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11/5/13

Mack Ade – Morning Report – 11-5-13 – 2014, David Lennon, Bill Geivett, Jhonny Peralta, Amed Rosario

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I sense a different policy coming out of Sandy Alderson's office this year. He would have never talked about giving up a draft pick in the past. I think they know exactly what direction they are going... sign one 'qualified offer' player, lose their 2nd round pick, and then sign additional players below that level.

The Mets must replace the loss of Marlon Byrd with a big name and then, not stop there. That simply would represent a breakeven position. No, there are at least two 'bats' being added to this team, either on the corner outfield positions, first base, or shortstop.

I just feel it.

 

Rocco asked –

                Mack, love the site. First time email.

A lot of you think that the Mets might spend enough money to fill up all ‘the holes’. Do you agree with them?

                Mack – Welcome Rocco. I’m not sure anyone thinks the Mets will spend what they should. What there has been is a lot of pipe dreaming about what each poster wishes the Mets would do.

I try and look realistically at this team while, at the same time, try and predict what Sandy Alderson will do rather than what I would do. Don’t believe what you read sometimes. The Mets are going to spend around $45mil tops for new talent. My guess is it will even be more in the $40 range.

As a past businessman, I fully understand the desire the Mets front office has to heal financially and because of the lack of long term salary commitments, they have a chance to move closer to a break even profit and loss statement this year.

I think the Mets will make pre-season 2014 decisions based on the mid-season projected 25-man roster. Three new players (SP Noah Syndergaard, P Rafael Montero, RF Cesar Puello) will join the team and all will be team controlled for years to come. Knowing this, the Mets are free to spend in the $14-19mil/yr. range for at least two prime ‘bats’, either through a trade or free agency.

I believe that Alderson is committed to playing Juan Lagares in centerfield, with Matt den Dekker as his backup. Den Dekker also gives the Mets an additional quality late inning defensive substitution at either of the corner positions. We’ve learned the hard way that close games have been lost in the past due to shoddy outfield defense. Lagares, den Dekker, and Eric Young Jr. have turned that image around in one season.

I think a new outfielder will fill one of the corner positions and Young will play in the other until Puello is promoted. It will be Young’s job to lose and he will lead off until or if that happens.

The other looks to be a replacement at shortstop. My guess is this will be a free agency pick.

The only other monies I see being spend would be for a ‘temporary’ starter and maybe one power relief arm. In a perfect sense, the Mets could have seven starters (Zack Wheeler, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee, Noah Syndergaard, Rafael Montero, Jenrry Mejia, and new guy) and we didn’t even menton Jerremy Hefner.

Trade wise, Expect one of our second basemen to depart (Daniel Murphy or Wilmer Flores) as well as one of the first basenen (Ike Davis or Lucas Dudu)., I expect a starter to depart as well

This is my spin… today .

 

Qualified offers -

1. Carlos Beltran: Beltran hit 24 Home Runs to compliment a .296/.339 line with the national league champion Cardinals. He is a strong candidate to accept his offer since he is unlikely to beat this deal elsewhere and he can remain with St. Louis to try to chase a World Series ring.

2. Robinson Cano: As a 31-year-old and the best Free Agent on the market, Robinson Cano is guaranteed to turn down his qualifying offer. The Yankees will either resign him or they will gain a compensation pick at the end of the first round.

3. Shin-Soo ChooAt 31-years old and as a 20 home run bat with a .423 OBP, Choo is guaranteed to turn down his offer. He may be the best all around long-term outfielder with age, durability and talent all taken into account.

4. Nelson CruzMired in injuries and a steroid suspension, Cruz has played in more than 128 games in a season just once in his career. He may be a candidate to accept his offer and hit Free Agency as a 34-year-old at the end of 2014 after a full season to regain his value.

5. Stephen Drew: Drew has had an OBP over .326 and hit more than 15 HR just once in his career. At 30-years-old, he’s not a slam dunk to accept or reject his offer, but he would undoubtedly be one of the worst values in exchange for losing its first round pick to a new team should he turn down his offer and sign elsewhere.

6. Jacoby Ellsbury: A 30-year-old Scott Boras client, coming off a World Championship and with a natural replacement waiting for the Red Sox, Ellsbury is guaranteed to turn his offer down, gain the Sox a pick and get himself paid.

7. Curtis GrandersonOne of three Yankees, Granderson was hit by two different pitches and missed most of the season. There’s an outside chance he accepts his offer, but will still likely turn it down since he can do a lot better than $14.1 million on the open market, even with a draft pick riding on it.

8. Ubaldo Jimenez: Jimenez will turn 30-years-old in January and is coming off a season with a 3.30 ERA, 9.6K/9 and 182.2 innings, his most since 2010. Expect Jimenez to easily turn down his offer and seek a long-term deal in Free Agency.

