Mack - Observations: Julio Franco, Cameron Planck, Jon Niese, Starter Solution, Jake deGrom, COVID Rest Time

 

Morning. 

 

A great week for attracting new followers. We welcome Julio Franco, Cameron Planck, and Jon Niese to our family of readers. 

 

Ageless ex-Met, Julio Franco, has now joined the faithful followers of Mack’s Mets. 

 

Franco was signed in 1978 as an international free agent, by the Philadelphia Phillies. He played for eight major league clubs during the 25 years… yes, 25 years he played in the majors. 

 

He played for the Mets in 2006 and 2007, hitting .256 in 215 at-bats. His major league career ended in the same year (2007) for the Atlanta Braves at the age of 48. 

 

He actually came back to organized ball in 2014, as a 55/yr. old, for the Fort Worth Cats in the Indy league (27-AB, .222). 

 

Cameron Planck came to the Mets as an 11^th round draft pick, out of Rowan County HS (KY). It was considered to be a real coup in signing such a heralded high school prospect who was not supposed to sign out of high school (his senior year was 74.1-IP, 0.38-ERA).

 

Sadly, shoulder pain and weakness set in that resulted in shoulder surgery. His rehab program only heightened the pain and he eventually retired with only 1.2 professional innings thrown over the 2018 and 2019 season. 

 

Niese, a particular favorite of mine, was drafted in the 7^th round of the 2005 draft, by the Mets, out of Refiance HS (OH). 

 

He pitched in 10 major league seasons, of which nine were for the Mets. His signature year was 2012 when he went 13-9, 3.40 in 30 starts. 

 

His complete Mets stats were: 61-62, 3.99. 

 

Please welcome them to our site.

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I work up after the Corey Oswalt led victory on Tuesday with some thoughts on how the Mets may want to operate (bad choice of words) their rotation for the remainder of this miserable season.

 

First, the good news. Jake deGrom can pitch late into the games and insure us a fighting chance to win more games than he loses.

 

More good news. The pen is starting to mellow out and produce numbers any playoff team would be proud to have these days.

 

And last good news. The bats have awoken and we are now generating 4-5+ run games consistently.

 

So, my suggestion going forward is to take the rest of whoever we throw out there as a starter and allow them to pitch either 4.0 innings pitched, or 60 pitches, whatever comes first.

 

Then, create an eight man pen which would include at least four rotating relievers throwing two innings each.

 

This could work if we continue to generate the kind of runs this crew is capable of.

 

The starters won’t like this but we are even. We don’t like their ERAs either.

 

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Fangraphs had these thoughts on the possibility of trading Jake deGrom:

deGrom is 32 years old and needs to maintain five-plus win seasons his age-33 and 34 seasons to justify placement on this list. If he pitches well, the $30 million salary in 2023 is well worth it, or deGrom opts out. There’s the risk he pitches poorly, and that the team trading for him will have committed more than $100 million in addition to sending good players the Mets’ way. While most teams would love to have Jacob deGrom, even at his salary, trading for him is not be in the cards for every club. It’s possible there would be enough teams interested to build a solid market, but a massive haul likely isn’t possible.

 

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Lastly… the delay in the Mets schedule sets up a whole new development in creating a rotation from this fractured list of starters.

 

First, it must be determined how many games will be postponed.

 

Two members of our rotation… David Peterson and Michael Wacha could be ready to return sometime in the next seven days. This would allow both of them to be added back to a rotation headed by Jake deGrom. Add Rick Porcello and Seth Lugo and things wouldn’t look as bad as this weekend looked before the delay.