smg58

If you think the Mets’ need for a rightanded first baseman will be less next year, and if you think that Rivera and/or Cecchini can do what Flores can do in the rest of the infield, then he’s expendable. He’s one of my favorite Mets and you wouldn’t simply take whatever you could get, but you listen to offers.

It's shocking that Machado hasn't been dealt yet. I can't imagine the Orioles couldn't have gotten more for him in May than they can now, and it was already clear by then that they were the worst team in the league. What if he gets hurt?

Edgy MD wrote: Nah, it can sometimes get you in a better situation. Harvey for Meso has worked. Nobody in the entire league looked more undealable at the end of last season than Matt Kemp. Not only was he dealt, but now he's a freaking All-Star.

Frazier is not a better hitter than Wil Flores. He was supposed to be a huge defensive upgrade, but he's been a decent defensive upgrade whose value with the glove has been negated by Cabrera's performance (or lack thereof) at second. It is fair to ask which of the available options at second or third that we talked about in the offseason would have been better pickups, and the answer is... who? Kipnis has been worse than Frazier. Cozart is out for the year. Moustakas could have been had, though. The issue there was more about the draft pick than the money. I'd be mad over that if we were the right infielder away from contention, but, it turns out we're better off with the pick. It is fair to ask what Flores' role on this team is going forward. The need for a right-handed first baseman will be diminished next year if/when Alonso gets the call. And Rivera (possibly Cecchini as well) can fill his role in the rest of the infield. I love the guy and would hate to see him go, but he is a reasonable trade candidate.

Ashie62 wrote: Contend i 2019? Dump the following. By Trade Cabrera Plawecki Syndergaard Frazier Conforto ( he just aint that good) Swarzak Familia We have soo many horrid contracts to eat that I don't see them contending any time soon Oh, Dominic Smith and Amed Rosario. Those are our building blocks, right? Dear lord Conforto was better last year than Nimmo is this year. And he worked hard to get back two months before anybody thought he'd be back. In 20/20 hindsight, he and the Mets would have been better off waiting. Part of the reason why I'm not bothered by the time that Cespedes/Syndergaard/Bruce are taking to get back is that maybe, if you handle this stint on the DL the right way, they won't keep going back. I think any realistic hope of at least being respectable next year (or the year after that) includes getting something close to the 2017 Conforto. Maybe the offseason will do his shoulder some good. Regarding Smith and Rosario: Smith went through the minors hitting extra base hits to all sides of the field, and now he's hitting everything into the shift. He has to unlearn a few things. I'm not sure whose responsibility that ultimately was, but it was a bad mistake and now Smith is a mess. Rosario is finally showing some signs of life, but his defense still concerns me. I'd be more patient with him if he were an above-average defensive shortstop, but he isn't. I'm not sure what you do with him, but hopefully the next two months bring some clarity.

Competing next year will be impossible without at least a $25M bump in payroll. And you still have to hope everybody stays healthy and performs to realistic expectations. The Mets have gotten very, very little of either this year. Very few people thought the extensions to Wright and Cespedes were bad ideas at the time. I certainly didn't. As far as the rest of that list goes: With Bruce, you try to swap him for a comparable player/contract (Mark Melancon? Zack Cozart?) that fills a greater need. Somebody might take a flyer on Lagares because of his defense, and we need to start clearing out the guys who just get hurt too much. You have to hope Frazier stays healthy and bounces back, but as I've said before, I think the league has started to figure out how to respond to that hitting style. The 2017 Swarzak would have been a great addition. I don't think counting pennies was the problem there (Addison Reed has fallen off a cliff the last month, so he wouldn't have bailed us out any). If anything, it was not recognizing that the real bargains were guys like Anthony Rondon and Tony Watson who were good pitchers coming off down years. As it stands, you have to hope Swarzak returns to form, because bailing on him would just eat money. Vargas -- even if healthy, we have multiple better options for the rotation. And a winning rotation has Matz and Wheeler (or perhaps Lugo) at 4 and 5, not 3 and 4. You hope he pitches well enough the rest of the way that you have a better option than DFAing him. The one big contract I regret not going for this offseason is Lorenzo Cain. I would have hesitated giving him five years because defensive value tends to vanish faster than offensive value, but he's been worth it for the Brewers. We're glad we didn't get Darvish. Arrieta has pitched decently, but while "decent" would have helped us we would have been paying for quite a bit more than that (and his K rate scares me). JD Martinez is all that and then some with the bat, but his natural position is DH and I just don't see how he'd have fit.

Does anybody know what Cecchini's status is? He hasn't played since May 9.

If it means a title in two years, I'm all for it.

The league has figured out how to pitch (and defend) these guys, and Davis is even more one-dimensional than most. Unless you have a walk rate like Bautista, you have to hit 30 home runs to carry much value with that approach. Having a bad back or a bad shoulder (not naming names) can kill your value completely. And yet somehow, it feels like the whole league bought into this as the way to go, the Mets even more so than most. And now, assuming the league office doesn't do something profoundly stupid, it's adapt or die.

Cab. Or Minnie the Moocher.

Not a fan of intentional walks in that situation. I'd rather face Nimmo knowing I had the luxury of some place to put him that face Bautista knowing I didn't have that luxury. Bautista draws an awful lot of walks too, which makes him that much more dangerous with the bases loaded. The pitcher tried to get ahead on him quickly, but it was exactly the pitch Bautista was looking for and the rest is history.

I couldn't justify a major-league deal with him, to be sure.

It's a start. There's no need to rush him. But it will be good to have him back.

