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Official 2014 New York Mets Thread


nmigliore

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Sucks that Wheeler seems to be incapable of taking a step forward without taking one back.  He can definitely make you want to put your fist through the TV.

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typical effort when the Mets give you a shred of hope, you always get knocked upside the head. Though Oakland is a terrific team. And we all would've signed for 1-1 against them. But I would've liked to see Wheeler just be competitive, even if the Mets lost a 2-1 stinker or something.

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Granderson is now hitting .298 since April 29.  He's drawn 35 BB in that time as well, against 46 K (that's a pretty damned good ratio these days).  Gotta give him credit...I don't think anyone could've seen this coming after that April from hell. 

 

It could be nothing more than a young pitcher trying to figure things out, but sometimes you wonder how much fight Wheeler has in him when things aren't going his way.  In his last 10 starts, he's been pretty bad in five of them. 

 

The numbers in those five starts:

 

21 IP, 31 H, 24 ER, 15 BB, 26 K, 10.28 ERA 

 

Now of course, this is cherry-picking, and you can do this with a lot of starters.  But contrast this with the other five starts:

 

34.2 IP, 17 H, 3 ER, 9 BB, 38 K, 0.79 ERA

 

I just wonder if, instead of battling and turning in a 6 IP, 3 or 4 ER kind of outing where he tries his best to keep his team in it, he's just a lost cause without his best stuff, and lacks the will to gut it out.  It seems like it's all or nothing with him.  That's what's frustrating with him...it seems like he's made very little progress on this front.  It's getting to the point where you can tell within the first few innings what kind of a day Zack is going to have.  There's clearly going to be days where even the best pitchers don't have it, but sometimes you've got to find a way to gut yourself through 6 or 7 shaky innings.  It's still very early in Zack's career, but right now he looks like a guy who can't figure out how to win when things aren't going his way right from the get-go.  Oh well...at least he has another start against the Marlins in a couple of weeks.  He's great against them at least. 

 

In the end, nmig has more or less turned out to be about right re: the Davis/Duda debate.  Neither is terribly good.  Davis has gotten better at not striking out and drawing walks since his Vegas jaunt, but his power seems to have vanished, and the .249 BA he has isn't nearly good enough to overcome the lost oomph at the plate.  His OB% of .361 is nice, but that's not really what he's being asked to do.  If he keeps this up, he won't even be good enough to be a bad-team everyday player...and he's now in a brutal funk (see below). 

 

Duda is Duda...last night he comes in and hits a three-run home run in garbage time against a winded starting pitcher, which gets people like Sandy all excited about his "power potential".  Right now he's put up an .821 OB+SLG.  He's on pace for passable power numbers.  His slugging% of .473 is pretty good (Wright is at .394, which for him is not good).  Do I have ANY faith in Duda to hit a home run in a big spot against a tough starter or closer?  None at all.  I think he can be gotten out fairly easily.  But right now I can't argue the results...Duda may be nothing more than a bad-team starting first baseman, but he's been better than Davis.  Coming back to NY back on May 26 seems to have killed Davis' bat...since then, he's gone 14-for-74 (.189), with just 2 HR and three 2B hits.

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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Another rough one for Syndergaard:  4 IP, 5 ER, 3 BB.  Since coming back, he's given up 14 ER in 14.2 IP.  He's allowed 26 ER in his last 31.1 IP.  Fortunately the Mets don't need to bring him up...Gee has a rehab start coming up on Sunday, will probably make one more after that, then will be back with the Mets.  I'm hoping deGrom hangs onto his spot in the rotation...Dice K has had some good starts, but he should be #6 or #7 on the starter depth chart...he is not the future here.  deGrom's body of work through eight starts has been positive enough that he should get at least another month in the rotation. 

 

As far as Montero and Syndergaard go, I don't think I have any expectations anymore, as far as 2014 goes.  One guy is hurt and the other one is struggling.   

 

Grandy and Duda are having pretty good offensive Junes, though repeated team failures in the clutch kind of overshadow that:

 

Granderson:  1.046 OB+SLG

Duda:  1.028 OB+SLG

 

Murph is starting to look like the Murph of last season in June....after drawing 17 walks in May (.293 BA, .376 OB%), he's only drawn five walks in June, and none in the last nine games (.290 BA, .324 OB%).  It's a fine line with Murph...if he's not getting on base, he's simply not that good...as much as I keep hoping he can become a consistent .310-.320 hitter, he'll probably always be more a .280-.290 guy, which means he HAS to draw walks.  .360-.370 OB%-Murph is nice.  .310-.320 Murph, not so much.  It's only one month, so I don't want to go TOO crazy, but at the same time, Murph has shown flashes at improving his OB%, only to slide backwards. 

 

In his defense, he has been a FAR more consistent hitter than last season, where he was prone to long funks.  He hasn't gone more than two games without a base hit, and he hit .304 for April, .293 for May, and .292 for June. 

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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Same ol Mets, a nice 5 of 6 stretch followed by two very predictable clunkers. Wouldn't be shocked if they went ahead and got swept in Pittsburgh. Very predictable.

