smg58

smg58 wrote: I can see him providing us with two or three games of entertainment throwing the knuckleball. And the Mets might even win one of those games. Otherwise, he's just roster depth, nothing to get excited about or to burn Omar in effigy over. And to think that, relatively speaking, I was optimistic.

Edgy DC wrote: Hard to figure what you offer a guy like him, but at least they control. Right. The good news is he's not going anywhere. I'd be willing to put his 2011 contract in the hands of an arbiter instead of making a big commitment without knowing if he can do this twice.

J.A. Happ is just getting back from an injury, but keep in mind that he had a better year than Oswalt last year. John Singleton is an 18-year-old with a .312/.418/.526 line in A ball. There's at least one more player involved, but that's already quite a bit more than they got for Lee.

While I thought it was obvious that Holliday was the better player, I wouldn't have outbid the Cardinals. I felt the Mets overbid on Bay too, but I didn't think it was by all that much. Still, I figured Bay was a safe bet to upgrade the offense substantially, and I'm as stumped as anybody by his performance so far.

Just got back. Way too many empty seats on a nice night. I don't care if the pitcher is up next, you don't give a free pass to a Mendoza-line hitter in the first inning. (PS Jaime Garcia currently has a higher batting average than Brendan Ryan.) Johan pitched to one batter too many in the sixth inning. Wright not beating the throw into second, sliding past the bag, and then standing there when he hadn't been tagged yet ate at me the whole rest of the game.

But if Whiteside doesn't know how to read pitchers when he's batting, how does he survive as a catcher?

Hessman would have probably been up a month ago if he hadn't gotten hurt. He's only played third and first this season (mostly third), but has experience nearly every place else. And he can hit. On the Barajas front, Ken Rosenthal is saying that the Red Sox offered Ramon Ramirez for Barajas before the injury. It was an intriguing offer if true.

Making the playoffs from here means Pelfrey has righted his ship, and Dickey continues to pitch as he has. It also means that our offense has improved.

I'm at a total loss. Everybody's finally back, and this happens. Mediocre offensive output would have won us all three series.

Come on, only two significant trades have been made so far. And our pitching isn't what's killing us.

The last part of that statement appears to be the key for Arizona, as it doesn't look like the D-Backs got much along the line of good young talent.

Hessman is healthy again. And we still have three catchers.

He's no-risk, so why not? To be fair, the Mets have four relievers with an ERA under 3, and a fifth in Valdes who would as well if not for the two blow-ups in San Diego six weeks ago. There's room for improvement to be sure, but don't assume the grass is much greener elsewhere, or that this is a repeat of 2008.

I think Barajas is the guy you move. I'm not sure who's looking for a catcher, though.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I liked it even though it was stupid, lowbrow and predictable. Maybe that's why I liked it. That's pretty much exactly how I would describe it.

My present feelings towards Rodriguez notwithstanding, the Mets found a way to win in spite of him, and that's a good thing.

on edit: I guess Edgy beat me to the punch on a lot of this, but I spent 15 minutes typing it so I'll post it anyway... Not only has he proven himself unworthy of a starting job, but he also profiles poorly as a reserve. He can't play center field, so he has no versatility on defense. Irrelevant, given that the guy playing ahead of him in right can play center very well. And he's not fast, so he has no value as a pinch-runner. And which guy do the Mets carry for his pinch-running? So what does he do well? He's got a great arm, but so do any number of guys in Triple-A who can't hit. Lots of minor leaguers can throw like Francoeur? Really? We're only talking about 77 plate appearances, a ridiculously small sample. And of his 24 hits against southpaws, just five have gone for extra bases, including only one that went over the wall. So even though he's hitting left-handers pretty well, he's only hitting singles off of them. Additionally, his batting average on balls in play against lefties this season is an absurd .397. For his career, his BABIP against lefties is .328, which suggests he's over his head this year. Didn't you just say it was a small sample? In fairness, Francoeur owns a .302/.345/.484 line versus lefties for his career Which suggests that he's not over his head this year at all. But that's a pretty pedestrian slugging percentage for a corner outfielder who supposedly crushes lefties. It would be pedestrian if he was batting cleanup. Coming off the bench or platooning, it's actually quite useful. He isn't so good when facing southpaws that you absolutely HAVE TO have him in the lineup against them. He has the second highest OPS against lefties on the team, behind Wright. We may not HAVE to play him against lefties, but I don't see why we wouldn't WANT to. And once you realize that there's no need to go out of the way to shoehorn Francoeur into a platoon, then why is he on the team? Fernando Tatis is currently on the disabled list, but has no pronounced platoon split (.777 career OPS against righties, .804 against lefties) and can fill in at all four corner positions, plus second base in a pinch, making him a better use of a roster spot. If you ignore the fact that he's been terrible all year. Ditto Nick Evans (.970 career OPS against southpaws in the minors, .855 in the majors), who mashes southpaws at least as well as Francoeur, and can fill in at first base, left and even third if David Wright comes down with food poisoning or some other 24-hour malady. I don't have any problem at all with Evans replacing Tatis, but while I don't feel he's gotten enough of an opportunity to prove himself at this level, he does have to take more advantage of his opportunities than he has to date. Jesus Feliciano is a not a "proven major leaguer," but he has hit above .300 for four straight years at Triple-A, including .385 this year, can play all three outfield spots, and would probably be the fastest guy on the bench. I like Feliciano, but we don't need two lefthanded reserve outfielders and I think Carter will prove to be the better hitter of the two. I'm not saying Francoeur's a superstar, or that I wouldn't consider dealing him if another GM values him more than I do. But Meyers seems to think he can be easily replaced with what the Mets already have, and I'm not sure I buy it.

It's not always the injuries, so much as who you have to replace them. In the case of Perez and Maine, the replacements have not only been better in general, but have been better than the optimistic expectations for those two. Davis is at least as good as Murphy would have been and is only going to get better. And we've gotten improvements from guys who were here last year too. An up-and-down Reyes still gives us a lot more than we got from shortstop last year. Pagan has been super, and hey, it's nice to see somebody exceed realistic expectations once in a while. His recent starts notwithstanding, this year's Pelfrey is still a big jump ahead of last year's Pelfrey. David Wright has been David Wright again.

From my perspective, he was sort of like Darth Vader or The Joker. Of course you hate him because he's the villain, but things are more entertaining when he's gets camera time. Love him or hate him though, every baseball owner should care as much about winning as Steinbrenner did.

Brian Roberts is set to begin a rehab assignment today. There might be a buy low opportunity there.

I'd like to see who we could get at what price before singling anybody out. Beltran might turn out to be as good a pickup as anybody else can make, so I don't think we need to make a panic move. I think we're hurting more at second base than at fifth starter, but I'm open to upgrades at either spot.

Pagan has been the second most valuable Met this season. You could justify a platoon given his and Francoeur's splits, but Francoeur simply does not give the Mets enough to warrant more than that.

Sheppard was as iconic as stadium announcers can get. Impossible not to respect.

Montero appears to be the prospect the Mariners most coveted. They don't appear to be fazed by his struggles in AAA and if they still value him as highly as he was valued coming into the season, we weren't going to top the offer.

I'd have thought that Montero's stock would have dropped this season. (He has a lower OPS than Fernando Martinez.) Adams has decent value, but he's hardly earth-shattering. With every buyer in the league talking to the Mariners, I would think that they can do better, or at least demand more from the Yankees.