Official 2014 New York Mets Thread

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Colon's mother passes away.  A shame...I'm sure he's hurting.  Easy to forget these guys are human beings, with lives and families outside of the game. 

 

Wilpons are losers, Sandy is a loser, Terry is a loser.  Wright has become one.  That being said, there's a crop of young players who haven't been exposed to the Met way of doing things long enough to be indoctrinated into joining the loser's club, so the hope that the cycle will soon be broken lies with them. 

 

Speaking of young arms...another terrific start for Logan Verrett in his last outing (8 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K), who has really been a different pitcher for a while now.  Only 34 hits and 15 BB allowed in his last 48 IP, covering seven starts. 

Edited August 20, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

yea. Feel awful for Colon.

 

Verrett has earned his September call-up. Hope Reynolds joins him and we can give loser Tejada another shove out the door

 

Dillon Gee walks a .213 hitter to load the bases for Coco Crisp, who scorches a triple to give the A's an insurmountable 4-1 lead. Met struggling for that 5th hit once again.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Yeah, it's gotten ugly for Gee in a hurry.  Sucks in that Niese and Gee have saved their worst for now, after prolonged stretches of effective pitching (even if the sabes show that Gee benefitted from his fair share of luck during his run).

 

Re:  Tejada/Flores, let's face it, sticking with Flores is going to take a lot of patience...he's basically Tejada with worse defense (and Ron Darling in a WFAN interview last week basically said that he thinks Tejada is not a major-league SS defensively) and even worse offensive numbers (especially OB%).  I'm all for someone not named Tejada or Flores getting a shot, though I'm willing to give Flores until the end of August to start showing that he's more than a AAAA, Vegas-inflated fraud.  I don't need to see Tejada get yet another chance to meh it up. 

 

Steven Matz with another good outing on 8/17...he's given up 2 ER or less in 7 out of 10 AA starts.  His AA ERA is now down to 2.35.

 

Wright rocking a .257/.297/.271 slash line for August.  OB+SLG of .569.  So typical...team disappears offensively, Wright follows.   

Edited August 20, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

A stop the bleeding type win. Wheeler was ok...betrayed by some shoddy defense (as was Black) but for once the Mets hit enough to overcome it.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Herrera on another rampage:  8 for 11 in his last three, BA of .346, OB% of .415, OB+SLG of .995. 

 

Verrett and Syndergaard with meh-ish outings in their last starts, for whatever that's worth.

 

Not sure how much longer the Mets can continue the Flores experiment, especially since he wasn't projected to be a shortstop at the major-league level to begin with.  He's not hitting at all, and Matt Reynolds is.  If Flores isn't showing any signs of improvement by 9/1, and Reynolds is still ripping it, how can the Mets not bring him up sooner rather than later? 

['7']

Yea Reynolds is up to .350 in Vegas. I know a combination of factors can sometimes make a hitter look better than he is in LV...but it's hard to "fake" .350 over 232 ab's. Bring the kid up

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Oh sure, I've always maintained that trying to read Vegas stats strictly by the numbers is a real bitch, and if Flores was a defensive whiz, I'd be willing to be more patient, but he is an awful SS.  He is proving what has been said about him, re:  his defense...unfortunately, when you're a young guy who basically doesn't have a position, you need to hit, and do it quickly, to justify your staying in the lineup.  Right now Flores is not giving the Mets any reasons to keep playing him...I understand that it can get really ugly with young players, and I keep reminding myself that Flores really is still a kid (again, 8 months younger than Reynolds), but man, he's making it very hard for me to see the Mets stick with him. 

 

d'Arnaud's hit some dingers, but he's been hitting more and more like the guy who got sent down...just 14 for his last 70.  Plawecki has been red hot in Vegas too...his average is up to .283 after a slow start.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

Enough of this crap with Wright. He ha 8 rbi and is hitting .212 in the past 32 games. He is KILLING THIS TEAM

[NJDevs4978]

If he's hurt he needs to be shut down.  If he's not hurt you might as well invent an injury and shut him down anyway

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Enough of this crap with Wright. He ha 8 rbi and is hitting .212 in the past 32 games. He is KILLING THIS TEAM

 

It'd be nice if Amateur Terry could actually see that Wright isn't hitting.  But no, Terry just keeps hitting him third in the lineup, day after day after unproductive day.  fvcking drop him already.  He's been lousy for most of the season. 

