The Morning Report – 1-16 – Bartolo Colon, Dylan Bundy, Cesar Puello, David Wright, Evan Gattis

Karl de Vries[i] on Bartolo Colon -

He’s also a good fit for the Mets. Colon generates a lot of fly balls, and although the likes of Curtis Granderson and Michael Cuddyer won’t be of much help in the outfield corners, at least he’ll have Juan Lagares in center, the man whose 25.3 UZR/150 ranked first among qualified outfielders. Plus, while Colon’s strikeouts rely heavily on looking strikes — 47% of his punchouts came that way, second only to Mark Buehrle — he’ll once again be pitching to Travis d’Arnaud, who’s established himself as a capable pitch-framer behind the plate.

Mack – My hope is he will still be on the team by the time this comes out in print.

I never had trouble paying a guy for delivering the goods. Colon won 15 games last year. That’s big time in my books.

I want Colon to back end my rotation. My problem is picking between Jon NIese and Rafael Montero. I see a need for a lefty in a rotation, and I see no reason to see why the Mets can’t hide Montero as a long man/spot starter.

He’s also your primary trade bait coming out of future rotations.

Comment From mtsw - Dylan Bundy for Lucas Duda: who says no?

Jeff Sullivan: The Mets would be ecstatic.

            Mack – Oh, hell yeah.

Bundy would immediately start off at SP1 for St. Lucie and just strongly add to what seems like the endless line of Grade A pitching talent that’s going to come out of this team for the next five years.

Who plays first?

Well, for now, John Mayberry Jr. and/or Michael Cuddyer until something better comes along (or move over Daniel Murphy from second for 2015 and bring up Dilson Herrera a year early).

These are good problems.

This whole ‘not playing Cesar Puello’ thing continues to rub me the wrong way. Wally Backman, the Las Vegas Manager and Puello’s manager last season, spoke at the QVC Convention last Saturday and went out of his way to tow the company line, something he has seldom done in the past. Backman said it was an organization decision not to play Puello on a regular basic. I know this to be true when I dealt directly with other managers of Mets affiliates. Every Mets lineup first gets approved by someone in the home office.

Well, there you have it. Backman goes public and sounds like that Obama press secretary. But, who am I to question what he said? Why would a national figure, that is drooling someday to replace the man in Queens that he basically has no relationship with, chose this time to prove his loyalty to his team?

One last thing… Puello could only do one thing to prove all this wrong and that was take his bat to winter ball:  51-AB, .353/.393/.667/1060, 4-HR.  

Kevin Kernan wrote about David Wright[ii] –

“I’m hitting off a tee, doing flips [tosses],’’ Wright said. “It’s still pretty controlled, which is fairly normal for this time of year. I feel good. Now it’s just a matter of me trying to get my left shoulder on a par with my right shoulder, just strength-wise. I feel pain free, which is good, feel like the shoulder is healthy, and now it is just a matter of building up that strength.

“In my eyes, I’m not too far behind from where I am normally at this time of year.

           Mack – There’s a big difference between being ‘in’ and ‘all in’.

The Mets may be ‘in’ in 2015, but they could never be ‘all in’ without Wright being 100% and producing up to his talent levels. This is the start of our team and everything has to revolve around him.

The Evan Gattis trade to the Astros (for RHP Mike Foltynewicz, 3B Rio Ruiz, and RHP Andrew Thurman) is a perfect example of the kind of trade the Mets are one year away from. No major league team is going to trade three quality prospects for either a catcher just coming off injuries who has only played a part of a major league season (Travis d’Arnaud) or a minor leaguer who just hit AAA (Kevin Plawecki). Now, zoom ahead a year, give both d’Arnaud and Plawecki a good year, and the Mets could easily see a team like Houston offering these kind of players three-for-one for (my guess) d’Arnaud.

The “Barwis” mentioned there is the Mets new strength and conditioning consultant, Mike Barwis. He is more famous for working for the University of Michigan and West Virginia University. He’s also the star of the Discovery Channel TV show “American Muscle.”

During the Winter Meetings I spoke with a baseball source who voiced some non-specific skepticism about these workouts and the Mets’ hiring of Barwis. I am going to assume that Rubin’s view — that Mets players are, more or less, being compelled to attend these things, at their own expense, no less — is what they were talking about.

If this is true — and given that Barwis himself is telling people that minor leaguers are paying him, there’s a good chance it is  — it’s simply awful. As we’ve discussed an awful lot around here, minor leaguers make peanuts for the most part. And yet the Mets are, allegedly, requiring them to shell out for their own training and, subtly or otherwise, communicating that there is a penalty for not attending the sessions.  http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/15/wait-the-mets-are-charging-players-to-attend-offseason-workouts-really/?ocid=Yahoo&partner=ya5nbcs

            From Reese Kaplan - However, as more stories evolved it became clear that once again the Mets are merely guilty of not knowing how to position things to the media.  It seems that Barwis is a consultant at their facility in Port St. Lucie and pays them rent for its use.  The players who come there are contracting with Barwis for his services and thus paying out of pocket for it just as they would had they elected to go to any other personal trainer wherever they chose.  People are so fast to connect the dots to the Wilpons being cheap that they didn't consider the facts.  Where the Mets are culpable is in not making it crystal clear when Barwis signed on to work on premises that he was not their employee.  If he was and they charged the players, then have at them all day long and twice on Sunday.  But if the arrangement is as it has been later reported -- that Barwis is merely paying rent to use their facilities in Port St. Lucie -- then shame on the media for vilifying the team unnecessarily.  Be patient.  There will be plenty of other opportunities to rightfully do so, but this one doesn't appear to be justified. 

Mack – I see nothing wrong with Barwis charging $1,000 to a ballplayer making a minimum of $300,000 a year… and, the Mets deserve a vig for the use of their facility.

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[i] http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/bartolo-colon-somehow-keeps-on-chugging-along/

[ii] http://nypost.com/2015/01/13/wright-vows-to-make-up-for-last-season-during-intense-training-program/?adbid=10155143560150078&adbpl=fb&adbpr=94421890077&partnerId=as_nym_20150114_38762667&utm_content=buffer40b5f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer