The Mets Front Office announced a short while ago that Matt Harvey has elected to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair the partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/nym/harvey-elects-to-undergo-tommy-john-surgery?ymd=20131004&content_id=62477914&vkey=news_nym
Several weeks ago Harvey announced that upon consultation with team physicians and others, he had decided to seek to avoid the surgery by undertaking a conditioning regimen and a throwing program. In the last week or so it had become apparent that the lack of progress toward that end mitigated in favor of the surgery option. Avoiding surgery had always been a long shot for Harvey since it is known that only 1 in 8 players with similar injuries have been successful in avoiding the TJ procedure.
Harvey is expected to miss the entire 2014 season. Sandy Alderson had already indicated that he planned to seek at least one veteran starter this winter. The question now is whether Harvey’s decision will motivate Alderson to attempt to sign a front line pitcher like Matt Garza, or to stay the original plan and sign a mid-level starter. Currently, Zack Wheeler, Jon Niese and Dillon Gee are set in next year’s rotation, with the returning Jenrry Mejia a likely starter as well. Who Alderson brings in to round out the rotation will be a strong indicator of how serious the Mets front office is about putting a contending team on the field next April.
So be it...build an offense and when Harvey returns in 2015 it will be like adding a big ticket player to a team that's already a contender.
ReplyDelete6 Guys
ReplyDeleteJ Johnson
Arroyo
Santana
Byrd
Beltran
Drew
Your ideas are sound . . good choice of players. It's hard for me to conceive of Sandy signing 6 high profile free agents. I believe he will trade to fill at least some of those holes.
ReplyDeleteI am in complete agreement with your pitchers as long as Santana and Johnson can be signed to 1 year deals with significant incentives. It might have to be only one of them signed. In that case Matsuzaka and/or Harang could be brought back for depth.
For offense, I see one of Cruz, Byrd or Beltran getting signed, maybe two. More likely that they trade for an OF like Bautista or CarGo. For SS, I see a trade for someone like Andrus (especially if Texas goes hard for Cano) or Aybar, Hardy, or even Tulo, before they sign Drew.
A rotation of Santana, Wheeler, Niese, Arroyo and Gee excites me, with Mejia, Dice-K, and Harang for depth when one of them goes down. And a lineup of:
Andrus - SS
Young - 2B
Wright - 3B
CarGo/Bautista - LF
Davis - 1B
Byrd/Cruz/Beltran - RF
d'Arnaud - C
Lagares/den Dekker - CF
is a playoff team.