Tag: mlb

Mets Camp is Quiet; Too Quiet

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The top stories of Mets Spring Training so far have been:

1) Yoenis Cespedes owns nice cars and drives them to camp.

2) Cespedes made waffles on the first day of camp and probably flipped the whisk once he crushed breakfast.

3) Jacob deGrom tripped while running (probably with Jerry “Magoo” Blevins) and then his deGroin hurt for 12 hours but now its fine.

4) David Wright has the spine of an 80 year old man and can’t ride the bus on spring road trips because that makes it hurt.

5) Cespedes wears his hat backwards and Terry Collins does not like that and plans to tell him.

That last story about Terry planning to confront Cespedes over his backwards hat is almost not believable. I mean maybe we don’t know all the details. Maybe the back of the hat smelled and Terry couldn’t stand the stench. Or maybe it wasn’t an actual Mets hat. Or maybe Cespedes met Terry at a church for a funeral and refused to take his hat off. I mean if a backwards hat is an actual problem for Terry and other elderly managers, then I think I see how he got the reputation as a clubhouse “distraction”. I guess Terry has been too distracted by the orientation of Cespedes’ hat to notice that the team spends half the day standing in the Tradition Field parking lot staring at Cespedes’ rocket cars.

Listen, I am not complaining about the lack of news coming out of camp. No news is good news. All I’m saying is stay alert. Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t get caught off guard because we are Mets fans and the other shoe always drops. Speaking of the other shoe dropping, today is Spring Training physical day where Ray Ramirez checks the players for testicular lumps. I think physical day should just be cancelled as absolutely nothing good can come out of it.

Also, runner up for top story of camp was the arrival of Fred Wilpon’s dog Blue. Blue’s full name is Jackie Robinson and undoubtedly lives in a doghouse modeled after Ebbets Field. And his doghouse reeks of Kirkland Signature dog food or “whatever is on sale”.

MLB Slide Day; Stopwatch Era Begins

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MLB finally came out with their revised rules in response to the Chase Utley takeout slide that ended the 2016 postseason for Ruben Tejada. How about a big round of applause for MLB, as it only took them 5 months to respond to something so simple and straightforward.

So here is what they came up with:

“A runner is still allowed to make contact with the pivot man, provided the following four conditions are satisfied:

  1. He begins his slide (i.e., makes contact with the ground) before reaching the base;
  2. He is able and attempts to reach the base with his hand or foot;
  3. He is able and attempts to remain on the base (except home plate) after completion of the slide; and
  4. He slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.

As well, the runner may not engage in a ‘roll block,’ or intentionally initiates (or attempts to initiate) contact with the fielder by elevating and kicking his leg above the fielder’s knee or throwing his arm or his upper body.”

So there it is. It took them 5 months to come up with that, and quite frankly it is completely and utterly meaningless. I see it as nothing, but a pointless rebranding of the already muddied takeout slide rules. The first point would be meaningful if we were addressing the sliding style of Pete Rose in the 1970 All-Star Game, but at this point in time all the players are starting their slide before they reach the base. The second and third points say “attempt” to reach the base and stay on the base. It’s going to be real fun watching umpires debate “an attempt” for 162 games. And the final point is the key one in my mind and will ultimately determine the success of the rule. The runner can’t change his “pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder”.

This is going to come down to one simple thing: Look at the base. I know it says “pathway”, but they really mean the runner shouldn’t shift his focus from base to fielder. It is going to become the “look at the base” rule. Chase Utley, Chris Coghlan and all the other hard-nosed players are going to have to sell the legitimacy of their slide by staring at the base the entire time. When Coghlan and Utley crushed Kang and Tejada, they both had their arm extended and made varying attempts to touch the base. Utley didn’t make much of an attempt to stay on the base, and technically his move was a “roll block” because he threw his upper body. But an adjustment to avoid the definition of a “roll block” can easily be made by the dirty players. They just need to stay low and reach for the base. Chris Coghlan stayed low and reached for the base when he took out Jung Ho Kang. But almost all these dirty slides involve the runner visibly shifting his focus and attention from the base to the fielder. They all look up or to the side or wherever the fielder is standing. And from now on, all they are going to do is keep their arm out and their face aimed at the bag.

All the rule deliberation is pointless. It always has been. The only way to eliminate this practice is for the umpires to consistently call the runners out. If they consistently side with the fielder then the practice will die out. It’s no different than helmet to helmet hits in the NFL. Once the referees threw the flag the players adjusted and now most guys aim low. If the umps call the runners out, they’ll give themselves up, slide as a mere formality, and the takeout strategy will become non-existent. Let’s just hope that the umps protect the fielders all season and ignore all the complaining sure to come from baserunners and old school managers.

Pace of Play Miracle: The other announcement from MLB today, was the beginning of the stopwatch era. Now mound visits by managers and pitching coaches will be 30 second timed visits. Hooray. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. The league has yet to expand on these ground breaking pace of play developments but I am assuming any arguments about violations of the 30 second clock will be limited to 60 seconds for each manager and any challenges to the 60 second manager objection will be sent to the replay center in New York for review.

The second pace of play change is the one I find appalling. Now break timers between innings will mirror the time allotted to broadcasters between innings: 2:05 for locally televised games and 2:25 for nationally televised games, a reduction of 20 seconds each from the 2015 season. I don’t know about you, but if this takes away one single Cellino and Barnes or Grand Prospect Hall commercial on SNY I am going to lose my mind.

MLB’s First World Problems: Qualifying Offers and “Tanking”

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tanking

All offseason I’ve read about how the current MLB qualifying offer system as well as the practice of teams “tanking” are hurting baseball’s competitive balance while simultaneously damaging the integrity of the game.

