nmigliore

He averaged 89-90 in 2014-2015 but was significantly below that last night - 87.5 per PitchFX, granted it was only his first outing of the season.

Not to knock Wright, but Chris Young is probably the easiest active pitcher in MLB to steal on -- runners have a 87% success rate against him for his career. When Young was a Met I remember how concerning it was when pretty much anyone with a hint of speed got on base. His delivery is incredibly slow and lanky to the plate. Caught the end of the Marlins/Tigers game last night on MLB Network which was pretty thrilling. Fish rallied for 3 runs in the 9th off of our ol' pal K-Rod, who is chucking 87-88 mph fastballs these days, but ending up losing in extras.

Love how Thor's changeup is like 5 mph faster than Chris Young's fastball.

My goodness, Thor's hair is even more glorious than I remembered.

Thanks, man. I got married in October of this past year. It largely explains why I've been so inactive here. I've learned it's not so easy to follow sports like I used to, let alone contribute daily to a sports-talk forum (and that's without kids yet). Without trying to get too personal on a public message board, I'd be happy to add you guys via Facebook, if you're on that thing.

Hey guys, Sorry, been completely out of pocket for the past week+, was in Brazil with the wife. Missed the opening game as I was flying back. Sounds like a game I'm glad I didn't see... I'm not buying into Murphy suddenly finding hidden power at his age until I see over a full season, although I wouldn't deny it's possible. Will be interesting to watch (and quite frustrating if it IS actually real, for the sole purpose of our postseason odds). But yeah, I'm not blaming the Mets for passing on him. I would've been OK resigning Murphy for what he got in Washington but what the Mets did was totally fine. They arguably got a better player and gave up less assets (Niese versus $38M) and took on less risk in the move (1 year versus 3). Any grudge against the front office for not resigning him will be 100% hindsight if the power surge turns about to be real.

I think I agree, CR. I could see Matz's season being similar to Wheeler's 2014 with less walks at the expense of less strikeouts.

Yeah, he'd definitely be the guy who'd step in, and I think he'd be fine to bridge the gap to Wheeler's return. You're only counting on him as your #5 starter, and for a few months at that; he's not going to make or break our season. An injury to one of the other 4 starters, though, could do serious damage.

Well, Zack Wheeler immediately comes to mind. Sure, he won't be ready in your hypothetical 6-awful-starts scenario, but he's an option to really look forward to around midseason, especially when we'll be (hopefully) counting on him to be no more than our #5.

Don't think I've seen it brought up here, but deGrom has been sitting 91-93 mph this spring (including today). I know he's had some back stiffness issues, which it appeared he was over, but that's a bit concerning for a guy who averaged 95 mph on his fastball last season. Something to watch when the games start to count...

And just as I post that...

3 scoreless innings on 30 pitches (22 strikes) for deGrom today. Think it's safe to presume his back is okay.

Not really Jets' news, but the Pats have been super busy the last few days - traded Chandler Jones to the Cardinals for Jonathan Cooper and the #61 pick, signed Chris Long to replace Jones, signed Shea McClellin, signed Donald Brown, and just acquired Martellus Bennett for a 4th round pick. Jets signed Steve McLendon to replace Harrison.

Tejada officially released. I'd be surprised if he's not a Cardinal shortly.

What about Chris Johnson for Miami? He was running out of steam before getting hurt last season but if they like Ajayi, maybe they bridge the gap to him with CJ2K like Arizona did with the Johnsons last season.

All of the projection systems pretty much see Ellis equally: Fangraphs' Depth Charts: .227/.327/.351, +0.9 WAR Steamer: .226/.322/.341, +1 WAR ZiPS: .229/.332/.360, +1.1 WAR Those aren't thrilling slash lines, but from your backup catcher, it's fine production. He was awful in 2014 and he's about to turn 35, but I think there's enough success built around the surrounding seasons to believe that was probably a fluke. Outside of a dip in power that year, the core peripherals (BB% and K%) were still very Ellis-ian so his poor numbers are more likely to be blamed on a .225 BABIP (his career average is .282). He does make pretty good coin for a backup, but with the savings on Tejada it's only a $2M net gain in additional salary, plus he's a free agent after 2016. I'm not even sure the Dodgers are looking to move him, especially with how fragile Grandal is, but I'd at least look into it. It's hard to see any superior, realistic options out there.

Tejada on waivers, per Rubin. By cutting him now they'll save a good chunk of his salary ($2.5M of $3M). Curious to see if that is put towards a veteran backup catcher, maybe someone like AJ Ellis (owed $4.5M) since the Dodgers have a few catchers. I could totally see Ruben ending up in St. Louis with Peralta out 2-3 months; they were planning on using Gyorko there but that never made any sense.

2 hitless innings with 2 K's for Lugo. Supposedly hit 95 on the gun. Barring injury or bad performance it's hard to see him making starts for this team in the foreseeable future but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he's brought up later in the year as a reliever. He has the benefit of already being on the 40-man roster, too.

Yep:

He was a complete disaster in the 51's rotation for most of last season and then was demoted to AA in August. He wasn't invited to MLB camp this year. He was always a fringy back-end starter prospect so at this point he's nothing more than an org arm.

Re: Plawecki: Not sure why this is suddenly dawning on the Mets now but going with Plawecki was always a poor idea. It's one thing to punt backup catcher if you have an in-his-prime Yadier Molina type whose going to play 130+ games a season, but as much as I like d'Arnaud, we know that's not realistic with him, at least not until he proves it. It's more likely he'll get banged up a few times and between that and normal catcher rest, you're probably going to need your backup to play in 40% or more of games. Plawecki has a career AAA OPS (in the PCL) barely above .700 and a career MLB OPS under .600; on a team with World Series aspirations and a starting catcher whose not a lock to play in even 100 games, he's really not a guy to rely on as your backup. I don't mean to trash Plaweck either; I do think he has an MLB future, but he needs more seasoning in AAA.

Yeah, I could take or leave Bowman; his strikeout rate in the PCL last season was horrendous and his control wasn't especially good either. I'm modestly curious to see if his stuff plays up better in relief, but regardless of where ends up, I'm not going to have any reaction. I'd be shocked if he makes the Cards' roster, too; their projected bullpen is already pretty decent and they don't really have the innings to waste on a guy like Bowman. He'd be a better fit on a bottom-feeder team that is throwing a bunch of crap at the wall and seeing what sticks. Seth Lugo was somewhat interesting last season; he's old but he pitched well in AA and put up an incredible K/BB in a brief, 5-start AAA stint.

I think it's more likely to be a mutual ploy than genuine interest - Jets trying to warm Fitz's seat a little bit while RG3 gains some leverage with whomever else he's talking with.

Cabrera has a strained patella tendon and is likely to start the season on the DL, per Adam Rubin. He'll be idle for at least two weeks (beginning now) before resuming baseball activities. I certainly don't look forward to the inevitable pairing of Tejada and Flores on the left side of the infield when Wright gets a breather, but so it goes. Hopefully Cabrera won't miss much real action.

http://deadspin.com/yoenis-cespedes-rides-a-horse-to-work-1762132923