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Shea-Rod

Let me take you back in time. It was October, 2000. The Subway World Series was underway, much to the chagrin of everyone but Mets and Yankees fans. The boyfriend of one of my girlfriend's housemates, a devoted Yankee blowhard, had nothing nice to say about the Mets. That is, except for this:

"A-Rod will look good in a Mets uniform next season."

The Mets were busy losing Game 2, but my heart was aflutter with thoughts of Alex Rodriguez playing gold-glove defense at short and launching bombs into the Pepsi Picnic Area. As we all know, the Mets went on to lose that series 4-1, but at least I could take solace in the fact that the best player in baseball was a good bet to be joining an already-playoff-caliber team.

And then, a bombshell. The Mets were out of the hunt, citing A-Rod's alleged demands for private jets, offices at Shea, etc. Whether these "asks" were legit, who's to say? All I knew was that our consolation prize for losing the World Series was not in the cards (that prize turned out to be Kevin Appier). Even up until the day that A-Rod signed that massive $252 million deal with Texas, I still held out hope that the Mets might change their tune and sign him up. However, it wasn't meant to be.

Back to modern day. The Mets have done seemingly-nothing right since (and including) that offseason, while A-Rod has toiled away in Texas, putting up MVP-season-after-MVP-season-after-MVP-season for a last place club. For the first time in a while, the Mets have a surplus of cash (their 2004 payroll currently stands on the order of $60 million, with designs on keeping it under $100 million), and it seems more likely than ever, in the face of baseball's ever-changing economic landscape, that Texas would like to unload that $25 mill-per contract and A-Rod would like to get out of dodge. This is where the Mets come in.

If the Mets would be willing to assume most of A-Rod's contract, they could probably hang on to most or all of their highly touted prospects. For argument's sake, let's say that Texas is willing to pick up $7 million per for each of the seven years left on the deal. That puts his annual salary in the $18 million ballpark. Now, I originally thought it would be necessary to trade Jose Reyes, but with the Mets picking up most of A-Rod's hefty salary, they could probably get by without sending him. With the money saved, the Rangers could sign Miguel Tejada at $11 million per and still have enough money to throw at a couple other positions. The Mets would definitely need to send Aaron Heilman, and probably three or four of the following:

Danny Garcia (2B)
Royce Ring (RP)
Victor Diaz (2B)
Tyler Yates (RP)
Lenny Dinardo (SP)
Matt Peterson (SP)

This, I would be okay with. While I like most of the above players a great deal, I don't feel that any of them will be worldbeaters, and would gladly part with most of them for A-Rod. Even with losing a handful of those prospects, the gems of the Mets system will be left intact (including the aforementioned Jose Reyes):

David Wright (3B)
Scott Kazmir (SP)
Justin Huber (C)

Granted, these three are at least a year or two away, but they all project to be very good major league players at key defensive positions.

So, we now have A-Rod in the fold and our payroll is around $78 million. Now, despite his offensive-shortcomings, we sign Mike Cameron (assuming he won't cost us draft picks), to shore up our outfield defense. I would go two years at $5 mill per, and might be willing to go three years at $14 mill total.

Next, we get Richard Hidalgo ($12 mill) and Billy Wagner ($8 mill) for either:

a) a couple mid-level prospects, with Houston picking up half of their combined salaries
b) Roger Cedeno ($9 mill over two years)

Let's take option (a), just for simplicity's sake. We would then have Hidalgo and Wagner under contract for 2004 at a total of $10 mill.

We now have a closer, right-fielder, shortstop, center-fielder, and second-baseman (Reyes moving over from SS). We can then pick up one or two low-cost free agent/non-tenders to round out the pitching staff. The following are available:

Dustin Hermanson - Sure, he's a dried-up husk right now. He was once a first round pick of the Padres in 1994, and still has mid-90's heat. He's probably worth taking a flyer on, because if anyone can turn his career around, it's Rick Peterson.

Corey Lidle - This could be another reclamation project for Peterson. Lidle has great control (had a very good 2.89 K/BB with Oakland in 2002), and would definitely benefit from the Mets newfound up-the-middle-defense strength.

