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Posted: |
Jul 31, 2015 - 5:53 PM
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By: |
ANZALDIMAN
(Member)
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All I can say today is Mets GM Sandy Alderson has done it again. The Carlos Gomez from the Brewers trade for Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores that never was has already becoming a distant memory. No tears for Wilmer Flores today. Wilmer has been in the Mets organization since he was 16 years old. He's never known any other organization. He's now 24, and if Mets fans were a a little cold to him before they love him now after what transpired the other night at Citi Field. Wilmer's story was all over social media. The Mets needed a big bat. And Alderson went right back out after the Carlos Gomez trade fiasco collapsed and did a great job once again. And through it all both during and after the trade deadline pitcher Zack Wheeler remains a Met. Yoenis Cespedes is now a New York Met. The Mets gave up some good lower level pitching prospects to the Detroit Tigers get it done. Cespedes is not signed long term. He comes to the Mets on the tail end of a very reasonable contract for a player of his stature. If the Mets want to keep him beyond this season the Wilpons are going to have to sigh heavily, blow hard, and open the vault this fall. Cespedes was my first choice. Then Gomez, and then Justin Upton. Upton surprisingly did not get as much attention in trade talks with various GM's. I was not a fan of trading Wheeler to the Reds for slugger Jay Bruce. I kept hearing the rumors last night and hoped Sandy had other options on the table. Bruce was not a good fit for the Mets as far as I was concerned. And Zack Wheeler, who is currently on the mend from Tommy John surgery made it known he wanted to remain a Met. If all goes well by the middle of next year, Wheeler will take his place in a stud starting rotation that already includes Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Thor Syndergaard, and Steven Matz. I thought there was no way the Tigers would makes Cespedes available if they were still in a pennant race. But the Tigers decided to become sellers during the period leading up to the trade deadline and Alderson moved quickly from the breakdown of the Carlos Gomez for Wheeler and Flores deal to nail this trade with Detroit down. Yoenis Cespedes is the best bat of the three above. Sandy did an excellent job here once again to give the team with one of the best starting pitching staffs in all of baseball a chance to compete again. 2006 is a long time ago now. It's all the fans have asked for and Sandy Alderson responded big time today.
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So far the Tigers track record of the last decade reminds me of Cleveland in the 1990s. A good run turning a franchise around from total misery with two pennants but no championships.
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Posted: |
Aug 11, 2015 - 8:28 AM
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By: |
ANZALDIMAN
(Member)
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Dave Dombrowski is out as the Detroit Tigers General Manager. http://www.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/13377155/dave-dombrowski-resigns-detroit-tigers-general-manager Dombrowski did much that was good, (getting Cabrera and JD Martinez and Victor Martinez and Ian Kinsler) but not solving the bullpen issue was what probably did him in. Al Avila will be fine in the front office. He has a great deal of experience from scouting in Latin America to being Dombrowski's right hand man for many years. The Tigers refuse to believe the season is over and they took 2 of 3 from KC. The two kids we got in the David Price deal have each looked good in their first starts for Detroit. Norris throws for Detroit again tonight. Keep your eye on Michael Fulmer. He was one of the Mets top pitching prospects in AA ball and though the Tigers traded Cespedes to the Mets to pry him loose he could be at the front end of their rotation in the not too distant future. As a parting gift in his final days as the Tigers GM Dombrowski may have given you guys at the very least a young number two starter for years to come. With prospects you never know what the final outcome will be, but if you look at Fulmer's progression in the system he's got the potential to be a good one if he stays healthy. It's always interesting to see how these veterans for prospects deals turn out down the road. Mets GM Alderson traded knuckleballer R.A. Dickey coming off his Cy Young Award in 2012 to Toronto for young pitching prospect phenom Syndergaard and catcher Travis d'Arnaud. Syndergaard has taken New York by storm at age 22 this year and Dickey is still rolling along in the Blue Jays rotation at age 40 and is helping Toronto in their quest to catch the Yankees in the American League east this season. Cespedes may very well bolt for millions in free agency after the season, but this was a deal the Mets HAD to make to add the best available quality bat to give them a chance to win now. Just seeing Cespedes stepping up to the plate now adds an excitement and depth the Mets offense has not seen since the days of a much younger Carlos Beltran in the mid-2000's. And as Beltran once was, Cespedes is also a 5 tool player. He'll probably only be a Met for a short time but I'm enjoying the run we're having right now after years of slogging through sub .500 seasons waiting for the pitching to arrive. And now, the Mets rotation is the envy of baseball. Cespedes seems happy to be a Met for the moment, and has expressed an interest in remaining. But realistically, I don't think the Wilpons will spend what it will take to keep him. No secret what it's going to cost. It's going to take well over $100 million dollars long term. And "long term" is the key. 5 years at 80 million sounds just peachy but it won't happen. It's going to get complicated and more expensive. The players agents were born to give GM's agita. Cespedes is now 29, but what will he look like at 39? He's certainly not going to be a 5 tool player then, will he? I'd love to have him, to keep Cespedes a Met. But the odds are strongly against him staying. Been down this road before. And then there is the matter of eventually paying the young pitchers their due down the line.. Many big money players have come and gone from Queens over the last 10 years. And some crashed and burned in New York. (Jason Bay anyone?..Ohfaah! ) When you look at the hundreds of millions of dollars of guaranteed long term money that Robinson Cano got from Seattle and look at the shell of a player he is now compared to what he once was with the Yankees only a short time ago it does make you wince. That is just one example (there are many many more) of long term free agent contracts gone bad. The Steinbrenner brothers could be excused if they occasionally let out a loud "WHEW!" from behind closed doors over that dodged bullet of a contract. Meantime, the Mets are in first place in the National League east. Right now it's not about contracts, it's about winning the division. The pieces have been put in place to help the team win now. The Nationals are hot on the Mets heels and have a lot to prove. Both the Mets and the Nats have schedules that on paper should benefit both teams in the next few weeks. They'll be a lot of scoreboard watching by both teams in various cities as the season enters it's final stretch.
