Matt Cerrone over at Mets Blog wrote a piece today on the so-called ‘Giants
model’, something brought up in an earlier article today by Jared Diamond/WSJ.
Basically it’s what we have been saying here since our gums started
bleeding. Build your team with excellent young starters around a couple of key
hitters, like Buster Posey and Carlos Beltran.
Matt said:
The Mets should consider the
Giants, and San Francisco’s success with a homegrown pitching staff, before
dealing young arms for a bat, Jared Diamond writes in the Wall Street Journal. “What
I’ve noticed playing against them and following them is they built their team,
their organization, around young power arms,” David
Wright recently told Diamond. “It’s a little too early to be anointing
our guys as those types of guys, but that’s the plan. That’s the blueprint. And
that’s how you sustain, with that young power pitching that you have under
control for five, six years.”
This
plan is, frankly, already in play.
The
current rotation is a 4-man until after the all-star break (Matt Harvey, Jeremy Hefner, Zack Wheeler, Dillon Gee).
It
will become a 5-man when LHP Jon Niese returns
from rehab after the break.
Then,
in September, Rafael Montero will enter the mix
for the remainder of the season.
Lastly,
as early as opening day 2014 or as late as August 2014, Noah Syndergarrd enters the mix.
I don’t understand how or why MetsBlog and the Wall Street Journal are only
now bringing this to the attention of both David Wright and the Mets fans in
general. This is old news in the blog world.
The problem with the Mets is the second player in this equation was
supposed to be Ike Davis. He was supposed to hit
35 home runs this year and bat around .300. Frankly, that’s all you would have
needed in most of these squeakers that the team has lost.
In my world, you leave the seven pitchers I listed above alone and you
let them battle it out for the five slots on the rotation. Then, you make a
list of the others in the organization: AAA – Jake deGrom.
AA – Logan Verrett, Cory Mazzoni, Darin Gorski.
A+ - Domingo Tapia, Michael Fulmer, Rainy Lara, Matt
Bowman, Alex Panteleodis, Hansel Robles. These are the guys, packaged
correctly with other players in the organization (Wilmer
Flores, Kevin Plawecki, Danny Muno, Rubin Tejada, Lucas Duda, Zach Lutz, Juan
Centeno, Matt den Dekker) that can bring to this team 2-3 excellent
every day players to round out the 1-8 hitters in the lineup.
You just have to pull the trigger once to get this going.
I love the way the Giants have built around young pitching. Where I disagree is with the idea that you have two key hitters and expect that to be enough offense. The Mets can have both elite pitching and a very good offense, why not build both. The pitching is coming together and will be cheap for some time.
ReplyDeleteLook what happened to the Giants when Posey got hurt two years ago. They had to sacrifice their top pitching prospect in a desperate attempt to add offense and still missed out.
The 'Giants model' is good for the Mets if they mean build a young, elite staff. It's not enough it means 'just enough offense'. The model the Mets should be following is a hybrid - Tampa Bay with money. Build young pitching, keep it, and supplement it with hitting talent. If the Rays had real MLB money no one would have a chance in the AL East.