Benjamin Grimm

Losing five first round draft picks is a lot worse than Tiger Woods being fined $1,000! That's a penalty with teeth!

155 of them as a Met, one more than Dave Kingman. Lindor has more games, runs, homers, runs batted in, stolen bases, and walks as a Met than as an Indian. With Cleveland, he has more hits, doubles, and he's better in all three "slash" categories. Same number of triples, 15, with each team.

I read that Stock is with the Mets to eat up innings and spare the young arms. I suppose, in a lost season, that's not a terrible idea. But I'm not sure exactly whose arms are being spared.

There had been reports of the Mets coveting Robert for a long time before they got him. I never understood it. I'm not sorry that he's gone. I don't know what Luisangel Acuna has been doing. I don't know that we'll really regret losing him, but I suppose it's possible. The trade with the White Sox will never be regarded as a good one. Time will tell whether or not we look back at it as a bad one.

It seems that way. I suppose they're thinking that the international players are less likely to have the opportunity to play college ball. Have there been any Dominican players, for example, who played in college before going on to play minor- or major-league baseball? I really doubt that the number is much higher than zero.

I wonder about that too. I mean, yeah, they're paying the salaries and potentially medical bills of a lot of non-prospects in the Rookie and Low-A leagues. Kids who are just there to play catch with the relatively few actual prospects at those levels. But these kids aren't making much, they're not traveling by plane, they're presumably not staying in fancy hotels. It seems like it's a small expense for a multi-billion dollar industry. Apparently though, instead of paying those kids, MLB sees it as more cost-effective for college students to fill those roles.

I assume he'd want to know what the responsibilities are for a GM who works under a POBO. I'm not sure anyone really knows that.

The proposal is from the owners. I don't expect the Players Association to see this as a positive.

David Lennon, in Newsday, is reporting that MLB is proposing a minimum age for the draft. No more drafting players directly out of high school. The article also says that the draft would be reduced from 20 rounds to 12. This would also, obviously, allow teams to reduce the sizes of their minor league organizations as they'd be offloading more of the player development to colleges and universities.

My girlfriend fell asleep early last night, so I decided to peek in on the Mets for the first time since July 5. I had enough time to see Chayce McDermott on the mound, and the little bug in the upper left said the Mets were down 7-1, and I turned off the TV and picked up a book instead. So much for that.

Well, the purpose of this thread wasn't to collectively decide Bichette's fate, but to get a temperature check to see how we'd feel, glad or sad, if he, of his own volition, decided to opt out and went elsewhere.

I voted Stay as well. I think the 2027 Mets would be a better team with him than without him. The conventional wisdom, for whatever it's worth, seems to be that he's expected to stay, and perhaps opt out after 2027 instead of after 2026.

Are you hoping that Bo Bichette returns to the Mets in 2027? Or would you rather see him go?