Mack’s Morning News – 11-29-15 – Xander Bogaerts, Brett Lawrie, Asdrubel Cabrera, Neil Walker, Michael Choice

Good morning.

Gary Seagren sent –

Good Morning Mack, Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and here's my thought on a trade idea. Harvey, Niese, Flores and Duda for Bogaerts, Bradley and Holt. I would resign Murph for 1st until Dom Smith is ready hopefully by mid/late 2017. That would give us a super sub in Holt and a platoon in CF until one really takes charge of the position. Bogaerts gives us a long term SS and all are cost controlled. WE KNOW Harvey is not going to sign with us so were left with do we trade him now or can we recoup more next off season. The problem with that that I see is he pitched the most innings of any pitcher coming off TJS and there is a risk that he'll regress some next year. Your thought's, Gary Seagren

Mack – You’re asking me if I would be interested in a 22-year old shortstop that hit .320 and knocked in 81 runs?

And, I’ve always liked the potential of Bradley which seems to have emerged this past season.

Gary, you know how much I love pitching and I really would like to see the Mets solve their future positional problems by not losing one of their top starters, but having an all-star like this play every day for a long, long time would such clear up a few things.

Yes, this would make a lot of sense if you also could sign Murphy to play first. I don’t worry about the future on Smith, but that’s two years away.

Harvey would be a huge loss, but Duda, Flores, and Niese are expendable. You will have lost two rotation pitchers here so you are really betting on Logan Verrett, Rafael Montero, and the return of Zach Wheeler.

I will say this… I think you could have either got more or given up less in this deal because of Harvey. My guess he is worth three front line players.

Any thoughts by the rest of you out there?

While we’re on the subject of possible trades,  Rich MacCleod wrote an interesting article on the possibility if Oakland’s IF Brett Lawrie becoming a Met.

Read the article. His five year career has been a disappointment so far and his career stat line, particularly his OPS, needs a bump, but he would serve up as a utility 2B/3B, especially if the Mets chose to go with Dilson Herrera at second base. 

And, he’s only 26.

Michael Baron writes that the Mets are one of the five teams interested in signing 30-year old SS Asdrubal Cabrera, whi is older than Wilmer Flores, hits around the same as Flores, and plays worse defense than Flore (BTW… as I write this, Flores is playing second base in winter ball). I don’t see this being much of an upgrade but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

The MLB Radio Network brought up a Neil Walker for Jon Niese possible trade. Walker is the Pirates 29-year old second baseman that could be a good bridge to Dilson Herrera in 2017. He also can play third base. Are you interesting in a one year solution for the middle infield mess?

And lastly…

          This is just me thinking out loud.

Throw the book and past stats out on OF Michael Choice, who was DFA’d this past week. Choice was one of the prime cut outfielders that came out of the 2010 draft (10^th pick overall… second OF picked after Bryce Harper and two picks after Matt Harvey). He simply was in the ‘can’t miss’ category.

He did hit 30-HRs for A+ Stockton in 2011; however, his career has basically been off the rails since then. Three shots in the majors produced 272-AB and a combined .188 batting average. And last year, he spent most of his time playing in the PCL for Round Rock (normal air there), hitting 12-HRs (406-AB) and hitting .244.

Still, he’s 25 years old and he has to be a better option for some of the guys we have on the current Las Vegas roster.