-Passan says the Mets never made an actual 4 year 60 million dollar offer as the LA Times is reporting. He says they had "discussions" with Grandal regarding potential deals but never made a firm offer.
-"Many" teams reportedly calling about Lugo... KEEP.
- Passan also says the Mets likely won't sign Pollock.. for some reason they feel they must trade Nimmo or Conforto if they sign Pollock (they reportedly considered trading one of them in general but have backed off) which would make you believe they felt they would be getting a big return from Cespedes... HOWEVER... today
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"If he gives us anything this year, that is great, we're happy for that," Minaya said.
So we are again back to questioning finances
Re-treads like Blanco and Davis...Mets are dumpster diving.
They clearly need another OF, likely one to play CF, and they need a lefty reliever.
At this point, I'm starting to wonder what Kaczmarski can do at the ML level because I'm starting to think that might be the best option after Lagares.
Of course, if Gimenez has the goods, the Mets might see if Rosario can play a good CF.
I had given up on Machado and Harper before the conversation even started. But it sounds like they are giving up on Pollock, which is dumb to me, and reflects the Wilpons' tight squeeze on every nickel.
Our starting rotation is the big 3, then Matz and Vargas. Who is next after that? What if one of the big 3 get hurt and Vargas continues to stink? Could this team survive a month if our rotation is DeGrom, Wheeler, Matz, Oswalt, Gsellmen?
My point is that there's not much else behind there. We need another starting pitcher IMO. If Brodie doesn't like the SP options out there and wants to roll the dice on the current group, IMO we should go after one of the top (non-Kimbrel) relievers left on the market so we'd have more flexibility with Lugo.
We probably need another IF too to add to our bench. Assuming the Mets don't blow a year of Alonso control for two weeks of April games, I'm not even sure who our best 3 best bench bats are? TJ Rivera? Who else?
I was middle of the road on the big trade but liked both the Ramos and Familia signings. It's still not enough though. The team needs a bit more than a few bargain bin signings to be a top NL team. If they just stand pat now and add 25th men AAAA types, they look more like a fringe contender type team than a first-rate contender.
We'd have a lot less room for error given our lack of depth than the teams we'd be competing against. It wouldn't be a hopeless situation, but IMO, if you're going to trade two of your best prospects for a trade where an aging Cano was a co-headliner, they should be more aggressive with so much FA talent still available.
And he replied something like With Brandon Nimmo in right field, we just didn't feel we had a need thereo?
Well fast forward to October and Nimmo ends up with a 4.5 fWAR and Stanton a 4.2 fWAR and people actually said "see, Sandy was right"
but what people don't see is imagine if they had Stanton and Nimmo and Conforto.....
the way Mets fans and media minds are trained is no longer to think big.
the Mets should 100% be in on both or at worst one of Machado and Harper.
it's sports malpractice for a NY team in the situation the Mets are in, not to pursue them. No defense, no matter how impassioned changes that fact.
Quote:
Not even in the conversation for Machado and Harper. Why not?
I had given up on Machado and Harper before the conversation even started. But it sounds like they are giving up on Pollock, which is dumb to me, and reflects the Wilpons' tight squeeze on every nickel.
In some ways I'd be more annoyed if they did sign Pollock to a big deal... it would just be a half-assed approach instead of doing the right thing and signing Harper or Machado..
Ridiculous that they aren't in on those 2 guys.. absolutely ridiculous.
And he replied something like With Brandon Nimmo in right field, we just didn't feel we had a need thereo?
Well fast forward to October and Nimmo ends up with a 4.5 fWAR and Stanton a 4.2 fWAR and people actually said "see, Sandy was right"
but what people don't see is imagine if they had Stanton and Nimmo and Conforto.....
the way Mets fans and media minds are trained is no longer to think big.
the Mets should 100% be in on both or at worst one of Machado and Harper.
it's sports malpractice for a NY team in the situation the Mets are in, not to pursue them. No defense, no matter how impassioned changes that fact.
Excellent post... I am baffled when I see Mets fans say things like "we don't need them" or "I don't want one of those guys, they are going to be overpaid!"...
