Get Me a Cleanup Hitter Sandy

[Centerfield]

We are a cleanup hitter away from being a playoff team in 2015. I really believe this. This is the closest we have been in a long time.

There is talk that Jose Bautista may be available. Or Yoenis Cespedes, though we may have to be careful here since he had an OPS in the .750's and is already 29 year old. There is some guy named Stanton on the Marlins and the Cuban guy who they say will be the next Abreu/Puig. I don't know which of these guys will work. I'll leave that to you Sandy.

I think we have the assets to make this happen. I ask you to leave Harvey and deGrom alone. Syndegaard too. Otherwise, use your judgment.

At your disposal are Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee, Daniel Murphy, Wilmer Flores, Brandon Nimmo, Kevin Plawecki, Rafael Montero, Stephen Matz and Dilson Herrera. Some combination of these guys can get it done. For the right guy (Stanton) I may even be willing to give up one of Zack Wheeler, Travis d'Arnaud or Lucas Duda too.

There is also that pile of cash you are sitting on since we have been masquerading as a small market team the last few years. Maybe you can convince Nelson Cruz to come back.

You can do this Sandy. Frank Cashen went and got us a 3 and 4. We are just asking for a 4.

[Ceetar]

More a 5 really. Wright 3, Duda 4, LFer 5, Granderson 6 to do the L/R/L/R thing.

[Edgy MD]

I don't think Matz is considered a redundancy in the way some of those others might be. As a left-hander that has come back strong after his arm problems, I think the team considers him a pretty unique and precious asset. Certainly not untouchable, but not a bauble that I think they'll be dangling around.

Surprised you considered Dilson a tradable commodity, since you already have in your opening day lineup.

Not sure about the pile o' cash. It'd be nice to read that they broke even this season.

[Centerfield]

I think Dilson looks like he is going to be a player, and ideally I'd like to keep him. But for the right guy, you have to give up something.

I don't think he's worth it for Cespedes. But if the Marlins came and asked for Dilson, Plawecki and Montero, I'd drive the bus to Florida.

I'm also high on Matz too. The articles say that he has the makeup of a gutsy star pitcher. I also don't think that his trade value would be reflective of his ability, since so much press has been given to Syndegaard, Montero etc.

But we need to find our Gary Carter.

[Centerfield]

Ceetar wrote: More a 5 really. Wright 3, Duda 4, LFer 5, Granderson 6 to do the L/R/L/R thing.

I want a cleanup hitter. I don't care if he hits with his toes.

[seawolf17]

Centerfield wrote: At your disposal are Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese, Dillon Gee, Daniel Murphy, Wilmer Flores, Brandon Nimmo, Kevin Plawecki, Rafael Montero, Stephen Matz and Dilson Herrera. Some combination of these guys can get it done. For the right guy (Stanton) I may even be willing to give up one of Zack Wheeler, Travis d'Arnaud or Lucas Duda too.

Colon (11M)
Niese (16M/2 years, plus two option years)
Murphy (arb - 10M?)
Montero/Matz

for

Bautista (14M)
Reyes (70M/4 years, 22M in '15)
Dickey (13M)

Adds a lot of salary on our end, which is why it'll never happen. But in my fantasy world, this trade is announced this afternoon.

[Edgy MD]

Adds a lot of age, too.

Bautista is a relative bargain, with two years left on that contract, and sometimes the idea is to move the bargains and the white elephants at the same time.

Toronto sheds a lot o' salary in general --- mostly Reyes --- but the only real assets they get are Niese and the minor league pitcher (and I push them toward Montero there). Murphy and Colon are on one year deals and pretty much getting paid at market or above for what they can be expected to give.

But I probably make that deal in a second from the Mets' point of view. It would mostly close the book on the offseason except for the infill signings. Then you go to camp praying that Reyes and Bautista don't get old suddenly. A man ages quickly carrying around ears the size of Bautista's.

[seawolf17]

What do you give Toronto to make that work, though? They're not that far off in their division, so you'd have to give them something of substance. Hence Colon and Murphy.

