Mack Stuff – John Lannon, New Writers, TPA Top 20, Additional 2013 Spending

 

Gary Seagren asked:  A little surprised we didn't try for Lannan at 2.5 mil

Mack:   I too was surprised, which tells me that Sandy and Company have a lot of confidence in either Jenrry Mejia or Jeremy Heffner out of camp. We know that the plan is to bump up Zack Wheeler around July 1^st and, on the surface, you would have thought $2.5mil was worth looking at, especialy when you probably knew that Minnesota was in the $4+ range with Mike Pelfrey. Lannan just never was a Washington favorite, but he had decent numbers for an SP5. It’s only December19th so let’s see what else Sandy has up his sleeve.

I hope you have noticed the quality posts coming from Rey Pierantoni, Christopher Soto, Reese Kaplan, and Michael Scannell. It’s the goal of Mack’s Mets to attract the best fans of this team and give them the opportunity to become a member of our growing family. Please consider joining us, or, in the case of some of you, coming back to the place you once wrote for. This isn’t about me and you. This is about you and the team you love and we’re about to begin to gear up for the season. Wally Murphy will rejoin us and write about every home Savannah game, but we’re still looking for local writers in Kingsport, St. Lucie, Binghamton, and now, Las Vegas. Please email me at: macksmets@gmail.com. I’ll send you and email and we can begin immediately. Thank you.. oh yeah, we will be ‘closed’ on both Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Top Prospect Alert http://topprospectalert.com/2012/12/11/2013-organizational-top-20-prospect-rankings/ updated their top 20 Mets prospect list. It now is: 1) Travis d’Arnaud, 2) Zack Wheeler, 3) Noah Syndergaard, 4)              Michael Fulmer, 5)Brandon Nimmo, 6) Domingo Tapia, 7) Luis Mateo, 8 ) Gavin Cecchini, 9) Rafael Montero, 10)           Wilmer Flores, 11) Matthew Koch, 12) Vicente Lupo, 13)Jeurys Familia, 14) Hansel Robles, 15) Tyler Pill, 16) Logan Verrett, 17) Kevin Plawecki, 18) Cesar Puello, 19) Brandon Welch, 20) Cory Vaughn… as I have said with the other lists, most have the same names. Mateo does seem to be creeping up all the lists out there. I have a couple of problems with this one. Mathew Koch has done nothing to warrant being ranked 11^th and you can’t have a player that hasn’t played anything but DSL ball (Lupo) on a prospect list. You can dream about Lupo but you can’t rank him. It amazes me that Flores, who just consistently is hitting the snot off the ball, is ranked behind a kid that couldn’t hit .275 in Brooklyn.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/mets/future_bright_but_too_many_holes_pAnAcGu1P1sboAGfA3UTJN?utm_medium=twitter&utm_content=Mets&utm_source=dlvr.it – “The Mets need a starting pitcher, two outfielders and some bullpen help. And despite picking up a 2013 placeholder in Buck and a future franchise catcher in d’Arnaud, they’ll look for some organizational depth behind the plate as well, Alderson said.They have in the neighborhood of $7 million to spend, so don’t look for them to swoop in on intriguing names that are still out there like, say, free-agent center fielder Michael Bourn. The best, most realistic options are Scott Hairston and Cody Ross, both of whom will likely get multi-year deals as free agents.”

              I’m hoping for one good ‘name’ outfielder here, plus a bunch of fill-ins. I will then consider this to have been a successful off-season. You can’t do everything, especially when you don’t have the depth to trade for what you need.