IGT 06/03 - Mets at Cubs

[Zvon]

Wheeler, only 14 pitches in the 4th. Very nice. 1 walk so far. He might be finding his groove for the long run. Maybe he'll just always be a nibbler.

We've had plenty of chances to score. Still 1-0.

OOO, big out at 2nd. Cubs suck.

[Zvon]

An 11 pitch 5th. Helped out by the fact that the Cubs suck. 76 total.

[Edgy MD]

Remember when folks were advocating for tossing this guy back a few weeks ago. Now he's pitching like a godsend.

[Edgy MD]

Fat Tony D'Amico in the booth for the Cubs.

[Zvon]

I was gonna say I think Zacks done and he Ks the guy. 97 pitches.

[Edgy MD]

Done now. Turns it over 66.

[Zvon]

Shit. A walk and Wheeler gets the hook. 107 a final. Great outing. Still a lot of dickin around outta the K-zone. He don't have to nibble with his stuff, imo.

[Edgy MD]

Good yob, Edge.

[Edgy MD]

Duda nailed on one of them ridonculous shift plays.

Bunt on 'em 'til they get honest, men. Especially when you're leading off the inning.

[Zvon]

Rizzo and Baker suck.

[Edgy MD]

Mariners beat the Braves on two-run Buckshot.

This game counts, Mets.

[Edgy MD]

Too much Edgy too long.

[Zvon]

Ugh, how deflating. And Edgin was lookin so good. And of course, it's some little shit who launches one.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Chris I-Can-Barely-Even-Get-A-Start-On-The-F'ing-Cubs Coghlan.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

How many pain-in-the-ass ex-Fish can one lineup have?

Thanks be for Sr. Negro's Se�or Carlos, though.

[Zvon]

denDekker thinks he's playing in the annual company picnic softball game.

GET IN THERE AND BREAK IT UP YA WUSS!

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

It almost seems like Murphy wants a day off.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Was just thinking, "Wouldn't it be a kick in the ass if we lost on a bobble and a crap hit?"

Guh. What an absolute bullshit loss.

[Zvon]

Just when I'm feeling good about this team...

A shocking loss.

[Frayed Knot]

What a fucking ridiculous game.

[Vic Sage]

It's symptomatic of this team's lack of power (they are dead last in all of baseball in SLG%). It takes them too many hits to score too few runs. If they hit with even middling power, they could have still hit poorly with RISP and score and win alot more than they are.

Granderson's slg%=.350 (130 pts off his career .480); Wright is at 400% (100 pts below his career .500); and Chris Young is about 90 pts off (.338/.428 career). Murphy and Tejada are poor but about what you'd expect; Duda is OK, and near expectations, too. d'Arnaud is terrible and Lagares is OK, but both are too young to know what to expect from them going forward. Our best slugger this year is probably deGrom. And this isn't necessarily a CitiField issue, since the team's home/road splits aren't significant in terms of slg% (333home/365road - which both sucks).

We brought in 2 FAs to add power and they haven't. Add that to Wright's mystifying power loss and d'Arnaud's continued inability to hit at all, plus our anticipated lack of slg from 2b and SS, and the decent (but not great) SLG production from Duda and Lagares has been wholly insufficient to carry this team's offense.

We need to send d'Arnaud down to work on his game; he continues to be as overmatched against major-league pitching as he was last year. Teagarden is hitting with pop; he can share time with Recker for a while and we're bound to get more production from those 2. And Flores has shown he can catch and throw the ball. He will undoubtedly give us more power than Tejada, who is a black hole of slg. Flores should be playing every day. And i've seen enough of CY, actually i've seen entirely too much. We've got no long-term investment in Young, so lets see more of Campbell, or Andrew Brown who is tearing it up in Vegas. Then we just have to hope that Granderson and Wright start hitting for power. Otherwise, we'll keep leaving 12 men in scoring position every game, and wondering why we can't get a "clutch hit".

[Ceetar]

I believed Chris Young would hit for power, but I've probably seen enough of him too. The problem is he still might be the highest probability play to suddenly start hitting for power going forward over Campbell or Brown (or Nieuwenhuis or den Dekker) But Brown will be here soon as at least an option.

Wright's slugging is .463 over the last month, so while it's not up to his career, it's getting better.
Granderson was back to normal but he's slumping again now. yay.

I thought in Spring that the offense might hinge on d'Arnaud being at least adequate, and so far that's been fairly accurate. The Mets aren't hitting for power and with d'Arnaud and whichever OFer is horribly slumping at the time (plus the damn pitcher) they've got enough holes in the lineup to trip up any non-HR rally.

I just don't know that I trust Recker and Teagarden to be more useful on an everyday basis. I wouldn't quibble if that's the avenue they want to try, but I doubt they do since they easily could've let him rehab another couple of games in the minors with the same thought.

I'd like to see someone actually drive the ball at short. Flores has 2 XBH. He had quite a game two days ago. But that's it. Tejada is outslugging him in the last 7, last 14, and last 28 day samples. Flores could possibly be the better hitter going forward, but he needs to hit more than he has to actually deserve to play every day.

[Edgy MD]

That last line applies to a lot of folkz.

