Vic Sage

I'm not sure if Lagares has shown enough progress yet in his plate discipline to warrant going north with the team and, if Lagares starts the season in AAA, i can definitely see a place for dDekker, along with either Brown or Nieuenheis on the bench. But if Lagares makes the team out of ST, he'll play CF, with CYoung moving to LF and EYoung becoming a 4th OFer / utility player who can cover all the OF positions (and 2b). With Lagares and CYoung starting (and EY a switch-hitter), they could use another LHed bat on the bench, arguing for dDekker over either Nieuhey or Brown. But with 4 OFers able to play CF reasonably well, there is more of a need for a LHed bat on the bench than a CF glove (particularly with Satin on the bench as the RHed bat). If Duda doesn't win the 1b job outright, they could prefer him to dDekker as the 5th OFer/LHed PHer. In any event, i don't see either Nieuenhies or Brown making the team if Lagares is there.

my wife watched it over the weekend. "good performances; depressing" was her summary. I happily avoided it.

This year, d'Arnaud will: * shower in vodka and feed his baby shrimp scampi * go public with his own buttocks and make seven million * hunt down and kill all four members of the Banana Splits with a machete * grow a toenail on the end of his penis * breast feed John Madden * have his foreskin used as a tarp when it rains at CitiField * wear a live rattlesnake as a condom * give a handjob to a manta ray * eat a homeless person * shed his skin * scissor kick Angela Lansbury * jump off the Empire State Building and only sprain his ankle * fully digest a turtle shell, like an alligator * put on a white tie and tails and walk his cobra through the park on a leash * use his own thigh as an anvil * use the Shroud of Turin as a washcloth * kill Shaquille O'Neill with a trident * Drive an ice cream truck covered in human skulls * make every woman that sleeps with him refer to him as Bear Bryant * eat the Bible while water skiing * have sex with a cigarette machine Here's to d'Arnaud! Then in 2015...

i don't see Plawecki as a backup at all. They want him to get regular ABs above the A-Ball level, not sitting 75% of the time behind D'Arnaud. They'll want a major-league veteran in that spot, while Plawecki plays every day in the minors (probably AA this year). Whether its Recker or Teagarden doesn't much matter. They're similar low-avg/some-power hitters with decent gloves. Whoever the backup is will probably start 30 or so games, play in another 10-20 (including an occasional PH appearance), and hit 5-10 HRs in 100-150 ABs. If D'Arnaud gets hurt for a length of time, they may play one of these guys more but they might bring Plawecki up for a long look (if he'd been playing well down on the farm).

somewhere between Harvey and Wheeler's rookie years. 5-5 / 3.10 ERA / 80 IP / 14 GS

ditto.

He gives up a moon shot in April and, as he twists his head to follow the ball's trajectory out of the park, he re-injures his neck. Out till August. Meanwhile Valverde and Black have blown so many saves, the Mets are on a 75-win pace. Parnell comes back and throws well in September, when Mets are safely out of the running, and remains a question mark going into 2015.

i have higher hopes for Satin as a UT than as a full-time 1bman. He's working some in the OF, and if he can play 1b/3b (with some additional time at 2b/OF, as well) and be our prime PHitter against LHers, he could get 300+ ABs. I think he'll hit for a solid avg, draw some walks, and hit the occasional double, without embarrassing himself on defense. A useful player... a better hitting Justin Turner. 300 ab/ .295 / 5hr (.350 ob%)

well if you say so, then it must be so.