Rick Reed - This guy was a horse for the Mets, and he still has great control (29BB in 135 IP in 2003)

None of these three would likely command a salary in excess of $2 mill. Now, with these acquisition, the 2004 Mets look like:

Lineup

2B - Jose Reyes (<$1)
LF - Cliff Floyd ($6.5)
1B - Mike Piazza ($15)
SS - Alex Rodriguez ($18)
RF - Richard Hidalgo ($6)
CF - Mike Cameron ($5)
C  - Jason Phillips (<$1)
3B - Ty Wiggingon (<$1)

Total salary: $45 million

Rotation

Al Leiter ($8)
Tom Glavine ($10.5)
Steve Trachsel ($5)

and two of...

Corey Lidle ($2)
Rick Reed ($2)
Dustin Hermanson ($2)
Jae Seo (<$1)

Total salary: $27 million

Bullpen

David Weathers ($3.6)
Mike Stanton ($3)
Jason Anderson (<$1)
Dan Wheeler (<$1)
Scott Strickland ($1)
Pedro Feliciano (<$1)
Billy Wagner ($4)

Total salary: $12.6 million

Bench: Tony Clark, Matt Stairs, Tony Batista, Ellis Burks, Brian Jordan, whoever, etc... ($5 million)

Grand Total: $89.6 million


Even if they had to pick up all of Hidalgo and Wagner's salaries, this would still come in a shade under $100 million. Is this a likely scenario? No, probably not. Is it feasible? Maybe. It would make for a very interesting and very entertaining ballclub, with a great mix of talent, some speed, great character guys, no real clubhouse problems, and a Mets team I would be proud to call my own.

Viewer Mail...

First off, I just want to say that SaberMets is proud to sponsor Billy Beane's page at baseball-reference.com. Without his (as well as others') insight and forward-thinking, I wouldn't be nearly as interested (read: obsessed) with baseball and baseball statistics.

Now, in response to my flogging of Mike Cameron yesterday, I received the following e-mail:

John: Below is a great Cameron Article from Aaron's Baseball Blog. The Safeco thing is real, and he could have an MVP type year with the Mets. He'll hit better than Duncan!

If you haven't done so already, check out Aaron's Baseball Blog. For the article in question, check this out.

My response:

Thanks for the article, John, it's very interesting. Aaron brings up an intriguing point about Cameron, as his home/road splits are very pronounced. There are two problems, though. The first problem is, through no fault of Aaron's, the article only encompassed the first three months of the season. Cameron's final 2003 home/road splits look like this:

Home: 235/329/429 with 32bb/68k and 24xbh (11hr) in 247ab
Road: 268/357/432 with 38bb/69k and 30xbh (7hr) in 287ab

While he's certainly better on the road, it's nowhere near the extent of the prior three seasons (or even the first three months of 2003). The OPS difference is 31 points, which is not insignificant, but is also not enough to put a seemingly-mediocre hitter like Cameron into Todd Helton's company. Granted, one season of similar splits doesn't completely skew three years of pronounced splits. Here are his OPS splits in each of the past four seasons:

       2000  2001  2002  2003
Home   .677  .669  .704  .758
Road   .916  .983  .854  .789
Delta  .239  .314  .150  .031

His split was ridiculous in 2001, but that certainly appears to be the exception to the trend, where he had a career year on the road. Aside from that season, his home OPS has actually increased each year while his road OPS has decreased. As a result, his delta-OPS (OPS change) has decreased each year accordingly.

Even if we can ignore these facts, it would be borderline-criminal to suggest that Cameron would put up an "MVP type" year with the Mets in 2004.

Here are the BPF (Batter Park Factors) for Safeco and Shea Stadium for the 2000-2002 seasons, courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Park factors attempt to illustrate a stadium's effect on hitting or pitching relative to the rest of the league. A number above 100 is a good park for hitters and a number below 100 is a good park for pitchers.

         2000  2001  2002
Safeco    91    93    92
Shea      93    94    94

So Shea's a slightly better park for hitters, but the difference is hardly cavernous. Add to that the league change (which may or may not be a red herring), and Cameron would probably project an OPS of 750-800 with the Mets. Is that terrible? Definitely not. Cameron is an excellent center-fielder, probably on-par with Torii Hunter but not as good as Andruw Jones. His offense and defense would be reasonable-if-not-significant upgrades over what the Mets penciled in last season. The cost of acquiring a player like Mike Cameron is what gives me pause. He will be looking for a 3+ year deal in the $5-$7 million range, which is far too much money over far too many years. Inking him to a multi-year deal would immediately exclude the Mets from the Carlos Beltran Sweepstakes. Further, I don't know whether Seattle will offer Cameron arbitration and, if they do, what type (A, B, or C) free agent he will be. The Mets have the 3rd pick in the amateur draft this year, which is theirs to keep. However, they have the 3rd pick in every round of the draft, and they could conceivably lose their second-round pick if Cameron is either a Type A (top 30% of all players at his position) or Type B (top 50% of all players at his position).

