From The Desk… Wilson Ramos, Power Rankings, Portland Oregon, Merandy Gonzalez, More Wilson

Good morning.

I know we talked about the signing of free agent catcher Wilson Ramos last week in an ‘open thread’ post I threw up, but I wanted to go into this a little deeper here.

Free agent signings take three factors. One, the team must want the player. Two, the player must want to be on the team. And three, and most importantly, the player’s agent must bless the union.

There are not enough yen in all the Chinese banks to either get Matt Harvey to agree to a deal to return to the Mets, nor is there a chance that you will catch either of the Wilpon boys playing grab bass with Scott Boros. Not gonna happen.

I truly believe that our General Manager was almost obsessed with a deal for J.T. Realmuto, but it was another deal that just couldn’t get done because, to give the Marlins what they demanded, it would decimate the Mets core players. I would trade Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo for Mike Trout, but not the likes of Realmuto.

This left us a choice between who we currently have on the 40-man (Travis d’Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, Tomas Nido) or dive into the free agent market (Ramos,Yasmani Grandal). 

Our current 40-man options all fall short for various reasons, which leaves us Ramos and someone that would have cost us a second-round draft pick. Considering the loss of Justin Dunn and Jarred Kelenic in the Cano/Diaz deal, plus the projected success of two recent second-round picks (Peter Alonso, Simeon Woods-Richardson), the process of elimination led us to Ramos.

As I understand it, our GM negotiated with both Grandal and Ramos. Grandal demanded more than two years which was a no-go for the Mets.

Is this a great deal?

Well, considering all the parameters listed above… yes.

Yes, he will be 33-years old at the end of this contract which is even more reason to not sign him more than two years.

The important thing here is we can close the book on the 2019 starting catcher and we didn’t lose a second-round draft pick or current members of our 25-man squad.

For these reasons alone, this was a big victory.

MLB power rankings: Champion Red Sox remain No. 1; Mets    on the rise after Cano trade and Ramos signing –

        

    

Mets -  “so far, so good, but I don’t think the job is done yet.

New projection:  77-85 

Readers respond: Portland’s   not a baseball town -         

   

We are not a baseball town. The “youngsters” could not care less about baseball! Why are they not packing Hops and Pickles games?

The Hops and Pickles do not usually sell out, and even the Hops playoffs and finals were half-empty. Timbers? Heck yes! Football? Maybe. Blazers? Definitely! Hockey? Pretty good. But if we are not expanding the Hops or Pickles arenas to handle excess capacity, there is no reason to go Major League Baseball. We will sell-out for a week and then 5000 a night, tops!

Fangraphs Top 32 Marlins  Prospects –

         

  # 24 -  Merandy Gonzalez, RHP  -  Gonzalez was acquired at the 2017 trade deadline from the Mets for A.J. Ramos. He made a few big league appearances in 2018, mostly in relief, which is the role we have him projected into long term. He throws hard and at times his fastball has natural cut, but it lives in the middle of the zone where it’s tough for Gonzalez to miss bats. His curveball has nasty natural movement but he doesn’t finish it consistently. These two offerings need a bit of polish but 

should eventually enable Gonzalez to be a middle reliever.

Rotographs - -

        

   The hamate fracture was a fluke injury, but the lower-body woes are of a concern for a catcher who lists at 245 pounds. In our Top 50 Free Agents rankings, Ramos was 17th, nine spots lower than fellow free agent catcher Yasmani Grandal, in part due to his size and durability issues. While he’s been the slightly better hitter of the pair over the past three seasons, with a 120 wRC+ to Grandal’s 116, he’s made 296 fewer plate appearances in that span, including 102 fewer in 2018. He’s also 15 months older, and nowhere near Grandal’s class as a defender. Baseball Prospectus’ pitch framing-inclusive metrics have Ramos 6.1 runs above average over the past three seasons but slightly in the red in both 2017 and 2018. By comparison, Grandal was 79 runs above average in that three-year span, including an MLB-best 15.7 above average in the framing department in 2018; by DRS, the three-year, framing-inclusive tally is -11 runs for Ramos, 39 for Grandal.