Mack’s Morning News – 1-30-16 – NL East Favorites, Lineups, Piggybacks Vs. KC, Brian Cole

Andrew Simon wrote a story for MLB.com that said that the Washington Nationals were favorites to win the NL East, even after the Mets signed Yoenes Cespedes –

Even factoring in Cespedes, the Nats project to finish with two more wins than the Mets (88 to 86), according to Steamer. Available at FanGraphs.com, Steamer uses past performance and age to help project future performance. (Obvious disclaimer: The margin for error is high. Example: the 2015 NL East).

Michael Baron ‏@michaelgbaron  - Terry used 138 different lineups in 2015

          Mack – That’s amazing.

          My first thought when I read this was that most of these must have happened early on in the season when the team sucked so much personnel wise, but that can’t be true… 138 out of 162 games must be throughout the season.

          I hope this changes in 2016. Nothing gets a baseball player off to a bad day quicker than coming to the park, walking over to where the starting lineup is, and finding your name in a different place (or not on the list at all).

          My guess right now is Curtis Granderson will be the leadoff hitter and Yoenes Cespedes will bat fourth. From there, who knows…

         

Mike Puma ‏- Mets have 3 off days in first week of regular season. Are discussing a plan to "piggyback" starting pitchers, using 2 in each game vs. KC.

          Mack – You what I like about this?

          I like the fact that the Mets are sitting down NOW and trying to come up with competitive ways of winning the opening series of the new season, especially since it’s against the same team that beat them in the World Series.

          Like my old motto says…’win the series, win the season’.

          I applaud whoever came up with this idea.

 J.J. Cooper was asked who were some of the great baseball prospects that didn’t make it to the pros. He was quick to mention the Mets’ Brian Cole -

You asked about players who didn’t reach the majors, so that doesn’t include the Cardinals’ Oscar Taveras, killed in a car accident in 2014.

Limiting it to players who didn’t make the majors (and played in the 21st century), Desme isn’t the best prospect to not play in the big leagues this century, but he’s close. As good as Desme could have been, Mets outfielder Brian Cole had a chance to be a truly special player.

In 2000 as a 21-year-old, Cole hit .301/.347/.494 with 19 home runs and 69 stolen bases between high Class A St. Lucie and Double-A Binghamton. He had power, speed, bat control and excellent defense. An exceptional athlete, Cole had turned down a football scholarship to Florida State to play baseball.

Coming into the 2001 season, Baseball America had Cole rated as the No. 61 prospect in the game. He had a solid spring training for the Mets that year. But he was killed in a car accident as he took his car back to his parents’ home in Meridian, Miss., before reporting to Double-A Binghamton to start the season.

Mack – I’m not sure if the Mets still does this, but they always dedicated the intra-squad game that is played before the first spring training game to Brian Cole. I had the pleasure of interviewing David Wright about this prior to the 2008 game and, sadly, I have misplaced the audio somewhere. Maybe my dog ate it. Who knows.

I do remember that Wright told me that he never had the pleasure of playing with Cole but it was a tragic loss that the Mets (at least then in 2008) still felt deeply about.