It was announced that Pepsi will no longer be sponsoring the Pepsi Porch at Citi Field. While it’s unclear who called the deal off, it’s a tough blow to Pepsi.
Just as the Mets were getting good again, the team is primed to have more nationally televised games. It’s possible the Mets will have more postseason games. With the lefty hitters like Lucas Duda and Michael Conforto, we were bound to see the Pepsi Porch a few times over the next couple of years. Instead Pepsi is left with this:
It’s just as well. I’m old enough to remember the days when Pepsi wasn’t offered at Shea. It was RC Cola. As a result, I’ve never associated Pepsi with the Mets. It was always RC Cola, even if I complained to my Dad each time that the soda he got me at the game wasn’t Pepsi.
Unfortunately, RC Cola has seemingly gone away with other classics like Tab, Jolt, and Snapple Root Beer. Whenever, I see an RC Cola, I make sure to get it even if it’s just to remember those summer nights of my childhood with my Dad, brother, and occasionally my cousin Brian or Uncle Eugene. The last time I saw RC Cola was in Iceland. During December in Iceland, you really need those memories.
In any event, I look forward to whatever comes along next. Whatever it will be, I’m sure my son will look back fondly at it one day as a reminder of all the times we spent at the park together.
I’m sure I’m not breaking any new ground when I say the Mets are not going to re-sign Daniel Murphy. However, it wasn’t until I read the tea leaves that I lost hope.
Look who the Mets have interest in signing as free agents:
My sense of the free agent CF types who are on the Mets’ radar at this point: Span, Fowler, Parra.
— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) November 6, 2015
They’re going after two left-handed and one switch hitting CF. Sure, it’s an indictment on how the Mets feel about Juan Lagares because you can’t expect these players to all of a sudden sign on to become a platoon player. It’s also a sign the Mets are not re-signing Murphy.
When and if the Mets lose Murphy, they’re losing a left-handed second baseman and presumably replacing him with one of two right-handed bats: Dilson Herrera or Wilmer Flores. This will make the Mets lineup right handed dominant with only three lefty hitters. This takes away the L-R-L switching in the lineup that Terry Collibs likes to do.
To keep the L-R-L in place the simple solution would be to keep Murphy. He’s seeking comparable money to the free agent CF. He’s insurance against David Wright breaking down, Lucas Duda slumping, Herrera not being ready, and/or Ruben Tejada being physically ready and able to play shortstop.
No, the Mets have announced they want to go with a left-handed CF. That’s how they’ll keep the L-R-L in the lineup. Things could change, but I doubt it. It’s a shame because Murphy was a good Met and the CF options aren’t that great.
So I will begin to make my piece with Murphy going to another team. I wish him the best.
Despite a good postseason and an offseason to heal, the Mets seem intent on having a different centerfielder in 2016. One of the players the Mets are interested in is Gerardo Parra.
This isn’t a new interest mind you. The Mets tried to trade for him last year before putting Michael Cuddyer on the DL and calling up Michael Conforto. Instead, the Mets watched Conforto become more than anyone dreamed he could be and saw Yoenis Cespedes play so well he garnered MVP consideration. With free agency, the Mets are circling back to Parra.
Parra is a career .277/.326/.404 hitter. He’s coming off his best offensive year. He hit .328/.369/.517 in 100 games in Miller Park, a hitter’s park. If you’re signing him based on these numbers, you believe these numbers translate to Citi Field. You believe he’s entering the prime of his career at age 28. You believe his .237/.268/.357 slash line in 55 games with the Orioles is too small a sample size to rely upon.
These are all reasonable assumptions. I can believe Parra is going to be a better offensive player in 2016 no matter where he signs. Coupled with Parra’s reputation as a good defensive player, he may be a bargain at the 3 year $24 million contract he’s expected to garner could be a bargain.
The problem is Parra’s defense is by reputation only. His UZR does not support his reputation. Last year, he had a -4.2 UZR as a leftfielder, which equates to him being a poor left fielder. It was a precipitous drop from his 3.2 UZR in 2014. I bring this up to be instructive. If he’s not as great a leftfielder as the numbers suggest, why would he be a good centerfielder?
The answer is he isn’t. He was abominable in CF last year with a -10.0 UZR in 289 innings. This was even worse than his -4.3 in 2014 in 65 innings. Translation, the more Parra plays in center, the more his flaws are exposed. Why would you want to see this over a 162 game season for the next three years?
Part of the reason the Mets lost the 2015 World Series was their defense. With that being the case, why would you seek to diminish the one area the Mets were Gold Glove caliber? Yes, Lagares had a down year. Yes, he’s had trouble against righties. However, even in a bad year, he’s still much better than Parra in center.
I understand looking to upgrade in center, but Parra is not the answer.
The free agent market is thin, but there are players out there who could help the Mets. One player who is out there that will not help the Mets is Denard Span.
Look, Span can still handle the bat. The last two years were his best in terms of OBP. These past two years, he’s had two of his three best batting average and slugging percentage seasons. You know what else happened over the past two years:
- He got older;
- He’s become injury prone; and
- He can’t play CF anymore.
Over the past year, he’s had three surgeries. The last one was to fix a torn labrum in his hip. Span will require 4-6 months of rehab meaning he won’t be ready to resume baseball activities until March. He will be 32 going on 40 to begin the 2016 season. He’s predicted to receive a 3 year $36 million deal in free agency.
Putting his injuries aside, he’s not worth that. Span puts up good CF numbers offensively, but he can’t play CF anymore. In 2013, he had the best defensive year of his career with a UZR of 10.2. That is great range. After that, the aforementioned surgeries started, and he hasn’t been the same player in the field.
In 2014, his UZR was -4.7. In 2015, it dipped even lower to -4.9. Both numbers rate him as being a bad defensive CF. A down year is a blip. Two straight down years is a trend. Two straight down years with hip surgery is cause for alarm. Reality is Span WAS a good CF. Now, he’s not.
I keep hearing that Span is a good risk. Why? It’s not like you’re signing a player off a down year. You’re signing a player off two consecutive down defensive years, with three surgeries, and you get the privilege of paying him $12 million a year to find out if he can turn it around.
And note, Span has been an everyday player his entire career. He’s not coming to the Mets to platoon with Juan Lagares. The Mets are not giving a player $30+ million to platoon with Lagares. If you’re signing Span, it’s to be the everyday CF.
No thank you. I’d rather see if the Mets injured 27 year old incumbent CF can do the job. I’d rather let Juan Lagares get healthy and get a chance to re-establish himself. He’s got a Gold Glove. He’s got time to work with Kevin Long. He’s got promise.
Span? He’s done. At least as a CF. If I’m taking a risk on an injured player, I’m taking the risk on the player five years younger with a good hip. I’m going with the player who played his best baseball in the postseason.
It’s still might be possible to upgrade CF. Denard Span is not that upgrade.
Last year, Michael Cuddyer was signed by the Mets to be that missing offensive piece. The Mets were so confident he would help them they were willing to forfeit their first round pick. It turns out they were wrong.
Cuddyer had the worst year of his career. He’s a career .277/.344/.461 hitter mostly playing in hitter’s parks like the Metrodome and Coors Field. Last year, he only hit .259/.309/.391. What was the reason for the decline? It could’ve been the switch to Citi Field. It could’ve been free agents the Mets sign always have a poor first year (see Beltran, Carlos and Granderson, Curtis). It could’ve been his turning 36. It could’ve been the injuries.
Cuddyer had a knee injury that compromised him for much of the year. He required surgery on his core. Either one of these injuries could reasonably explain the down year. At the very least, we can expect a healthier Cuddyer in 2016. With him being a bench player now, we can also expect a fresher Cuddyer too.
Mostly, you can expect Cuddyer to take some at bats against tough lefties with Granderson, Lucas Duda, and Michael Conforto. For his career, Cuddyer has hit .290/.377/.494. Even in a down year last year, he hit .273/.357/.343. These are good numbers against lefties. He’s important because the Mets best hitters are all lefties. This will help curb the effects of the Mets facing a tough lefty during the regular season.
Cuddyer’s other duties will include pinch hitting. For his career, Cuddyer has hit .355/.431/.548 in 72 pinch hitting attempts. Considering Cuddyer will be the team’s presumed top pinch hitter, these numbers are encouraging. Even more encouraging was his numbers as a pinch hitter last year. In 22 plate appearances, Cuddyer hit .316/.364/.316. Even in a down year, Cuddyer had good at bats as a pinch hitter.
Lastly, the Mets have a David Wright problem. Wright showed last year, he can still be an effective player. However, he can still only play only four days in a row. With Daniel Murphy, Juan Uribe, and Kelly Johnson being free agents, the Mets don’t have a definitive answer for Wright’s days off. Cuddyer has played some third in his career, but not with any regularity since 2005.
However, Cuddyer is now a bench player. He has to be ready to pinch hit and play multiple positions. If Cuddyer is even a hint of the player he once was, the Mets will have a strong bench in 2016. They will have an insurance policy for first, third, left, and right. Signing Cuddyer may have been a mistake, but it doesn’t mean he won’t be a useful player.
He’s going to have to play a big role in 2016, even if it’s a role neither he nor the Mets thought he would play.
There are many thoughts about this offseason that baffles me. One is this notion that since the Mets offered Daniel Murphy a qualifying offer, it doesn’t matter if the Mets sign a player whose received a qualifying offer. The premise is the two moves cancel each other out.
For the uninitiated, the way the qualifying offer system works, if you sign a player who was offered a qualifying offer by another team, you forfeit your first round pick. In exchange, the team that lost a player has a pick tacked on to the end of the first round.
The only exception to this is if you have a Top 10 pick. In that instance, you forfeit your second round pick. The team losing the player still has a pick added to the end of the first round.
Right now, the Mets have the 24th pick in the 2016 draft. That pick will go higher if someone between 11-23 signs Murphy. In addition, the Mets will get another pick somewhere after the Cardinals and the start of the second round.
Now, I don’t buy the cancel each other nonsense. People are saying moving down a few slots is not a big deal. What’s the difference between picking 24th and say 33rd. That’s flawed thinking for a few reasons.
The first is their focus is misplaced. Say Murphy signs with the Rockies as reported. This means the Mets keep their 24th pick and receive the 31st pick (depending on how many teams lose a player in free agency and their W-L records). That’ll give you two picks in the top say 35. If the Mets forfeit their first round pick, their second pick will be in the 50’s to 60’s.
Now, draft picks aren’t a guarantee, but I’d assume that the player picked at 24 will be thought of as a better player than the player picked at 33 and the player picked 52. In addition, wouldn’t you rather have three picks in the top 60 as opposed to two?
This also brings me to my second point. The Mets farm system is decent, but it’s taken some hits lately:
- There was no 2015 first round pick due to the signing of Michael Cuddyer;
- Trading potential future ace Casey Meisner for Tyler Clippard; and
- Trading an even better pitcher in Michael Fulmer for Yoenis Cespedes.
In essence, the Mets could benefit from bringing in some more talented players. The idea here is to create a flow of prospects to the major league level. If you lose someone, you want to have a player waiting in the wings. If you need to make a trade, you want a well regarded prospect to make the trade you need to make.
Now, if the Mets feel they are one player away, sign that player. The goal is to win the World Series, and the Mets are so close. However, you have to be right. The Mets thought they were close to becoming a contender coming into the 2015 season, so they signed Cuddyer. Turns out they were right, but only after trading for Cespedes and calling up Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto.
Moral of the story is you have to be right otherwise you have a $12 million bench player instead of a first round pick who could’ve been a stud. Remember, prospects are always worth more than aging, expensive bench players. That’s why you don’t just sign someone with a qualifying offer attached to him.
You only sign that player if they’d be worth a big prospect because that’s what you’re doing.
Well it was bound to happen sooner or later. Tonight, my son wanted to watch the Mets. I figured the best bet was SNY for a classic game. Nope. I then went to MLB Network. Mistake.
I turned it on just to watch Michael Conforto hit his second homerun off of Danny Duffy. As my son was cheering homerun, I was despondent. All the pain from last week came rushing back again. I remembered how I sat there helplessly through Games Four and Five. As he fell asleep, I kept playing it all over and over in my head again. Just replaying these two games that should’ve sent the Mets back to Kansas City with a 3-2 lead.
Well, I think I found something that will let me get some sleep tonight. It isn’t Conforto’s two homeruns in Game Four. It was his meaningless single at the end of Game 5. The Mets were down to their last out. Wade Davis had two strikes on him. Instead of giving in to the inevitable, Conforto battled in that at bat (as every Met batter did that inning). He eventually hit an opposite field single.
Yes, in the grand scheme of things it was a really meaningless single. The Mets were down five and were not coming back. However, Conforto got that basehit. It speaks a lot about him, and it tells you what type of player he will be. He’s never giving up, and he will do what he can to give his team a chance to win.
So if you are a Mets fan still in mourning over the World Series, take solace in that Conforto at bat. It’s a sign of good things to come.
I’m not watching the NFL today. The reason is plain and simple. I’m tired of them. On Friday, Deadspin released the photographs and documents establishing why Greg Hardy was suspended. ESPN had an Outside the Lines report on the same issue.
Yes, the NFL’s initial 10 game suspension was reduced after Hardy’s appeal. However, that’s not the issue. The issue is he was a free agent. The Cowboys were happy to sign him. He’s seen as a leader in the Cowboys’ locker room. That’s the thing, for all of their public contempt of him, the NFL wants him in the league. Just process that for a second. The NFL thinks it’s a better league with him in it.
Also, Jerry Jones comments about the photos ring hollow:
#Cowboys owner Jerry Jones released a statement on Greg Hardy saying they were aware of the seriousness of it all pic.twitter.com/2iUbV6Rnh9
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 7, 2015
So what if you didn’t see the photos? How could you tell me you take the issue seriously when you signed him to a contract knowing there was a domestic violence issue? If Hardy broke a bone in the woman’s body, would that have gone too far?
Am I supposed to applaud you because you’re giving this creep a second chance? How about giving Joseph Randle a second shot? Oh wait, he stole underwear and mocked Dez Bryant. Seriously, in the NFL that is a worse offense than beating a woman. Smack a woman around, but don’t talk badly about Dez Bryant.
So I’m not watching today. I may not watch next week either. Seriously, at what point do we get up as a society and say this isn’t alright? I’m taking a small admittedly inconsequential stand today. I hope you join me because the NFL is not getting the message that hitting women and children is not alright.
Judging from what I’ve read, the Mets seem most interested in adding a CF in free agency. However, what I mostly see is the Mets are interested in lefty bats:
My sense of the free agent CF types who are on the Mets’ radar at this point: Span, Fowler, Parra.
— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) November 6, 2015
Gerardo Parra, Denard Span, and Dexter Fowler are everyday players. They’ve been everyday players for several years. They’re expected to receive 3+ year contracts for $8 – 13.8 million a year. There should be a reasonable market for these players meaning they’ll have an option to go where they want to go.
This means they won’t go to the Mets, at least not as a platoon player. Therefore, if any of these players comes to the Mets it will mean they have assurances that they’ll be the everyday CF. They should make them the everyday CF if the Mets are going to spend what’s necessary to bring them into the fold.
So if the Mets sign a CF, it means the Mets have moved on from Juan Lagares. I’m not sure it’s a wise move. Not just yet (even if I think Fowler gives them the best chance to win). He’s a year removed from a Gold Glove season. He’s got an elbow injury that just requires rest. Isn’t it the best case scenario for everyone that Lagares is the everyday CF. After partly losing a World Series due to defense, why downgrade the place where you’re best defensively?
So, while I’m hopeful the Mets will make improvements, I’m not sure it’ll be in CF. This means Lagares will receive one last chance to be an everyday player. I hope he rewards the Mets for their confidence in him. Otherwise, the Mets will bring someone else to do the job.
This will be a big year for both the Mets and Lagares. I’m hoping Lagares will be a part of the Mets plans.
Unfortunately, after quite the colorful year, it seems that the Mets no longer have a spot for Juan Uribe on the roster. It’s a shame because he was a terrific locker room presence and leader. However, there may be a way to keep him around.
As Keith Law mentioned in his chat yesterday, the Mets could consider him as a bench coach. It’s possible the position will be open with Bob Geren interviewing for the Dodgers job. However, he’s not likely to get the job, and the Mets have invited the entire coaching staff to return. Furthermore, Uribe seems to love this game and may not want to retire.
He’s going to be 37 years old. This may be his last year in the majors. Although, I’m sure Uribe will force them to tear the uniform off his back. While his skills are diminishing, I’d like to see the Mets find a way to keep him. At the very least, they should offer him a minor league deal in the event he can’t get a major league deal elsewhere.
He has so much to contribute both this year and in the future. I hope the Mets find a way to keep him in the organization.