9. Hiroki Kuroda: Kuroda is only seeking one year deals at this stage if he decides to stay in the states. Still, by accepting the offer he would be taking almost a one million dollar pay cut despite being the Yankees’ ace. He will turn this down, but may not go anywhere in the US except the Bronx.

10. Brian McCann: McCann will be 30-years-old before Opening Day but as the top catcher in Free Agency, he will get a long-term deal somewhere for a lot more than his qualifying offer. No chance he accepts and he’s unlikely to return to Atlanta.

11. Kendrys Morales: The 30-year-old already took his one year deal to boost value in 2013 and he responded with 23 home runs, 80 RBI and a .277/.336 line. Morales will turn down his offer and sign a multi-year deal elsewhere.

12. Mike Napoli: The final of the three Red Sox and like Ellsbury, Napoli is going to turn down his qualifying offer. Unlike Ellsbury, it’s very likely Napoli signs a multi-year deal to return to Boston.

13. Ervin Santana: For a starter turning 31-years-old Santana is very likely to cash in on a 3.24 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 211 innings. There is no chance this offer is accepted and Santana will sign a multi-year deal.

http://baseballnewssource.com/trade-rumors/cano-ellsbury-lead-list-of-players-with-qualifying-offers/27133/

 

David Lennon

SHIN-SOO CHOO, CF With a .423 on-base percentage and 107 runs, Choo is a favorite of the analytic crowd. Also showed decent pop with 21 homers, including 11 away from the Reds' home launching pad. Even more valuable to a city with a large Korean fan base that could boost ticket sales. (Hint, hint). - Prediction: Mets, six years, $105 million

JHONNY PERALTA, SS Another member of the Biogenesis bunch; that should knock a few bucks off Peralta's market price. But he combines a solid glove with this season's .815 OPS, so that should convince teams to gamble, especially ones looking to fill a glaring need on the cheap. Prediction: Mets, two years, $19 million

Mack – Wouldn’t this be nice. 25% of your everyday players are locked up with genuine stars of the game. You could play EJY until Cesar Puello was ready to give him a fight for left field and all you have to do in this off-season is decide who is going to be your SP5 until Noah Syndergaard grows up.

Young, Murphy, Wright, Davis, Choo, d-Arnaud, Peralta, Lagares

 

Bill Geivett - of Colorado Rockies –

“Our needs are starting pitching, late inning relief (maybe 2 guys), and a corner bat. We'd listen on trading Tulo and Cargo but the likely scenario is that they're with us"

Mack – Well, Sandy Alderson can’t help here with a corner outfielder and, frankly, the Mets have their own relief problems.

I still think the best way to approach Colorado is to avoid any discussion on either Tulowitzki, or Gonzalez. You have two outfielders (Michael Cuddyer, Dexter Fowler) entering the last year of their contract.

The simple deal for one of them would to offer two ‘corner’ dudes… Ike Davis and Daniel Murphy.

At any point you could replace one of these names with any pitcher other than Zack Wheeler, Matt Harvey, Dillon Gee, Jon Niese, or Noah Syndergaard.

You would also have to re-negotiate a couple more years here to make it worthwhile for the Mets. A 3-4 year deal with the 27-year old Fowler could move Juan Lagares to right and create quite the defensive outfield.

 

MetsBlog

                The Detroit Tigers will not make a qualifying offer to SS Jhonny Peralta

                Mack – It makes sense. Detroit has budding star Jose Iglesias in the wings and Peralta’s 50-game suspension doesn’t play will in mid-America towns like Detoit.

                This is one less roadblock for the Mets to get this one done and I frankly thin this could be the first announcent of their FA season. I’m thinking a little bump over the qualifying offer figures and give im $15mil a year for two years with a team option in 2016.

                2013: .303/.358 OBP/.815 OPS, 11 home runs and 55 RBI in 448 plate appearances.

 

Fangraphs

In sum, Amed Rosario is a player who already shows a diverse skillset. He has bat speed to burn, and his size and strength give him the potential to provide above-average power for a middle infielder. He’s also fairly polished for a 17-year-old, as evidenced by his ability to demonstrate his tools against much older competition in 2013. On the flip side, there’s a lot for him to work on, but it’s all just a matter of slowing the game down, refining, and gaining consistency rather than innate athletic deficiencies, and he has a lot of time to smooth out those rough edges, to say the least.  He has a long way to go, but his ranking as one of the top short-season prospects is well-deserved, and I expect his raw statistics to improve in 2014 with a year of adjustments and reps under his belt. Rosario should already be a target for deep-league dynasty owners looking to jump on the best of the newest crop of international prospect, and he’s still a player to track for those in shallower prospect formats, as he’s a definite 2014 breakout candidate.

