Frayed Knot

The good news, at least, is that Steinbrenner didn't come close to induction, receiving "less than five" votes from the 16 member "Today's Game" panel assigned to review the cases of recent potential members (1988 thru current). At least 12 'Yes' votes are needed for enshrinement (Lou Piniella was apparently left one vote short). This was despite such Steiny-rrific plants on the committee* as Joe Torre and Jerry Reinsdorf. Not quite as stacked as the one that weaseled Phil Rizzutto into the Hall, but close enough. And the committee apparently didn't read Kevin Kernan's piece today where he laid out the case for GMSIII by asking the opinions of a whole bunch of Yanquis!!!!. Gee, Reggie Jackson approves ... what more proof do you need? It sounds a lot like my plan to gauge the interest in canonizing Ronald Reagan by polling the senior members of the national Republican Party. * Full committee: Torre, Reinsdorf, Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven, Pat Gillick, Tony La Russa, Greg Maddux, Joe Morgan, John Schuerholz, Ozzie Smith; Tigers general manager Al Avila; Phillies president Andy MacPhail; Blue Jays exec Paul Beeson, historian Steve Hirdt; and media members Tim Kurkjian and Claire Smith.

Gotta support the troops!!!!!!! And if you don't buy a camo uni it means you hate the troops. iow, it's a no-lose situation for the clubs who get credit for 'doing the right thing' by offering the option and wearing it at least occasionally on the field. Plus, if nothing else, it's another option to sell which, as I've often said, will cease as soon as we the fans cease to keep buying every logo'd piece of material they throw out there.

Yeah, I don't love either one of those selections.

I see a second vote has been cast, so it appears that I'm not the only one still kneeling in the piss here.

So Eovaldi, 29 in February and with 7 ML seasons to his name [148 starts, 4.16 ERA, 1.35 WHIP] signs w/Boston for 4 years at $17 per while Patrick Corbin, 30 next July and 6 seasons under his belt [154 GS, 3.91 ERA, 1.285 WHIP] gets 6 x $23.3 Seems like a bigger than explainable disparity. The Nats top three pitchers at this point: Scherzer @ $30 mil/per (AAV), Strasburg @ $25, and now Corbin @ $23.3 That's a lotta eggs in a basket.

And now, just after I get done with the previous note of doom and gloom, I find the Baseball Prospectus version of the NYM system not only up and running but with player analysis fully out and unencumbered by any paywall. So things are looking up after all. 1 - Andres Gimenez, SS 2 - Peter Alonso, 1B 3 - Ronny Mauricio, SS 4 - Shervyen Newton, IF 5 - Mark Vientos, 3B 6 - David Peterson, LHP 7 - Franklyn Kilome, RHP 8 - Thomas Szapucki, LHP 9 - Anthony Kay, LHP 10 - Simeon Woods Richardson, RHP And, just as a tease because no one seems to be able to resist a little Peter Alonso porn on a cold December night: 2. Peter Alonso, 1B -- DOB: 12/7/94 -- Height/Weight: 6’3”/ 245 lbs. -- Bats/Throws: R/R Drafted/Acquired: Drafted in the 2nd round of the 2016 draft, University of Florida; signed for $909,200. Previous Ranking(s): #7 (Org) 2018 Stats: .314/.440/.573, 15 HR, 0 SB in 65 games at AA Binghamton; .260/.355/.585, 21 HR, 0 SB in 67 games at AAA Las Vegas The Report: Listen, we hate this profile as a rule. This is a R/R college first baseman who is a cover model for the BIG BOY SZN catalog and he doesn’t play great or even particularly good defense. You will go absolutely broke betting on players of this type to make it. But some do, and we think Peter Alonso is going to be one of the exceptions. We said last year that 2018 would be a big year for Alonso. He killed Double-A for the first half of the season, did the same in Triple-A from mid-July on after a slow first month, and impressed in the Arizona Fall League. We said he projected for plus game power with a chance for more. Thirty-six homers in the high-minors later, the chance got there, and he now projects for 80 game power. We said Dom Smith might establish himself in the majors first and cloud up Alonso’s profile and, well, pretty much the exact opposite of that happened. He’s got power, he’s got patience, he’s got bat speed, he can turn on velocity, he’s got better feel for contact than you usually see in these types of players. It’s not all roses, obviously; he’d be ahead of Gimenez if it was. Outside of the Vladitos of the world, you don’t know when a guy is going to be able to hit major league sliders until you know, and we don’t know yet. The Mets left him in the minors all year, whether because of service time or 40-man considerations or a veteran fetish, robbing us of the chance to know. He’s still, generously, a work-in-progress with the glove at first base, although he ranges and throws well enough. We believe that he’s “playable bad” there instead of “needs to be traded to the American League,” but there are scouts who project the latter. The Role: OFP 60—First-division first baseman, routinely a league leader in homers Likely 55—Above-average first baseman/DH, occasionally a league leader in homers The Risks: Low-to-medium, depending on how you look at it. There’s low risk in the tools, he’s about as fully-formed as a prospect can be, in part because he shouldn’t be prospect-eligible. There’s still substantial risk in the profile until we see how good he is at getting on base against MLB pitching. There isn’t a ton separating Rhys Hoskins and C.J. Cron in profile or skills, but that slight gap is the difference between a star and a waiver claim. Mets fans might also cringe at the exit velocity hype after The Eric Campbell Experience. —Jarrett Seidler

