Mack’s Morning Report – 12-17 – Wilmer Flores, Sandy Alderson, Cory Mazzoni, 2014 Pen

 

MetsBlog –

Over his last four games for Los Bravos de Margarita, Wilmer Flores is 7-for-13 with three doubles, two RBI and only one strikeout. Overall this winter, Flores is hitting .391 with six RBI and only four strikeouts in 46 at-bats in 13 games, and is 9-for-19 with runners in scoring position.

Mack – One caveat… this is not major league baseball. The competition here, especially the pitching, is far from major league ready and most of the guys Flores has hit against are near the end of their professional career. Still, .391 is better than the .211 he hit last year as a Met.

The bad news is they keep moving him around from 1B to 2B to DH. Remember, the Mets have no control where players play in leagues like this.

 

New York Magazine -

Almost every move Sandy Alderson has made since taking over in 2010 has been golden. The Mets’ farm system, decaying when he took over, is now near the top of the majors, headed by pitchers Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero. But his specialty is the pump-and-dump: The best example is R. A. Dickey, a cheap free-agent-to-be the Mets swapped for Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud from Toronto. (Syndergaard is now one of the top pitching prospects in baseball and was only the second most valuable player in that trade.) Alderson had done the same a year earlier, turning Carlos Beltran into Zack Wheeler, at the time the Giants’ pitching future and now the Mets’ likely opening-day starter. In an age when prospects are the highest-­valued assets in the game, Alderson, somehow, pried away three top ones for players with expiring contracts. No other G.M. has been able to wrangle up even one player like that in a similar deal.            http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2013/sandy-alderson/

            Mack – If you’re a big Sandy fan, you will love this article.

 

MetsBlog -

The Mets may consider converting minor-league RHP Cory Mazzoni into a relief pitcher in Spring Training, which should give him a chance to make the Opening Day roster (Rubin, Dec. 16). http://metsblog.com/metsblog/cory-mazzoni-may-be-a-candidate-for-the-bullpen/

            Mack – The 2014 pen looks to be in flux.

I’m going under the assumption that Bobby Parnell will not be ready. This opens the door for Vic Black to start the season as the closer.

There are only two lefthander relievers on the 40-man so we can assume that (as of today) Josh Edgin and Scott Rice are safe.

            ***one caveat – Sandy may not be done here***

RHP Jeurys Familia still hasn’t tied down a spot. He’s currently having control problems in the winter leagues (10.2-IP, 12-K, 6-BB, 5-WP, 1.88-WHIP) and the Mets may be running out of patience here.

RHP Carlos Torres is going nowhere because he’s the emergency SP6 and RHP Gonzalez Germen will be back to hopefully duplicate his excellent rookie season (29-appearances, 3.93).

That’s five set and two question marks.

There obviously is going to be a lot of competition in camp for the last two slots (best stats last year: John Church), but I still feel at least one of these will be filled by a player that still is unsigned.

Look, this problem sort of goes away in 16 months when this team will have 8 viable starters. Rafael Montero will be ready to step in for Mejia if he stumbles in 2014 and then the Mets need to make room for Noah Syndergaard after the all-star break (Matt Harvey returns opening day 2015).

The second-half-of-2014 pen could easily have both Montero and Mejia it which (added with Familia) might give the Mets the pizzazz they need coming out of the pen gates.