Mack – This is the second big time prospect piece on some prospect we didn’t realize was in this organization. One blog site already has him playing Brooklyn next year and I’ve read him as high as Savannah. Frankly, if this kid really has what I takes at 17, slow him down and send him back to Kingsport for the first half of the abbreviated 2014 season. You can always send him up in Brooklyn if he comes out of the box in in Tennessee.

Either way, his ETA wouldn’t be until 2018.

14 comments:

  1. I dont understand why start him at kingsport. Once in a while you have a speacial player and you can fast track him, i would start him at savannah if he strugles you send him to brooklyn.

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  2. Mack,

    Don't Sell yourself short.....we have always know about Amed Rosario.....we just knew him using his middle name...GERMAN Rosario.

    I agree that he will start 2014 repeating Kingsport with a late season (8-10 games) promotion to Brooklyn.

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  3. He didn't like up the Appy League like Dom Smith did is the reason.

    His line was:

    .241/.279/.358, 3 HR, 23 RBI, 2 SB (25%), 11 BB, 43 K

    He barely handled late round High School pitchers and nothing in that line suggest he is READY to handle the mid to late round college level pitchers that are present in the NY-Penn League.

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  4. Choo and Peralta would be a dream come true. I still see Murphy getting traded, posibly to the Dodgers for Ethier, if the Dodgers would chip in a boatload of cash to offset Andre's giant salary. An outfield of Ethier-Lagares-Choo wouldn't be half bad. EYJ is your 2B this year.

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  5. So many directions this team could go but if they sign Choo or trade for Fowler, they better not have Ike/Duda hitting cleanup.

    This team needs a cleanup hitter in the worst way. My offseason would be Fowler, Cruz/Granderson & Peralta. Lose 1 draft pick.

    I couldn't agree more that either Murphy or Flores has to go. I like Murph a lot but he's quite valuable and could bring back a nice return.

    Fowler
    Murphy
    Wright
    Granderson
    Peralta
    Ike/Duda
    D'Arnaud
    Lagares

    That's a dangerous team with the rotation and bullpen that this team is building.

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  6. Fowler and EYJ are essentially the same player though. Both are speedsters who will hit around .260 with lots of speed.

    If you want to use the HR card, then I counter with the fact that away from Coors Field, Fowler only has 13 CAREER HRs. On the flip side, despite his speed Fowler only had 19 SBs compared to Young's league leading 43.

    No need to spend resources in that swap in my opinion.

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  7. In my opinion, Fowler would be a terrible acquisition. For his career he is a .241 hitter with a .694 OPS away from he friendly skies of Coors Field. Cuddyer, however, is an interesting option for LF because if Ike falters you can always move him to 1B, move Young back to LF and play Flores at 2B. That would be my Plan B.

    Plan A would be to trade for Ethier, as I outlined above. In either case, I would be signing Choo, so my lineup would be:

    Choo - RF
    Young - 2B
    Wright - 3B
    Ethier/Cuddyer - LF
    Peralta - SS
    Davis - 1B
    d'Arnaud - C
    Lagares - CF

    Spend all spring working on Young's drag bunting capability.

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  8. Peralta,Cruz and trade Murphy and Ike for another outfielder sign Holiday, with the pitching we have we should be in a pennant race all yr.

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  9. In what world is Holliday available? Unless your talking trading Davis and Murphy for Holliday. In that case the Cardinals are laughing at you for that proposal.

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  10. Not the cards Holiday im talking Doc Holiday

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  11. OF-wise I see the Mets going like this: Choo/Cruz/Granderson

    They will be pursuing Choo hard, and if they can't get him then I'd see them looking at Cruz or Granderson on a short-term deal.

    I believe they'll flirt with Carlos, but unfortunately he'll wind up crosstown.
    SS will be Drew or Peralta, or so I thought until I saw they've inquired about Furcal. I'll write more on what I think of that tomorrow.

    I'd like to see them take a chance on Josh Johnson at the right price. I think he's a huge bounce-back candidate for 2013.

    I hope they pass on Fowler and Ethier. Cuddyer on the other hand...

    At least Sandy is talking a good game at this point,of course it's not like he has much of a choice.

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  12. Ahh ok....My bad.

    I agree with that signing.

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  13. I'm guessing he means Roy Halladay

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  14. To me, after TJ surgery and a year off, Furcal can not be relied upon as your regular SS. He would be a great bench piece, but we should still pursue Peralta, Drew or a superior trade option.

    I wonder, if we can't get Choo, and Byrd doesn't commit to Pittsburgh, would Marlon be the best Plan B? Cruz carries some PED uncertainties, and his glove is not that great. Grandersdon will certainly not be a 40 HR hitter in Citifield, and he doesn't hit that great for average. How much better would either of them be than Byrd? Signing Byrd, Peralta and Arroyo means we keep that second round pick, and that is worth something. And we still have the opportunity to trade for a good (maybe stellar) outfielder.

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