Mack’s Morning Report – 5-4 – Latin Bonus Babies, Sandy’s Folly, Catchers and TJS, Noah

Latin Bonus Babies –

Signing Latin bonus babies is as much of a crap shoot as drafting talent in the regular draft.

The Mets, under the Wilpon ownership, are not known for spending a ton of money this way. Maybe it’s because what the results have been by the guys they did give out the big bucks to.

So far, the Mets have shelled out over one million dollars to only six kiddies. They, and their… err… accomplishments have been so far:

2B Amed Rosario - $1.75mil (2012-13) – Right now, he sure looks like the real deal. MLB has him as the 8^th top prospect in baseball and he’s hitting as well as we expected him to hit in Las Vegas. Get ready folks… the Rosario train will be coming to an NL East field soon.

SS Gregory Guerrero – ($1.5mil) – (2015-16) – Guerrero debuted last season for the DSL Mets and put up modest numbers (.247). It’s simply too early to tell what we have here.

OF Fernando Martinez - $1.4mil – (2005-06) – We don’t have to go here, do                we?

            P Juan Urbina - $1.2mil – (2009-2010) – Another million dollar plus bust,                Urbina’s last year in professional baseball was for the 2014 Cyclones.

SS Andres Gimenez - $1.2mil) – (2015-16) – Gimenez debuted last year as a 17-year old and batted second in the DSL with a .350 average. He just was promoted to Columbia, where his first at-bats resulted in a home run. Big things are expected of him.

            SS Kenny Hernandez – $1mil – (2014-15) – This looks like anther clunker.                Has a combined .197 batting average over the past two seasons in the DSL.

This is nothing compared with most major league teams, but one must temper this with the amount paid for other players over the years… P Scarlyn Reyes ($25K), P Marcos Molina ($100K), P Rafael Montero ($80K), P Jeurys Familia ($100K), P Jenrry Mejia ($16.5K), and SS Jose Reyes ($22K).

And there’s always what I call ‘The Lupo Factor’. OF Vincente Lupo was signed by the Mets during the 2010-2011 period and given a $350K bonus. He was assigned to the DSL Mets that season as a 17-year old and had a hard time catching on (.197); however, he put everything together for the same team the following season (18-years old, .343/.500/.608/1108). In fact, he was 8^th in the league in BA, 2^nd in slugging, and 1^st in the league in OPS. A star is born, right? Well. Lupo never hit above .278 again (2014: K-Port), never made it above rookie ball, and was dropped by the Mets after the 2016 season (Columbia: .221).

Just thought you’d like to see this stuff one more time.

Question from Bob –

            Question for you to answer in one of your response articles:

Is it finally time to acknowledge that Alderson's plan to prioritize building an all #1 pitcher staff and sacrifice building around above avg offensive players has failed?? I present as evidence Boston, Chicago, and the Yankees against Alderson and his plan.

            Mack – Thanks for the question Bob. They are few and far between lately.

            The Red Sox, Cubs, and Yankees all built their organization in different ways but they had one thing in common. They did a better job than the Mets.

Back in 2-14, I thought the Washington Nats had the best rotation in baseball… Strasburg, J. Zimmerman, Roark, Fister, and Gio. Now, look at the meat of the batting order… (in no particular order) Murph, Harper, Rendon, Eaton (DL), R. Zimmerman, and Werth. I don’t even have Trea Turner on this list.

You build a team with draft picks, International signings, trades, and free agents.

Alderson has never been successful through the draft and turns his nose up on the Latin guppies. Yes, he has made some crafty trades, must mostly for fill-in players after one of his so called stars hit the disabled list.

Bob, I believe both Sandy and TC will be gone (along with Sandy’s LT. J.P.) at the end of this season.

It will interesting to watch what he does starting now.

Catchers and TJS –

                       Am I nuts or do catchers rarely have Tommy John Surgery?

                       I asked Kevin Burkhardt about this. But he didn’t Twitter back (I knew him when he used to do that).

                       A couple of his followers did:

Hippie Longstocking‏ @_DockEllis  - Replying to @JohnMackinAde @kevinburkhardt - they don't throw nearly as hard and they don't use as unnatural of a motion

PlitzMania‏ @Mania715  - Replying to @JohnMackinAde @kevinburkhardt - Uhhh cause they throw like twice a game

(I tweeted back to the Pizza dude that I meant about all the throws back to the pitchers, but he didn’t respond to that in a mature way.)

                        And this –

Joe Mangelli‏ @jfmangelli  - Replying to @_DockEllis @JohnMackinAde @kevinburkhardt - Nolan Ryan threw 105 and never has any serious injuries.. they built up there legs to protect their arms

I wrote ‘Why don’t catchers have TJS’ on Google and got this return from Baseball Rebellion :

When most people talk about throwing injuries, pitchers are the main subject. This makes sense when considering that roughly 25 percent of Major League Pitchers have undergone Tommy John Surgery at some point in their careers, not to mention countless shoulder injuries. While the number of catchers who have undergone arm surgery is significantly less than pitchers, catchers carry the highest injury risk among non-pitcher position players. This risk results from throwing hundreds of sub-maximal effort throws back to the pitcher day after day and throwing a significant number of maximal effort throws to bases during practice and competition.

Your thoughts?

Rich Coutinho on racism in sports

Sluggers are bunting to fight back against the shift.

 Fangraphs on Noah Syndergaard and the Mets –

                        Sports-injury expert Will Carroll told FanGraphs on Monday that Syndergaard’s offseason work was likely unhelpful.

“It’s very likely a kinetic-chain issue. It reminds me of Stephen Strasburg a couple seasons ago where it worked its way down — shoulder, trap, lat, lower back,” Carroll said. “The question for Syndergaard is whether he exacerbated these mechanical issues with the addition of more force from his legs and back. If he didn’t increase his efficiency, it [his offseason work] was counterproductive.”

            Mack – I’ve stayed away from commenting about this mess. I’ve           seen it all over the Alderson administration.

  In my opinion, today’s players have no respect for following the team line. No team trainer needs to write out what these kids should do or not do in the off season. They won’t follow it as long as they make this kind of money, be it through salary or endorsements.

I still remember the old days when Walter Alston would sent out a one year contract to each of his players and only after they opened the envelope did they find out what they were going to make in the next season.

Try doing that now.