7/15/18

From The Desk… 7/14




Good morning.


     1.    Roster moves… the Brooklyn Cyclones have released catcher Matt Foley. The 24-year old hit .000 in six at bats this year before his release… the Cyclones filled the Foley slot with a promotion from Kingsport of fellow catcher Hayden Senger. The 21-year old, 24th 2018 round draft pick from ‘The U’ was hitting .400 for K-Port…. OF Champ Stuart came off the Binghamton DL and was replaced by IF Nick Sergakis, who was placed back on the B-Mets DL for the 9000th time this season… RHP Trent Johnson was transferred from Columbia to Brooklyn… RHP Marcel Renteria has been activated from the DL list… by my count, Columbia now has 7 active starters… Renteria, Tony Dibrelli, Yeizo Campos, Zac Grotz, Nicholas Debora, Chris Viall, and Luc Rennie


      2.    NYMets945 - @nymets945 - Last two weeks: Flores .298, Rosario .290, Cabrera .282 – Mack – we have asked Rosario to step up and it looks like he’s doing as asked… both Flores and Cabrera are putting up outstanding numbers just prior to the trading deadline… I hope Flores survives this period, but Cabrera will not and will earn us a ++ chip.


      3.    Nick Grayson - @_Ceyzey - The Wilpons have had total control for 17 years, which is 29.8% of the life of the franchise. That’s’ a big number. Think about how much the LOLmets rhetoric, both deserved and undeserved, has escalated in that time frame due to Wilpon mediocrity.


      4.    NYMets945 - @nymets945 - 19 plate appearances over last two weeks for Kelly and den Dekker.... NO HITS – Mack – and we thought that Jose presented a problem…


      5.    Betsy Helfand - @betsyhelfand - T.J. Rivera, who is with the 51s on rehab after having Tommy John surgery, left the game with discomfort. He played five innings, was 0-for-3. "His arm was not feeling the way it should have so we’re going to reevaluate him tomorrow, see what the plan is," Tony DeFrancesco said. Mack – I hope they aren’t pushing things here. It seemed like he had an abbreviated rehab for TJS. I need this guy next year as one of my two UT IFers…


      6.    The Mets have $88.5mil worth of basically dead money in their 2019 payroll. This includes baseball’s most expensive DL list (Cespedes, Wright, Bruce, Frazier, Lagares) but also drones like Vargas and Swarzak. All of this disappears by 2021, but the Mets are going to have to begin eating some of this money. It should start with David Wright, who has $15mil left to be paid in 2019 and another $12mil in 2020. My hopes is an insurance deal is worked out here, followed by the release of Vargas, Lagares, and Swarzak. This alone would take $40.5mil off the active roster.


      7.    Michael Baron - @michaelgbaron - Per Elias, The Mets have had 49 players appear in at least 1 game this year. Only 3 other teams have used so many players before the All-Star break in 1 season. The Angels have used 50 players this year, Rangers used 50 in 2014 and Braves used 49 prior to the break in 2015.


      8.    Vince Ruggiero - @VINCE_RUGGIERO - Serena made it back to the Wimbledon Final, ten months after giving birth. Yoenis must've had a C-section.


     9.    Mike Puma - @NYPost_Mets - Somebody in the Mets organization who has seen plenty of Jeff McNeil described him to me as a left-handed hitting Wilmer Flores type. Mack – I’m a little confused. Did he mean this in a nice way because all Flores has accomplished so far is basically a utility position.


     10.  We talk all the time about how well Andres Gimenez is playing and the fact that he is producing ++ numbers at an age that is 2.5 years before the average in his league. That being said, we then need to also take 17-year of Ronny Mauricio as serious. He went 3-4 yesterday for the GCL-Mets and is now hitting .356. He’s 17 years old! 17-year old should be playing in high school, not professional baseball in Florida. This is the kid we gave a (then) record $2.1mil International bonus. Age wise, he’s probably too young to move to Kingsport, but productivity wise, ???


     11.  Anthony DiComo - @AnthonyDiComo - Mickey Callaway just quashed any idea of Yoenis Cespedes coming back and playing first base. "He's our left fielder," Callaway said of Cespedes, who could ramp up his rehab in the coming days.


      12.  Mike Puma - @NYPost_Mets - From the Mets' press notes: Tim Tebow is hitting .373 since June 16, the second-highest average in the Eastern League over that stretch. He hit his sixth homer on Friday. – Mack – Oh boy. Tom’s going to eat this up…

11 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Tebow is coming at us as fast as one of his college QB sprints from scrimmage. BLUR!

At the start of spring, I think I was the one person on the planet who thought Tebow and McNeil would be flourishing at this time of year. Actually, I had Tebow at .260/20/80 in AA this ear, so average-wise, he is ahead, but power-wise, lagging m projection a bit. But he clearly has power. All in due time.

McNeil is far faster than Flores, so the Flores comp suffers there. I'd also have to think Jeff is a quicker fielder. There is a lot of comparables otherwise, in good power, high contact hitting.

McNeil has to prove it, but his legs may make him better than Flores and a closer comp to Daniel Murphy, pre-2015 (at least at first season or so).

Mauricio looks like the real deal so far, for sure.

I like Tony Dibrell and Chris Viall out of those Columbia starters the most.

Gary Seagren said...

Dom Smith doesn't want to go to the minor's....REALLY what a surprise! How about playing your ass off and actually producing but this nonsense is want makes it harder and harder to watch sports these days babying players and having no one in authority who will actually speak up. YC is the poster boy for this crap and were paying him what 28 million ugh. Could SA have had a worse off season than this last one as nothing has worked out but at least it seems Fred and Ethel and Saul from what I've read are ready to go outside the organization to find a new GM....any comments on this guys?

Mack Ade said...

I like Ng but that is never going to happen on this team.

Eddie from Corona said...

Mack where is Ng from?

Michael Freire said...

Well put, Gary.......Dom's biggest issue seems to be hard work, or in his case a lack thereof. He reminds me of folks I have known over the years who are uber talented at their desired pursuit (athletics, academics, etc) and spent their youth excelling without trying that hard. THEN, when the competition and requirements get more difficult, they can no longer "coast" and they have to dedicate themselves to actually working their a#$ off to keep achieving what used to come easy for them.

Or, I could be wrong and he is just a AAAA type.

Bob Gregory said...

Looking back, with Mack's reporting of Rizzo actually being in charge after Alderson's original cancer diagnosis, aren't this entire off season's collection of terrible decisions on Rizzo?

Wouldn't Rizzo have completely and undoubtably F.U.B.A.R'd his "audition" to become the next Met GM?

Mack Ade said...

Bob -

It's funny...

I was on the phone less than 15 minutes ago with my original source on the Rizzo info. He was the one that originally told me that Rizzo used to have final say on TC's lineup cards.

He also reminded me when Tim Teufel told me while I was waiting for the lineup to be posted on the dugout one day in Savannah. I asked Tim where it was and he said he hadn't received the approval from "Queens" yet.

I thought he was joking.

It goes back that far.

Mack Ade said...

Eddie -

Kim Ng is currently the Senior VP for Baseball Operations with Major League baseball.

She has worked for the White Sox, and was Assistant General Manager for both the Yankees and Dodgers.

Gary Seagren said...

Isn't Matt Foley a motivational speaker? :)

Michael S. said...

In a van down by the river

Tom Brennan said...

Gary, that is Foley's next career, perhaps.