Morning Report – August 23rd – Jose Reyes, Dilson Hererra, Almost Prospects

Photo by Mack Ade 

Morning.


Rafael Montero was optioned back to Las Vegas after last night's loss to the LAD. Jacob deGrom was activated.

The Mets went into the all-star break riding an 8-2 ten game streak. Since then they have gone 7-6 in the remainder of July and 8-13 so far in August. That’s a combined 23-21 in the past 44 games, which prorates out to a seasonal 83-78 record.



Okay... I'm a convert.  Between Wilmer Flores' 2-error game in LA-La-Land and Matt Reynolds' 4-4 display for Vegas, I'm ready for the conversion. Bring the kid up next week. take him out to short, and let's see what we have.

Word is that Toronto will be shopping SS Jose Reyes in the off season.

The remainer of Reyes contract will be $22mil for three years (2015-2017), which would be in the same range if the Mets had kept him and matched this offer before he skipped town.

He will be 32, 33, and 34 years old during those seasons.

This year, Reyes has hit .290/.339/.413/.752 in 458 at-bats for Toronto.

What if Sandy Alderson could convince the Wilpons to right a wrong and bring Jose Jose back to Queens. The three year period would fit perfectly into the Mets lower level plans to someday groom a prospect here. Reyes would return to the leadoff position, reunite him with his buddy David, and bring back thousands of fans into the stands.

Remember… not your money.

 I brought Dilson Herrera up in a comment late Wednesday night. This is by far the Mets most advanced prospect in the system and if Soto doesn’t have him ranked first I’m going to send in that police chief in that sorry excuse of a St. Louis suburb and make him take the water bucket challenge.

Herrera looks like the kind of player you can now begin to build an entire new team around, that will mature in the 2016-2018 range, I don’t want to fuck with his karma so I’m leaving him at second and, instead, I’ll move Murphy out as a major trade chip this off season to get me a new shortstop. I then would move Wilmer Flores over to play second base for the year it will take for Herrera to finish up in Vegas.

I’m next going to move his batting order 1-2 buddy, Brandon Nimmo, right along side him and feature the two of these guys come late June/early July 2015 as the leadoff hitters… LF Nimmo, 2B Herrera. The goal is to get 10-HRs each out of them the first half season and 15-20 each in their first full season (2016). If all this works “Wright”, David is back to producing 20+ homers (fences in, remember), d’Arnaud is probably up in the 25 range, and Duda has pushed 35. Lastly, a new right field section easily returns Granderson to the 25 range.

Lineup: LF Nimmo (15), 2B Herrera (20), 3B Wright (25), 1B Duda (35), C d-Arnaud (25), RF Granderson (25), SS Flores (20), and CF Lagares (10). That’s 175 home runs just from the players we currently have in the system.

This could be done, people.

Photo by Mack Ade

Conrad Youngren –

Mack, You know that I have a penchant for latching on to under-the-radar guys pretty early in their careers.  Some have been gratifying (Murphy, Duda, Lagares), more have fallen by the wayside (Angel Cuan, Eric Beaulac, Jordan Abruzzo, Sean Ratliff…I’m not ready to put Juan Centeno in that corral yet).

There are two currently that I have been watching for some time: Victor Cruzado—since his DSL days, and TJ Rivera since HS almost a decade ago.  My question is, what does it take for undrafted or non-high profile international signees to get a shot?  I’m not predicting stardom here, but ask if there is a point when consistent performance trumps the prejudice draft investment.  Hobie

            Mack – Hey Conrad.

            Don’t sell yourself short on Ratliff. One foul ball cost him dearly.

I don’t think it matters how you made it to a roster though the unofficial tie-breaker has always been how much bonus money is invested into the pick. The ‘prejudice draft system’ isn’t doing Matt Reynolds any good right now either, and he was a number two pick.

The first thing that has to happen… there must be a position for you to play. This probably will hold back Rivera. He’s experimented this year at first base, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to replace the top slugger (Duda) in the system.

We saw positional bias with Shawn Bowman and Zach Lutz. Did we actually expect them to take away a job from David Wright?

Cruzado is a different case. He’s an outfielder and, right now, the Mets need any outfielder to step up, pop wise. His problem is the fact that he’s only playing A-ball at 22-years old. He needs to get moving.

I don’t have a clear cut answer for you but the AA level usually separates the boys from the men. My guess is Rivera will stall out behind 

Reynolds/Flores but, if Cruzado can increase his pop (currently 7-HRs in 324 Savannah at-bats), and keep his strikeouts down (only 69 this year), he could make it to Queens regardless of his roots.

Top 5 1B in WAR - Paul Goldschmidt 4.4, Jose Abreu 4.0, Anthony Rizzo  3.6, Miggy Cabrera 3.6, Lucas Duda 3.2

Martin Schneider -

Will the Wilpons ever spend again?

                        Mack – Boy, now that’s a good question.

                        I honestly don’t think so. I think they have this mental, $100mil ceiling in their head and they think that the team will just keep replenishing their talent base through the draft and International signing process (which includes the Arbitration years).

                        Don’t get me wrong… the Mets (under Wilpon) will trade people, but you’re going to see trades of players like Matt Harvey going into his last arbitration year. I don’t see any more Curtis Granderson or David Wright deals under these owners. I just don’t.

                        In a strange, morose sense, if the Mets ever make the playoffs under this system, it will seal their fate under the current ownerships.

Donation Drive (drive end 8-30) –

            Received so far – $ 400.00

            Goal - $1,400.00 - $1,000.00 to go

Paypal account:  macksmets@gmail.com

God Bless you for your consideration.