Mack’s Morning Report – 2-20-14 – Sully-Chat, Better Seasons, WAR, Pirates, 2B

Coming Up Later Today –

            10 am – Christopher Soto - MM's Top 25- #13 RHSP Michael Fulmer

12 noon – D Whit - A Brief Look at the post-Met careers of Don Rose, Frank Estrada and Leroy Stanton

            2 pm –   FANGRAPHS - Atlanta Braves Top 10 Prospects

            5 pm –  Top 14 in ’14: Washington Nationals

            8 pm – Michael Kopech, Kyle Freeland, Justin Smith, Benito Santiago

            11 pm - A Quick Look - RHP - Keaton McKinney - Ankeny (IA) HS

Marc Carig ‏@MarcCarig  - Ike is making $3.125m. If Mets move that salary, it’s no small amount. Might impact whether they swoop one last piece, perhaps Drew.

Sully-Chat –

Comment From Joe - For whatever it’s worth on Nelson Cruz (translation: Mets continue conversations with Cruz): ?@MarlyRiveraESPN - Los Mets continúan en conversaciones con Nelson Cruz, pero no han dado ningún fruto todavía

Jeff Sullivan: Plenty of teams are going to continue checking in, just to see how far the price falls. And the price will fall lower as long as a bunch of teams keep checking in. Don’t know why the Mets would be interested

Mack – This is just not going to happen. The Mets have already spent over $67.25mil on their 2014 outfield, which translates into $20.25mil of the 2014 team figure. You will not see this team add $10-14mil more at this point to this outfield. No way. Nada. No mas.

Comment From Guest - Has there ever been any research done into what makes teams under/over perform their collective WAR? Sort of a study into if there’s any statistical correlation between certain team makeups and success/failure. For example how much defense does a team need in the outfield? Infield? How much does that change based on the type of SP? Is there an ideal range of power a team should have or do they get as much value from a team that’s SB heavy? Some stat to try to quantify the synergy of a team. I’m thinking it’d be great to have even a loose framework to judge an acquisition on aside from the individual player’s stats. Some sort of marriage between saber stats and old school team building technique.

Jeff Sullivan: This kind of stuff will become more possible as we get more and more years of projected team WAR data. But what you’re always going to run into are sample-size concerns since a 162-game season isn’t actually that long and things can end up upset by injuries or trades or whatnot. The hypothesis always has to be, in individual cases, that a team under/overperformed because of sample size, or just an erroneous projection

            Mack – War… good God… what is it good for?… absolutely nuthin’

The Miami Marlins are softening their stance on stubble. For the first time since Jeffrey Loria took over as owner in 2002, Marlins players will be permitted to grow and wear beards, but only as long as they’re neat. “This year we’re going to let them have beards, but they have to keep them trimmed up, and the hair, too,” said manager Mike Redmond. “We just don’t want it to look sloppy.”  http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/19/3944487/miami-marlins-drop-ban-on-facial.html#storylink=cpy

Dave Hudgens on Travis d’Arnaud –

“I think cutting down his swing just means not trying so hard. I think when he came up last year he was trying, maybe not in his mind, but it looked like he was trying to hit every ball out of the ballpark and over swinging a little bit and probably just trying to do too much. Watching him this year, so far early in camp, his swing has been easy. He’s been staying in the middle of the field. And that will lend to less effort and less bat wrap.”

Mack – I want to take this one more step. We’ve talked recently about the dead money that was on this team last year and the ‘real’ 2013 version of this team had around a $44mil ‘on the field’ payroll (minus guys like Santana, Bay, and Francisco who never played a single game).

Not only has the Mets improved because this year’s team is already in the $85-90mil range (depending who you believe and how much they have spent on aging relievers today), but you have to belive that you are going to get a better return from players like d’Arnaud, Lucas Duda, Ike Davis, Ruben Tejada, and even EYJ and Juan Lagares. You add to that a better return from Eric Young or Curtis Granderson than Mike Baxter punched out and you see what I mean. There will be more runs on this team.

Sinful Caesar said -

Mack, I like what you said about Gavin. It's really tough to write the verdict on him so early. As for his placement, I don't see Rosario passing him just yet so I would be a bit aggressive with him and put him in St. Lucie while letting Rosario get the reps in Savannah. I actually do very much like McNeil a lot and he's quite a bit older as well. Is Binghamton too aggressive for him? 

You figure Muno will be in Vegas, so you go:

Savannah- Rosario

St. Lucie- Cecchini

Binghamton- McNeil

Vegas- Muno   -  Is that good you think? Am I missing anyone?

Mack – Well, you do have the main players; however, there are four other shortstops wearing Mets uniforms that qualify for a full season team. They are:

Wilfredo Tovar – I’m going to go under the assumption that Josh Satin and Anthony Seratelli will be the two UT’s in the Queens infield. That being said, what do we do with the slick fielding Tovar (who also hit .263 for the B-Mets last year and finished the season in Queens)? My guess is Muno will play second base at Vegas with Tovar on short and Rylan Sandoval filling in at the UT slot.

Matt Reynolds – Reynolds had a decent 2012 in Savannah (.259) after hitting .323 earlier that year at Arkansas. He moved fast to St. Lucie (433-AB, .226) last year and actually had three at-bats in Binghamton. He will play 2014 as a 23-year old and my guess he will get first shot at Binghamton over McNeil. I have no idea where this leaves McNeil or is it fair to him. Fair ain’t baseball in 2014.

Phillip Evans – Talk about a guy that has nowhere to go, Evans came as a highly touted raw tool high school senior, who played well for Brooklyn in 2012 (.252) but soiled himself last season in Savannah (.203). Rosario’s arrival has changed everything for Evans. I don’t see him surviving this camp.

Dimas Ponce – Ponce played shortstop in Savannah on the days that Evans didn’t last year (101-AB) and actually hit less than he did (.198). Someone has to be the UT infielder in St. Lucie so my guess one of them will be Ponce.

Pirates/1B –

                       Are the Pirates done shopping? Maybe not. We know they were willing to offer A.J. Burnett $12 million, so they clearly still have money to spend. We also know they never could find a left-handed-hitting platoon partner for Gaby Sanchez at first base this winter. But clubs that have spoken with them believe they’d still like to acquire one. http://espn.go.com/blog/spring-training/post/_/id/1324/pirates-first-base-platoon-options

Mack -  There are reports out there that not only are the Pirates still interested in Davis, but so are the Baltimore Orioles. Hang on tight folks… this is probably not over yet.