 

Murphs still on pace for about double last years walks, but yes it's a bit discouraging to see only 5 in June. But last year he was almost Francoeur like in walks. That shouldn't happen again

 

d'Arnaud also had two bad passed balls yesterday. He hit one pretty well to left for an out, but otherwise he looks bad at the plate. Very poor approach. Swings through 90mph down the middle. Then he misses pitches by a foot altogether. When he gets hits they almost look like an accident. Like he accidentally insides outs one just out of the range of a 2b or something. I've never seen him actually locked in at the plate where he looks confident

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Crazy as it sounds, d'Arnaud's career as a Met is already in jeopardy, now that there's someone behind him generating buzz and hitting well.  If d'Arnaud is not that good defensively, suddenly Plawecki's behind-the-plate issues aren't nearly as big of a deal.  Travis NEEDS to get good defensively, because at the rate Plawecki's going, that might be what gives Travis a longer leash.  Like we've all noticed, d'Arnaud tearing up AAA PCL pitching doesn't mean anything anymore...we know he can hit minor-league pitching.  Whoop-de-doo.  It's gotta start happening here, because everyday it doesn't makes Plawecki that much more relevant. 

 

You've definitely got to worry a little about it being mental with d'Arnaud...I'm not going to make anything out of three games where he's gone 3-for-12, but if he has a couple of 0-for-4s and just like that he's only 3-for-20 since his return...does he already start to press? 

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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So there's rumors going around that the Mets may look to extend Murphy with a contract similiar to the Gardner contract...4/48ish I think. 

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

Risky.  I've gone into it in detail before, but Murphy walks a fine line between being a bad-team starting 2B and good-team "can get by with him" starting 2B.  He is what he is:  hard worker, pretty good locker-room presence, average fielder, slow runner, bad baserunner, limited power, hits for a pretty good average, can hit doubles.  The big thing with Murph is can he get on base?  Last season he was awful at it (.319), especially for a guy who hit second most of the time (and will hit in that position most of the time going forward).  He needs to be at least a .355 OB% guy consistently before I can think about paying him $48 million over four years.   

 

The problem with the Mets right now is they have too many bad-team ballplayers in their starting lineup.  Look at their infield:  Duda (bad-team player), Murph (borderline), Tejada (bad-team ballplayer at best, isn't really a major-league starting SS), Wright (pretty good player at this stage in his career, being asked to do more than he can deliver), and d'Arnaud (unknown).  You have four potentially bad-team ballplayers in the infield alone.  And the Mets have two of them in the outfield getting playing time in EY and CY.  Not hard to see why the Mets are seven games under .500, even with decent pitching.   

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I'm on the fence at 4/48

 

Murphy still has some atrocious moments at 2b. His range is not too good. And at least once a week I scratch my head wondering how he mishandled a ball or let one scoot through that he should've gotten...allowing a run to score. As he ages, he's not going to get much better.

 

And the power isn't really there. 10-12 a year. 

 

I want to wait until the deadline. Maybe somebody gets hurt from now till then, maybe somebody cracks and gives us a great return for him. I'd sit tight with Murphy until the 11th hour.

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Like '7' alludes to...we may be seeing his best right now (which is meh in a lot of ways).  A declining Murph (especially in the field) could be really ugly, even if it's only a slight decline.

 

But yeah, Sandy can't necessarily look to hit a home run on a Murphy deal...I'd happily settle for a double. 

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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If the Mets were going to be a $120 million payroll it wouldn't be much of an issue though $12 million per is a bit on the high side for Murphy imo.  But since we're probably going to be stuck with a $90 million payroll for the forseeable future with Wright taking up almost 20% of it then it's a little tougher.  And I like Murphy, he plays every day and his game isn't affected by Citi Field.  But yeah he's got his limitations and you'd ideally like to sell high.

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It'd be nice if Dilson Herrera was closer, but he just broke into AA.  He's probably late 2015 at the earliest, maybe 2016.  And of course if Sandy actually shows a pulse this offseason, there's a chance he could be dealt as part of a package for something else.  The second base cupboard seems pretty bare otherwise. 

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David Wright is going for an MRI on his shoulder, so yea we should all probably expect the worst since this is the Mets after all. Could explain the drop in power. I've been wondering if he's hiding an injury. But he has been swinging a better bat of late.

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They won a game without Wright in the lineup...impressive.

 

Type of game that makes you pull your hair out regarding Niese as he was handed a 5-0 leaf and sputtered to get through 6 allowing 3 runs. Mets bent but didn't break today. The bullpen was terrific.

 

At leas they've sort of stopped the bleeding before this losing streak got out of hand. Gotta get tomorrow though with Colon on the hill

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I think 4/48 is pretty fair for Murphy, even after accounting for the fact he's having a career year. That may seem steep but $12M per isn't what it was five years ago.

I'm on board with shopping him hard too, but I get the feeling he has more value to the Mets than he does in trade value. He just seems like the type of player outsiders won't appreciate as much (little power, shaky defensive player), plus he's approaching his final year of control and is looking due for a hefty arbitration raise.

Kind of amazed the Mets have sorta hung around despite their play this year. Maybe they can rekindle a glimmer of hope with a strong series vs Atlanta, although the Nats are playing a little better and Harper is coming back.