Basically, you are right that Mike Cameron would hit better than Jeff Duncan (536 OPS), but the potential cost (years/money/picks/Beltran) would outweigh any contribution he could make to the non-contending 2004 Mets.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good: The Mets will announce today that they have removed the interim title from Jim Duquette, naming him as their tenth General Manager. It was only a matter of time before this was made official, as The Duke proved his worth by ably ridding the Mets of albatrosses like Jeromy Burnitz, Roberto Alomar, and Armando Benitez. Not only did he manage to bring the Mets under the $117 million luxury tax threshold, but he acquired some live arms and decent prospects in the process.

The Bad: The New York Post reports today that the Mets would "definitely" be interested in pursuing Mike "All-Glove" Cameron. Post columnist Michael Morrissey goes so far as to say that, in light of the Mariners' current front office disarray, the Mets would have the unique opportunity to "pounce on Cameron, a 30-year-old fan favorite and Gold Glove winner who has made Mariners fans forget the Ken Griffey Jr. era." The Mets "pouncing" on Cameron would be much the way a soldier would "pounce" on a live grenade to save his platoon. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Cameron's agent/spin doctor says that his client's non-prowess with the stick is not a result of the spaciousness of Safeco Field, but rather the stadium's "glare", the cause of which is not specified. "They had trouble with it for years and brought NASA in there to find a solution." I see.

The Ugly: Okay, here's where it gets dicey. As Michael of Michael's Mets Ramblings also points out, the Mets, according to an article in today's Star Ledger, will make Kaz Matsui one of their primary off-season targets. That's fine. His stats project reasonably well and, in the right deal, wouldn't be a bad acquisition, considering that the Mets wouldn't have to forfeit any of their draft picks (they pick 3rd overall in each round) to sign him. He's a shortstop, but that's okay because the Mets will try to move him to 2B. Right? RIGHT?!?! According to the article, Matsui is not very open to changing positions, so the Mets think tank is apparently considering moving The Golden Child to 2B, citing that he is "athletic enough to make the switch". I agree with Michael that the only player you even think about relocating Jose Reyes for is All-Star/Raker/Baseball God Alex Rodriguez. I probably wouldn't even move him for Nomah.

The Bad and Ugly is speculative at this point, relying on "sources" and such, but they don't give me warm fuzzies about the impending off-season shuffle. In addition to the Good, the other ray of light is that Luis Castillo's miserable-save-for-one-at-bat World Series performance has apparently soured many Mets execs on the light-hitting second-baseman. For me, his inability to get the ball out of the infield and inept base-stealing did the trick.

Yankees Win! Yankees Win!

This would have been the headline Sunday night if my recurring nightmares during the World Series had come true. Thanks to hope, faith, and Beckett, that is not the case. I can certainly sympathize with the Yankee players and fans (see: 2000 World Series; Super Bowl XXXV; 2000-2001 Stanley Cup Finals).

Sorrow, however, I do not feel. Despite Yankee fans' feeling that this one "slipped away", and that three years with two World Series appearances and no rings is a "drought", they can go sell downtrodden somewhere else. Their $180 million soapbox derby racer came up short, looking much like last year's model: wheels falling off, paint chipping on the exterier, engine idling in neutral. Meanwhile, the "next big thing", the Florida Marlins, end a five-year drought of their own by soaring past last year's model, leaving the Evil Empire in their proverbial dust. The baseball season is finally over, but you can still hear the sounds. The sound of Don Zimmer crying himself to sleep. The smoldering sound of large piles of money set on fire. The whisper-soft sound of "Mystique and Aura" quietly leaving the building, through the back door, with their tails between their legs.

Don't be sad, Yankee fans. You'll be back next year. Same time, same place. Different right-fielder? Probably. Different GM? Could be. Different manager? You never know. Now that the games are over, it's time to go to work.

