There are those that seriously thought that the Mets might sign Yoenis Cespedes this off season. Silly silly people. Cespedes is looking for six years and perhaps $150 million. There never was a shot in h-e-double hockey sticks that the Wilpons would go for that.
Realists set their sights on Gerardo Parra, Will Venable, or maybe if the stars aligned, Dexter Fowler.
So who do the New York Lords of Genius sign? Alejandro De Aza.
Is he a left handed hitter? Yes. Is he an outfielder? Yes.
Is he a center fielder? No. What did the Mets want? A lefty center fielder to platoon with Juan Lagares.
So why De Aza? Likely it was because he was the cheapest option (this side of Kirk Nieuwenhuis) and probably the only player who would sign for just one year. The fact that he has played little center field in his career was glossed over and all the evidence available shows that what little work he has done in the middle outfield position was not done particularly well.
Cespedes’ booming bat made up for the fact that he was a barely average center fielder. De Aza has a far less imposing bat and will likely come with inferior center field range – a bad combo.
Maybe it should not surprise us that the Amazins went this way. This is a team that was willing to play a middle infield of Wilmer Flores at shortstop and Daniel Murphy at second base for the better part of last year. If one believes at all in providing your pitching staff some support on the field you don’t play those range deprived players up the middle. At least with Lagares in center there was a competent fielder deep up the middle. Now in 2016 the keystone will be somewhat better on defense while the center field gap has become significantly wider.
Don’t get me wrong. De Aza is not a bad baseball player. Had he been signed to be a team’s fourth or fifth outfielder playing 90% of his defensive innings in left or right field he would be a solid asset. Signed to be a team’s primary center fielder he has the makings of another free agent miss by the Wilpon’s brain trust.
Let’s Go Mets!
Bud and Santana and Foli and Flores.
We are the NL champions.
Being a realist without Cepesdes or Murphy forget about even winning a division title. Walker, a natural 2nd baseman was a nice acquisition but he doesn’t measure up to Murphy’s productivity. Murphy haters aside, if Daniel signs with Nats I’m afraid he will wear the Mets out. Defensively, Murph is a better 3B than Walker is 2B. Conforto is a future all-star, Grandy is an all round big asset who plays hard, Duda should perform somewhat better, shortstop I am not sure, Wright is a natural leader but now below avg 3B because of spinal issues with limited range who strikes out in the clutch far too often. Platooning any center fielder is very bad, I fear injury at catcher will continue. Also, Mets by far have the best ML pitching staff, but all of them are only good for 6 or 7 innings with on a good day average middle relief help.Flores must fit in somewhere to get at least 500 AB’s. As much as I Iike Colon, he will get lit up this year and will be no better than a batting practice pitcher.
This is the dumpster dive of outfielder choices…at least Raburn was feasible. He can demonstrably play centerfield….I read Megdal’s article in vocativ, and it makes me nauseous when the owners of the Mets blatantly lie to the loyal hard working fans ; to whom a dollar earned requires our dedication and our sweat. The lords of the manor deem us undeserving of their fidelity and simple committment to success. Like chattel, (and I mean slaves, not bovines), who can be herded into the pens, we as fans, are assumed to be blind , deaf, and dumb to their onerous manipulation of our devotion. We see exactly what you are up to in your ivory tower, and ultimately we will be victorious in spite of you. Our loyalty to each other and baseball will long endure, even when you are a faded bad taste in our collective mouths.
While Ryan Raburn would be a decent signing for the role that Cuddyer was to have – corner outfield/1B it is incorrect to think that he could handle center field. In Raburn’s 10 year career he has played 35 games in center (only 23 of those were starts) and he has not played an inning in center since 2011.
He likely couldn’t play it any better than De Aza and I have no confidence that De Aza can play it even close to adequately.
On the other stuff I agree with you.
Larry the signing confirms our suspicions. The Wilpons are not going to re-invest their post season profits. Frugal? Absolutely! Another WTF signing. I thought the off season was to shore up the defense up the middle? It seems the FO is still in 2014 patch mode with the cheapest player who will be grateful to have a chance at resuscitating their careers. Same BS. The attitude of the Wilpon’s is to ride the Core 4 for as long as possible before FA and have the suckers (fans) come and watch their heroes pitch. Can someone just please ask the fan base to wake up? Reality is the Wilpons were Never going to “splurge” on any major upgrades that should of been done at SS , CF and second base. maybe the GM can write an open letter to the fans apologizing for the ownership and their unwillingness to compete in the open market. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid! Wake up everybody! what happens if Lagares gets hurt? Will the team go out and sign a CF?
You clowns still don’t get it. Know your GM! ! The De Aza move was a maybe Marlon Bird or maybe John Mayberry Jr type move. If it is the former instead of the latter then it turns out well. If it is the latter then we keep an eye on Brandon Nimmo this summer. If Nimmo does his thing and improves his numbers then he will replace De Aza. Nimmo was taken in the first round for a reason. The reason will be unfathomable to most whiners and complainers and blog writers and other media types who have the arrogance to assume they know more about running a team than the professionals who have spent their adult life working in baseball. You guys piss and moan about the bad off season Sandy Alderson had while forgetting that he won his forth pennant when no one gave him a chance in hell to do so. One more stupid story by one of these blog editors and I am going to contact Anonymous and take over this website.
Pox,
Since these dumb stories are written in every corner covering the Mets these days, is every writer stupid and just you got all the brains? Did you not see how this pee shooting offense lost its best hitter from last year and you believe that Nimmo will come up and replace that? I guess you forgot those offensive displays from mid-April until mid-July, and three month period of which they were 9 games Below .500!