['7']

So today we had...

 

A good start for Colon, under difficult circumstances...what is possibly his last start as a Met. I say trade him, he deserves to pitch for a contender in the postseason

 

A triple play

 

Duda hitting a 3 run HR nearly out of the stadium

 

And another HR. Duda may well end up with 30...before September

 

Murphy leaving with a sore calf (hopefully precautionary)

 

Wright leaving with some sort of neck injury (Which I'm certain he's had for a while and haven't said anything about it)

 

Keith Hernandez making some...dicey comments about Latin players that may or not get him in trouble.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Re:  Colon...just don't know if there's a market for him.  The money he has coming to him next season seems to be the issue.  What sucks is that his overall ERA looks worse than he's pitched (he's had a few bad starts bloat it, but most of his starts have been good), and his home/away splits still don't look great from a pure eye-test standpoint.  It all depends how much money the Mets are willing to eat, because they're going to have eat more than they want. 

 

Re:  Duda...what can you say?  The guy has clearly bought himself 2015 to prove that 2014 isn't a fluke, and I can't argue that he hasn't earned it.  For all that Sandy gets wrong, he got this one right.  As much as Duda has made the absolute most out of his chance, Davis has wasted his.  Ike probably has one year left at most to try to prove he can be an everyday player.  He just disappeared after that late May series in Citi. 

 

Wright should just be shut down...this season is over and he's unwatchable right now.  Who knows if shutting him down does any good in 2015, but at least I don't have to see Amateur Terry continue to be oblivious to Wright's performance and bat him third like everything's just peachy.

 

What did Keith say?  I only saw snippets of the game. 

[NJDevs4978]

From what I can gather, supposedly Keith made a crack after Puig's baserunning gaffe on the triple play how 'Latin players...you have to tame them, they're wild stallions out there'.  

 

Because the crew's so popular (at this point, the most well-liked aspect of the Mets IS Gary/Keith/Ron) he can probably get away with almost anything but still, sometimes his curmedgeon moments can make you wince or roll your eyes.  And sometimes they make you laugh even if they're not terribly PC.

Edited August 25, 2014 by NJDevs4978

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Keith can probably get away with it in this case more than others might because of his heritage.  And what he's saying is true in some ways.  Supposedly there are MANY Latino ballplayers who have enough talent to get to the majors, but come from backgrounds where they literally had nothing...even $10000 signing bonuses represent massive amounts of coin in their eyes (even their meal money is significant), and they wind up partying themselves out of playing careers...they simply don't know how to handle their newfound "riches", due to minimal education, and not really having anyone to advise them (or having people taking advantage of them).  

 

I still like Keith, but he gets a little more self-righteous each season...as though he never made a mistake in his playing days...he picks apart and criticizes EVERYTHING these players do.  Keith was clearly a very cerebral player, and I think you can make an argument that he could go into the HOF for his defense alone...he was clearly one of the very best fielding first basemen ever to play the game.  He was a fine hitter too...he didn't hit with a lot of power obviously, but he was very clutch and was hardly a detriment offensively...it's not like the fact that he wasn't a home run hitter hurt his game at the plate one bit (cracked 90+ RBI 6 times, career OPS+ of 128).  But he wasn't as perfect as he seems to think he was...like just about every ballplayer, he made mistakes and he didn't always hustle on every play.   

Edited August 26, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Steven Matz's last four starts (AA):  25 IP, 19 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 22 K, 0.36 ERA.  A 1.61 ERA in his last 10 AA starts.  FWIW, fangraphs shows his AA FIP as being 2.84, which is supposed to indicate that his 2.17 ERA with the B-Mets is a bit lucky.  Whatever, I'm just glad there's yet another arm with intrigue (and value) that seems to be getting better as the season goes on...until he gets to the PCL, anyway. 

