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Wednesday Notes

Mets non-tender Orber Moreno: Boo! I liked Orber a lot. Wait a minute, what's this...

Mets bring back reliever Moreno: Hooray! The Mets just didn't want to go through the arbitration process with Orbie, but were smart enough to keep him around, signing him to a minor league deal. If he's healthy come Spring he should crack the Mets big league bullpen.

Dead Deal: Dodgers pull out of Unit trade: Ha-Ha!. Rumor has it that the D'Backs and Yankees are already busy trying to find another third team to be involved. If they can't, my guess is that the Yankees will just kick in however much money Arizona wants to cover Javy Vazquez' contract. The Boss needs this deal to go through, and he's not likely to let something silly like money stand in the way of landing Randy Johnson.

Wade Miller joins Red Sox staff: Doh! The Mets were mentioned as one of the teams that expressed interest in Miller, though I wish they had made more of a push for him. He will fit in nicely with the Sox. He has a career strikeouts-per-nine ratio of 7.72 and has never allowed more hits than innings pitched in any full season.

Mets to sign Galarraga: I wrote about the Big Cat last year in an entry entitled The Lost Art Of Platooning, in which I cited Galarraga as a very good right-handed platoon candidate. From 2001-2003, Galarraga hit .289/.356/.495 against left-handed pitching over 291 at-bats. I would certainly rather give someone younger a shot coming off the bench (Galarraga will be 44 in June), but Galarraga could be fairly productive if he is played in the right situations.

Moises Alou signs with Giants: The article is in Spanish, but you can tranlate it to English using Babel Fish. The translation isn't perfect, so you end up with beauties like:

The Dominican gardener Moisés Alou accepted a contract of two years and 13.6 million dollars to meet with his father Felipe in the Giants of San Francisco.

and

Alou will travel to Miami Monday to be put under the physical examination of rigor and later the Giants will present/display officially their new right gardener, added the source.

Sweet Alou

NYFS is reporting that the Mets have come to terms with Moises Alou on a one-year deal in the $6-$8 million neighborhood, which is a very nice neighborhood for a 38-year-old outfielder with no range and frightening home/road splits. Just for fun I wanted to see how Alou might perform at Shea.

I performed a rudimentary analysis of Alou's 2004 home stats and, using ESPN.com's Park Factors, came up with a rough idea of what Alou might have done if those same at-bats took place at Shea Stadium instead of Wrigley Field.

This analysis has a number of problems, so it isn't to be taken too seriously. For one, I am only using a single year of stats and a single year of park factors, which is not usually good practice. This analysis also doesn't account for games actually played at Shea, which probably should be counted as Wrigley games if he were actually playing for the Mets. That said, here we go.

The following are park factors for Wrigley and Shea in 2004. Numbers greater than 1000 indicate a hitter's park; numbers less than 1000 indicate a pitcher's park.

                      R     H    2B   3B    HR   BB   
Wrigley Field 2004  1123  1031  1001  913  1329  987
Shea Stadium 2004    974  1033   976  467   804  978


Based on those factors and 301 at-bats, here are Alou's home stats from last year along with his predicted stats from last year were he to have played those games at Shea:

                  R   H   2B 3B  HR  BB  
Alou at Wrigley  72  102  20  3  29  37
Alou at Shea     62  102  20  2  18  37


And here is Alou's final line for 2004 along with his predicted final line from Shea 2004 (601 AB):

                        R    H   2B 3B  HR  BB   AVG   OBP   SLG   
Alou 2004 (Actual)     106  176  36  3  39  68  .293  .361  .557
Alou 2004 (Predicted)   96  176  36  2  28  68  .293  .361  .500


Not too bad, really. Though I make no claims as to its accuracy, I would imagine that this projection would correlate somewhat well with Alou's actual production.

