Morning Report – 4-27-14 – Collette-Chat, Draft Stuff, Building A Team, Mike Puma

Coors Field 

Coming Up –

        11 am – Indians Baseball Insider - Mock

2 pm – Top 10 OF in 2014 MLB Draft - revised 4-23-14

          5pm -  Luis Ortiz, Jackson Reetz, Chris Ellis, Mike Papi, Brandon Downes

          8pm –  RHP - Luke Weaver - Florida State

1B Brandon Allen has been promoted from St. Lucie (rehab) to Las Vegas.

As of end of game Friday, on pace for 92 wins.

(Going into Friday’s game) By the Game Score metric, 17 of the Mets' 22 starts have been quality (GS>50). The others: 50, 46, 42, 42, 10 (Colon vs. LAA).

Collette-Chat –

Comment From Larry - Best stash: Montero, Jon Gray, Syndergaard or Bundy?

         Jason Collette: Gray or Syndergaard

Kendall Rogers ‏@KendallRogersPG  

#TCU commit and top #MLBDraft prospect Tyler Kolek hit 100 last night, and struck out 16. That’s pretty good

A day late… we’re getting closer to draft day, so we need to start keeping a closer look at some of the guys that may be still on the board when the 10^th pick rolls around.

Word out of Olympia (FL) HS is that SS Nick Gordan’s stat line is .507/.620/.870, 27-G, 9-doubles, 5-HR, 17-SB, 18-BB, 3-K. He just may be the first shortstop taken in the draft, which would mean he’s be gone before the 10^th pick.

Gainesville HS (GA) OF Michael Gettys stat line over the past 12 games: .421/.532/1.000… for the season: .380/.479/.798. Obviously his numbers dipped mid-season which has dropped him out of the projected top 10 picks.

Actually, Evansville LHSP Kyle Freeland (I really hope the Mets pick this kid) had an ‘off night’… ‘only’ 10-K and 2-BB… he now has 97-K and 6-BB in 71.2-IP.

Florida State RHSP Luke Weaver will probably still be around and, though he has bounced around this season, he pitched will Friday night against Virginia: 7.0-IP, 3-ER, 5-K, 0BB (I’m hoping the Mets pass on him).

Ole Miss’ Chris Reed will definitely be around and he outpitched Kentucky’s A.J. Reed Friday night (7.0-IP, 2-ER, 5-K).

NC State’s Carlos Rodon (3-7) continues to get very little support from his team. Friday night he went 9.0-IP, CG, 1-R, and 15-K. You should earn a win every time you do this.

Oregon State’s Ben Welzler come backs from a three week suspension and mows down Oregon. Stat line 8.1-IP, 1-ER, 7-K, 1-BB, 7-1, 0.78.

Virginia’s OF Derek Fisher (3-for-5) delivered his third straight multi-hit game in his fourth contest since returning from a broken hamate bone.

Building A Team –

       The best way to solve this problem is to use monthly WAR data, which the good folks of FanGraphs were able to provide. We looked at WAR and WAR distribution for the month of April each year from 1974 through 2013.1 We ran month-by-month Gini data for every team going back those 40 years, tracking WAR inequality for the month, then comparing that result to WAR totals for the rest of the season, to see which of the two roster construction methods yielded more wins. http://fivethirtyeight.com/

Lardball –

       This came from Adam Rubin - The Mets would not speak with the media postgame Friday until Post beat writer Mike Puma left the clubhouse, the Daily News reported. Wrote Kristie Ackert and Justin Tasch: Apparently angry about an article in the New York Post on Friday about Bartolo Colon under the headline “LARDBALL,” the players would not talk to the media until Post writer Mike Puma left the clubhouse. Puma was asked to leave and did so without incident. Within a minute, several Mets appeared in the clubhouse. The team would not comment on the incident.

Mack – The relationship between the beat media and the players is always guarded at best, but this team seems to have found the positive energy needed to get themselves to the playoffs… and, they aren’t going to let some newspaper nerd get in their way.

I see it every year even in Savannah. Let’s say I walk in a room with five players there…none of them pay me the light of day because it’s just not kewl…

Now, have me walk in a room with one player and everything changes.

The beat reporters spend more time tweeting each other their perceived one-liners rather than writing good baseball… and it looks like it has caught up with Puma.

Good.