Before I douse the hyperbolic flames supposedly engulfing MLB as a result of these two hot button topics, let me give some background on both of them.

Qualifying Offer System: The qualifying offer system is the means by which MLB ensures that a team losing a significant player to another team in free agency has a chance to get a draft pick back as compensation, thereby promoting competitive balance. Under the MLB qualifying offer rules implemented in 2012, a team can make their own prospective free agents a “qualifying offer”. A qualifying offer is a one year contract with a salary based on the average of the top 125 contracts (this offseason it was 15.8m). If a player accepts the offer, he returns to his team on the one year deal at the pre-determined salary. If he rejects that offer and signs elsewhere, the team he leaves receives draft pick compensation from the team he joins. The draft pick compensation sent by the team signing the free agent is generally their first round pick unless they were among the 10 worst teams. In that case their pick is protected and the team losing the free agent would get a supplementary pick at the end of the first round.

Consensus Gripes: For the league’s elite players, it’s an easy decision to reject these qualifying offers since the players stand to receive higher average salaries and longer term commitments on the open market. The mid-level talent has a more difficult choice because the salary being extended on the one year qualifying offer may be higher than the average amount they stand to earn in free agency, but they have to weigh that against the possibility of receiving a longer term commitment on the open market. The gripe has been that the association with draft pick compensation has significantly hurt the value of certain free agents and often times prevented these players from receiving the long term deal they anticipated.

My Beef: Listen, there is no denying that the tie to draft pick compensation has hurt the value of certain free agents this offseason. The most prominent example of a player still unsigned who is supposedly being affected by the qualifying offer is Ian Desmond, a SS with a strong albeit flawed track record. Desmond has been one of the most productive offensive SS in the game between 2012 and 2015 hitting 19 or more home runs in each season. However his defense is nothing short of awful. He grades out as one of the worst defenders at his position over that timeframe. And last season in his walk year, his offense fell off as well. He hit .233 with a .674 OPS. He also failed to steal 20 bases for the first time since 2011. A month ago, there were more examples of solid players still seeking employment which highlighted the alleged impact of the qualifying offer on the market. But in the last 2 weeks, pitcher Yovani Gallardo and CF Dexter Fowler signed 3 year 35 million dollar deals with the Orioles. One could argue these deals were slightly below market value, but in my opinion they were close enough that both signings dealt a blow to the qualifying offer detractors.

But let’s operate under the assumption that the markets for Fowler, Gallardo, and Desmond were negatively impacted by the qualifying offer. Maybe these players aren’t getting the contract offers they want because front offices are currently overvaluing draft picks. Maybe they aren’t getting paid because teams are valuing defense so highly that they prefer to divert resources towards players that have a strong defensive track record. Hell, the offensive resume of Jason Heyward isn’t that far off from that of Dexter Fowler. But Dexter Fowler has always been a below average defensive CF and Heyward got 184 million dollars primarily for his glove. Another possible explanation for the lack of offers could be that teams are simply using the qualifying offer system as an excuse to actively drive down the price tags for mid-level free agents. After all, there are unlimited examples of teams getting burned by handing out long term deals to mid-level players of this ilk. Two outfielders that comes to mind are Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher who both signed 4 year deals with the Indians during the 2012 offseason. Both were mid-level talents in their early 30s that signed long term deals, and both turned out to be complete busts.

The reason Gallardo, Fowler, and Desmond failed to get their desired contracts is probably some combination of all the factors I mentioned above. But do we really want a remodeled draft pick compensation system that ensures these types of players continue to get overpaid in free agency? After all, expensive guaranteed contracts for players that go bust are among the most debilitating obstacles for a mid-market club to overcome. Teams have been overpaying mid-level players based on their past performance for a long time, and quite frankly its been refreshing to see less of that under the current rules even though it’s been an unintended consequence of the system.

I’ve also seen the claim that the qualifying offer unfairly impacts small market teams because of how important the draft is to their long term strategy. They are less inclined to go after a player tied to draft pick compensation because they stand to lose the first round pick as well as the pool money associated with their slot in the draft. This argument makes sense, but I am not exactly sure how a new system would fix the disadvantage of small market teams. Jon Morosi put forth some interesting hypothetical proposals that could be considered under the new CBA. Generally speaking, any new proposal would limit the number of teams forced to give up their pick by creating a system that disincentives the extension of a qualifying offer. I may be going out on a limb here, but if we create a new system where the tie to draft pick compensation is less prevalent, and therefore the market for mid-level players is no longer depressed, wouldn’t the expanded market for these players lead to the small market teams being priced out anyway?

And all you have to do is look at the NFL to see how much worse things could be. At least MLB’s problem only has a minor financial impact on the mid-level talent. In the NFL, the best players can be extended the exclusive franchise tag which is essentially a one-year contract for an amount no less than the average of the top five salaries at the player’s position. In that situation the player cannot negotiate with other teams on a longer term deal. In a sport where injuries are so prevalent and prime earning years are so scarce, you would think such a owner/team friendly tactic would be contested by the NFL Player’s Union in their CBA. But it still remains intact and regularly stops some of the NFL’s best players from cashing in at the earliest possible point in their career. Let’s at least be grateful that under our current CBA, former star players like Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and CC Sabathia can get significantly overpaid well into the twilight years of their career.

I just think in the end, the qualifying offer dilemma is such a first world problem in the sports world. The financial impact to these mid-level players is so insignificant when you look at it with the backdrop of a baseball industry with players making billions.  Despite that fact, the MLB Players Association will surely overhaul the entire system to get these middling talents what typically amounts to one extra year of guaranteed money.

Tanking Controversy Overview: I went into this in some detail in a February 9th post. I think the claims being made across the league that teams are actively “tanking” to rebuild their franchises are being overblown by the owners of big market MLB teams because they don’t like sharing revenues with rebuilding clubs.

