Leaving the Nest

[Centerfield]

Thinking where deGrom ranks in terms of gut wrenching free agent departures of home grown Mets.



Immediately jumps near the top of the list.



deGrom. Strawberry. Reyes. Wheeler.



A little drunk. I'm sure I'm missing a ton.

[Edgy MD]

Not a ton, necessarily, but a ton of Syndergaard. Obviously, his home-growniness is asterisked, as is Wheeler's, having started with a different organization but joining as minor leaguers.



I don't know how gut-wrenching Alfonzo's exit was for other folks, as the Mets sort of walked away from negotiations on that one. I didn't like it, though. No sir.



Muffy? How about Muffy?

[G-Fafif]

Alfonzo to SF was the killer for me. Cooled my Met ardor for a year-plus. Blamed management rather than the player.



I was pretty sore about Reyes leaving from a Wilpon perspective. Couldn't fully enjoy the early surge of 2012 without him; watching 2015 highlights felt incomplete without my mentally photoshopping him in for a while.



They were my two favorite position players ever, Nos. 3 and 4 in my personal pantheon behind Tom and Doc. When Jose retired, I decided I was done having a Favorite Player, but allowed deGrom to nominally fill that role the last few years. Jacob's departure feels like Straw's: just business, no matter how stunning it is from a strict "but he's a Met!" instinct.

[roger_that]

=G-Fafif post_id=113757 time=1670070922 user_id=55]
Alfonzo to SF was the killer for me. Cooled my Met ardor for a year-plus. Blamed management rather than the player.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

deGrom is like Strawberry most. Darryl left with a more obvious chip on his shoulder is the only difference. I think Cohen will go nuts to replace him though, hopefully not Bonilla Nuts

[G-Fafif]

I'd have preferred they'd moved on from Alomar at exactly the right moment in his career and declined his option for 2003, allowing Fonzie to glide back to second where he would have partnered with and mentored young Jose and made the Met version of the Places in the Heart montage wherein everybody who died on Sally Field comes back to life and sings together in church whether or not they were harmonious or even knew each other in life a reality.



Not a great signing for the Giants, as they didn't really get classic Edgardo, though in 2003, once he stopped pressing to prove he was worth his contract, he provided sufficient protection for Bonds en route to SF's division title. Then again, Fonzie's decline and how it might have played out if he'd stayed with the inevitably crummy Mets of that period is covered by my "I don't care" card. I used to be friends with somebody who'd end every discussion of how the Mets were ultimately better off not being stuck with this or that player's contract with "I don't care." It's a handy card to carry.

[smg58]

The loss of Strawberry marked the clear end of an era. As sad as I am to see Jake go, I don't think that's the case here.



While I was mad about both Reyes and Fonzie, in hindsight they were both let go at the right time.



I'm angrier about Wheeler in hindsight. He's pitched better for the Phillies than I would have thought.



Thor, like deGrom, was given an unreasonable offer from somebody else that he was better off taking. It would be more of a gut punch if I thought the Mets weren't trying (see Reyes and Alfonzo), but I was a lot more ready to move on from Thor than I am from Jake.

[MFS62]

Olerud leaving for the M's was the first one that came to mind.

Later

[Edgy MD]

I have an I Don't Care card too.



It's funny how these lamentations suggest most of us have such a card of varying degrees of effectiveness, but Muffy gets no play in this thread, despite (1) leaving under the designation of He's a Met. He just is. (as Lunchie put it at the time), and (2) turning into a no-doubt All Star and MVP candidate for a few years after initially leaving.



Lamentations are stronger for the guy who left and declined than for the guy who left and improved. I'm not sure what that means, except perhaps that I Don't Care cards are powerful talismans that require further study.

[Frayed Knot]

- Strawberry was the one guy in this group that I said FU to upon leaving.

IIRC the Mets offered to make him the 2nd highest paid player in MLB at that point (behind only the already sour smelling contract of Jose Canseco) but Straw

acted as if he was being insulted (he did that a lot) and pouted his way to LA only to have two teams give up on him before that four-year contract ended.

That the 'Worst Team Money Can Buy' writers lamented his departure and used it (over and over again) as the cause of the team's downfall didn't make it so.

They were just lamenting his ability to fill their notebooks in the same way gossip sheets today would mourn the loss of the Kardashians.

