Mack’s Apples – Tyler Bashlor, Noah Syndergaard, Cafeteria, Mets Catching, Tepid Pre-Season

Good morning.

John Sickels on –

       

    14) Tyler Bashlor, RHP, Grade C+:Age 24, drafted in 11th round in 2013 from South Georgia State University; posted 3.44 ERA in 50 innings between High-A and Double-A, 84/25 K/BB, 40 hits allowed; note exceptionally good strikeout rate; missed all of 2014 and 2015 after blowing elbow; Tommy John survivor has all of his fastball back, 94-98 MPH; breaking ball is OK; needs to lower walks but it wouldn’t take much for him to be a fine short/middle reliever; ETA late 2018; QUESTION MARK: grading relievers is problematic.

Minor League Baseball

These 20 players will shape NL East race -

2. Noah Syndergaard, New York Mets - It's gonna go one of only two ways for Syndergaard this year. Either his dogged insistence on throwing 100 mph in Spring Training is going to make his arm blow up and we're all going to lament what could have been … or he's going to tear through the league like Chuck Yeager through the sound barrier and make everyone believe he's the next Nolan Ryan. One of these results is horrible; the other, transcendent. There is no middle ground.

The Supermarket Cafeteria That Major League Baseball Players Love –

        

    Cooks scurried in and out of the kitchen carrying containers of pork ribs, stewed beef, and rice and beans. Behind a display case of Latin American pastries, a worker hurried through coffee orders. The rapid-fire banter of Caribbean Spanish filled the air.

It was the lunchtime rush at the cafeteria of the Bravo Supermarket here, but one loyal customer in particular — the Mets infielder Jose Reyes — caught the eye of the head chef, who hugged him as he took his place in line yet again, like so many Mets from Latin America hungry for home cooking.

Fangraphs on Mets catching –

        

   Last year in this section, Travis d’Arnaud was projected for a .308 wOBA and 376 plate appearances. He ended the season with a .311 wOBA and 384 plate appearances. Not too bad, right? The uptick in offense throughout baseball plus his own difficulty throwing out runners -- he’s got a slow pop time, per Statcast -- meant d’Arnaud was less than a win above replacement last year. He is a good framer based on the metrics at Baseball Prospectus, so his WAR probably omits some of his value.

Kevin Plawecki is the Mets’ backup catcher and, given d’Arnaud’s injury history, seems likely to play a decent amount. He’s not a good bet for offensive production, though he did manage to draw 17 walks in 118 plate appearances last season. He hit well in Triple-A, but the Mets' PCL team is located in Las Vegas, and you know what they say: what happens in Vegas should be heavily discounted due to the extreme hitting environment there.

Baseball’s Very Tepid Offseason Is Finally Over –

     

      That fact is the reason that Major League Baseball, now approaching its opening day, just had the strangest off-season in recent memory. For the first time that anyone can remember, baseball’s hot-stove season just … never warmed up. Top free agents like Jake Arrieta, Yu Darvish, J. D. Martinez, and Eric Hosmer spent most of their winters waiting for huge offers that never came: Arrieta reportedly told teammates that he’d be signing a six-year, $200 million deal for 2018; ultimately he agreed to a three-year, $75 million contract with the Phillies well after he should have reported for spring training (typically, rosters are mostly set by Christmas). And agent Scott Boras, who has essentially single-handedly run baseball’s off-season for two decades, had to watch as clients like Mike Moustakas parlayed their career years into one-year deals worth many millions less than they were expecting. (Moustakas, 29, who broke the Kansas City Royals’ franchise record last year with 38 home runs, was rewarded in his free-agent walk year with a Royals salary smaller than last year’s.)