Paul DePodesta - @pdepo
Intrasquad games are no fun, because
they're zero sum....but, Wilmer Flores did just
hit a three-run homer
Citing an "overall conditioning
issue," the Mets have pushed left-hander Johan
Santana's throwing schedule back more than a week, potentially affecting
his status for Opening Day. "It's obviously a possibility," general
manager Sandy Alderson said of Santana
relinquishing his April 1 assignment. "But right now we're still shooting
for the opening of the season." Because Santana did not throw off a mound
in either Venezuela or Florida over the winter, the Mets could not gauge his
status until he arrived at camp last week. The left-hander climbed atop a mound
on Sunday for the first time since August, throwing 20 pitches without apparent
issue. He then threw another bullpen session on Wednesday.
KBurkhardtSNY: I'm not buying the Johan thing
as no big deal. I think he was utterly disappointed in his pen the other day.
The thing I find strange here, and no one is talking about,
is less than 48 hours ago, this guy found out he wasn’t going to be allowed to
pitch for his home country in the World Baseball Classic. Now, all of a sudden,
his arm isn’t ready and the Mets are spinning out a tale of “overall
conditioning issue”. Where was the issue if he pitched in the WBC?
I added Kevin Burkhardt’s comments
here because he wasn’t the only person to say that Santans’s first bullpen
session was piss pour. Can’t baseball teams bring in their walking wounded a
month early to start the process of building up arm strength? I fully
understand that you don’t want these guys rehabbing on their own, but throwing
off the mound for the first time only 4-5 weeks away from your first outing?
Needless to say, this may be the first sign that any chance
Santana can bring the Mets a decent prospect in a mid-season trade is nil. It’s
been a long time since he’s pitched an entire season healthy and it’s obvious
he’s not going to do so now.
For starters, look for all the other four rotation pitchers
to move up a notch and Colin McHugh might
be the early favorite for emergency SP5 after his outing today (2.0 IP, 1 H, 1
BB, 2 K).
Highlights from Intra-squad game:
First, let me remind you that you never take spring
training statistics serious. Do the research and go find the spring batting
averages for Matty Alou.
Now, worse than that is the fact that this isn’t even a
spring training game. It’s a scrimmage between two sets of mostly minor
leaguers that the coaches want to get a look at before the real spring training
starts today.
You’re a reader of Mack’s
Mets because you follow the kids on the
wrong side of the field, but most Mets coaches know very little about them
other than what they have heard from others. Did you watch the SNY broadcast
from Duffy’s last night? Did you notice that, when asked what outfielder has
impressed him so far, Bobby Ojeda could only
identify a player as “Juan something…”
Most of the players in the scrimmage are trying to make the
organization, no less the team. Some thoughts:
RP LaTroy Hawkins (0.2 IP, 5 R, 5 ER, 5 H, 1 BB, 1 K) didn’t help the cause.
That’s a lot of hits in less than one inning, one of which was a three-run
homer by Wilmer Flores.
Wilmer Flores played second base… and had four RBIs, three on his home
run and another on a well hit sacrificed fly. Everything he did confirmed the
ability and maturity of his bat.
(you have to think at this point that Flores will become
the permanent Las Vegas second baseman and Reese Havens will
first be dropped from the 40-man and then turned loose if they can’t work out a
deal for him. Very sad.)
CF Kirk Nieuwenhuis had a perfect
throw to third base, ending a rally that could have turned into a rout.
2B
Jordany Valdespin also homered.
C
Juan Centeno (you know how much I like this kid)
turned some heads going 2-2.
When asked
who stood out in intrasquad game, Terry Collins said Gonzalez Germen [1.2 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 2 K] : "Tremendous changeup. Lights-out
changeup."
(See…
it’s never the stats in a spring training game.)
P Collin McHugh’s nasty curve that struck out Travis d’Arnaeu.
I saw a trade come down the wire early today. The Giants
traded 3B Conor Gillaspie to the Chicago White Sox for pitcher Jeff Soptic.
Trust me, this is not going to be the lead story on Hot
Stove this morning. Gillaspie is a former first round pick that has played AAA
the past two years and has nowhere to go with a Giants uniform on. Soptic is
still pitching A-ball and is two or three years away, if ever. What he does
throw is a fastball clocked as high as 101 and, hopefully, someday, it will hit
the barn.
Why do I bring this up?
Well, like things I’ve written about here before, this is
the kind of trade that the Mets will do someday for help in the outfield.
This is one team trading a secondary prospect to another
team for a secondary prospect.
It seems to me that the Mets are done experimenting with
the 2013 outfield. The end result will come out of this camp, but the 2014
version will be quite different.
As I’ve written about before, if you want a George Springer or a Jackie Bradley Jr.,
than you’re going to have to offer up someone like a Domingo Tapia or Rafael Montero.
Did I mention that Tapia throws a 97 mph… slider?
Gillaspie for Soptic is not Springer for Tapia, but the
template is the same.
This will come to pass, Mets fans. Maybe, even twice.
It has been written by multiple writers that the Mets spent the most money this off-season on an international baseball players. That isn't true. They did spend $1.75mil on SS Ahmed (his first name spelled wrong by BA) Rosario, which was the 3rd largest.
TOP 30 INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR BONUSES, 2012 | |||||
Player | Pos | Org | Age | Country | Bonus |
1. Jairo Beras* | OF | Rangers | 17 | Dominican Republic | $4.5 million |
2. Tzu-Wei Lin* | SS | Red Sox | 18 | Taiwan | $2.05 million |
3. Amed Rosario | SS | Mets | 16 | Dominican Republic | $1.75 million |
4. Jose Castillo | LHP | Rays | 16 | Venezuela | $1.55 million |
5. Juan Carlos Paniagua | RHP | Cubs | 22 | Dominican Republic | $1.5 million |
2 comments:
If they'd have given Santana the green light to pitch in the WBC, I wonder if he would have pitched no matter how crappy his shoulder felt.
I don't think Santana, in a contract year no less, would pull something so shady like a fake injury, just to get back at the front office over them vetoing his WBC participation. This guy has integrity and is pitching this year for a new contract.
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