Edited by nmigliore
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Hey nmigliore! Welcome back

 

Atlanta isn't that good, but they're playing pretty well and they're usually the one's who knife the Mets and pretty much stamp out any hope in our seasons, so I fully expect that to happen again. But their bats can be so wretched. Won't matter much in the end as Washington will likely run away with it.

 

Key is a strong start from Wheeler this series. I didn't like him moaning about the A's stealing signs the previous game.

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It's good to be back. I've still lurked around here and followed the team, just too frustrated and lazy to post about it, but I definitely missed hanging around here with you guys.

 

I know Wheeler has gotten a lot of flack around here for how up and down he's been, but I've been encouraged by his overall numbers. Relative to last year his strikeouts are up significantly (20% to 24%), his walks are a tick down (11% to 10%), and his groundball rate is way up (43% to 54%). The walks still need work, clearly, but I like the progress he's showing in his process, even though the results haven't been there. Perhaps with a little luck and more consistency by Wheeler himself he'll turn it around. Put it this way: it's nice that there are strong defensive-independent numbers behind the ugly ERA rather than the other way around (bad peripherals, good ERA) or signs of a flat-out bad pitcher (bad peripherals, bad ERA).

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Holy crap, you guys are taking over NYFS! Sweet. 

 

I'm sure you've heard the warnings from Hasan by now but be careful with any poster insults or how you talk about certain players there. The mods/admins are like the polar opposite of NJDevs' and will flip out over the stupidest crap. With that said, I've never had any issues posting there (although I'm sure I would have if I posted like I did in 2007-2008). There's some really hardcore fans there and it's absolutely not all saber-slanted (only a handful, at most, who are really into it like I am). Metro2007 is a great dude; I talk to him almost everyday and he's very easy to get along with, smart, etc. There is a lot of snark that goes around there too and I'm sure I don't need to mention names; you'll probably find out pretty quickly where/who it comes from. ;)

Edited by nmigliore
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Welcome back nmig!  This place is better when you are posting here. 

 

Yeah, heard about NYFS and how to behave in those forums, so I'll be careful when I post there.  I'm not off to a great start there, lol...I thought Terry should've gone after the umps a lot harder than he did after the botched rundown (the guy CLEARLY ran out of the basepaths).  It would've been one thing if there was a very close play that resulted in a missed call (that happens...you deal with it), but completely missing a rule in the rulebook is something else.  I think at that point, you have to go ballistic and basically make the umps run you from the game...no, it might not make any difference in the end-of-game result (and that wasn't my point at all when I posted that Terry needed to lose it), but at least you let the umps know they completely screwed up, and that, regardless of where your team is in the standings, that you're not just going to let something like that go.  Well, suffice it to say the game-day thread participants didn't agree with me (though they kept missing my point...for some reason they kept thinking I was saying that Terry losing his mind would've inspired the team to win). 

 

Anyway, not a great day for Colon, but the guy was due for a lesser game, and even with that, he still turned in 6 IP.  Heaven forbid his teammates pick him up after he'd been lights-out after a nice stretch.  All he has to do is pitch pretty well (and hopefully keep on racking up wins) before the deadline and he should draw some solid interest.    

 

Let's face it, the only reason the Mets were "relevant" as long as they were was because of everyone else.  They've had so many opportunities to tease...he'll, even if they were a couple of games under .500, they'd be close that I still be kind of hopeful.  But they're toast now, and in a way that's good, because now Passive can start think about moving Colon, possibly Murph, etc. 

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Gabriel Ynoa promoted to AA, nice. His numbers in St. Lucie: 18.2 K%, 3.7 BB%, 3.38 FIP, which were nearly identical to what he did in Savannah last season (19.6 K%, 3 BB%, 3.16 FIP).

 

BA ranked him our #15 prospect entering 2014, but that always looked pretty low. I haven't seen reports on him this year but he's a bit in the Montero mold in that he's an extreme strike-throwing Dominican with pretty good stuff; a low-90's fastball with sink that runs up to 94, a plus-plus changeup (best pitch), and a slider that BA said needed improvement. He's also taller than Montero. 

Edited by nmigliore
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Fascinating stuff here - someone leaked 10 months of internal trade talks from the Astros: http://deadspin.com/leaked-10-months-of-the-houston-astros-internal-trade-1597951970

 

Some notable Met items involved:

 

- Paul DePodesta wanted SS Jonathan Villar as a centerpiece (or only piece) for Daniel Murphy in December. (This would look freakin' laughable right now.)

- Mets turned down Lucas Harrell and Alex Sogard for Ike Davis in late February.

 

There was also a note from a conversation with John Ricco that the Mets were looking for corner OF help, a veteran starter, and a little bullpen help. Had payroll flexibility to fill those needs.

Edited by nmigliore
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Wow...all the more reason Sandy and Co. should be shown the door.  Payroll constraints or not, they've done a bad job. 

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Logan Verrett followed up one of his best games with one of his worst.  Those 132 H allowed in 94 IP are hard on the eyes.  Oh the joys of pitching in the PCL... 

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