i could well be misremembering, but i seem to recall the rhetoric around here being of the nature that Sandy should move Byrd before the deadline, since he'd have more leverage (which he would have had) at that point. And for all we know, Sandy could well have passed on a decent offer waiting for a better one, before finally ending up with the Bucs prospects. We're just looking at the outcome after the fact and saying "yea, Sandy!". And yea indeed (though Black could easily end up Kyle Farnsworth and tiny Dilson Herrera could get blown away by a stiff breeze and never get a sniff of Queens). But only Sandy knows whether he got the maximum value by doing it that way. Unlike Hairston, Byrd was having not just a good year but a great year and Sandy may have figured he had the luxury of waiting because he felt he could ultimately get SOMETHING for Byrd going down the stretch. As it turned out, there was an organization that finally was in a pennant race after not being in the post-season for 20 years, and so was willing to risk overpaying for the short-term gain. And it worked out for the Bucs, as the move helped get them into the post-season. But it could just as easily have gone the other way, just like it did with Hairston, and we could've ended up with nothing, not even a bag-o-balls. That it worked out well the second time (and not the first) didn't make it the right strategy either time. But as i said, i could be misremembering the nature of the rhetoric at that time. In any event, it still doesn't explain to me how the content of our rhetoric, good or bad, hurts our team. You think Sandy is monitoring online bulletin boards and blogs (or even the national media) in order to decide what moves to make? His understanding of the "popular opinions" of the fanbase may not go entirely unconsidered (certainly by ownership), but I don't think it impacts his moves one way or another. Now if you're talking about the public abuse heaped on overpaid, underperforming players at the ballpar, the kind that eventually rises to the level of metaphorical burnings in the public square, then maybe a GM will try to move such a fellow for his own good and to get rid of the distraction. Under those circumstances, a trade or buyout is addition by subtraction and a "bag o balls" is just a bonus. Also, when your dealing with an impending FA, particularly one with no vested history with the team, and your team is out of the running, its just a waste of resources to get nothing for him (as with Hairston) than it is to accept less than perceived "value". In such situations, waiting for "actual value" that may not materialize can do more harm to the franchise than good.

Edgy MD wrote: I don't think it's true that the Mets refuse to swallow their mistakes and move on. Nor do I think that's the issue. Maybe the issue is not making the mistakes in the first place and creating a situation where the redemption of that mistake is too important to the teams success. But the team bought out Jason Bay with a year left on his deal, released �liver P�rez with a year and $12 million remaining on his contract, and cut Luis Castillo from spring camp with a year and $6 million remaining. The "Mets don't understand sunk cost" theme is old and lacking in evidence. They may understand nothing better. All of those players were given opportunities to wreck the team's seasons well after the point that they had all established their lack of utility. They continued to be given a spot in the lineup because they had big contracts. It's not just that they weren't cut earlier, it's that the team continued to give them ABs and IPs. Yes, they were ultimately bought out of their final seasons, but long after they should have been. Every team makes bad deals (some more than others, but that's a separate issue); it's what you do afterwards that makes the difference between successful orgs and less successful ones. Lets see how the Angels deal with the Pujols and Hamilton deals. If those guys continue to fade, it seems unlikely to me the team will continue to run them out there regardless and wait til the last year of those deals to move on. And if they do, they'll have made a tragic mistake.

Deals aren't built around those kinds of players. It's Dickey+body+body, not Nickeas+Thole +CY winner. In the Gee package that was suggested, it's Gee + UT/SS + LHed OF1/b. Nobody is going to credit us much for Nieuenhuis or Tejada in a package, beyond the fact that they are living creatures with enough skill and youth to stand in certain places on a baseball field and play roles on a roster. Which is certainly not "nothing", but it's also not very much. So you have to decide what Gee is worth to other teams, and to us, as an adequate inning-eating #3-4 type starter. And while that's quite a bit MORE than nothing, and is really quite useful, its also not the stuff that dreams are made of, and if you have a blue-chip prospect with a future that could include all-star games, Gee is not the big fish you want to land in return. Marlon Byrd was having the best year of his career when Sandy traded him; he was not a "bag-o-balls" type of player at that point (even with less leverage after the trade deadline), so i don't see how that is relevant. And our rhetoric on the subject doesn't hurt the team... or help it, for that matter. It's utterly irrelevant to anyone but us.

