Ceetar

Would just like to draw your attention to this offensive bit of seasonal creep

I mean, catcher is tough. If we can get a league average hitter at that position in Plawecki, especially one that's going to take the walks and clear the pitcher (barring the DH arriving) that's not nothing.

I feel like there are so many in/topical jokes there that might not even have made sense a year later.

Edgy MD wrote: I have trouble fully accepting the idea that grownups with billion-dollar assets behave this way, but I sometimes tend to think the Yankees tack a premium on their offers when they're trying to sign a marquee free agent away from Boston. I mean, that does make a little sense, if you think it's likely he'll return there. If gaining value from a player decreases it from your chief rival, than maybe it widens the gap more than normal...... ...until you're stuck overpaying for guys and the opponent is free to sign someone else at market rates.

more topically, Ellsbury to have hip surgery to repair the torn labrum. (6 months puts him to the start of Spring Training basically.) Will be his age 35 season and he is still owed $47 million. (2 years plus a $5 option buyout) He's been average at best with most of his value coming on defense. Best case is ~18 months since his last major league game if he's ready to go in 2019.

smg58 wrote: Ceetar wrote: Some day down the road we're gonna get a meh 78 win team that just got hot near the end, squeaks into the second wildcard spot in the eastern conference, wins the 1 game playoff, wins the 7 game series against the 101 team #1 seed, beats someone else great in the NLCS, and goes to the World Series and wins it all. And it'll be fun. They'll be playing great, doing all the things great teams do. It might not be a true representation of their 162 game talent, but who cares? that's arbitrary. The 1973 Mets mostly did just that. Yup. I assume they were a hell of lot of fun to watch down the stretch. 20-8 in Sept-Oct, a competitive series against the Reds all the way to game 7 of the Series. Star power too.

smg58 wrote: I'm sure the Mets, like every team, have lost more money over the years on insurance policies than they've collected. Otherwise, what's the point in insurance companies selling them? The policies protect you from big salaries going out the window in the short term, but they don't turn a profit for anybody in the long term other than insurance companies. meh, those insurance companies are probably also insured.

In a way, it's kinda funny Harvey ended up in Cincinnati because he turned down in assignment to _Las Vegas_

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think, when we look back at the end of the year, he'll have been the better of our two catchers. But maybe not by a whole lot. nailed it. 96 wRC+ so far for Plaw and 95 for Mesoraco

Indeed. If the top teams are going to salary dump to get under it, it's basically a salary cap.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I guarantee you that the Mets will in fact recoup that money. And I hate to be the one breaking it to you, but Wright's never coming back. First of all, this attempted "comeback" is probably half a charade at least, because maybe Wright's kind of a naif who isn't as hardened as he should be and might actually be worried that there might be people out there who think he took the money and ran. And even if by some miracle, he might one day be able to plausibly play, there's no way the Mets let it happen. They're not risking their insurance coverage so that Wrjght might suck for a few games and have to shut it down again. And stop sticking up for the fucking Wilpons, you maniac. I'm sticking up for the damn facts and the search for the real ones, not knee-jerk conspiracy reactions that aren't based in reality. So let's throw aside your "Jeff will personally Misery David Wright before letting him play again" conspiracy and think about it. He's legitimately on the baseball field doing baseball things. If you believe that David really does want to play again (and if you don't, have you not been watching him ever?) he can force that issue. If he gets medical clearance the CBA basically demands that he be activated after 30 days of rehab. The Mets are not going to barricade him a closet and assert that he had a setback without his consent. I'm not going to pretend to know what his prognosis is from my couch. He's standing on field now, is it really that much of a stretch to believe he could play for a few innings at a time in meaningless September games on an expanded roster even if he's bad at it? They recoup 75% of his DL time, but if he plays three weeks at the end of September that'll cost 'em a million or two more maybe? They might even recoup some of THAT via ticket sales if people are interested in a Wright swan song? Regardless of your confidence that neither will ever play baseball again and it's all sunk money that insurance will recoup, that's not how budgeting works. They have to outlay that money. I don't know what the process is for the insurance (noone bothers asking) do they get it back in a lump sum at the end? do they submit insurance paperwork every pay period with "Wright out 15/15 days" and get a refund? That's the best case, because if means if you get to Spring Training and Wright is not even pretend-healthy and can sorta budget that first 5 million of April/May without risk. But you never know what magical cure/steroid/cream/injection Wright could stumble upon to come back and play. That's not how budgets are made. you don't have to like it, agree with it, but that's how it is. It still counts against the salary cap, and arguing about that money is pointless, you can scream about the 60 million inbetween the cap and the Mets payroll though, so stick with that.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The Mets aren't 12th. They're bottom third. Insurance is covering a huge chunk of Wright's and Cespedes's salaries and quite frankly, I'm not even sure that what the Mets are actually paying out is more than $100M. Now if you wanna pretend, like Jeff Wilpon does, that there's no insurance for those players, then yeah, the Mets are 12th. 12th for America's largest market. Wright and Cespedes are pretty much off the books right now, as I write this post. 1. That money counts against the salary cap and they do in fact have to pay it, and hope to recoup some of it, later on. 2. They SPENT that money with the intention of, you know, paying it. Being able to spend said money is what we're concerned with when discussing a GM. 3. That money is not 'off the books'. Cespedes could be back by the all-star break. I know we pretend Wright's dead, but he's not, and is actively trying to play again.

