Mack’s Morning Report – 4-1-16 – Bobby Parnell, Mama's of Corona, Curtis Granderson, Michael Bernal

Good morning.

I saw that two days after the Detroit Tigers released pitcher Bobby Parnell, they resigned him and assigned him to a minor league contract. My assumption is every time he is released and resigned it eats big time into his paycheck. Parnell went out his way to point out that his resigning with the Tigers would prevent him to having to go through this whole process again with another team. Makes sense to me. I wish him well.

(Parnell pitched 0.2 innings yesterday and gave up 2-R/4-H)

Eno Sarris Eno Sarris featured some of the great food you can buy at CitiField –

          Mama's of Corona

There's never a line at Mama's of Corona in the "Taste of the World" section in the right field corner (field concourse). This is an offshoot of Leo's Latticini, a deli not far from the park in Corona. They offer turkey and Italian subs with sweet and hot peppers and mushrooms, as well as salads and lots of dessert items including Italian cookies and cannolis. — Anthony DiComo

Mama's of Corona -- located in the food court in the right-field corner, this is, in my opinion, the best concession in baseball. Giant Italian heroes, either turkey with mozzarella or Italian combo. The key is the marinated sweet peppers, hot peppers and mushrooms that are ladled onto the sandwich. When you're asked if you want them, the automatic answer is, "YES." -- Jared Diamond

Michael Mayer ‏@themainemets  - Kirk Nieuwenhuis has more RBI this spring than Cespedes, Granderson, Wright, and Duda…

 Brian Mangan wrote a nice story on Curtis Granderson -

in addition to being an impressive season in general, Granderson’s 2015 was relatively momentous for a player in his age 34 season. By WAR, Granderson’s 2015 was the 6th best for an age 34 outfielder in the last thirty years. In fact, there are only 19 such seasons in the last thirty years where any outfielder age 34 or older was better (and Barry Bonds accounts for five of them). His 157 games played was the ninth most among outfielders 34 and older since the league integrated in 1961.

Mack – Good piece. Everybody is doing as much as they can to keep up the positive vibes during this miserable pre-season. This is Brian’s contribution.

The Mets released outfielder Michael Bernal. Bernal was an international signee that started his Mets career for the DSL Mets in 2010. In the past 6 seasons he has hit a combined .251, but never got out of rookie ball. Last season, his second for Brooklyn, he hit .257 in 152 at-bats.

The Mets have released IF/UOF Yeixon Ruiz . Ruiz also came out of the international system and has spent six seasons playing for the Mets, including 25 at-bats last season for the AA affiliate, Binghamton. His best season was 2013 with Kingsport (.304).

The Mets released pitcher Luis Chirinos, who they signed on Jnauary 19^th.Chirinos has played in independent ball since 2011.

Mack – This is the time of the year to clean out the system with under productive players and get ready for the draft.

The release of Ruiz frees up seven second basemen (Danny Muno, Dilson Herrera, LJ Mazzilli, Jonathan Johnson, Jean Rodriguez, Vinnie Sierra, Kevin Taylor) to fill the four full season teams at that position.

Vying now for the Columbia outfield are Kevin Kaczmarski, Desmond Lindsay, Emmanuel Zabata, Hengelbert Rojas, Tucker Tharp, and Joe Tuschak.


Didn't it seem like a really nice idea to pitch both Las Vegas natives, Paul Sewald and Chasen Bradford, in the first game at the Las Vegas field verses the Cubs. Sewald pitched wonderfully (3.0-IP, 0-R, 3-K) and Bradford did better than I expected (1.1-IP, 1-ER).  Hats off to the Mets for this kind move.

OF Scott Hairston and RHP Maikel Cleto were released by the Chicago White Sox…