11/13/12

11-13-12 – Broke v3.0, Josh Thole, Courtney Hawkins, Cot Adjustment, Carlos Gomez


Well, it looks like Michael Salfino, a writer for the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo! Sports, has back pedaled a little on his reports that the Mets are broke.

He has now printed that what he said was “hearsay” which is a nice way of saying that the WSJ told him to distance himself from this or risk ever writing again for them.
This doesn’t mean his source was wrong. It just means you better have it right and be ready for the heat that follows.

Regulars here remember when I reported that the Mets would have a three-VP system under Sandy Alderson. My source was someone that had a relative that worked for the New York Mets and it was 100% solid, but I screwed it up when I printed one of the names wrong (I don't remember now, but I think I said it would be Alderson, DePo and Chip Hale, instead of JP). Anyway, the beat reporters ignored what I wrote, but the bloggers jumped on me right away, questioning both what I had said and whether or not I had the contacts to get this kind of information. My source immediately pointed out to me that I had it wrong and I erased the post; however, it cost me dearly in the community as to whether or not I knew what I was talking about.

Look, I think Salfino is correct. My ‘sources’ have been telling me for six months that the banks have cut off any additional lending to the organization.

If you own a business that takes in less than you have coming in, you must go to your kitty. In the case of the Mets, the cupboard is bare. You next try to borrow more against your assets and that seems like impossibility right now. Lastly, you dip into your own bank accounts.

Fred Wilpon’s mindset has never been to sell this team under any condition and it will take the Commissioner of Baseball to step in and force any sale.

I will tell you one thing…  this story does one thing. There goes any agents that are still out there trying to sell the Mets to any of their clients.


-         Fangraphs ranked the top 26 catchers in the major leagues by the following explanation:

o    The players were ranked based on their 2012 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 350 plate appearances over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account for players eligible at multiple positions. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues.


Buster Posey was ranked 1st with an ‘SSS’ value of 23. Josh Thole came in last, at 26th with an ‘SSS’ value of -16. (Jarrod Saltalamacchia was 12th with an ‘SSS’ value of 1).

It’s hard to find anything good to say about Thole right now. He’s taken an awful lot of shit from both the writers and the fans and I hope he gets another year to prove his worth, but making a change here seems like the best thing to do.


-         It absolutely sickens me to see that BA has released its top 10 Chicago White Sox prospects and OF Courtney Hawkins is already listed at number one. He was available to the Mets in the first round and actually was picked by Chicago as the the next pick after SS Gavin Cecchini. Her’s an organization begging for outfielders and what does DePo do? He adds another shortstop. Nothing against Cecchini here… I’m just ranted over the needs of the team. Hawkins is rocketing up the minor league levels and his ETA is now 2014. Amazing.


-        Cot  has made their adjustments involving the Jason Bay payout. They how list Bay’s 2012 payout at $18,125, and show only a $3,000 figure for 2013. This lowers the overall ‘existing’ 2013 payroll at $74,175. The Mets can lower this by an additional $21mil if they trade RA Dickey and David Wright for minimal wage players. Al I’m saying here is… one of Fred Wilpon’s plans has to be to save this team would be to trade both Wright and Dickey for 4-6 prospects, operate this team in 2013 well below the $100mil figure as reported, and basically start over with a team of young, talented kids.

Let’s say Dickey to Boston for LHSP Andrew Young and OF Jackie Bradley

Then Wright to Toronto for C Travis d’Arnaud, 3B Brett Lawrie, and OF Anthony Gose.

How would 2014 look then?

I asked Eno Sarris:

Eno Sarris - ‏@enosarris - I'd use $74m as current 2013 outlay for Mets. That assumes releasing Torres, Acosta & Pelfrey.  To find that number, I used cot's current outlay http://bit.ly/nk6MGt   and added in @Matt_Swa projected arb numbers http://bit.ly/T0dk52 .  So that's $56.05 in current Mets contracts, plus $11m in arb raises, plus $400K times remaining roster spots. Mets have $56m in contracts w/out bay, $8.5m arb (no Torres, Pelfrey, Acosta), 16x$400k = 6.4. $71m without Bay.

So, you take off the $20mil for Wright and Dickey, and it’s $51m


Fangraphs had a fascinating story about the 10 top part time players in baseball. Guess who was number 1?

                   1. Carlos Gomez: 452 PA, 98 GS / 137 GP, 3.5 WAR
It took six seasons and three organizations, but Gomez finally turned in an above-average season at the plate. He still proved to be fairly allergic to taking a walk, and he swung at more pitches than ever, but when he did make contact, the ball went further, as his HR/FB of 14.3% was a career-best. Much of his improvement can be traced to his performance against right-handed pitching. In 163 PA against righties in 2011, Gomez posted a paltry .254 wOBA. In ’12, that bumped up to a career-best .329 in 288 PA. He also had a career year on the bases, placing fifth in the National League with 37 steals and eighth in the NL with a 6.3 Bsr. Combine all of that with his trademark good defense, and you have a very useful player.

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