The bigger problem was that, instead of trying to fill Straw's hole "in the aggregate" -- as Billy Beane (allegedly) said concerning the loss of Giambi -- Phillips/Wilpon

sought to replace Strawberry in terms of pr by hoping that 'stealing' away a club nemesis would lessen the sting.



- Fonzie signed a four year deal with the Mets and was great for the first two then increasingly lousy after that. As much as I loved him as a player, not re-signing

him was the right move AND it looked that way at the time to those who wanted to see it.



- Reyes hurt more. IIRC it was an odd contract he signed w/Miami (very backloaded ... plus they flat out lied to him about their intentions) and obviously closest

to the D.R. so maybe it was inevitable. But it also didn't appear that the club made much of an effort.



- Olerud gets away from the construct of 'home-grown' players but that's OK. I think this was the most short-sighted one as GM Phillips, while he didn't quite site

RBIs as a be-all standard for a #3 hitter, did use vague phrases about JO's 'lack of aggressiveness' and dearth of 'run producing' which pretty much painted him

as clueless to the value of OBA and to the general analytic revolution that was swirling all around him at the time.



- Wheeler was shortsighted too although one suspects those excuses were merely covering for 'we didn't want to spend the money' as the 'Pons

tried to recover from Madoff and were coming to grips with the realization that they were going to have to sell the team.

[roger_that]

Consider (or re-consider) my thesis: imagine if the Mets had dealt off each of their Big Young Five (deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard, Matz, Wheeler) after their best seasons with the team. The sky's the limit for what each of them would have brought in return, close to an entire power-packed lineup's worth of value to the right (pitching-desperate) club. My thesis goes that pitchers are fragile, and often seem to promise more than they're capable, physically, of delivering, often (usually?) coming down with career-ending arm injuries in their late twenties.



Yes, we would have gotten killed if we'd dealt off deGrom, but at his unhittable, yet affordable, peak we could have gotten a few amazing hitters in return for him. And we would have gotten away with murder swapping out Harvey, Matz, and Thor at their peaks when they were perceived by some as Cooperstown bound.



ALWAYS TRADE PITCHING FOR HITTING. To do otherwise is to display greed and short-sightedness.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Like Seaver for Henderson, Norman and Flynn.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Or Ryan for Fregosi.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I'm sure the Royals were thrilled to have traded Cone for Hearn.

[Edgy MD]

Indeed, any of those players could have brought a big package, and any of those packages could have produced well or poorly.



One of the many reason to reject the entire philosophy behind trading. In our minds, we can always get more value. In reality, there's another smart party who doesn't want that to happen, and many vagaries of fate trying to screw you both. It's a coin flip at best, and a sophisticated, scientific way of running your organization shouldn't involve coin flips.

[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: Indeed, any of those players could have brought a big package, and any of those packages could have produced well or poorly.

Of course. Goes without saying, you can get burned on any type of deal. Burned badly on occasion.



But as a principle, hitters are more durable than pitchers, generally and over the long run. If you consistently trade pitching at the point it's valued the highest (and of course if you know which hitters to trade for, which also goes without saying--I'm not advocating making colossally dumb trades on principle) you will make out like a bandit in the long run. And of course, as stated, you need to find trading partners desperate for good pitching, and to have good pitching to trade.



There are teams that overvalue pitching. Right now, I'd say that the Rangers are overvaluing deGrom, for example. He could provide value by winning 100 games for them over the next five years, and if you asked them, they would probably be hoping for upwards of 50 wins from deGrom for certain. But the Mets are saying, in effect, that's pretty unlikely, and their resources are better directed elsewhere.



Hitters are more valuable, but not all organizations agree. The Mets would do well to take advantage of such organizations.

[roger_that]

The Mets did well, in the main, by holding onto deGrom this long, and they would have done well to hang onto Wheeler, it looks like. But you never know who's going to remain valuable and who is not, which is why I think they would have done very well to trade all five whenever they could have gotten top value in return

[batmagadanleadoff]

If trading's a coin flip, then I guess so is drafting. Me, I'm against absolute and inflexible rules that say you should always do this or never do that. I mean, it's pretty easy to pick out a pitcher's peak and thus, the optimal time to trade him 10 or 15 years after the fact. And as to your emotional but intellectually illogical attachment to all Mets just because they're Mets, such that you think they should never be traded, all I can say is that if the Mets drafted as little as a tenth as effective as you seem to think they draft, they'd be winning the pennant every single season.

