Shrewd Move Not Needed

Joel Sherman from the New York Post is advocating that the Mets trade David Wright, R.A. Dickey, and even Jon Niese for 8-10 prospects to fix overall depth issues in the organization.

Although Joel’s thought process isn’t completely bananas, I don’t think it’s the road to take.  While I agree there are some glaring holes in the outfield that don’t appear to have a real solution inside the organization, they have demonstrated some potential depth in the most important area of all, starting pitching.

Side Note:  Can someone explain to me why Corey Vaughn is still in single A?  I get he hasn’t hit for average, but he is 25, has shown a good deal of power, and Wally Backman seems to have a liking for him.

Matt Harvey has proven he will be a critical member of the Mets starting five next year.  It is reasonable to believe we could see Zach Wheeler mid-season next year after a solid first season in the Mets organization. I believe Collin McHugh has the right mental game and can locate his curveball extremely well to be an intriguing option as well.

Combine these guys with R.A. Dickey, who needs to be extended, and Jon Niese, who received a fair but very reasonable extension this year, and you have a pretty solid assortment of options for the starting rotation.

I purposefully left out Johan Santana from that group because I refuse to hold any hope that he will return to his dominant self or even a top of the rotation starter at this point in his career.

Do you remember a guy named Dillon Gee?  He may not be a front of the rotation guy, but he can be a very nice five-spot or long man.  Jeremy Heffner has also emerged as a pitcher that also can fill that role.

Throw in Jenrry Mejia and Jeurys Familia as options to keep in mind or potential bullpen help.

While I’m at it, I’ll throw in a dark horse.  There is a guy by the name of Mark Cohoon that pitched extremely well in Binghamton this season, 146.2 innings pitched with a 3.46 ERA.  Keep an eye on him.  I’m not necessarily making any bold predictions because he did get promoted to Buffalo and was shelled in his first two starts.  The idea here is there may be a guy out there like a Collin McHugh that becomes an option that no one was even thinking about.

My last point, and this may very well be the most important, many people tend to forget the Wilpons got off a whole helluva lot easier from the Madoff Mess than we all originally thought.  While long gone are the days of having one of the highest payrolls in baseball, I can see them loosening the purse strings a bit more to allow the Mets to make long-term investments on guys in the future.  Guys like David Wright and R.A. Dickey.

At this point in time it is reasonable to expect a 85 win team next year, and to compete in 2014 for a playoff spot.

Pretty Much Sums It Up

“Listless at the plate, ineffective on the mound and sloppy defensively, the loss made the Mets 0-10 to start homestands this season.”-Dan Martin, New York Post

Couldn’t have said it better myself Dan.  Hopefully, we’ll see a better effort today.

Don’t Take The Bait On Pelfrey Comments

Before we go any further, I need you to do two things.

1. Understand this post is not about Mike Pelfrey’s performance in 2011 or whether or not I feel he should play a role in future seasons.  Those are topics for another time.
2. Read this article by the New York Post’s Mike Puma.

This article reeks of a setup.  It reads as if Puma went fishing for something “controversial”, took a portion of what Pelfrey gave him, fed it to the anonymous Met in the piece, and got a reaction he could go to print with.

Take a look at the state of the 2011 Mets and convince me I’m wrong.

• Hopes of the post season are over, so writing about a pennant chase is out.
• The front office has a plan, is sticking to that plan, and is no longer fodder for interesting material.
• The Wilpons have been eerily quiet and uncontroversial since Fred hit bottom back in April.
• Nothing very relevant has developed with the Madoff Mess recently.
• Terry Collins has control of the clubhouse, and all of the players understand their roles and are giving max effort.

What in the world can the media write about to obtain top advertising dollars?

I will give Puma some credit.  He does attempt to be fair by including Pelf’s approval of the organization’s future direction, and his desire to remain a Met.

Shame on the anonymous Met quoted in the piece.  Regardless of how you feel about how well Pelfrey has performed this season, you should know better than to go off on him in front of a reporter/reporters.  Surely you knew said reporter’s motive was to create a controversy to write about.  You flat-out have to be smarter than that.

That being said, this is much a do about nothing.  Don’t take the bait.

UPDATE:  The Day After

For the first time in quite some time I was disappointed with SNY’s Gary Cohen and Ron Darling.  I stopped listening to last night’s telecast right before Pelf got drilled with the line drive.  Turned the volume off and just watched.  It troubled me that no one seemed to pick up that the quote attributed to Pelf was clearly a portion of a larger conversation. 

Don’t worry Gary and Ron, you’re still the best in the biz, no one’s perfect. 

Don’t get me wrong, Pelf shouldn’t have started talking about this year’s playoff hopes not being realistic.  However, I don’t feel it’s fair to bash him without being able to read the entire statement/quote.

Again, why aren’t more people bothered by the  “anonymous” teammate?

For the record, here’s Pelfrey’s thoughts about the quote provided by ESPN New York:

As for his comments in the Post, Pelfrey said his thoughts were taken out of context and misinterpreted during what he thought was a positive conversation.

“I didn’t think I said a negative thing,” he said. “That is why I was shocked.”

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Filed In The “No Shit” Category

The New York Post’s Kevin Kernan shared with us today,

“The bottom line is Reyes has to find a way to stay on the field and keep his legs under him.”

No shit Kev.

He also makes the following satement,

“Reyes and the Mets have to be honest with each other, this is not working. There has to be a better approach to how you train this thoroughbred of a player.”

You don’t think that all parties involved realize this, Kev?

I apologize Kev, I am admittedly grouchy about Jose’s continual hamstring issues.  Your piece just frustrated me.

The concept of a piece about different strategies on how to be more preventative with Jose’s hamstring is a good one.  I would have liked to have read more information about what different methods the Mets have already used, as well as more research on other methods out there, however.