From The Desk... 7.17

Good morning.

     1.     #Omar4GM - @PattyWhite_NYM - I want the Phillies to get Machado. Make them use prospects for a rental.  Mack – this is not the worst idea I have heard this week. The quicker way to the top is if the teams ahead of you play worst than you do. We used to consider ourselves lucky to be in this division. Now, we can’t even tread water above the Marlins. My understanding is that the Phillies pipeline is deep. Great. Start to break it for two or three chips here.

     2.    Paul Lukas - @UniWatch - A former Mets front office employee says the Mets fired him in "cowardly" fashion after he repeatedly questioned whether the proceeds from sales of MLB's Memorial Day apparel were actually going to military charities https://nypost.com/2018/07/16/ex-mets-assistant-lashes-out-at-team-over-cowardly-firing/

     3.    I’m starting to fall in love with a 19/yr. old outfielder named Raul Beracierta. He’s playing primarily centerfield for the Kingsport Mets and is simply killing it this season:  24-61, .393/.519/.656/1.175, 3-HR. He’s also hitting .447 in his last ten games, all of which he has at least one hit in each one. Raul hit .253 last year for the GCL-Mets after hitting .326 in 2016 for the combined DSL teams. The remarkable part of his game this year is his meteoric rise in slugging percentage: .403 in 2016… .321 last year… .656 so far this season. That’s double last year’s numbers. I’m sure Beracierta will simmer down, but I sure hope we see him finishing the year in Columbia. Another young chip worth fast tracking.

      4.    Young Ideas - @DickYoungsGhost - Got my hands on a print NY Daily News today. A local Pennysaver is fatter. And the @tronc mandated Chicago-based layout and makeup - terrible. Bad use of color, column placement and artwork. The balls have been cut off a once-great tabloid newspaper. Mack – sadly, the entire print media industry is over. My 11-year old granddaughter called me last week and asked if I had a newspaper she could use for a school project. I told her I didn’t. I also found out that she has never read a newspaper in her young life. It’s a different world out there and you have to adjust to survive. The New York sports world still things that the NYDN is something special. Hell, the NY Times isn’t even special anymore. My guess is most of you think that Russia is still a ‘world leader’. For real, it’s a country with the GNP of NY State. Perception is not always reality.

      5.    Mets Uncensored - @UncensoredMets - Mets analytics department employs 3 people. Other teams employ up to 12. The Mets are so cheap they can’t even moneyball the right way. – Mack:  Wow. I didn’t know this. This plays right into my last entry here regarding the old world of newspapers. The Mets seem to be operation like a team out of the 20^th Century. Every team that is making it big these days are doing it with more than Clint Eastman sitting behind home plate with a stogie in his lips. The weakest part of this team is in the pipeline, which is filled with draft picks and International signings. The fact is we have less talent here than other teams that are spending more money in this area.

  

      6.    A couple of more 2018 draft picks made their debut yesterday. Former 23^rd round pick (Montverde Academy, FL.) 18-year old Saul Gonzalez and 40^th round pick (LSU-Eunice) Brian Metoyer both pitched a scoreless inning for the GCL Mets. In addition, one of the International free agent guppies signed last month, 17-year old 2B/SS Wilker Valasquez went 2-4 for the DSL-1 team. Lastly, OF Yoenes Cespedes went 1-4 in his rehab game with the GCL Mets.

      7.    Young Ideas - @DickYoungsGhost - Antifa Andy Martino now hacks for #ShillBlog aka @metsblog, which is a den of cut-and-paste, occasionally going into straight plagiarism. – Mack – tell us what you really think…

      8.    While we are talking about teenagers, there’s another one that needs to move up. 19/yr. old catcher Andres Regnault, is in the midst of his third DSL year and his batting has steadily improved… ,132 in 2016… .270 last season, and .348/.433/.617/1.050, 6-HR playing fulltime for the DSL-1 team. A good solution here would be to move GSL’s Luis Lebron (.310) to Kingsport, making room here for the budding prospect.