New York Mets 2016 Season Thread

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Pitchers and catchers report...here we go again!

Matt Harvey said that he hasn't been approached about a long-term extension by the Mets, but wouldn't be opposed to signing one.  As everyone does with spring training (too much downtime and only so much to report), it's easy to try to read too much into quotes...but Matt isn't kidding anyone.  I'd be stunned if he signed one of those "bridge" deals for 4 or 5 years for $60-$80 million...Boras would never let that happen.  Sure, Harvey's not opposed to signing the kind of deal here that he expects to get on the free agent market after 2018...8+ years and $200+ million.  Nothing against Harvey on this one, but it will be unfair if some of the more hysterical Met fans start making this sound like Sandy somehow isn't being proactive with him.  Sandy probably knows that offering Boras and Matt a bridge-type deal is a waste of everyone's time, and he has no reason to offer Matt the farm at this point. 

[NJDevs4978]

http://nypost.com/2016/02/18/jon-nieses-new-mets-cop-out-start-during-sons-birth-ruined-it/

lol keep playing the violin Jon. If you really wanted to be there for the birth of your kid you should have said something. The Mets let Murphy miss two games in April cause of his kid's birth.

In actual news, Parnell signs a minor league deal with the Tigers. At least he's not our problem now either. And supposedly the Rangers are keeping 'tabs' on deAza if the Mets do trade him.

Edited February 19, 2016 by NJDevs4978

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

35 minutes ago, NJDevs4978 said:

http://nypost.com/2016/02/18/jon-nieses-new-mets-cop-out-start-during-sons-birth-ruined-it/

lol keep playing the violin Jon. If you really wanted to be there for the birth of your kid you should have said something. The Mets let Murphy miss two games in April cause of his kid's birth.

In actual news, Parnell signs a minor league deal with the Tigers. At least he's not our problem now either. And supposedly the Rangers are keeping 'tabs' on deAza if the Mets do trade him.

The more Niese opens his yap, the happier I am that he's gone. 

BTW, Niese's performance breakdowns by days rest in 2015:

6+ days:  6 starts, 38 IP, 35 H, 9 ER, 2 HR, 12 BB, 21 K, 1.237 WHIP, 2.13 ERA

5 days:  13 starts, 80.2 IP, 81 H, 29 ER, 8 HR, 22 BB, 56 K, 1.277 WHIP, 3.24 ERA

4 days:  10 starts, 54.1 IP, 70 H, 42 ER, 10 HR, 20 BB, 35 K, 1.656 WHIP, 6.96 ERA

If anything, like I pointed out many times during the course of last season, the extra days probably helped both the mentally and physically fragile Niese have a better year than he would've turned in otherwise...that Charmin-soft crybaby should thank his luckies that he was heavily protected by the use of the 6-man rotation.  Sorry Jon, but you're a completely ordinary and unremarkable starting pitcher, with none of the bulldog traits that might've made you a more enticing and better-performing commodity.  What excuses will you come up with this season on the way to yet another meh-ish kind of year?

 

Mildly curious to see if Parnell has anything left.  He looked he was absolute toast last season. 

['7']

I really hope we don't. Yea they would like to shed that salary but I have a feeling De Aza is going to be our under the radar diamond in the rough signing that contributes this year. Winning teams need toolsy, sound players like him.

Niese could've been something more but he just never had the mental makeup. He collapses quickly, unlike deGrom who still battles when he doesn't have his stuff...Niese wilts. He also has never had anything especially overwhelming about his stuff so he's rarely dominant even when giving acceptable performances.

Is he useful? Sure. It's just that we really had no use for him here anymore.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

I was always impressed by Niese's curveball.  He has some good stuff, always did.  But yeah, though he definitely had some gut-it-out outings, I can think of a lot more where he'd walk someone or would see an error committed behind him, and then he'd just fall apart.  Niese gave up 62 unearned runs in his 1068.1 IP as a Met...that's a lot for that amount of innings (for comparison's sake, Tom Glavine gave up 29 unearned runs in 1005.1 IP as a Met.  Colon has given up 115 unearned runs in 2980.2 IP for his career).  Obviously not all of those runs were Niese's fault, and he had some bad defenses on the field with him, but he was a guy who we saw melt down a number of times when things weren't going his way.  The high unearned-run count is an illustration of that. 

Edited February 19, 2016 by Colorado Rockies 1976

[capo]

It's funny but my wife who is no aficionado and only watch from a distance would talk about Niese's confidence issues. I'm so glad this guy is gone. Huge addition by subtraction. He is going to get destroyed at PNC. It wouldn't surprise me if he's traded again this year.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Niese has the kind of stuff where he could win 15-16 if everything breaks right...we've seen him be quite good for 10-12 week stretches.  It wouldn't surprise me if he goes a bit beyond that at some point and turns in a career year, and I can see him having a good year for Pittsburgh if he stays healthy.  But I still think the Mets were 100% right to trade him...especially with his money only going up. 

