Alonso, Urena, Mazeika Earn FSL Yearly Honors

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – The Florida State League announced its year-end All Star Team on Monday and the St. Lucie Mets are represented by three players.

First baseman Peter Alonso, third baseman Jhoan Urena and catcher Patrick Mazeika earned honors from the league.

Alonso, 22, batted .286 and slugged 16 home runs in 82 games. He cracked 23 doubles, drove in 58 runs and scored 45 runs. Alonso was named FSL Player of the Month for July and won the league’s Player of the Week award twice.

Alonso was promoted to Double-A Binghamton last week. He missed six weeks early in the season after suffering a broken hand on a hit-by-pitch. Alonso was drafted by the Mets in the second round last year out of Florida.

Urena, 22, broke through in his third go around with St. Lucie. At the time of his promotion to Triple-A Las Vegas last week, the Dominican Republic native led the FSL in games (122), hits (129), doubles (34), runs (72), extra base hits (47) and total bases (200).

Urena was signed by the Mets as a non-drafted free agent in 2012. After an All-Star season with Brooklyn in 2014, Urena bypassed Low-A Savannah in 2015 and began the season with St. Lucie. He struggled in 2015 and again in St. Lucie in 2016 before enjoying a career year with the Mets in 2017.

Mazeika, 23, was also recently promoted to Double-A Binghamton. He served as St. Lucie’s primary catcher for the majority of the season. Mazeika played in 100 games for the Mets and hit .287 with 21 doubles, seven home runs and 50 RBI. His batting average is top 10 in the FSL.

Mazeika was selected by the Mets in the eighth round of the 2015 draft out of Stetson, the same university that produced Jacob deGrom.

Charlotte second baseman Brandon Lowe was named FSL Player of the Year. Palm Beach pitcher Ryan Helsley was picked as the FSL Pitcher of the Year.

Tampa Yankees manager Jay Bell was selected as the Manager of the Year.

Votes were cast by field managers, coaches, officials scores and media directors/radio broadcasters.

Reese Kaplan -- The Josh McCown Mets

A parallel to the New York Jets began to form in my mind this week with the continuing purge of high priced players, yet rather than seeing if anyone in the organization might help in the future, the club is punting the season by handing the reins over to a 38 year old journeyman with a 2-20 record as a starter since 2014.  Yet somehow they think magically they will catch lightning in a bottle.  Where have I seen this script play out before…a team concedes it needs to go in a new direction yet inexplicably hands critical assignments to people who are not or should not be part of their future?

I offer a tip of the cap to Sandy Alderson for conducting a fire sale of high priced veterans.  The job wasn’t done particularly well and he gets an incomplete for keeping Asdrubal Cabrera around, but the theory was that by moving high priced free-agents-to-be the Mets would be able to view more of their role players and minor league players in regular playing time in order to gauge how they do given the opportunity. 

Of course, in a rare moment of candor from Sandy Alderson, he confessed he was only able to secure the budget that he had with the promise that if the team tanked he would do a sell-off.  That might explain why the returns were so sub-par given his motivation was trying to honor a commitment to his boss as opposed to trying to build a winning team.

So the new era began with a flourish with Amed Rosario in at shortstop almost every day.  Dom Smith has been penciled in against nearly all right handed pitching but benched against lefties.  (Why is it that lefties are protected from lefties but righties aren’t protected from righties…hmmn…)

With the dual injuries this past week on consecutive days to Michael Conforto and Yoenis Cespedes, it pretty much guaranteed playing time every day for Brandon Nimmo AND for Juan Lagares.  They did choose to promote Travis Taijeron to play some outfield, but I have a feeling his days are already numbered as he’s started off on a major schneid resulting in getting the hook for a pinch hitter in a critical part of Sunday’s game. 

