Mack Ade – Morning Report – 3-17-13

Morning.

Two more “friends of the blog” donated money last night and the total is now up to $115. God bless both of you for your donations.

Darnell asked -

Hey Mack.

It's been a while. Glad you chose to stick w. the blog and all. You have always been a must read for me and I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you put into the work you do. I "finally" donated to the cause to show a bit of gratitude. Now back to baseball. What do you think of that projected AA rotation? Tapia in AA? That's strange. Isn't it? –

Mack:

Thank you Darnell. It will go a long way.

The Group 2 list is, of course, not etched in stone. I expect at least two of those guys to eventually be assigned to St. Lucie before the season starts.

Noah Syndergaard was also supposedly on that list but he’s been ‘shut down’ for a week whch may slow him down.

And then there is Eric Goeddel who could be ready on opening day.

Regarding Tapia, I see no reason to send him to St. Lucie. The kid throws a 97 mph slider. However, let’s see what happens on opening day. These posted lists don’t always pan out and only represent where certain players are ‘assigned’ during ST games. Case in point… Luis Mateo pitched relief for Binghamton on Friday and stands no chance to open for that team.

According to Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog, the Mets have interest in signing a contract extension with 1B Ike Davis.

I like the idea’ He’s under contract for 2013 for $3.125. I’d offer him three more (2014-2016) which would take him up to 2017, where he is scheduled to become a free agent. I wouldn’t go any further because 95% of long-term contracts suck before they end. Davis hasn’t proved his value yet and, if the Mets came up with a 3-yr, $21mil deal, he might want to consider it.Then again, you first have to talk Sandy into offering it.

Saturday Game Notes:

    Look, you can't expect anything good to come out of these games if you don't hit the ball fair. You simply can't expect to compete having 5-6 hits a game. It's not going to happen.

    My guess is that if Zach Lutz was being considered to replace David Wright at 3B in the short run, he'd be playing there these past few days instead of playing 1B.

    Of course, everything changes now with Justin Turner going down with a sprained ankle... boy, is this going to be a long year... we'll wait for the medical report before speculating.

A good article on Wilmer Flores:

We did see Flores play second base this spring, and he appeared to handle himself well, albeit in a small sample size. He made routine plays on balls that were hit near him and showed a surprising ability to cleanly turn double plays at second base, where his strong arm helps get the ball to first base in time. But for every moment that was encouraging with regards to his ability to play second base, there were an equal number of moments where Flores was helpless to make a play on a ball that a quicker and more athletic second baseman would have been able to make. The Mets could choose to keep him at second base and hope that his offense makes up for his deficiencies on defense, but that would require a lot of offensive production from Flores, while also forcing the Mets to deal with constant frustration at makeable plays for most second basemen, but not Flores.

Read more at link