['7']

Niese I think will do well in Pitt (it's a toned down baseball atmosphere there and they also have a good pitching coach that can help nurture him) It's just I look at our staff and see a bunch of bulldogs and one shivering chihuahua. Niese was that chihuahua.

I do hope it works out for Parnell in Detroit. If he ever regains his velocity he can be not totally sh!tty...though he doesn't have much tact and craftiness as a pitcher (much like Benitez...you knew that 3-1 meatball was coming and hitters just hammered it) I could definitely see him bouncing around the majors for a while.

['7']

Mets will also be wearing their 1986 throwbacks for every Sunday home game this year

 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

10 hours ago, '7' said:

Mets will also be wearing their 1986 throwbacks for every Sunday home game this year

 

Sometimes it feels like the Mets come dangerously close to delving into Rangers-shamelessly-overcelebrating-1994 territory, when it comes to all things 1986.  

['7']

Good point. They 86 squad has reached 85 Bears level mythical status...granted the moments they gave us were unreal but it has come to the point (30 years) where you have to start putting some of this stuff to bed. 

 

[NJDevs4978]

The irony is they should wear the throwbacks more, that's one thing I don't think is overkill. But yeah having a 30th anniversary is a bit too much, it almost feels like Jeff is overcompensating for the rap Fred used to get about not celebrating that team and the players enough.

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Unfortunately, the Mets (despite having a much shorter history) have a couple things in common with the Rangers that cause a franchise (and some of its fans) to keep revisiting a championship year:  not many of them in their history, and a lot of time passing since they won their last one (and just enough signature moments that came with that last one...for the Mets, it's the crazy end to Game 6 and "gets by Buckner!", and for the Rangers, it's "Matteau!  Matteau!  Matteau!" and ending a 54-year-drought). 

The 1986 championship team was a fine team and has some interesting stories to go with it (not all of them flattering, as we know...there's a reason Jeff Pearlman's book about that team is titled "The Bad Guys Won"), but like the 1994 Rangers, it's not like they're really any more special or memorable than several other World Series champs.  You could probably make a case for the 1969 Miracle Mets being more compelling than the 1986 version. 

Like Whitey Ford said about the stories of his and Mickey Mantle's partying days (paraphrasing):  "The stories, they've all been told...I have nothing more to add."  That's how I feel about the 1986 Mets at this point...we know they were talented and baseball's best team in 1986 (but really kind of limped its way through the playoffs in not-all-that-convincing fashion in a lot of ways), we know they weren't choirboys by any stretch, we know that self-destructive seeds were already being planted that would cause young Hall-of-Fame talents to fall short of that status by the end of their careers, we know they were loved in New York and pretty much despised everywhere else...and of course, we know that they never came close to putting together the dynasty that seemed like destiny at the time...one more playoff appearance for that group in 1988, and that was it.  Yes, great moment in a Met history that is short on great moments, but it's enough.  Time to move on.   

[NJDevs4978]

MLB officially enacts the Tejada rule where now you have to slide and make an effort to get to the bag. In the process they eliminated the 'neighborhood play' and now you can challenge whether a fielder's foot hit the bag.

[nmigliore]

Howdy.

I'm pretty happy with how the Mets' offseason went. I was kind of hoping they'd sign Ben Zobrist but Neil Walker was a nice, low-risk alternative. SS is still meh, but Cabrera was okay last year and you can do way worse for having Flores and Tejada as depth. Cespedes falling back into their laps was huge. I don't think his skillset will age well, and he's really not a good fit in CF, but he's perfect on a 1 year deal. Even though it probably wasn't the intention at the time of his signing, De Aza is a great fit as a 4th OF. Some have quibbled with the Mets' defensive outlook, and truthfully it's not good, but when you have such a dominant, strikeout-heavy pitching staff, it's not as concerning. 

Overall, with a bit of fortune, they did a nice job of making positive moves and building depth at a small cost. The Nats' offseason was pretty much a fail, but there's still enough talent there that I'd be surprised if they didn't hang with the Mets to the near-end, barring a severe injury to Harper or Scherzer. I do think the Mets are the better team, though, and are better equipped to handle injuries.

 

['7']

He's back!

Zobrist I think was overvalued. I mean a solid player but one that will be 35 for the most part this year with a great OBP...but the power numbers are not overwhelming and never were. 4 years seems a lot for him. He slipped from 5 war to 1.9 war last season. Isn't a decline in the cards here?

Edited February 25, 2016 by '7'

[NJDevs4978]

1 hour ago, nmigliore said:

Howdy.

I'm pretty happy with how the Mets' offseason went. I was kind of hoping they'd sign Ben Zobrist but Neil Walker was a nice, low-risk alternative. SS is still meh, but Cabrera was okay last year and you can do way worse for having Flores and Tejada as depth. Cespedes falling back into their laps was huge. I don't think his skillset will age well, and he's really not a good fit in CF, but he's perfect on a 1 year deal. Even though it probably wasn't the intention at the time of his signing, De Aza is a great fit as a 4th OF. Some have quibbled with the Mets' defensive outlook, and truthfully it's not good, but when you have such a dominant, strikeout-heavy pitching staff, it's not as concerning. 