[Edgy MD]

Well, hopefully you convince them you're giving more than you're giving by taking on their salary and freeing them to spend it on the market. I dunno.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

If we're holding onto Herrera and Flores, well... howzabout Murphy and Gee to the Dodgers for Van Slyke the Younger? I like the rightyness/positional flexibility (first base AND all three outfield positions).

[Frayed Knot]

SvS has come around recently with the bat, but is a REALLY bad fielder/runner.

[Edgy MD]

As Van is 28 and still without a full season under his belt, I'd give up one of those two guys, but probably not two.

I can't speak to his running and fielding, but that seems unusual, considering his dad was really solid at both.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Frayed Knot wrote: SvS has come around recently with the bat, but is a REALLY bad fielder/runner.

The legs aren't great, but he seems like a scratch fielder to my eyes (when I've seen him) and the B-R/Fangraph metrics.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: I can't speak to his running and fielding, but that seems unusual, considering his dad was really solid at both.

But he's the complete opposite player from his father.
Bigger and more power but really slow; righty where the old man was lefty; clumsy rather than smooth, etc.
Watching the two I find it shocking that they're even related.

[Guest Madoff's Mets]

Dickey? Reyes? That ship has passed.

[smg58]

I can't help wondering if Matt Kemp was really available, and at what price.

[Frayed Knot]

Oh I think Matt Kemp probably was conditionally available last year and is almost certainly even more so now - but of course there are reasons for that.
- he recently turned 30 and is owed some $105 mil over the next 5 seasons.
- the offense did bounce back this year (from a 725 OPS in 2013 to 850) but those 900+/MVP-type years look to be behind him
- and then there the part where he's seemingly always hurt (missed ~150 games over 2012-13), his speed is gone (40 SBs down to single digits) and so is the defense.

Throw in that the Dodgers had a crowded OF last year [Puig, Ether, Crawford, Van Slyke] and one of their top prospects is an OF all ready to come up (Joc Pederson) and I think they'll be in a listening mode this winter.

At what price? ... well that's going to be the old player-vs-cost deal: the more salary a team will accept the less they'll have to give up in warm bodies.

[smg58]

Kemp was clearly ailing the first half of this year, but he got healthier as the year went on and was close to his MVP stats after the ASB (.971 OPS, with 17 of his 25 HR). His defense improved as well; the -3 runs saved after he moved to right was less than ideal, but it had been a -20 in center and left before then.

[Gwreck]

Centerfield wrote: We are a cleanup hitter away from being a playoff team in 2015. I really believe this. This is the closest we have been in a long time.

I agree.

I also think that one factor missing from the analysis is the availability of three top-tier starting pitchers in the free agent class. Yes, I'd prefer it if the top free agents instead included hitters but I trust Sandy can appreciate the need to get the best available talent. Sign any one of them, and there's a lot less pain associated with losing one of our own top starters/starter prospects in order to get that necessary bat.

Time for the Mets to act like the giant-market club they are.

[Fman99]

Gwreck wrote: Time for the Mets to act like the giant-market club they are.

This

[Guest d'Kong76]

This, or that... they need to end the charade or sell.

[Frayed Knot]

smg58 wrote: Kemp was clearly ailing the first half of this year, but he got healthier as the year went on and was close to his MVP stats after the ASB (.971 OPS, with 17 of his 25 HR). His defense improved as well; the -3 runs saved after he moved to right was less than ideal, but it had been a -20 in center and left before then.

Yeah, he's definitely no longer a CFer but of course we wouldn't need him to play there.
I still don't think the Mets will -- or maybe even should -- be effectively signing a 30+y/o FA player to a long-term 20+mil/yr deal AND have to give up players in the process.
As always, the devil would be in the specifics.

[Centerfield]

Would you take Kemp and his entire salary if LA offered it to you?

[metirish]

I may be wrong or it's just ingrained but I think Alderson has stated that not a lot of $$$ will be available this offseason, so adding $$ might be out. I agree that this team is close , come on Mets.

[Frayed Knot]

Would you take Kemp and his entire salary if LA offered it to you?