There are undoubtedly a large number of teams in the league currently in the midst of a rebuilding effort. This is nothing new. It just so happens that the current rebuilding teams are using what the Cubs and Astros did as their blueprint for success. These two teams spent 3-5 years among the worst in the sport and collected high draft picks as a result. With the talent they acquired through the draft and through trades, the Cubs and Astros have returned to a competitive state once again.

As I pointed out on February 9th, the MLB draft doesn’t have a top heavy talent distribution with a diminishing overall player value as you get lower in the first round. And there’s been very little recent evidence to show that a top pick in the draft guarantees a star player. This “tanking” phenomenon has really been just the latest example of how intelligent executives find a way to game the system. Before 2012, the MLB draft did not have a rigid slotting system with spending caps. So the most talented players would demand extremely high bonuses that were loosely regulated under league rules. As a result of that, players represented by agents like Scott Boras would frequently make their bonus demands known before the draft and the small market teams that had high picks would literally pass on the top talent because they could not afford to meet their contract demands. It wasn’t a matter of gaming the old system because it was essentially rigged in favor of the big market clubs. In order to rectify this competitive imbalance, Major League Baseball negotiated a slotting system in 2012 that assigned teams spending caps according to where they pick in the draft. Just like that, the league made it impossible for big market teams to buy the draft. And now the best talent is consistently and appropriately being selected at the top of the draft board.

Consensus Gripes: So the tanking argument centers on the belief that teams who know they won’t be competitive in the coming season are refusing to add talent through free agency and are purposely designing flawed rosters to ensure they get top draft picks which are allotted the largest spending limits. And it is pretty clear that this is going on to varying degrees in the sport.

My Beef: What’s the big deal? We know why the Union is mad. They don’t like that the “tanking” teams are not spending on mediocre free agents that can marginally improve their team. The big market clubs/owners are mad because the “tanking” teams aren’t reinvesting shared revenues in their on field product.

But do we really want a league full of Padres, Rockies, White Sox, and Tigers? These are mediocre teams that are refusing to embrace the reality that their team is not going to win as currently designed. When these teams suck in 2016, do they deserve more credit than the “tanking” Braves and Brewers because they ultimately spent some money on free agents and fielded a slightly less flawed roster? Do we want to discourage rebuilding? 3 to 5 years of poor play that leads to 3 to 5 years of success seems more desirable than 6-10 years of mediocrity. Just look at the Rockies. The Rockies stink. The Rockies could trade Charlie Blackmon and Carlos Gonzalez for 5 prospects, but instead they are doing some kind of half-assed rebuild. They traded Troy Tulowitzki and Corey Dickerson, but kept the rest of their players electing to be mediocre again. What if the league designs a system that discourages these types of rebuilding strategies? Would it stop trades for prospects like the ones where the Mets traded R.A. Dickey and Carlos Beltran to net Noah Syndergaard, Travis d’Arnaud and Zack Wheeler?

And again this is such a first world problem relative to other sports. In a league with incredible parity, do we really want to make massive overhauls to the way teams set themselves up for sustainable success? Just look at the NBA and the real tanking problem that exists there. We talk about MLB tanking, but in the NBA, fans get upset when their dog-doo team wins one game in the final week of the season if it changes their draft lottery odds. We talk about how tanking in MLB hurts the competitive balance, but did we even take a second to look at the state of the NBA? Right now NBA fans looking for a conservative investment would be better off blowing out their 401k and “investing” in a Cavs vs. Warrior NBA Finals matchup. If you are looking for a little more risk, but still an overall conservative position, just bet on the Warriors to win it all. I mean it’s almost laughable for MLB owners, executives, and experts to be complaining about the MLB competitive balance when the NBA legitimately has a guaranteed champion in February.

In the end, I am not denying the existence of these two issues in MLB. They exist and when the collective bargaining agreement is renegotiated next year, changes will undoubtedly be made to address them. All I am saying is, when your sport has the most powerful player’s union, the most parity, and 9 billion in revenue, let’s just make sure we don’t overhaul things too much. After all, the owners and executives will all just find a way to game the new system anyway.

Update (2/25/16): Since I posted this, Yovani Gallardo supposedly failed his physical with the Orioles despite having no major known medical issues. As a result his 3 year 35 million dollar deal became a 2 year deal with an option. I think this goes to my claim above that teams are using the qualifying offer system as an excuse to actively drive down the price tags for mid-level free agents. I player with no market for his services and no injury history agrees to a market rate contract and then promptly fails his physical providing the signing team with more bargaining power? Sounds very fishy. Also Dexter Fowler backed out of a 3 year deal with the Orioles to return to the Cubs on a 1 year deal. To me this says very little about the qualifying offer and more about Fowler following his heart like Cespedes did with the Mets. But trust me the lack of market for both players is going to be blamed fully on the qualifying offer.

ForgeryGate: Wilpons At It Again

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I figured it’s day three of spring training and the only Mets news would be about Big Sexy Bartolo Colon starring at the first teamwide workout while David Wright conducts interviews on the sideline from his massage chair. Nope. The Wilpons are back in the news again. Just another fraud related headline. But don’t worry. It has nothing to do with them at all. Some evil evil man has pled guilty to forgery and wire fraud as he allegedly forged the signature of Mets COO Jeff Wilpon as part of a scheme that cheated investors out of $3.5 million.

First off, how are the Wilpons still regularly convincing judges and juries and everyone that they’ve done absolutely nothing illegal when everything they touch turns to fraud? It’s mind blowing. At this point you would think the justice system’s mantra would be “innocent until proven Wilpon”. I mean when the Wilpons are even on the periphery of a financial related crime, wouldn’t the assumption be that every other party is innocent and the Wilpons have to be the mastermind?