it's not a question of "giving up"; it's about filling a hole. You have to give something to get something. We have a hole at SS that runs deep down into the organization. With d'Arnaud, we have at least the potential of an answer for our catching situation at the ML level, and AZ is demanding a young catcher for a SS, it seems. Of course it all depends on your relative assessments of Plawecki vs Owings / Gregorious. If you don't think they have similarly productive upsides, and that they are similarly close to the majors, then don't do the deal. I think Owings has a chance to be as good a ML SS as Plawecki has of being a good ML catcher, and i think he's closer to the majors. That's why Plawecki alone won't get it done. Whether Montero is the other piece (to make up that difference), or a lesser prospect like DeGrom would be acceptable, or whether we give Montero and they give us something else back... these are all negotiating points after you make the initial assessment of relative value. I'm not sold either way yet, but its intriguing to consider. Tejada / Niehuwenhuis / Gee? I don't think that gets us more than a souvenir cap and maybe a hot dog. But you really don't need to consider the value of that package, since AZ wants a catcher. Maybe Seattle would take Gee+something for one of their castoffs, but i don't think they are much better than what we have. Or maybe a 3rd team can be brought in to an AZ deal for that package. Yeah, i'm not looking to lose Montero+Plawecki either, but we need a SS... and not just a guy who can stand between David Wright and the second base bag, but a guy who can be so above average at the position that we don't consider it a weakness anymore. I don't know if any of these prospects fit that bill, but if our scouts do, then giving up talent to get it shouldn't dissuade us from doing so.

I completely understand (and share) the fear about Granderson's potential downside because of his contract, which could end up a Bay-like albatross because the Mets refuse to swallow their mistakes and move on, like big-market teams can afford to do. But i don't think that makes him a "key" to the season. Last year Grandy was hurt and only played in 60 games. But it wasn't a chronic-type injury that threatens to continue to affect him. He was an excellent player for the 7 seasons before that; even in his "crappy years", he would hit 245/25hr, which would exceed the production we'd gotten from any of our OFers the last few years. And if he totally crashes and burns, there is a Lagares and a Puello waiting in the wings. But catchers are another matter. They are not as plentiful as OFers, even in the Mets organization. And unlike a hitting OFer (which even most crappy teams have), a hitting catcher gives a team a big edge on their competition. And unlike Granderson, d'Arnaud is ALL projection at this point, with no ML track record to refer to. Granderson can hit .275/35hr/100rbi or .245/25hr/75rbi and we wouldn't be surprised, nor would the difference necessarily have a huge impact on the team's overall fortunes; if he collapses completely, Lagares and/or Puello will get more ABs and they both have projectibly high upsides. But if d'Arnaud gives us one of his minor-league seasons (.310/20hr/30db/90rbi/.900+ops) rather than the punchless .200 he hit last year, he'll be in the all-star game, dramatically increasing our chances of a WC birth and maybe getting an mvp vote or 2 in the process, and settling our catching situation for the next decade. If not, what... Anthony Recker? That's a pretty steep dropoff. Kevin Plawecki? 22, hasn't played above A-ball yet... not really an option for 2014, or perhaps ever. As for Zach Wheeler, he could do exactly what he did last year and be fine. Yes, he could be better, or worse. And if he goes on the DL, we'll bring up Syndergaard, Montero, deGrom, Matz (or any of our other top-rated prospects) and perhaps do no better or worse this year as a result. To me, that doesn't make him a "key". But today i have absolutely no sense of what d'Arnaud's is likely to do this year, whether savior or anchor. Do you? If savior, he's not only the key to 2014, but to the decade that follows. If not, we're doing what exactly... giving ABs to Taylor Teagarden and Anthony Recker until Mr. Plawecki shows he can play above A-ball? If so, we're a sub-.500 team, unless everybody else has great years.

