5/16/15

Mack’s Morning Report – 5-16-15 – Q and A

Morning.

The questions keep coming.

Frank asked –

Hey Mack, I’ve got a quick question for you. Who do you see as the next guy joining the Mets rotation, Dillon Gee, Rafael Montero, or Steven Matz?

Mack –

          Hey Frank. Interesting question.

My guess right now is that the Mets are going to allow Noah Syndergaard at least 3-4 starts to show everyone if he should remain in Queens for the rest of the season. Let’s remember the first 3-4 starts that Zack Wheeler had when he came up. These things take time and it’s going to take some real bad pitching by him to get sent back to Las Vegas.

Based on that, I see no movement of the current rotation (Harvey, deGrom, Thor, Niese, Colon) for at least the remainder of May. The funny thing about disabled lists… it’s hard sometimes to get your players on them, but you can come up with a million excuses to keep them there.

I also think they are going to make these decisions one month at a time.

Back to your original question… I don’t see Matz coming east until after the all-star break. First off the disabled list will probably be Gee but I have no idea where he will pitch.



Troy asked –

        Mack, where are the Mets going to play Dilson Herrera when David Wright comes back from the disabled list?

Mack –

        Morning Troy.

        Let’s remember one thing. 2015 is still the year that David Wright plays at third base and Daniel Murphy plays at second. That isn’t going to change unless the Mets can dump… err… trade Murph’s contract to another team.

        It looks like Dilson Herrera will be the future Mets second baseman, but that isn’t going to begin until 2016. I hope the Mets keep Herrera around, but he’s probably best served playing every day in Las Vegas.

        Is there a chance that Murphy gets traded? Sure, if you can find a team that wants an overpriced infielder getting close to 30, who plays poor defense, can't throw from third, and has limited pop.



Carly asked –

          Mack, are we ever going to see an old fashioned ‘slugger’ on this team?

Mack –

          Hey Carly.

Frankly Carly, the short answer is no under the current ownership restrictions. 

The Wilpons simply will not participate in the craziness out there that is going on, especially in the free agent and international market.

The Mets brain trust decided early on that they were going to build this team around pitching. Most of what you see out there on the field right now comes out of the Omar Minaya era. It was his scouts that filled the lower levels with young, fresh, team controlled arms.

The Mets financial mess, coupled with the changes in how baseball controls bonus money, brought on the Sandy Alderson era and he know from day one that he was not going to be allowed to solve the teams problems with a huge free agent signing or some crazy Cuban deal.

Instead, they have tried, and relatively failed, to bring pop to this team through draft picks. Lucky for us, Lucas Duda has developed, but it may be the best pop we see in the Mets lineup for years to come.

I watch this Chicago Cubs series and it makes my stomach sick when I see all the young power on this team. Now, in defense, Chicago did have to really suck for many years to get this many early draft picks, but they decided early to concentrate building their team on offensive everyday players and, boy, have they done a great job at it.



Frankie asked  - 

Hey Mack, is there anyone 'down the road' that we should keep an eye on?

Mack - 

Hey Frankie.

There are two players in Savannah that could become a very important part of the 2019 Mets.

The first is RHSP Casey Meisner. Meisner is 19-years old (turns 20 on 5-22), has started five games for the Sand Gnats, and has a stat line of 2-1, 1.78, 1.09, 30.1-IP, 27-K. Rotational pitchers don't usually get promoted until around their tenth start, or the all-star break, whatever comes first. Meisner looks to be a show-in to end this year playing for St. Lucie. The 6-7 righty may be a rare find after being drafted in the 3rd round ofthe 2013 draft. A type Alderson high risk-high reward high school pitcher.

The last is OF Wuilmer Becerra, who was a throw-in that Sandy Alderson demanded in the R.A. Dickey deal. Seems that Becerra's bat is now beginning to heat up in a town that has enough heat of its own. Last year, Becerra went .300 for Kingsport (228-AB, 7-HR, 28-RBI) as a 19-year old. This year, he has four home runs so far and this is the age (20) you expect to start seeing some of the pop he was projected to develop when he was first signed by Toronto. He needs to move on to A+ ball so we can see the extent of his progress though.