Terry Collins' Ideal Starting Core

The Mets version of playing Josh McCown are the assignments handed out to Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera, Tommy Milone and others at the expense of guys like Gavin Cecchini, Matt Reynolds and Kevin Plawecki.  Why isn’t Corey Oswalt up here just as Chris Flexen was promoted after succeeding in AA?  What about some bullpen help from the minors?  How about getting Plawecki in at 1B if you insist on platooning Smith so that you get more looks at the bats of both he and Travis d’Arnaud?

Don’t even get me started on why Wilmer Flores still must fight for a position and playing time despite hitting as many home runs as the $27.5 million dollar left fielder and exceeding him in RBI production.  Combined Cabrera and Reyes have 19 HRs to Flores’ paltry 17 despite having a combined additional 450 ABs to get those two extra dingers.  Stick him at 3B and leave him there for the rest of the year.  See if his offense makes up for his defense.  You’ll never know when you jerk him all over the diamond, in and out of the lineup.

Then there's the idiocy of rushing Matt Harvey back to play on Friday with news that Noah Syndergaard may be barking at his heels.  Hey, if they can come back and be productive again that's wonderful, but it's a lost season and there is no reason to push them to do so in such haste.  Let them each get a game in during the final week of September to allow them to spend the winter knowing how it felt to be back out there again.  Why risk further injury on September 1st when there's no bearing on the standings?

So which is it – are the Mets banking on has beens and never was types as they allegedly build for the future or are they honestly going to give opportunities to players who have something to prove and probably a greater desire to do so than fading journeymen or over-the-hill veterans?  Salary should not dictate playing time.  

Tom Brennan - UNHAPPY RECAP

Prior to spring training, I wrote about this team being the 100 Win Express.  I was excited.

That Express sucker sure derailed.  Let's recap:

Spring training starts with the hope that after two long years' absence, Zach Wheeler would return to form, and that Matt Harvey would overcome his thoracic surgery and be the Dark Knight of old.  Hopes also were that top-line closer Jeurys Familia would get a short start of season suspension stint that the fresh early season bullpen would weather things until his dominant return.

Jake, Thor, Matz, Lugo and Gsellman would (along with Matt and Zach) give us 7 great starters to choose from, after Lugo and Gsellman were major pleasant surprises down the stretch for the Mets in 2016.

The Mets' offense was stacked with home run hitters, promising high scoring; the fans' biggest concern offensively seemed to be about how long the paths to the big leagues of Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith would be blocked by so many hitters.   Yoenis Cespedes talked MVP, and many including myself felt that he'd have a legitimate shot at it.

Then reality struck:

Seth Lugo suffers a partial tear of his UCL in the March WBC, and misses close to 3 months.

Brandon Nimmo pulls a hammy in the WBC, and then hurts his hand rehabbing - so he only returns to Las Vegas in late May.  One bright light was that Michael Conforto got to truly shine in Nimmo's absence - but more on Conforto later.

Steve Matz has spring training forearm issues that shelve him until mid-June.  With Matz and Lugo unavailable, the Mets have to hope everyone else of the 5 guys in the 7 man starter pool pitches well - but Matt Harvey and Rob Gsellman pitch poorly.

Cespedes tweaks his hammy in April, misses 5 days, but with the Nats series looming, the Mets decide to let him play through it rather than go on the DL for 5 more days.  He then really pulls it and misses a couple of months.

With that gaping hole in the line up, the need for other hitters to step up is huge, as the division rival Nats have gotten off to a red hot start.  But Jose Reyes and Curtis Grandson have abysmal Aprils while playing virtually every day.  Neil Walker, back from back surgery, starts slowly in April too.

Things go from bad to far, far worse in early May as 2 expected 2017 cornerstones go down - Thor tears a lat muscle and looks like he'll miss virtually the whole season, and the recently returned Familia gets a blood clot in his shoulder requiring surgery -  two injuries of what, over the season, would turn out to be several very unusual injuries. Familia's injury causes him to miss about 16 weeks, and any games not saved by Addison Reed in May, June, and July were mostly blown saves by other fill ins.

Also in May, Lucas Duda and Travis d'Arnaud get injured in plays at their respective positions, missing about 3 weeks apiece.  Now the wheels are starting to come off.