i'd sooner take the loser of the Owings / Gregorious competition than one of the Seattle guys, but I'm not sure if i'd trade Plawecki + Montero to get one of them. Maybe if they included a decent OF prospect back i'd be ok with it. Frankly, Gregorious seems to be the kind of SS that the Mets thought Tejada was, which doesn't excite me. Owings may have a stronger bat, but his reported lack of plate discipline is indeed worrisome. I've come to think that our best bet is to give Flores more ABs at SS until he proves he CAN'T play the position, and then play Seratelli if he can't.

not feeling it -- 5-9, 4.5 era, DL.

i guess the point is that Seaver, like Wright, is sort of the baseline production that the team relied on in 73, but here we're being asked to speculate about what player this year will contribute most (and perhaps unexpectedly) to the production ABOVE that baseline, who will add the most wins ABOVE the contributions expected from the stars on which the season actually rests. It's easy and obvious to say Seaver and Wright are the best players, so therefore they are the "key" players of their respective teams, but what is being discussed is a bit more nuanced then that. It's that, GIVEN that Wright is our best player and will therefore have the greatest impact on our likelihood of success this year, what player has the potential to have an unexpected impact to make the greatest difference to the team's fortunes, above and beyond that?

I think Mags is saying you already have asked that question, in essence. But i disagree with him. If by "key" we're talking about the player whose unpredictability is tied to the widest possible range of outcomes, where if he's at the top of the range he's the Mets best player, but if he's at the bottom, he drags the team down like an anchor (which is my interpretation of the question), then i guess it's not really a question of who is the Mets best player, but who we think WILL be the Mets best player in 2014 despite that not necessarily being the case as of today, and despite the fact that he might end up as one of the worst instead. I don't think i'm going out on a limb to say that the Mets' best player is David Wright (and Harvey when healthy, but that's not this year), and its unlikely he would end up as one of our worst. But if Colon or Wheeler pitch like CY-type aces (which i think is possible for either of them), then they could be better than David in 2014 (assuming Wright just meets his established level of production, which is just short of MVP-type production), but i think their low-range production (barring injury) would still be adequate, or could be replaced by some phenomenal prospects. Granderson has had 40 hr seasons, so that potential is there to garner some MVP votes, but even at 25hrs he can still be useful. Young? Very talented, unpredictable, wide range of outcomes; at the low end, he gets benched, but even at his best he's no better than David. And under no circumstances are we going to get an MVP-vote kind of year from any SS we currently have on our roster; Tejada's range of outcomes goes from "serviceable ML SS" to "AAA"; i don't see that as a player who's a key to anything. Same with Ike and Duda; their upsides do not suggest impact players to me, particularly at 1b, where other teams usually have significant offense so the bar is higher. But d'Arnaud? Well, now we're talking. His upside is totally unknown beyond having been one of the top catching prospects in all of baseball (which implies a pretty high upside), and a productive catcher gives a team a significant edge over most other teams, due to scarcity of catching talent. So if D'Arnaud hits an average Wright year (.290-.300/20-25hr/90-100rbi), and everybody else does what they're supposed to do, we're a playoff team. But he has just as good a chance of hitting .200 again, or getting yet another injury setback (which he seems susceptible to), and if so, we're not going anywhere (all other things being equal). I don't actually think he's ready for that kind of season (if he ever will be), so i don't suspect we're going to play much more than .500 this year (if that), but if he does, then a wild-card could happen. So d'Arnaud's my key Met of 2014, i guess.

12-10, 3.90

.245 / 25hr / 85rbi - 175k, and everybody will be glad to have it.

ditto.

I think deGrom gets packaged for a SS.

.230 / 15hr / 65 rbi / 450ab

20 GS / 120 IP / 7-9, 3.75 era -- traded at the deadline for an A-ball pitcher with a high ceiling.

He'll get a shot at setting up, but he'll walk the world and get sent down before a late-season call-up reestablishes him for 2015. 4.95 ERA / 45 ip