Edgy MD wrote: Well, one option is to not bring in anybody until you have to, and get over artificial belief in the number 100 having special powers over a pitcher. Starting the season by limiting the starters to 80 pitches really put the bullpenners behind the eightball. It did. But you had four starting pitchers coming off injuries, and working them up made long-term sense. (Matz and Wheeler are substantially better pitchers now than they were in April.) At least it made sense for health reasons, as opposed to the "third time through the lineup" nonsense. But it put tremendous strain on the pen, and the Mets couldn't afford to have things go wrong there. It didn't help that the Mets spent significant money on three relievers who have given the team nothing at all this year. Blevins was probably a poor fit given that the team needed innings, but the complete implosion was not something you could predict. Ramos had a history of being erratic, but you had the right to expect more than him sucking and then getting hurt. Swarzak was exactly the kind of quality innings-eater you wanted to find on the market, and you had the right to expect more than him getting hurt and then sucking. I'm not a fan of 100 as the magic number either. I think right now, you need the starters to protect the pen until Gsellman and Swarzak right the ship. We're left with Lugo and Familia, and Familia won't be here in August.

Gsellman was on a 100-inning pace until recently, and very few relievers can sustain that. The problem is, who the hell do you bring in at this point?

bmfc1 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: In this case it was a leadoff hit, an error, walking the #9 hitter, and two bad relief appearances back to back - all in the same inning.Randazzo and Josh went off twice about that walk. A sinker, not a fastball, against a .220. Helluva signing, Sandy. Maybe Swarzak could use some time in AAA. Swarzak (and then Gsellman on the home run) kept getting ahead of guys and then not finishing the job. The more frustrating at bat for me was the walk to Hernandez. Swarzak couldn't keep him from fouling off pitch after pitch after getting ahead one and two. Ten-pitch walks are brutal. Regarding the signing -- Swarzak had a 2.33 ERA in 77 innings of work last year (with 91 strikeouts). I'd have signed up for that in a heartbeat. It's entirely Alderson's fault that the back of the pen has been occupied by a rotating cast of minor leaguers, but it's not his fault that Swarzak got hurt. It might be somebody's fault that he was activated when he still isn't right, but that's been a recurring theme here. (We should keep that in mind while waiting for Thor and Cespedes.)

McNeil had two hits yesterday -- a triple and a home run. After 77 plate appearances for Vegas, his line is .397/.455/.662.

Centerfield wrote: Remember when we thought Swarzak was hurting us by being on the DL. Turns out April was his best month. Yet another guy who was not ready to help us when he came off the DL.

Yet another guy who was not ready to help us when he came off the DL.

And another two-out bomb buries us.

How does the Green Day song go again? Wake me up when September ends?

Vic Sage wrote: Our DL team is way better than our current roster. Our last two seasons in a nutshell.

I thought it was fun. I can't really explain the lack of interest. I refuse to accept that enough people hated The Lat Jedi (which I thought was comfortably the third best of the ten) to create this big of a backlash. It might simply be that only people who grew up with the original trilogy cared about a Han Solo origin story, and that people who grew up with the prequels care more about the MCU.

The first thing you need to do is figure out who are the guys you can't win with, and move on from them. DeGrom is the guy I'm most sure the Mets CAN win with, so he's not going anywhere. I'm pretty sure I can win with Nimmo. I'm willing to gamble that an offseason that doesn't involve rehabbing will do Conforto a lot of good. Matz and Wheeler can be the fourth and fifth starters on a winning team. Wheeler is only under control for one more season, though, which makes things complicated. I believe Lugo can be the fifth starter on a winning team, but I am not certain of that. d'Arnaud gets hurt too often. I like the guy, but I'm non-tendering him. Lagares gets hurt too often. He has a contract that may be hard to move. You may have to settle for him as the righty reserve outfielder, which is fine given his defensive value, but you need to get somebody competent in AAA just in case. That's not an unreasonable asking price for what we have available this month. Cespedes gets hurt too often. The only way he plays a full season again is with an American League team who doesn't need to play him in the field. AL teams might want him, but not at $29M per year. We have to be prepared to eat at least a third of that. He's more likely to be dealable in the offseason, but I could see the Astros showing an interest in August (yes he'll clear waivers, and he may even be healthy by then). Syndergaard... is young enough and talented enough that I'd still be patient. Bruce is our fourth best corner outfielder. He needs to show enough life down the stretch to make himself desirable to other teams. Like Cespedes, it might take until the offseason to move him although he will also clear waivers. Dominic Smith needs to go back to being the guy with extra-base power to all sides of the field that he was in the minors. He has no business being routinely killed by the shift. I'm curious to see what McNeil has. Hopefully Rivera and Cecchini will reappear before the season is over, so we can make reasonable assessments of where they are. Rosario... maybe the walks over the last two days are the beginning of progress, maybe they're not. The even bigger concern, and for me the even bigger disappointment, is that both Fangraphs and the Fielding Bible have him solidly below average on defense. That's not encouraging at all. Frazier strikes me as one of those all-or-nothing swingers the league is adjusting to. His average is limited by the shift, and he's not the power hitter he used to be. Maybe he can keep the seat warm for Nolan Arrenado. The pen has Gsellman, Swarzak, Peterson, and maybe Lugo if Wheeler is not dealt. That's it. A closer and two lefties are essential, and probably one other pitcher as well. The 2019 wish list would be a centerfielder who can hit, a frontline starter, and four relievers. Oh, and I forgot catcher. And that's assuming first base, second base, and shortstop take care of themselves. It's a big, daunting list.

Cespedes could make his life easier by talking to the people who form the public's impression of him. Personally, I think you can blame his injuries but you shouldn't blame him. He did carry us to a World Series after all, which presumably you don't do if you're not committed to winning.