From The Desk - Sam Haggerty, Corbin Carroll, Cubs vs. Mets, Radamel Falcao, Single Trade Deadline

18. Sam Haggerty, 2B

Drafted: 24th Round, 2015 from New Mexico (CLE)

Age     24.6    Height 5′ 11″  Weight            175     Bat / Thr         S / R    FV       40

Tool Grades (Present/Future)

Hit       Raw Power     Game Power  Run     Fielding          Throw

  

30/40         45/45               20/30        60/60     50/55              50/50

Haggerty was acquired from Cleveland in the January Kevin Plawecki trade. He’s an athletic, multi-positional defender with hands, actions, and arm strength enabling him to play all over the infield, and speed that might make him a plus corner outfield defender as he continues to play and learn the position. A switch-hitter with a simple swing and conservative approach to contact, Haggarty’s best offensive skill is his eye for the strike zone, which has enabled him to walk at a 13% career clip. He is limited from both a power and bat-to-ball standpoint, so it’s possible his patience will be irrelevant if big league pitching decides he’s not a threat to do damage on his own and make it a point to let him put the ball in play. Through Double-A, though, this hasn’t happened. The oft-injured Haggerty fell all the way to the 25th round of the 2015 draft because he dealt with an oblique injury during his draft year and underperformed. His oblique was an issue again in 2017 and he missed some time with a shoulder issue during the early part of 2018. He projects as a versatile defensive replacement and pinch runner.

                  Mack - There is a logjam at second in Binghamton... Oliver Pasqual, Luis Carpio, Josh Allen, Andrew Ely, J.J. Franco... so, I have Haggerty competing in St. Lucie against Blake Tiberi and Cody Bohanek.

2019 High School (https://www. baseballamerica.com/stories/2019-high-school-preseason-all-americans/) Preseason All-Americans –

            Corbin Carroll, OF, Lakeside HS, Seattle - Just 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, Carroll isn’t imposing by any means, but he does plenty for scouts on the field. He’s a 70-grade runner, an instinctive defender in center field and has the most polished hit tool in the class outside of Riley Greene. It’s also tough to find a player with a better feel for the strike zone or a more patient approach than Carroll.

2019 MLB preview and predictions: How Cubs  stack up against Mets –

           

This pitching staff is also very top-heavy. After deGrom and Syndergaard in the rotation and Diaz and Familia in the bullpen, nobody knows quite what the Mets will get from the rest of their arms. Wheeler and Matz enjoyed bounce back seasons a year ago, but they still need to prove their checkered injury histories are in the rearview mirror.

There's more than enough talent on this team to compete, but will they have enough to compete with the likes of the Phillies, Braves and Nationals? I'm not betting on it, but hey, I've been wrong before (just once, though, and it was back in my high school days).

Prediction: 4th in NL East, a few games behind in the Wild-Card race

Striker Radamel Falcao   wants to play pro baseball after his soccer career is over –

           Falcao told France Football, as translated by NBC Sports: "I love baseball. When I was little, in Venezuela, where I grew up, it was the sport I practiced, at a very good level… I often talk about it with my wife. I think when I finish my football career, I’ll start one as a professional baseball player,” Falcao said. “Like Jordan, even if he was a basketball player and did not get to play in the big leagues, at the highest level. I want to be the first to succeed!”

Could he hack it? Well, fortunately we have a little sneak peek. In 2014, Falcao got in the cage for a little batting practice. While he's able to line one ball straight back up the middle, he seems to be swinging too much with his arms (weird for a soccer player to be doing that) and lunging too far forward on his front foot.

MLB will reportedly switch to single trade deadline, do away with August waiver deals in 2019 season –

            Each year, Major League Baseball confuses legions of casual fans when it comes to trades. There's a "trade deadline" on July 31 that's technically called a non-waiver trade deadline and then trades can still happen in August. A fixture here these past few years has been my primer on how trades in August can happen, notably when I called Justin Verlanrder possibly getting dealt in 2017.

All of this appears to be going away, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

The switch to a single non-waiver deadline on July 31, which according to sources will be among the rules changes Major League Baseball and the players' union adopt this season, will eliminate the indecipherable trade waivers in August, baseball's version of the U.S. tax code.

The idea, first proposed by the union, is to protect the competitive integrity of the 162-game regular season, create more certainty for players and force teams to decide earlier whether they are buyers or sellers.