Depending on what you read or what you choose to believe, we may see Yoenis Cespedes on the field again by July or perhaps not until 2020. If he’s back mid-season, then the outfielders currently on our roster might be enough for now, especially if Jeff McNeil proves he can play a decent enough left field. If we take a pessimistic view on Cespedes, then perhaps we should add another outfielder. What do you think?
Pollack is a perfect fit. Four years is too long. 3 years 50 million seems about right. Mets would be a solid contender to win division with him playing CF and batting in the middle of the order.
Pollock and his 2+ WAR wants how much? If we merely compare him to what McCutchen got for being a similar player last year, albeit a year older, but we need to strongly weigh his injury history. Still, I can’t say that McCutchen isn’t the better player so I don’t know if they should go to $17MM per season, but I’d do that as a pillow contract.
Just go with a McNeil-Nimmo-Conforto OF with Lagares or Broxton in there vs lefties. Pollock is just way too injury prone for me and his road splits are pretty bad.
It’s never true that you Solve your entire season before it starts. The advantage of adding a legit RH OF Bat now is that it can be done with nothing but Money.
I don’t believe they should plan on Ces being anything but a pleasant surprise
I also don’t believe in Lego or Broxton as a “Plan” …if they prove my doubts, then you can trade assets—but it’s easier to locate with Money now They are obviously waiting out Pollack
Eraff- precisely right. If we had some magic guarantee that Nimmo and Conforto could each give us 150 games, then I’m ready to go with what we have. With McNeil and JD Davis able to play some corner, Nimmo and Conforto able to play some center and Broxton and Lagares available against lefties and as late inning defensive replacements and Rajai Davis and Gregor Blanco for extra depth in AAA. it seems like enough. But the moment Conforto or Nimmo lands on the DL our OF goes from pretty good to potentially weak. It’s a little concerning but for me it’s #3 behind bolstering the bullpen to better position Lugo as an inevitable starter and snatching up another veteran catcher to stash in AAA.
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But Nido is a top prospect, who Thor loves! Shirley you jest!
Nido a top prostpect! Ha! Gus, who you think you foolin’!!!!!!
LOLLLLLLLL, I am waiting for Matt to see that comment…..
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However, in all seriousness, many outlets are wondering why Ali Sanchez withhis eye popping defensive statistics – such as pop up times, framing, and arm strength – isn’t already MLB ready to at least be a backup. So, between Nido, Mazeika, and Sanchez at AA, coupled with a much better lineup, I think they can get through the year better than they did last year.
Im not kidding, and please *dont* call me Shirley!!!!!!!!!!
😛
https://www.apnews.com/4f8e0fa0627142a28deb430cc96a1f00
Looks like they are talking about moving the DL time and option time back up to 15 days so there will be less roster manipulation. I wouldn’t bet it on it getting implemented for the 2019 season though.
Not sure which way i support. One on hand, the 10 day DL can allow teams to operate with a quasi-26/27 man roster by manipulation. But it also screws over middle relievers/back end starters because teams can keep swapping them in or out and they lose service team as a result.
Name, I don’t think players on the DL lose service time, as Rafael Montero has accrued plenty of service time while hiding from MLB hitters and Terry Collins’ motivational approaches. Though, I do agree that it’s used for roster manipulation. However, it allows a player who is borderline DL candidate for the 15-day that may not go on and thus may force a team to rush them back to action earlier (ahem, like guess who) to go on a smaller DL stint and get a little more time to recover. So, I get the loophole but think it helps safety more. IMHO
Sorry, the service time grief was just for regular options. I find it unfair that a team can option up a SP – let him start, then option him back down the next day to bring up a reliever because there’s an upcoming off day that allows them to skip the 5th starter – and then bring the SP back after 10 days to make another start. The SP only gets 1 day of MLB pay even though the intention was to keep him up the entire time.
As for the safety thing, whose safety are we trying to improve? I suppose it’s the superstars, who mlb would rather see on the field than on the DL and wants to prevent smaller injuries from becoming bigger injuries. Though in this day and age with big money commitments you’d think that would already be incentive enough to do the right thing for the player long term and that such as DL rule would be unnecessary.
I agree on both counts, but most of these greedy, money-drunk owners don’t care about superstars’ health but rather how many people are attending the next game.
Pollock signing with the Dodgers https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/dodgers-to-sign-a-j-pollock.html
Thank god. So sick of hearing Jon Harper and others failing about the Mets getting him. What’s the over under on AJ making it to the All Star break without hitting the DL.
Im just gonna go with “under” Matt!
Well, that’s one less mistake the Mets can make. One less suitor for Harper. Wouldn’t he look nice in blue and orange?
Gus there’s more likelihood Wilmer “Ol’ Cement Feet” Flores will be the starting shortstop in Queens next year than Harper donning the orange and blue.
although Ken Rosenthal over at the Athletic took square aim at this very topic today. Says Mets should be in on either MM or BH. Mets as they stand something like an 85 win team.
