Mack - Winter Is Coming

The plot sees an uneasy alliance forged between Cersei, Dany and Jon to fight against the White Walkers. While Jon refuses to bend the knee to Dany, he agrees to relinquish his King In The North title if she helps him fight the threat in the north. Appalled, Cersei agrees to help; but when the time comes for her to send  her armies north she reneges, hoping the White Walkers and her opponents will thin each other out. This is the moment Jaime gives up on his sister, disgusted, and rides north to join the fight. Cersei also believes she is pregnant with… 

Oh, this is the Mets blog?

Never mind.

Speaking of winter, the Mets version is upon us folks and ya’ll (that’s how we talk down here) need to start realizing that it is time to 86 this season and start building a new set of blocks.

I began my version on Monday. I dumped $52mil + in 2017 salaries with either a mid-2017 trading, or end-2018 dumping of:

     SS Jose Reyes, 2B Neil Walker, OF Curtis Granderson, RP Addison Reed, 1B Lucas Duda, RP Fernando Sales, and SP Tommy Milone. 

I’ll take what I can get for some of these guys, but I have a funny feeling all I’ll get back are AA-A level prospects. That’s how most of these trades work, but we’ll get back to this later.

(one more thing... I haven't even addressed any kind of additional dollars could be saved if a retirement agreement could be worked out with that third baseman we used to have play on this team. What was his name, anyway?)

The first thing I have to do is declare who are the nucleus of my 2018+ team. There are others that I will be happy with, but there are only so many special players on this team.

They are:

            Infielders – Amed Rosario, Wilmer Flores

            Outfielders - Michael Conforto, Yoenes Cespedes

            Starters – Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom

            Relievers – Jeurys Familia

Six of these seven players are ex or potential all-stars. The last, Flores, may be the best utility infield bat in the National League.

But that’s seven players and I need 25 on my team.

I’m not saying that I wouldn’t be unhappy if I had to ‘settle’ with Dom Smith, Jay Bruce, Steven Matz… I’m just saying I want to go shopping first.

So, right now I got seven players on my major league roster, a bunch of projected coin in my pocket, and a head full of dreams.

Dream #1 –

I want another top shelf starter. Yeah, I know, we were supposed to have the rotation of the century. Well, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen and the least I need to build a World Series contender is three front end starters. 

My choice is someone I ought to be able to get on the cheap.

Lucas Giolito is someone I begged the Mets to draft in 2012 with the 12^th pick in the draft. The Mets chose Gavin Cecchini instead and Giolito was picked by the Washington Nationals with the 16^th pick overall. He had a couple of good years in the Nats pipeline and was considered their top pitching prospect when he was traded, with fellow pitching prospect Reynaldo Lopez, to the White Sox in December 2016 for OF Adam Eaton. So far, the trade has been an embarrassment for Chicago. Eaton was hitting .297 before going on the disabled list while Giolito was still pitching at the AAA level, with a 5.36-ERA in 10 starts.

Still, I want this 22-year old in my rotation. I can’t see a deal him being the loss of three players… maybe one prospect and another from my mid-season dump list.

Chicago is still distantly in the race for an AL wild card bid, and they could still win the AL Central as well. I would hope I could build this deal around someone like Granderson or Walker and add in a mid-range pitching prospect like Chris Flexen or Andrew Church. I would do everything I could to keep both Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler out of this deal, but if one had to go, I could live with that also if it was a one-for-one deal. I believe this much in this kid. I just know he would excel at Citifield.

Dream #2 –

           Hopefully my rotation is now set with Syndergaard, deGrom, Giolito, Matz, and Wheeler. My roster is now 9 players.

         (I will tuck both Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo into my bullpen and keep them pitching there until any injuries develop in the rotation. Both are too talented to send back to AAA and too valuable as emergency pieces to be traded off)

        My second choice is another player I wanted since he was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles... third baseman Manny Machado. 

     

      

           Yes, I know he will not hit free agency until after the 2018 season, but I can’t wait until then and have to compete against all other 29 teams in the league. I want to close a deal with the Orioles that make sense for both teams.

           They have a quality player having a shitty season under a one year deal. 

           We have a quality player having a shitty season under a one year deal.

           We need a third baseman for 2018 and they need a rotation pitcher.

           Machado for Matt Harvey. Even up. Let both teams try to work out a long term deal with these two past the 2018 season. It worked for the Mets with Cespedes.

Okay… my team is up to five starters, one closer, two other relievers, three infielders, and two outfielders. 13 players.

Flores will become my full time second baseman (sorry Gavin, no room), slotting in next to SS Rosario and 3B Machado.

My direct needs still are a first baseman, a right fielder, and a catcher.  (16 players)

I then would need two backup outfielders, a backup catcher, and two utility infielders (21 players).

Four more reliever will round out my 25-man squad.

I will pick this back up Sunday in my next Morning Report.


David Roseboom injured his foot and is out for the season.