7/16/16

Reese Kaplan -- Planning to Make Mets Great Again


While I can’t pretend to know the political leanings of the Mets’ brain trust, they’re certainly acting as if they are channeling their inner Trump when they say and do things that make the most loyal fans just shake their head with incredulity. 

Take for example the current state of needs for improving the club.  They have lost David Wright for the year (and possibly forever).  They have lost Lucas Duda for most of the year.  They are now without Matt Harvey for the remainder of the year.  They have suffered multiple setbacks in Zack Wheeler’s recovery.  They have lost Travis d’Arnaud for a large chunk of the season.  They have had to contend with the sophomore slump of Michael Conforto and demoted him to Sin City to find his swing. 

Word has filtered down that the “Plan” is to allow the current crop of players to get healthy and that will address the needs on the ballclub.  Allow me to repeat that – wait for David Wright (who is out for the year), Matt Harvey (who is out for the year) and Lucas Duda (who has yet to resume baseball activities) to get healthy and all is right with the world.  Huh…I guess I must be a heretic for not sharing that same deluded vision of faith. 

Of course, then they immediately doubled back and reversed course by declaring that they will seek to find a relief pitcher in the trade market.  Really?  What happened to waiting for guys to get healthy (cough, Jim Henderson, cough, Josh Edgin).  Isn’t that like saying you want to bring jobs back to America but then outsourcing your own clothing manufacturing to China?

While no one is denying that Antonio Bastardo, save for one brilliant bases loaded game in which he came in the whiff the side, has been an unmitigated disaster.  Lately Erik Goeddel has not been much better.  The jury’s still out on Seth Lugo who, being unknown to the Skipper, will only see the light of day in blowouts.  However, Hansel Robles, Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia have all been quite solid. 

Word has also come that they are likely out on the Yuliesky Gourriel sweepstakes.  No surprise there…their xenophobia also mimics their political doppelganger.  You can’t have someone from another country come here and expect him to perform like a good American can.  Remember Josh Satin?  Remember Eric Campbell?   One’s status as a “proven” commodity doesn’t by definition make them a superior choice.  Yes, for every Yoenis Cespedes there’s a Hector Olivera waiting to happen.  Still, the Mets have a need at 3rd base not just now but likely for the future as well.  Plan A – Jose Reyes – was apparently the only plan as he cost just pro-rated major league minimum and they’re still holding onto the delusion that David Wright will try to play again (and thus be on the payroll).  So winning once again takes a backseat to this faint glimmer of hope. 

The strangest one of all, however, is the decision to keep Michael Conforto in AAA.  Yes, he was totally lost at the plate when he left (and probably was kept around a month longer than he should have been).  However, it didn’t take much for him to regain his swing and confidence.  The team is, as usual, struggling to score runs by means other than the long ball.  Throw in the fact that Yoenis Cespedes is also ailing, and you’d think the logical thing to do would be to return the suddenly hot Conforto to the majors to begin the second half, but no…that makes way too much sense.  Instead we get more of Alejandro De Aza whose $5.75 million contract is apparently keeping him employed because once again the sunk cost is more important to the club than the incremental cost of cutting him loose and letting a minimum wage player such as Brandon Nimmo take his spot permanently on the roster.  

The Mets talk a good game about winning, but they failed to plan for inevitabilities like the David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud DL stints.  The Duda and Harvey situations were unpleasant surprises, but in neither case did they take aggressive steps to address the issues.  James Loney is not the answer.  Logan Verrett is not the answer.  They’re all ecstatic that Jose Reyes hit a few home runs in a week but when Wilmer Flores, the man he replaced, hit FIVE in that same amount of time he was directed to plant his butt on the bench.  

Maybe I’m too harsh.  After all, they told use they’ll hire the best people to be in charge.  Who does that sound like?  And how’s it working out? 

16 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Your risk will, like Murphy, prove to be the answer this team passed on once again.

Tom Brennan said...

Gourriel, which my tablet decided was "your risk."

ReyesMets said...

LOL write the same nonsense every week ... sifting thru PR pretending it's reflective of anything substantive lol

ReyesMets said...

LOL write the same nonsense every week ... sifting thru PR pretending it's reflective of anything substantive lol

Unknown said...

I'm so impressed you were able to use doppelganger in a sentence about our favorite team. Now moving on to the issues you have as always hit the nail on the head yet again. We ALL knew we weren't getting Guerriel which just re-enforces our view once again about how this team operates. We tend to think with all the resources and inside information a major league team (am I reaching here :) ) should have in assessing players that management should be able to make better choices in putting a team together. I get the Bastardo sign as some deals just don't work but DeAza? As the 25th guy he was a stretch but he was signed as a semi-regular player when for example for a couple of million more we could have signed Desmond who even after an off 2015 season has FAR more talent and upside as well as being 2 years younger AND can play multiple positions in both the infield and outfield...by the way how's he doing in CF these days? To be competitive in this business you HAVE to spend money. We simply can't compete when a few million dollars either way sways our decisions. The Nats just signed Strasburg to a long term contract and coupled with the Scherzer signing that comes to $385 MILLION DOLLARS to TWO players to secure their future with the team and we keep hearing how signing Murphy last winter would have killed any possibility of signing Cespedes and we're supposed to be a big market team heading to the World Series? Now having said all of that it is amazing we're where we are in the standings considering all the games missed by our original opening day lineup but with the decisions we have come to expect from our FO (lets not forget we lucked into Cespedes TWICE since last July and our conversations would be much different now if we landed Gomez instead) we better hope Duda, Cespedes and Wheeler return ASAP and Confordo returns to form quickly because the only real trade chip is probably Walker (with Herrera manning 2nd) and any real run to the playoffs would require his production.