I'll leave you with the answering machine message my friend left waiting for me when I got in last night: "This is the best I've felt since two years ago at this time when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees." Sad, But True. This is all we've got.

Don't forget to buy your very own Florida Marlins official World Series Champion gear. (I don't get a cut, trust me).

No-mar Minaya

Evidently, Omar Minaya was not in the cards. A number of sources, including MLB.com, indicate that Mr. Minaya declined the Mets' offer and will instead toil away in Montreal, San Juan, Purgatory, Seattle, or some other such non-descript locale. All the best to Omar.

I would expect (read: plead) that the Rick Peterson negotiations are wrapped up and announced sometime soon, so he can get to work picking up the pieces of Tom Glavine's career and Aaron Heilman's potential. Good luck to him, he has his work cut out for him.

Peterson, Minaya Close

A number of local papers today reported that the Oakland A's have finally granted unconditional permission to the Mets to speak with pitching coach/God Rick Peterson. Insiders expect that a deal could be consummated within days and an announcement can be expected shortly after the World Series. Peterson is a native of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and currently lives in Wall, NJ with his wife and three sons. (mets.com)

Insiders (the same ones?) also say that Omar Minaya is close to accepting an executive scouting position with the Mets similar to that of Gene "Stick" Michael with the Yankees. One report says that the Mets might be willing to offer Minaya a higher salary to compensate for slightly lesser authority. An announcement on this is expected next week as well, possibly in tandem with the Peterson hiring. Minaya grew up in Queens and currently lives in the great state of NJ.

World Series Game 5

Another day, another lackluster Yankee performance in the aught-three World Series. David Wells was back at the team hotel bar just in time for happy hour, having thrown only eight pitches in a 1-2-3 first inning.

It's entirely possble that Mr. Conditioning Program has thrown his last pitch as a major leaguer. He's clearly neither a "gamer" nor a "team player", a far cry from the David Cone's that the late-90's Yanks used to run out there. Sadly, though, he seems to be somewhat representative of the general malaise that has befallen the Yankees this season. That's not to say that they won't squeeze two more W's out of this now-seemingly-emfeebled roster. Regardless, you can expect wholesale changes in Yankeeville this off-season.

Back to the game. Of late, the Evil's have at least been able to rely on Jose Contreras for one inning of lights-out pitching, followed by one or more innings of Jeff D'Amico-style batting practice. No such luck this time, as BP came early with the Marlins putting a three-spot on the board in the second inning.

I actually slept through the first 6+ innings of the game, saving my strength for the seemingly-inevitable Marlin late-inning collapse that never was. Oh, how they tried, though. I nearly crapped myself when Bernie Williams hit that 2-1 pitch off of U³. But alas, he only had warning track power, with the ball falling safely (safe for everyone but my undershorts) into the waiting glove of Juan Encarnacion. A beauty of a pick by Derrek Lee, and the Marlins are up three-games-to-two. So, despite their best efforts, the Marlins were unable to hand this one over to the Pinstripes; Unable to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Josh Beckett was just recently announced as the Marlins' Game 6 starter, in a move that will draw plenty of criticism, both now and if the Marlins lose both games at the Stadium. Anything is a better idea than carting Mark Redman's 6.50 postseason ERA out there. He of the 1.89 WHIP and 10/9 K/BB ratio.

I don't want to read too much into it, but Mr. Swing-at-Anything's inning of work in right field last night moved him that much closer to being out of the stadium altogether. If you believe everything you read in the papers (which I do), the writing is already on the wall concerning Soriano's future with the Yankees. Whether they will be willing to toss aside his considerable production the past two seasons in the face of incomparable free-swingingness, that's anybody's guess.

Signing off, I am Sheldon...

Clutch Hitting, Etc.

Rob Neyer has written another great article about clutch hitting or, rather, the misconception that "great clutch hitters" actually exist outside the realm of "great hitters". That is to say, hitters who are otherwise not much with the stick who magically become rakers when batting in "clutch situations" (deemed by the Elias Sports Bureau to be any at-bat after the sixth inning with your team trailing by no-more-than three runs), aka LIPS (Late Inning Pressure Situations).

