Mack’s Morning Report – 8-15-15 – Jacob deGrom, David Wright, Jay Horwitz, Nats Decline

Good morning.

Twitter Tidbits –

Las Vegas RP Dario Alavrez had his 21.1 scoreless inning streak ended when Zack Thornton allowed an inherited runner to score. .085/.198/.113 slash line with 36 strikeouts over his last 22.2 innings.

Jose Reyes cleared waivers

Jon Niese's last 32 starts: 11-13, 200.2 IP, 141 strikeouts, 50 walks, 211 H, 22 HR, 6.32 K/9, 2.24 BB/9, 0.99 HR/9, 3.54 ERA, 4.00 FIP

Curtis Granderson is 1 of 5 outfielders with 20+ homeruns & 50+ walks. Other 4 are Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Jose Bautista, & Joc Pederson.

Zack Wheeler: "good to get throwing again, arm feels good and strong, and I don't have any pain, which is weird for me"

         

Comment From Chinese Explosions - Cargo: “deGrom the best pitcher in the league”

Eno Sarris: Eno: “All his pitches get an 80 grade”…  (I will say maybe I was a bit overexcited. the curve is more of a 60, and the change and slider probably 70s. But that fastball, with the command, and velocity, is an 80.)

Mack – Greinke… Scherzer… Kershaw… deGrom… is it possible to determine which one of these four guys are better than the other or can we just agree to agree that they are all in a league of their own?

There were 271 baseball players drafted in 2010 before this ex-shortstop from Stetson University. Don’t ever say you can’t find a gem in the later rounds.

Comment From The Forgotten Met - Does Rafael Montero have a chance to contribute at the major league level this year?

Eno Sarris: Heard he was 88-89 in last rehab start… Probably not.

Comment From Andrew - Can you elaborate on the Mets clubhouse situation? It’s hard to put those things in perspective when traditional media sources keep saying how established veterans make great clubhouse presences.

Eno Sarris: I was in there before Uribe, Kelly Johnson, and Cespedes arrived, so maybe it’s better now. But really, the thing that is missing is David Wright. Everyone wants a veteran star position player in their clubhouse because people defer to that player. And — this part may annoy people — but a big part of the job is taking questions. Remember Carlos Delgado? He got annoyed that the media blasted him on not standing for the national anthem, so he stopped talking. The media was forced to talk to Billy Wagner a ton. Billy Wagner often said, guys I didn’t pitch tonight, what do you want? And if the media doesn’t get any quotes, they get in a bad mood, and have to scrounge for quotes, and the tone of the coverage changes. And beyond that, if you walked around the clubhouse with Wright gone and those new guys not in place yet, there wasn’t anyone around. Tumbleweeds. So… that’s why it’s not a big deal in sum. it’s just a workplace, and people have numbskulls at work. But it can be the difference in the coverage of your team, and it can make a tiny bit of difference to a young guy coming up, or to how excited you feel for the game.

Mack – very well explained and said…  one thing I do want to say about the Mets clubhouse, beat reporters and who is interviewed. All of that is controlled by the Mets press secretary, Jay Horwitz. You simply can’t, on your own, walk over to a ballplayer and start your own Q and A.

Horwitz never liked me because I was a blogger that also wrote for a newspaper. He had to give me press credentials even those some of the ‘legitimate’ beat reporters from NYC complained to him that I was live blogging from the press room.

Still, he runs a tight ship and runs most of the tough questions through Wright.

A great article by Nats Insider on the decline of the Nationals since the all-star break:

                  Manager Matt Williams alluded after Thursday night’s game in San Francisco to some potential changes for Friday night’s contest against the Giants. He most likely means some lineup juggling and perhaps the insertion of one or two bench guys. The odds of some truly dramatic shakeup seem unlikely at this point.

Williams only has so many reasonable alternatives at his disposal. Want to bench Werth, now 8-for-56 since coming off the DL and owner of a .185 batting average, .256 on-base percentage and .530 OPS for the season? OK, your backup left fielders are Clint Robinson and Tyler Moore.

Fine, prefer simply to move Werth down in the lineup where he can’t kill as many rallies? Well, who are you going to move up to the No. 5 spot? Your choices are Ian Desmond, Wilson Ramos and Michael Taylor.

This is where the continued absence of Denard Span really devastates the Nationals. If Span is healthy, Taylor falls into the fourth outfielder role, available to take over for anybody else who is struggling. Instead, Taylor is forced to play every day as the only true center fielder on the roster.

Mack – We tend to forget that the Mets rise to 4.5 games ahead of the Nats in the standings is a combination of Mets wins and Nats losses. Winning means nothing if the team you are trying to catch is also winning.

Washington has big problems right now and the Mets need to keep pouncing on this situation.