Mack’s Morning Report – 3-20-15 –Week Three-ST Observations

End of Spring Training-Week Three Observations:

Overall, the hitting is amazing. At one point this week, Kirk Nieuwenhuis led the league in hitting while John Mayberry Jr. was second.

Rotation wise, the combined 7.2 innings thrown Thursday by Jonathan Niese and Dillon Gee proved to be a big plus sign. Four starters now (see below) seem to be moving in the right direction for opening day.

Five more players (RHPs Hansel Robles, Tyler Pill, Gabriel Ynoa, Matt Bowman, Cory Satterwhite) were sent packing over to the minor league portion of camp. This leaves 49 players in Big Boy camp, which includes Bobby Parnell, Josh Edgin, and Zack Wheeler.

It was very important psychologically that Matt Harvey have a great outing on Monday, and he did. The Wheeler info had to be a big bummer in the clubhouse and everyone probably needed to know their ‘leader’ was back to lead the rotation this year.

The other thing about Harvey that everyone needs to know… his velocity is back 100% and he throwing primarily strikes. There’s absolutely nothing in his game right now that would be considered negative.

Moving down the rotation, Jacob deGrom continues to firm up his SP2 slot in the rotation. Boy, has this been a huge find in the organization and it makes one wonder if there is another one down the road that could be harnessed. I will say this… it will take someone who can hit 94+ with his fastball consistently while, at the same time, throw strikes.

Don’t worry about these late inning lead losses with the Erik Goeddel’s of the world pitching. These are the kind of pitchers that will not be on the 25-man when the team heads north. Eventually, starting sometime next week, you will see a more defined relief staff of Carlos Torres, Jeurys Famila, Vic Black, and Jenrry Mejia.

There seems to be some real problems with Scott Rice this spring.  I have no idea what they are going to do past the four names I listed just above this paragraph.

One thing I did notice yesterday... LHRP Dario Alavarez is never going to make it at the major league level if he doesn't speed up his throwing motion with runners on base. Kolton Wong hade him look silly when it came to how easy it was to run against him.

In the long run, Edgin did the right thing for the Mets… and Josh Edgin. I honestly don’t know what they did 40 years ago when someone stretched an ulnar ligament, but recent history has proven that the thing to do now is take a year off and attend New York Rangers games. Hopefully, by the time he gets back next April, he will have a battle to get back on the 25-man… meaning, the Mets will find and develop a couple of productive lefties to compete against him. We’ll have to wait and see about this.

It seems quite obvious that Wilmer Flores has won the starting shortstop position though there really wasn’t much chance for anyone else to take this job away from him. He’s always proved capable of knocking in runs (2011: 81, 2012: 75, 2013: 99, 2014: 86) and has the potential of leading the Mets in this category; however, I don’t expect the Mets to slot him into the middle of the lineup. Maybe down the road, but not in 2015.

Baring some unforeseen injury, the starting lineup of the Mets seem set, including the five man rotation. This is the first time this has happened in many years and it gives the Mets an opportunity to concentrate the rest of the spring training on the execution of that lineup.

There’s no way of knowing how this is going to translate to opening day, but the Mets have consistently been one of the top teams this spring in generating on-base percentage. Can Kevin Long be accredited with any of this? It seems like the Mets are swinging at many more first and second pitches than they have in the future.

I’m starting to really like what I see in catcher Johnny Monell. I especially liked the speed he has shown running the bases. He beat out a high chopper to second last Saturday that most catchers would have been thrown out on. He’s also impressed with a bat in his hand. For me, Anthony Recker may not be as safe as many think he is as back-up to Travis d’Arnaud.

Once in a while players seem to disappear in spring training and Rafael Montero fell into this category until the Wheeler injury. Sandy Alderson said on Tuesday that he really didn’t want to send Montero back to Las Vegas and, though he will begin to get a look as the fifth starter, he probably will open the season as the fifth righty out of the pen. As you all know, this is exactly where I have wanted him for the past year and my hopes is he takes over the long-man role from Torres, while also serving as the emergency SP6 in case another starter goes down. 

Montero did finally get some additional action yesterday in the split schedule game in St. Lucie. It also seemed obviously that he either had been stretched out in camp while not getting in more than one game, or he was pitching in some of the games on the back fields. Either way, it was a good sign that he's already pitching into the third inning.

In my opinion, there simply isn’t a chance that Cesar Puello is going to make the 25-man squad out of camp. The Mets are committed to Juan Lagares, Curtis Granderson, and Michael Cuddyer as their starting outfield, John Mayberry Jr. has already been awarded the RH utility outfielder, while it’s become obvious that either Matt den Dekker or Kirk Nieuwenhuis will win the LH utility slot. It doesn’t matter any longer if PEDs hurt his chance or if the Mets brass are still pissed at him. He simply hasn’t earned being one of the five top outfielders in the organization and the Mets are going to have to expose him to the rest of the league come cut down day.

All the writers will tell you that you that the only way to compensate for a bad pitching outing (Wheeler injury) is a good hitting one (the return of Wright's power). Sure, Harvey-Wheeler looks like a direct win-loss comparison, but did you catch that home run David hit earlier this week over the deepest and tallest portion of center field? Injured, aging, out of shape baseball players don’t do things like this.

You add 10 home runs like this by Wright, coupled with 10 power outing by Harvey over his normal filthy self and the name of Wheeler will be a thing of the past by the off season. Hell, they even let him eat another egg salad sandwich in the clubhouse during the time one of the playoff games is played.