D.J. Carrasco

[Valadius]

Adam Rubin reports the Mets are having "fruitful" discussions with D.J. Carrasco.

Carrasco, a right-hander, had a 3-2 record and a 3.68 ERA in 63 appearances last season for Pittsburgh and Arizona.

[Ceetar]

rumors of two years, which seems to be contrary what we've been told Alderson would be willing to do.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Wore No. 77 with the Pirates.

That's all I got.

[Lefty Specialist]

Love his hot club mixes.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Love his hot club mixes.

Read this 3x. Still laughing.

[metirish]

Dying over here

[Ceetar]

D.J. to with R.A. and J.P. Riccardi...who else?

[Fman99]

Two years guaranteed, 2.5 mil total, the price is reasonable I suppose, but still. The Mets give out two year deals to schlubs like I give out dick jokes.

[Ceetar]

1.2 for a probably backup catcher? Hmm, Maybe Chris Carter was cut, Adam, because he sucks, not because the Mets are too cheap to spend 200k.

[Frayed Knot]

Ceetar wrote: D.J. to with R.A. and J.P. Riccardi...who else?

That's it ... at least initially.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

At least now we have somebody who rhymes with Tony Tarasco if CPF Parody contests ever make a comeback.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ceetar wrote: D.J. to with R.A. and J.P. Riccardi...who else? That's it ... at least initially.

Groan.

BTW- Yankee beat reporter Sweeney Murti is covering the winter meetings for WFAN. His sarcastic comment was (I'm paraphrasing) "The Mets signed a reliever from the team that had the worst bullpen in baseball".
What a douche.
Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

It's not a bad strategy. The Mets have a lineup to put on the field, and their only real holes are in the rotation and perhaps some depth for the bullpen. So if depth is what you're looking for, the non-tender market is a great place to shop. And Alderson can do any real re-designing, if he wants, in February, when he's had more time to assess.

[bmfc1]

Mark Simon tells us that D.J. should be used to start an inning:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/post/_/id/12795/this-d-j-has-a-scratched-record

[Guest Edgy DC]

The David Bowie baseball team is coming together.

[Guest attgig]

not a fan of the deal. i know it's relatively "peanuts" but when the offseason plan called for spending ~$5 mil, and you give 20% of that (or 40% depending on how you calculate) to a mid-reliever... i don't think the priorities are in order.

priority should've been get a starter, and use whatever leftover money you have with other stuff. Relief arms come a lot cheaper come late jan/early feb. for example, nobody similar to Benoit is going to get his type of contract (ie, guerrier). Same way, we're jumping the gun on DJ, and spending more money than other teams will have to on signing similar relief pitchers. You have people like Denny Bautista, Tyler Walker, Dan Wheeler, or dare I say it, Aaron Heilman that could put up similar numbers, and most likely still be available later in the offseason for less money.

I think most people don't care because it's "only" a couple mil, but when it's a couple mill out of 5 mill of offseason dollars, i think it's a bad decision.

[Benjamin Grimm]

That $5 million figure is just speculative. Sandy told Kevin on Mets Hot Stove last night that there's no firm budget number. They may have to go to 7 or 8 million to fill all the positions they have open.

[Ceetar]

Likely Sandy said "While we may be able to get a 'cheaper' guy later, Carrasco is solid, we like him, and it frees us up to focus on other things. We'll raise the amount we're going to spend this offseason by the amount we're "overpaying" Carrasco so that it doesn't actually inhibit the other signings that are needed."

I hope anyway. This is how I felt about Cora's 2 million as well in the past. Sometimes it's not worth obsessing over a couple of hundred thousand.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'd say for $1.25 mill per annum, the price is right.

[Frayed Knot]

Also, what's the alternative? ... saving 800K by going with a min wage guy isn't exactly going to change the way you go about building the rest of the roster.
Even if that $5mil number is accurate (and I don't believe it is) filling out the team on $3.75 as opposed to $4.6 is slightly more than a rounding error in modern-day MLB.

[Guest attgig]

yeah, no need to fret. it all just comes out of our pockets when buying tickets anyways, right?

:-/

[Ceetar]

attgig wrote: yeah, no need to fret. it all just comes out of our pockets when buying tickets anyways, right? :-/

Right!

Actually, I was thinkign about this the other day, but making the team watchable and competitive, even if less fans go to the games but watch on TV, must allow them to charge more to advertisers as well. So maybe they go and take the money out of Pepsi's pockets?

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Daily News today says the Mets are considering letting Carrasco audition for a spot in the starting rotation this spring.

[Guest Edgy DC]

They fell for that "I am a DJ --- I am what I say!" argument.

He started one season in his career --- and did poorly --- but whatever. If they can't bring any options into camp good enough to deflate his ambitions, that's the way it shakes out, and he, Tom Hausman, Terry Leach, Tom Gorman, and such will be looking to get promoted out of the pen.

Of course, he threw only 22 2/3 innings last season.

[Frayed Knot]

That 22 IP was with Arizona alone. He threw 78 overall between the DBacks & Pirates.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, then, good.

[smg58]

He seems well suited to the role of long reliever. I hope he's not needed for more than that.