Furthermore, authorities said the “guilty” man incorrectly spelled Jeff Wilpon’s first name on the forged documents which to me is an absolute dead giveaway that Jeff was actively involved in the scheme. As we all know, Jeff has never signed a document in his entire life. In fact, I am guessing this “guilty man” is just the person Jeff pays to rubber stamp all his legal documents. Obviously this time the man was out sick or something, and as a result Jeff had to personally sign these documents. He was probably just scribbling his nickname “Jeff” all over each page as his lackeys looked on and said, “Good job Jeff!! We are so proud of you.” Well either way as usual Jeff gets off scott free. Some minion in the Wilpon machine takes the fall for the big dogs yet again.

Speaking of Wilpons, paleontologists unearthed a full Fred Wilpon at Mets camp yesterday, one of the oldest owners to be discovered at Spring Training to date.

A Dream of Spring: Mets Pitchers and Catchers Report

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Pleasantville1) Opening Day   2) Pitchers and Catchers   3) Christmas

That is probably my “day of the year” power rankings. I’m not one to pay attention to the Farmer’s Almanac or Groundhog predictions. Spring starts for me when pitchers and catchers report to camp. It’s always been that way and always will be. It may not be sweatshirt weather yet in New York, but it’s coming. Once the pitchers are long tossing in Florida, the cold winds of winter start to die down and the Long Night gradually comes to an end.

Today is the day when most of the players officially reunite and start stretching and smiling. Sandy Alderson, who’s still undergoing chemotherapy, rolled into camp today with an enormous Spring Training grin on his face. He said, “I haven’t been this upbeat about a team in a long time.” Despite all the adversity he’s faced since his cancer diagnosis, he’s still glowing with positivity. There’s no doubt that the players and the fan base share in his optimism.

Talk of the Day: During his interview today, Sandy refuted something that a number of people have floated around during the offseason. He squashed the idea that Neil Walker and Asdrubal Cabrera will potentially serve as 3B on days when David Wright needs time off. Certainly makes sense considering Walker has played 15 total major league games at 3B in his career and Cabrera has played 1. Not to mention those games at 3B came during their rookie seasons, and they aren’t exactly known for their defensive skills at their natural positions.

Speaking of positional flexibility, Travis d’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki said they are going to get some reps at 1B this spring. Just some casual grounders to get a feel for the position. Looks like 1B and 3B are going to be a little hobby this spring for every Mets player. But don’t worry. We are lucky to have well established utilityman Wilmer Flores to fall back on just in case some of these experiments don’t work out. With a grand total of 58 career games at 2B and 27 at 3B, Wilmer has really established himself as a regular Venezuelan Army Knife. If you aren’t familiar with Wilmer’s primary defensive resume, he’s known for his below replacement level defense in 154 career games at SS.

Now I don’t mean to turn this into a Wilmer bashing party. I really like Wilmer. He cried because he loves the Mets so much. I couldn’t respect his passion or offensive skill set more. I love him at the plate. He’s got power, and he can put the ball in play when he needs to. He’s been a real competent major league hitter for us over the last two seasons particularly at times when we had very few of them. And I even like the idea of him coming off the bench and serving as infield depth. But we have to acknowledge the reality that he’s played 27 games at 3B in his major league career and 0 at 1B. And currently he’s number 2 in the depth chart at 1B, 2B, SS, and 3B. It’s a definitive weakness in the design of our roster.

And that brings me to my next point. Once again today, there was talk about the possibility that we may trade Alejandro De Aza. Jon Morosi said the Rangers are keeping tabs on De Aza. Ken Rosenthal said we aren’t yet entertaining a trade of De Aza but might eventually. I rambled on and on ad nauseum about this in a February 3rd post. Trading De Aza simply because he may not get as much playing time as we originally anticipated and because he’s going to get paid 5 million dollars as a reserve is absolutely insane. People really need to stop reporting how much sense it makes to trade him. Somebody even implied today that our minor league signing of Roger Bernadina makes De Aza more expendable. Bernadina being a guy who hit .167 in 2014 and didn’t play at the major league level last season. I can’t even get into it. I just don’t have the energy to once again defend the need for depth and the need to have 25 quality players on the roster in order to succeed. But why aren’t these writers making the actual rational point regarding De Aza and the roster spot he represents?

Points:

  • Trading Alejandro De Aza makes sense because we won’t be able to give him as much playing time as originally anticipated.- False
  • Trading Alejandro De Aza and replacing him with an equally talented player that plays 1B/OF and is better suited for our roster makes sense.- True

It’s really that simple. As I mentioned above, the weakness on our roster as it is currently constructed, comes in the form of the lack of right-handed hitting depth at 1B/OF. We never replaced Michael Cuddyer. Lucas Duda only started 127 games at 1B last season. Daniel Murphy and Cuddy appeared in almost 40 games at 1B for the Mets in 2015. Now Murph is a National and Cuddyer sits in a retirement home suffering from some combination of the Coors Field withdrawal and METS disease that prematurely ended his career. All it will take is one simultaneous DL stint for Duda and Wright and our weakness will be exposed. Don’t forget, Eric “Soup” Campbell waits in line behind Duda to take grounders at 1B in Port St. Lucie. He would be behind Flores in the drills, but Wilmer is too busy taking grounders at every other damn position. Now I don’t have the answer for how to fill that De Aza spot with a more appropriate player. None of the free agents currently available fit the description I outlined above. I’ve poured over the list. I keep thinking about Ryan Raburn, and then I remind myself that he’s only played 14 games at 1B in his 10 seasons in the big leagues. Might as well go with Flores if we can’t find someone with experience.

