There is no easy way to determine a “great” piece of writing. It is all rather subjective, as this list is. Quite simply, these were my favorite pieces of 2008.

January 4th: Jeff Matthews started off the year with a very prescient observation about how Brian Schneider’s defensive skills may or may not actually have existed. Mostly not.

January 10th: John Peterson went over the winners and losers in the National League offseason at that point. I guess we all figured out why JC Romero got that three year deal. It was one of my favorite pieces in January though.

January 21st: Jeff figured out what we could expect from Carlos Delgado. He ended up with a .871 OPS, for reference.

January 30th: Some guy named Johan got traded to the Mets. The staff reacted, but the majority of it ends up reading kind of funny when you look at how poor the prospects the Twins ended up with did.

January 31st: I went over what the Mets still had to fix after the Johan trade. They never did get that backup outfielder or real third catcher. Food for thought this offseason, Omar.

February 5th: Guest Sky Kalkman went over Mets fielders past and present, giving us our second DJ Dozier reference of the offseason.

February 7th: I wrote a list of things that I was dead wrong about in retrospect. After this lookback, we’ll have more to add to that list!

March 5th: Alex wrote his second piece over terrific Mets names. Personally, I was excited to learn more about Pumpsie Green.

March 10th: MetsGeek alum and interviewer extraordinaire Aaron Dorman sat down with Bryan Hoch, who ran Mets Online back in the day. I lived at that message board for most of high school.

March 24th: Jessica Bader looked at ten new additions to her previous top ten Mets plays in 2007 by WPA in Magic Moments, Part II.

March 25th: Dan Scotto had a well-rationalized idea about bringing in Reed Johnson, who would go on to become a very good bench player in exactly the role Dan described. Just for the Cubs instead of the Mets.

March 31st: The Geek staff came up with laughably funny preseason predictions. John McLaren, why hast thou forsaken me?

April 4th: Willie Randolph a failure? That’s news to me! But not to John, who brought up more reasons than just his in-game managing.

April 17th: BPro writer and Facebook friend Marc Normandin looked at Claudio Vargas and his impact on the Mets.

April 30th: Jeff answered one of the great questions of our time: What in the ####, exactly, is a Nelson Figueroa?

May 2nd: Aaron scored another big hit for the Geek with his interview with the New York Observer’s Howard Megdal.

May 8th: Jeff worried about Mike Pelfrey during his rocky start. See, I wasn’t the only one that was laughably wrong about making him a reliever!

June 4th-6th: Alex keyed the best Mets draft coverage on the net, with a stellar preview, an impressive liveblog, and a thorough recap.

June 11th: Pat Andriola took a look at Jon Niese’s eventual impact on the Mets.

June 17th: I defended Omar Minaya after he came under fire early in the season during the team’s rash of injuries and poor play. I still stand by that.

June 18th: Willie Randolph finally got canned, Oh happy day! We held a roundtable about it. That part about Jerry Manuel maybe being more patient than Randolph with the bullpen was pretty funny.

July 2nd: Pat checked in with another profile on a big name Mets prospect, this time it’s Wilmer Flores, who I’m willing to bet is still just another name to most people who follow the Mets, as he’s so young.

July 7th: John reviewed The Soul Of Baseball and The Cheaters Guide To Baseball, both of which I would also recommend if you are looking for post-holiday reading material.

July 29th-31st: The trading deadline went and passed without any big explosions. John was rightfully worried, I mistakenly advocated Raul Ibanez and completely forgot to even take into account for his terrible defense.

August 4th, 11th, and 13th: The state of the bullpen began to get depressing, and several Geeks keyed in articles about it. Dan argued for more defensive substitutions, I railed on how the Mets needed to be less situational, and Pat made the case that Eddie Kunz could be the answer.

September 23rd: Mike Newman looked at his Minor league All-Stars for the Mets over their entire field of affiliates.

September 22nd-27th: Aaron culminated a full-scale retrospective of Shea Stadium by interviewing several prominent writers on their feelings about the move and the old dump. Matt Cerrone, Matt Silverman, Howard Megdal, Adam Rubin, and finally the Geeks themselves, in two parts, lended their perspectives on the whole thing. It’s not like anything else exciting was happening in September.

October 7th: Omar saw things my way when I created my plan for the offseason changes to the bullpen.

October 22nd: Guest columnist RJ Anderson helped RaysGeek jump on the wagon with a thorough introduction to the Rays

November 11th: James Kannengeiser took an in-depth look at plate discipline and the effects it has on the Mets hitters.

November 20th: Dan looked over the schedule for next year and popped up with his usual collection of random thoughts and blurbs on it.

November 25th: Alex checked in with lessons the Mets could learn from the Phillies. No mention of building an offense of power hitters and playing in a bandbox

December 11th: Mike scribbled a nice piece on why the Mets should consider dealing for Delmon Young. Of course it will never actually happen because of the Wilpons, but it was good reasoning.

December 23rd: I came up with a new series and went over the failings of the 1970’s Mets.

On behalf of everyone at the Geek, I hope everyone has a good holiday and a safe and happy new year. I know I can get somewhat busy and take my criticism and comments for granted, but I hope you all understand how much we appreciate your feedback and enjoy having you as our audience. Hopefully next year the Mets play up to the quality of these pieces as well so we can have happy things to talk about.