It’s getting to be that time of the year when everyone is a
little antsy about what’s going to happen in the upcoming season. Right now the Mets have a number of questions
in front of them that won’t be answered until the games begin to play in Florida.
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Take the outfield, for example. Everyone knows what to expect from Michael
Conforto. We’re not sure about Brandon Nimmo’s
health. No one puts Yoenis Cespedes and
health into the same sentence (without a question mark, anyway). J.D. Davis is never going to make anyone
forget Roberto Clemente defensively.
Ditto Dominic Smith. And what is
to be done with .319 career hitter Jeff McNeil?
Finally, for some reason the club obtained a lower cost version of Juan
Lagares in Jake Marisnick. They are
certainly heavy in the outfield, yet the number one rumor making headlines is
the Mets’ pursuit of offensively up and defensively down Starling Marte for one
year of rental services.
On the infield it’s a bit clearer in 4 out of 5 spots. Obviously you have Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso
at 1B. Then there’s the strong closer
Robinson Cano guaranteed a spot at 2B based upon his paycheck and BVW’s ego for
having made the trade. Amed Rosario had his
best season ever and no one is questioning his starting role at SS. Wilson Ramos has home plate to call his own
(apparently since no one knows who the backup is going to be). That only leaves 3B with some question
marks. Does it belong to Jed Lowrie as
was intended when he was expensively obtained?
What about J.D. Davis? Then there’s
Jeff McNeil…yet there are rumors the club is interested in the very expensive
Colorado Rockie who also earns his paycheck at 3B.
The starting rotation, on paper, anyway, appears set. You have Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus
Stroman and Steven Matz for sure. Then
it would appear that struggling starter Rick Porcello gets the Zack Wheeler
slot, but oft-injured Michael Wacha is another option. Of course, the rumors about trading a
starting pitcher to solve the excess and address other needs is another matter
to resolve.
The bullpen is the Achille’s Heel that worries everyone
after last year’s debacle. Obviously
Seth Lugo will be relied upon heavily to replicate his 2019 effort. The same goes for Justin Wilson. After that it gets a bit uncertain. You certainly don’t want sequels to what
Edwin Diaz and Jeurys Familia did last year.
They were horrific. They brought
in the formerly rock-solid Dellin Betances to show his injuries are behind
him. The potential is certainly there
for improvement but we also know that you can’t win games on potential.
The biggest area of concern for the Mets may be their pinch
hitter extraordinaire, Luis Rojas.
Obviously he was not their first choice to lead the team when they made
the Carlos Beltran choice when the 2019 calendar page flipped to November. Many feel it made sense to embrace the number
two choice who was in-house already and had great familiarity with the players
and coaches on the payroll. Others
thought it would have been prudent to bring in an experienced manager like a
Dusty Baker or Buck Showalter to establish credibility. The Mets went with the less expensive, less
experienced but more familiar choice in Rojas who, ironically, had a ton more
managerial mileage than did the guy they originally chose. Ironically, the normally sloth-paced Mets
were actually the frontrunners in making a replacement selection since the Red
Sox and Astros are still treading water.
Everyone’s hoping it’s a good one.
As the Spring Training season begins, there are some
positional battles to be won, some dark horse candidates to make the roster as
perhaps that new 26th spot, and the potential for transactions still
to take place. BVW is saying the right
things about being happy with the current roster but the truth is he’s likely
waiting for pre-season injuries to increase the price other teams are willing
to pay for his redundant assets. There
are still unsigned free agents and other teams with excess they’re looking to
trade. I don’t think who you see flying
into Port St. Lucie is necessarily going to be on the flight north to Citifield. Change is good.
11 comments:
Just a couple of random thoughts. I know they're trying to trade for Marte, and apparently trying to deal Nimmo in the process. Why? Even if Marte is an upgrade, it's a slight upgrade. And he costs more, and has one year less control. Doesn't make sense to me. Just go with Nimmo in center and call it a day.
J.D. Davis should not be mentioned in the same breath as third base. He's the Mackey Sasser of third. Play him in left. He can catch the routine fly ball. He can't seem to make the routine throws from third.
Maybe it's his days on the mound as a pitcher. Perhaps his throws from 3rd to 1st are with a curve :)
Bob W, I agree. When healthy, Nimmo is an on base machine. In 2018 and the portion of 2019 after he returned from his neck injury, his OBP was .408, a top 5 or so figure in baseball.
I diverge on JD, although you may be right. Davis had a whole winter off to focus on his fielding. Going into 2019, he had to work that off season on everything. Now his key area of focus is honed down. He should have spent the whole off season on fielding.
Reese, I think this team has high variances in risk, probably more so than the average team. Cespedes, Diaz, Lowrie, Betances, Familia etc. - triumphant returns or more disappointment, among the examples.
I am betting the risk profile is mostly in the Mets' favor this year. That said, I'd like a back up catcher upgrade, and another good pen arm to improve the risk profile. And compete.
