smg58

You can justify the Ramos deal if (a) the difference between what they got for Reed and what they would have gotten without the Ramos deal exceeds what they gave up, or ( Alderson as a GM could not have realistically foreseen how the free agent market would go. The focus needs to be on ( -- I could live with (a) if signing a reliever with Ramos' resumé was going to cost 3+ years at $10M+ per. Very few people did see how the market would go, but nobody is paying any of us to talk to other GMs and get a sense of what they are thinking, either. Alderson made a calculated decision that looked OK at the time, but it turns out would have been wrong even if Ramos were pitching decently.

Edgy MD wrote: But the three catchers, five infielders, four outfielders strategy is a losing-ass approach. It is. But I at least understand the rationale of trying to get Plawecki and Mesoraco into the lineup at the same time when the only healthy right-handed non-catcher we currently have is somebody we pulled from the Braves' dumpster. We can't even call up Cecchini because HE's hurt, too.

You want one of your vets to try to light a fire under the team when they struggle. You also want him to do it in private, and you want him to start with himself on a day when he didn't pitch well enough.

We won both games he started. I'd have liked to see him stay in the organization, but there's always a danger when you DFA somebody with options.

The Mets spent a fair amount shaping the bullpen. It wouldn't be fair to criticize the Swarzak signing, because that was simply bad luck and it may still work out in the long run. Picking up Blevins' option seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time. Trusting Familia has not been unreasonable -- he still has a 2.33 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP, in spite of a .333 BABIP that makes his performance look worse than it actually is. Trusting Lugo and Gsellman to help out in the pen has prevented a bad situation from being far, far worse. What was a mistake? Trading for Ramos. It was a terrible read of the market. The Mets could have paid a much better pitcher less salary this year and not given up Merandy Gonzalez (or anybody else). Also, the biggest offseason investment went to Jay Bruce, and you could have made an argument even in the offseason that Nimmo deserved a higher vote of confidence than any pitcher not named Syndergaard or DeGrom.

I look at the Cubs on paper, and I wonder how they aren't 20 games in front. The only passable answer is that the rotation has underachieved.

I'm not sure if he is up in addition to or in place of Peterson. Peterson at least gave some reason for optimism.

Our new call-up. Don't know that much about him (is he even on the 40, and if not, who get's the boot?), but he's worked his way through the system slowly (he's 27, and pitched in Brooklyn six years ago) and has good K/BB ratios (around 5) over the past two season in Bingo and Vegas. He can't possibly hurt.

Even "healthy" is debatable, the way he's pitched.

Centerfield wrote: After a tough doubleheader earlier this week, Nimmo as now seen his OBP plummet to .422. He hasn't drawn a walk since Saturday. He has, however, hit 3 HR's in the last 7 days, bringing his season total to 5. That matches 2017. I think as word gets out about his OBP skills, he will be challenged more. So far he's been up to the task by punishing the ball. Hopefully he can keep this up. He's collected 357 MLB AB's. Has an .819 OPS over that time. Is trending upward, has good exit velocity, and his defense is improving. Also leads the team in steals in 2018 with 5. Like anybody good at working the count, you have to give pitchers reasons not to keep the ball in the strike zone in order to keep the walk totals up. Nimmo's extra-base numbers are improving, which is very encouraging. It will be interesting to see how Guillorme's very high walk rates in the minors play out in the long run up here, as he does not have much power to speak of. What you don't do is keep hitting the ball on the ground like Eric Young Jr. did. That will scare nobody.

You don't want to rush him back, but...

Where would Ollie Perez in 2004 rank? (He was a Pirate at the time, but it certainly counts as Mets-related.)

Wheeler has not been good, but he's only pitched too poorly to give the team a chance twice. Relative to last year, his strikeouts are up while home runs and walks are down. I'm not giving up on him yet. Vargas -- the Miami start was encouraging, but then he regressed again. He was brought in because he's made a long career out of being dependably decent, and I can't wait to see it. I'm not convinced he's healthy. Maybe Matz can give us a second straight good start tonight.

Even Aguilar said in the press conference afterwards that that pitch was a strike.

Frayed Knot wrote: Ride that horse til it drops ... and hope it doesn't drop. I'm all on board with this.

Hanley's one season in the outfield was nightmarish (i.e., why play him in left field if he'd actually cost the team fewer runs at short), and he's not a safer bet to hit lefties well going forward than Flores. The Mets could use a capable centerfielder who hits left-handed pitching, but players like that don't get DFA'd.

Swarzak's injury and Ramos' inability to pitch two good games in a row made it hard to consider moving Lugo or Gsellman back into the rotation. Every starter has pitched well this week, thankfully, which means the need to consider such a move has diminished at least for now. But Rhame and Sewald have both pitched better than Ramos to this point. In hindsight, the Mets could have spent their resources better. The Ramos deal looks very bad right now -- it didn't seem totally awful to me at the time, but nobody was paying me to anticipate a buyers' market in the offseason. The biggest allocation of resources went to Jay Bruce, but Brandon Nimmo turned out not to be the area where the Mets needed an upgrade. Chad, I agree with your post 100%. The one thing I would add is that the Mets have been in the habit of rushing hurt players back and making things worse, but I think the culture behind the scenes is changing. Somebody pulled the brakes on DeGrom coming back from the elbow injury without even missing a start, and the Mets didn't push him when that first inning didn't go so well, and Jake has bounced back with two super starts. They have eased up on Vargas (who could not have been less ready to pitch when he was first reactivated) and Matz (who last year pitched through pain he had no business pitching through, with dreadful results), and they are starting to respond. Cespedes, Frazier, and Plawecki are not being rushed back, either. Sometimes it's not the bad luck, but how you handle it.

Against righties he has to play, pure and simple. He actually has a higher OPS against lefties this year than either Conforto or Bruce, although they're all in the .500s.

(sigh) As I've regrettably known for a while, I am in no position to pass judgment on anybody else's favorite player.

He basically has to be better than Phillip Evans to be an upgrade. That doesn't strike me as too high of a bar. I'd still look for a righty bat that could play center, but in the meantime, why not? He does have two homers in 35 AB, and the .143 BABIP suggests that he's been a bit unlucky so far.

I had to do some serious tweaking of my pitching staff (and made myself broke in the process), but I like where I am right now. I just hope I don't regret cutting Matt Olson when all is said and done -- it was like he was waiting for word that I dropped him before saying to himself, "OK, you can start hitting now."

Hopefully the Marlins ineptitude from their 9th inning today (blowing a five-run lead) will continue.

Unfortunately, right-handed outfielders are the more urgent need. And, since I'm probably not the only one thinking it, that would be a lot to ask of Alonso even if his glove wasn't already his biggest issue.

That hit last night is already more than we had a right to expect in return for Harvey.

I expect that he will get no respect at all. But he may work that to his advantage...