As Mets fans fervently hope for a pitching shot in the arm from the soon-to-return Matz and Lugo in mid-June, the Flying Wallenda Juan Lagares gets hurt doing acrobatics to catch a liner just at that time.  Juan was finally getting hot for at the time of his injury, which kept him out for 8 weeks.  As of August 27, he has 136 at bats and 10 RBIs.

Of course, you've heard of the one-two punch.  Neil Walker hit like Daniel Murphy from the beginning of May until mid-June (.320/.380/.550) then pulls his hammy trying to beat out a bunt, missing 6 weeks.

Make that a 3 punch - Matt Harvey goes down with a shoulder scapula injury in mid-June (another unusual injury of long recovery duration) and misses the rest of June, July, and August. 

TJ Rivera steps up to very pleasantly surprise with his .290 bat, playing more and more frequently - but then another unusual injury occurs - a position player getting a partial UCL tear - and TJ gets shut down in late July.

Zach Wheeler's cautiously promising start to the season withers, as in 8 June and July starts spanning 37 innings, he surrenders 31 runs.  The man I fondly call Fragile Zach ends up with a stress reaction in his arm and gets shut down.

Steve Matz returns well, initially, but then is simply awful from July 9 thru August 17, when it is determined he needs the highly unusual ulnar collateral nerve relocation surgery ending his season.  Jake deGrom said it's not that unusual an injury, really, if you happen to be a Mets starter.

The returned La Potencia got in mostly healthy play from mid-June to the second half of August, looks much like the Cespedes of old - but the Nats curse rekindles, as he again pulls his hammy severely against the nemesis Nats and will miss the last 5 weeks of the season.

At the same time, emerging star Michael Conforto in highly unusual injury fashion tears his shoulder swinging at a pitch, with rumors his repair and rehab could prevent his return until late in 2018.  The final brutal gut punch.

With a few more minor injuries sprinkled in, this season injury-wise looks like Vito Antuofermo's face after a tough bout - brutalized.  Only difference? His face healed much faster.

Of course, after playing just 75 games in 2015 and 2016, Captain America David Wright has not played in a single major league game, but is rehabbing as we speak.  So I remain highly optimistic.

Look at the bright side, though - we get to see lots of healthy minor leaguers play in Queens.  

For example, with about 6 outfielders in Queens ahead of him in late July, Travis Taijeron (owner of 355 minor league extra base hits in 2633 minor league at bats) suddenly finds himself in late August promoted to the Mets and likely to start quite a bit down the stretch if he actually hits.  Brandon Nimmo was similarly buried but now will play every day, finally getting a chance to show if he is real, or Memorex. Fellow first rounder Gavin Cecchini was having a regressed 2017 season at Vegas, but also suddenly and unexpectedly gets playing time in Queens.

Miracles for some do happen.  Even as disaster strikes for the many unfortunate others.

2017 ALL-PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE TEAM REVEALED

For Immediate Release                                                                                                                                                      

August 28, 2017                                                                             

2017 ALL-PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE TEAM REVEALED

ROUND ROCK, Texas – The Pacific Coast League unveiled its 12-man end-of-season All-Star team on Monday. The players, elected by the league’s field managers, media representatives and broadcasters, are highlighted by Las Vegas’ Amed Rosario, Round Rock’s Willie Calhounand Fresno’s Derek Fisher, all of whom are on the Baseball America Midseason Top 100 list. Those players, along with four others, also participated in this season’s Triple-A All-Star Game. The roster has a collective age under 25-years-old, with players from nine different teams represented.

Professional baseball’s top RBI producer, Reno’s Christian Walker, headlines the infield.  The first-year Diamondback farmhand has had a career year, ranking among the PCL’s offensive leaders in numerous categories, including pacing the circuit in extra-base hits, total bases and runs scored. Round Rock’s Calhoun, the second baseman who started the year with Oklahoma City (L.A. Dodgers) before being acquired by the Rangers organization on July 31, is one of only five players to have mashed at least 29 home runs. Rosario, the team’s shortstop, dazzled with defense and collected 129 hits in 94 games before getting promoted to the Mets. Third baseman Patrick Wisdom has been a key cog for playoff-bound Memphis, leading the club with 29 home runs and 84 RBI. 

