smg58

He had all of 16 innings between the minors and the Puerto Rican winter league. Obviously it's a short sample and he did give up two home runs in that stretch, but overall his numbers looked all right. There doesn't appear to be an obstacle to him coming to ST ready to pitch. I bet he'll be at least as good as Byrdak has been the past two years.

I have no idea what he has in the tank, but if he makes the club I'd welcome him back with open arms.

Swan Swan H wrote: Josh Thole avoids having Edgy call him an arbitrant, or a bastardo for that matter, by inking for two years, $2.5 million loonies. That's about three million more than he's worth.

Ashie62 wrote: I believe both are lame ducks. I have to agree with this. I think Collins needs the Mets to significantly exceed expectations, and Girardi needs the Yankees to meet expectations that aren't all that realistic. I don't see a mid-season firing unless things go much worse than expected, but it will be a mild upset if either is back.

I don't think that price is terribly unreasonable off the season he had. Alderson gave more than that to Frank Francisco, after all. I could understand the caution if there's a better plan A out there, but that remains to be seen.

That's over the top, and then there's a draft pick going to the Yankees as well. Better them than us.

There's a moral in there about giving a no-trade clause to somebody already under your team's control.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Gwreck wrote: Dotel would make the list (1.229 career WHIP) but he's 53.2 innings short of the 1000 minimum. The chronically unloved Armando Benitez's career 1.217 WHIP would place him in 12th place on this list but for his lack of enough IP's, too. Wagner (0.998) would actually top this list with 97 more IP.

Mickey Lolich?

Frank Viola?

Obviously it depends on Wilson's health (and the price tag), but a healthy Wilson upgrades our pen by a LOT. Any facial hair-related distractions that come along with not sweating the ninth inning would be tolerated.

I just don't see a good match. The Mariners offered more than we got for Dickey, and Upton is not as good.

The issue with Upton is consistency. Two of his last four seasons have resulted in an OPS close to .900, and two have resulted in an OPS below .800. Plus he's been playing in a hitter's park; his career OPS+ of 117 actually equals that of Ike Davis (who had a higher OPS+ last year). The Mariners were willing to include a prospect in Tajiuan Walker that is more highly rated (in at least one survey) than any of ours, too, so between the salary and the trade cost we'd be paying for the three best seasons of his career. Getting less than that from him would not be an option.

We all knew that the steroids era would cause a major, major headache for Hall voters, and there is no way to avoid it that I can see. Even assuming that we could get each writer to apply some "internally consistent logic," that term would be defined differently by each writer. Plus, subjective impulses are simply harder to ignore when the objective criteria become murky; deep down and right or wrong, I wanted Piazza to get in yesterday, while I would sooner give the benefit of the doubt to trichinosis before I'd give it to Roger Clemens. I certainly can't argue with anybody who wants more smoke to clear before voting for certain (or all) steroids-era players. I also can't argue with anybody who feels that Bonds and Clemens at the very least deserve to wait a ballot. The only two players I can confidently say I'd never vote for are Palmiero and Ramirez, because they continued to juice once the league started making an honest effort to eliminate steroids, and that's a character issue they don't share with everybody else. Beyond that, your subjective judgement call is as good as mine (and probably as flawed, too).

It's so tough to quantify a catcher's defensive value, and my view of Carter's defense is colored by his steady decline with the Mets. Still, Carter in his prime threw out half the attempted basestealers, which was way beyond what Piazza could do. I'd be curious to see a rigorous sabermetric analysis of the two, but my gut says Piazza had more overall value.

There might be a ripple effect going on, as the Nats' signing of Adam La Roche has got the Yanks talking about Mike Morse and perhaps backing off Hairston.

Edgy MD wrote: Or you could tack a 2014 option on with the offer. But this thread was started to address a present need. I'm with Edgy on this. If you can afford to gamble a second season on Sizemore, you can afford to make the Opening Day outfield presentable.

I would imagine that Flores will be given the chance to play second base before the Mets do anything else with him. I don't see him coming north with the team in April, but I think his bat at least is ready for AAA.

The primary role of any reserve on a National League team is to pinch hit, so hitting should generally take priority over fielding. I'd much rather see Turner work on his defense at second and short than in the outfield. The same goes for Valdespin. If they make the team, you want it to come at the expense of a weak-hitting infielder rather than a decent-hitting outfielder.

Ashie62 wrote: They must have liked him the first time to bring him back.. As cheap reserve infielders go, he's OK.

Fman99 wrote: According to this article on MLB.com, the Mets are the ONLY team this offseason to not sign a major league free agent. That shit is depressing. There are enough decent relief pitchers still on the market (Matt Capps, Chad Durbin, J. P. Howell, Matt Lindstrom, Brandon Lyon, Peter Moylan, John Rauch, K-Rod, Rafael Soriano, Jose Valverde, Brian Wilson) that I can't imagine that will last.

I'll go on record as saying I'm against that if d'Arnaud looks in ST like he's already a better player than Buck.

No reason not to give him a look.

Flores very quietly had an excellent season. His contact rate was superb (only 60 Ks in 493 ABs over high A and AA), which leads me to think he can carry this form to higher levels. Plus he's still only 21, so even though it seems like he's been in our system forever he was not old at all for the leagues he was playing in. The only question is where to play him. If he can handle second base or centerfield, he could still be very valuable to us as something other than a trading chip.

If we traded Wheeler, Harvey, and d'Arnaud for Stanton (and there's no guarantee that would even be enough, if 28 other teams are in on the bidding), we'd have a major league team that's more or less as good as the teams that had Dickey the past two seasons, without any front-end prospects in the pipeline and with the likelihood that Stanton will command as much in arbitration over the seasons after this one as signing Dickey to an extension would have cost (meaning no additional money to go after free agents). Sure I'd want Stanton if the price is less than I think it will be, but there might be 29 teams thinking along those lines right now.