Bobby Wahl is an interesting flier for the Mets to take. It’s hard to characterize a 26-year-old reliever as some kind of top prospect — and I won’t — but Wahl throws in the upper 90s, has an effective slider (that really feels more like a slurve to me), and can change speeds at least tolerably well. His control’s been an issue at times, though not on the Bobby Witt scale, and one of the reasons he’s not been a bit higher in the pecking order is that he has a long history of injury, losing parts of most years with varying ailments, most recently surgery for a thoracic outlet issue last season. He was fine by spring training and, as far as I know, hasn’t had any significant issues along those lines since.

Source: Dan Szymborski, FanGraphs

Wahl had a successful debut for Las Vegas, throwing 1.1 scoreless innings, with a walk and 3 Ks Sunday. But it sounds like we should expect an injury any moment now…

15 comments on “Monday catch-all thread (7/23/18)

  • Eraff

    The Mets have favored Power over athleticism and versatility, and they have run a thin MLB Ready Roster for most of the Alderson Regime… some sort of bow to finances and “perfection planning”

    The balance of their “signature” has been that they seem to have avoided/ignored doing All Of The Above— FA, Trade, International, in addition to the draft, which occurs annually.

    They have also been late to the trend when it comes to bullpen and short bench player composition—-MultiUse players

    I believe the injury run has been more than just Old Players… and their results are freakish. When you take a look at who’s been hurt over the past 2 years, a tremendous amount of it comes down to bad fortune……. and it leads you back to the unevenness of their talent acquisition and roster depth and quality more than simply concluding that “old guys get hurt”.

    The next regime must be all in on all facets of talent building…. and I do prefer different kinds of players and roster construction. I hope we’ve seen the last of the Short Sheeting of the roster that we seemed to see in so many game nights in the Alderson Years…. even while they played meaningful games

    Help Wanted::: Commited and Competent Baseball Man for Top 5 Market Team

  • Eraff

    PS on Pitcher Trades… it’s been a long time since Matz “wowed” Me. He and Wheeler have had some success when healthy, but Wheeler suddenly looks both more talented and more ready, professionally

    I’m not sure how the Mets would execute a Major Trade without a person or focus on their front office—- merely weighing the returns by the pound—- Winning The Trade—-is far Short of measuring versus an objective outcome for the Team itself

    • Mike Walczak

      I am now terrified of them making a major trade because of what they would accept in return.

  • David Klein

    Hand had years of control vs Familia having half a year of control and Cimber is really good so while the Mets got fleeced it’s because the Wilpons didn’t eat money and the Mets rushed to move him.

  • TJ

    I agree with the line of thinking that the Mets demonstrate no capability of making a big trade before they settle the administration this offseason.

    Does anyone have a rational explanation for why Wahl has been stashed in AAA and is not with the big team? Are they waiting to accumulate more frequent flier miles before springing for a plane ticket?

  • Brian Joura

    Jacob deGrom took the loss last night, despite 8 IP and 2 ER, dropping his record to 5-5

    The last time a qualified SP had an ERA+ over 200 (deGrom’s is 222) and a W-L record of .500 or lower was 1880 https://www.baseball-reference.com/tiny/8251h

    • Chris F

      and so it shows in perfect clarity, building a house around starting pitching, and not supporting it with quality offense and defense is a complete bust.

      The Mets need to trade him, or double down on major talent by FA or trades immediately otherwise his presence makes no difference.

      • Brian Joura

        For a variety of factors, the offense has not been as good overall as expected this year. Yet tonight was the 48th time that they’ve scored 4 or more runs this season. That’s just a hair under 50% of the time. For whatever reason, when deGrom pitches the offense is even less efficient than normal. In 13 of his 20 starts, they’ve scored three runs or fewer and there are starts where the offense scores after he leaves – like on July 6 when they scored four runs in the 9th inning – so his support has been even worse than that.

        I think it would be foolish to look at the quirky way that the Mets have failed to support deGrom in 2018 and conclude that you can’t build around starting pitching.

      • Name

        Team rank based on wRC of NL playoff contenders:
        Dodgers: 1
        Cubs: 2
        Braves: 3
        Brewers : 9
        Phillies: 10
        Dbacks: 12

        Team rank based on SP ERA:
        Dodgers: 1
        Braves: 3
        Brewers : 4
        Phillies : 5
        Cubs : 7
        Dbacks: 8

        SP still has a stronger correlation with playoff contention than Offense.

  • Eraff

    Last Night, Hernandez mentioned Ted Simmons in passing. It reminded Me that I believe Simmons belongs in The Hall of Fame. He was a great hitter and a multiple allstar…over 1000 rbi as a Catcher—1300 plus total

    Johnny Bench may have been the greatest baseball player I’ve seen..certainly the greatest Catcher I’ve seen. Simmons played in Bench’s cold shaddow throughout his career.

  • Brian Joura

    From MetsBlog:

    Mets OF Yoenis Cespedes will have season-ending surgery on both heels, and his 2019 season may be impacted as well, with the expected recovery window eight-to-10 months.

    “It’s possible it will be longer than that,” assistant GM John Ricco said. “It won’t be shorter than that.”

    A couple of weeks ago on the podcast, my crazy prediction was that Cespedes wouldn’t play another game for the Mets in 2018. Off by one game…

    • Name

      Not including the year he was traded, Cespedes has played in 251 games and had 1021 PA in 3 years.

      That’s less games and PA than Jason Bay who played 288 games and 1125 PA in his 3 years as a Met.

  • Eraff

    Crazy Theory…Terry Collins heads up the Org Chart to fill Sandy’s Roll

  • Brian Joura

    The Mets’ entry in the DSL has a 3B with the first name of Fidel and a RP with the first name of Nixon.

    I wonder if they talk to one another.

  • Brian Joura

    The latest podcast with Jon Springer is posted. You can download it here:

    [audio src="http://cast.rocks/hosting/13288/Jon-Springer.mp3" /]

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