I won't attempt to reiterate what Rob has already said better than I could hope to, so I'll just let you read his articles. Needless to say, if you've watched any of the World Series thus far, you've undoubtedly heard the likes of Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan (aka Tweedledee and Tweedledum) ramble on about how such-and such is a great clutch hitter, and how whats-his-name really steps it up in October. It's hogwash, the whole lot.

Much the same way I went to sleep after the Yankees tied game 7 of the ALCS, I got my nap on after the top-o-the-ninth last night when U³ blew a two-run-lead on a pinch-hit triple by major-league-retread Ruben Sierra (whom Jon Miller has taken to calling ru-BEN, placing the emphasis on the BEN instead of the RU). I resigned myself to another Yankee world series victory, acknowledging that these are games that the Yanks always win. Much to my surprise, I awoke Christmas morning to find that the mighty fish (or as old-man-Gammons calls them the Phish, aka the yerk-toting frisbee-chucking cheeba-monkeys) had pulled it out. A-Gonz The Younger's turn as Aaron Boone's national league human-out-maker counterpart came to a (temporary) halt when he launched that liner over the short wall in left-field. It reminded me a lot of Mr. McGwire's #62 in '98, just clearing the fence at Busch Stadium. Regardless, Jeff Weaver is once again the loneliest Who in Whoville, assuredly banished to Joe Torre's doghouse.

I'm beginning to think this blogging would go a lot faster if I didn't have a link on every third word. Nevertheless, I think Game 5 is a pretty big one for Florida. Aside from facing the prospects of having to win Games 6 and 7 at Yankee Stadium, they would have to put up a decent effort against Andy Pettitte, which has been easier said than done this postseason. I think they can definitely get to David Wells, and a Josh Beckett/Mike Mussina Game 7 will be a crapshoot regardless. Bottom line: I think the Marlins have a pretty decent shot at not becoming Victim #27. By decent, I think probably 3:1 or 4:1.

Either way, I'm just hoping for a great three games (and by "great three games" I mean "Marlins in 7").

The Great Giambino

Okay, so I threw that last part in there just to get a rise out of Yankee fans. I'm of the belief that field managers are generally given too much of the credit when a team succeeds and too much of the blame when a team fails. I write this as David Cassidy unmercifully butchers God Bless America during game 3 of the World Series.

When Joe Torre announced that Jason Giambi will be playing first base in lieu of Nick Johnson for the games in Florida, I decided to do a little (read: very little) research as to whether or not this was a wise idea. In the process, I stumbled upon the following: Jason Giambi is a beast. You may be saying to yourself, "Of course he's a beast. That's why they're paying him roughly the GDP of Peru for his services over the next five seasons (plus the last two). Tell me something I don't know?" Okay. Take the first-baseman's glove away from Giambi and he becomes almost pedestrian at the plate. There may be some circumstances I'm not privy to (injury, protein deposit, etc.), but the following statistics are pretty staggering:

2000
1B 348/491/678 with 118/75 and 62 xbh (38) in 422ab
DH 259/396/506 with 18/20 and 11 xbh (5) in 85ab

2001
1B 346/482/652 with 117/74 and 75 xbh (32) in 462ab
DH 316/443/737 with 12/9 and 12 xbh (6) in 57ab

2002
1B 344/461/674 with 68/60 and 50 xbh (29) in 331ab
DH 271/397/489 with 41/52 and 26 xbh (12) in 229ab

2003
1B 277/441/592 with 78/79 and 42 xbh (25) in 292ab
DH 220/377/452 with 51/60 and 24 xbh (16) in 241ab

I included 2001 and 2002 stats for completeness, but the small sample size doesn't really lend itself well to cogent analysis. So, we'll focus on the past two seasons with the Yanks.

Okay, so his 886 OPS as a DH in 2002 is hardly pedestrian (it would have only trailed Bernabe Williams' 908). However, it was nigh 250 points lower than when he played 1B, with much of the dropoff attributed to his decreased SLG. In 2003, Giambi put up an 829 OPS, or a hot-streak better than Mo Vaughn's 805. Let's take a look at his RC/27 for his positional split this season:

I didn't have exact splits for GIDP, SF, SH, and IBB, so I took his totals in those categories and DIV'd them (to get whole numbers) based on the percentage of at-bats (53% for 1B, 47% for DH).

