Good morning.
Reese Kaplan started my mind thinking this way this morning with his post. Six losses in a row at this point of a Wild Card race, when you are battling the amount of teams we are now facing ahead of us... at least for me... makes me turn to 2020 and start doing the things we can do in September to help our team next year.
There are the issues of expiring contracts to deal with plus rotation pitchers that should be considered to be shut down.
Then there is the additional of a 40-man roster that can be utilized.
So I ask you...
Is it time to move on?
And, if it is, what moves should be made?
(hint... Ervin Santana and Harol Gonzalez)
8 comments:
I have a new article this weekend listing some of those pitchers I want to see promoted.
Hitters? Besides the obvious Nimmo and Lowrie, maybe Alcantara. latter seems unlikely, since he never comes up.
I wouls also clean out the RPs on the 40 man and promote Blackham plus another shot for Villines
Forget about Santana. His arm is shot, he can't get out Triple-A hitters and there's nothing to be gained by giving five September starts to someone older than Jason Vargas.
Gonzalez is more defensible - I think he's Rule V eligible and so the Mets might add him to the 40-man in November anyway. I don't think there's another Rule V eligible player in the system who would clearly deserve it more. That, of course, is much more of an indictment of the "prospects" we have in the upper minors than it is an endorsement of Gonzalez. His best case scenario in 2020 is a spot on the Syracuse shuttle with 10 other swing starters.
Truthfully though, I see no reason to add Gonzalez either. The Mets only have five pending free agents on the 40-man roster - Lagares, Frazier, Avilan, Wheeler and Rene Rivera. (Brach has an option that I don't think will be picked up, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.) Even if all six of them are allowed to leave, that leaves only 7 open roster spots for free agents and Rule V additions.
Meanwhile, there are nine healthy pitchers in Syracuse that are already on the 40-man roster that the Mets have to make a decision about in the off-season. Every inning given to Gonzalez is an inning not being given to one of them to prove that they deserve to be here in 2020.
Blackham is a possibility for the same reason as Gonzalez, but again adding either one only makes sense if BVW conducts a mass purge of the Quad A arms currently on the roster. Villines isn't Rule V eligible. I can't imagine that the Mets would add him to the 40-man one year before they would have to.
I don't think Alcantara would be considered unless Nimmo and Lowrie don't make it back. He's a sure DFA in the offseason, so the Mets could use the last spot on the roster for him. I'd rather see Dilson Herrera be rewarded, but the Mets may not want to risk having to release him if he doesn't make the 2020 team.
Blackham for sure, Nogosek, Villines and Oswalt taking Wheeler's starts.
Not David Peterson, who is 3-6 in 23 AA starts in 2019. Just 3 wins...but he goes for # 4 tonight.
As Yogi said, It ain't over until it's over, don't give up yet!
Play to win the baseball games.
Everybody is so eager to wave a white flag -- to quit! -- and bring up inferior players.
Tell that to the men in the clubhouse, playing their hearts out. Tell that to the real fans who actually go to games.
This fascination with failure is just pathetic. I'm so tired of it.
4 games out, 27 to play.
Go out and play like your hair is on fire. Experience the pressure, develop and grow as ballplayers. Try to win.
It is so sad that in the year of 2019 that I even feel compelled, over and over again, to say those simple words: try to win. What has happened to fans today? This season in MLB at least 9 teams are intentionally tanking. It's a disgrace. And yet so many "fans" seem deluded into thinking it's okay, or wise, or more fun to "see the kids."
Try to win the games.
Jimmy
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