Edgy MD wrote: He may have had his arm twisted by MLB, but it's hard to view Sandy as anything but an A-lister, and he certainly didn't have the banks open for him when he arrived. I think any number of people will be interested. The jobs are too hard to come by and no few of them will come with smaller budgets than the Mets throw around. And I imagine heavy handed owners and presidents abound also. I don't think we've actually gotten clarity on that first part have we? We knew about Madoff but the lawsuit and frozen assets and the like didn't come until after Alderson was hired. Maybe he knew, maybe it ended up being worse than he thought. I mean, the Mets are roughly 12th. They spend 150 million or so, which is what, 70% of cap? They've got a lot of money coming off two years into the new GMs tenure, plus certainly the possibility they'll spend more in the interim. There's no reason someone wouldn't want that job. And sketchily written grammar about working for the Wilpons? What does that mean? All GMs have to work with the owners, and many are much less susceptible to good pitches than the Wilpons. Like, you know they've been convinced to sign all manner of players like Beltran, Bay, Santana, Wright, Cespedes, etc. Maybe some of those are bad signings, but a new GM would simply think "well, if they can be convinced to sign some of these guys, if I make the case for X good player, they'll surely come around." And beyond that, you'd obviously ask in the interview. If Jeff says "we'll see where we are in 2021 after Wright and Cespedes are off the books, in the interim try to be creative with 150 and midseason acquisitions with Wright/Cespedes insurance money if they don't get activated" then you can decline the job, but you'll still listen. Too many Mets employees seem to stick around and or come back for it to be that toxic a work place.

The playoffs are not the regular season and not meant to be an accurate representation of the 'best team' despite the marketing. It's just a tournament that you need to win to get ultimate glory, but the glory of being a dominate team all season and taking your shot in that tournament is itself a victory and glory all it's own. 2006 was a great Mets year. so was 2015, and even 2016. They didn't start letting more teams in for consolation, they let them in 'cause the playoffs were awesome. because they were growing the game. Playoff baseball is fun, and ranking teams by regular season win totals is silly anyway. What if you acquire studs midseason? what if you bring up prospects and they flourish? If one team starts 0-20, but goes 88-54 the rest of the way, whereas another team goes 20-0, but 75-67, why would we rather see the 95 win team over the 88? Some day down the road we're gonna get a meh 78 win team that just got hot near the end, squeaks into the second wildcard spot in the eastern conference, wins the 1 game playoff, wins the 7 game series against the 101 team #1 seed, beats someone else great in the NLCS, and goes to the World Series and wins it all. And it'll be fun. They'll be playing great, doing all the things great teams do. It might not be a true representation of their 162 game talent, but who cares? that's arbitrary.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm not a Yankee fan and I don't like the current system. I don't like that it potentially rewards a mediocre team. You can have a third-place team that had 83 wins win one game over a 100-win team and end up in the World Series. I understand rewarding a division winner. But I'd have the Wild Card game become a best-of-three series. And you can play those games in two days. Using 2016 as an example, Game 1 could have been in San Francisco on Tuesday and Games 2 and 3 (if necessary) as part of a day-night doubleheader at Citi Field. Is that a grueling schedule? Sure, but it's equally grueling for both teams and it makes it all the more onerous for the teams that didn't win the division. So an 83 win team winning TWO games over a 100 win team makes it better? the 2018 Mets, pitching Syndergaard and deGrom, could easily win a best of three against anyone.

Mets Willets Point wrote: C. It's not The way the Wild Card playoff is done now rewards mediocrity (giving a bye to one or two teams that "won" a weak division) while punishing excellence over the course of a 162-game season. How is that smart? A smart way to fix the playoff system to reward excellence: 1. Seed the five teams by regular season record. 2. The #1 seed is given the pennant as an award for best record in the league much as was done prior to 1969. 3. The #1 seed gets a bye to the LCS. 4. The remaining 4 seeds play two qualifying rounds in best-of-3 series, hosted in the higher seed's ballpark. I think you're math is off, but either way that's too much time off for the best teams. There is no 'best' way to do the playoffs. There's not even a great way to decide who's the "best" team given there's so much variation from April to September and there isn't a balanced schedule and even if everyone played the same teams you'd still have the unbalanced aspect of how different an opponent could be if you play them in April versus September. Or one team could end up facing 1-2-3 in the rotation but their main competition could end up facing 3-4-5. So you have to make a decision. MLB decided 'win the division' is what we're going for, so regardless of how many wins you rack up, if you don't that you're not the best. This system doesn't punish the best team, and that's good with me.

