Mack – Brian Cashman, Dexter Fowler, Bartolo Colon, Minor League Free Agents, NL Starters

Good morning.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman downplayed any connection between his organization and top free agent slugger Yoenis Cespedes, as Feinsand reports. Cashman acknowledges that there has been some contact, but characterized it as more of a routine opening of a channel to obtain medical information and perhaps pursue dialogue in the future. www.mlbtr.com

Mack – I really don’t think the Yankees are interested in Cespedes. I see this more as a busting chops move against the rival Mets. The Cespedes people are going to come down to either resigning with the Mets or inking a new deal with the Dodgers.

The Mets had “preliminary talks” involving free agents Jose Bautista and Dexter Fowler over the last several days, according to Mike Puma of the New York Post (via Twitter). But the team remains focused on trying to engineer the return of Cespedes. GM Sandy Alderson met with his agent yesterday, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com tweets. Meanwhile, rival organizations have reached out to New York to ask about the availability of lefty-swinging outfielders Michael Conforto, Curtis Granderson, and Jay Bruce, per Marc Carig of Newsday (Twitter links). It’s all supposition at this point, but there does seem to be some sense in the idea of signing a right-handed-hitting outfielder while dealing a lefty. The three possible targets noted above all hit from the right side (with Fowler also switching to the left side to face righties). www.mlbtr.com

Mack – Look… Sandy and Company has to sit on Cespedes’ stoop… where does he live now? Miami? The DR? Manhattan? And, more importantly, is there still stoops to sit on?... and they have to do everything they can do in the minimum amount of time to get this deal done! There is no number two plan. The future of this team over the next three seasons is a Cespedes deal without an opt out. Period.

         

There have been some conflicting signals of late as to how interested the Mets are in bringing back veteran righty Bartolo Colon, but GM Sandy Alderson said today that there’s still interest, as MLB.com’s Barry Bloom reports. Still, it doesn’t seem as if there’s any sense of urgency, with Alderson suggesting the pitching market will have more clarity in a few weeks’ time. If the Mets don’t push to bring back Colon, the division-rival Braves may be there to step in, as MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets that Atlanta has ongoing interest. (Of course, the team already landed an over-40 pitcher today.) www.mlbtr.com

Mack – My guess is that Alderson’s lukewarm response to this question could be that the agent for Colon might be asking for a two-year deal. I can’t see him getting that from Alderson, especially since he has accepted one year deals in the past. This is abother tough decision that is going to have to be made before you know if the other members of your projected 6-man rotation (Syndergaard, Harvey, deGrom, Matz, Wheeler) are healthy.

We all know what they say about pitching…

New York Mets minor league free agents –

          RHP: Tyler Herron (AAA), Rainy Lara (AA), Domingo Tapia (Hi A), Zach Thornton (AAA), Josh Zeid (AAA)

LHP: Andrew Barbosa (AA), Duane Below (AAA), Gabriel Feliz (SS), Darin Gorski (AAA), Chase Huchingson (AAA)

C: Adrian Abreu (Lo A), Jeff Glenn (AAA), Raywilly Gomez (AA)

1B: Marc Krauss (AAA)

3B: Eric Campbell (AAA)

SS: Derrik Gibson (AA), Niuman Romero (AAA)

OF: Roger Bernadina (AAA)

Link

Mack – Barbosa is the only player on this list that I would really miss. I projected him as my SP5 in Vegas this spring and I hope that Sandy and Company makes my wish come true.

There are a couple of old minor league prospects (Tapia, Abreu) on this list that just didn’t pan out.


From  http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2016-nl-starting-pitcher-contact-management  - 

