From The Desk… 7/13

Good morning.   

     1.    Roster Moves: -  RHP Chris Beck cleared waivers and the Mets resigned him and assigned him to AAA-Las Vegas. So far this season he has pitched in 20 Mets games, to a 4.50-ERA… IF Phil Evans and RP Kevin McGowan came off the AAA-Las Vegas DL. The 51’st wasted little time and put Evans on second base Thursday night, bumping Jeff McNeil to that position ‘he never has played’, third… 17/yr. old Holy Cross HS (NY) Jaylen Palmer played his first game for the GCL Mets today… SP P J Conlon was optioned to AAA-Las Vegas to make room for Noah Syndergaard… the Orioles signed P Sean Gilmartin…

      2.     There are reports that the Mets are considering demoting 1B/OF Dominic Smith back to AAA-Las Vegas. I agree that this is probably a good move. Sure, we could have given him more at-bats in Queens, but he has showed no hint that he is ready to hit major league baseball. Sometimes, there are baseball players that dominate all affiliate levels but just can’t hack it against major league pitching. I call it the ‘Anderson Hernandez’ factor. Smith seems to be one of these players. For now, I would return him to AAA-Las Vegas and let him work on his outfield game. I also would keep Peter Alonso there through August and let him straighten out his bat there. Lastly, I would play Wilmer Flores exclusively at first through the month of August. Who knows past that.

      3.    Jon Heyman, of FanCred, is reporting that the Mets are now “in excellent financial health”. He said this is based on ‘multi investments’ but we all know that the majority of revenues here comes from playing baseball and charging fans to watch it. The Mets are a profitable business and that is what this ownership team will concentrate on in the future. I’m happy for the investors here. I’m thrilled that you all are making money. I just wish we had a better team to cover here.

      4.    Statler - @statler13 - They won’t say it, but the Mets are totally keeping Reyes on this team to play a few games with Wright later in the year. It’s a PR dream and they'll fill the stadium with nostalgic fans

      5.    Mike Puma - @NYPost_Mets - Mets are fairly confident they will deal Asdrubal Cabrera, which would open 2B for a Jeff McNeil audition. Mack – this makes complete sense to me. Cabrera is the best expiring contract chip we have and will not only bring the best return, but will also make room for the arrival of our ‘new Daniel Murphy’. Wouldn’t be great if we could get a solid catcher or third base prospect out of this as well?

      6.    It’s great to see Noah Syndergaard return to the Mets rotation. If you listen to John Ricco, the Mets are not going to be a complete rebuild. Instead, Ricco wants to compete in 2019. You can’t compete without a workable rotation and there is no better start here than Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom. If a 2019 only sort of rebuild is in the cards than we must keep both Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler. Who is left? Of course, there is Jason Vargas, which is a stretch at best. Pipeline wise, the only starter that could possibly be ready on opening day 2019 is Nabil Crismatt (2018: 16-starts, 8-5, 3.58 at AA-Binghamton). Both Justin Dunn and Anthony Kay are at least a year away and David Peterson is going the wrong way. Now, trade away either Matz or Wheeler and it gets even worse. 


      7.      I usually save my kudus regarding the starters in the pipeline to my Monday recap post, but I have to break from tradition and talk about two of the guys that stood tall last night. Nabil Crismatt shook off a difficult first AAA start and put up six shutout innings in Las Vegas’ 6-0 win vs. Albuquerque. Yes, that’s right… a Las Vegas shutout! Crismatt lowered his AAA ERA to 3.27 and is back in line as the #1 senior SP prospect in the chain… The other is Willy Tavares, who had his first Kingsport start last night. Tavares has been lights out for the GCL team this year and kept it up last night for K-Port: 5-IP, 5-H, 1-ER, 4-K, 0-BB, 1.80…. You remember these names. Crismatt could be in the Mets rotation next year while Tavares could make it by 2022.