We shouldn't be so worried as fans about player value that we pass up on 2 generational talents about to hit their primes...
And he replied something like With Brandon Nimmo in right field, we just didn't feel we had a need thereo?
Well fast forward to October and Nimmo ends up with a 4.5 fWAR and Stanton a 4.2 fWAR and people actually said "see, Sandy was right"
but what people don't see is imagine if they had Stanton and Nimmo and Conforto.....
the way Mets fans and media minds are trained is no longer to think big.
the Mets should 100% be in on both or at worst one of Machado and Harper.
it's sports malpractice for a NY team in the situation the Mets are in, not to pursue them. No defense, no matter how impassioned changes that fact.
Agreed - especially in the context of adding Cano. Even counting the money going the other way, at the end of the day they are paying him a net of ~$60m from age 36+ for however many good years he has left. Let's generously guesstimate 2 more very good years - that's the same ~$30m per Harper or Machado (or Stanton last year) cost. They make moves because they are more attractive in how they can account for them as compared to how attractive they are on the field. And that's a big reason why the results on the field often disappoint us.
And he replied something like With Brandon Nimmo in right field, we just didn't feel we had a need thereo?
Well fast forward to October and Nimmo ends up with a 4.5 fWAR and Stanton a 4.2 fWAR and people actually said "see, Sandy was right"
but what people don't see is imagine if they had Stanton and Nimmo and Conforto.....
the way Mets fans and media minds are trained is no longer to think big.
the Mets should 100% be in on both or at worst one of Machado and Harper.
it's sports malpractice for a NY team in the situation the Mets are in, not to pursue them. No defense, no matter how impassioned changes that fact.
Like when I spoke to someone in the Mets' scouting dept about going after Machado, he said Machado wanted to play SS, and we have Rosario. Ugh.
the Mets stadium holds at least 5,000 more fans than Fenway and when the Mets field a winning a team the fans show up.
In 2008 the Mets had the 4th highest home attendance in MLB history (based on reported attendance #'s). Yes, last year of Shea, but no one I know loved Shea like fans did the old school fields. It was mostly because of the success in 2007.
The Mets realistically should have gone into this off-season targeting both Machado and Harper - get creative, have some opt-outs or front loading or back loading to spread the costs out, deferments, whatever, but adding those two, Familia, and the Cano trade would easily make the Mets NL favorites.
for a few years, then figure out how to pay deGrom and Syndergaard.
Rinse and repeat.
Why do people bother rooting for the Wilponses
Marwin makes perfect sense but I'm sure we'll end up with Asdrubal again now that we really have no use for him.
Pretty reasonable deal.
Pretty reasonable deal.
That's a good deal. Wish Mets were in on that.
they do chase over the hill veterans, but right now 5 of the 8 positions are home grown position players.
Conforto
Lagares
Nimmo
Rosario
D. Smith or Alonso likely/possible opening day 1B
Only
Cano
Frazier
Ramos
currently penciled in as free agent signed starters.
And D. Wright injury has something to do with Frazier.
It was kind of hilarious how Alderson & company seemingly did all that they could to block Nimmo.
He was, but isn't that like saying Trout was ready to play out of high school?
I think when people say you don't develop position players like the poster above they're including drafting major league ready players.
Exactly. It's a bit of a paradox.
Yes, Alderson absolutely gets credit for drafting Nimmo but he absolutely also losses points for signing awful Jay Bruce to a ridiculous contract to completely block Nimmo until injuries to Bruce and Cespedes happen.
The organization will hopefully get better at self scouting under the new regime. I'm fine with a Gonzales or even Cabrera as a depth guy, but hopefully the early comments about Frazier vs McNeil not even being an open competition really concerns me.
come on, McNeil now yes they should be criticized for - absolutely - though I think most of us agree he belongs as the major league level and should be given a full time job (until and unless he fails), but until now the guy couldn't stay on the field.
Seems like he'd be a possible fit both positionally and price wise (given cheap ownership)... but there's a better than 50% chance IMO that he's completely washed up.