Mets Willets Point wrote: If the Yankees continue on their current pace and finish with 100+ wins, the single game Wild Card Playoff will be gone in the 2019 season. Forcing a 100+ win team to participate in a play-in game is dumb enough, but if it happens to one of MLB's preferred glamour franchises, it will never happen again. A. They won't. B. It won't. C. It's not. D. It may not happen again anyway, just by dumb luck, plus expansion of teams/playoffs could render it even more unlikely. It's a shame the Mariners are still 5 out and not that good (though getting Cano back) because that's still a lot of ground to make up. On the other hand, there's a lot of time left. But that's the only possibility here unfortunately. the rest of the AL sucks.

I think people are overestimating what most 4th starters are. If Thor, deGrom and Wheeler are making let's say 81 starts, that realllllly nice. You don't need 5 aces, you just need non-duds back there for the other 81.

That entire article is "you can't determine anything in one game, but here's my 2019 breakdown of the Mets based on this one game"

Nymr83 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: So Drew Smith, after throwing one inning/20 pitches -- one scoreless inning I might add -- needed to be removed from the game in order to make room for the Jose Reyes clown show? the babying of pitchers in today's game is nuts. a shortstop can come on and throw 48 batting practice softballs but relievers can't go a 2nd inning? pitchers break. the best thing you can do to keep pitchers healthy is to not pitch them. There's value to staying fresh and getting your work in, etc, but hell, they probably should've brought Reyes in earlier. Those innings are garbage. The game was over. They were playing out the string. If you don't want the 25th guy on the roster throwing saving arm strain of more important guys, support a mercy rule and this game could've been over after 7. Shawn Kelley agrees. should've been a bench guy for the Nats too.

You can't always pay for them in the offseason. Relievers are fluky and full of small sample size nonsense. I'd almost rather they didn't pay for relievers and in that vein I like the targets Alderson made last offseason. There appears to be a disconnect (or it's just small sample noise and it'll work out soon enough) between what Alderson targeted and the ability of the Mets pitching coaches down the line to mold those talents into real value. Rhame, Peterson, Bashlor have thrown relatively few innings. Perhaps they do not belong on a major league roster today, but for such a specialized role, all it often takes is one tweak to turn a guy into a reasonably effective major leaguer for a a stretch of time. No reason that can't still happen for any and all of them. Bashlor is crazy wild, but it seems like his stuff should play based on the minors. he hasn't even pitched in AAA yet. Peterson is the one with the good K/BB rate but he's got no velocity in an extremely high velocity age. Both of these guys are just later round draft picks (and getting older), not the guys the Mets grabbed last year. Rhame's one of the acquisitions. He's interesting. It looks like the Dodgers had no faith his stuff would translate to the majors, despite good numbers. (good K rates, cut walks, unlucky BABIP) Sandy was probably reading that bad luck and good stuff and figuring he was actually good, and maybe he is..but..he's throwing like 4+ pitches in the majors and that doesn't seem to be working. The Mets had him learn a curveball this year as a 4th pitch, but why? Maybe if he just went fastball/slider he'd be good?

Edgy MD wrote: That rein isn't going to heim itself. It's about time they used the 60 for Céspedes. They released Marcos Molina earlier in the year rather than put him on the 60, even though he had already been gone for 58 days, and then they put den Dekker through waivers rather than 60-ing Yoenis. Good news, though, is that an hour ago, dD cleared waivers and will report to Vegas with Reinheimer. I believe they only had 39 on the roster, so they couldn't 60day Yoenis for den Dekker.

Fman99 wrote: Beat writers seem to think the Mets are going to stand pat. I'm fine with that. Looking on Twitter and I'd say 2/3 of the fans are mad that we're not selling high on Wheeler, or low on Bautista, to restock the system. I'm kind of surprised by that. Fans on twitter will never be happy. I mean, there's almost no value in not selling Bautista or Mesoraco but there's also almost no value in just dumping them for some random garbage scrub that no one wants either. Plus you try to get them through waivers/trade them in August anyway.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Ceetar wrote: Wilpons always seem to be able to be pitched to, so I think there's a good shot New GM is able to convince them to spend a little more, at least in key spots. Wasn't that one of their supposed rules for when they hired Sandy? "Sell us on how you're going to make this team good" I mean, granted, sometimes it's a snake oil salesman. Omar did that pretty successfully, back when they had money. They have money now, they're just gun-shy about spending into the red. But maybe the initial spurt will be more palatable than the throwing good money after bad like Jason Bay when it's not followed up by a scandal, a crash and a stadium debt. Plus Cespedes and Wright coming off the books in two years (or most of it by the end of each year), so hell, they could probably just go over budget by the extra tax breaks the criminal in the white house is getting them and if it doesn't work they're not in too deep.