Long story short, I just don’t want to hear about De Aza being traded anymore unless someone is proposing exactly how to improve the roster by trading him. But let me just stop. Now is not the time for negativity. Spring. Rejuvenation. Rebirth. Everything’s blooming. All that crap.

By the way, the best thing about all my vocal support for Alejandro De Aza is going to be when he’s batting .180 in May and I’m calling for his head.

Quote of the Day: Bob Nightengale in a USA Today interview quoted Terry Collins saying, “I’m not going to sit there today and look at all of these (bleeping) numbers and try to predict this guy is going to be a great player. OPS this. OPS that. GPS. LCSs. DSDs. You know who has good numbers? Good (bleeping) players.”

Gotta love crotchety old Terry. Once he gets his tan on point in that Port St. Lucie sun, I’m sure all that old man rage will just melt away.

The Next Generation: 2016 Top 10 Mets Prospects 

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Today, ESPN’s Keith Law released his highly anticipated 2016 Mets Top 10 Prospect rankings. Law is one of ESPN’s baseball analytics gurus, and he previously worked as a special assistant for current Mets Assistant GM J.P. Ricciardi when Ricciardi was GM of the Blue Jays. This year, Law had the Mets farm system ranked at 16th out of the 30 teams. Middle of the pack. Not showing off. Not getting left behind. Now that did represent a significant drop from our 4th place ranking in 2015. That being said, the drop makes some sense considering we promoted the top three prospects from his 2015 list (Noah Syndergaard, Michael Conforto and Kevin Plawecki), and we traded our top pitching prospect Michael Fulmer to Detroit at the 2015 trade deadline for Yoenis Cespedes.

Anyway, here is Law’s list and my thoughts:

1) Dominic Smith: The scouts love this guy. He was drafted 11th by the Mets in the 2013 draft. Law has him at 29th in his overall MLB Top 100 Prospects list. Law describes him as “one of the best pure hitters in the minors”, and he hit .305 in 118 games at High A ball last season. His power is still developing, but his glove is supposedly MLB ready and gold caliber. The idea of a defensive-minded player in our infield is borderline unfathomable (closes eyes…sees Lucas Duda throwing ball over D’Arnaud’s head in Game 5… shudders). His ETA is 2017 which would align well with Duda’s free agency timeline after the 2017 season. The only negative mentioned by Law is that Smith looked like he had gained a lot of weight in the Arizona Fall League, and he wasn’t talking about muscle mass.

Keith Law just fat shaming the hell out of Dom Smith. I think we can cut the guy a break, I mean after all it is winter. A perfect time to put on a little mass in the midsection for the sake of warmth. Granted, Smith is from California so additional blubber might not be entirely necessary. And conditioning is part of his job description as a professional athlete. But I am just going to pretend its a minor seasonal weight fluctuation, and that he’s on track for a breakout rookie campaign in 2017.

2) Steven Matz: Hard to count Matz as a prospect, but he didn’t hit maximum rookie innings thresholds in 2015. So he’s still technically a rookie. And why didn’t he meet the thresholds? Late promotion but also injuries. And injuries are the biggest red flag with him. In fact Law indicated his ceiling is capped at a number 4 starter with number 1 stuff because he fears he just won’t pitch enough. He doesn’t see him as a horse like Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, or Jacob deGrom. Let’s hope Matz proves Law wrong.

3) Amed Rosario and 4) Gavin Cecchini: Two shortstops in our Top 5 and in the leagues Top 100? Really? Is a Jose Reyes successor really on the horizon? Are the annual Spring battles between Ruben Tejada and someone else finally coming to an end? According to Law the answer is yes. Rosario, ranked at 42 in Law’s Top 100, is 20 years old but projects as a possible star. Law says “he has the kind of raw tools and athleticism to be a top 10 prospect in the game in a year”. Cecchini, ranked at 89 in Law’s Top 100, is closer to the major leagues then Rosario. He projects as a contact hitter with above average defensive skills. We selected Cecchini 12th in the 2012 draft, so the high expectations around him make sense. He broke out offensively at AA last year and is likely to start at AAA Vegas this season. If he can get past the distraction of the Vegas clubhouse slot machines and have a big season in AAA, he may be in the plan for 2017.

5) Wuilmer Becerra: We got this OF in the R.A. Dickey trade. He is 20 years old and projects to be a regular who can hit for average and power. The idea to trade R.A. Dickey after he won his CY Young Award in 2012 was an absolute no brainer. However, the haul Sandy got for him is truly astounding. Thor, Travis d’Arnaud, and this outfielder Becerra. It’s already looking like an all time heist based on the early success of Thor and D’Arnaud. If they both really go on to have successful, healthy major league careers and Becerra actually becomes a viable major leaguer, it’s going to look even more lopsided in the Mets favor.

6) Brandon Nimmo: Jose Fernandez, Sonny Gray, Kolten Wong, and Joe Panik. All pretty good players right? Well we passed on all of them in the 2011 draft when we selected Nimmo 13th out of high school. Nimmo doesn’t project to have the defensive skills to play CF, and he has not developed the power that the Mets originally anticipated. He was going to start the season at AAA, but he tore a tendon in his foot so he will now miss 4 to 6 weeks. “4th outfielder” is being thrown around. “Bust” can’t be far behind.

7) Desmond Lindsay: Mets second round pick in 2015. He projects as a speedy defense first CF.

8) Robert Gsellman: He’s a sinkerballer that projects as a 5th starter. Should start the year in AAA Vegas and serve as rotation depth. Hopefully, our young starters are healthy and we never see him in the rotation. Ever.