The annual prospect season gawking is off to a rough start this winter for several reasons. #1 -- obviously is the sudden disappearance of the law firm of Kelenic & Dunn #2 -- is that just as John Sickels was ready to publish his NYM system assessment, he suddenly posted a note that his site had been pulled by its distributor making him, at least for the near future, a homeless FA. His site has long been my favorite for his opinions, his lack of hype, and for its availability (no pay wall). So both this news and particularly the timing is, as Charles Barkley would say, turrible. He'll probably re-surface somewhere but it could be a while. #3 -- Baseball America has just published their NYM list but that is now totally behind a pay wall even to the point where you can't even see the list itself much less any individual analysis. The one good note is that a Q&A discussion around that list is available **just out today** so you can kind of piece together facts and opinions of the players at the top of the system. And there's some good stuff in that BA discussion. He [bA writer Matt Eddy] thinks the last few drafts have upped the depth of the system overall even with the recent trade. Specifically he's high on a couple of young shortstops and more bullish on Alonso than in recent years. Eddy: Coming into the year, I was skeptical of Alonso's impact potential in the major leagues. As a longtime Baseball American, it's in my DNA to be skeptical of RH hitting first basemen. (We were light on Mark McGwire, on Frank Thomas, on Paul Goldschmidt, on Rhys Hoskins, etc.) But when you weigh the value of the Statcast and TrackMan data that is telling us that Alonso is doing things than literally no other hitter has done, well, that's convincing data to me. I think a rookie projection of .250 with 25-30 HR and a healthy walk rate is in play.

-- A) You can trade draft picks? The 'extra' ones (ones that are awarded through various processes I don't pretend to understand), yes. But still not the ordinal ones based on your previous year's finish, no. -- Yes, it's a dumb, knee-jerk thing, but... Wheeler, Kelenic, Plawecki and a midlevel minor-league pitcher or two wouldn't have gotten this done? Maybe, but do keep in mind that the Cards are getting one year of one player, as opposed to the recent Mets deal where they get five and four years from two different guys in exchange for Kelenic et al

Paul Goldschmidt to the Cardinals StL sends RHP Luke Weaver, catcher Carson Kelly, minor lg infielder Andy Young, and a Compensation Round 'B' selection (whatever the hell that is!) to the desert in exchange for the final season of Goldschmidt's contract.

metirish wrote: BVW could be overly aggressive ? I think Rosario is going to come really good and I like his attitude etc, would not want to see him gone. Yup!

And while that may actually be accurate, I tend to be more than a bit leery of those types of after-the-fact claims.

