Morning Report – 3-12-14 – Guilbert, Colon, Dan-Chat, Game Notes

Morning Report – 3-12-14 – Guilbert, Colon, Dan-Chat, Game Notes

Coming Up –

          10 am – Christopher Soto - The Maturation of Brandon Nimmo; Perhaps Sandy was Right?

12 noon – Mid-March Thoughts on the Draft

 2 pm –  SB Nation - Mock

4 pm -    TTF - Mock

6 pm -   MLB Draft Insider - Mock

8 pm –   C - Alex Jackson - Rancho Bernardo (CA) HS

10 pm - Touki Toussaint, Ross Kivett, Matt Imhoff, Michael Gettys

I’m thrilled to announce that Stephen Guilbert (God, I hope I spelled his name correct…) has returned to Mack’s Mets as Senior Draft Reporter. Stephen was with us for many years and I consider his far more expert on the draft than me or most of the guys at PG (in fact, I won’t be surprised if I lose him some day to that site). We haven’t had the chance to figure out what he’s going to add, content wise, here, but look for expansive draft coverage as the calendar gets closer to the first week in June. He also will be in charge of all the draft content during those three days.

Additionally, I heard from one of the original Mack’s Mets writers, Jack Flynn, who has promised to write something before the season starts. This mention is designed to hold him to that promise J

Bartolo Colon hit 90 mph, was happy with first start… actually, so was I. I’m never that concerned when a vet pitcher like this gives up a couple of runs the first few times out in spring. I’m looking at velo and control, both of which seemed to be there. Colon will turn on the nastiness as the month moves on and my guess this is going to wind up as a good 7.0-IP, 4.00-ERA per game kind of signing. I’m not sure he will be around the entire year, no less the length of his contract, but it’s a nice slot in for the loss of Matt Harvey.

Made a call… looks like 4/5 days for the return of Lucas Duda and 8/9 for Ike Davis. Both will still have the time to build up conditioning and strength, but they will be cutting it close for opening day. My guess… a rusty Duda starts it off.

Nick Franklin ST: -  .333/.368/.667, 3 2B, 1 HR, 4 RBI.

Dan-Chat –

Comment From JustAGuy - In a deep league where every SP is worth owning, who are some of your favorite guys who are still battling for a 5th spot in a rotation?

Dan Szymborski: Mejia!

Comment From GSon- The only Mejia worth discussing as a potential ML’er is an 18 year old catcher just making his way into full season A Ball in Lake County for the Indians..

Dan Szymborski: You don’t like Jenrry Mejia, who was excellent in his 5 starts and seems to be healhty?

Comment From MSW- I just can’t even with the Mets this season. Ruben Tejada looks worse than ever. They still don’t know how to manage and injury to Ike Davis. Terry Collins seems intent of keeping Lagares out of the lineup so Eric Young can bat leadoff poorly. Keeping Thor down on the farm so that Dice-BB can throw some meaningless innings. What is the deal with this team?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not a fan of Collins.

Game notes –

          We don’t need no stinkin’ pitching…

          It was nice to see some offense, especially the three home runs from Josh Satin, Zach Lutz, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Any combo of these guys could be part of the 25-man plan come opening day. However, none of these homers were against quality pitchers.

          I give ( a healthy!) Jon Niese a rusty first outing pass… you also knew that Rafael Montero was eventually going to give up a run.

          Jose Valverde looked like an older version of Jenrry Mejia to me and, no matter how much the ‘Dominican Mafia’ love having him around, he should not be on this team.

          Q had three hits today.

          It’s interesting that Wilmer Flores’ bat seems to be waking up on the same day he returned to shortstop (I can’t believe Flores tried to steal second… he’s so slow, he couldn’t even do this when the catcher dropped the ball).

          RP Vic Black looks a little better with each outing…

          Did I mention that Q had three hits today?

          Gonzalez Germen’s change was out of the zone…

    You walk away from this game with some shortstop positives.. a couple of guys that have played that position did have a bunch of hits today. You really don't want any of them starting for your team but they could be positive motivation for the guy who is supposed to play there opening day...