You're Not Getting A Bum Off The Streets

Did anybody see the press conference yesterday? Would it have killed Willie Randolph to dress up for the event? He's there to celebrate one of the biggest free agent acquisitions in the history of the franchise and he shows up looking like he came straight from a sleepover at Lee Mazilli's house. Put on a suit you freakin' slob. Now slobs and good managers are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but show some class if you want to be taken seriously, Willie.

Of course, there's nothing like the Yankees and the Braves pissing on the Mets parade. The trade for RJ isn't a done deal, and I'm crossing all of my fingers and toes that it falls through because everyone wants the Yanks to kick in some extra cash. That or Johnson's arm falls off shortly after the deal is completed. I'll settle for anything at this point.

Pedro hasn't thrown a pitch for the Mets yet but I already like what I've seen from him. He's got a big set of grapes and he's not afraid to use them. He told reporters at his press conference that he won't put up with the type of crap that lesser beings might buckle at. I didn't hear the whole interview, but he was on Mike & The Mad Dog yesterday afternoon and didn't take their crap either. He knows that 95% of the media talk and write out of their ass and he's not going to get worked up over it.

I'm excited to think that the Mets might matter for the first time in a while. I'm excited at the prospect of the Mets actually being a team that other players, good players, want to be a part of. I'm still worried about shoulder injuries, about prime years, regression, and all of those other things that we should be worried about. What's going to happen next?

Pedro Claus Is Coming To Town

You better watch out, you better not cry...

At 11am this morning Pedro will be introduced as the newest member of the New York Mets. I'm going home for lunch early from work to watch the press conference because I'm a little kid and I'm positively giddy.

I will worry about his shoulder when it breaks down. Today I am reveling in the excitement that Pedro will bring to my favorite team. I've been wearing my #45 Red Sox t-shirt with pride, and I will soon have a matching Mets version.

Mein Labrum

The only thing holding up the Pedro Martinez to Mets deal is Petey's labrum, or lack thereof. The details are somewhat wishy-washy, though Pedro has gone on record with a Dominican television station as saying that the deal is done. Other sources indicate that he still has to pass a physical, and the rumor floating around is that the Mets are considering allowing Pedro to decline an MRI.

This would, of course, be very foolish, considering all of the anecdotal evidence of a torn labrum in Pedro's pitching shoulder. Regardless, I don't expect things to be held up for much longer, and would expect to see a Pedro news conference at Big Shea by next week.

For those who don't know, the labrum is a rim of cartilage that helps keep the shoulder's ball-and-socket joint in place. When the labrum tears, there is not much left to keep the "ball" in the "socket" (ref: google search).

Pedro A Done Deal?

Boston Dirt Dogs is reporting that Pedro to the Mets is a done deal. Sources indicate that the deal is for four years guaranteed for $50 million or $56 million, depending on who you ask. The kid in me is excited because Pedro is a premium player, a marquee player, and someone who immediately makes the Mets more interesting. The thinking fan in me is skeptical about giving him a fourth year guaranteed. That said, you can tip your cap to Omar Minaya (at least for now), because he went out and got the best free agent pitcher on the market, albeit for a year longer than he probably should have.

Incidentally, I would be much happier if it were $50 million and not $56 million, because it would mean that the Mets only went longer on years, not years and annual salary.

UPDATE: A few notes on Pedro before I hit the sack. For those of you who think he's fading out, here is how he did relative to the rest of the AL in 2004:

9th in ERA at 3.90
2nd in K/9 at 9.41 (Santana)
4th in Quality Start % (min. 10 QS) at 67% (Santana, Radke, Schilling)
4th in DERA (DIPS ERA) at 3.64 (Santana, Schilling, Hudson)
6th in IP at 217 (Buehrle, Santana, Schilling, Mulder, Radke)
3rd in BAA (Batting Average Against) at .238 (Santana, Lilly)

He's not the best pitcher in the league, but he's still one of the best.

Rule V, Phew

The Rule V draft is over and Blake McGinley and Royce Ring remain property of the Mets. Not that they'll do anything with them. The results of the Major League portion of the draft can be seen here.