NL Starting Pitcher BIP Profiles

NAME	AVG MPH	FB MPH	LD MPH	GB MPH	POP %	FLY %	LD %	GB %	ADJ C	K %	BB %	ERA –	FIP –	TRU –
Hendricks	87.2	86.5	91.2	86.2	2.9%	28.4%	20.2%	48.4%	75	22.8%	5.9%	51	78	67
C. Martinez	87.5	86.2	92.2	86.7	1.3%	24.6%	17.6%	56.4%	80	21.5%	8.7%	74	88	79
Arrieta	87.2	89.6	91.4	84.5	2.1%	25.8%	19.5%	52.6%	83	23.9%	9.6%	75	85	78
Roark	87.8	89.5	90.5	85.9	1.9%	29.3%	20.1%	48.7%	83	20.1%	8.5%	68	93	84
Lester	87.8	88.0	89.6	87.6	3.4%	29.4%	20.2%	46.9%	88	24.8%	6.5%	59	82	75
Maeda	86.1	88.3	88.7	82.9	4.0%	31.7%	20.5%	43.9%	91	25.0%	7.0%	88	88	77
Scherzer	87.7	89.8	90.4	85.4	6.3%	41.6%	19.2%	33.0%	92	31.5%	6.2%	71	79	65
Eickhoff	89.5	90.8	93.2	87.1	5.0%	34.3%	20.1%	40.7%	92	20.6%	5.2%	88	99	84
Davies	88.1	88.1	92.3	87.1	2.4%	30.1%	22.0%	45.5%	92	19.8%	5.6%	92	91	86
Nelson	89.5	89.3	91.9	89.2	3.8%	27.5%	19.3%	49.4%	95	17.4%	10.7%	108	119	105
Cueto	88.3	88.7	92.3	86.3	3.4%	25.6%	20.8%	50.2%	96	22.5%	5.1%	71	76	83
Syndergaard	87.9	88.5	92.6	85.9	2.1%	25.1%	21.7%	51.2%	97	29.3%	5.8%	65	56	71
Samardzija	89.3	90.3	92.1	87.8	2.7%	30.9%	19.9%	46.5%	98	20.1%	6.5%	96	98	93
J. Garcia	89.5	91.7	93.5	87.2	1.8%	23.3%	18.3%	56.7%	98	20.2%	7.7%	114	109	94
Straily	89.3	89.9	95.3	86.2	3.7%	44.3%	19.9%	32.0%	99	20.5%	9.2%	89	114	98
Bumgarner	89.1	89.7	94.5	86.8	4.6%	36.9%	18.9%	39.6%	101	27.5%	5.9%	69	83	78
G. Gonzalez	89.2	91.0	94.1	85.2	2.5%	27.0%	22.9%	47.6%	101	22.4%	7.7%	109	92	92
Bettis	89.2	89.3	94.1	86.8	1.4%	25.4%	22.0%	51.2%	102	17.0%	7.3%	98	96	105
Koehler	88.3	89.8	92.0	85.2	3.4%	31.1%	23.3%	42.2%	102	19.0%	10.7%	105	115	108
Hellickson	88.1	89.5	90.9	86.4	4.9%	29.5%	24.9%	40.7%	103	20.0%	5.8%	90	94	96
Hammel	90.8	92.3	94.9	88.7	2.9%	35.2%	19.8%	42.1%	103	20.8%	7.7%	92	108	98
Teheran	89.6	91.2	91.3	87.7	3.6%	38.3%	19.0%	39.1%	105	22.0%	5.4%	77	92	91
Wainwright	87.1	88.5	90.8	84.1	3.3%	27.5%	25.5%	43.8%	106	19.0%	7.0%	113	96	102
Leake	89.6	90.9	92.2	87.8	1.0%	24.3%	21.0%	53.7%	106	16.5%	4.0%	114	94	102
Colon	90.3	89.9	94.6	88.8	3.8%	30.3%	22.7%	43.2%	107	16.2%	4.1%	86	96	104
Gray	88.6	88.2	93.9	86.8	2.7%	29.3%	24.5%	43.5%	108	26.0%	8.3%	94	81	89
J. Fernandez	89.9	87.6	94.1	89.3	2.4%	29.3%	28.0%	40.2%	112	34.3%	7.5%	70	58	72
Finnegan	88.8	91.3	91.2	84.8	2.4%	37.0%	22.5%	38.1%	112	19.8%	11.4%	94	121	116
Lackey	90.4	90.4	94.1	89.5	3.0%	33.3%	22.7%	41.0%	113	24.1%	7.1%	81	92	96
R. Ray	90.6	90.3	93.7	90.3	3.4%	29.2%	21.7%	45.7%	125	28.1%	9.2%	112	90	98
NL AVG	88.7	89.5	92.5	86.8	3.1%	30.5%	21.3%	45.1%	99	22.4%	7.2%	87	92	90