As in, for no players in return? ... Maybe, although even there you'd be overpaying.
To put it another way: would Matt Kemp on the open market this winter get $21.5mil/year for five years? ... he'd get good money but I doubt he'd get that. Just as a comparison, Joel Sherman in the NYPost is forecasting a 5/$80 FA deal for Hanley Ramirez this winter. If we assume that guesstimate is in the ballpark and assume a rough equivalency between the players here (Kemp is just 9 months younger and their stats over the past 3 seasons put up in the same home park are virtually identical) Kemp's deal is 30-some percent too high and that's before you account for Ramirez playing SS. OK he doesn't play SS very well and he probably shouldn't in the future, but I'd sign him to a 5/$80 deal and stick him in RF before I'd absorb Kemp's contract.

Look, it's not like I want to be knocking Matt Kemp here, he'd clearly be an upgrade to our outfield. It's just that this would be another situation where we'd know going in that we're (over)paying for a guy's 25-30 production but getting his 30-35 years instead as the injuries and decline in production, speed and defense are already apparent. Plus we know that this theoretical Kemp deal is not going to be for nothing in return it's going to be for some valuable players in addition to that contract, or at least of a portion of it depending on the quantity and quality of players going to other way.

[Centerfield]

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. If it doesn't make sense to get him for nothing, certainly it makes no sense to give up actual young talent for him.

Meanwhile, Alex Gordon has submitted a resume.

http://www.blessyouboys.com/2014/11/1/7141191/mlb-trade-rumors-royals-open-to-trading-alex-gordon

While 19 HR's and an OPS around .800 is not exactly a clean up hitter, we have to consider all possibilities. He does bring GG defense in LF.

[Gwreck]

I'm not sure he's the cleanup hitter we dream of but I wonder if Nick Markakis might be a worthy addition (at least compared to Michael Cuddyer).

Had his 2015 option declined by the Orioles and is a free agent.

[Edgy MD]

The Crane Pool Hellenic Society has indeed long expressed concern at the lack of Greco-American Mets since the heyday of George Theodore.

I'm getting with the notion of not getting caught up in getting a name-brand cleanup hitter, but rather simply getting better. A right-handed guy to hit between Duda and Granderson. On the other hand, Steamer (what a stinky name) predicts a fallback for Duda. (Though I imagine few of the prediction models account for the Mets' moving wall.)

[Centerfield]

I have no doubt that the Mets will eventually end up with Markakis, or Cuddyer or Rios, or some other loser that doesn't hit HR's. Our acquisition will be coupled with rhetoric that we only needed to add about 10 HR's or so, and that our run differential suggests we are right there (without accounting for regression from some of our guys who had big years). But I got no room for your realistic predictions in this thread.

In this thread the Mets go big and get a real legitimate power hitter. A hitter that looms ominously on the on deck circle. (For all the HR's that he hit, Duda still needs work on his looming.) In this thread the Mets are a big market team and try to build championship teams, instead of teams that may possibly compete for the wild card if everything breaks their way. In this thread, the Mets are a big market ballclub.

[Frayed Knot]

Centerfield wrote: Yeah, that's what I was wondering. If it doesn't make sense to get him for nothing, certainly it makes no sense to give up actual young talent for him.

Unless the Dodgers are will to eat a big chunk of the contract, at which point the equation starts to change.
Now I don't think the Dodgers, coming off a 94 win season, are going to be in contract eating mode this winter, but yaneverknow. The anticipated monster TV deal that was fueling at least some of the spending spree the new ownership has been on since they took over has run into some snags* so maybe the high payroll and the huge purchase price start to catch up to them at some point. I'm sure they'd prefer to move either Ethier (either Ethier - say that five times fast) or Crawford - both of whom they owe big bucks to through 2017. Neither is as young as Kemp (both are/will be 33 y/o by OD 2015) and neither would be the power hitter you want (plus the combo of Crawford + Granderson would give us maybe the two worst throwing corner OFs in all of MLB), but there's more than one way to skin a cat and Crawford could at least fill the leadoff spot.




* games unavailable to large sections of the LA area in a way that will remind NYers of the old MSG/Cablevision type wars - maybe Seo has some more details on this

Edited November 3, 2014 by Guest