Mack’s Morning Report – 2-18-14 – Bobby Parnell, Terry Collins, Tampa Bay Rays

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please change your account to your name or some made up handle… and please don’t go away)

Also… we still need a couple of more active writers for the upcoming season. Please contact me at macksmets@gmail.com and we’ll discuss the details.

Jeremy Hefner ‏@jeremy_hefner53  - I threw a baseball 173 days post-surgery.A lot of fun feeling those laces again. Looking forward to many more positive days.

Later today..

    10am – Christopher Soto – Mack’s Mets Top 25 - #15 Gavin Cecchini

    12 noon –  Christopher Wuensch – Let The Derek Jeter Circus Begin

     2 pm – Luis Tirado Jr. – David Is Always Doing The Wright Thing

 

Jed Weisberger ‏@jedleyq  - Rafael Montero ready for #Mets rotation. Syndergaard, until he gets a third pitch, is not. Had problems late in 2013 EL season because of that.

Word is that closer Bobby Parnell is ‘just fine’ after throwing around 15 more tosses on Sunday when the cameras weren’t around. They weren’t very fast and the catcher was standing in front of the batter’s box, but that’s just fine. This is far more progressed than we thought he would be at this point in the off-season. My guess is he will still not make the opening day roster, and will be placed on the 7-day DL until full arm strength is built up sometime in April. I would expect this would open up a small window for one of the old veterans (Farnsworth, Valverde) to fill in for him until he’s ready to return. We’ll keep an eye on pitch count here to see the progress.

The Boston Globe on baseball’s best managers –

13. Terry Collins, Mets — Extremely underrated, according to our panel. Collins hasn’t had much to work with in New York, but has maintained a very upbeat approach to the Mets’ rebuilding process that has resonated with his players. He was once a feisty type but has mellowed to adapt to the modern player.

            Mack – I should probably let Reese Kaplan comment on this one J

Fangraphs broke out the five tp organizations in baseball. It’s good reading and here’s what they said about another small market team like the Mets:

3) Tampa Bay Rays - Ever since Stuart Sternberg took over as owner of the Rays in 2006, they have been one of the best-run organizations in baseball. Operating with one of the smallest payrolls in baseball, the Rays quickly turned it around under new ownership, as they reach the playoffs and World Series for the first time in the organization’s history in 2008. Since 2008, the Rays have had five seasons of at least 90 wins in six total seasons. Their success, despite being located in one of the smallest markets of any MLB team, can be attributed to their shrewd personnel decisions and reliance on young Major Leaguers under team control. The Rays have not drafted particularly well, since 2007 when they landed David Price and Matt Moore. Despite little success in recent drafts, the Rays have acquired young, controllable talent by trading veteran players, who were nearing Free Agency. The two best examples of this strategy are when the Rays traded Matt Garza to the Cubs and landed Chris Archer, among others, and when the Rays traded James Shields for Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi. Their ability to remain competitive, despite being located in one of the smallest markets in baseball, earns them the designation as one of the top organizations in baseball. http://www.fangraphs.com/community/top-five-organizations/

Mack – Another great trick that the Mets need to continue doing. Players like OF Chris Young and SP Bartolo Colon should be able to bring to the Mets quality AAA/AA prospects in the Travis d’Arnaud mode. This would follow in a year with a decision to either resign 2B Daniel Murphy or put the ‘for sale’ sign out. It’s the Mets call.

In closing –

                       Two things happened yesterday that opened my aging eyes to the reality of the times I live in and the reputation I seem to have earned.

                       The first was a quick update that I posed around 6am reporting what another Mets ‘blog-porter’ had reported on Twitter… that Curtis Granderson was placed in a walking boot by the Mets trainer. It could have simply been something he was asked to do until he got back to his hot tub, but I thought it was necessary to pass it on to my readers. As it turned out, the original posting was a poor attempt at humor and one of the Mack’s Mets writers DM’d me later on during the day with that info. I made my apologies on Twitter as I do here, but took my flack online from the original writer who posted the joke (I was even called an 'asshole' by one of the guys I did the podcast with a couple of weeks ago).

                  The followers of those two bloggers took over Twitter and I was pretty much trashed all day within the Mets community. I can't believe how Mets fans can be so cruel to someone that spends every day trying to give them free information about the team they love.

                       The other was my morning report which included some really important exclusive stuff about the future of radio broadcasts in St. Lucie. Again, this story generated no reaction whatsoever, either on Twitter or on even Mack’s Mets. My own Mack’s Mets writers didn’t even comment on it. I’m sure the fact that I was wrong about the Granderson post caused even them to back off from me on the day before my 67th birthday.

                       Needless to say, I think it’s time to alter the content of the ‘Morning Report’, while, at the same time, look for a replacement for me posting it every morning. Maybe in the long run I should reduce my content to a ‘Kiner’s Korner’ type weekly appearance.

                   I would hope that one of the Mack's Mets writers would want to do this first, but it is time consuming... averages around 1,000 words a report, either original material or 'cut and paste'.

                  If you are a reader and who like your chance to write it, email me at macksmets@gmail.com and we can discuss it.

                       For now, I apologize again and will try to limit what I report here as fact from others. I also will answer any questions you send to my email address (macksmets@gmail.com) or as a comment directed to me in a post. That content will be opinion only. Past that, I will not report anything I don't have multiple sources... no, ya know what... I'm out of the source business. All it ever  game me was heartburn, no revenue and tons of grief by Mets fans.

                       I guess in the end you earn your reputation by your actions in both the present and the past. It’s obvious that, after around ten years at doing this, I’m still thinking that I’m a ‘real guy’ in the world of Mets reporting. I’m finally realizing that I never got above the ‘AAAA’ level which is still quite an accomplishment.

                       Fine. I can live with that.