“A week ago, when Van Wagenen challenged the rest of the NL East to “come get us,” it came off as false bravado. Go get Harper or Machado, and the GM can utter those words in earnest. And it would be no hollow threat.”
Yikes!!!!
Well Chris, it sounds like Jeff has spoken publicly and Mets will be doing nothing more this offseason than depth moves. Looks like opening day payroll, net of insurance, at or below last year.
Shiny new GM, bravado over cautiousness, but same old same old. When all is said and done it looks like we’ll be rooting for the consensus 4th place team in the NL East.
From MLBTR:
“The biggest issue, however, was that Pollock had another lengthy stint on the disabled list, missing roughly six weeks due to a fractured thumb. This makes it four out of five seasons that Pollock has missed significant time, with a laundry list of injuries (fractured thumb, broken hand, groin strain, and a fractured elbow that sidelined him for much of 2016). It was during his one healthy season, 2015, that Pollock exhibited his high ceiling, hitting .315/.367/.498 over 673 PA, while also racking up 20 homers, 39 steals, a Gold Glove, and his lone All-Star appearance.”
So, what’s Lagares thinking when this mediocre centerfielder got this contract from of all teams, the analytically savvy Dodgers? He’s licking his chops and saying, ‘if I avoid diving too much and stop chasing that slider away, there will be lots of teams giving away some money next year’, especially considering Lagares won’t have a QO attached, which Pollock did.
I’m not sure there’s a valid comparison between those two.
One is a career 112 OPS+ hitter (with only his 2012 September callup and 12 game 2016 below 100)
The other is a career 86 OPS+ hitter, who has only cracked that mark in 2 seasons (2014 and his 30 game 2018 season).
If Lagares somehow stays completely healthy and somehow earns and holds the starting CF job all year what do you think he’d produce? I’m guessing .275 BA, .325 OBP, 20 steals, 15-18 HRs. With his glove that would be great and that’s the type of production Alderson had in mind when he locked him up to this contract but it’s not worthy of a 4 or 5 year contract. Maybe 2 or 3.
Sadly, I cant see that at all…and Im a Lagares fan boy.
BA < 250
OB < 300
HR < 5
OPS < 700
The list of still available free agents includes 18 one time Mets.
Granderson
Reyes
Walker
Duda
R Rivera
Mesoraco
C Gomez
A Jackson
Bautista
O. Perez
Blevins
Ramos
Salas
Clippard
Goeddel
Colon
C Young
Young, Jr.
There are some players on that list that dis add value to the team, like Walker, Duda, Granny and Colon, but otherwise when the Mets did their dumpster diving, they weren’t playing. The Coupons insisted on getting the most premium garbage from the very bottom. Hence, now we see their players are left on the sidelines.
I’d sign Ramos to a minor league deal and an option, so he can rehab with Thai team and play for them next year. That’s a quality arm that they should hang on to.
Mets just signed lefty reliever Justin Wilson to 2/10.
Anyone think Callaway will not use him as a LOOGY because he has reverse splits against lefties? haha of course not. He’s more or less a similar player to former Met Alex Torres. Lefty, control issues, solid strikeout rate, reverse splits, durable for ~60 IP.
Just did a Cast podcast with Brendan Vachris that you can listen to here – http://cast.rocks/hosting/13288/Brendan-Vachris.mp3
Just listened to the podcast. Brendan did great. Nice addition to the team. Sound quality was a bit off on this one though – bit of an echo from his end.
Upon further inspection, I don’t know why the media is reporting Pollack as a 4 year deal when the 5th year is a player option so that means it’s fully guaranteed…
So really all $60 mil is guaranteed so the proper way to report should have been a 5 year / 60 mil deal with a vesting opt-out after year 3 and a regular opt out after year 4. All the decision power rests with Pollack.
It’s even more horrific when it’s reported like that and i’m guessing the Dodgers bid against themselves as i don’t think any other team was seriously close to that number.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kengiffyjr/status/1089206500692758529
He doesn’t provide a conclusion, but my guess is that he was trying to show the bullpen is important. But is it more important than SP?
If we do the same analysis with SP WAR:
0-4 SP fWAR: 65 wins
4-8 SP fWAR: 72 wins
8-12 SP fWAR: 80 wins
12-16 SP fWAR: 86 wins
16-20 SP fWAR: 92 wins
20-24 SP fWAR: 98 wins
Again, it should be no surprise that better SP leads to more wins. But to compare SP importance and RP importance we can use regression
Regression for RP: 1 relief fWAR = 0.11 team wins. Correlation is 30%
Regression for SP: 1 starting fWAR = 0.28 team wins. Correlation is 50%.
Despite the narrative of the media, it’s still a slam dunk to me that SP is far more important than RP, both statistically as shown above and anecdotally : they pitch a lot more innings and earlier in games when the outcome is still undecided.