15 comments:

Ernest Dove said...

Im one of thos guys who enjoyed discussing the pending arrivals of Matz and the almighty Thor.......but.....to be honest......I don't even care anymore right now.
This team can't score or play defense anyway, so whats the fun in watching Thor look electric when he's got Murph to pull a Murph, and the team behind him to do nothing with a bat in their hands.
Somebody wake me when TDA is playing and David Wright is.........is he still on the team?

Tom Brennan said...

Mets are opening up a new franchising opportunity: Injuries R Us. it is the category they are most likely to lead the league in, any given year.

They made that baseball movie, "It Happens Every Summer". It's happening, but it ain't even summer yet.

Let's see if at least temporarily, deGrom and Harvey can stop the bleeding.

Wuilmer Becerra has not shown enough this year to get very excited. He is still young, though, and did leap over Brooklyn - let's hope he gets hot like he did last year in K Port.

Matz is ready any time they decide to call him up.

Where have you gone, Vic Black. Mets Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Will we have meaningful June baseball?

Reese Kaplan said...

Where are all the Terry Collins apologists now? When the man blames the veterans for not producing instead of saying, "It's on me to lead this team" it tells me all I need to know about his lack of skill at the helm.

Ernest Dove said...

No point in hating on terry collins anymore. Of the many poor decisions made by everyone on this team and coaching staff, the main ones include paying out two 8 figure yearly contracts to cuddyer and granderson by the front office.
I can understand the teams kinda being stuck with aging veterans they overpaid for with 7-10 year contracts because they were dominating and contributing for their teams, leading to those tough decisions to overpay to keep them.
Granderson and cuddyer however were already old, and coming off injuries when they got paid, and had zero history helping this team.
Imagine what Mets could have done with an extra $26mil this year

Mack Ade said...

Ernest -

You think it's hard watching this team?

Try sitting at this computer all day and writing about them :)

Mack Ade said...

Tom -

Re: June baseball

Right now, I'm not sure.

Mack Ade said...

Reese -

TC shouldn't be saying those things to reporters after the players have gone home.

He should be saying them to the players with the reporters locked out of the clubhouse

Mack Ade said...

Ernest -

Regarding the $26mil...

I still need to remind everyone that you still would have had to find two corner outfielders that WOULD HAVE WANTED TO SIGN WITH THIS TEAM for a combined $26mil a year

Mack Ade said...

Everyone -

Look, this seems like much more than a rough patch. What it seems to be exposing is just how lucky this team was in early April and how far more ready they were to come out of the box after a spring training in which they actually played well enough to believe they were a pennant contender.

Were they before the injuries? Probably, but they never had the depth on the farm (I told you!) everyone thought they had.

This is really bad. They look like they will never win another game. Slumps like this never fall on individual players though I don't know why Alderson has been so stubborn about demoting Flores (looks like the Herrera injury has saved him there).

My guess is Terry is gone by the end of this month if this team continues playing like this.

Steve from Norfolk said...

The new manager won't be any better. I would bet we get Bob Geren, although I'd really like to see if Tim Teufel could do the job. I'd REALLY like to see wally, but that's not going to happen. Shame - I guarantee he'd wake these players up!

Stubby said...

This is why I can't stand the "new breed" of Mets fans. The team has lost 5 in a row...and they're still in first place. Might not be after tonight's game but, right now, they are in first place. That's without Wright and d'Arnaud in the lineup. They've looked bad on the road, lately, but their home record is 13-4. Haven't y'all been complaining about the team's home record for the past several years?