Wintah Meetings

Okay, the Winter Meetings are upon us. What does everyone think the Mets will do in the next three days? I'm hoping it's sign Carlos Delgado and J.D. Drew and not Richie Sexson and Moises Alou, as rumors indicate.

Same Old Story

The weblogs.us editor was down for a couple of days, so I couldn't rant about the Mets not offering arbitration to Al Leiter. Before I do, SaberMets had its 100,000th visitor the other day, and I wanted to thank everyone who has stopped by to read or contribute over the past 14+ months.

Back to Leiter.

Frankly I'm appalled that the Mets didn't offer Al Leiter arbitration when they knew he was on the verge of signing a deal with the Marlins. Maybe there was some fear that he would accept arbitration just to stick it to them for pulling their $4 million offer to him after he accepted it.

The likelihood of that had to be remote, though, so there's really no excuse for passing up the #16 pick in the draft and a supplemental first rounder. I guess the degree of risk depends upon who you ask. I don't think Al Leiter is the type to "stick it" to someone, particularly if he doesn't think it's a situation he wants to be in anyway. The Red Sox don't want Derek Lowe back but they offered him arbitration because they run their baseball operations intelligently. Sometimes (a lot of times) I just don't really think Omar Minaya has any clue what he's doing.

Taking a $6-$8 million dollar risk that Leiter would accept arbitration in the face of a more appealing opption (i.e. Florida or the Yankees) is something a big market club like the Mets can afford to do. If he accepts, so what, you overpay by a few million dollars to keep a good pitcher around for his last season and then usher him into the announcing booth. If he declines, you rake in the draft picks. Even with big money and his precious autonomy Minaya is still running the Mets like a small-market club and it's frustrating to watch.

You really have to consider the likelihood of Leiter actually returning to the Mets. Considering the way the Mets pulled their offer to him and how close he was to signing with the Marlins, there was a 25% chance of him coming back, if that. The 16th pick in the draft is something worth taking a bit of a risk to acquire. Scott Kazmir was drafted at #15. Stephen Drew was taken at #15 this past year.

The worst case scenario is that Leiter accepts arbitration, and even then the Mets financial resources are such that they should still be able to pursue any and all free agents they see fit to extend offers to. Mets.tv will launch in 2006, so the Mets have money to burn, particularly if that money (again, in the worst case scenario), comes off the books after 2005.

Delgado

Carlos Delgado and Richie Sexson are the two big names being thrown around the kickball field when it's time to choose a first-baseman for 2005. If I'm the Mets, I want Delgado, not Sexson. Sexson is a nice player, but I'm not really interested in him.

I've read two main baseball-related knocks against Delgado as his name has flown around. The first is his age. Delgado is 32, Sexson will be 30 in a few weeks. So Delgado is 2+ years older, which is not as big a disparity as some would have you believe.

The second knock are his home/road splits. I wouldn't pay too much attention to those, and here is an example of why. Here are two players:

                   AVG   OBP   SLG
Player A Home     .319  .450  .687
Player A Away     .256  .388  .529
Player A Overall  .280  .408  .607

Player B Home     .299  .419  .614
Player B Away     .269  .388  .508
Player B Overall  .284  .403  .561


Player A has a more pronounced home/road split, and slugs about 45 points more. Their AVG and OBP numbers are almost identical. Player A is Jim Thome, representing his last three seasons in Cleveland (2000-2002). Player B is Delgado, representing his last three seasons in Toronto (2002-2004). Thome was also 32 when he left as a free agent and signed a 6 years/$85 million deal with the Phillies. Thome has put up seasons of .266/.385/.573 and .274/.396/.581 for the Phillies. This season, playing half his games in a hitter's park, Thome posted an OPS that was 123 points higher on the road!

The Mets won't have to go anywhere near 6 years/$85 million for Delgado. I think 3 years/$33 million would do it, and I think he would make a transition similar to that of Thome, but maybe a dozen fewer homeruns, higher average, similar walks, more HBP.