9) Jhoan Urena: He’s a 21 year old third basemen that played at Single-A last year but battled injuries. Keith Law likes his swing and propensity to make contact.

10) Luis Carpio: He’s a 17 year old SS that has raw skills and handles himself well in the field and at the dish for his age.

Matt Harvey Acknowledges Existence of Contract Extensions; Skeptical on Global Warming and Evolution

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Mets pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to Spring Training in 3 days, but that didn’t stop Matt Harvey from arriving early in what could be considered another flagrant violation of team rules. Just another example of his infamous narcissism that has dominated the New York backpages since his arrival on the big league club. No doubt there will be a thorough investigation into what led up to his early arrival and his actual motives for disregarding the team mandated report date.

Once the media was able to get over Harvey’s arrival, they sat down with him for an interview during which the reporters asked him about his views on the possible existence of contract extensions in the sport today. Matt said,

“I think whatever comes up is going to come up. I’ve never shied away from it, I’ve never said I wouldn’t consider it. But I haven’t heard anything considering that.”

Wow. So Matt actually acknowledged that contract extensions exist. This is unprecedented. His agent Scott Boras is a known contract extension truther so this really contradicts his well documented skepticism on the subject.

When the topic switched to the particularly humid day in Port St. Lucie Florida, Matt had the following to say on global warming,

“The idea that man, through the production of CO2 — which is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the man-made part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas — is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all the other factors.”

The interview closed with a question about the potential evolution of the Mets pitching staff in 2016 and a clear misunderstanding on the part of Harvey when he responded,

“There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.”

Weekly Roundup: Takeout Slides, Chipper Predictions, and Prayers for Maverick

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MLB/Union Closer to 2B Takeout Slide Rule Change: I ranted in a January 27th post about how the league still hasn’t done a damn thing to rectify the 2B takeout slide problem. Well it seems they heard my complaining. Now that Ruben Tejada has finally shed his walking boot and Jung Ho Kang is making big strides in his daily physical therapy, the league has finally made some alleged progress. Heck, according to Buster Olney’s report, the Union and MLB claim they may make real changes before the season begins. Olney said they want to make sure runners “touch the base or make an effort to touch the base”. The planned rule change is meant to “improve safety” while maintaining “players’ aggressiveness”. In addition, they are still debating whether slides in question can be reviewed by instant replay.

So to recap, the current 2B slide rule essentially says the runner should be close enough to touch the base. The proposed new rule would say the runner must attempt to touch the base, and it wouldn’t discourage aggressive slides. I can really see the differences in the rules. Sounds like a groundbreaking reform that will really change the sport. And of course they don’t want umpires to be able to review these types of slides because it may slow down the games. This is going to go well. I will reserve judgement until the final rule is published but needless to say I’m skeptical. If it goes anything like when they changed the home plate collision rules, we are in for a long season full of confused players, managers, and umpires.

Chipper Predictions: Chipper Jones in a radio interview this week said the Mets are his early season favorite to win the World Series. Larry is really something else. From the Mets archrival to the team’s biggest booster. After the Chase Utley takeout slide he came out and ripped Chase a new one. Now he’s endorsing the Mets as future 2016 World Champions? And it’s not like he’s unemployed and endorsing the Mets from his couch. He literally works for the Braves. He just got hired as a special assistant.

He’s got to be working an angle. Still trolling us after all those years of crushing the franchise. It started with him naming his kid Shea. Now he’s taking it up a notch by pretending to be our biggest fan. I completely understand why Chipper would love our team. It’s designed exactly like his 90s Braves squad. A potential juggernaut built around young pitching. However, I think Chipper’s “love affair” with the pitching rich Mets is kind of like Eli Manning’s “love” for his brother Peyton. Right now, Chipper has the championship swag like Eli did before last week’s Super Bowl. So he’s “rooting” for the Mets like Eli was “rooting” for Peyton. The Mets are just a similarly designed team with aspirations to be as successful as the 90s Braves. We want to win 14 consecutive division titles like the Braves did between 1991 and 2005. We want to advance to the World Series 5 times like they did in the 90s. But the second we win one lone championship like Chipper did with the 1995 Braves, his cheerleader routine will stop. If we ever found a way to win two, Chipper could have twins named Citifield and Shake Shack, and he still wouldn’t get his championship mojo back.

Pray for Maverick (and Wright): Sandy Alderson conducted an interview with Steve Serby of the NY Post. First off, in the interview Sandy talked about how he was diagnosed with cancer four days after the Mets clinched the NL East last season, and he is still undergoing chemotherapy. The guy is a front office legend and clearly tough as hell. I hope the Wilpons actually give him some time off this season so he can recover instead of making him face the relentless media day in and day out. But it’s more likely the Wilpons remain in the panic room they had built in 2008 after Madoff was arrested and just let their lackey John Ricco deal with the press. Either way, pray for Sandy.

And while we are at it, pray for David Wright. Sandy said he hopes David and his titanium spine can play 130 games next season. Honestly, I will take anything we can get from David. 100 games would work for me. Quite frankly, we’d be better off keeping Wright cryogenically frozen until 2017 when the NL institutes the DH so he can take that job full time. Although considering our trainer Ray Ramirez can barely administer an X-Ray, I’m not sure I’d trust him to handle the freezing procedure.

Two New Cubans: This week, two new Cubans defected from the motherland. 31 year old 3B Yulieski Gourriel and 22 year old SS/OF Lourdes Gourriel Jr. were supposedly two of the top players remaining in Cuba. Are they brothers? Noooooo…….Yes!!!!

