This one’s simple.
So far this season we have seen injuries
to Lucas Duda, Travis d’Arnaud, Yoenes Cespedes, Steven Matz, Seth Lugo, Matt
Reynolds, Astrubel Cabrera, Brandon Nimmo, and Juan Lagares. They join David Wright in the
training room.
The starters are keeping this team at
around the .500 level but we’re running out of bats.
So… where do we go now?
Tom Brennan says -
Peter Hyatt says -
Send everyone that's injured to a
healing service. We need everyone back
yesterday.
I would sit Jose, sit Grandy, and play
whoever is on the roster in their place.
I'd run Rivera and Lagares out there and hope for better offense and in
Lagares better defense. Until Cespedes
is healthy enough to return.
I'd love Rosario to be called up, but
the conservative Mets will bring up Reynolds instead.
Peter Hyatt says -
It
was a suspension of nature that Travis
almost made it through the entire month of April without injury. Anyone see Cespedes' method of running to
second on the play in question?? Injuries: I hope that this leads to more time for
Conforto and that he takes advantage of it.
I also wonder if we may see Amed Rosario if
he continues to hit AAA along with Dom Smith?? Whoever
wrote about the contact time clock is likely correct.
Casey Wentworth says –
We have to remember that in 2016 it was
the "much feared kid call-ups" that rounded out this team into better
shape.
So far in this very early 2017 season, Michael Conforto (one of the much feared kid Mets by
this management team) is already showing that he is ready to make major
contributions to this team's overall offense and that not so kid TJ Rivera may
be next to step up. We will see, do not be surprised here.
Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith are
hitting exceedingly well right now at Vegas as well. However, I would not rush
either one up here quite yet because if you really look at, 2016 was each of
these two kid players offensive step up seasons, and fine wine needs to age
just a tad always.
So what I might do now...
I agree, that there really isn't a AAA
NY Mets kid starter lighting the world afire at AAA. I do not see a potential
one or two starter there (for future here) in the making. I do see a couple of
really promising relievers there in Vegas though, namely Kevin McGowan (R) and Dave
Roseboom (L) and this is worth watching because rarely a season goes by
without a MLB team needing another reliever or two to aid with injuries there
or to tweak things. I am watching these two.
As far as starting pitching is
concerned, I do so miss Big Bart, I have to admit. It wasn't always pretty but
Bart could get it done. I might soon consider stretching out Hansel Robles into
a starter again. I don't think that his potential is currently be realized as a
reliever. I do think that both his experience at this MLB level and his MiLB
starter success exhibited from MiLB may warrant this idea. Wheels pitched well
as of late and really here overall, not too many Mets starters have been blown out
of the stadiums. This is a good thing. I wouldn't worry so much about the
pitching. To me, it is still the stabilization of the NY Mets offense that
needs tweaking.
Without Conforto leading off, this team
has no lead off batter on it really anywhere at all. Granderson is best
utilized in the five slot. However, I feel that Curtis, Juan, Neil, Jose, and
even Lucas have all sort of gotten off to a slow beginning to their respective
seasons. Of this grouping though, I think Neil and Lucas should be alright and
their respective ships will be righted.
I have been quietly waiting and watching
Gavin Cecchini (2B at Vegas) the start of this
AAA season. He is leading off there but has not tore it up yet, as I believe he
will soon. The reason I am waiting on Gavin is because his heating up there and
making a call up here could solve some current issues with this parent NY Mets
ball club. With Gavin hitting, he could possibly slot into second moving Neil
over to third base. He could also be considered towards the top of the Mets
batting order, if case need be. So far I do really like Conforto leading off. He seems to have
responded to this opportunity quite well and sometimes the excitement generated
by a younger player's success does serve a team well towards supplemental
inspiration.
A few weeks ago, I felt that I had given
this blog a really strong idea on how to set the eight-man starting players and
subsequent batting order. What I really still like looking back the most was
that I had both Curtis Granderson and Jose Reyes coming in two to three games a week for
player rest/substitutions off the bench. Their roles would be diminished by
this (I do realize) but I felt that because of their age it may better optimize
their playing ability and allow for a few of the most worthy younger NY Mets to
see if they were ready to step-up and into a starting role. I think that
besides Conforto, soon we could be seeing Cecchini and hopefully Brandon Nimmo (when healthy again) making such an
emergence here as well. The topic of player rest/substitution is one that this
NY Mets team really needs to address and grasp onto soon. In this way, several
good things could quite possibly be accomplished much the same way as the 2016
NY Mets experienced by need towards the end of season.
Tom Brennan says –
Where
do we go from here? Aside from the obvious move, calling Tim Tebow up, I think we promote Amed Rosario as soon as possible to replace Jose Reyes, who is utterly lost at .097 with zero RBIs
through the Mets' first 17 games. Those
numbers are so bad, it is hard to picture them being an aberration. If he is
willing, send him to Vegas to see if he can rekindle the Reyes magic. But the team is offensively challenged, none
more so than Jose, who has been worse than awful.
I
would not call up Dominic Smith yet - I think he
needs 300 plate appearances as an insurance policy against major league
failure. Hopefully Bruce can handle 1B
competently and safely until Duda and Flores return. Use TJ Rivera there
vs. lefties.
Play
Conforto and Lagares more, and hope for the best. Give Grandy a few days off per week.
Too
early to make trades for hitting, in my opinion.