Iowa’s Victor Caratini and Nashville’s Renato Nunez are the team’s catcher and designated hitter. Caratini leads all catchers in the league in various offensive statistics, including hits, doubles and RBI. Nunez, who was the PCL’s 2017 All-Star Game MVP, has hit 32 home runs, a total matched only by Walker.

The outfield is comprised of Fisher, Oswaldo Arcia (Reno) and Mike Tauchman (Albuquerque). Fisher slugged .583 en route to a 21-homer, 66-RBI season for the Grizzlies prior to his MLB call-up. Arcia, a major contributor to the PCL’s most prolific offense, is the only player in the league with an OPS over 1.000. Tauchman is competing for a batting title, having hit .328 in 107 games this season.

Oklahoma City’s Wilmer Font, having a breakthrough year in his 10^th professional campaign, is the team’s right-handed starter. The 27-year-old leads all PCL pitchers in ERA, strikeouts, WHIP and batting average against. Ryan Carpenter (Albuquerque) is the southpaw starter. The left-hander, in his second full season with the Isotopes, is third in the league in strikeouts-per-nine innings and fewest walks-per-nine innings. Carpenter’s former teammate, Matt Carasiti (Iowa), rounds out the pitching staff as the reliever. Carasiti started the year in the Rockies organization before getting traded to the Cubs. The 26-year-old has bested PCL pitchers with 20 saves this season.

ROSTER MOVES

17-year old 3B Mark Vientos (2nd Rd. 2017 draft) is promoted from Rokkie-GCL Mets (174-AB, .259, 4-HR) to Rookie-Kingsport

IF Dale Burdick from AA-Binghamton DL to AAA-Las Vegas

Tom Brennan - COREY OSWALT: BEST OF THE REST

Tom Brennan - COREY OSWALT: BEST OF THE REST

Lots of minor league pitcher trades, call ups, injuries, etc. over the past two years.  

With all that movement...

Who is the Top of the Heap minor league Mets starter?

Corey Oswalt.

PJ Conlon and Marcos Molina have been good this year, but Corey has had the best season of anyone still in the organization (leaving out Merandy Gonzalez) and still healthy (leaving out Jordan Humphreys, Justin Dunn, and Tom Szapucki).

Around for a long time (Oswalt actually was 4-3, 8.15 right out of HS way back in 2012), and injured many times (only 313 innings prior to 2017), he is still only about to turn the ripe young age of 24 this Sunday.

He is a fine 11-5, 2.37 in 23 starts for Binghamton this year.

Even better, the last 12 starts for the 6'5", 250 righty native of San Diego have seen his season ERA drop from 3.26 to 2.37 as he's gone 7-1.  

His performances mostly have been strong and consistent, not dazzling, but we've had a lot of dazzlers in recent years who have fizzled.  

His 1.19 WHIP is very solid, but not great...but very solid....oh wait, I already said that.  He's fanned a decent 111 in 129 innings, too.   

He's also a strong lad, with 2 HRs in 11 at bats this season.  Eleven at bats, by the way, are all he has had in the minors.

If he is not in the Mets' 2018 opening day rotation because of (is it possible?) good health of all the Mets' starters involved, Corey could be first in the pool if/when someone goes down with a boo boo.

I am looking forward to seeing this guy in Queens.  I'd call him up in September, but we'll see how that goes.  Probably a future #4 or #5 starter, ways I sees it, pardner.

Peter Hyatt - 2017 Yoenis Cespdes: El Potentate Dictates When El Potentate Plays

Yoenis Cespedes: yet another leg injury and more push back against his employer:

"Of course I’m going to work hard and try to be back as soon as I can,” Cespedes said. “But I am not going to push myself to come back if I am not 100 percent.”