These two brothers are expected to be impact players in the major leagues. Pretty much like every Cuban player that has defected to date. The older brother Yulieski is supposed to have an immediate impact while the younger brother may need some minor league seasoning. It’s hard to complain about the Mets lack of interest in Cuban players considering we just signed the best one in the business. That being said, John Ricco should have a welcome party on standby in Florida, and we should be signing every Cuban player that comes ashore. Especially a Cuban star that plays 3B considering Wright is our biggest question mark. But I’m sure he’ll just wind up a Yankee as they are one of the teams rumored to have interest.

Clippard Departs, Mejia Promptly Banned: I wrote earlier this week about the departure of Tyler Clippard for a 2 year deal in Arizona. And of course, four days later Jenrry Mejia is promptly banned from the game for life due to a third positive PED test. Mejia getting banned for life makes too much sense. Things were too quiet in Mets land. It was inevitable that the first bad thing of 2016 was going to happen. I also think it’s hilarious that at the trade deadline we acquired Clippard and immediately afterwards Mejia received his second steroid suspension. And now once again, Clippard’s move and Mejia’s suspension happen simultaneously.

Mejia wasn’t part of the team last year, and we replaced Clippard with Antonio Bastardo, so I suppose our pen will be fine. But it still isn’t good that two relief options for 2016 have evaporated in one week. And speaking of Bastardo, he has to be next on the Mets steroid watch list right? He’s been suspended before, and it wouldn’t shock me at all to see our primary set up man go down for a second time.

Royals Plan Two World Series Celebrations: The Royals announced this week that they plan to have a World Series celebration in both games against the Mets to start the season. Banner raising the first game and then ring presentations on night two. Really just rubbing our faces in it. Well that’s just perfect. At least this doubles the chances for former Royals Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto to catch the ceremonies on TV. But in all seriousness, screw the Royals. I hope this fires the Mets up and helps them keep their eyes on the ultimate prize.

Minor League Notes: This week the Mets signed Roger Bernadina to a minor league deal and invited him to spring training. He may play all 3 outfield positions but he’ll never fill the void left by Triple A Vegas legend Kirk “3 Dingers” Nieuwenhuis.

Also, the Texas Rangers have officially signed former Met Ike Davis to a minor league deal. Oh how the mighty have fallen. From first round pick to Quadruple-A All-Star. I’m not sure how smart it was for him to take the deal considering Texas is just over an hour flight from Arizona where he contracted his Valley Fever. Although I suppose he had no real choice. Maybe another fresh start will finally cure him of the Valley Fever aka Mets disease. Nothing worked for Jason Bay, but perhaps there’s still hope for Ike. Not bloody likely.

2016 Mets: Pre-Season Scapegoat Predictions 

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Before the Democrats had Wall Street and Trump had Mexican immigrants, Mets fans had the Wilpons to blame for all the team’s ills. Whenever the Mets were at or near the basement of the NL East over the last 7 years, the fans would ready their fingers for pointing at Jeff and Fred. “They are slashing payroll! They are in debt! They meddled in baseball decisions! We can’t win unless they sell the team!”

As you might expect, the Wilpons heard the criticism and simply joined in on the scapegoating. In fact, you could say they were the trailblazers for all the modern political finger pointing trends by blaming Bernie Madoff and Latin American immigrant General Manager Omar Minaya. It would be nice if Mets fans, the Wilpons, politicians, and society as a whole could all just unite in their scapegoating and find one illegal immigrant Mexican insider trading hedge fund manager to blame for all of the world’s problems, but I fear that day may never come.

Anyway, whenever the losing set in over the last 7 years (usually right before the All-Star break), Mets fans were ready with the stock Wilpon excuses. However, 2016 will be the first season in a long time where the Wilpons won’t be the default scapegoat. In fact, because the Wilpons signed Yoenis Cespedes and let Maverick Sandy make every move he wanted, fans can’t possibly blame them. At least not this year.

That being said, in a season that begins with the highest of expectations, finger pointing is inevitable the second the slightest thing goes wrong. So without further ado, here is the list of Top 5 likeliest goats if things fall apart in 2016:



5) The New Guy – Whenever things go wrong, the easiest thing to do is to blame the new guy. And when the new guy is replacing a particularly popular player in Daniel Murphy, it makes him an even likelier target. Neil Walker has been one of the most consistently productive offensive 2B in all of baseball over the last 5 seasons. He’s a switch hitter, a better defender than Murphy, and he’s in a contract year. There’s almost no reason to believe he will do anything but thrive in the middle of the Mets lineup and earn himself a nice big payday after the season. That being said, after watching Jason Bay come over to New York as one of the most productive outfielders in the league and inexplicably deteriorate right before our eyes, there’s no guarantee that someone will thrive in the Big Apple just because they excelled in Pittsburgh. Plus look at the guy. I know he’s got a reputation as a hard-nosed player, but he appears to be butter soft. He looks like the kind of guy that reads the Bible in the hotel room on road trips. And not in that Daniel Murphy psycho fundamentalist Christian way but in that “I read it for the wisdom within” kind of way. I’m confident he is going to have a huge season for us. However, he’ll be one of the first fan targets if he has a rough start to the season and the team struggles.



4) Old Man Collins – The manager is always a top scapegoat target especially when the team has high expectations for the season. Terry “Cotton Hill” Collins has faced a ton of adversity during his tenure managing this team. From the time he was hired in 2011 until August of last season, the team was completely awful. But the team was bad by design during those years. For the first time ever, Terry has the real NYC spotlight on him, and every managerial decision he makes is going to get scrutinized at an extreme level. Just look at Harveygate in Game 5 of the World Series. Even though he’s made a ton of questionable in game decisions during his time as manager, Game 5 may have been the first time he was broadly criticized by all the MLB talking heads. Why? Because it was a big game and people were actually paying attention. Now Terry is going to face that level of scrutiny for 162 games. We’ve seen Terry handle losing when it was expected, but it’ll be interesting to see how he handles a losing streak when Vegas expects us to win.



