Hot Stove 2009-2010

[MFS62]

There have been many years in the past when I have anxiously scanned the daily ST transaction reports, looking for a player cut by another team, who might help the Mets.
This is the first time in a long while that I feel that there are players the Mets have in their minor league organization who can be better (in some cases far better) than anyone the Mets might pick up this time of year. (40th man on the roster types)

Later

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

MFS62 wrote: There have been many years in the past when I have anxiously scanned the daily ST transaction reports, looking for a player cut by another team, who might help the Mets. This is the first time in a long while that I feel that there are players the Mets have in their minor league organization who can be better (in some cases far better) than anyone the Mets might pick up this time of year. (40th man on the roster types) Later

And yet, they'll carry five-- FIVE-- catchers on the 40-man. Just in case.

No other major-league team carries more than four. Most have two or three.

[Ceetar]

You really think they're going to keep Santos around?

[Guest Edgy DC]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: No other major-league team carries more than four. Most have two or three.

And the last several years, that's what they've done. Why is this now the issue?

Do you really think timidity about putting Chris Coste through waivers is going to keep them from calling up some crappy reliever in June?

[ashie62]

Ceetar wrote: You really think they're going to keep Santos around?

Santos can come and live with me

[nymr83]

Ashie62 wrote: Santos can come and live with me

Given your past expressions of affection for him, I think Omir will pass on that offer in order to keep his asshole at its present level of tightness.

[ashie62]

Nymr83 wrote: Ashie62 wrote: Santos can come and live with me Given your past expressions of affection for him, I think Omir will pass on that offer in order to keep his asshole at its present level of tightness.

I am not Baseball Ashie. That was pretty funny

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Edgy DC wrote: LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: No other major-league team carries more than four. Most have two or three. And the last several years, that's what they've done. Why is this now the issue? Do you really think timidity about putting Chris Coste through waivers is going to keep them from calling up some crappy reliever in June?

Just because I'm writing it now doesn't mean it's just now become an issue (or that it's the issue). It's merely a minor, persistent one, which speaks to the troubles this FO has had using roster space in the most efficient manner possible... as well as increasing the likelihood that when the Mets make moves to fill urgent major-league roster holes in other areas, they'll need to make a quick decision under duress to clear the space. The organization hasn't proven terribly good since 2006 at making such decisions (see last year's loss of O'Day).

Ashie62 wrote: I am not Baseball Ashie. That was pretty funny

You're not talking with your finger and forging psychic links with Scatman Crothers, are you?

[Guest Edgy DC]

But it hasn't been an issue. As far as I can tell, they've never before done this --- certainly not for any real length of time. They typically carry two catchers on their big league roster, forcing them to add a somebody when they have to replace an injured receiver. And in fact, it was having to add Omir Santos from the roster the day before that was at least partly responsible for them having to expose O'Day to waivers. It certainly isn't remotely true that a surfeit of catchers got him DFA'd.

It's the sort of thing that's loaded with ambiguity, but after a season like last year's, we can somehow convince ourselves they're doing all wrong, they've always done all wrong, and is emblematic deep systemic dysfunciton. But it's just a thing. They'll probably shed at least one by the end of Spring training. You may not agree --- maybe Anderson Hernandez is more valuable than Coste --- but it's completely defensible.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

My criticism wasn't catcher-numbers-focused, really. (And IIRC, O'Day was lost in the roster-move-shell game surrounding the Mets' not wanting Pelfrey to miss more than one start.) My point-- an admittedly thin and not altogether original one-- is that the org has tended to manage both the 40-man and the major-league roster in ways that don't exactly optimize the value of their resources (as epitomized by the pointless non-DLing that resulted in O'Day's loss*), so any apparent oddity/inefficiency is more likely to be hurtful than helpful the longer it exists.