Now you know.  

Surprise, surprise, guess who is in control. 

"Of course" is used when one wishes to be believed without having to state it.  His need to state it comes from the acrimonious history between him and his employer, Sandy Alderson and the New York Mets 

The word "but" is used to refute and/or minimize that which preceded it. He will, without question ("of course") try to be back soon "but", with the words following "but" being the most important to him.  

In other words, we may not see the self ordained "El Potentate" back again this year, unless he says so, as internal groans in management and the decision to sign El Headcase become more acute. 

Need to State the Unnecessary 

He needs to make this statement when it is, within baseball, unnecessary. 

1.  Would anyone accuse him of not working as hard as he could to get back as soon as he could?
2.  Why the need to rebut this?

It is a strong statement based upon the conflict between himself and his employer.  

As the culture of major league baseball continues to fall prey to the ostentatiousness of ESPN's highlight reel competition, expect other posing and non hustle to produce injuries such as Phil Mushnick of the NY Post described recently for GianCarlo ("Mike") Stanton and Yoenis Cespedes.

This is where the player admires his hit and fails to run in a timely manner, only to have to turn up the speed, unnaturally, leading to not only an injury, but millions of dollars of revenue lost by the employer, as the star now sits out. 

The employer paying an employee this kind of money comes with expectations.  

Early in the ill fated 2017 season, Cespedes not only injured himself in this manner (self inflicted) but he refused to get on the field when and where he was told to. 

It reached a head when the very frustrated Sandy Alderson finally went public in an attempt to get Cespdes in rehab games announcing "no substantial injury" was found, "not even swelling" in the MRI.  

In the waning days of Spring Training, a baseball insider told me that should Cespedes slump, he may claim injury, or if he is injured, he will "milk it" for however long he wants to. 

It was worse than predicted. 

Not only did the egotistical hypertrophy leg presses set him up for injury, and his star-gazing poses combine with his refusal to hustle at certain moments in the game, he refused to rehab according to the Mets' (and their medical staff) recommendations. Protocol was set up:
x number of at bats;
x number of innings;
x number of outfield and baserunning play:

you know, exactly as you would think it would be.  

It gets worse. 

When he finally returned, 

Terry Collins could not submit a line up to MLB until "El Potentate" made his final decision on whether he would be playing today or not. 

I do not know how much influence Cespedes had on what part of the line up he would be in (it may be that the employer wanted him fourth, protecting the 3rd spot, which Conforto was being groomed for), but El Potentate wanted to be protected, instead. 

I also do not know with certainty just how much Cespedes' pouting influenced the line up, but it did have some influence on two particular "buddies" playing time:  Reyes and Cabrerra, which came to a somewhat quiet ending when Cabrera went public with his hissy fit.  (thus far, no team has offered even a used Louisville Slugger bat for the toxic egotist)

Suffice to say the New York Mets did attempt to unload the huge albatross of a contract, and there were rumors that they would have entertained various offers to eat a good portion of the contract for Cespedes. 

There were no serious offers. 

When was this in high discussion?

Right when Cespedes issued his Terry Collins insult and his warm-fuzzy recollection of his time in Oakland, of which Oakland's collective memory does not share.  

When Mushnick complains about the loss of value of the contract of Cespedes, he is not referring to naturally occurring injuries of which teams pay lots of money for insurance over. 

He is referring to the insidiously contagious attitude that Cespedes has brought to the New York Mets, including its impact upon young players (Syndergaard, Gselleman) and those with pre existing ego conditions (Harvey) and upon a team who celebrated less than mediocre play. 

Sometimes Cespedes showed up and he shined. 

Sometimes Cespedes phoned it in. 

A few times, his arrogant dismissal cost the Mets serious money. 

But it is his "El Potentate", me-first bullying of the leadership dearth within the Mets that Cespedes exploited. 

The Mets have no one to blame but themselves. 