The more I think about this, the weirder the trade seems to be with the 89-win team being the one dealing away essentially their top hitter (and paying part of the fare) along with the league's top closer while the 77 win team takes on money and an older player while dealing away prospects. Oddly, though, the Mets had the slightly better run differential (-31 vs -34) in 2018 -- or maybe 'less worse' is the better way to put it. Pythag theory says Both teams should have wound up with identical 77-85 records. The other thing is that Kelenic was dealt so quickly (obviously that 'one year' rule no longer exists) that we never even got a sense of who he is or what he might be. We essentially know little more now than we did after reading the thumbnail sketches we usually makes jokes about during draft time. So while I certainly dislike the idea of dealing away not just a 1st round draft pick but a Top-10 overall guy, his career or lack of one is so vague right now and so far off in the future (would be a bit different were he a college pick) that these feelings are more or less just theoretical. In the end it IS likely to make us a better team next season figuring on Cano > Bruce and Diaz > Swarzak The problem of course comes in the future if/when Cano is old and expensive while Dunn is contributing in some capacity and Kelenic is all young and RoY-ish And almost the bigger concern is the part where this smells of a SPLASH move rather than a piece of a plan move, as in: Don't just stand there, DO SOMETHIING!!, which, by itself isn't the worst thing in the world, but what comes after that something? In the end I guess I'll go with 'Kinda' don't like it although the variables here could fly from one extreme to the other plus anywhere in between.

Andrew Marchand, NY Post: Wayne Randazzo is the clear front-runner to join Howie Rose in the Mets’ newly constructed booth, according to sources. Randazzo and the Mets’ new radio partner, WCBS, are just starting negotiations on a contract.

Getting a player for the purpose of preventing another team from getting that player is usually a really bad idea.

No, I don't mean the basketball team. Nor am I talking about the evil gang in the book/movie 'READY PLAYER ONE'. But rather, on the occasion of the imminent shipping of our most recent one out to Seattle, I dredged up all the #6 overall picks in the history of the MLB draft to see how they fared. Since 1965 - 10 career WAR or more 1967 - John Mayberry, 24.9 WAR (drafted by Houston) 1976 - Ken Landreaux, 10.4 (Angels) 1977 - Terry Kennedy, 21.6 (Cardinals) 1979 - Andy Van Slyke, 41.3 (Cardinals) 1981 - Kevin McReynolds, 30.1 (Padres) 1982 - Spike Owen, 12.5 (Mariners) 1985 - Barry Bonds, 162.8 (Pirates) 1986 - Gary Sheffield, 60.5 (Brewers) 1992 - Derek Jeter, 72.4 (Yankees) 2000 - Rocco Baldelli, 10.2 (Rays) 2002 - Zack Greinke, 65.7 (Royals) 2011 - Anthony Rendon, 21.1 (Nationals) So that's 12 out of 54 years (although those from recent years really haven't had their shots yet so the odds are somewhat better than 12/54 = 22.2%) that some pretty good players have emerged including several will-be/should-be/might-be HoF'ers. Not all those players racked up their careers with their drafting teams, although all on this list at least started their careers with that club. Only Jeter and, so far, Rendon played with their drafting club exclusively. On the other side of the coin, ten picks out of the 45 seasons from 1965- 2010* never played a day in the majors. And in between those two extremes ... well there was a whole lot of in between. NYM picks? Kelenic was our third, joining 1975's choice of Butch Benton, a catcher out of a Tennessee HS. Benton amassed 29 PA w/the Mets during call-ups in 1978 & '80 (3 hits, all singles) before being let go in 1981. He'd go on to latch on for another 80 PA with the Cubs and Indians with similar results. And we were also responsible for one of the non-ML'ers, that would be 1997's Geoff Goetz, a HS LHP from Tampa who never advanced above AA ball. But his choice wasn't a total loss as he wound up as one of the pieces in the Mike Piazza deal. * I cut it off at 2010 and Barrett Laroux who has never made the majors and appears to be out of baseball at this point, and all of the other non-ML'ers are too far in the past to ever make it.

Also FWIW: this IS of some concern; it's a #9 overall draft pick. But that's not the pick they'd lose. There are various 'tiers' of draft pick forfeiture for signing a player who rejects his team's QO but the highest 1st round pick in a year is exempt in all cases. It's been complicated by recent compromises in the CBA and is all explained here, but it looks like this is the one most likely to apply to the Mets: -- a team that neither exceeded the luxury tax in the preceding season nor receives revenue sharing will lose its second-highest selection in the following year's Draft, as well as $500,000 from its international bonus pool for the upcoming signing period. If it signs two such players, it will also forfeit its third-highest remaining pick and an additional $500,000 So, depending on how many supplemental picks between rounds 1 and 2 there are, we're probably looking at losing choice #45-50 or so for signing a QO player.