*I suspect we'll probably be able to add the team's all-but-inevitable loss of the rubberarmed Mr. Figs-- and, to a lesser and slightly different extent, Mejia's coming north-- to this before too long.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Maybe, but until then, the extra catchers is something that's just there, is a little different, and was was created by the Mets, so we shouldn't trust it. That seems just too miserable a way to approach the team.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Thinking everything they do is wrong is just as bad as thinking that everything they do is right.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I'm not quite there, guys... but to my mind, they've lost the benefit of the doubt regarding moves/conditions on the far side of "questionable," especially regarding roster management/potential roster losses (see: Jesus Flores, Darren O'Day). If nobody else in major league baseball is making/contemplating Move X* but this team, and, after staring at it for a while, there seems no apparent reason to do it... then, yes, with this particular FO, I'm very wary, and I'm waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop.

*Say, picking up a first baseman whom the poorly-run, talent-poor Royals had the good sense to bench, then drop... and seriously considering him as a starter over at least two better candidates for the role.

[Guest attgig]

Joe Beimel signs a minor league deal with rox, because mets were sending mixed signals to his agent.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

That'll show the Mets to treat average lefty bullpen fodder with respect.

[Guest Edgy DC]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: but this team, and, after staring at it for a while, there seems no apparent reason to do it...

But there are a half dozen reasons to do it, and so far one (Anderson Hernandez) reason not to.

Until they lose a more valuable piece protecting a less valuable piece, it's doable.

If assuming every time they zag when everyone else is zigging makes them by definition wrong, what is there to root for? That shit makes baseball fun and exciting.

Joe Beimel's face sends some serious mixed signals.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Are you sure that's not Joe Piscopo?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Edgy DC wrote: If assuming every time they zag when everyone else is zigging makes them by definition wrong, what is there to root for? That shit makes baseball fun and exciting.

They've been wrong and/or dishonest so often during the last few years, I'm thinking of voting for them. (WOCKA!)

See also my persistent, growing heartburn over the past few years. I feel a little like, with this regime, I'm trapped in a bad marriage. (Divorce, of course, not really being an option.)

[Guest Edgy DC]

You're in the right place, I assure you.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

For your consideration: The ML Out of Options List.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Jamie Moyer beats out Kyle Kendrick for the number five starter on the Phils.

[TransMonk]

I remember collecting this card 23 years ago.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Two very good seasons-- or one monstrous one-- away from 300.

He'd be pushing 400, no doubt, if not for his WWII service.

[TransMonk]

I can't see him ever getting to 300...even if he played until age 50.

If he got close enough that ESPN were making stories out of each of his starts, I would root for him though.

[Frayed Knot]

The amazing thing about Moyer isn't that he's active with 258 wins and a remote shot at 300, it's that he has 258 wins with remote shot at 300 after having entered his 30s with a whopping 34.

[seawolf17]

He's one of the only Met killers who I really don't have a whole lot of hate for. The guy has KILLED us through the years. Killed us, over and over, going back to when Gary Matthews the elder was a teammate and George Foster was in our lineup. Maybe it's just because he -- and Chris Chelios, for that matter -- give me hope that my professional sports career isn't over yet. But I don't have the venom I have for the Chippers and Von Hayeses of the baseball world.

[Guest Edgy DC]

He's 9-5 3.70 ERA in 186 innings against the Mets.

Against the Orioles, he's turn-of-the-century Pedro Martinez. 18-4 .818 2.98 ERA in 199 inings

[seawolf17]

Yeah, but that's the Orioles. Even I'm 4-1, 3.15 against the Orioles.

The Mets only got to Moyer in the last year or so. In his first eighteen starts against the Mets, he pitched at least six innings every time, and only thrice gave up more than three runs. That'd be 15/18 "quality starts," for whatever that stat is worth.

[metirish]

seawolf17 wrote: Yeah, but that's the Orioles. Even I'm 4-1, 3.15 against the Orioles. .

The Foreign Press nominates you for a BOC , this is for April people in charge.

[Guest Edgy DC]

seawolf17 wrote: The Mets only got to Moyer in the last year or so.

Well, I'm glad they got to somebody.