Not only did they know what they were getting when they signed him, but they failed to hold him to any meaningful standard in spite of a very generous paycheck. 

If the 2018 Mets are going to have a chance, it is either going to be without Yoenis Cespedes, or,

heaven forbid,

they will have to stand up to him and let him know who is running the show.  If you think it will be Terry Collins, just listen to what Collins said August 20th, when, as the Post described it, "Cespedes could not be bothered" to go after a pop up that Statcast said had a "99% probability" of being caught.  It was a two base error and Collins wanted the media to know just how "tough" a manager he is.  He should have held his player accountable; not for dropping the ball, that happens, but for refusing to hustle over.  The egotistically satisfying disinterest thing is getting old in baseball and is worse on losing teams.  

Leadership Test

What do you do (or say) to a player who refuses to hustle?

1.  Gil Hodges like removal of said player to send signal to entire ball club that this will not be tolerated?
2.  Demand said player hustle?
3.  Bench said player?

or, do you take your leadership lesson from Terry Collins?

His methodology of leadership is:

1.  Praise offender
2.  Excuse offender
3.  Blame someone else 

Let's let Collins speak for himself: 

“This guy is probably as good a left fielder as there is, he’s got a Gold Glove to show for it, everybody makes mistakes,’’ Collins said.

This sounds weak because it is weak.  It praised Cespedes and it also, psychologically, put Cespedes in with "everyone" else.  This works really well...

in kindergarten classes where we wish to encourage children to do better. 

Challenged by the reporter, Collins said his message to play the game right, and that includes defense, “has come across perfectly clear and they understand it. If plays aren’t made you got to pitch around it once in a while,” the embattled manager said. “They don’t stop trying to make plays when you hang sliders, so you got to keep pitching.’’

1.  If it was "clear", no need for "perfectly" to be added.  

2.  If it was "perfectly clear", there is no need to say "they understood it."

3.  Who is "they"?  Cespedes refused to run to the ball.  

4.  He put the responsibility on pitchers, moving it away from Cespedes. 

No, Terry Collins, if back next year, will not be the leader to bring Cespedes to hustle and put team results first. 

The ball club is infected with "Cespeditis" disease.  It is essentially "me first" with childish pouting, brooding and ultimately controlling. 

If we see the sparkling enthusiasm of Amed Rosario begin to mimic the dark "too cool" disinterest of Yoenis Cespedes, or if we see the reserved Dom Smith suddenly begin to dance like Reyes while celebrating mediocrity being 10 games under .500, I think one of us will likely go Elvis on the big screen. 

Mack’s Morning Report – 8-28 – 2018

Good morning.

2018 -

I’ve taken a little time to step back and look where this team has been and where it is going in 2018. Let’s face it, if we took past, present, and future injuries off the table, the 2018 version of this team will be far less talented than this year’s opening day 50-man crew.

Worse than this is the fact that, with the promotion of Dominic Smith and Amed Rosario to Flushing, there no longer is a ++ prospect left at the AAA level.

There’s prime talent in Queens. In the field, there is Smith, Rosario, Michael Conforto, and Yoenes Cespedes. On the mound, there is Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Jeurys Familia, and A.J. Ramos. But eight players do not make for a great team.

Oh, I know, some of you (including some of my writers) will question me leaving out names like Wilmer Flores, Travis d’Arnaud, and Victor Cruzado (morning Hobie!). They are nice players but they are not prime. Worse than this, most of the players that have left or ae leaving at the end of this season were prime also.

Look, you know me. I predicted this team would finish third in their division after factoring in the average number of injuries that fall on these guys. It looks like heavier injuries will cause the Mets to drop even further.

   (one sidebar... I've been thinking since the Conforto debacle, do we really want to play any of our precious few prospects anymore this season? I know that Amed Rosario and Dom Smith just got here, but what would be your thoughts if one of these guys broke his leg sliding into second? I mean, do we really want to light up Syndergaard anymore this season and shouldn't we put Jake on the shelf until the spring?)

