The Morning Report – December 1 – Mets Starters, T J Rivera, Franklin Barreto, Stephen Drew

We have a new writer here at Mack’s Mets.

Bobby McLaughlin joins us after being a ‘silent reader’ for quite some time.  His first post will be coming up soon and he will also tell us a little about himself. Please welcome him aboard when he posts up.



Things should be pretty quiet this week. Next week is the winter meetings and, hopefully, the Mets will at least go home with a new lefty in the pen.

As for the excess Mets starters, I still feel that we're all going to have to wait until some of the 'biggies' in the game are signed first before working down to any team's needs for a back end starter.

Brian Joura and I got into a short discussion yesterday about the future of Rafael Montero and what his role will be in 2015. I want him in the pen because I want him to make the team (there’s no room for him of the opening day rotation). Brian wants him to return to AAA.

That’s all well and good on a team that has a normal amount of ‘too much pitching’, but this is quite the understatement when you discuss the current Mets.

Let’s revisit who’s up on ‘the board’ right now, as starters, for the top three teams:

Mets (7) – Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler, Jake deGrom, Bartolo Colon, Jonathan Niese, Dillon Gee, Rafael Montero

Las Vegas (9) - Noah Syndergard, Tyler Pill, Gabriel Ynoa, Rainy Lara, Darin Gorski, Greg Peavey, Logan Verrett, Matt Bowman, Corey Mazzoni

Binghamton (7) - Steven Matz, Kevin McGowan, Domingo Tapia, Luis Cessa, Michael Fulmer, Luis Mateo, Matthew Koch         

       

There just isn’t any room for Montero on any of the starting rotations… unless you find one on another team.

This gets even more complicated if Matz starts in Vegas.

I welcome any… or all of you… to build me three five man starting rotations with this lot.

We also was some time spent discussing the future of infielder T.J. Rivera in the organization and whether or not the Yankees should select him in the Rule 5 Draft.

Rivera does nothing but hit and yet, like another Mets minor league infielder (Matt Reynolds), no one ever uses the word ‘prospect with his name in the same sentence. He’s now 25-years old and has a lifetime minor league batting average of .317, but only hit the AA-level last year and has not played a single game at the AAA level.

And where’s he going to go when he has Dilson Herrera and Reynolds ahead of him in Vegas?

One more thing… he’s versatile. He’s primarily a second baseman, but has played a considerable amount at SS and also can fill in at 3B and 1B.

Beisbol’s.org’s[i] look at who Fangraphs call the key to the Josh Donaldson trade –

As far as the prospects themselves, many view Franklin Barreto as the centerpiece of the prospects obtained by the Oakland Athletics. Barreto was the eighth ranked prospect among the Blue Jays farm system at mid-season according to Jim Callis of MLB.com. The reports on Baretto at shortstop are not pretty, but I have a feeling things will mysteriously change with some opinions now that he is a top prospect in the A’s farm system rather than a middling prospect in the Blue Jays farm system, but that is just a hunch. He is probably not sticking at shortstop and that really sours me on this trade on the Athletics end. The value of an athletic shortstop that can stick and the position and play it well is underrated, but Barreto is not that. He can hit (mechanically, the swing is great) and has potential plus speed. His first season out of Rookie level, Low-A, showed offensive promise, posting an OPS of .865 in 328 plate appearances, with a walk-to-strikeout ratio of 0.41 (7.9% walk rate and a 19.5% strikeout rate). He had an 85% success rate in stealing bases, stealing twenty-nine on the year. He showed flashes of power, which may mislead some regarding his OPS, as he does not project to be a power-hitter long-term. At just eighteen years of age, he is a nice piece, but at second base or center field, he loses some of that luster that a long-term shortstop would garner.

Jim Duquette on Stephen Drew –

Each of the past two times Drew has been a free agent, he came to terms late: during mid-December in 2012, when he signed with the Red Sox, and then last offseason, after being attached to a Draft pick, he saw his market plummet again, waiting until May 20 to re-sign with Boston. His gamble largely did not work because he had a horrendous season by his standards.

This winter, Drew has no compensation attached, but it is likely he will sign late for a different reason. At age 32, he wants a multiyear deal. But it is more likely it'll have to be another "pillow" contract, with the hope of resuscitating his value. The other factor working against him is the presence of a couple of other comparable shortstops on the free-agent market -- Asdrubal Cabrera and Jed Lowrie -- as well as Alexei Ramirez and Yunel Escobar reportedly being available via trade.

Teams will look at Drew at both shortstop and second base, hoping he returns to his 2013 level of play, when he finished with a 3.1 wins above replacement figure for the World Series-champion Red Sox.

Mack – This could be the steal of the Hot Stove season, if only he had dumped his agent before the season ended.

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[i] http://beisbols.org/2014/11/29/donaldson-lawrie-trade-story/