Frayed Knot

Syndergaard being demoted in addition to being scratched with the ankle thing apparently aren't unrelated actions. Anyone on the 40-man roster still in big league camp past this date who then starts the year on the DL is considered to be on the ML DL and would therefore accrue ML service time until ready to play again. Sounds like a lot of kooky legalese, but it's likely just an accounting thing to keep teams from using a last spring minor injury as an excuse to demote him instead of DL-ing him as a way to avoid him getting service time. With Syndergaard not targeted to make the OD roster anyway, it made sense to send him down now in case he does need to skip a start or two early on. Brandon Allen also reassigned. Murphy to sit out at least a week and him opening the season on the DL looms as a possibility.

I have ZERO memory of Mike Mathews. Don't even remember the name much less anything about the player.

Specifically with Wheeler, his procedure is one "that will be somewhat more complex than most, since he also will have his partially torn tendon repaired [and] a bone spur on his elbow removed". Even without those complications though, 14 months or so is probably an average for recovery time.

Nice pick-up of Nieuwy's throw on the short hop by Plawecki. Lord knows we've seen enough of those NOT made over the last few years.

Tj surgery is generally talked about as needing AT LEAST 12 months of recovery and the advice survivors give their newbie teammates undergoing for the first time is usually DON'T RUSH IT --- so, yeah, we shouldn't expect ZW for opening day of 2016.

Edgy MD wrote: Homers by Cuddyer and Grandy, I like that Grandy's HR went to the opposite field. Last year's stats show none of his 20 HRs going 'Oppo' as 14 were pulled plus six more to CF

I guess those companies feel that their fame precedes them and makes embellishment totally unnecessary. It's like magazines these days. Their title banners are often now almost entirely obscured by photos but they must figure that their logos by this point are so ingrained in the consciousness of their readers that just the opening P and closing E are enough to let people know that it's PEOPLE even though the rest is covered up by a close-up of J-Lo's face (or butt). Even TIME and SI do this (although not normally with J-Lo's butt).

Oh, I just thought it was an invitation for non-Jews to came to the stadium. Oh wait that's Goyim. Never mind.

Edgy MD wrote: Two games for the split Mets squaddies today After yesterday's hate crime of no games at all, they owed us two today.

Never knew of the Pride-Pride relationship. Safe to say that Casey, along with many of his era, wasn't the most progressive guy in the world. He supposedly said, upon first taking a look at Elston Howard; 'They finally get me one and they got me the one who can't run'. What I remember about Curtis was a piece someone did on him shortly after he first made the majors with Montreal. Coming, as it did, during the Mets bleach/firecracker era, the piece went right for the low-hanging fruit with: 'this is the guy the Mets chose NOT to keep', as if Pride's absence was the source of their problems.

A bit of a fluff is developing around #1 prospect (acc to this "consensus") Kris Bryant with his agent, Scott Boras not surprisingly, calling out the Cubs and MLB in general for what he assumes will be the Cubs' strategy of keeping Bryant in the minors for at least the first 12 days of the season so as to delay his FA eligibility for an extra year (a topic we also talked about in the Zack Wheeler thread). Bryant leads all MLB thus far with 6 ST HRs and is hitting .435 while doing it (10/23). For their part, the Cubs are claiming that Theo Epstein's timetable for Bryant is in no way dictated but ownership nor do I believe they've specifically stated that they're not going to bring him up for opening day.

His time in AAA skewed those numbers a bit, but he's still been between 3.5 and 5.5 years young for his league since breaking into pro ball with the NYP League as a 17 y/o in 2011. And that's all helped him be a top-50 prospect each year since pre-2012. The word on Lindor is that he's long had ML-ready defense plus a promising enough (esp given the age) amount of offense to believe that, even if the hitting never progressed as hoped, his defense alone was would be enough make him a regular ML SS. I also didn't realize he was a draft pick (same year as Nimmo - 5 picks earlier though nearly 8 months younger). I guess I just assumed he was an int'l player but rather is a Puerto Rican who came through Florida. That leaves only Urias, a Mexican, out of that top 10 who is an Int'l FA and he already has 43 pro starts under his belt even though he won't turn 19 until August.

The inclusion of Sickels' list gives a five list* average of: 1 - Kris Bryant - 3B, Cubs 2 - Byron Buxton - OF, Twins 3 - Carlos Correa - SS, Astros 4 - Addison Russell - SS, Cubs 5 - Lucas Giolito - RHP, Nationals 6 - Corey Seager - SS, Dodgers 7 - Francisco Lindor - SS, Indians 8 - Julio Urias - LHP, Dodgers 9 - Noah Syndergaard 10 - Joey Gallo - 3B, Rangers 45 - Steven Matz 64 - Dilson Herrera 77 - Michael Conforto 79 - Brandon Nimmo 80 - Kevin Plawecki * Sickels, BA, BP, MLB (Jonathan Mayo), ESPN (Keith Law)