On The Mind
1. NY Mets - I am not trying to pontificate here, but I still do very much like the NY Mets and GM Brodie's player personnel strategy thus far into the off-season. I see no "glaring" deficiencies there what-so-ever. Sometimes less is actually more. By less, I mean that the NY Mets have done a really good job of protecting the players in the second half of 2019 that were gelling and beginning to reach their own personal level of success. I felt it showed both on the field and statistically.
The Mets management were also correct to realize that a very special team chemistry had been established here in 2019, the kind that actually helps to build not only championships, but also a team with multi-seasonal cohesion and talent skills.
Looking at his 2020 roster possibilities, GM Brodie also recognized any possible personnel need for improvement and addressed these needs very quickly I thought. Here, like the pitching staff.
To me, possibly two things maybe remain.
First, the selection of the right seven to be the NY Mets bullpen in 2020 from a pool a bit wider than normal, which is good. And then secondly, maybe a trade to help AAA Syracuse to re-establish themselves as having one of the better minor league teams going.
NYK
I still think that the NYK could be greatly enhanced by adding into their current rotation these things: A big powerful center more, Forwards Ignas Brazdeikis and Kenny Wooten. With the center position idea, I just get the feeling that the NYK miss Kanter a little bit more than most realize. If the Knicks wisely go to a two unit set-up, they will need a true banger/underneath guy more.
Interestingly enough, at the end of last season 2018/2019, I felt that both SF/G Daymean Dotson and PF Isaiah Hicks had shown considerable enough improvement enough to earn to be in the NYK rotation as well. Dotson now is and I believe that Hicks is now playing in Russia. What I like with both is their aggressiveness. Hicks is very quick for a PF 6'8" tall.
Tom:
All teams (and in every sport) tend to have a wide risk feature to their own player personnel roster. Yes, it is unfortunate, but it just kind of is the way the way that it is unfortunately. You cannot put players in suits of armor. Although, the Mets probably would have with David Wright.
It all comes down several factors:
Player conditioning, the way a player chooses to aggressively play or not, genetic inheritance, eating habits, and even their off-season workout strategies in order to maintain themselves and not get too out of shape heading into the next season. (See Prince Fielder here.)
A team merely does the very best that they can to eliminate some of the risk. But eliminating all the risk, is never really a possibility. Therefore, professional sports teams have to accept risk as being part of the game and hope for the best.
ALZ
Biogen "may be getting closer" to FDA approval for its new Aducanumab drug. There was an issue of whether or not the beta-amyloid protein plaque was in fact the "true" culprit in the Alzheimers dementia scenario. Aducanumab will not be a cure but rather a slowdown in disease progression. I am still betting on Stem Cell Therapy for that.
Corona Virus
Remember in the Ebola Model, that antibodies taken from several people exposed to Ebola and not made sick was the cure to this expansion. This is vital here again.
"My, my, my Corona"
Or was it "My Sharona" by the Knack 1979?
(Whatever)
I wanted add to my above posting today.
The Ebola Virus was just underway in the United States. There were cases here and there. However, they found a person that had definitely been exposed and contracted the Ebola virus. This person was a survivor of Ebola (a filovirus) by means of their own immunity system's strength.
They extracted this person's antibodies (which huge part of an immunity system) and mass produced them in a laboratory setting.
The Ebola virus was then made well for many and placed under control.
The Coronavirus is an upper respiratory ailment.. However, I am certain that this same exact approach could be conducted to end it as well. The point of introduction of this Coronavirus (I believe) was Saudi Arabia circa the mid-1970's, if I remember correctly.
National Institute of Health
(NIH)
nih.gov/antibodies-ebola-survivor-treatment
June 6, 2017
Back to Baseball
It's kind of early to know everything, whoever really does anyway, aside of course from all those genius politicians, I suppose. But I have noticed and read, that these NY Mets have some really good minor league players (4) on the "Top 100 List" right now. Two shortstops in Ronnie Maurico (age 18) and Andres Gimenez (age 20), catcher Francisco Alverez (age 18) who is already hitting for average down in the minors, and third baseman Brett Baty (age 20).
Factor in the really good younger players here now on the 2020 NY Mets, and it's almost as good as landing in "Munchkin Land" I tell ya'. Maybe even better, "Release what's left of the Flying Monkees, it's almost Baseball Season!"
Maybe leave third base open for an "old school" type competition format. Invite Jeff McNeil, JD Davis, and even Dominic Smith perhaps. No, not Godfather Frazier. He's on some other team now, for goodness sakes.
Best man wins.
They are all good batters really.
Evening Anonymous, I would put Jeff McNeil on Second and JD on Third and play Cano at either 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 3-4 times a week to give the other players a break. This way the best players play the most, they get rest and Cano stays fresh as well.
I would then try to get as many at bats for Smith either as a pinch hitter, left fielder or first baseman as possible. We will see hop adapt Luis Rojas is juggling a 26 man roster soon enough.
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