Agreed - that's the most mystifying part of things and it goes across so many players. They did a great job getting Conforto then they tried to make him a part time player, then they moved him to CF to accomodate Jay Bruce. Twice. And block Nimmo. And block Dom Smith. Then set themselves up to possibly do something similar this year with McNeil/Frazier. In that case maybe it's the new regime just not buying that Mcneil is legit? I can't think of any rational reason to bury a young player who projected out to be the best position player on the team over 500 AB's last year. That's the guy any rational person would go out of their way to accomodate. Not Jay Bruce. Or Frazier.
But at the end of the day I don't know which category to put it in - draft, development, talent acquisition - they have aggregated a lot of good young players who still have multiple years of team control. If they could just get out of their own way the foundation is still there for a good team. At least until the pitchers start getting too expensive to keep.
✔
@JimBowdenGM
Harper vs. Machado 2018 stat note:
Velo 94+
Machado avg .230 Slug .366
Harper avg .327 Slug .779
The organizations outfield depth chart was desperately bare in the upper-levels before this offseason.
So far, Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen has done all he can to solidify that aspect, bringing in Rajai Davis and Gregor Blanco on minor-league deals. Liriano is a former Top-50 prospect.
@adamgfisher
Exit velos are lower at Citi Field than any other park and this kills the Mets offense at home. If they can figure out the cause of this and fix it (wind patterns, baseball storage conditions?), it is bigger than almost any acquisition.
LHP Ryan O'Rourke
OF Rajai Davis
OF Gregor Blanco
OF Rymer Liriano
RHP Arquimedes Caminero
INF Dilson Herrera
MINOR LEAGUE CONTRACT
1B Dario Pizzano
OF Jason Krizan
RHP Zach Lee
C Dustin Houle
RHP Casey Coleman
INF Arismendy Alcantara
Caminero is a solid "gamble"
@adamgfisher
Exit velos are lower at Citi Field than any other park and this kills the Mets offense at home. If they can figure out the cause of this and fix it (wind patterns, baseball storage conditions?), it is bigger than almost any acquisition.
Weird tweet there by Adam. If they "fix" this then any benefit our offense gets would be offset by a corresponding disadvantage to our pitchers/advantage to opposition offense too. Both teams each game play in the same environment.
I do hope they fix it because IMO the Mets should play in a park as close to "neutral" as possible, but expecting it to result in extra wins is sort of missing the point.
Quote:
Adam Fisher
@adamgfisher
Exit velos are lower at Citi Field than any other park and this kills the Mets offense at home. If they can figure out the cause of this and fix it (wind patterns, baseball storage conditions?), it is bigger than almost any acquisition.
Weird tweet there by Adam. If they "fix" this then any benefit our offense gets would be offset by a corresponding disadvantage to our pitchers/advantage to opposition offense too. Both teams each game play in the same environment.
I do hope they fix it because IMO the Mets should play in a park as close to "neutral" as possible, but expecting it to result in extra wins is sort of missing the point.
Yeah and someone called him out on this (not in a rude way) and he suggested it had a mental impact on the hitters. While they should look into it I think "mental impact" is kind of silly when teams like the A's with their ballpark don't have the same issues.
Don't the home and away team get impacted by it similarly?
why fix it if it's environmental and if you believe the Mets have better pitchers, doesn't lower exit velo keep more balls in the park?
Not sure I understand this completely.
Don't the home and away team get impacted by it similarly?
why fix it if it's environmental and if you believe the Mets have better pitchers, doesn't lower exit velo keep more balls in the park?
Not sure I understand this completely.
PJ,
The assertion is that it's likely related to everything from wind currents in the ballpark to even the angle the stadium is situated. The "idea" is that opposing hitters come in and hit but the Mets hitters do not because of having to play 81 games there and that impacting them. The exit velocity WOULD imply there is something to it. Theoretically the pitchers would give up similar exit velocities on the road as well if it were simply having good pitchers. There isn't much that can be done (in my view) outside of making renovations to the stadium (potentially extensive) and I doubt the Mets (and for once this isn't a $$ swipe) feel this is something worth investigating to that level.
Why doesn't this same philosophy apply to the Rockies? I know this is somewhat different, but conceptually I don't think it is.
In terms of shit to worry about this doesn't make my list.