Ashie62 wrote: I saw Goosen play many moons ago and it seems he was a highly thought of prospect. Well Casey supposedly said of Goossen's prospect status that: 'he's only 20 years old and in ten years he had a good chance to be 30'

The other take on this seems to be: 'Injuries show weakness in Sandy's plan' -- as opposed to those other GMs whose plans are unaffected by two TJ surgeries in the same week.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Doesn't service time accrue only when the player's on the 25 man roster? Yes, for 51 days to be precise for Montero, meaning he has approx 28% of one season (51/182) under his belt. So, assuming he were to make the club from opening day this season and never again go back down, he'd have 2.28 years of service time at the end of the 2016 season - almost certainly NOT enough to qualify for arbitration. With approx 1/6 of players between 2 & 3 years qualifying, it's those with ~2.7 and up who are the likely candidates. And on the other end, the Mets would have to keep him on the farm for most of this season in order to possibly delay his arb-time an extra year to 2019. Besides, arbitration is relatively small potatoes anyway. Sure, given the choice of having your rookie reach it three years from now or four, the club would opt for four. But there's no specific cutoff date where you can be sure that would happen and the fact that a player's status depends not just on his own service time but also on that of every other major leaguer who will have greater than two years but less than three in the same year that he does means the math becomes very inexact and tough to project. As with the Montero example above, they'd have to choose to forego him for most of this season in order to gain a possible marginal savings to the 2018 payroll that's based on a whole lotta guesswork. FA-gency is a different story and also a lot simpler. Players qualify with exactly six years or more so, with the ability to delay whether their supposed prize gets to call his own shots after six years of seven simply be keeping him down on the farm for the first month of the season, clubs take that option nearly 100% of the time.

Don't think Matz had TJ procedures, just had complications and other problems which led to an ultra-long recovery period. Hefner's the guy whose first TJ 'didn't take'.

I think there are some people who believe he was the surgeon.

"Boy, that's a baaad team." --- Bad? ... sure. But at least they're old and expensive. And, btw, a $12 mil buyout?!?! (for Lee). On what planet was THAT considered a good idea? Planet Amaro apparently. "Somehow, though, you know they'll find a way to make things difficult for the Mets when they face them." --- They didn't last year: 13-6 Mets

Cliff Lee to the 60-day DL - hoping that rest & rehab will avoid surgery that he doesn't want to do. He acknowledges that this is unlikely to work and that, if it doesn't, his career is all but over. But he doesn't want to retire since he'd have to forfeit the [u:3l5d9zco]$37 million[/u:3l5d9zco] still on his contract [$25 mil for 2015 plus a $12 mil buyout for '16] and undergoing surgery reduces his odds of pitching this season from slim to none.

Centerfield wrote: Zach Wheeler and Josh Edgin for 2015. Matz has his out of the way, so that's good. So I'm thinking Syndegaard and Montero should be set for 2016, since we'll have Wheeler back by then. Hopefully we can schedule their's early in the year so they'll be ready for Opening Day 2017. '16? ... '17?!? ... at this point I'm just hoping to avoid scheduling another one of these before the end of March is out.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Five blondes out of six is, I believe, right around the standard ratio for sports WAGs

We should just start referring to those Mets who have NOT had TJ surgery as 'The Unsullied'. 'Game of Thrones' reference for those unfamiliar

Looks like (unfortunately) I had that one right. Also added to the TJ list for this year are Braves reliever Shae Simmons (rookie in 2014 - 21 IP) and Joel Hanrahan who last pitched in May of 2013 for Boston (just 7 innings that whole year) before needing TJ surgery, and then was released this spring by Detroit before he ever made it back when it was learned he needed a second procedure a la Jeremy Hefner.

[crossout:3fmr2ktd]Have[/crossout:3fmr2ktd] had no opinion on this guy prior to this spring as he was never even on my radar (or, apparently, on the radar of any of the prospect watchers - 8th round picks as a college senior tends to get you on the ignore list). Plus I tend to conflate him with the catcher Monell. But suddenly he's got my attention -- 8 for 16 in ST (2 more hits today) will do that for you. OK they're all singles to date, but he has shown at least some pop (23 HRs over the last two seasons). Also, check out the minor league walk rates: A [u:3fmr2ktd].395 career OBA[/u:3fmr2ktd] with more than 100 points of walk rate [OBA - BA] in each season and at each level, plus he switch hits. And then the capper is that he's played more than 1/4 of his games at SS. Not that that alone makes him a major league SS, but it probably means he could fill in there in a pinch. IOW, Campbell and/or Tejada better not look over their shoulders, someone might be gaining on them. He's already 26 y/o and may well be a low-ceiling type of guy. But he's also got a full season of both AA & AAA under his belt (more than 1,000 upper-minors ABs) so maybe he's a high-floor type as well who's darn close to ready. And, hey, LJ Mazzilli, this is the type of player you hope (hoped?) to be before deciding to get stupid.