And
pray someone gets hot. Or several
someones. This .218 stuff through 17
games is unacceptable.
Imagine
if Trea Turner were not hurt and was hitting
like 2016 - the Mets would already be buried.
Bats, wake up.
Reese Kaplan says –
Short
term injuries are the bane of every coach in every sport. You can't make plans for the long term
because you don't know how bad (or how accurate) the dreaded
"day-to-day" prognosis really is.
While
you can't really do anything about the long termers like Matz, Lugo, Nimmo and
Wright, it might make sense to take an exceedingly cautious route and use the
new 10-day DL rule in order to bring your roster back close to a full
complement of players. Take Yoenis Cespedes, for example. He's had hamstring issues before and we've seen
how long guys like Nimmo, Reyes and Cespedes himself have been sidelined with
them. Isn't it better to tread water for
10 days now and bring up someone who can play rather than trying to exist with
a 1-2 man bench?
Duda
is also not a stranger to injuries. He
had issues in the spring and what makes you think rushing him back won't make
him alter his swing to compensate for the pain and weakness of a hyperextended
elbow? For once they did the right thing and DL'd him. I swear it sometimes feels like they don't want to foot the bill for the flights from Vegas for the cavalry.
Now
in this case you may have a simple solution.
Both Kevin Plawecki and Rene Rivera have on occasion played 1st base. Even if a healed Travis
d'Arnaud or Wilmer Flores is available,
you might want that third catcher around for the 1B duty in a pinch.
The
person who benefits most from this plethora of injuries is Mr. Reyes who otherwise
might have been headed to bench duty or the unemployment line. Now he has health going for him and is the
only middle infielder who can man 3 positions should something happen to either
Asdrubal Cabrera or Neil
Walker.
Richard Herr says –
As
of this report, which is about 5 days before it gets posted and prior to any
medical exam results, the Mets are down 2 first-basemen and one outfielder on
the main squad. Also there's another outfielder on the 40-man roster who's down
(Nimmo). So, last night Bruce played first base. The solution that pops up in
my head (if, in fact all of the injured guys need to go on the DL) is to shift
Walker over to 1st base and plug in someone like T.J. or Cecchini at second.
That reinstates 5 available outfielders on the parent club.
There
are other considerations like bringing up Amed Rosario,
or Dom Smith. Everyone puts up a hew and a cry
that they need to have a full year in AAA before they can be ready to play in
the bigs. Please pardon my old and failing memory, but it seems to me that all
the way back in '15 the Mets brought up some guy DIRECTLY FROM AA BALL! I think
he did all right playing through the rest of the year and the playoffs and the
World Series. Hit a couple of home runs.
There
are also some people who are saying guys shouldn't be brought up, and they are
talking about things like Super 2 players, and 55 games in the minors, and some
other financial term like Arbitration 2, and all sorts of stuff that has me
confused. I decided to get things straight in my head, so I went to see what
Wikipedia had to say about the New York Mets. They said, and I quote here,
"The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team." I'm
sure they straightened that our for me, because with all that other talk by
those other people, I was gaining the impressions that THE METS WERE SOME SORT
OF EFFING SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION!
Christopher Soto says –
It
really is becoming quite the pain in the butt that the Mets are sustaining all
these short term type injuries…..not from a performance standpoint….but from a
roster manipulation standpoint. Teams are limited to 40 players on their MLB
reserve roster. Anytime you want to make an addition to that 40 man
roster…..someone needs to be exposed to waivers, thus allowing another MLB team
to steal them. Therein lies the problem….If the Mets were sustaining major
injuries….you would just move the player to the 60 Day DL and poof open roster
spot issue solved. But these are all minor short term issues.
Sure,
there are plenty of bodies in AAA but who are you going to drop off the 40 man
roster to add these guys? The Montero/Gilmartin/Sewald combo are the only
healthy arms available for call up until Lugo, Matz, and Goeddel get healthy so
not them. On the position player side,
top prospects Amed Rosario, Gavin Cecchini, Brandon
Nimmo, and Wuilmer Becerra are occupying
4 of the 6 slots, leaving TJ Rivera and Matt Reynolds (who’s also hurt) as the only MLB ready
available for call up…..and you’re not going to drop any of them either.
At
this point, the Mets need to try and bear the problems at hand and try to fight
through this annoying minor injuries.
10 comments:
Chris @tpgMets
On April 13th, the Mets had the 2nd best record in baseball. Today, they have the 4th worst record in baseball. Life comes at you fast.
And Terry Collins is greasing the skids.
Somewhere, David Wright is throwing baseballs very slowly.
Almost as slowly as the Mets make changes to try to win ballgames. Nah, the laws of physics dictate his throws have to be faster than that.
Hey, I had fun last night watching the NFL draft.
Any thoughts on the Giants first round pick?
The Giants -- they're a baseball team, right? (I can't even enjoy the NFL draft since I'm a fan of gangrene, er, Gang Green).
Reese -
Your J E T S JETS made an excellent pick last night
Oh, I agree...but like a team that needs one player to push them over the top, Jamal Adams would be fantastic. This team is such a mess that they may have been better served trading down to get multiple later round picks. (And trading Sheldon Richardson for the same reason).
Jets Nets Mets. A curse must have been cast.
Reese -
sadly, for you, I agree with the guy on the NFL channel last night when he said that the Jets have the worst roster of players in the league
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