Edited August 26, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

Steven Matz's last four starts (AA):  25 IP, 19 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 22 K, 0.36 ERA.  A 1.61 ERA in his last 10 AA starts.  FWIW, fangraphs shows his AA FIP as being 2.84, which is supposed to indicate that his 2.17 ERA with the B-Mets is a bit lucky.  Whatever, I'm just glad there's yet another arm with intrigue (and value) that seems to be getting better as the season goes on...until he gets to the PCL, anyway. 

 

and on that note the Mets re-upped with the PCL Las Vegas 51's. So there's going to be plenty more wondering/adjusting we're going to be doing when looking at those stats.

['7']

Nice job by the Mets tonight as they start to settle into that spoiler role. Lagares with a spectacular catch and a 2 run HR. Duda had a nice fielding play and got a DP chasing Gattis back to the bag.

 

Gee wasn't all that great. Didn't really strike anybody out but got some luck on hard hit balls in play.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

and on that note the Mets re-upped with the PCL Las Vegas 51's. So there's going to be plenty more wondering/adjusting we're going to be doing when looking at those stats.

 

That's unfortunate, but not sure where else the Mets could've moved their AAA team to.  And yeah, we know how tricky it is to try to read the numbers. 

 

Verrett with a pretty good outing last night (5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K).  Going to be very interesting who gets September call-ups (seems like the Mets are more concerned about the AAA playoffs...the schedule has them ending by September 10 at the latest). 

 

Flame-throwing lefty Jack Leathersich (332 K in 195.1 minor-league innings) is in his second go-round with Vegas.  Though he had moments, overall it was a disaster the first time (last season):  32 H and 29 BB in 29 IP (2.10 WHIP).  It's still early, but so far the results have been better:  8 G, 6.1 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 4 BB, 12 K. 

 

Remember Cesar Puello...he of the PED-induced .950 OB+SLG in AA last season (before he got suspended)?  He's rocking a .707 OB+SLG in the PCL this year.  Party's over Cesar.

 

 

Nice job by the Mets tonight as they start to settle into that spoiler role. Lagares with a spectacular catch and a 2 run HR. Duda had a nice fielding play and got a DP chasing Gattis back to the bag.

 

Gee wasn't all that great. Didn't really strike anybody out but got some luck on hard hit balls in play.

 

In Gee's last 37.2 IP (6 starts), he's allowed only 31 hits, but has also allowed 17 walks and 5 HRs, and only struck out 20.  The good hits-allowed stat seems like it's due more to good luck than anything else.  Unfortunately, I think even if he turns in a strong September, buyers are going to be leery on many levels. 

 

Tejada appears to be playing himself back into the starting SS position, which is an indictment of Flores more than anything else.  The Mets practically handed Flores the job and he did absolutely nothing with it, in the field or at the plate...as we know, Tejada has just about zero support within the Mets' organization.  Tejada did get a little lucky with Murph getting hurt, which allows Flores to stay in the lineup at 2B, but how much longer does he get to be invisible with the bat? 

Edited August 27, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

Tejada has a future in the majors as a career backup. Maybe not with us but who knows

 

Time is running out for Flores. Granted he probably deserves another full MLB season to prove he can hit (still so young) but if you can't beat out Tejada, and if Reynolds is breathing down your neck already and the Mets just flat out have to win in 2015(which means a SS may have to come in via trade or UFA)...we don't have time to sit and wait for Flores to get it together. Maybe one day he'll figure it out and turn into Carlos Gomez. But we just don't have the time anymore.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Note to Sandy:  whenever you wake up, or start to care, whichever comes first, can you get a real fvcking shortstop already? 

 

Come to think of it, I'd like the Mets to hire a GM and manager that have masculine-sounding names.  Sandy and Terry sound like a couple of annoying chubby beach chicks you hook up with after one too many Jager shots, who you then hope are long gone before the sun rises. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Pretty good game from Wheeler.  Zack's numbers since June 30:

 

11 GS, 70.1 IP, 55 H, 21 R, 17 ER, 6 HR, 31 BB, 64 K, 2.18 ERA, 6-1 record.  He's only allowed more than 2 ER once in that time, and has gone 6+ IP in all but one of those 11 starts.

