The Mets are Fucking Dumb

[Centerfield]

There is absolutely no reason to play short-handed these last 2 games. Seth Lugo could have been demoted, or Syndergaard could have been DL'ed.

Conforto should absolutely positively be here for these 2 games before the break.

Instead, we get De Aza. Forget the injuries and everything else, the boneheaded moves by Alderson and this front office are fucking inexcusable.

[Zvon]

I'll have to agree with you about De Useless, and yes even tho he and Nimmo are both lefties, I would have liked to see Conforto to the break with the big club. Did you see De Aza hit himself in the face with his bat while on deck earlier tonight? I was impressed he made contact.

[Frayed Knot]

Please do remember that Conforto was like 5 for his last 85 before we go treating him as the answer to much of anything here.

As far as DL'ing Syndergaard, I'll pass on an extra mediocre reliever for a day to two while also committing to being without Thor for the first week and a half post-ASB on a staff that's already missing Harvey.

[bmfc1]

Sandy's off-season: not signing Murphy to a long-term deal (not looking like a smart move at the moment), not getting Zobrist (he tried), then happily trading Niese for Walker (good deal)
Keeping Bartolo (good!)
Signing Cabrera (good!)
Signing de Aza to platoon with Lagares (oops!)
Signing Barstardo (disaster!)
Signging Cespedes, who basically fell into Sandy's laps (great!).

Sandy needs to admit his mistakes and DFA de Aza and Bastardo before Friday.

[Zvon]

OE: Ha, I made it worse.

Edited July 10, 2016 by Guest

[Zvon]

crapiola

[Zvon]

Frayed Knot wrote: Please do remember that Conforto was like 5 for his last 85 before we go treating him as the answer to much of anything here.

I do but I firmly believe he will find his sweet swing again and it might as well be up here for all we are getting from De Aza. Stop it with these place holders. The future is now.

[Edgy MD]

Was the forum upset at time that Murphy was left to walk?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think we all knew it was coming.

If I remember correctly, I was hoping he'd bite on the QO and come back for 2016.

[bmfc1]

Even if you don't call up Conforto yet, reward good play and get red hot Travis Taijeron (remember him from spring training?) up.
http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=t400&player_id=607369#/career/R/hitting/2016/ALL

[Edgy MD]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think we all knew it was coming. If I remember correctly, I was hoping he'd bite on the QO and come back for 2016.

Looks like nobody was outright decrying this would blow in the team's face, but most were pretty leery that it might.

[Zvon]

Edgy MD wrote: Was the forum upset at time that Murphy was left to walk?

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think we all knew it was coming. If I remember correctly, I was hoping he'd bite on the QO and come back for 2016.

We were practically conditioned through the media that it had to be. We couldn't afford him after he raised his value during the end of 2015. And I pretty much bought it. I'm conditioned in regards to that too, that we are not a big city big market team. Guess I will be until something proves otherwise. I felt we were turning the corner with the Cespedes move and I'm going to try and continue to feel that way because even in my wildest dreams I would not have expected Muff to do what he's doing overall. Against us, I expected to get burnt, but what he's doing league wide is incredible. I'm happy for him.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

It was never that they couldn't afford him. It was that they were opting not to, given the controllable presumed near-future option.

Not that Niese-for-Walker wasn't a good trade. But, man, neither before nor after the Zobrist failure did Murph seem an object of serious consideration. Which is weird, considering that he wanted back in, and he was a known commodity seemingly on the upswing.

[Frayed Knot]

I'm not going to go all revisionist history on either Zobrist or Murphy* simply because each are having better years than anyone expected and quite possibly the best of their careers -- certainly so in Murph's case and at least close in Zobrist's -- especially since it's not like they had the option of having these 31 and 35 year old guys for this year alone but would had also had to sign up for the next three as well.
So I'm pretty sure the prospect of having Murph under contract into his mid-30s is a large part of what the Mets balked at (What about Dilson/Flores/Reynolds?!?!?!) while the fact that they weren't balking at signing Zobrist for multiple years starting in his mid-30s had many of us scratching our heads at the time and wondering why not.





