The War Room – Breakout Prospects - GM/Owners Meetings

 

Darnell James -  

 

Hey Mack! Hope all is well.

My interesting topic for the 'War Room' is.... Who is your Mets minor league prospect pegged for a major breakout season. Last year was Cesar Puello, followed by strong showings from other players in the system. Who's due for a hot year coming up?

 

The annual GM/Owners meetings begin tomorrow morning (for three days) in Orlando, Florida. Most of what will happen during the offseason will either begin or end here.

I talked to someone in Florida who told me not to expect the Mets to sign any of the top players available in this free agent market. Instead, they are expected to sign 6-8 lower echelon players to fill in their 25-man while their current and future rotation heal and mature. You’ll probably see a bunch of one and two year deals.

Remember… it’s tough to sell the Mets image to your client if you are over 30 and looking for your last contract while, at the same time, trying to win a World Series ring. The Mets are far away from that and playing for the Wilpons is not high on anyone’s list (including his own children).

So… let’s talk secondary players.

Who are some of the Corey Hart’s of the world out there that we should sign for one or two years until some of our kids mature?

The War Room - Matt Kemp

 Michael Scannell -  

 

With how anemic the Mets' offense was in 2013, improving it is obviously a top priority.

 

Over the last few weeks we've been subjected to various names on the hot stove.  I'm wondering specifically about Matt Kemp:

 

1) Do we think the Dodgers will move him?

 

2) Do we think they'd be willing to eat some of his contract and if so, how much?

 

3) What would the cost in terms of prospects be?

 

4) Taking into account the above three questions and assuming the Mets could and would insure his contract, do we want him on the team?

The War Room - One Free Agent

Let’s get today started with one simply question and all of you can take the room where you would like it to go.

Let’s say you are Sandy Alderson and Fred Wilpon walks in your office and tells you that you can only sign one player in this off-season, but it can be for as much as it takes to the sign the player and for any amount of years that wouldn’t make the team look clueless. You get one shot and one shot only to improve this team for the 2014 season, and beyond.

Who would you sign?

The War Room - 2014

Well, the new is out and it ain’t no good…

We now know that Matt Harvey will not part of the 2014 Met team. 50% of the team’s all-star players are already lost for the season due to injuries.

Great teams have a hard time surviving shit like this but teams that can’t even play .500 ball three years in a row have basically no chance of returning to playoff status without their ace pitcher. Everything was different when he was on the field. The other Met players played different. The fans were different.

The Mets brain trust is down in Florida right now watching the kiddies play in the Instructs and beginning the process of formulating how they are going to approach the 2014 season. I for one have already thrown my hat in and I don’t mean that in a negative way.

Those that know me know I’ve always wanted this team built around pithing so the last thing I would want to do right now is start trading away what I still have.

In my book, for different reasons, Harvey, Rafael Montero, and Noah Syndergaard are on my shelf. That means there is no way I can produce my best pitching staff until all three of these guys are ready to contribute at 100%.

For now, I stay with Zack Wheeler, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee, and two somebodies.One could be Carlos Torres. Another could be Dice-K. It really doesn’t matter to me because I would concentrate my off-season free-agent dollars into finding some bats that can help this team over the next 2-3 years.

I’m not giving up on 2014 yet, but I’m not counting on it either. My focus has already turned to 2015 as the year the Mets will return to respectability and I welcome the opportunity to discuss it here today…

The War Room – Projecting the Las Vegas Roster

My glass tank is running pretty low on topics for the ‘room’ right now. We’ve covered the same subjects over and over and I welcome any of you coming up with something today, next week, and every week until something happens in Metland.

For now, I’ve taken the time to project what I think the Las Vegas team will look like on opening day. The list has been produced as if no one is on the DL (which never happens) and I frankly ran out of pitching slots (Erik Goeddel and Adam Laffey) to list everyone, but here’s what I have for now:

SP           Rafael Montero                (there’s seven starters here so he wouldn’t be missed if he opens up in Queens)

SP           Noah Syndergaard        

SP           Darin Gorski      

SP           Jake deGrom    

SP           Cory Mazzoni   

SP           Logan Verrett   

SP           Mark Cohoon                                   

RP           Jeff Walters       

RP           Adam Kolarek  

RP           Chason Bradford            

RP           John Church      

RP           Jack Leathersich              

RP           Chase Huchington          

RP           Justin Hampson               

RP           Daniel Herrera   (missing: Robert Carson, Dylan Owen, Ryan Fraser)                        

1B           Alan Dykstra     

                Eric Campbell                                    

2B           Danny Muno     (need at least one more utility infielder)                

SS           Wilfedo Tovar                                   

3B           Zach Lutz                            

C             Juan Centeno    (Replace Centeno with Anthony Recker if he’s promoted)

                Francisco Pena                                 

OF          Cesar Puello      

                Dustin Lawley   

                Darrell Cecilliani               

                Kirk Nieuwenhuis             (Mike Baxter possible 5^th outfielder)

 

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