The Morning Report – November 8 – Juan Lagares, Eno-Chat, Daniel Murphy, Michael Saunders

Buster Olney - @Buster_ESPN- "The Mets will be aggressive this offseason, with at least one free agent signing and one via trade."

Story telling time – all this attention at CF Juan Lagares reminds me of the time I attended the kick-off luncheon for the 2010 Savannah Sand Gnats. This takes place on the day before their season opens and includes an opportunity to meet the players, take photos, etc.

Well, I got to the restaurant where the lunch was thrown and all the players came in and sat down. I looked ahead and saw Lagares sitting there. Lagares had just spent the last two seasons in Savannah (2007 and 2008) and I said out loud as he caught me looking at him “what the hell are you doing back here?”

Lagares shook his head in agreement and turned to manager Pedro Lopez and said “see? … even Mack agrees with me…”

SABR Defensive Index: Final 2014 rankings –

            NL overall leaders

Player                                     Team             Position         SDI

Jason Heyward                   ATL                 RF                   26.5

Juan Lagares                       NYM               CF                   16.4

Zack Cozart                          CIN                 SS                    14.1

Billy Hamilton                      CIN                 CF                   13.7

Andrelton Simmons           ATL                 SS                    13.1

Baseball is growing in Europe - http://mlbforlife.com/2014/11/06/roberto-angotti-interviews-mlb-european-academies-consultant-and-france-bench-coach-andy-berglund/

Eno-Chat –

Comment From Mark - Cargo to the Mets ?

Eno Sarris: I don’t see it. They’re building a full roster the slow way and the only interesting piece I want to let go is Niese, and you’re not getting Cargo built on Niese.

Comment From john - Eno! The mets dodged a bullet when the rox offered cuddyer a QO… However, now I hear they are in on Morse! At what point will you admit that sandy alderson has no clue when it comes to evaluating major league talent properly?

Eno Sarris: He’s rummaging around in the bargain bin. den Dekker is projected to be below replacement, so even a one-win Morse would be a big upgrade. It’s not the worst bat, just the worst glove and worst base running. And I love the dude.

Comment From Jon - Your plan for the Mets makes sense to me but doesn’t seem to consider trading pitching and/or Murphy to the Red Sox for Allan Craig. Is that because you don’t expect him to be available? He seems like at least as good a fit as Cuddyer would be, no? And he’s inexpensive enough not to foreclose other opportunities to improve as well.

Eno Sarris: Sure, I think Craig is interesting. Put him in the Aoki mix. If you can get a 1+ win guy back in trade for less money than Colon or Colon+Murphy, then it’s great. Do the sox want Murphy and Colon? I’m not sure. So I think the most likely thing is that they dump Colon for salary relief and not much more. And no, I don’t think the Colon signing was dumb, it’s just that the young pitchers have begun to accumulate and look ready. deGrom, for instance, wasn’t supposed to be this good.

Comment From Jake deBomb - propose a Daniel Murphy trade?

Eno Sarris: I did. By projections, he represents a one-year, $5m surplus, below-average solution for someone at third or second. Looking around the league, I don’t see an obvious partner, nor does Murphy bring back much.

Comment From Ricardo - Can Wilmer be an average SS for the Muts in ’15? Your plan looks like it throws him out there all season and lives with it

Eno Sarris: This was the weakest part of my plan in my opinion. I never thought Flores could play short and am still looking at his defense all jenky-eyed. But I don’t think they want to use the money to sign Lowrie, and throwing the farm at Tulo is unrealistic too. LF is the biggest need, so I focused there.

Mack – Note to readers: Eno wrote a recent feature on how to fix the Mets in 2015 using ‘spare parts’. He’s a big fan of the Mets but a realistic one and knows that the Mets are not going to spend much money here. There were questions the next day during his chat from Mets fans.

                      

His statement about Murphy does ring true. What exactly is his market alone? At least 10 teams have great second basemen and have no need for someone like Murphy. And then there are the remaining 19 teams where 90% of them have young, team controlled players that are long away from starting their arbitration years and are already flashing his kind of stat lines (with better defense) in the high minors.

Isn’t second base a position that has been mostly home grown and shouldn’t the Mets rally around their all-star until he becomes eligible for free agency? The worst case scenario would then be a draft pick which, at the same time, handing the job over to Dilson Hererra. The next-to-worst case scenario would be a mid-season trade to a pennant contender for a top blue chip, team controlled prospect.

Seattle has announced that they are going to shop OF Michael Saunders at next week’s General Manager’s meetings. There’s been a falling out between team officials and Saunders.

According to MLBTR:

Formerly ranked by Baseball America as the No. 30 prospect in the game, Saunders has batted a healthy .248/.320/.423 with 39 homers and 38 steals over those three injury-prone seasons. Context-neutral stats such as OPS+ and wRC+ (which adjust for his pitcher-friendly home ballpark) suggest that he’s been nine to 11 percent better than a league-average hitter in that time. His 2014, in particular, was impressive. In 78 games, Saunders hit .273/.341/.450 — good for a 126 wRC+ and a 128 OPS+.[i]

The bad news here is the fact that he averaged just 166 games per season for the last three years, but he’s only entering his second year of arbitration and isn’t eligible for free agency until 2017.

He’ll play 2015 as a 28-year old.

Any interest here?

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[i] http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/11/mariners-expected-to-shop-michael-saunders-next-week.html