* Murph is also hitting all of .270 since June 1 with an OBA just a tick above .300. Two days, despite what Kenny Albert kept saying over and over again, is NOT a hot streak simply because those are the only two games he happened to watch

[Chad ochoseis]

Frayed Knot wrote: I'm not going to go all revisionist history on either Zobrist or Murphy* simply because each are having better years than anyone expected and quite probably of the best of their careers -- certainly so in Murph's case and at least close in Zobrist's.

Definitely. I can't blame Sandy for not figuring out that Murphy was going to go from an above-average offensive 2B to one of the league's best hitters. Has any player in the history of the game suddenly started consistently OPSing 200 points over their career numbers after age 30?

Well, yeah, someone did. But let's restrict that question to players who didn't play in the steroid era.

And Murph had an awful WS, giving some weight to the belief that the Cubs and Dodgers series were flukes.

The consensus on Walker was that he was an upgrade over Murphy, and most of us were happy to have one year of Walker over four years of Zobrist. I didn't weigh in then, but knowing what Sandy knew in 2015, I wouldn't have done anything differently. Hindsight is always...well, you know.

[MFS62]

I look at Sandy's moves from a strategic standpoint. To evaluate the deals, we'll have to wait a few years to see if the long term result was worthwhile.
If he had re-signed Murphy, it would have been for multiple years (let's say 4).
Instead, he got Walker (who isn't exactly chopped liver) for one year, and it will open up the spot to play Dilson Hererra, most likely for the three years after this.
But you also have to view the total salary difference over those four years(the difference between four years of Murphy versus one year of Walker and three years of Hererra). Several pitchers will be getting eligible for large contracts over that period, and the money saved can be spent to help keep the pitching.

Later

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I was under no illusions Walker would be a superior hitter to Muffy, but a better fielder and a better bargain, given all the options. The weird thing as mentioned was being prepared to go 4 years on Zobrist, with the next option being 1 on Walker.

This would suggest to me the Mets had had it up to here with Muffy's D, and/or felt Zobrist was simply a better class of asset than either Muffy or Walker.

Still not convinced letting Muffy walk was a disaster. I mean, there was a also a 1 in 28 shot he wouldn't go to Washington.

[Centerfield]

This thread took a left turn.

Wasn't meaning to second guess the offseason moves. I was speaking more to the intra-organization moves this season. This series is huge and we end up having to start De Aza. Michael Conforto would have been a much bigger asset these last two games than Seth Lugo.

[Frayed Knot]

Well the reason we were stuck with De Aza was because Cespedes isn't available and Conforto crashed and burned to the point where he had to be sent down. De Aza might be just 9 for his last 54 but Conforto was an even worse 7 for his final 59 prior to his demotion.

Look, there's no getting around the fact that he's failed miserably as a signing and I'm sure if we could ever actually get Lagares, Cespedes, Nimmo, Granderson & Conforto on the roster and available at the same time that ADA will be outta here in a minute. But between the various injuries (large and small) and sucking that hasn't been the case and so, until such time as it is, he's a guy on the roster ready to play while the others aren't.
P.S. He had two hits on got on base three times Saturday night which was as many as the rest of the lineup combined.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah.

[bmfc1]

I don't know if this is dumb: Syndergaard won't start until the 19th which is 11 days after his last appearance. The Mets could have DL'd him, thereby adding another player and giving him additional rest, and only lost him for an additional 4 days.

[Centerfield]

Frayed Knot wrote: Well the reason we were stuck with De Aza was because Cespedes isn't available and Conforto crashed and burned to the point where he had to be sent down. De Aza might be just 9 for his last 54 but Conforto was an even worse 7 for his final 59 prior to his demotion. Look, there's no getting around the fact that he's failed miserably as a signing and I'm sure if we could ever actually get Lagares, Cespedes, Nimmo, Granderson & Conforto on the roster and available at the same time that ADA will be outta here in a minute. But between the various injuries (large and small) and sucking that hasn't been the case and so, until such time as it is, he's a guy on the roster ready to play while the others aren't. P.S. He had two hits on got on base three times Saturday night which was as many as the rest of the lineup combined.

