Mack’s Morning News – 2-2-16 – Terry Collins, Doc Gooden, Curtis Granderson, Brandon Nimmo

Good morning.

Terry Collins –

            “We’ve got to go back. Let’s win it all.

“We can do this. We talked last spring about the postseason and we did win. Now what are we going to do to get the ultimate win, to finish this thing off?

“You create your own expectations. How are we going to go about doing that? I’ll tell you exactly how: We’re not changing it up much, but we’ve got to run the bases this much better, we have to strike out this much less, play a little more defense in the World Series.

You got to have those expectations. If you are afraid of it, you are in the wrong sport. You talk about goals in baseball, there is no bigger goal, and until you get to the World Series, you don’t really understand how much fun it is.’’

We have to take a look at Kansas City and learn something. They made it a point, ‘We’re going to go back and we’re going to get this done.’ That was their mantra the entire year. We have to have a similar one.’’

            Mack – This was from a NY Post interview by Kevin Kernan.

It seems to me he said all the right things, at the right time. And, this seems to be the same kind of focus Kansas City had after they lost the 2014 World Series. It was important for them to pick themselves up and make sure they finish what they started in 2014. This seems to be what Collins is saying here.

Doc Gooden –

            “With the pitching they have they can start a dynasty here. These guys are crazy good. No one wants to face them. I loved them re-signing Yoenis Cespedes, because even with those great arms, you have to score runs and he brings that fear to the middle of the order. All the attention is on him and the other hitters can just do their thing. I’m a fan of the game and a fan of the Mets and Yankees, and I look at the game totally different, but if I could, if I were the owner of the Mets, I would try to lock these guys up now. Buy out the arbitration years and two or three years of free agency. They are that good.’’

                        Mack – More from Kernan of The Post.

            I don’t know how much access Doc has to Sandy Alderson or the Wilpons, but I hope his thoughts on locking up the pitching gets to the front office.

Can you imagine having Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard under control through the three years AFTER their scheduled free agency period?

           

From Hobie  (Conrad Youngren) - 

Mack, let me share what has been rattling around in my corporeal attic, perhaps you could share & comment.

You know I was not in favor of the Granderson signing.  In the 13-14 off-season I was hoping Sandy would re-sign Byrd.  He wanted 2 years and SA bought 1 yr of Chris Young early in the shopping season.  Fangraphs, among others, thought it was a steal and I shrugged:  Ok, I understood (I thought) the 1 vs 2 year thing.  You & I discussed bringing Beltran back, but that would have had to been for 2 and evidently…  I mused about a RF platoon of den Dekker & Puello (ouch); play ‘em and see what they can do.

Then Granderson signs for FOUR years and I was (still am) clueless. 

The ’14 season came & went with CY, EY and Grandy not accomplishing—offensively or defensively—near what I thought a Byrd-Legares-dD/Puello would minimally give (not realizing that Cesar would spend the year playing mahjong with the East German manly-girl track team).

Granderson rebounds in fine fashion in ’15.  Batting LO by default, in retrospect he was an essential cog in the Series-reaching effort and eclipsing the 2015 M.Byrd of my scenario by some 80 OPS points.  Of course, with the 2014 Byrd in hand, a big-bat search would probably not have snared a RHB Cuddyer either.  Obviously, all that doesn’t matter now.

All of this as set-up to my essential question:  Is now the time to shop Curtis Granderson?.  OK, two questions: why do I keep hearing 3rd hand that Cespedes WILL not (not cannot) play RF?

I think the answer to the first question is yes.   Granderson in RF, Cespedes in CF with Legares & de Aza on the bench is a sum less than it’s parts.  Game 1 last Oct should have opened with Legares in CF, Cespedes in LF and Conforto as DH (I can envision arrangements where Grandy was DH too, but the sub in question is Legares bat/field vs Johnson bat comes up on the side of the defense --offense too as it turned out.)  I think it’s a toss-up whether Granderson’s year will be closer to 2014 than 2015, but, for the sake of argument, think of those as the upper & lower bounds.

So. What could we get for Granderson this spring?  And, is the point moot if Cespedes refuses to play RF.

            Mack – Hobie, thanks for the question.

Yes, you always try and trade a ballplayer that is over 30 years old coming off his best year. You are never going to get more back than you would now.

That being said, the pre-season 2016 Mets are not going to trade one of their poster boys right before what lines up as a magical season in the making.

Yes, the current Mets have too many decent outfielders (wow, did I just say that) and four of the five of them aren’t right fielders. Granderson also is the closest thing the Mets have to a leadoff hitter which is another reason he won’t be moved.

In my opinion, it’s not worth doing the math. He’s not going anywhere.

New York Mets OF ’prospect’ Brandon Nimmo has been diagnosed with a partial tear of a tendon in his left foot and will be in a walking boot for the next 10-days, after which he was be reevaluated.

            Mack – Another Nimmo setback.

There are some people that just never get to where they were heading in this sport because they can’t stay healthy. Nimmo may turn out to be one of them.

He’s been around for five seasons now and has a lifetime minor league average of .264. He only hit above .300 once (2014: St. Lucie, 227-Abs), but finished that season only hitting .238 for Binghamton. And, in 1,542 major league at-bats, he only has 25 home runs and a slugging percentage of .391.

Luckily, with the signing of Yoenes Cespedes, the Mets have the outfield covered pretty well for the next two seasons. Sadly, Nimmo could be, long term, out of the picture and the Mets might move on to Wuilmer Becerra as their next ‘home grown’ outfielder.