2003 Giambi as 1B: 10.46 RC/27
2003 Giambi as DH: 6.27 RC/27

For those who are unfamiliar with this particular metric, it attempts to predict the number of runs that a team full of Giambis would score in a nine-inning game, or 27 outs. As you can see, Giambi-1B would score a ludicrous number of runs, with Giambi-DH putting up merely ridiculous numbers. To put this in perspective, a team made up of nine Giambi-1Bs would score 1694 runs, while a team of Giambi-DHs would score 1015 runs. The American League record is 1067, set by the 1931 Yankees.

As for Nick Johnson, I am not going to go into the nitty-gritty, but his 2003 splits look like this:

1B 286/425/488 with 47/36 and 23 xbh (10) in 213ab
DH 284/422/450 with 23/21 and 10 xbh (4) in 109ab

Nick's splits are more symmetrical. The Yankees are fortunate to be playing in the American League, where they can take advantage of both of these great hitters. They were both in the Top-10 in the AL in EqA, with Johnson coming in 9th and the Giambino nestled in the 4-spot, behind A-Rod, Carlos Delgado, and M-Ram. If there were some way to play Nick Johnson at third base and sit Aaron Boone's carcass on the bench for the next three (now two) games, I would probably do it.

So, was playing Nick Johnson at 1B while DH'ing The Great Giambino a smart move? It doesn't look like it from where we're (I'm?) standing. Unless George Steinbrenner is filling out the lineup cards, this particular blunder is all on Clueless Joe. Of course, with the Yanks two wins from yet-another World Series title, the point may be moot. It's something to think about going into next season, however, because after the Yankees trade for Carlos Beltran and sign Vladimir Guerrero, Joe Torre will have some serious lineup-gridlock to diffuse. We all wish we had such problems.

What Would It Take

The San Francisco Chronicle reports today that the Mets and A's are discussing possible compensation for Rick Peterson. According to the article, the Mets have NOT yet received permission to negotiate with Peterson, but have had talks of the "informal" variety. The A's appear adament about shipping Terrence Long out of town, and the article suggests that the Mets would part with a low-level prospect for Long and Peterson. Long currently has about $5 mill remaining on a four-year, $11.6 million deal, and is a marginal major leaguer at best. Billy Beane must have been drinking some of Mr. Wilpon's Kool-Aid when he signed Long to that deal.

Long's only half-decent offensive season came in 2000 when he posted a 788 OPS with 56 XBH. It's been a precipitous drop-off since then. To borrow from Avkash's statistical prose (which I am rather fond of):

2000 age 24 288/336/452 with 43/77 and 56xbh (18) in 584ab
2001 age 25 283/335/412 with 52/103 and 53 xbh (12) in 629ab
2002 age 26 240/298/390 with 48/96 and 52 xbh (16) in 587ab
2003 age 27 245/293/385 with 31/67 and 38 xbh (14) in 486ab

While he's only 27 and is just hitting his prime, he shows no indication that he's about to turn into a productive hitter anytime soon. He has apparently clashed with A's manager Ken Macha (according to T.Long himself, 20 of the A's 25 players don't want to play for Macha either), though his numbers under Art Howe weren't exactly world-beating (they were admittedly several steps up from his current production). He looks to me like an expensive version of Timo Perez, though Timo's three-year splits against righties are actually better than Long's.

Barry Zito gives Rick Peterson a lot of the credit for helping him, as well as Jason Isringhausen, Billy Koch, and Keith Foulke. I'm not a proponent of burning large piles of money, but if Peterson is all he's cracked up to be, throwing a few bucks away on T-Long would be one of the best off-season moves the Mets can make.

The Rumor Mill

Sorry for the lack of recent blogs (thanks for reminding me every day, Mike). I was on vacation last week in California, and have been busy this week watching the BoSox cowboy up.

The Star Ledger reported three bits of information the other day.

1) The Mets will not seek permission from The Boss to interview Brian Cashman for their vacant GM position.
2) The Mets are still interviewing candidates for a top executive position (read: not necessarily GM). The Ledge indicates that The Duke will likely be named full-time GM.
3) The Mets have requested and have been granted permission by the A's to speak with pitching guru Rick Peterson.

The Mets would have to wait until after the Yankees postseason is over before talking to Cashman anyway, so this probably isn't very interesting. If the Yankees find a way to lose tonight's game 7, Cashman will almost certainly be gone, and anyone/everyone will be subject to King George's turbulent flights of fancy.