The Mets built their future on young pitching. Its pretty much panned out well. Even with the injuries, we have the pitching depth to continue pitching great. The Cubs built their future on young offense. But there's not an arm on their pitching staff I'd want on ours. And where are the Cubs, who are riding a 5 game winning streak? Why, they're in second...a full 4 games out. Leaving relative division strength out of the equation, their record is nearly identical to the Mets. Obviously, you need pitching AND hitting AND defense to really be a dominant force. But pitching has greater value on the open market than does hitting. Which is to say I like our chances of acquiring offense--should we be so inclined--a lot better than I like the Cubs' chances of acquiring quality pitching. I also think our offensive prospects are better than the Cubs' pitching prospects, overall. And we've got major talent on the DL--players who will come back and make us a better, more complete team. Who can the Cubs count on getting back from their DL? Tommy LaStella and Mike Olt? That would actually make them worse, not better.

But, man, so many so-called fans who can't wait but to hate on their team. I know Reese is never so happy as when the Mets are going bad. I don't get it. Used to be being a fan meant you stuck by your team through thick and thin. I remember in the early sixties when people would ask me who was going to win the World Series in any given year, I'd always say the Mets. I said that when they were losing 100 games a year. Because they're my team and I'm with them 100%. Of the Cubs and Mets, who is more likely to be in the Series this year? The Mets, of course. Because they're MY team. Get it?

At the end of the day, maybe y'all will be right and the Mets will continue to flounder and flop and finish third with a record similar to last year's. You may be right. But I'll be happy. The Mets are my team. Standing by them, believing in them--that makes me happy. You'll never be happy. I'll take the Mets over the Cubs and I'll take being happy over being right...and eternally miserable. Jeez. Can't you at least be happy that they're in first place? If first place can't make you happy, then I feel truly sorry for you.

Reese Kaplan said...

@Stubby I can't say i agree with that assessment. I was ecstatic at how the team started off but there are so many obvious things that could be done better or differently. My objection is at the status quo that hasn't worked being trotted out again and again. That includes retaining the manager with 4 straight losing seasons. I'd have cut him loose after the first 80 games of his second losing campaign and tried a new direction, but hey, that's just me. I trumpet the things that a lot of people don't say regarding what is going wrong or has gone wrong because until people make enough noise about it nothing will change. Remember when the fans went crazy for the Mets to go out and get Mike Piazza despite having Todd Hundley? It happened. It's time for the apathy to give way to pitchforks and maybe the team will listen.

Steve from Norfolk said...

Reese,

Nelson Doubleday was there to make sure the things that needed to get done, got done when the Piazza deal was done, in spite of the Wilpons. Now, we have no checks and balances to keep the Mets run like a baseball team. We just have Fred and Jeffy, legends in their own minds, to see that the Mets are run like a real estate operation.

Stubby said...

I've never seen "fan noise" causing a baseball team to do ANYTHING (except move). My understanding is the Mets were working on the Piazza deal well before the fans whimpered a word. Carry your pitchforks and torches all you want; it isn't going to change a thing except that you won't have time to enjoy the game. I remember when New York wanted to ride Steinbrenner out of town on a rail. Did they get their way? No. It was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.

As it stands, the Mets are in first place. Today. Enjoy it.

The Mets are right about where I expected them to be at this point of the rebuilding process. They're competitive. Next year is the year I always had targeted as the Big Season. I didn't expect Collins to still be here, now. But managers really don't make that much of a difference. They really don't. You think Backman would be doing any better with all the key players on the DL? I think that's crazy talk. You think the Mets would be closer to a pennant had they spent twice what they have on the free agent market? I don't see it. Anyway, we tried that and all we got were late season collapses and a bunch of dead weight (and a barren farm system).

Rocky Bridges once said “There are three things the average man thinks he can do better than anybody else: build a fire, run a hotel and manage a baseball team.” If he were making that quote today, he'd likely say "own" rather than "manage". Either way, if you can do better, then buy the team and do better. Otherwise, as I said, the Mets are in first place. Today. Enjoy it. I see an awful lot of teams out there who were spending money like water and bringing in the big names and they haven't played nearly as well as the Mets. Frankly, I think Mets fans should give Sandy and the Wilpons an apology and say "Thank You". But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that moment.

Steve from Norfolk said...

Stubby,

I plan to do just that - as soon as I can cash my winning Powerball ticket. I may be delayed, though, as I haven't bought it yet.