Watching Abreu thrown out from not-so-short right really knotted up my shorts. I'm really grousing about our lefties getting beat by hitting the ball into shifts.

[Vic Sage]

I'd like to see someone actually drive the ball at short. Flores has 2 XBH. He had quite a game two days ago. But that's it. Tejada is outslugging him in the last 7, last 14, and last 28 day samples. Flores could possibly be the better hitter going forward, but he needs to hit more than he has to actually deserve to play every day.

you just won't give up will you?

In what universe is Tejada even POTENTIALLY as good a power hitter as Flores? You lament the use of small sample sizes, and then talk about the last 7,14, and 28 days.
Tejada has a career slg in the minors (over 2200 PAs) of .355, and in the majors (1500 PAs) of .316 (including his .286! so far this season).
Flores has, over last 3 years in AA-AAA (over 800 PAs), around a .500 slg. but you want to talk about their last 7, 14, and 28 days?

For a team so desperately in need of power, the choice is clear.

[Ceetar]

Vic Sage wrote: I'd like to see someone actually drive the ball at short. Flores has 2 XBH. He had quite a game two days ago. But that's it. Tejada is outslugging him in the last 7, last 14, and last 28 day samples. Flores could possibly be the better hitter going forward, but he needs to hit more than he has to actually deserve to play every day. you just won't give up will you? In what universe is Tejada even POTENTIALLY as good a power hitter as Flores? You lament the use of small sample sizes, and then talk about the last 7,14, and 28 days. Tejada has a career slg in the minors (over 2200 PAs) of .355, and in the majors (1500 PAs) of .316 (including his .286! so far this season). Flores has, over last 3 years in AA-AAA (over 800 PAs), around a .500 slg. but you want to talk about their last 7, 14, and 28 days? For a team so desperately in need of power, the choice is clear.

It's not even close to clear. Like I said, Flores could easily become the better hitter. But he's not there right now. As of this moment, Tejada is the better hitter. It's made even more ridiculous by Tejada even out-slugging him. Will Flores get better? Well, maybe. But the recent samples, which are the only ones we actually have right now, suggest that even right now he's not there. You can't just hand him the every day job based on minor league projections. He's not being buried on the bench, and that's fine, but until he makes good on that pedigree, he doesn't get to play every day over a better hitter.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Astute assesment of the offensive troubles by Vic.I'll add to his call for Teagarden -- believe he has one of those promote-me-or-release-me clauses approaching as well. Not that I don't believe in dArnaud but he's gotta demonstrate he can hit.

Brown for Young? We've got to be close to that 150-200 PA test I'd been willing to give him.

Ceets! Ceets...

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Astute assesment of the offensive troubles by Vic.I'll add to his call for Teagarden -- believe he has one of those promote-me-or-release-me clauses approaching as well. Not that I don't believe in dArnaud but he's gotta demonstrate he can hit. Brown for Young? We've got to be close to that 150-200 PA test I'd been willing to give him. Ceets! Ceets...

Brown for a reliever is the word I've seen.

[Vic Sage]

You can't just hand him the every day job based on minor league projections.

It is not a "minor league projection"; it is actual minor league PRODUCTION... production far in excess of anything Tejada ever did down there. And if the only thing between finding out if Flores' .500 slg in 800 PAs in AAA is translatable to the majors is TEJADA's current .286 slg %, then yeah, you do give him the job (like Terry was about to do before Flores went on the DL and then Tejada had a good week), and then see what happens. Tejada's upside is nowhere near that of Flores and his awful production for the last 2 years shouldn't be sufficient to take playing time away from Flores, at least until we've given him a few months of regular ABs to see where he is. Maybe he needs to go down to AAA with d'Arnaud for a while, but i'd like to see him get another 100-150 ABs before making that determination.

You are free to keep sucking Tejada's cock of course... NTTAWWT, but your love is distinctly unrequited.

[Edgy MD]

But the recent samples, which are the only ones we actually have right now, suggest that even right now he's not there.

Wait, what about the... other samples?

[Ceetar]

you do that if you've given up. But in the meantime you very likely may lose games by trying to develop a prospect. Flores is still very very young. he had an .887 OPS in Vegas last year where league average was .756 and the average age was 26.9 (he was 21).

But right now he's not doing that in the majors. He hasn't done that this year, and he hasn't done that factoring in the 101 PA from last year.

Tejada is outhitting him, and he's doing it with some bad luck on balls in play (very low last year too), and a very high line drive percentage which probably means he's had some doubles taken away by hitting them at people. His SLG probably should be closer to his career average, which is not good. But he's 24th of 44 SS in wRC+ with at least 50 PA. Wilmer is is 31st. (Jeter is 26th) He's not doing great, but he's hardly at the "any other option" stage.

And Flores gives you no defense or speed bonus either.

Flores will likely get better, but that's no guarantee. He's not being buried, he's getting time, and that's fine. If/when he hits, he'll play more. Tejada, while never a prospect and never more than approaching league average at SS, is still only 26 and could potentially be worth something, even if it's just as a MI backup. If we get to August and the Mets are basically out of it and you want to find out if Flores can be your SS or 2B or whatever of the future, you play him every day even if his OPS is .596. When you're 3.5 games out of first in early May, you play that delicate balancing game of development versus best chance to win.