Overall, with a bit of fortune, they did a nice job of making positive moves and building depth at a small cost. The Nats' offseason was pretty much a fail, but there's still enough talent there that I'd be surprised if they didn't hang with the Mets to the near-end, barring a severe injury to Harper or Scherzer. I do think the Mets are the better team, though, and are better equipped to handle injuries.

 

Howdy back!

The irony is if they sign Zobrist do they even try for Cespedes?  It might have worked out in the long run.  Or maybe they would have bit the bullet and had a $150 million payroll instead of $140 but I'm not sure the public outcry/urgency would have been as acute to bring back Cespedes if they had brought in the big fish FA in Zobrist.  And I actually liked their plan B better (Walker for a year and just see what you have with Herrera in the meantime).  I also wonder what they would have traded Niese for if they had gotten Zobrist too.

Edited February 25, 2016 by NJDevs4978

[nmigliore]

Zobrist was dealing with a knee issue early last season and spent about a month on the DL to rehab it; his pre- and post-DL splits were pretty significant:

Pre-DL: 56 PA, .240/.304/.400

Post-DL: 479 PA, .281/.365/.456

Most of his WAR decline was due to defense. But defensive metrics in single season sample sizes aren't incredibly trustworthy, and it's hard to believe he went from a consistent plus defender to a major liability in the span of a year.

Anyway, I didn't think he'd end up with as much as he got, which was part of the appeal as well, but I'm more than happy with Walker. We got him for a spare part, he's on a short commitment, and I think he's a little bit better than Murphy. 

Edited February 26, 2016 by nmigliore

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

Holy shizzit!  Welcome back nmig!  Glad you're back.  Please stick around for the duration of the season.  

I'll throw it out there again...if you guys ever want to make a GTG happen (either at a game or at a bar somewhere) let me know.  

[NJDevs4978]

I did get one of the 20-game packs this season though there's no way I'm going to all of them I should be going to about 10-12 at least this year and yes I did buy that post-Cespedes returning although a small part of it too was I did want to go to Opening Day for once as well.  Plus they seem to have a lot of good promos, this is a good year to be a ticket holder where they still have to do promos to sell tickets but there's also real reason for optomism.

[nmigliore]

Granderson left the field today with an eye issue and Walker was hit in the leg by Familia during live BP. Neither sounds concerning, but just your friendly, annual reminder to keep fingers crossed at all times during spring training. 

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

34 minutes ago, nmigliore said:

Granderson left the field today with an eye issue and Walker was hit in the leg by Familia during live BP. Neither sounds concerning, but just your friendly, annual reminder to keep fingers crossed at all times during spring training. 

For every 1986, there's a 1987 that can follow it.  Not sure how much of a Met historian you are nmig, but I'm sure you're VERY familiar with the 1986 Met starting five.  Suffice it to say that it went to sh!t in a big way in 1987, with injuries, Gooden missing the start of the season to drug rehab (read his memoir if you haven't already), and lesser performances...the ONLY reason the 1987 Mets managed to win 92 games was because Terry Leach (a nothing-special, not used much reliever/spot starter) managed to pitch pretty well in the rotation for a stretch.  The 87 Mets used 12 starting pitchers that season, including such household names as Leach (12 starts), John Mitchell (19 starts), Don Schulze (3 starts), Tom Edens (2 starts...Mets were so starved for healthy arms that he was summoned up from AA), and Jeff Innis (1 start...was a sidearming reliever).  The injuries did pave the way for David Cone to break in...and he was showing nice progress until he also got hurt.

As optimistic as I am this year, we have seen on many occasions that a good staff can become injury-ravaged in a hurry.  Just hope that doesn't happen to this bunch. 

['7']

And despite all that the 1987 Mets STILL won 92 games and if not for Terry Pendleton (an underrated gut punch moment that sort of gets overlooked now because we were still living in the 1986 afterglow) they may have taken the division that year too. That was yet another year where no Wild Card hurt us since we were the 2nd best team in the NL record wise (and maybe the 3rd best team in baseball behind the Cards/Tigers)

Edited March 1, 2016 by '7'

[nmigliore]

Quote

Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes has apparently run out of fancy motorized vehicles to drive to spring training, because this morning he rolled up to the Mets’ facility on a horse.

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

[Colorado Rockies 1976]

21 hours ago, '7' said:

And despite all that the 1987 Mets STILL won 92 games and if not for Terry Pendleton (an underrated gut punch moment that sort of gets overlooked now because we were still living in the 1986 afterglow) they may have taken the division that year too. That was yet another year where no Wild Card hurt us since we were the 2nd best team in the NL record wise (and maybe the 3rd best team in baseball behind the Cards/Tigers)

Just like the Mets beat the Cardinals in an important, tone-setting series early in the 1986 series, they lost one early in the 1987 season.  I think they were 16-19 or something like that to start the year, and were 30-29 before getting it going (I think that was right around the time Leach joined the rotation).  Gooden missing the start of the season was a real kick to the balls.  So much went wrong that year.