3) David Wright‘s Titanium Spine– Last season, David Wright‘s spinal stenosis and all the injuries on the team in general had a major impact on the Mets pre-trade deadline performance. However, the injured players didn’t get blamed as much as the Wilpons did for not allowing Sandy Alderson to build a deep roster. Well now we have a deep roster, and David Wright has started his inevitable transformation into an injury-prone cyborg. With his spine deteriorating by the day and his desperate need for a futuristic titanium replacement growing, he’s in danger of becoming more machine than man. If he once again misses lengthy periods of the season and the team struggles, the fans may finally start complaining a little more about his frailty and gigantic contract. Or maybe all his robot parts will translate into a late career surge in performance and like astronaut Steve Austin he will transform into the inflation adjusted 138 million dollar man that we always hoped he would be.



2) Matt Harvey and his Sexcapades – Matt Harvey is the face of the Mets franchise. He demanded to be the face when he arrived, and he got his wish. He is always on the brink of being blamed for everything under the sun. He tweeted out that picture after his Tommy John surgery where he was flipping everyone off and he was widely criticized. At the end of last season, everyone was ready to crucify him because of the media fabricated story that he wanted to stop pitching once he reached his “innings limit”. Before the playoffs started he missed some BS workout and everyone was freaking out. The point is everything he does is going to be scrutinized. And all those criticisms I mentioned have happened while he’s been at the top of his game. If he experiences just the slightest amount of playoff hangover fatigue and his performance dips, it won’t be long before the media is blaming his appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers for the team’s “lack of focus”. As long as the team is winning and he is performing at the top of his game, he can turn his limo into a clown car full of models and take them all to see the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. If Harvey and the Mets struggle, he’ll be run out of town faster than you can say “Dark Knight”.



1) Yoenis Cespedes and his Smoking/Bat Flipping/Laziness – The acquisition of Cespedes, his torrid summer, and the Mets playoff run, happened so fast that fans barely had time to complain about anything let alone about Cespedes. But that didn’t stop a contingent of asshole Mets fans from forming after the World Series who thought the Mets should let Cespedes walk because he misplayed Alcides Escobar‘s lead-off inside the park home run in Kansas City. That’s right. There were fans who turned against the man who carried the team to the playoffs because he had a bad World Series (along with everyone else on the team). Imagine how quickly they will turn on him if he has a down month and the offense can’t get anything going during his slump. I can hear the complaining already. “His bat flipping is cocky” and “He takes lazy routes to the ball” and “He doesn’t run hard to first base” and on and on. Let’s not forget that Cespedes already has a made up reputation for being a clubhouse distraction, so it’s only a matter of time before the media decides to dust off the old lies and re-print them. In fact, he’ll wind up getting scapegoated for a lot of the same reasons Trump scapegoats Mexican immigrants. Basically a bunch of made up racist reasons. Anyway, let’s hope that we win 100 games and his bat flipping becomes an iconic memory of the season rather than a symbol of his “immaturity” like the Mejia save stomp (R.I.P. Jenrry).

After a run to the World Series and a successful offseason, it’s hard to feel anything but positive about our chances coming into the season. That being said, these are the Mets we are talking about. And I know come Opening Day when the Mets are losing to the Royals in Kansas City and my beer is half-empty, I am going to be looking to point my finger at someone. Better to just prepare for the inevitable now.

Jenrry Mejia Tests Positive for PEDs Again; Banished to The Wall by MLB

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Well Jenrry Mejia has officially become the first mook in baseball history to get banned for life for PEDs after testing positive for a third time. It couldn’t be more fitting that in the city where A-Rod plays, the face of steroid use, some other insignificant Mets player winds up receiving the first ever lifetime ban.

Honestly, it’s pretty obvious that Jenrry Mejia has limited to no brain functionality. And I’m not talking about a Forrest Gump level IQ. At least Forrest understood concepts like love and cheating. Mejia must have the mental capacity of Brendan Dassey in the “Making a Murderer” documentary. Just no awareness whatsoever of what’s going on and what people are asking him to do.

MLB Official: Now Jenrry tell us about the steroids. Did you buy the steroids?

Mejia: …like at a store?...

MLB Official: No Jenrry. Now you need to tell us the truth. You bought the steroids didn’t you? It’s ok if you bought them.

Mejia:…yes.

MLB Official: Now, you understand how a steroid test works right?

Mejia:…a test?…like with…pencils?

MLB Official: No Jenrry. Not a school test. A drug test. If you just pee in the cup you can go home ok?

Jenrry: Ok.

MLB Official: No Jenrry in the cup. Wait wait wait.

He’s clearly completely clueless about what PEDs do and how a drug test works. Right? I mean how is it possible that somebody could test positive three freaking times?  Tons of players are still using. For Christ’s sake Bartolo Colon is 43 and working out like he’s in his mid-20s. Couldn’t Mejia at least inquire about his secret methods? Nope. He’s just been getting injections from some friend in the Dominican Republic who keeps telling him it’s “his vitamins”. And when Mejia would tell teammates “my vitamins hurt” they didn’t really ask too many questions considering “conversations” weren’t exactly Jenrry’s strong point.

Well now Mejia will don a Night’s Watch cloak per Rob Manfred and join Lord Commander Pete Rose at The Wall for life. So much for our young setup man and our planned mid-season bullpen boost. Our hard pass on the return of Tyler “Rat-Face” Clippard is suddenly a bit more questionable. At least Hansel Robles could step up in the pen. I read he’s been “working out” with Bartolo in the Dominican Republic. And since Robles was the only Mets player to actively recruit Cespedes all offseason, nobody can question his mental capacity.