Reese Kaplan -- How Are the Ex Mets Doing?

Many folks give Sandy Alderson justified flack for the losing record his teams produced over his 7+ years in the front office.  You would think you could field an All-Star team with players who he let get away or who he banished and then flourished after leaving the Mets.  With the recent news of a few ex-Mets getting the DFA boot from the Angels and Orioles respectively – Matt Harvey and Keon Broxton (a BVW selection), I thought I’d peruse the rosters of other teams to see if the grass is indeed greener once you leave the confines of Flushing.

By my count there are 23 ex-Mets on Major League rosters right now though a few of them are occupying spots on the IL for short or long term maladies.  That’s not quite enough to field an entire team and frankly the total was surprisingly low.  That got me to thinking just how bad were the players Alderson selected that they’re not even in MLB anymore.  Anyway, let’s have a look at the Survivors, Mets Edition.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) have ex-Met Hansel Robles on the roster as a closer.  He’s 3-0 with a 2.56 ERA and a WHIP of just 1.09 while notching 14 saves.  The biggest difference here is he gave up 7 HRs in just over 19 IP with his last turn with the Mets while he’s only given up 3 in 45+ IP with the Halos.  So much for Mickey Callaway being a pitching guru, huh?

The Houston Astros have a few folks in their bullpen who got their starts as members of the NY Mets.  Colin McHugh is a more distinguished blogger than pitcher these days, and the usually reliable Joe Smith has only appeared in 3 games.

One player who seems to have succeeded in his career despite not being able to break a pane of glass is reliever Yumeiro Petit, currently turning in his customary good numbers as a member of the Oakland A’s.

The Toronto Blue Jays apparently are even more hard-up for pitching than are the Mets as they put DFA’d Wilmer Font onto their Major League Roster.  Methinks Toronto is not playoff bound.

The first place Atlanta Braves feature two ex-Mets in the bullpen, one acquired in trade and one fetched off the scrap heap.  Anthony Swarzak is following his pattern of a bad year followed by a good year.  Naturally the Mets got the bad one.  Jerry Blevins has not been awful but after his lackluster 2018 with the Mets he may be reaching the end of the road at age 35. 

The St. Louis Cardinals now have a former Met farmhand who was dealt away to the Braves I none of the Kelly Johnson trades – John Gant.  He’s working out of their pen and delivering a 7-0 record over 43 games in the pen with a 2.61 ERA.  How’s he look in orange and blue right now?

The original Wilmer is doing his supersub thing for the Arizona Diamondbacks and hitting in the .270s, but with much less power than we were accustomed to seeing in New York.  Flores’ replacement – J.D. Davis – is having a much better year.  Point to BVW for that one. 

There’s no way to sugarcoat this one.  Alderson totally blew it when he decided that a sub $1 milliion player should be cut.  That man is named Justin Turner and the Dodgers are giddy with Alderson’s folly.

Mickey Callaway’s old stomping grounds in Cleveland features three ex-Mets on the roster.  Kevin Plawecki is hitting .212.  Tyler Clippard is delivering acceptable but not dominant middle relief.  The star of the trio is much maligned Oliver Perez who has successfully reinvented himself into a very effective LOOGY. 

The Miami Marlins seem to be the tropical island of misfit toys.  PED-poster child Cesar Puello is hitting .267 in 4^th outfielder role.  Curtis Granderson is starting and not yet reaching the Mendoza line.  Neil Walker is hanging on and probably kicking himself to this day for not taking a multi-year deal instead of the one-year QO he accepted from the Mets.  Needless to say, the Marlins are in the basement.

The now much-traveled Jay Bruce, once, future and now once again ex-Met, is a member of the division rival Philadelphia Phillies.  He’s currently on the 10-day IL, but for the year Bruce is hitting .230 with 24 HRs and 57 RBIs.  Before anyone starts crying about that, remember Michael Conforto is hitting .250 with 18 HRs and 48 RBIs in fewer ABs for $10 million less in salary. 

Here in my home state of Texas Asdrubal Cabrera has gotten a chance to play 3^rd base for the Rangers.  He’s not hitting much for average, but should finish the year with more than 20 HRs.  Mets fans wish they could say the same for Robinson Cano.

With all of the good publicity Rays’ recent backstop acquisition Travis d’Arnaud has gotten, bear in mind he is not even starting for them.  He’s hitting .243 with 10 HRs and 30 RBIs over 173 ABs, so if you extrapolate over the course of a full season those are pretty gaudy numbers but we’ve seen what happens when you rely on his ability to stay on the field consistently, haven’t we?

Colorado has probably not gotten what they’d hoped out of ex-Met and ex-National Daniel Murphy who has spent considerable time on the IL.  When on the field he is producing with a .286 AVG, 9 HRs and 49 RBIs over just 255 ABs.

The winner of the great lumbering lefty 1^st base race of 2014, Lucas Duda, is now a benchwarmer for the lowly Kansas City Royals after failing to distinguish himself with the Rays.  This year he’s hitting just .150 with 3 HRs and 14 RBIs.

The former Rookie of the Year and All Star the Mets gave up in the Yoenis Cespedes trade, Michael Fulmer, is out of the year with TJS.  That seems only fair since the Cuban slugger the Mets received is also outfor the year. 

The other piece given up in that trade is now pitching out of the pen for the Bronx Bombers – Met farmhand Luis Cessa.  He’s been in 26 games and is pitching to a meh 4.13 ERA. 

So what conclusions can we draw?  Well, Turner is obviously the cream of the crop.  Murphy is doing well.  Hansel Robles has many wondering why he couldn’t pitch like that while here.  After that it’s downhill pretty fast.  There are some credible relievers, but what stands out to me is that we Mets fans tolerated an awful lot of mediocrity when a huge plurality of players who sat in the home dugout at Citifield are out of baseball already.  Take a look at this list of names who got a lot of innings playing for the Mets during these eras:

• Vic Black
• Antonio Bastardo
• Andrew Brown
• Eric Campbell
• Ike Davis
• Matt den Dekker
• Josh Edgin
• Frank Francisco
• Dillon Gee
• Gonzalez German
• Sean Gilmartin
• Erik Goeddel
• Ty Kelly
• Daisukie Matsuzaka
• Jenrry Mejia
• Tommy Milone
• Rafael Montero
• Danny Muno
• Jon Niese
• Kirk Nieuwenhuis
• Bobby Parnell
• Omar Quintanilla
• Anthony Recker
• Ramon Ramirez
• Addison Reed
• Jose Reyes
• Fernando Salas
• Paul Sewald
• Josh Smoker
• Ruben Tejada
• Josh Thole
• Eric Young, Jr.

It seems the talent evaluators and the lightning-in-a-bottle approach fizzled rather badly which is reflected in the losing records of Alderson, his Three Stooges holding court while he was out sick and now Brodie Van Wagenen.   It seems that getting better players equals better results.