Morning Report – May 1 – Priorities, Trades, Wilmer Flores

Coming Up Today:

      10 am -  Christopher Soto - SABR Talk: Team Defense Playing Big Role in Niese and Gee's Improvement

      12 noon – Reese Kaplan - Do Something Part Two -- Top Shelf Prize Time

       2 pm - Stephen Guilbert - 2014 Mets Hitters by OBP

       4 pm - Top 10 RHP in 2014 MLB Draft - Updated 4-28-14

      6 pm – Jacob Gatewood, Derek Fisher, Austin Cousino, Elliot Cary

Well, the wife and I went to eat at our local Greek restaurant and I left my laptop in the back seat of my car… with the car unlocked. Yep… gone, and with it all the research I have done for years on the players in the upcoming draft plus the history of the mock drafts I had on an excel sheet.

Many of the writers know that there is some stuff (like the 3pm and 6pm post listed above) I have already scheduled into the site, so you will see some draft ‘stuff’ leading up to those three days, but it will be far less than I had planned.

Shit happens, right?

Reese asked -

Which is the higher priority -- outfielders or shortstop? In general the the former are easier to find and we've been going on something like 300 ABs of .200 hitting from Ruben Tejada. If you're going to make a deal, I'd prefer it would be for Chris Owings or Nick Franklin or one of Cleveland's shortstops.

      Mack – My opinion is just that…

I think that if you have multiple issues on the table and one can be addressed, you do so as soon as can be accomplished.

I can’t imagine the Mets saying ‘I’m not going to worry about a back-end reliever or a new bat in the outfield until I solve this shortstop situation. It simply doesn’t work that way.

I think that Alderson and Company are redefining on paper the new Mets template. You’ve got a team that currently has the 6^th best record in the league and it doesn’t seem to ever generate enough hits to win half the games it currently is winning. Five of their supposed starters are hitting between .221 and .136. Did I say the 6^th best record in baseball?

And technically, they aren’t mowing down everyone with pitching either. Team wise, they rank only 12^th in ERA and 13^th in WHIP.

What they are doing is scoring at least one more run than their opponent which, in the short range, has been the answer. I mean, any time your win-loss record is identical to the Yankees is a good thing, right?

Obviously, there is no reason right now to upset the apple cart, but shortstop, back-end reliever, and real time outfield bat are still both the short and long term goals here.

This new template must include a plan to finish the regular season in the playoffs, so I wouldn’t look for the annual selloff of players like Bartolo Colon and Chris Young. Neither has blown us away, but they are each a piece of this current team that is hitting on most of their cylinders.

You have identified four excellent shortstop targets. I have identified Joc Peterson for the outfield. I expect that work is being done in the back rooms on both positions; however, I don’t think the front office will make any moves until June earliest.

Robb then asked –

What (who) would you trade for peterson? for ownings? none of this second tier prospect bs

Mack – You are correct Robb. You are not going to get a top shelf prospect for a Class B out of your system.

Me? Well, first I have to decide the six (five + injury/TJS replacement starter) I want to keep in the rotation in 2015. I’m not like some here that want to trade off Niese and/or Gee. They both are the best two pitchers the Mets have right now.

After that, I keep Harvey, Wheeler, and Syndergaard based on pedigree alone.

I then have to pick one from Colon, Mejia, Hefner, Montero, Verrett, and deGrom.

No matter how much Mets fans like deGrom, he’s not top shelf. And the only top shelf pitcher left here is Montero.

Sorry, but you can’t have everyone. You’re not going to trade your only prospect left handed starter (Steven Matz), so it’s back to either Wheeler or Montero.

Since we are on the subject of shortstop, I do want to go back to Wilmer Flores again.

      It does look like the ‘slow start’ is over and he’s hitting again. His AAA season average is up to .256 after going .282 in his last 10 games. More importantly, he’s playing decent shortstop. Well… at least it can be said he’s not embarrassing himself out there.

      What it still comes down to is whether or not he’s ever going to be given a proper shot to take the job away from Ruben Tejada and my guess is no. I can’t think of a worse time any ballplayer had on this team than Tejada has had since last season’s all-star break, and yet he remains the permanent replacement for Jose Reyes.

      We knew by the end of last season that there was nothing more Flores needed to do in the minors and, now that he’s playing his old position with some degree of success, the Mets are still willing to leave the job in Queens with someone that will never have the hitting potential Flores has.

      My guess is you need to get used to having Tejada around and the future of Flores is either the Mets bench or a throw-in as part of a trade for a reliever or outfielder.