The second bit of info leads one to believe that the Mets may have already chosen their next GM in Jim Duquette. The current interview process may be to surround him with intelligent baseball men. It's still beyond me why P.DePo hasn't been mentioned anywhere outside of the blog community, but that's out of our control.

The third piece of news is probably the most interesting, and certainly the most promising. The Post reported today that the Mets interviewed Rick Peterson yesterday, though it's not believed that an offer was made....yet. Bud Selig doesn't like things like this to be announced in the middle of the postseason, so any big news will likely wait until the conclusion of the World Series.

I hope to have the Mets best pitching staff the past six years had to offer up soon, to go along with the lineup posted last week.

Also, to recap some news from last week, Marco Scutaro (aka Marcos Scutaro) and Matt Watson were claimed by the A's. While neither of these players will likely ever be major contributors at the big league level, both showed to be proficient at the plate in the minors, and are certainly better suited to "playing baseball" than the Mets current roster-fodder Joe McEwing and Timo Perez.

The Best Of Times

First off, I've added MLB Player Index links to the sidebar. Each one has a "search" option, which will prompt your for either the player's name or last name, and will perform an on-the-fly search of the corresponding player index. If you know of a good player index that should be added, let me know.

There's not much going on in Metsville these days. The Sox/A's series wrapped up in dramatic fashion last night, with Derek Lowe throwing two nasty pitches to backwards-k Adam Melhuse and T.Long. Lowe infuriated the A's bench by make a DX-style crotch gesture after pumping his fists. It didn't look like he was trying to disrespect the A's, but the A's were probably still upset from M-Ram's HR-stylin' earlier in the game. The Damon/Jackson collision was pretty horrific - thanks for showing it from 15 different angles FOX. Nevertheless, it was a very exciting series, and I think the Sox stack up much better against the Yanks, considering the A's may have been down to one-of-their-big-three starters. Go Sox!

Now that the A's are out of the playoff picture, the door will hopefully be open for the Mets to pry Rick Peterson back to his home in New Jersey. I'm of the belief that managers/coaches are typically given too much of the credit when a team succeeds and too much of the blame when a team fails. However, it's tough to argue with Peterson's results. The A's have been at or near the top of the bigs in ERA and WHIP each of the past four seasons. Sure, a lot of that has to do with their stable of big arms, but certainly Peterson deserves some of the credit for that. Peterson is a great coach because the pitchers are good, the pitchers are good because Peterson is a great coach. Regardless of how you spin the specious logic, the Mets should covet Peterson.

Since little else is going on, I present (IMO) the best individual Met seasons at each position over the past half-dozen years. I decided to go with three miscellaneous outfielders instead of one at each outfield position, mainly because the Mets outfield has been slim pickings in recent seasons. I was tempted to use wonderboy Jose Reyes at SS, mostly because Rey-O was so bad. In the end, I went with Boom-Boom and his one-September-homerun-a-year. (The inspiration for this list came from the great Ultimate Mets Database).


POS  Player           Year  AVG  OBP  SLG   OPS    R  HR  RBI  SB
C    Mike Piazza      2000 .324 .398 .614 1.012   90  26  113   4
1B   John Olerud      1998 .354 .447 .551  .998   91  22   93   2
2B   Edgardo Alfonzo  2000 .324 .425 .542  .967  109  25   94   3
SS   Rey Ordonez      1999 .258 .319 .317  .636   49   1   60   8
3B   Robin Ventura    1999 .301 .379 .529  .908   88  32  120   1
OF   Cliff Floyd      2003 .290 .376 .518  .894   57  18   68   3
OF   Rickey Henderson 1999 .315 .423 .466  .889   89  12   42  37
OF   Roger Cedeno     1999 .313 .396 .408  .804   90   4   36  66

If I left out your favorite, let me know.

