Morning Report – 2-26-14 – Dan Szymborski, Latin Coaches, 2014 Draft, Thor

Coming Up –

            10 am – Christopher Soto -   MM's Top 25- #9 1B Dominic Smith

            12 noon – The LTJ Report - Harvey Pitches Again, More Trade Rumors, Mejia to Relief, and How Syndergaard will Light MLB on Fire!

              2 pm –  Reese Kaplan - Three Sides to Every Story

              4 pm - John Loopy - Top 10 Prospects

             6 pm – Sean Reid-Foley, Max Pentecost, Forest Wall, Austin Mauer

             8 pm - A Quick Look - RHP -   Jesse Lepore - Ocala Trinity (FL) HS

Szymborski-Chat –

Comment From john - Lucas Duda to play outfield. EY to lead off and play center. Dice-K and Lannan inside track on 5th starter position. Somebody please fire Terry Collins already. For all the “smarts” in the FO, that they would let TC field the worst possible team and line-up is amazing to me

Dan Szymborski: I’m still trying to figure out how in god’s name anyone got the idea that Young was a good defensive player.

Comment From amazin - Mets bloggers have discussed the availability of Seattle infielder Nick Franklin. Oliver projects five-year WAR of 19.2 for Brad Miller, 17.5 for Nick Franklin, 16.3 for Matt Harvey, 14.2 for Juan Lagares, 9.6 for Rafael Montero, 9.4 for Jon Niese, 7.8 for Wilmer Flores, 5.9 for Zack Wheeler, 5.6 for Noah Syndergaard, 3.9 for Dillon Gee, 3.8 for Jacob DeGrom and 0.4 for Vic Black. Do you see any trade possibilities?

Dan Szymborski: Again, you have to be careful using Oliver like that, as it assumes full seasons.

Metsiac asked -

Hi, Mack, one question I'd like discussed, which I was just reminded of when Fonzie made his entrance at camp, is the issue of Latino coaches. With so many key Latino prospects seemingly in need of veteran 

assistance/motivation in their native Spanish, it's surprising that there are zero Latino coaches on the ML staff, and I don't even know if there are any at Vegas with Wally. I'd like your opinion and those of others on the site. Hopefully, the problems will be resolved soon.

            Mack – Bill, ya know, I never realized that.

The short answer is, by the time a Latin player gets to Queens, he probably has played at least 4-5 years in minor league teams located in the United States. I would think this is ample time to leqrn the language of the country you are going to play your career in.

Now, minor league wise, there are plenty of Latin managers and coaches in the system.

Binghamton’s manager is Pedro Lopez and the batting coach is Luis Natera.

St. Lucie’s hitting coach is Joel Fuentes.

Luis Rojas is the Sand Gnats manager and Marc Valdes is the pitching coach.

Jose Leger is the Kingsport manager and Yunir Garcia is the batting coach.

And Marc Valdez is the Brooklyn Cyclones pitching coach.

Thomas Brennan asked - 

Hey Mack! I can't read thru all the draft possibilities stuff - too much detail for me - but if you were the GM right now and the draft were tomorrow, who would you pick for say the Mets' first 5 rounds, figuring what guys might be available in each round? Also, especially for the first round, who would you wish the Mets could have picked that likely will have just come off the board a few picks in front of them?

            Mack – Hey Thomas.

First of all, I would love to take a stab at who the Mets would pick in the first five rounds, but it would be a useless exercise. First, there is no way of knowing who will be taken by the other teams before the Mets pick and second, most of the players still on the board are less of a household name each time a round drops lower.

The easy answer to ‘who I wished was still around at #10’ would be LHP Carlos Rodon, but he’ll be gone with the first pick. In my world, my next big loss is Vanderbilt RHP Tyler Beede, not your typical Mets first round Sandy-pick.

My ‘hold your breath and pray to God he’s still around after the 9^th pick’s name is read out’ is OF Michael Gettys. Of course, that person last year for me was OF Austin Wilson and the Mets passed on him with both the Dominic Smith and Andrew Church pick.

If Getty is gone, I’d probably look to who was the top LHSP still on the board (Rodon and Brady Aiken will be gone… leaving Sean Newcomb or Brandon Finnegan).

As for the 85^th pick, there will be plenty of good talent still out there when this pick rolls around.  I'll put together some names tomorrow.

‘Tender’ Is The Night -

The idea is that a $14 million tender will ensure that only the best free agents will now be worth a compensatory pick. What has changed is that first-round picks are now vastly more valuable. Under the old system, a team that didn’t have compensatory picks could still spend big in later rounds. So the Royals might have not had many compensatory picks, but they spent first-round money on later round picks like Wil Myers. The Pirates adopted a similar approach.

Under the new system, teams spending it tied entirely to the quality of their picks in the top 10 rounds. Lose a first-round pick, and you’ll see your entire draft budget slashed by a third or more. There is no easy way to make up the loss of that kind of money. http://www.baseballamerica.com/majors/ask-ba-who-just-missed-the-top-100-prospects-list/

CSN Washington –

           This piece of news out of Mets' spring training isn't completely new, the comments were made about a week ago. But the insight into what type of prospect starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard is from comments manager Terry Collins made are worth mentioning here.

For those of you who are not aware, the Mets have another top pitching prospect coming up the chain. Syndergaard could eventually help complete a dangerous trio at the top of the Mets rotation, if he develops as well as Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler already have. http://www.csnwashington.com/baseball-washington-nationals/talk/mets-top-prospect-syndergaard-early-spring-standout