy team this year and the World Series. That's a rare combo.
7. For a team nobody thought had a chance going into the season (yes, that means you and all of the other "Oh, the Nationals have the division sewed up" types. Including me), the Mets did a hell of a thing just to get here. And while they may have coughed up multiple leads late, they did manage to lead at some point all five games. So, ultimately, not a bad showing at all.
8. I think every baseball fan outside of the Mets' charmed circle is quietly relieved that Daniel Murphy had an awful World Series, if for no other reason than it quiets the "Oh, yeah, the Yankees are totally gonna sign him for a hunnert million dollars next year" nonsense.
9. Cueto Brothers > Molina Brothers. Sorry, but it's true.
10. And a tip of the hat to Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez, whose father passed away just before Game 1. Volquez has always been a guy with better stuff than results - see the egg he laid last year in the NL Wild Card game for Pittsburgh - but the stuff, when it's on, is electric. And this year, he pitched game 1 not knowing his father had passed away, then came back and took the ball for game 5 of the Series. 6 innings, 2 hits - you can't do much better than that, even under the best of circumstances. 
11. Admit it: You wouldn't have taken out Harvey, either