nmigliore

Well you can pick out any 6-start stretch of a pitcher and it's pretty unlikely his ERA will exactly match his peripherals, and I don't think anyone is going to mistake Wheeler for a sub-2 or even sub-3 ERA pitcher all of a sudden. Overall on the season, Wheeler's results haven't really drifted much from his peripherals (if anything, he's been slightly unlikely), unlike last season when he was riding a nice streak of luck: 2013: 19.5 K%, 10.7 BB%, 43.2 GB%, 3.42 ERA, 4.17 FIP, 4.21 xFIP 2014: 23 K%, 9.4 BB%, 52.4 GB%, 3.60 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 3.48 xFIP I was a little down on Wheeler after last season because he had average strikeout and groundball rates to go with a below average walk rate, but this season, he's shown improvement in all 3 core pitcher categories: the strikeouts are up quite a bit, the walks are down slightly, the groundballs are way up and as a result his homeruns are down. These are all really good things that just looking at ERA does not always capture (like in this case, where Wheeler's ERA is actually a bit higher than 2013 even though he's a much better pitcher right now).

Quirky stat on Twitter via @tpgMets: The Nats, Dodgers, and A's are the only teams with more runs scored AND fewer runs allowed than the Mets.

No for real... LUCAS DUDA BITCHES!!

Lucas Duda bitches!

Pitching market getting in motion... Cardinals acquire Justin Masterson. That was one avenue for Colon.

Ugh, Ben Revere steals a HR away from Duda.

I *hate* when a GM refers to pitching prospects as untouchable. Unless you're talking about a truly elite arm I'd be always open to moving them for an established hitter. Pitchers simply bust or get hurt way too often.

I wasn't picking teams by strength of farm system but by who is a contender and needs a 2B. The Yankees are starting Brian Roberts who has an 83 OPS+ and has been one of the worst 2B in baseball this season. Their system also isn't *that* barren. They have Luis Severino (#34 on BA's midseason top 50), Gary Sanchez, Eric Jagielo, Ian Clarkin, Aaron Judge, Rob Refsnyder.... You could probably forget about Severino and Sanchez but there are enough intriguing pieces there to acquire Murphy.

Well like I said, the Giants are at least desperate enough to employ Dan Uggla as their 2B. Despite losing 6 in a row they're still very much in the West and Wild Card races (unlike the Reds, who I thought might be a fit for Murph with Phillips hurt a couple weeks ago, but are basically out of it now). Sabean is also a pretty aggressive GM when it comes to mid-season moves. They're not the only fit -- you could make an easy case for Murphy in Baltimore, Toronto, Oakland, and even the Yankees.

They're both not very durable, that's clear, but I still like Niese a lot more. Both have pitched roughly the same amount innings over the past calendar year and have had basically the same results (by runs allowed) but Niese's success looks far more real/sustainable: Past 365 Days Niese 180 IP, 89 ERA-, 97 FIP-, 96 xFIP- Gee: 151 IP, 93 ERA-, 114 FIP-, 110 xFIP- (For all three of these statistics: 100 is exactly league average, below 100 is better than average, above 100 is worse than average) If Niese can stay healthy the rest of the way and keep pitching decently, I think he'll be a very intriguing trade chip, even with the durability issues. His contract is also very favorable; good luck finding a league average or better starter whose only guaranteed 2/18 with the chance to be 4/37 if all his options are picked up for ages 28-31. re: Murphy - I still maintain if Sandy can't gets what he wants for him right now, I can't imagine when he ever will. I mean maybe he's thrown into a bigger trade in the winter, but it's hard to see his value being any higher than it is now with the year he's having and the amount of contenders in need of 2B help. The Giants in particular look very desperate; they've lost 6 straight which has seen them go from 1.5 games up in the West to 3 games behind. Their starting 2B is Dan Uggla, who has already made 3 errors in 4 games after the Braves ate a hefty amount of cash to make him go away. If that doesn't scream desperate enough, perhaps this will: they're bringing up stiffs like Travis Ishikawa and Juan Perez to "restart" their offense. Sandy has already swindled Sabean once with the Wheeler deal, maybe he can do the same again. With all that being said, the safe bet is Captain Passive will be passive, maybe trade Colon if the Price/Hamels market doesn't go anywhere.

Dilson Herrera was 1-for-3 last night with a walk, homer, stolen base, and a walk-off sac fly. He's now hitting .345/.407/.570 with 6 HR and 7 SB as the youngest player in the AA Eastern League.

Jon Lester was just scratched from his start tomorrow. Looks like he's going to be moved.

That's the ballgame. Can't hit Revere with 2 strikes and then walk Rollins to load them up for Utley.

Plawecki finally returned to the Vegas' lineup last night, and with a couple hits, after being diagnosed with vertigo. Nice to see him back.

That's actually pretty pathetic that he got off that easy. The league should be ashamed.

The Mets have until the end of August to move Colon; nobody is going put in a waiver claim with the intention of blocking him next month, not with $11 million due to him next season. The one thing I don't want to see with Colon is the Mets having to eat a X amount of dollars and getting crap in return. I'm on board with trading him and using his salary to address other another hole(s) next season, but I think there does come a point where you have to ask if it's worth eating a few million and still getting junk back versus keeping him as your #4 or #5 entering next season (especially given pitcher attrition rates).

3-run homer for TdA! Hit a double off the LF wall earlier tonight as well.

Not at all, it's just excitement, probably worded really stupidly.

Hey, I was the one consistently defending Duda in the offseason when we were talking about him vs Ike. I did prefer Ike very slightly, I'll be honest there, but I largely didn't have a strong preference because, statistically, they were basically the same player up until this season. But even the most ardent Duda supporters couldn't have seen this coming, that's for sure. I'm not betting on him to keep up the .350+ OBP while slugging .500+ but he has plenty of room to regress from there and still be very good, and like I said the other day, his improvements are largely in believable/sustainable things instead of, say, a BABIP spike.

Of course he is. I knew it. fvck you TC.

deGrom better not be staying in after 109 pitches... TC would have to be a mad man.

Lucas Duda bitches!

Niese probably gets out of that inning unscathed if Lagares is playing CF -- the ball that dropped in front of CY to start that inning is a catch Lagares makes in his sleep. Met offense has been absolutely brutal the past week: .168/.252/.236 and they've scored 3 or fewer runs in 8 consecutive games. It's kind of amazing they have a shot at coming home with a .500 road trip.

Giants traded for Jake Peavy today, so there goes one possible Colon suitor - they even had reported interest in him. Funny Duda/Davis stat: Duda's on-base percentage is higher than Ike's slugging percentage.

Lucas Duda has a better OPS than Freddie Freeman this season. I feel like I'm in bizarro world. And the crazy part is that there really isn't anything unsustainable in the numbers; relative to his career rates he's striking out a couple ticks less and walking a tick more. The biggest gain has been in power, in which his ISO has jumped nearly 50 points. I'm still taking the under on him staying in the 40-50% above league average range as a hitter, but for the past calendar year he's at .245/.357/.460 which translates to 33% above the league average. I could see him sustaining something around that moving forward.