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Posted: |
Aug 27, 2015 - 10:37 AM
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By: |
ANZALDIMAN
(Member)
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The METS lose three but are fortunate to remain at the top of the division. This is the beginning of the roller coaster ride for me. The roller coaster has picked up a full head of steam now. Whatever happens from this point, no Mets fan can complain that this team has not provided excitement this season. And with all that young pitching that we've been waiting for all ripening at once this team looks like it is in position to compete for the foreseeable future. I've been talking up these young pitchers here for years now. Waiting. I was only hoping for a wild card run this season. Now we are leading in a race to win the division. We have gotten so much more. It's now August 27, and the first place 70-56 Mets have opened up a 6 and 1/2 game lead on their NL east division rivals the Washington Nationals. The Nats have still not made a serious move to overtake the Mets, and while the Mets are taking full advantage of their recent "easy" schedule of playing second division teams the Nationals are not. At this point the Nationals have dug such a hole for themselves they have to win the division to even make the playoffs. Even their wild card chances are drifting away. They simply can not afford to fall any further behind as the regular season is ticking down. The Mets are applying pressure by putting together long winning streaks while the Nats continue to sputter. You can never count the Nats out with all that talent, but in a season where the entire NL east except for themselves and the Mets has been terrible, to not even make the playoffs this year with all the expectations would be an enormous setback for that organization. And heads will roll. Since the much ballyhooed trade deadline the Mets have turned themselves around offensively and mentally. David Wright returned with a bang, and Michael Cuddyer's bat has finally heated up. The offense, once anemic, has now become one of the most productive in baseball. The solid young starting pitching got the help it needed. The big trade with Detroit for Cespedes has proven to be a big part of the turnaround. An outstanding power bat that commands respect in the order. Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson have proved to be solid veteran pickups in spot duty on the infield. The 36 year old journeyman Uribe in a short period has become a positive veteran leader on the team. And a good bat and glove at third filling in for Wright. The Mets most glaring weakness right now it is in their middle relief corps. O'Flaherty, Torres, Robles, and Sean Gilmartin have all been shaky at times even when the Mets have handed them leads to work with. Logan Verrett has been a positive in spot starts and may provide some help in long relief from the right side out of the pen moving forward. Clippard and Familia for the most part are a solid combination in the closing role. The loss for the rest of the season of lefty specialist Jerry Blevins and the suspended for PED use for a second time idiot Mejia has definately had an impact on the options in the bullpen. Mejia probably pitched his last game as a Met. This article from Business Insider by Scott Davis sums up very well how far the Mets have come since the trade deadline. http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-mets-offense-and-pitching-make-them-one-of-mlbs-scariest-teams-2015-8
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The Yankees might as well have forfeited because that wasn't even a baseball team that showed up for this game. A team of zero offense, and a starting pitcher putting them in a hole early making for a night of no fun whatsosever. With the singular exception of 2009, this almost entirely defines the Yankee postseason experience of the last decade where they show a constant inability to rise to the occasion. Even when they advanced to the ALCS in 2012 they did that with a dead bat offense in the first round that then proceeded to put on the most disgraceful display of lack of hitting by any postseason team in the history of the game. Three years away, nothing changed. Girardi benching Ellsbury blew up in his face big time as did a stupid overmanaging move of changing pitchers in the 7th, giving Houston a big insurance run that cemented things. I am now tuning out until WS time because honestly only the Yankees doing something could have made me take an interest as a diversion from the other crap in my life right now. Seeing that kind of pathetic performance leaves me with no desire to see more baseball.
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