Also, because things have worked that way in some instances doesn't mean they're destined to work each and every time they're tried. Each case is different, as will be each outcome. And then there's the logic of saying B followed A therefore A must have caused B Houston wound up with three consecutive #1 overall picks due to their, not merely bad but horrid, stretch of seasons (324 losses over 3 years) but actually wound up whiffing on two of them. Carlos Correa was a great find but neither of the other two even reached the major leagues (and one I believe has already retired). Now they hit on enough other moves obviously to get into the great position they've been in over the last two years -- some of which (Int'l signings for instance) had nothing to do with them scraping the bottom for nearly half a decade. One could even argue that -- at least to a certain point -- their success has occurred despite their teardown rather than because of it.

And then there's Ackert (NYDN) who writes: The Mets would also be dumping the salaries of Jay Bruce, who is owed $28 million over the next two years, and Anthony Swarzak, who is in the final year of his two-year, $14 million deal with the Mets, onto the Mariners’ payroll. That roughly leaves $85 million of Cano’s salary remaining over the next five years and the Mets sources said the Mariners will cover much of that. [emphasis mine] That's why I can't get too crazy over the details of these things until we actually, y'know, KNOW the details of these things. Like, for instance, how many millions is "much of" 85 million? The implication there is more than half but I don't know that. I mentioned in another thread (or maybe earlier in this one ... I can't keep track) that Nimmo was said for a time to be included in the Jay Bruce deal ... except that he wound up not being included.

A nice moment, in my view, but not a lifetime pass.

No. This is wrong. If it were Cano alone, no one would touch him with a ten foot pole. Shouldn’t anyway. Swarzak and Bruce combine for what, $30 million? No way you sign a 36 year old PED user to a 5 year $90 million deal. Giving him a 2 year deal is too much. We talk about spending wisely. This is absolutely the polar opposite. I meant to write that if it were Bruce + Swarzak for Cano + $$$$ then some would be OK with it ... depending on the amount of cash of course. And, again (although you may have been already typing prior to my 9:48 response), I didn't mean to imply that they were Actual separate deals, only that I found that it helped to mentally think of them that way.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: The 2 separate deals thing doesn't hold water for me cause I don't think the Mariners do the Edwin Diaz "deal" unless the Mets do the the Cano "deal". And I don't Actually think of it as two separate deals either (nor, I suspect, does Chuck). I was more just sort of mentally breaking it down that way for analysis purposes. It may be possible to talk the M's into dealing just Diaz alone but the price would tend to be higher in that case and they'd have fewer incentives to make it.

I liked Wilmer. He was often fun even though occasionally exasperating and I completely understand this move even if it wasn't one I was looking forward to. And I think 'beloved' is far too strong. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

RealityChuck wrote: Much as I love Wilmer, his knee problems make him a real risk. As does his low OBA (.303 career), poor (read: non-existent) speed, bad defense, and middling at best power for the one position (1B) where that glove is easiest to hide and where he'd be easiest to replace. He's been relatively fun to have around but his upside is limited and you can't count on his 'walk-off magic' to continue forever. I suspect they asked around about trading him but the fact(?) that they're non-tendering him instead indicates that they didn't think their chances were very good on a guy who'll get 3rd-year arb money this season and be a FA next. btw, between 2013 & 2018 Wilmer has accumulated five seasons plus three days of ML service time which is what will make him eligible for FA-gency next season rather than in the winter of 2020/21

The best way is to think of this as two trades: Cano for Bruce and Swarzak is one. I was thinking of this as two separate deals as well. If it were just Cano for the two vets I think most would be at least semi-OK with it and it certainly (likely anyway) makes us a better team for '19-'20 Which leaves the remaining question as to whether Dunn + Kelenic are too much for an established, and top line, closer. You question the idea of giving up not just a 1st round pick but a #6 overall, and doing so so quickly. That said he's a loonggg way from the majors (220 rookie lg ABs to date) and the further away a prospect is from the majors the higher he needs to be in potential in order to pry loose a known quantity. Dunn was a somewhat lower pick (#19th) and is further along but hasn't had a great track record to this point (high ERAs until his final 9 starts at PSL this summer).

I do recall Nimmo being named as part of the Jay Bruce deal as that one was coming down to the wire. Obviously he didn't wind up being part of it.