What Is And What Will Never Be

I believe the Mets should arrest all hope of competing in 2004 and build towards competing in 2005+. However, since this is a blog, it would behoove me to at least entertain the possibility of the Mets making a Royals-esque push towards the 2004 postseason. With that in mind, I believe the Mets can significantly improve their team with the following moves:

Acquire Javier Vazquez, Livan Hernandez, and Orlando Cabrera from Les Expos. It's difficult to say what the Mets would have to pony up in return. Vasquez is obviously a stud, but will likely command something in the $9-$10mill range through arbitration. Cabrera made $3.3mill last year, and I believe is also arbo-eligible. Livan had his $6mill option for 2004 vested when he pitched 650 total innings the past three years AND 217 innings in 2003. So that's nigh $20mill the 'spo's would be able to unload. Provided nobody buys them, MLB would be more than happy to wave bye-bye to that chunk of payroll. Considering that hefty price tag the Mets would be assuming, I can't imagine they would have to give up much. Maybe Aaron Heilman and Grant Roberts.

Okay. We've just added a #1 started and a #3-or-4 starter. We can move Cabrera's gold glove over to 3B, and Wiggie can shift back to his "natural" position of 2B, where his power numbers won't look so underwhelming. Add to that a Piazza/Phillips platoon between 1B and C, and we have a pretty decent infield, defensively and offensively. Okay, the left side would be very good, and the right side not-so-good, defensively anyways. Offensively it would be quite good all-around.

Now, the outfield. Cliff Floyd is good. Pick up Reggie Sanders and his 913 OPS for $2mill. His OBP was only 345, but even if his SLG drops 100 points, he'd still be a huge upgrade over Cedeno/Timo/Gonzalez/Sack-O-Bones who played there this year. In center we have a couple of options. Mike Cameron is a free agent, but I'm not such a big fan. Particularly because he's not much with the stick, and will likely demand 2+ years, leaving us holding our junk when Carlos Beltran hits the free agent pool next year. A better bet would be another 1-year FA offer to someone like Kenny Lofton. He actually posted a respectable 801 OPS with 30 SB.

With the additions of Vazquez and Hernandez, we would be left with a surplus of starting pitching. One of Hernandez, Steve Trachsel, or Jae Seo could be dealt, or we could just hang on to them all and maybe move Seo to the pen for a while. Either way, our line-up and starting rotation shape up like this, with actual/projected salaries in parentheses ($1 = $1,000,000):

Lineup

SS - Jose Reyes (<$1)
3B - Orlando Cabrera ($3.5)
LF - Cliff Floyd ($6.5)
C  - Mike Piazza ($15)
RF - Reggie Sanders ($2)
1B - Jason Phillips (<$1)
CF - Kenny Lofton ($1.5)
2B - Ty Wigginton (<$1)

Total salary: $30 million

Rotation

Javier Vazquez ($9.5)
Tom Glavine ($10.5)
Al Leiter ($8)
Livan Hernandez ($6)
Steve Trachsel/Jae Seo ($5)/(<$1)

Total salary: $39 million

Bullpen

David Weathers ($3.6)
Mike Stanton ($3)
Jason Anderson (<$1)
Dan Wheeler (<$1)
Prospects/Spare Parts ($2-$3)

Total salary: $10.6 million

Bench: Tony Clark, Matt Stairs, Johnny Non-Tender... ($3-$4)

Grand Total: $83.6 million


This scenario would also give us first crack at signing Vazquez long-term.

First Ruhle of Pitching

Vern Ruhle was given his walking papers by the Mets today. For P.C. reasons, he was actually "reassigned" within the organization, but he's as good as gone. Possible replacements are anybody's guess (Rick Waits, Randy Niemann, Johnny Inevitablefailure). The Duke said that he and Artimus Howe were in agreement on the move. By agreement, I would imagine the conversation went something like this:

The Duke: Tommy thinks we should dump Vern. Your thoughts?
Artimus: *stupid grin*
The Duke: I'm glad we're in agreement

For the record, Tom Glavine is playing the good soldier, saying, "I can't put my finger on anything. I had a good relationship."

Ruhle's successes this season include:

Showing that Jae Seo is a promising component of the Mets rotation

Convincing Senator Al to injure himself and lose some weight

Getting the most out of Steve Trachsel

Keeping alive the long-standing Mets tradition of fugly pitching coaches (Hough, Robson, Apodaca)

Ruhle's Failures include:

Not convincing Tommy Glavine to pitch for us the way he used to pitch against us

Aaron Heilman not showing any ability to succeed at the major league level

Ditto Jeremy Griffiths, Mike Bascik, Pat Strange

Eric | 04:23 PM EST | TrackBack: 17
Category: Mets Transactions