Morning Report – 4-24-14 – SPs, Outfield

1981 Shea

Coming Up –

        10 am – Stephen Guilbert - Analysis of the PTBNL in the Ike Davis Trade

12 noon – Craig Mitchell – Addition By Subtraction


2 pm  -  Baseball Draft Report - Top 125 High School Pitchers
  

        

           5pm -  Derek Fisher, Riley Moore, Tyler Beede, A.J. Reed, Forest Griffin

          8pm –  RHP - Tyler Kolek - Shepherd (TX) HS

Former BMets RHP Collin McHugh struck out 12 in 6 2/3 scoreless innings for the Astros tonight. Allowed 3 hits and no walks



Last 10 games: Travis d'Arnaud - .258, .361 OBP.



No one loves a Met win more than I do, but you can't keep putting this kind of pressure on the pitching staff, especially the already burned out pen. You have to start scoring 5-7 runs a game so you can survive those times you give up 4-6. The pitchers in the pen are human too.

I've never seen any stats on this but my guess is you win less than 3% of the games you have 4 hits or less



From 4-23:
         

Kyle Farnsworth got his second save opportunity tonight, and it wasn’t nearly as clean as his first one was. Like Lindstrom, he was tasked with holding a two-run lead but allowed two base runners to reach. Only Matt Carpenter getting gunned down at home on a Daniel Descalso double save him from the dreaded BS. pr0FF3ss0r_F4rnsw0rth’s velocity was down a touch in this one, although he ramped it up a bit as the inning went along. In his defense, it was a cold night in New York, but he didn’t completely squash concerns about his postgame grimaces from the other night.

Oh, and don’t listen to Terry Collins. Daisuke Matsuzaka isn’t getting saves anytime soon.  http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/bullpen-report-april-23-2014/ 

Michael Scannell asked –

Mack, with the Mets' embarrassment of riches in the young  department (Harvey, Syndergaard, Niese, Gee, Mejia, Wheeler, deGrom, and now Matz)...who do we hold onto and who do we deal?  Who has the highest trade value and who has more value to the organization? I feel like there's going to be a decision at some point btw Wheeler and Mejia.  I don't know who I'd hold onto.

        Mack – Hey Michael. Still miss your posts.

        This is the $64,000 question, isn’t it?

Normally, I keep the pedigree… Harvey, Wheeler, Syndergaard, but one is growing scar tissue, and the other two look human at the levels they are pitching at.

Some feel the team needs to deal the ‘hot ones’ (Gee, Mejia, Niese) for the missing pieces (shortstop, a real hitting outfielder), but who’s supposed to get the team through this season?

My hopes is that the Mets find a home for their first 2015 mistake, Bartolo Colon (Granderson is #2). I don’t see him finishing the first half of this season with an ERA below 5.00, so I’m not sure if there will be a market for him.

What the Mets have to decide if these are going to build both a rotation and a pen from these young arms. The Mets own them for many years, can do what they want with them, and don’t need to trade a single one of them. Pitchers like Mejia, Jeremy Hefner, Jacob deGrom, and even Rafael Montero could head up quite a talented bullpen for the remaining of the decade. Just because they are used in the pen in 2015 doesn’t mean they can’t be turned back into starters later in their career.

If I was Sandy I would keep the ‘I need a shortstop’ worm on the hook and see if anyone bites. Let them ask for the first young pitcher and take the negotiation from there. He seems to be very good at these kind of situations.

Mack and Brandon Nimmo - Photo by Wally Murphy

                 Moving on to outfield…

         Simple mathematics here.

         The Mets need three starters (stats through end of games 4-22).

         It really doesn’t matter if you like the contract… you’re stuck with Curtis Granderson (.116) at one of these positions through 2017.

         The good news is it looks like the Mets have developed a real deal center fielder in Juan Lagares (.314), who is under team control through 2020.

This leaves the quest for one more quality starters.

Right now, Chris Young (.238), Eric Young (.222), Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.231), and Bobby Abreu (.000) are holding the fort down, but that’s about as far as their career is going to further take them.

The Mets currently have two full-fledged outfield prospects in their system and one is Las Vegas’ Cesar Puello (.265). The promotion of Bobby Abreu (.395) should guarantee Puello the bat time needed to get out of his early season funk. Andrew Brown (.000), and Anthonly Serontelli (.258) are along for the ride while Matt den Dekker (.280) may have seen his shot gone by when he went down with an injury a year ago and opened the door for Lagares. I think den Dekker could be a gooud 4^th or 5^th outfielder in the majors, but that might be his limits.

Binghamton has quickly become the home of almost failed prospects. There was some much promise for many of these guys that just don’t seem to be putting together the kind of numbers needed to get a deserved promotion above AA-ball.

The complete failure of Cory Vaughn (.106) is quite perplexing and Binghamton could easily be the last stop in his Mets road. Both Travis Taijeron (.250) and Dustin Lawley (.189) are playing at far below the levels that were projected for them and, hopefully, it’s just a slow start in cold weather. Only Darrell Cecilliani (.327) is playing at a top level and could easily be the first player moved up to Las Vegas what with all the shifting of outfielders going on there. Kyle Johnson (.235) finishes out the group of five there.

And now we get to the Mets’ other top outfield prospect, Brandon Nimmo (.380). The 21-year old is in his fourth year as a Met so he’s no longer a rookie. He’s as old as many players that have been previously promoted to the majors, though none as Mets.

 Only Sandy Alderson and his brain trust know their plans here but I would hope he would at least finish the season in AA-ball. I'll tell you this... he could hit better than .116 right now.

Gilbert Gomez (.316) was thought to have a high ceiling but he hit .216 last year for the same team he’s playing for this season. The 22-year old looks to just be filler at this point, as is Eudy Pina (.176), and Maikas de la Cruz (.238).

Savannah offers two players we need to keep an eye on. Jared King (.291) and Patrick Biondi (.255) showed the ability in school to excel so we need to see how they fair in this horrible field. Stefan Sabol (.292) is repeating Savannah, while Victor Cruzado (.184) and 2B/OF Jorge Rivero (.071) fight for play time.

Summation –

        In actuality, the Mets have two true outfield prospects (Puello and Nimmo) though others, like Lagares did last year, could surprise us all, and me in particular, and rise to the majors as a starter.

The problem still remains that becoming a starter in the Mets outfield doesn’t seem to be any big deal lately.