IMO they (management) just haven't figured out how to adapt to their own ballpark yet. I think before changing the environment they should figure out whether or not there are different types of hitters that actually excel there and try to build an advantage.
Here's a link to a fangraphs list of the best hitters against the mets on the road since 2014, interestingly by either OPS and wrc+ a lot of the top guys on the list are low K players. Posey, Rendon, Molina, Murphy. Even Rollins, Utley and Freeman are/were under the league average in terms of striking out. It's all SSS but somewhat interesting. Cano and Ramos could both fit the profile so they might be interesting test cases this year.
btw last year 1 met who hit 100 points better at home than on the road? Jeff McNeil.
Best hitters in citi field - ( New Window )
Why doesn't this same philosophy apply to the Rockies? I know this is somewhat different, but conceptually I don't think it is.
In terms of shit to worry about this doesn't make my list.
To be clear.. even the long Verducci piece on the topic only throws out theories. I don't feel strongly about any of them and don't even fully understand some of it so I'm just parroting what others have said and not giving "my" take. I would suggest based on your Rockies example the difference (again IF you're buying the mental impact) is the Rockies are going from a very beneficial situation at home to neutral on the road vs. The Mets who don't have any "beneficial" offensive bump. Negative at home, neutral on the road.
instead of 'play like a champion' mets front office has a 'leave no excuse unsaid' sign.
Right, like build your roster to maximize pitching (starters and bullpen) and defense.
take advantage of the low exit velo.
that type of roster wouldn't really suffer on the road.
that's definitely true too. Forget the last few years even going back to citi opening. Above average hitters for their positions the home team for multiple seasons - Wright, Murphy, Cespedes, Granderson, Conforto, end of list?
Quote:
know people get tired of me citing numbers but the truth is the Mets simply haven't had many good offensive players the past few seasons. Ballpark is almost secondary. 2018 really only Conforto, Nimmo and 1/2 of Cabrera really represented "good offense" among regulars. We can chop and slice this all we want but they got garbage offensive output at 1b, C, SS, 3b and 1 OF spot. Very hard to win games that way.
that's definitely true too. Forget the last few years even going back to citi opening. Above average hitters for their positions the home team for multiple seasons - Wright, Murphy, Cespedes, Granderson, Conforto, end of list?
This is where the "good" teams take advantage. The Astros had 7 players in their lineup with 100+ wRC+, + Stassi 97, and Reddick 99. So they essentially had 9 players going out there every day who could hit and THEN they had Kemp post a 108 OPS+ over 97 games and White 143 over 66. The Mets had Nimmo, Wilmer (gone), Cabrera (half season), Conforto, Bautista (half season and gone), Mesoraco (half season and gone) and McNeil 1/3 season but absolute garbage players like Jackson, Reyes, Gonzalez saw SIGNIFICANT run and Jay Bruce was trash
Adding Harper or Machado would be 1 pretty quick way to increase Mets average exit velocity at Citi... if that's the KPI we're going by today.. haha
Santiago doesn't have strong numbers vs. lefties so he's not a LOOGY option. Looks like Syracuse SP depth to me. If so, while not especially good, he's still potentially an "upgrade" over guys like Conlon #Mets
Santiago doesn't have strong numbers vs. lefties so he's not a LOOGY option. Looks like Syracuse SP depth to me. If so, while not especially good, he's still potentially an "upgrade" over guys like Conlon #Mets
I LOVE this signing!!
And HATE this trade :(
@WexlerRules
10 Dec 2018
More
Maybe he's just not particularly good but if the Brewers are shopping Broxton I'd be interested. Still only 28, RH, 11 DRS in CF in 2018, he's not the "answer" for this lineup but I'd buy low https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9253&position=OF #Mets
Pouring a 49 for Hill :(
If you really think about it... why not? Some players or stats may be overlooked until brought to your attention. It wouldn't be truly absurd. It's not like I'm claiming to be a scout lol
Jmo but this type of move + spending $20m per year is better than pollock. Though obviously the critical part of that equation is spending the 20m elsewhere.
According to Metsblog, this signing is a minor league deal.
Metsblog - ( New Window )