Mack’s Morning Report - 8-7 – Clay Ramsey, What’s Next To Come?, August Trades

Good morning.

Clay Ramsey –

            Please welcome Clay Ramsey to our award winning (did we win an award?) family of Mack’s Mets writers.

            Clay lives in Kingsport.

            Gee… I wonder what team he is going to write about?

What’s Next To Come?

           

            Working downside up…

                        DSL –

DSL-2 SP, RHP Willy Tavares, needs to move stateside. He has started 11 games for the DSL2 Mets, going 6-2, 2.33, 1.09, 54-IP, only 6 walks, 50-Ks. As they say, there is nothing more for him to do at this level. He’s 19 years old and ready to take on the States.

Right behind him would come DSL-2 23-year old LHP Ivan Santana, thought being 23, maybe he should come stateside ahead of Willy. After 10 games (nine starts), Santana is 4-3, 1.97, 1.09, 45.2-IP, 49-K.

Both these guys should be in the GCL-Mets rotation.

Lastly, 18-year old DSL-2 2B Luis Santana has proven he can hit DSL pitching. In 173 at-bats, his stat line is .324/.441/.457/891. There’s no power here but plenty of talent that can push Hansel Romero from the GCL team to Kingsport.

K-Port –

           Normally, I don’t like to move short team players during a season due to the limited amount of at-bats and pitches thrown in the season. That being said, 3B Rigoberto Terrazas is 21-years old and basically unblocked until St. Lucie. He’s batting .387 through 155 at-bats and the Mets should consider sending him to Brooklyn.

           We need to start moving forward some of our better outfield prospects. LF Wagner Lagrange is 21-years old. He also is hitting .347 in 121 at-bats. Put him on the same plane with Rigo and send him to Coney.

Brooklyn –

           2B Walter Rasquin is 21-years old and is batting .307x in 137 at-bats. None of the current Columbia second basemen are standing in the way here. Send the kid to South Carolina.

Columbia –

           The Fireflies have already promoted two great pitchers to St. Lucie, It’s time for a third. Harol Gonzales is ready (19-starts).

St. Lucie –

           Las Vegas catcher Kevin Plawecki is blocking Binghamton’s Tomas Nido and St. Lucie’s Patrick Mazeika from moving up. Mazeika is hitting .292 in 336 at-bats in Florida. It’s time for the Mets to promote him and Nido and either send Plawecki to Queens to backup Travis d’Arnaud, or cut fish, DFA him, and cut a deal for his services.

Binghamton –

           Las Vegas has a lot of non-prospect outfielders. Move one aside and let’s see what Kevin Taylor (.291) can do there for the rest of the season.

           What I would NOT do is send either Corey Oswalt or P.J. Conlon to Vegas to screw with both their heads and stats. Make Vegas a full time cesspool of AAAA pitchers and let your prospect starters stay in New York State until needed in Queens.

August Trades –

            MLBTR has a great post up on how the August trades work –

After the trade deadline, a big-league player must pass through revocable waivers before his team can trade him without restriction. These waivers last 47 hours. If no one claims him in that period, his team can trade him anywhere.

If a player is claimed, his team can do one of three things. It can trade the player to the claiming team, revoke the waiver request (in which case the player will remain with his original team), or simply allow the claiming team to take the player and his salary (although a player with no-trade rights can block this from happening).

A recent example of an August trade that developed from a waiver claim was the Mariners’ acquisition of Arquimedes Caminero from the Pirates last season.  The Mariners claimed Caminero and then worked out a deal with the Bucs to bring the right-hander to Seattle for two players to be named later. An example of a claim that didn’t result in a trade occurred in 2015, when an unknown team claimed Brewers reliever Francisco Rodriguez. The two sides couldn’t strike a deal, so the Brewers revoked their waiver request, and K-Rod remained in Milwaukee. Examples of teams simply letting players go via revocable waivers are more rare, particularly with big-contract players. That being said, it is always possible; in 2009, the White Sox claimed Alex Rios from the Blue Jays, who simply let him go to Chicago without a trade. The White Sox were thus responsible for all of the approximately $62MM remaining on Rios’ contract.

A team has 48.5 hours to trade a claimed player, and can only negotiate            with the team awarded the claim on him.

It’s common for teams to place players on revocable waivers, and their having done so does not necessarily mean they have serious plans to trade them. As Stark points out, teams commonly use waivers of certain players purely as smokescreens to disguise which players they really are interested in trading. In fact, sometimes teams place their entire rosters on waivers.

If more than one team claims a player, priority is determined by worst record to best record in the league of the waiving team, followed by worst record to best record in the other league. For example, if an NL team places a player on revocable waivers, the team with the NL’s worst record will get first priority on claims, followed by every other team in the NL from worst to best, followed by AL teams from worst to best.

If a team pulls a player back from waivers once, it cannot do so again in August. So if a team places a player on waivers for a second time, those waivers will be non-revocable.

Players not on 40-man rosters are eligible to be traded at any time                     without passing through waivers.

A player on the disabled list can only pass through waivers if his minimum period of inactivity has passed and he is healthy and able to play at his accustomed level.

Teams can still make trades in September, but players acquired after                  August 31 can’t play in the postseason.