The Mets will be much leaner come the day after the season ends. The owners will smile when they look at their projected profit and loss statements for the off season. What they do from here is still undetermined.

I can tell you this. This team will quickly fall to the bottom of their division until prime top draft picks mature, like the Nationals did back when they drafted Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper.

Tom Brennan's analysis between the Yanks and Mets affiliates W-L records show just how far this team is off for future growth.

Potentially the Mets could finish 25 games behind the Nats. How do you close a gap like that in the off-season?

Look… and I’m sorry if I seem to use the word ‘look’ too often. It’s a word I use when I’m about to say something negative... there’s a chance that some of the current 25-man members step up next season. Harvey, Lugo, Montero, Gsellman, Matz, and Wheeler have been nothing but a disappointment this season on the mound and why should we believe it’s going to chance any next year?

And there’s no one ready past these guys. Maybe someone like Corey Oswalt could help, but he really is a year away and we always see the results of rushing someone too early (Chris Flexen).

I go up and down my affiliate excel sheet and I can’t find one name in our top three affiliates (Las Vegas, Binghamton, St. Lucie) of someone that is guaranteed to be a starter in major league baseball. Not one. Some have promise and project to get there, but that’s all at this point.

And trust me… when John Sickles comes out with his 2018 top 30 prospects list, we won’t have one A or A- rated player in the system on the top three level affiliate teams. I really like what's going on in Kingsport and the DSL with all those guppies that have names I can't pronounce, but there is no guarantee that they will make it all the way to Queens. Think F-Mart. 

I could go on, but you get the picture. 

We are now years away from rooting for a competitive team and many of you will have your fan loyalty tested. 

Tom Brennan - LOSSES AND WINS

Tom Brennan - LOSSES AND WINS

Most times, we baseball fans think "wins and losses."

In 2017, with the Mets, it is Losses first, then Wins.

First, we've lost an awful lot of player time to injuries.  Starting with David Wright, who actually DH'd for St Lucie August 22, followed by a rain out and then sitting out both ends of a double header on August 24.  For Wright, before that this year, it's been all DL City.  Maybe the 22nd was a mirage, or the result of the eclipse - I am not sure.

Lots of other players, too, with lots of times lost to injuries.  Lou Gehrig just told me he's really puzzled about that.  Heck, I saw the movie Hacksaw Ridge the other night, and the soldiers reminded me of the Mets' current triage situation.

But it's not just players losing time to injuries - the teams are (mostly) losing in bunches.

The Mets, of course, are way under .500.

Thru Thursday, though, how's everyone else doing?  Ugh!

Brooklyn's 15-46 record has a loss-win % (.246) that is worse than the 1962 Mets' .250. 'Nuff said.

Las Vegas is 27 games under .500. 

St Lucie is 14 under .500. 

Kingsport is actually only 5 under .500 at 27-32. 

The Gulf Coast Mets?  14 under .500 in just 48 games.

Columbia relied on great early season pitching to for a while climb well above .500, but has slid back to 65-63 as the great pitching went bye-bye.

Binghamton, thanks to great relief pitching, solid starting pitching, good defense and decent hitting, is the gem of the organization this year at 76-52 - except for the 2 DSL squads, that have a better combined record of 91-47.

I typically don't count the DSL teams as minor league teams, more like pre-minors teams, given the very young age of most of their players and the level of ball being below rookie league ball.  But these two DSL teams pitch, hit and defend far better than your normal DSL teams, so I have to give credit where credit is due.

Usually, players going from the DSL to rookie league ball experience a rude awakening.

In this upside down year, however, it is interesting to see a player interestingly named Wilmer Reyes who, at age 19, was far from the best hitter (.242) on the Mets' DSL teams but nonetheless got promoted to the Gulf Coast League recently.  And shockingly goes 12 for his first 24, making rookie league ball look mighty easy.

Back to Losses and Wins - we can only hope the Mets' organization is getting its Losses out of the way in 2017 and plans on Wins in 2018 - lots of them.