[Frayed Knot]

[Typical Fan]Trade PlayerX for a buncha prospects while we've got the chance!!!![/fan]



Five years later:

[Fan]I didn't mean THOSE prospects!!![/fan]

[Edgy MD]

I'm against drafting also. But drafting is the law of the land.



If hitters are more durable than pitchers, then trading partners probably know that.

[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: trading partners probably know that.

Some know it better than others. Some, in dire need of starting pitching, override their better instincts, and smart teams will take advantage of that fact. When the Mets had five young aces, they were in a good position to take advantage of that fact. Now those five aces are all gone and they don't have much to show for having had them.

[Edgy MD]

Well, apart from the ambiguity in the term "ace," they have a whole bunch of wins, three playoff appearances, a pennant, and a lot of good times. A LOT of good times.



They also have Nick Morabito, Isaiah Greene, and a compensation pick this June. Plus, there's a significant amount of Matz DNA still floating through Khalil Lee's body.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: trading partners probably know that. Some know it better than others.

Give me a break, already. Pretty much everybody knows that hitters are more predictable, more consistent, more reliable and more dependable than pitchers. Certainly, everybody in MLB upper management. Could you spare us with these every other week posts you write about how you invented some idea or doctrine or "thesis" when all you're doing is rehashing the most obvious of baseball principles and passing it off as brilliant insight?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy kinda beat me to this, but those pitchers led a Madoff-scandal ravaged and laughing stock baseball team that came out of nowhere and got to the World Series. (Those pitchers and Cespedes playing Babe Ruth for about a month and a half). Two of those pitchers were rookies. deGrom was a sophomore in his first full season. And Harvey had missed the season and a half preceeding the 2015 campaign. They were all essentially newbies. So you would've traded them all for different newbies? Is that what you're saying?

[roger_that]

Edgy MD wrote: Well, apart from the ambiguity in the term "ace," they have a whole bunch of wins, three playoff appearances, a pennant, and a lot of good times. A LOT of good times. They also have Nick Morabito, Isaiah Greene, and a compensation pick this June. Plus, there's a significant amount of Matz DNA still floating through Khalil Lee's body.

Yeah, I know all that (we do get TV broadcasts down here), and I also understand the ambiguity (and the conciseness) in the three-letter word "ace" to summarize five very different pitchers, but my point remains: the Mets have, in retrospect, overvalued these five pitchers, held on to most of them beyond the point that they could bring real value in exchange, and would be in much better shape if they had systematically adhered to the position that pitchers are fragile and dangerous to build around.



True (and obvious) they wouldn't have won those three playoff appearances and that pennant, but they could have won five pennants and maybe some World Series if they'd swapped them out at their peaks of value, so your argument is perhaps less devastating than you think.



I'm not looking to rob you, Edgy, of your fond memories of the good times--rather, I'm trying to show that, with a different philosophy and sharper evaluation of the value of bright young pitching stars, you may very well have had better memories of the past five years.



I do find it amusing that some in this exchange are challenging my thesis (of trading young pitching off good years for hitting) as being widely known in the baseball world (and so useless as a strategy) while others are challenging the fact that there's a shred of truth to it--the combination effectively refutes its uselessness, since I'm not claiming that no one is unaware of it, just that some teams perceive it more powerfully than others, meaning you should offer pitching to the teams that need it most severely and/or buy into the thesis less.

[Edgy MD]

Some?

[batmagadanleadoff]

I do find it amusing that some in this exchange are challenging my thesis (of trading young pitching off good years for hitting) as being widely known in the baseball world (and so useless as a strategy) ....

Me, I'm just noting the blowhardiness aspect of your post -- that it's your "thesis" -- that you imply that you invented this idea or thought of it first. I'm not challenging the as you say "usefullness of the idea. Just pointing out that any reasonably on-the-ball baseball fan and everybody in MLB upper management already knew this a long time ago and that all things equal, a hitter is preferable to a pitcher because a hitter is more predictable, more consistent.