Do you expect the Nationals to lay down again, TdA and Wright to stay healthy all year, or is Santa Claus going to bring us speed to sprinkle on all these lead footed players to maybe manufacture an extra run a game?
If the posts are so stupid then why do you spend so much time answering them? De Aza is getting reportedly 4.5 million. Not the 1.5 million Mayberry received last year. A lot more to invest for a team with a limited budget. If he’s a bust they’re not just going to DFA him
Pete, it’s worse: $5.5MM plus incentives, LOL!
This cannot be the move we were all waiting for….. He was signed to be an extra outfielder. Before anyone gets on my case, obviously I know that is not true. We all saw last season what happened when Cespedes came aboard. It was a different team. Granted, we also had Conforto, Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe. But guess what, Uribe and Johnson are gone and we all know it was really Cespedes who carried us into post season. Nothing against DeAza, who would make a fine 4th outfielder, but we needed one of the bigger outfielders. It is a shame that the Wilpons are not allowing the front office to get the right players. This window of great but cheap pitching will close quickly. This should have been our year and if they didnt spend this year, they will never spend. All we can hope for now is that DeAza was signed as depth and they are still in the running for a centerfielder.
Mike S you must be drinking Wilpon Kool-Aid to think that they would give a player $5.75 million with a chance to make $1.25 more just to be a fourth or fifth outfielder. You can bet the house that he was signed to be Lagares’ platoon partner and no further major outfield improvements will happen unless it’s at the trade deadline time this summer.
Yeah Larry, I know that. One can hope, cant he?
The Alejandro DeAza signing is a huge dissappointment because the Mets needed a bigger impact offensive/defensive player than him. Cespedes, Span and Fowler were the three free agents that filled that need and would still utilize Lagares in a positive way as a fourth outfielder. It is difficult to envision Lagares as a platoon center fielder with his weak injured arm when we all realize he can’t hit RHP either.
The Megdal’s article in vocativ is a must read for Met fans. It puts into perspective the Wilpon’s financial situation. The DeAza signing is an improvement for the team under these circumstances. It allows the Mets to evaluate Lagares for another year to see if his arm has healed and also gives Nimmo time to develope at AAA to take over the 2017 platoon. As a fan, it is not the scenario that I wanted to see. I do like Alderson’s philosophy of short term contracts that give the budget flexiblility and re-tooling at the trade deadline. The Met starting pitching should keep them as a playoff team but the DeAza signing has reduced the odds of repeating as division champs. The fact that the Mets are financially hamstrung after going to the World Series while playing in the largest market is an inditement that the Wilpon’s should sell the team.
Well said, Metsense. What would you say is the degree of possibility that Cespides can be re-signed? “Do you believe in miracles?”
Have Alderson or the Wilpons (yeah right) commented on this signing yet?
One thing about debt and investments. Carrying debt is often a reasonable option, when money invested elsewhere earns a bigger yield. In many cases, paying down debt can be a poor business decision.
The NY Mets are a money-making operation, on the cusp of making huge money in baseball’s biggest market.
You have $100. You can use that to lower your debt, on which you pay interest of 5% (making up numbers to make a point). Or you can invest that $100 to help you earn a profit of 15%.
The Mets made a boatload of money last year. SNY is the huge piece of all this. So is the total valuation of the properties. If the Mets are worth $2 billion, an appreciating at a rapid rate, where’s the problem?
What is baffling to me is that they — and so many commentators — fail to learn the lesson of Steinbrenner’s Yankees. It takes money to make money. A lot of it.
Investing in this club would be good business.
Real owners would run this team so differently.
Excellent comments everyone. I’ll expand on this for my friday post.
terrible move, period.
Can we all just not accept the NL champion New York Mets?
Have faith and confidence in the future.
Surprises happen all the time!
Merry Christmas from the British Isles.
I would have preferred Span.. but the FO deemed him too expensive relative to the health risk. So for a plan B De Aza works.
Check the numbers… De Aza’s numbers against RHP are the same as Cespedes’ and he is no worse then Cespedes in CF. We only commit for 1 year and we give Nimmo more time at LV to refine his game. If Nimmo is ready (even just to be a platoon) then we will be able to trade De Aza at the deadline to a needy team.
BTW… We were never “in” on Cespedes. He’s not worth that kind of money. He had a once in lifetime 5 week run.. but that’s what it was… his career numbers point to a very good hitter, but not Trout, McCutcheon , or Harper “like. He just isn’t worth that kind of money or years.. that’s why the FO kept saying if he lowers his years and/or money we’ll think about it. He didn’t so they said adios.. rightfully so.
De Aza fits their needs because the Met’s don’t have any money for a quality FA CFer. Their nickel and dime efforts reminds me when I was a kid and my dad gave me a dollar. I had to figure out a way to stretch out that dollar so I could buy more candy in the store. Same principle here. While De Aza may improve the team there were and still are better options out there. (They’re just more expensive) There just isn’t any money in the budget for that. Yes the team may be able to turn him over at the trading deadline but just listen to your train of thought. The Met’s won the NL and are still penny pinching! How many millions of dollars did the play off run add to the Wilpon pockets? And yet you can see by these signings that ownership has zero interest in re-investing some of those profits back into the team. By The time everything is said and done payroll will be the same as it was last season. There is a small window of 2 maybe 3 years before the SP rotation becomes unmanageable fiscally for these cheapskates.