Mack Ade – Morning Report – 11-14-13 – Day 3-GM Meetings, ERA, CoreyHart, Jeffy

Well, we’re waking up on Day 3 of the Owners/GM meetings and only the Phillies and Marlon Byrd seem to have pulled off a major deal. A two year $16mil deal for an NL East team for a 37-yr. old dude that should be playing DH isn’t exactly what we expected, but when does the Phillies do anything we expect. The Phillies have become the most active team at the meetings, talking with OF Jose Bautista and they’ve reached out to a number of catchers. We now we find out that Byrd has a 2016 option… $8M if he gets 600 PA in 2015, or if he totals 1,100 in 2014-15 & has at least 550 in '15. No one expected this aggressive approach by the Phillies who just came to town with an all-business and no comedy routine attitude.



ERA –

I'm hardly breaking new ground here, as very smart people have been looking for alternatives and commenting against the use of ERA for years. And it makes sense as to why: ERA is a statistic that is fundamentally flawed, and that flaw sits at the beginning of it's acronym. The flaw is "E.' When we talk about earned run average, we talk about what makes a run "earned" versus what makes a run "unearned". And this simple distinction turns this statistic away from the thing that would make it most useful. ERA is best used at its most descriptive. This is what happened. Yet when we focus on earned runs allowed rather than all runs allowed, we shoehorn in an element of judgement. This is what happened, except we're removing a subset of those runs, which probably aren't the pitcher's fault. If it were a perfect way to eliminate that which does not belong to the pitcher, then it'd have value. But it's not perfect. It's based, in large part, on errors. http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/11/13/5080514/the-end-of-era-ra9-sabermetrics

Mack – I’ve never liked the total lack of responsibility a relief pitcher gets when they enter a game with, let’s say two runners on and they then give up two singles, scoring both of those runs. Why is the pitcher before them charged with these runs when it was pitcher ‘B’ that gave up the singles that scored the two dudes? This is a good article.



Corey Hart –

Corey Hart is a first baseman who missed all of 2013 after having surgery in January. His below-average defense in right field and (albeit in only one season) first base probably won't improve into his 30s. In a market with a lot of first basemen—Paul Konerko, Justin Morneau, Mike Napoli, to name a few—and with all of that working against him, Hart is a prime candidate for a one-year, incentive laden deal. On the other hand, he's 31, has a career .276/.334/.491 slash line, and has been a pretty valuable offensive player over his career. A .270/.325/.490 season with 20-plus homers is well within his reach, and would surely provide value. There's some injury risk here, and he's not stealing 20 bases again, but I'm betting whoever signs him gets more than their money's worth. —Tim Collins http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22199

Mack – I wouldn’t be writing about this guy again if something was going on in Orlando. I still think the Mets should consider Hart as a one year option, especially if teams out there are offering anything decent for both Lucas Duda and Ike Davis. You could deal both of them off in separate deals for some new blood and play Hart at first, spelled by either Wilmer Flores or Daniel Murphy.



Jhonny Peralta -

Alderson revealed club officials met with several teams, agents, and even a free agent who happened to be in town this week. The player was shortstop Jhonny Peralta, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. The source requested anonymity because the meeting was to be secret.  http://www.nj.com/mets/index.ssf/2013/11/mets_gm_sandy_alderson_discusses_mets_offseason_approach.html

Mack  - Can the Mets ever conduct their business and something not leak out to one of the beat reporters or I just the way the Mets con duct their business? I just don’t understand how it is in their best interest to either leak this crap and piss off the player you are ‘secretly’ meeting with or paying employees that aren’t loyal to your cause.



Jeffy on Wednesday –

See what happened on Wednesday? Jeff Wilpon had Jay Horvitz gather up the gaggle and told them that there would be something coming down by the afternoon. Everybody went on Twitter and announced to the Met world that things were about to happen. Then, Sandy Alderson showed up on his way to lunch, found out what his boss said, and denied the entire scenario.

Do you know what just happened here?

This just cost you a free agent. Someone out there that was considering signing with this horse’s ass-run team read all this and called his agent and told him to move on. Nobody wants to play for a loser and, more importantly, no one wants to play for a horse’s ass that loses.

These guys just can’t help themselves.



I really let all of this get to me yesterday. The statement by Jeff Wilpon in the lobby that something was coming down later that day, coupled with the continued technical problems I experience each day trying to post on my site wound me up pretty tight. I had to re-boot four times before finally able to post the information on what was being written online, only to be slapped in the face with the Sandy Alderson comments when reporters informed him what his boss had said. I literally screamed out the ‘F’ word which startled my wife and I put the computer away for the rest of the day. I have to stop taking this crap so seriously.



Joe Specter –

Look, I’m not pining for the Mets to suddenly offer a hundred million to Joe Schmo just for the sake of it.  In fact, I think this is one of the weakest free agent crops in quite some time.  That said, you don’t send mixed messages to the fan base especially when it comes off as being a lie…err I mean disingenuous, I mean misleading.  Cut the crap.  Either you’re willing to spend the money or you’re not. And seriously, enough with the money (lack of) jokes already. If perception truly is reality, you're doing a great job of making the Mets look broke...of course unless they practically are then you're just lying...I mean misleading.  There I go again, thinking I'm being lied to.  Silly me.                 http://networkedblogs.com/R7cbS

Mack – Joe is an old warhorse friend of mine of the Mets blog community that can be found both here on his own blog and over at the Dark Star Mets Merized. He’s just one of the myriad of intelligent Mets columnists that exist on the internet that have reached their boiling point over how Sandy and Company choose to do their non-business. I’ve gone out of my way this morning to canvas the majority of Mets blogs and they all have one central theme… the lack of respect for what Jeff Wilpon and Sandy Alderson are showing the fan base. I know they basically could give two shits about how we feel, but, trust me, it’s going to be an ugly season in the stands if this continues.

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David Wright –

                "Let me preface this by saying that this is my opinion, and not anything that Sandy has told me, or anything that Sandy and I have talked about. It seemed like it worked for Boston last year. If you can get three or four -- maybe not those marquee free agents -- but three or four guys that are very good, solid, players I think it helps us fill more holes. And ultimately we become a better team because of it. I think with some of the holes that we have, it's probably better suited -- again this is my opinion -- to fill some of those holes rather than spend all of your allocated budget on one player."