smg58

In terms of ERA+, he's comparable to what Wheeler was his last two seasons with the Mets. He would not be a bad option, and he might love the switch in ballparks. Still not sure where the market is, and whether going all-in on Bauer would preclude other frontline investments, but he's worth considering.

You do due diligence on everybody, and you adapt if somebody turns out to be a bargain. That being said, I don't see the fit.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Bauer seems to be heavily wooing the Mets. Maybe it's because they're his top choice, or maybe because he wants the billionaire in on the bidding. I'm sure he'd like to have 30 billionaires in on the bidding.

His bat is trending downward, as you would expect at his age, and his defense is no longer much better than average (although still impressively good for a catcher his age). Honestly, he's a hard person for fans of any other team to dislike. He wouldn't be the worst fit if I knew the catcher of the future was starting the year in Binghamton or Syracuse. I'm really not sure where Francisco Alvarez is at going into 2021, but that could influence how heavily I'd invest in the position -- especially if I thought it would take seven years to get Realmuto. So, holding my nose and doing due diligence.

As much as I don't want the universal DH, it would help the Mets as they're currently structured. Davis would most likely still play against lefties -- his lack of a glove and his so-so 2020 with the bat do not justify more than that -- but with five lefty bats to sub for (not even including Gimenez), there'd be no reason to platoon him with one person in particular. Shortstop is a more interesting dilemma. Rosario had an .873 OPS in September and October, so it's possible he got benched too often down the stretch. But Gimenez is likely only getting better from here too. Not sure how it will play out.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Right handed hittingness, centerfieldability, northeasterncentricity, ticketsellingability, yeah he's a guy to get And don't forget his last name is Springer.

He's a really good fit for this team. Plus if he needs to slide over to a corner in a couple of years, the team should be able to accommodate him.

Well if we learned anything from last season, being content with just Stroman is a losing strategy. I figured two quality starting pitchers are a necessity, and Stroman is one.

Edgy MD wrote: Fun Thought Experiment: Does this transaction get credited (or debited if it's a loser) to the account of the outgoing regime, under which the Q.O. was made, or the new regime, under which it was accepted? I guess I think Stroman should be treated as the runner on second who is still Brodie's responsibility, even after he's been pulled from the game. Brodie will get none of the credit if Stroman works out and all of the blame if he doesn't. They key to this is that so far this offseason, the Mets have committed $27M to three pitchers who combined for -0.2 WAR last season. Now if Cohen's wallet is as bottomless as we hope, that's completely irrelevant. But if that were true, we also could have claimed Brad Hand and his $10M option and already be pretty close to set in the pen. We may want to revisit this if we get to spring training and don't feel the Mets got enough bang for their bucks.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I was actually surprised that everyone assumed he'd reject it. He didn't pitch in 2020 and there's expected to be a depressed market for free agents. Taking the guaranteed $18.9 million and trying again next year (he can never be QO'ed again) seems like the wise move. Right. This was common sense to me.

The difference with Piazza/Hundley was that Hundley wouldn't play until September and the catchers the Mets had available were replacement level. So you were upgrading from replacement level to Hall-of-Famer. That's not the case here. Lindor is an elite defender at SS who can give you an OPS in the mid-.800s, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But I'd be more interested in a pitcher of comparable value for the same price tag, because the need is greater. I wouldn't rule it out necessarily, but it's not my plan A.

After McConnell and Graham got rewarded for bald-faced lying, this was probably inevitable. But less damaging.

That last baseball card is somewhere up in my parents' attic with Rick Baldwin's.

He was very good with the Rays in 2018, but struggled for Seattle in 2019 and fell off a cliff last year. Maybe it was coaching, maybe pitchers caught up to him, maybe he got lucky once. He could have value for a dumpster dive, or he could be Billy Hamilton minus the big bat. Zero risk, but zero expectations. I'm fine with him if he's not this year's Marisnick and then we decide we're done in the outfield.

Guys can take a while to get fully well, even if they're on the mound. The most obvious recent major league example is Lance Lynn, who missed 2016 and had a bumpy ride in 2017 and 2018, before getting back more or less to being the pitcher he had been. In the Mets system, Peterson was two years removed from TJS and exceeded expectations by a lot, but he was so-so in the minors in 2019. And Kilome was one year removed this past season and really not ready; I wouldn't pencil him in anywhere other than Syracuse to start the year, but I certainly wouldn't give up on him. That being said, I'd be willing to keep Lugo in the rotation for a couple of months if the expectation that Thor will be at 80% by the ASB is reasonable. But, assuming Stroman returns, we still have a big hole we should try to fill with a #2. And if I decide that's not a reasonable timetable for Thor, we will need somebody else as well. Better players than Matz are being non-tendered. He's not returning.

I remember getting his baseball card in 1976 (the year before the one BG posted), and thinking he looked so young.

Given what we already know about the market, I think Stroman would be nuts NOT to take the QO. Plus I don't think anybody would give up a draft pick for a guy who didn't pitch last year. He's back one way or the other.

It's $8M for two relievers who combined for -0.2 WAR this past year, in a market where we could have claimed Brad Hand off waivers for $10M (PS nobody claimed him).

Brad Brach and Dellin Betances exercised their player options. Thank you, Brodie.

I'm old enough to remember when Tony LaRussa was the youngest manager in the game. I still like my managers to be older than I am. And if they're much older, so much the better. If the NFL pulls off a full season this year but baseball owners balk at doing so next year, won't the optics be, I don't know, bad? The next CBA discussion is already not likely to be cordial, and they really don't want the public seeing them unequivocally as the bad guys. However, they might really be that stupid. Of course, the public might be stupid enough to think an $8 billion dollar debt spread around a room of 30 multi-billionaires is something worthy of sympathy. Oh, and in case my opinion on the subject has not been made sufficiently clear: fuck the DH.

A few cuts have already been added, most notably Brad Hand, whose $10M option was not picked up despite a 2.05 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, and 29/4 K/BB ratio over 22 innings in 2020.

A file with the mayor's true intentions is on the same hard drive as Hunter Biden's incriminating emails.

Getting one of the top 3 is imperative, two would be awesome. On the whole, though, I'm expecting a lot of one-year deals league-wide.

Edgy MD wrote: I don't think it's as true to describe the instances of when Snell "made it to the sixth," as it is to describe those as when "he was only allowed to make it to the sixth." His fifth inning ERA was fine. His sixth-inning numbers were bad, but again, we're looking at 11 plate appearances. The issue to me is a manager and organization getting so trapped in their own ideology that they work against their own interests, even as they know they are doing so. Well you can certainly make the argument that Snell has been babied more than was prudent all along. And even when he won the Cy Young Award two years ago, he averaged less than six innings a start. And maybe that's the real issue here. We have teams telling their starters "your velocity is down a notch compared to the first inning, the batters have all had two good looks at you, it's time for you to take a seat" when perhaps they should be saying "your velocity is down a notch compared to the first inning, the batters have all had two good looks at you, it's time for you to learn how to pitch."