Contending in 2019

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I kinda doubt that.

It's been clear for a while that the road forward diverges into two potential paths here: sell hard or spend/go hard. I have very little doubt we're going to end up drifting right into the orange barrels in between, firing middle-managers as the car slows to a half-decade-long wait for AAA.

[Edgy MD]

Even after tonight's "game," I stand by my post. My money's on the table, man.

[Guest 41Forever]

Some of the points in this Scott Chiusano post are ridiculous.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-sports-mets-nationals-game-box-20180731-story.html?outputType=amp

Tuesday began with the Mets hanging on dearly to all their pitchers and all their aging veterans, including Jose Reyes.

Dearly? And, did he expect a robust trade market for Reyes?

Steven Matz, one of the core four of pitchers the club refused to part with due to delusions of grandeur that they can contend in 2019 with this roster as currently constituted, got lit up by the Nationals. He didn’t make it out of the first inning, allowing eight hits and seven runs and recording just two outs.

I can't tell if this is supposed to be a straight game story or an opinion column. But not giving away any of the club's good, young pitchers doesn't mean the Mets plan to contend "with this roster as currently constituted." Is he aware that teams also try to improve themselves on days other than the July trading deadline, and that there is a long period called the off season where many teams rebuild their rosters?

I know the News just eliminated half its editorial staff. This is what readers get as a result.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

Well, you've been out of town a while, but opinioning in what were formerly straight news articles has become a hallmark of the tabloids.

[Lefty Specialist]

Well, Matz wasn't 'lit up' so much as 'incinerated by standing under a Saturn 5 rocket at liftoff.'

[MFS62]

I will go on record now that there should be no correlation between the title of this thread and the results of last night's game.
News stories trying to talking about last night's game in that kind of perspective (gloom and doom for the future) are just taking a cheap shot.
OE: Carrying Lefty's fire analogy onward, maybe last night's game will be the spark the Wilpons need to get them going to help the team.
Later

[seawolf17]

MFS62 wrote: maybe last night's game will be the spark the Wilpons need to get them going to help the team.

"Okay! Let's break this team up. Who's ready to trade?"

...

"Wait, the deadline was *YESTERDAY*?!?!?"

[smg58]

1. I really hope the Mets didn't find out about Matz' dead arm the same time the press did.

2. In a lost season, guys with arm fatigue get a start or two off. That way small problems don't become big ones.

3. Rhame, Peterson, and Bashlor do not belong on a major league roster. (Oh hell, Jose Reyes doesn't either.) Drew Smith might, though.

4. Pitchers who don't have much prospect value but are pitching well enough in AAA to warrant a shot in a bad bullpen are not that hard to find. Alderson did not make a point of finding these pitchers at last year's deadline, despite only shopping for relief prospects of marginal value, and the results speak for themselves. Smith at least might salvage that, but he wasn't ready in April.

5. The rest of the Familia package is dubious at best, but Wahl is exactly the kind of guy the Mets should be looking to add. The Mets still need at least two (preferably left-handed) more arms, though. You can pay for them in the offseason, but a) you actually have to do that, and I am assuming for the sake of argument that our resources will be finite.

[Ceetar]

You can't always pay for them in the offseason. Relievers are fluky and full of small sample size nonsense. I'd almost rather they didn't pay for relievers and in that vein I like the targets Alderson made last offseason. There appears to be a disconnect (or it's just small sample noise and it'll work out soon enough) between what Alderson targeted and the ability of the Mets pitching coaches down the line to mold those talents into real value.

Rhame, Peterson, Bashlor have thrown relatively few innings. Perhaps they do not belong on a major league roster today, but for such a specialized role, all it often takes is one tweak to turn a guy into a reasonably effective major leaguer for a a stretch of time. No reason that can't still happen for any and all of them.

Bashlor is crazy wild, but it seems like his stuff should play based on the minors. he hasn't even pitched in AAA yet. Peterson is the one with the good K/BB rate but he's got no velocity in an extremely high velocity age. Both of these guys are just later round draft picks (and getting older), not the guys the Mets grabbed last year.

Rhame's one of the acquisitions. He's interesting. It looks like the Dodgers had no faith his stuff would translate to the majors, despite good numbers. (good K rates, cut walks, unlucky BABIP) Sandy was probably reading that bad luck and good stuff and figuring he was actually good, and maybe he is..but..he's throwing like 4+ pitches in the majors and that doesn't seem to be working. The Mets had him learn a curveball this year as a 4th pitch, but why? Maybe if he just went fastball/slider he'd be good?

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, let's not get caught in the trap of saying the jury is in on all (or any) of these guys. Jesse Orosco came for Jerry Koosman in the 1978-1979 offseason. He debuted in 1979 and showed nothing. He didn't become an effective big-league pitcher until 1982. In 1983, he was the best reliever on the planet, with 20 years of effective pitching ahead of him.

Prospects mature when they mature, or they don't, and only years down the road is the relative wisdom of their acquisition clear.

The most consistent key to effective relief is to need as little of it as possible. And when your starter gets bumped with two out in the first, that ship has sailed.

But you know, I think we can say the jury is on Reyes' pitching.

[bmfc1]

Fangraphs:

The goal of this is not to say just that the Mets aren’t a good team. Instead, there’s this idea that, thanks to the top of their rotation, the Mets are a potential pitching juggernaut if they can just stay healthy. But even if deGrom and Syndergaard were to combine for 10 WAR next year by themselves, this would still not be a good pitching staff. Wheeler is injury prone, and Matz, despite flashes, hasn’t shown he’s anything more than an inconsistent back-end starter. The bullpen is a problem that’s harder to fix. Aside from Lugo, it’s hard to see anyone in that group that could be counted on as a contributor for a 2019 contender’s bullpen.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/reexamining-the-mets-or-when-one-game-might-mean-something/

[Ceetar]

That entire article is "you can't determine anything in one game, but here's my 2019 breakdown of the Mets based on this one game"

[Edgy MD]

I see plenty that could be counted on to be 2019 bullpen contributors.

I don't see any that necessarily will, but guarantees aren't gonna come, especially with relievers. The key to a strong bullpen is a strong (and healthy) rotation.

[Benjamin Grimm]

And I suppose that opting to keep Wheeler is a sign of an intent to try to contend in 2019. But even with deGrom, Syndergaard, and Wheeler the rotation is still pretty shaky. Matz may be a contributor, but that seems extremely iffy. I think they'll have to get another arm from outside the organization. Hopefully someone better than Jason Vargas. I hear that Tommy Milone had a pretty good start the other day...

[Ceetar]

I think people are overestimating what most 4th starters are. If Thor, deGrom and Wheeler are making let's say 81 starts, that realllllly nice. You don't need 5 aces, you just need non-duds back there for the other 81.