One of the items flying under the radar last week was the Arbitration Deadline, on Thursday January 11. The New York Mets had a half dozen players with the right service times – players between three and six years, plus Super Twos. Going to arbitration is almost universally a bad play for teams because they [...]
The following quote by Max Scherzer comes from a Ken Rosenthal piece in The Athletic, published Aug. 1, 2023, after Scherzer’s trade to the Rangers. Scherzer said: “I talked to Billy (Eppler),” Scherzer told The Athletic. “I was like, ‘OK, are we reloading for 2024?’ He goes, ‘No, we’re not. Basically our vision now is [...]
We all hope that David Stearns will add another arm or two to the bullpen. But whether he does or not, one thing that we hope that Stearns and/or Carlos Mendoza will do is to utilize Brooks Raley as a true setup man, rather than the lefty specialist that it seemed Buck Showalter wanted Raley [...]
The fate of a team during the 162-game MLB season rarely hinges a single player, but it can certainly be impacted by the under or overperformance of one. Hardly ever is the overperformance contributing to success talked about, but more often it is the underperformance that is talked about. If you are at all plugged [...]
This is the third year where this top prospect list of mine has been done with a tiered approach, rather than an ordered list. It’s my opinion that a tiered list is more valuable than trying to guess which older reliever is better than the others and should rank higher, only for the best one [...]
Yesterday, the New York Mets announced the dates that they will retire Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry’s numbers this upcoming season. The date for Gooden’s number is April 14, and for Strawberry, it’s June 1. Both are well deserving. They were two of the Mets’ biggest and brightest stars in the 1980s decade, providing lots [...]
Last week Andy Martino on SNY’s Mets Hot Stove reported that the Mets’ remaining free agent budget for this offseason is around $10 million. Considering the team’s needs of rotation, corner outfield and DH help, that is a tough number to navigate. But assuming that as the constraint, let’s take a look at who the [...]
One of the mainstays of offseason articles is to create rankings and lists of top players in the minors. My annual top 50 piece will be published by the end of the week, likely on Friday. David Groveman is working on his, which will be posted before the start of the minor league season. And [...]
Please use this thread all week to discuss any Mets-specific topic you wish. Please use this space instead of going off topic on the most-recent thread.
The top three spots in the 2024 rotation appear to be set. After a 12-7 rookie season with a 2.98 ERA, the Marcel projections on Baseball-Reference pegs a year of regression for 30-year-old righty Kodai Senga in 2024, sliding down to a 9-7 record with a 3.52 ERA. There appears to be no logical reason [...]
Perhaps the last thing the 2024 Mets need is to add a 40 year old, lefty-hitting 1B who hit .202 last year and put up a 0.0 fWAR. But this isn’t just any over the hill guy. Instead, this is Joey Votto and he should be available for a song. My interest in Votto would [...]