I understand that Cespedes was not available, but that did not mean in any way, shape or form that we had to be stuck with De Aza. Conforto has been red hot and has hit 3 HR's since he returned to LV. If it were left to me, I would have started him over De Aza. And if you don't feel Conforto is ready, there are a host of other bats that could have been called up.

With only two games left before the All-Star break, it's a no-brainer that you send down Seth Lugo (or DL Noah) and get a productive bat up for the last 2 games.

Countless times this season the Mets front office has inexplicably failed to field the best team possible. How this can be done during a series as important as this one is mind-boggling to me.

[bmfc1]

Well said CF. If management was concerned about having enough arms in the bullpen, they should have made deGrom available out of the pen yesterday (the way the Nationals used Roark).

[Edgy MD]

Well, the Mets didn't lose the game in the pen.

Teams have sometimes sent down players with options just before the All Star break to be certain they kept getting their work in. There isn't a lot of precedent for teams sending down pitchers with options in order to get a few more bats for the last game or two, and assuming their off-day starters can pick up the slack.

Not that it isn't a good idea. You may not want to interrupt Conforto's season, but there's also Kelly, Reynolds, Herrera, and Campbell as options. Plawecki too. A better move than sending down Lugo (or DL'ing Syndergaard), would have been to send down Verrett, who wasn't going to pitch under any circumstances.

[Guest themetfairy]

bmfc1 wrote: I don't know if this is dumb: Syndergaard won't start until the 19th which is 11 days after his last appearance. The Mets could have DL'd him, thereby adding another player and giving him additional rest, and only lost him for an additional 4 days.

They have a couple of days before they have to make this decision. Perhaps they will DL him before play resumes.

[Centerfield]

Edgy MD wrote: Well, the Mets didn't lose the game in the pen. Teams have sometimes sent down players with options just before the All Star break to be certain they kept getting their work in. There isn't a lot of precedent for teams sending down pitchers with options in order to get a few more bats for the last game or two, and assuming their off-day starters can pick up the slack. Not that it isn't a good idea. You may not want to interrupt Conforto's season, but there's also Kelly, Reynolds, Herrera, and Campbell as options. Plawecki too. A better move than sending down Lugo (or DL'ing Syndergaard), would have been to send down Verrett, who wasn't going to pitch under any circumstances.

Right. Sending down Verrett would have been the right play. No idea why this wouldn't have been done. Yesterday's game might have gone 25 innings. Taking up a roster spot would have been a useless Logan Verrett wrapped in ice.

[Edgy MD]

I think the reason it wasn't done is because it traditionally isn't done.

There are some ways honor-bound and tradition-bound managers and GMs just don't look for an edge. It's an agreement so implicit, many wouldn't even think of doing it. Then a young guy comes in and does it and everybody hates him for 15 minutes — but it's in fact perfectly legitimate, defensible, and obvious, and they're all doing it the next year.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Not to excuse fucking dumbness but for the Mets right now it's not even about tiny advantages on the margins it's about the guys they have out there all afternoon making some shit happen.

[Benjamin Grimm]

The title of this thread reminds me of the joke about why Mickey divorced Minnie.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Speaking of things that aren't done until they're done, the NFL channel is showing classic games. I wasn't intending to watch any of this the other day, but I was channel surfing and caught the end of one those games. It caught my interest because it was, naturally, a great game. And it went down to the wire. And I happened to catch like the last 5 minutes of game time.

Anyways, so now there's like 10 seconds left in the game and even though the score is close, the team ahead has possession of the ball. This was a Raiders playoff game from the '70s, I forgot to mention. So there's time for one more play, and the Raiders, on the last play, with the lead, in a playoff game no less, elimination ferchrissakes, run a power sweep. They don't sit on the ball. There's no victory formation. What? Before Joe Pisarcik, no one thought of the victory formation?

Now that's fucking dumb!