It’s officially spring! A few games that count have been played (albeit in Japan) and opening day is just a week away. We’re all obsessing over those last few roster spots and it sounds petty, but this team has had a knack over the years for cutting the wrong guy loose – especially relievers. The last few spots on the 25-man are up for grabs, but really, they’ll be in flux all year due to injuries and bullpen rotation. The important thing is that next Thursday afternoon in Washington at 1:05pm, the umpire will holler, “Play ball!” and Brandon Nimmo will step into the batter’s box to face Max Scherzer.
I hope this subject hasn’t been addressed but two of our friends of the past has been in the news.
The first is Michael Fulmer’s right elbow. The cost for the Cespedes trade now is put in a longer term perspective. I always judged that trade with the so called genius trade of the Wheeler/Beltran move. What I’m trying to say is present value vs long term value is a crap shoot so the acquisition of Cano for Jarred Kelenic is complex and only history will tell.
The other friend is Lucas Duda. I’m afraid that it might be over for the big guy. He was missing that one molecule which would have put him over the top?
Pete, I felt a little twinge if sadness when i read that about Duda. I really liked him as a Met. I know he was a limited player and has probably lost a tick with age, but there’s a human element that the stats don’t cover. He was an easy guy to root for and seemed like a good teammate. I hope he gets another shot somewhere.
As for Fullmer, I never liked his mechanics and always felt like he was a gimmick pitcher that relied too much on one out pitch – in his case the change up. His fastball doesn’t miss a lot of bats and his breaking pitches are mediocre. I wasn’t broken up about trading him when we did.
Sad for The Dude for sure. He’s 33 and made 25M$, so tears don’t fall far. I finally had to retire my well used duda shirsey, the end of 2 eras 😉
Four questions:
1. Is Mex the greatest fielding 1B of all time?
2. If yes, why isn’t he in the HoF?
3. Is Donnie Baseball the second greatest fielding 1B of all-time?
4. Analogous to #2 applied to Donnie Baseball
Maybe Gil Hodges. He played for Mets in 1962 & 1963 but I was too young , 8 and 9, and he was too old ,38 and 39, When I saw him in the Polo Grounds to make an definitive assessment.
Keith Hernandez is my #1 1Bman: great range, arm, sure-handedness, etc. over a long period!
Vic Power was a great in my childhood and I’ll put him at #2: great smoothness and range!
Gil Hodges is my #3: terrific arm (started as a catcher), range, and fielding pct.
Don Mattingly is my #4 for similar reasons to Keith.
John Olerud is my #5: great range and sure-handedness!
Carrying three catchers and two first base only guys is idiotic. Alonso has outhit Dom, who has mostly hit singles this spring vs Alonso hitting just choice one.
Dom earned the spot as a substitute lefty first baseman. Alonso is the starter.
Mesoraco and TDA are redundant. Mesoraco is cheaper, more defensively than TDA.
Guillorme as Rosario’s backup.( until Lowrie heals)
Broxton over Lagares, because he is controlled for a few years. They are also redundant. Both on the roster hurts the roster.
The last spot in the bullpen, ???, maybe next week .
Metsense, I agree with all your points above except Broxton over Lagares. I love Juan’s electric defense and due to injuries (some fluke) he never has had a recent full season to prove his batting ability
Lagares at 26 yoa did play a full season,143 games, in 2015 and hit 259/289/358/647 with a bWAR of 0.5. Broxton at age 27 yoa played 143 games and hit 220/299/420/719 also with a bWAR of 0.5. My point is that they are redundant. The roster can’t sustain both of them. Broxton is controlled and he will be cheaper in the future. He is a better base stealer and has more power. He is the better bench player. You do realize that when Lowrie (and Frazier) comes back, McNeill is going to LF and Nimmo to CF. I agree that Lagares is an elite defensive player. One of them needs to be moved so I think Broxton is the better fit for this roster.
Im not buying into carrying Smith and Alonso. This team cant move forward as if there is a platoon here. Its one or the other. We hear that “theres no more to prove in AAA”, which at face value is true; however, there is one huge thing that matters above all: consistent ABs. Parking either of these guys is not smart.
Look, Im ok sending Alonso back to AAA and let Smith see if he can be a big leaguer in April. If not, bring up Alonso. I see having either of these guys sitting on a bench as very bad, and no need to lug around 2 first basemen. Smith ok, but he’s had nothing like the ST Alonso has had, and Alonso’s defense looks fine.
Alonso is the starter and should not be platooned. The Mets “may” have my special player here. Smith or JD Davis are place sitters until Frazier heals.
Couldn’t agree with you more. Alonso needs to make the team and Smith needs to go to AAA. He had a good spring. So what. He is still limited and has no power.
Excerpt from:
‘A magician with a bat in his hands’: Untold stories as Ichiro retires
By Tim Kurkjian ESPN
‘A mathematical genius’
Bobby Valentine, who managed for years in Japan, and knows Ichiro very well, once told me Ichiro was “a mathematical genius.”
“I was on an elevator with him once. It was a high-rise elevator, maybe 35 floors. He looked at the room numbers on the right side of the elevator, and added them up in his head in like … three seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Valentine said that mathematical mind helped Ichiro see angles at the plate and in the outfield. “When you see him put his head down and run to a spot in the outfield, right where the ball ends up, it’s because he can see the field in his head,” Valentine said.
I asked Ichiro about his mathematical mind, but, oddly, he refused to talk about it. Valentine said he wasn’t surprised, Ichiro was a baseball player, and he felt it would be insulting the real mathematicians in the world if Ichiro boasted about his math skills.
End excerpt
*Sigh*
I’m not insulted, but the two kinds of “mathematical” skills described are completely different, and I assert not really classifiable as mathematical skills.
I’d call the former an arithmetic (pronounced ah-rith-MEH-tic) skill or “rapid basic calculator ability”, and the latter excellent visual memory, that is, the ability to form accurate visual/mental representations of previously view objects, aka “photographic memory”.
I possess the former skill to a high degree, and the opposite of the latter skill, if this can be somehow defined. In any case I assert that these are not related in any way.
*viewed*
So…
This is the most trivial of trivial questions. Utterly useless.
I saw that Conforto went yard for number 5. Outstanding. Hopefully he begins the year on one of his scorching hot streaks.
Anyhow I got to wondering. Which Met holds the record for most HRs during spring training? I figured some go ogling on the interwebbings would give me a quick answer. Denied.
So next best choice after Google and Baseball Reference is Mets360. Anyone have any idea?
Considering how useless spring training stars are, it is probably somebody like Benny Agbayani.
MLB.com has Spring Training stats going back to 2006. Since then, the high for the Mets is 6, done twice. First by Michael Cuddyer in 2015 and then again last year by Yoenis Cespedes.
I tried to post a link, and the comment was immediately erased…