Reese Kaplan said...
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Reese Kaplan said...
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Tom Brennan said...

We should've gotten the Cuban. i would have bought Sandy a Cuban cigar.

Reese Kaplan said...

Sorry, that should have read under $10 million per year.

Stubby said...

Gourriel signed with Houston which apparently was such an impact signing that you missed it. 5-year deal, $47.5 million.

As for the rest of your hit piece, all I can say is that I am thrilled beyond belief that management doesn't think like you. We do not have the massive needs you seem to think we do. We are a better team today than we were this time last year (and we had a pretty solid team, then, too). Told you then we'd make the post-season and we did.

The Nats are playing like they were supposed to last year and there's not much we can do about that except when we play them. But this Mets team has everything it needs, right now (or when Duda gets back, which should be in a couple of weeks) to win 90 games or more and take the wild card, if not the division.

I'm not sure what your record is as a major league GM, Reese, but, if you've got all the answers, put your resume in. Since you think its all about the money, I'm sure the Wilpons will jump at the chance to hire a cheaper GM. Then again, they probably won't, because it isn't all about the money. But just go ahead and continue believing it is.

The Trump comparisons, btw, are beyond the pale and represent a new low for you. Congratulations.

Reese Kaplan said...

First, I had reported the Gourriel signing and then deleted the comment when I noticed I'd typoed the amount as "under $19 million" when I corrected it to say "under $10 million".

Second, the clueless billionaires in both cases say and do whatever they want, defying conventional wisdom and logic. The club did indeed make the playoffs last year. They also had Duda, Conforto, Wright AND Cespedes for that pennant run. Now they have Loney, Reyes, Nimmo/De Aza/Lagares and 8 days without Cespedes. You call it better. And I'm the crazy one? :)

Stubby said...

Our record going into the break this year was one game better than last year. After the break last year, we played under .500 for the rest of July. We called up Conforto on July 24 last year. We didn't get d'Arnaud back until the last day of July--the same day we acquired Cespedes. We didn't get Wright back until the end of August last year. Our #1 third baseman for most of the year was Campbell. July and August was a patchwork of Murphy, Johnson and Uribe (and Campbell). And we lost Duda for half of August and the first week of September. While he was out, our first baseman was a patchwork of Murphy and Cuddyer and Johnson.

So... d'Arnaud is already back, Cespedes is already here, and we should have Duda for more of the rest of the season than we did last year. Loney doesn't have Duda's power, but he's a proven major league hitter for whom 1B is his natural position (as opposed to Murphy/Cuddyer/Johnson). We're stronger defensively up the middle than we were last year (Walker & Cabrera vs. Murphy/Johnson and Flores/Tejada). Offense up the middle is, I'd say, about even (slight edge to last season maybe, though Tejada being in the mix says not a whole lot). Cuddyer is gone (addition by subtraction). And do I think Reyes/Flores at third is better than what we had in for Wright last year? Yeah. A whole bunch. Conforto may well be back by the 24th (his call-up date last year). Hopefully he's found his swing. If he hasn't--and I'm sure you won't agree with this, but I'm confident of it--DeAza will hit if he plays (not a good off-the-bench guy, but he'll hit if he's getting regular PT). Since we were platooning Conforto last year, Lagares was also in the mix down the stretch last year and he was playing hurt at the time. And, while I have issues with Reyes on the domestic you-know-what front, he IS a legitimate lead-off hitter (you'll recall we didn't have one of those last year) and he's got some incentive to bring his "A" game.

Though Harvey's out, the numbers say that Noah is pitching better than last year, Colon is pitching better than last year, deGrom is pitching as well as he did last year and Matz is pitching a tad worse (but last year was a small sample size). I know Verrett's no Harvey--and we do have other options--but he doesn't have to be Harvey. He just has to be last year's Colon and he's not all that far off from that. And our bullpen is probably one of the best we've had since the days of McDowell and Orosco. Comparing to last year again, we didn't get Reed until August 30 and we don't have anyone as bad as Alex Torres or Eric O'Flaherty.

So, yeah, damn straight this team is better today than the team we had at this time last year. I didn't call you crazy. You want to call yourself crazy, go ahead. But I will say, to my mind, that you have more in common with Trump than does Sandy. Like Trump, you think you know how things should be done because you saw a few games on TV and read the newspaper.

bgreg98180 said...

Stubby

Remember.... Both the Nationals and Marlins are better than they were this time last year as well.

Where as last year the Mets were fighting for 1st place in their division, this year the Nationals are comfortably in 1st place of the NL East and the Marlins are fighting to keep the Mets out of 2nd place.

Sorry, but better than last year at this time is not enough.

bgreg98180 said...

Stubby

Remember.... Both the Nationals and Marlins are better than they were this time last year as well.

Where as last year the Mets were fighting for 1st place in their division, this year the Nationals are comfortably in 1st place of the NL East and the Marlins are fighting to keep the Mets out of 2nd place.

Sorry, but better than last year at this time is not enough.

bill metsiac said...

Stubby's got his finger on the real pulse of the team. And I'll add to his comments by throwing in Reed"s setup work and the improvements in Blevins and Robles' (my breakout year candidate) pitching, not to mention what we're seeing from a healtjy Lagares.

bill metsiac said...

Stubby's got his finger on the real pulse of the team. And I'll add to his comments by throwing in Reed"s setup work and the improvements in Blevins and Robles' (my breakout year candidate) pitching, not to mention what we're seeing from a healtjy Lagares.