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There is much better young talent you can find out there to invite to camp and to use to fill out minor league rosters.

Baldwin has never had an ERA under 4! Bottalico was never really great! I hate bringing these guys in on name recognition. At least Erickson has a few good years and being a massive groundball pitcher going for him.

I don't care about bringing a couple of longshot "name" players to camp on minor-league contracts. Worst case is they both suck and are released. Best case is one, or both, catch fire at the beginning of the season and are flipped for prospects later in the year.

Yes, there are downsides to inviting horrible retread pichers to camp. First, it is an incredible waste of time, energy and presumably a "spot" or spots in camp that could be used for legitimate prospects.

More importantly, the downside is the off chance (not so off actually) that one or more of these pitchers gets lucky and pitches well for the 10 or 20 innings they will pitch in ST against who knows what quality hitting.

If that turns out to be the case, then you have them taking up valuable space on the roster once the season starts, and even worse. actually pitching in major league games until they eventually and inevitably "regress' back to their normal talent levels, which is atrocious (their projected levels) for those partiuclar pitchers (Bottalico, Baldwin, and Erickson).

I don't think a team could pick worse pitchers if they tried. Why not just close your eyes and pick 4 or 5 pitchers out of a hat and invite them to camp if there is no "downside?" Of course there is a downside.

There are literally hundreds of pitchers available in the majors and minors who have a signficiantly better projection and/or more of a chance of being a decent quality pitcher than those 3. I think you are cutting the Mets way too much slack by saying that there is no "downside" to doing something which clearly shows a complete lack of understanding of how to properly evaluate veteran pitching "talent" and allocate valuable resources.

Speaking of UZR, you give kudos to the Post writer for using UZR to evaluate Cameron, then you go and say how Wigginton was "not that bad" at 3b last year? If you look up Wigginton's UZR rating in 169 defensive "games" last year, you would see that he was positively horrible. He checked in at -24 runs per 162 games, which I believe was the worst by a regular third baseman in both leagues. That does not seem to conflct with his reputation.

If you regress that sample UZR to estimate his true UZR or project his UZR for next year, that comes out to about -13 per 162, which is pretty bad.

OTOH, I project the Mets to play around .500 ball this year...

Great point about the "downside" of inviting batting practice pitchers like Baldwin and Bottalico. The worst case scenario is that they pitch well enough in Spring Training to make the team and then proceed to pitch atrociously (i.e. normally) all-the-while consuming a roster spot that would otherwise have been filled by someone with even a shred of potential.

The best case scenario, however unlikely, is that by some stroke of luck or grace of god one of them is able to pitch respectably -- stay with me on this one -- and could then be turned into something not-completely-useless via trade.

As for Wigginton, what I actually said was that he "...wasn't a complete disaster, considering his below-average athleticism and unfamiliarity with the position...". I suppose league-worst qualifies as a disaster, though I'll stand by my over-flattering evaluation.

Sorry about misquoting you about Wigginton. That happens when you read an article, comment on it, and are too lazy to go back and make sure you get all the quotes right. But yes, league worst should either qualify as "a distaster" or no one can! Not that 169 games of UZR is the end all. It is not. It does suggest that he is one bad defender though. We'll see what happens this year. If you combine Wigginton's probable bad defense with his very average bat, he doesn't project all that well. In fact, I have him projected for 2004 at about 12 runs per 150 games below the average third baseman (or 6 runs above replacement) for all skills combined (Superlwts).

As far as those pitchers (I use that term loosely), of course it is "possible" for one or more of them to have become average or better quality pitchers. In fact all three of them were very good at one time in their careers (at least they performed well in Baldwin's case).

The important consderation though is that there are many, many other pitchers whom they could have invited to camp who have a better chance of actually being average or better pitchers. Again, it's not a big deal whom you invite to camp, but if you do indeed invite pitchers who are likely terrible, there is that serious risk, IMO, that they will get lucky in ST (I know that sounds funny to most people, but it is true), and end up taking up a real life roster spot and even pitching a few innings, despite still being a terrible pitcher. That is not a risk I would be willing to take if I were in charge of the Mets (not that I would care how they pitched in 10 or 20 ST innings).

So if 10 or 20 innings in ST is not nearly enough to tell or even suggest whether a bad retread pitcher has somehow miraculously upgraded his ability at age 30 something (which of course it isn't), unless they come to camp throwing 96 mph (like Dennis Quaid), what exactly is the point of inviting them?

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Sadly, there is a very good chance that one or more of said retreads will make the team out of Spring Training. The Mets, unlike in recent years, actually have a handful of decent pitching prospects that should be given a shot to prove their usefulness. The Mets are clearly in a state of transition now, but management is apparently unable to fully commit to rebuilding, so they've decided to half-ass it.

If/when they turn the corner and become a prosperous franchise again, they will no longer have the valuable resource -- meaningless games -- that they will have this year to see if they have any potential major league contributors currently toiling away in the minors.