 

For now I guess we live with the walks, high pitch counts, and trouble getting through seven innings. 

 

Lagares is just a ridiculous glove. 

 

For all of the strides Duda has made, there's still a bit of a garbage-time feel with him.  Maybe that changes in time.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

['7']

Didn't see the end of this one but looks like it was Terry being stupid again. Bunting with Flores (who homered earlier) to get to Tejada. Because of course you want to give away free outs with 2 on 0 out in the 9th to get to Babe Tejada in the lineup. You want to see what Flores got. LET HIM HIT THERE

 

Also Simmonds with a ridiculous play to get d'Arnaud.

 

Also Granderson is at .217

 

Why is he still batting leadoff Terry? He hasn't done squat in forever.

Edited August 28, 2014 by '7'

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

I've made no secret about how I feel about TC at this point, but without Murph in the lineup, he's got damned near nothing to work with, outside of Duda and whatever two bats happen to be going at any given time.  Wilmer fvcking Flores and Ruben fvcking Tejada are both in the lineup right now...that's a joke without a punchline.  And I'm so sick of the Vegas-bloated zilches that keep getting chances to do nothing in the majors.  Hopefully we can start moving on (FINALLY) from the den Dekkers, the Nieuwenhuises, the Anthony Browns, etc.  They suck, end of story.  Sandy, if you want to improve the Met offense, try finding guys who can actually hit a little.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Syndergaard with a solid game last night:  6.2 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K

 

His last eight starts have been very good overall, especially for the PCL:  46.1 IP, 47 H, 14 ER, 16 BB, 57 K, 1.36 WHIP, 2.72 ERA.  In 7 out of his last 10 starts, he's allowed 2 ER or less.  He's not allowing a ton of home runs either.

 

Suffice it to say that Plawecki has found his stroke in Vegas...he's 20-for-41 in his last 11 GP...until last night, when he hit two home runs, most of those hits had been singles.  His average is up to .304, just like that. 

 

Nimmo has a 9-game hitting streak going, during which he's 12-for-37 (.324).  Also has drawn four walks in that time.  His overall AA numbers don't excite, but they're heading in the right direction.  Overall he's slashing .255/.362/.427 in Binghamton.    

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Also Granderson is at .217

 

I was very hopeful that he was going to prove us all wrong when he got hot, but he's clearly a different hitter when he's not playing in Yankee Bandbox.  His contract was a disaster waiting to happen; all of the numbers pointed to it, but Sandy couldn't be bothered to do much background checking on his offseason signings.  This is how you wind up getting guys like Chris Young, but at least that mistake wasn't crippling.  Mets are screwed with Granderson...all we can do with him is hope for the best...fine if your payroll isn't $85-90 million; unfortunately, if Sandy can't find a taker for Colon, that's $27 million wrapped up in 2015 for a past-his-prime outfielder and a 41-year-old starting pitcher (who to his credit has at least been pretty solid). 

 

David Wright has $20 million coming to him in each of the next four seasons.  How scary is that?  So the Met payroll will probably not surpass $100 million next season, but $47 million of whatever they have to spend will be wrapped up in David Wright, Bartolo Colon, and Curtis Granderson.  Duda's getting a nice raise (I'm guessing the Mets try to sign him to a long-term deal...possibly Murph too).  Suffice it to say Passive's going to have to find some low-cost gems, which is basically means more Marlon Byrd/Chris Young/what the hell why not guys that may pan out or may not.

 

On Wright, I can't kill Sandy...I would've definitely considered moving him or letting him walk (I think there were enough signs to worry about his long-term future, and said so at the time), but at the same time a lot of Met fans would've been pissed if the Mets didn't keep him.  It was a PR move as much as anything else, but I hope the Mets at least realize now that Wright can't continue to be the face of the franchise if they really want to get anywhere.

 

But let's face it, Sandy doesn't deserve a pass on not having much money to spend, as he's spent poorly.  The 2014 offseason is looking more and more scary to me.   

Edited August 28, 2014 by Colorado Rockies 1976