But are things ever equal given that a healthy pitcher has way more of an impact over his team's fortunes than a healthy hitter does over the course of a season? A healthy everyday playing position player will get about 700 PA's per season while a healthy starter will face about 800 or even 900 batters per season.



This discrepancy was even more pronounced back in Tom Seaver's Mets days when pitchers threw more innings than they do today. Batters back then had about the same number of PA's as they do now but everyday healthy starting pitchers faced 1,200, 1,3000 and even 1,400 batters per season. Mickey Lolich, in 1971, faced 1538 batters. Pitchers were so much more valuable than hitters back then that they should've won their league's MVP awards way more often.



There's a reason why good starting pitchers are generally more coveted than good position players.



What exactly is it that you're suggesting in your "thesis"? That a team trade away all of its young pitching? Or to trade pitchers when they're no good anymore? (There's a huge market for washed up pitchers, I suppose. And a really good washed up pitcher could yield a team an Aaron Judge or a Barry Bonds in his prime. Is that what you're saying?) Or maybe a team needs a Delorean time machine to effectively implement your "thesis"? Because if I had one of those, I would've traded Matt Harvey about a month before it was discovered that he sustained an injury that would lead Harvey to opt for season ending TJ surgery. And if I really worked that time machine, I coulda sent Harvey back to 1992 and traded him for Barry Bonds and then flew Bonds back to 2013 to play for the Mets. Or maybe I'd have Bonds on the 2000 Mets and then maybe they beat the Yanks in that year's series. That's my thesis. I thought of it first.



It's a brilliant idea. If I owned the Mets and head read your "thesis" years ago, woulda traded these pitchers as soon as this magazine cover hit the stands.



[FIMG=333]https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vloAAOSwF~VhwkM1/s-l1600.jpg[/FIMG]

[MFS62]

Pitcher or hitter? It depends.

This discussion reminds me of the comment "Good pitching will always stop good hitting" It is widely attributed to Casey Stengel or Yogi Berra, but was actually said by Pirate pitcher Bob Veale in 1966 who added "and vice versa".

https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/good_pitching_will_always_stop_good_hittinghttps://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/good_pitching_will_always_stop_good_hitting



Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

Pitcher or hitter? It depends. This discussion reminds me of the comment "Good pitching will always stop good hitting"

Intuitively, I'd say that that comment's true. I know that watching the prime of Tom Seaver, I felt that the Mets could beat any team on the days that Seaver started. And they usually did. I know that the odds-makers recognize this notion that good pitching beats good hitting because baseball is the only sport that I can think of where the worst team in the league can be favored to beat the best team in the league, depending on the pitching match-ups.



The 1988 Mets were the best team in baseball but came up short in their quest for the NL pennant because they couldn't get past an Orel Hershiser who was historically great in 1988. And if the Astros could've won just one playoff game that wasn't started by Mike Scott, there very likely wouldn't have been a Mets-Red Sox WS because at the end of the '86 season, Scott was unhittable. The Mets prevailed over the Astros probably because Scott pitched only two playoff games. The Mets were the better team but Scott was Koufaxian.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Pitcher or hitter? It depends. This discussion reminds me of the comment "Good pitching will always stop good hitting" Intuitively, I'd say that that comment's true. I know that watching the prime of Tom Seaver, I felt that the Mets could beat any team on the days that Seaver started. And they usually did. I know that the odds-makers recognize this notion that good pitching beats good hitting because baseball is the only sport that I can think of where the worst team in the league can be favored to beat the best team in the league, depending on the pitching match-ups. The 1988 Mets were the best team in baseball but came up short in their quest for the NL pennant because they couldn't get past an Orel Hershiser who was historically great in 1988. And if the Astros could've won just one playoff game that wasn't started by Mike Scott, there very likely wouldn't have been a Mets-Red Sox WS because at the end of the '86 season, Scott was unhittable. The Mets prevailed over the Astros probably because Scott pitched only two playoff games. The Mets were the better team but Scott was Koufaxian.

And I thought of another great thesis while I wrote that post above: my thesis is to trade all of my crappy players for superstars. Isn't that brilliant? James Mccann for Mike Trout! Yoan Lopez for Mookie Betts! I'm gonna have a moratorium to polish up my thesis, now. Then, I'll see if I could sell my thesis idea to Steve Cohen. Don't nobody here try and steal my thesis idea. Youse know I thought of it first.