Mack's Morning Report - 1-16-16 - More Cespedes, New Infield Bench, Fan Voting on Wilpons,

Good morning.

The Mets released pitchers Randi Montero and Euner Rodriguez, both of which were on the 2015 DSL team.

John Mayberry Jr. Agrees to Tigers minors deal. $1M in majors.

Former catcher Cam Maron has signed a minor league deal with Miami.


Moew Cespedes - http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-case-for-yoenis-cespedes/ 

         6/$120M would put him in line with Jordan Zimmermann and Johnny Cuetorather than the Mike Leake/Jeff Samardzija combination that Baltimore’s offer is comparing him to. Personally, I’d take Cespedes over the next five or six years before any of those pitchers, but at the very least, he belongs closer to Cueto than Samardzija. I know the market fell in love with pitchers this winter, but the idea that Jordan Zimmermann is worth more than Yoenis Cespedes is silly.

The Orioles have every right to try and take advantage of an irrationally weak market for quality hitters, and if they end up getting Cespedes for less than $100 million, kudos to them. But the rest of the league shouldn’t be content to sit around and let that happen. Cespedes is a good player, better than the guy the Orioles want to give $150 million to, and if he ends up settling for a Samardzija-type deal, 29 teams may end up regretting not opening their wallets for a chance to land a valuable piece at a bargain price.

 Carson Cistulli write about his Mets ZIPS, that included the new Mets infield -

The Mets currently employ a small army of serviceable middle infielders. While Asdrubal Cabrera is perhaps the weakest among the club’s starting field players, each of Gavin Cecchini (538 PA, 1.5 zWAR), Wilmer Flores (556 PA 1.7 zWAR), Dilson Herrera (569 PA, 2.5 zWAR) profile as, at worst, very strong bench options, offering a useful combination of offensive adequacy and defensive skill. Cecchini’s is the top projection among the club’s rookie-eligible batters. Among pitchers, there’s less immediate help from would-be rookies.

Mack – What we sometime forget that our bench gets stronger as our old starters become members of our new bench. In my opinion, the potential of Cecchini, Flores, and Herrera on my bench upgrade last year’s combination of Eric Campbell, Ruben Tejada, and Danny Muno.

What the Mets still hasn’t determined is the fifth outfield on opening day and, on paper, that would today be Darrell Ceciliani. There’s an outside chance that Brandon Nimmo could catch on fire in camp and come out as the favorite, but he really needs another season in the minors, this time playing AAA ball. I still believe Sandy Alderson will sign another outfielder before the season starts.

This was interesting.

My friends at Fangraphs  http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/team-ownership-ratings-by-the-community/ took a survey and asked readers to grade out the owners of their favorite baseball team.

It turned out that Mets fan had the second most votes, coming in at a little over 5% (of the 30 teams in the survey).

Results wise, the Mets came in 29^th (1.7%), only beating out Miami for the world’s worst owners.

Fangraphs went on to say –

There’s a clear lowest tier. Actually, there are two clear lowest tiers. The Marlins are almost off the scale. There’s nothing Jeffrey Loria could possibly do to save his reputation, and his franchise is understood to be a circus. No one wants to play there, and no one wants to work there. Despite the talent they have, the Marlins will probably always be a mess. On the worst tier out of the non-Loria group, you get the Mets, edging out the Rockies. These are two very different situations. The Rockies owners have been somewhat quietly disagreeable. Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, meanwhile, are famously hated by Mets fans the world around, for funneling money to paying off private debts. So payroll now is well below where it was just a few seasons ago. There’s more to it than this, but that’s the biggest factor.

The final graph looked like this -          

Team Ownership Ratings

Team	Very bad	Pretty bad	Average	Pretty good	Very good	Rating
Giants	3%	1%	5%	31%	60%	4.44
Cubs	2%	2%	7%	30%	58%	4.39
Cardinals	6%	1%	7%	28%	57%	4.29
Dodgers	5%	5%	8%	24%	58%	4.26
Red Sox	5%	6%	11%	38%	41%	4.04
Tigers	4%	7%	14%	38%	37%	3.97
Rangers	3%	3%	25%	55%	14%	3.73
Astros	2%	6%	28%	48%	17%	3.73
Yankees	7%	12%	17%	36%	27%	3.63
Royals	5%	10%	27%	38%	21%	3.61
Pirates	5%	12%	24%	44%	15%	3.52
Nationals	5%	14%	36%	38%	7%	3.28
Rays	12%	25%	27%	24%	13%	3.02
Brewers	9%	25%	40%	18%	7%	2.89
Twins	8%	23%	51%	17%	1%	2.80
Indians	8%	26%	49%	15%	2%	2.77
Phillies	17%	25%	30%	24%	4%	2.75
White Sox	10%	30%	42%	15%	3%	2.71
Braves	15%	28%	35%	16%	5%	2.68
Diamondbacks	17%	27%	35%	15%	6%	2.65
Angels	15%	34%	27%	19%	5%	2.65
Athletics	18%	31%	30%	15%	6%	2.61
Mariners	13%	34%	39%	10%	3%	2.57
Padres	14%	36%	40%	10%	0%	2.46
Orioles	15%	36%	36%	11%	1%	2.46
Blue Jays	19%	34%	32%	13%	2%	2.44
Reds	12%	40%	40%	7%	1%	2.44
Rockies	43%	38%	17%	2%	1%	1.81
Mets	56%	27%	11%	6%	1%	1.69
Marlins	89%	8%	1%	1%	1%	1.19

SOURCE: all y’all

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx