An Impact Move For The Mets? No Bay!

Jason Bay and the Mets have agreed on a 4-year, $66 million dollar deal according to WFAN. 

While I'm sure New York fans are pleased, this move does not make them the favorites (a) to win the NL East, (b) the NL Wild Card, or (c) even finish above .500. 

Let's not forget- this is a team that lost 90 games a year ago.  Out of the 16 NL teams, their pitching staff finished 12th in ERA, 11th in quality starts and batting average against, second-to-last in walks allowed, and third-to-last in baserunners per inning.  And so far all they've done to address these deficiencies in a pitching-rich division is sign Kelvin Escobar and lose J.J. Putz to free agency.

True, Bay has played in at least 145 games for each of the last 5 seasons and for his career, he averages 33 homeruns, 107 RBI, 12 steals, and a .387 OBP per 162 games played.  But let's not forget Bay is switching from the 8th most offense-friendly park in baseball (Fenway) to the 9th worst (Citi Field) so to book him for another .275/30+/100+ season would be presumptious.  Just look what Citi Field did to David Wright last year.

The biggest factor in New York's success (or lack thereof) in 2010 is less likely to be Bay's production, but rather the production and health of Jose Reyes.  If he's on base and running in front of the likes of Beltran, Wright, and Bay- the Mets might be able to out-slug their opponents 82 times.  But if he's not- they might not.

Bottom line...Bay is a good player but he's not a franchise-saver.  And worst of all for the Mets, he can't pitch.

Shea What?!

Provided he reaches a long-term deal and passes a physical, it looks like baseball's best pitcher is going to the other New York team in exchange for four prospects. Everyone knows how good Santana is. His average season over the last 4 years looks like this...17.5 wins, 246 K's, 2.89 ERA, and 1/2 of a Cy Young Award (he's won 2 since 2004).

As for the prospects, outfielder Carlos Gomez just turned 22 and had 12 steals in only 125 AB's last year for New York. He also amassed 157 in 1500 minor league AB's, so he has big-time speed. Here are his red flags, though. He's not a particularly high-average guy, his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 3:1, and he doesn't hit for much power. One scouting report I read on him said "Coco Crisp with a much, much better arm." Still, he is rated as New York's number 3 prospect overall by Baseball America.

Deolis Guerra turns 19 in a couple of months and spent 2007 in high-A ball where the righty went 2-6 with a 4.01 ERA along with 66 K's and 25 BB's in just under 90 innings. He's 6'5'', 200 pounds (a good pitcher's body) and while scouts believe he's inconsistent at this point, he was also rated as New York's number 2 prospect overall and is said to have the best change-up in the organization. He also played in the Futures Game last summer.

Philip Humber is New York's number 7 prospect overall and scouts seem to think he's just about ready for the big leagues. He just turned 25 and went 11-9 last year in Triple-A, striking out nearly one batter per inning. He's also about two and a half years removed from Tommy John surgery. Scouts think the surgery has lowered his ceiling from that of a number 2 starter down to a 4 or 5, but he also has the best curveball in the organization.

Finally, Kevin Mulvey (whose name makes me think of "Mulva" from the Seinfeld episode where Jerry's girlfriend's name rhymes with a female body part, but he doesn't know which one) is another right handed starter who spent most of 2007 in Double-A, going 11-10 with a 3.26 ERA. He's not a big strikeout guy, doesn't have a dominant pitch, but mixes his stuff well and projects to be another 4th or 5th starter. He ranks as New York's 4th best prospect overall and is 22 years old. He also has the best slider of any Mets pitcher.

So essentially, Minnesota gave up the best pitcher of the 21st century for a speedy, defensive-stud outfielder and 3 young right-handers, none of whom project to be a number 2 starter in the majors. All told, they got New York's 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th top prospects, but did not get their best position player (another outfielder, 19-year-old Fernando Martinez who bats left, throws right, played in the '07 Futures Game and is the Mets' best power and contact hitter), or their best young arm- 24-year-old Mike Pelfrey, who got hit around in '07 but still made 13 starts with the big club.

Let's not forget the Mets also have to pay Santana, likely somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 years, $150 million. Still, the consensus seems to be Minnesota walked away from this deal without getting a really exciting prospect in return.

As for the Mets, here's what they'll look like on opening day...

SS Jose Reyes
2b Luis Castillo
CF Carlos Beltran
3B David Wright
1b Carlos Delgado
LF Moises Alou
RF Ryan Church
C Brian Schneider

LHP Johan Santana
RHP Pedro Martinez
RHP John Maine
LHP Oliver Perez
RHP Orlando Hernandez/LHP Mike Pelfrey
CP Billy Wagner

In the weak NL East which features the depleted Braves, Marlins and Nationals, New York's only real competition will be Philadelphia, which may have taken a step backwards since 2007 ended. In the outfield, they lost Aaron Rowand to free agency and traded Michael Bourne, only to sign the oft-injured Geoff Jenkins. That's a big downgrade. They got Brad Lidge in the Bourne deal, who will replace another questionable closer, Tom Gordon. That could be an upgrade, or it could be a push. They also lost Tad Iguchi and Jon Lieber to free agency, while Freddy Garcia, Antonio Alfonseco, and Jose Mesa remain unsigned. They did ink Pedro Feliz to play third base, but I'm inclined to think this team is, at best, as good as it was last year, while the Mets are significantly better with Santana.

One more thing that's worth noting is that when/if the Santana deal gets done and if Erik Bedard goes to Seattle, 3 of baseball's best, young pitchers will have been traded this offseson when you add Dan Haren to the list. I'm inclined to think that doesn't happen all that often.

Wow, an entire post without mentioning steroids once! See, it is possible.

Who's Havin' Glavine?

Agent Gregg Clifton says Tom Glavine is likely going to decline his 2008 option with the New York Mets and explore his options. If I'm the New York Mets, I'm pretty excited I won't have to pay him between $9 and $13 million dollars next year, especially given his one-out, 7-run performance the final game of the season against the Florida Marlins; an exclamation point at the end of a down season that included his 300th win, and little else.

The Mets should have Pedro, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and Mike Pelfrey among others in their rotation next year, so they'll be fine.

The question is, will Glavine retire knowing his last career start helped seal the worst regular-season collapse in baseball history, or will he try to catch on with another team? And if so, who's going to want a 41-year-old lefty coming off one of the worst seasons of his career?

Excuse me, Mr. Angelos, there's a Mr. Clifton on line one.

There's More Than One In The Works

While much has, and no doubt will continue to be made of the New York Mets' historically God-awful collapse (missing the playoffs after being 7 games up with 17 to go) let's not forget they were not the only playoff-bound team crawling on all fours to baseball's finish line. At 7:37 tonight, the San Diego Padres have the opportunity to play "New York Mets" to the Colorado Rockies' Philadelphia Phillies.

Lest we forget on September 20, the Fathers had a 4.5 game lead over Colorado in the Wild Card with just 10 games to go. They went 4-6, while the Rocks went 8-1. Or if you prefer, take it back to September 15, where the Padres were up 4.5 on Colorado with 15 to play. San Diego went a respectable 9-6 after that, while the Rockies played unthinkable .929 baseball, going 13-1.

In that regard, today's one-game playoff seems to be more about Colorado's rocket-propelled season's ending than the Padres' September shortcomings. But consider this. The Mets ran a 43-year-old out to the mound who is clearly in the twilight of a Hall of Fame career, and the opposing team thumped him. That single event, while precipitated by a series of unimaginable occurrences, is not so hard to fathom. The situation with San Diego is different. They have the NL's clear-cut Cy Young winner going tonight. He won pitching's triple crown. Heck, Jake Peavy allowed just one more base runner (12) than he had strikeouts (11) in 2 starts against Colorado this year.

But if the Rockies win...

If the Padres and Peavy are sent packing...

It might be almost as bad as what the Mets did.

Almost.

Remember When They Were Amazing?

What on Earth has happened to the New York Mets? They've lost 10 of 14. They're losing slug-fests. They're losing pitcher's duels. They're getting blown out. And unless they take 2 of 3 from the Florida Marlins this weekend at Shea, they might very well be watching the NLDS from home.

Right now, they're tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for first place in the East. Both teams also trail the San Diegoans?...San Diegans?...the Padres by one game in the Wild Card. For the record, the Pads have a tough weekend series at Milwaukee, while the Phils host the Nationals.

A breakdown of the Mets recent woes reveals the following. In their last 14 games, the Mets have been outscored 100-80. This means they're giving up 7.1 runs a game, and scoring 5.7. For the season, they're scoring 4.9 runs a game, but only allowing 4.6 runs per game, so obviously offense hasn't been their problem recently (although they were shut out last night).

With that established, is it the defense or the pitching? Well, it's both actually. They've committed 21 errors in those 14 games, or 1.5 per game, although that average is skewed significantly by a 17 inning stretch where they made 10 errors (6 one night, 4 the next) September 16 and 17. For the season, they're not nearly that brutal in the field. They're 18th in baseball in fielding percentage, committing 0.63 errors a game.

And it turns out those errors are making a huge difference. They've led to 12 unearned runs over that time, or 0.86 per game. That's more twice their season's average of 0.40 unearned runs allowed per game.

Now, let's talk about the pitching. As I said, Mets hurlers are allowing more than 7.1 runs a game in their last 14, and allowing more than 6.3 earned runs per game. That last statistic is a full two runs higher than their season's "earned runs per game average" (not to be confused with ERA, which measures earned runs allowed per 9 innings pitched). Over that time, their starters have allowed 57 runs, or 4.10 per start, while the bullpen has allowed 43 runs, or 3.1 per game. Again, remembering this is not ERA, it's "runs allowed per game," those numbers are exceptionally high, especially the bullpen statistic...3.1 runs allowed per game.

For good measure, Mets relievers have blown 3 saves in the last 14, after blowing just 14 in their previous 145 games. This means they're blowing saves more than twice as often now, as they did before.

The good news for Mets fans (and yes, some does exist) is that your team is still in first place and you've gone 10-5 this year against your remaining opponent. The bad news is that defensive play and relief pitching win playoff games more often than not. And right now, this team isn't doing either particularly well.

An Amazing Mess

Sports Illustrated is reporting a former clubbie for the New York Mets, Kirk Radomski, who has already pleaded guilty to providing steroids to dozens of players, has now given investigator Senator George Mitchell a list of names which will "blow your mind."

According to this story, Radomski (the guy wearing the dark t-short, holding up the pair of pants) has been Mitchell's "holy grail" of sorts this entire time and the fact that he is now playing nice means (a) he could get a lighter sentence September 7 because he faces up to 25 years and (b) this could be a huge break in the Mitchell case.

Radomski worked as a clubbie for the Mets from 1985 to 1995, but according to the feds, was a supplier to former and current players from 1995 to 2005.

No specific players are named in the story, and it's not clear if the names he allegedly provided were names of just New York Mets. But in that 20-year span, some big names have put on a Met uniform, like Hall of Famers Gary Carter and Eddie Murray, former MVPs Keith Hernandez, Kevin Mitchell, Jeff Kent, Rickey Henderson and Mo Vaughn, former Rookies of the Year Darryl Strawberry, Mike Piazza, and Hideo Nomo, former Cy Young Award winners Dwight Gooden, David Cone, Frank Viola, Bret Saberhagen, Orel Hershiser, Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez, former and current managers Clint Hurdle, Ron Gardenhire, John Gibbons, Lee Mazzilli, Ray Knight, Willie Randolph, and Larry Bowa, current General Manager Billy Beane, current pitching coaches Roger McDowell and Mike Maddux, current hitting coach Dave Magadan, and All-Stars Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Jesse Orosco, Randy Myers, Rick Aguilera, John Franco, Gregg Jefferies, Howard Johnson, Lenny Dykstra, Todd Hundley, Vince Coleman, Bobby Bonilla, Jeromy Burnitz, Tony Fernandez, Fernando Vina, Brett Butler, Edgardo Alfonzo, Pete Harnisch, Jason Isringhausen, Carl Everett, Carlos Baerga, John Olerud, Preston Wilson, Al Leiter, Robin Ventura, Melvin Mora, Kenny Rogers, Armando Benitez, Mike Hampton, Matt Lawton, Kevin Appier, Roberto Alomar, Gary Matthews Jr., Jose Reyes, David Wright, Cliff Floyd, Mike Cameron, Scott Erickson, and Carlos Beltran.

Again, these are just some of the guys who wore a Met uniform between '85 and '05. Out of those 67 players, Matt Lawton is the only one we know for sure who's ever tested positive (Gary Matthews Jr. was implicated, but denied the allegations and it's been all-but-forgotten at this point).

Imagine what it would do to the game though, if just a quarter of those guys, or a quarter of any other team's high-profile players from the last two decades appear on Radomski's so-called "list." Baseball might never be the same.