213 Miles From Shea

Earlier in this series I discussed how Corey Oswalt was misused by management in terms of being jerked around off his pitching schedule. We also talked about Tyler Bashlor being on the roster for a while but going through long periods of not getting in a game. Well there’s one more player the Mets did this to, and it was more inexplicable, Luis Guillorme. Jeff and Fred Wilpon For some reason Jose Reyes kept getting playing time over the young defensive wiz, and it has led to serious questions as to what’s next.

Baseball America talks about the main reason why everyone knows Luis – the one handed amazing catch in the dugout during spring training where he picked a bat off in the air like it was nothing. This is his main draw – he has amazing reflexes!

“I just literally saw the bat coming at me and caught it. Didn’t think much of it.”

Luis Guillorme on his wild day: https://t.co/tDnPEd5xqw pic.twitter.com/sr2Tw1MIt2

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) March 2, 2017

The knock on Luis is he doesn’t hit for power. This didn’t stop him from getting the MVP award in the South Atlantic League in 2015. With his great defensive skills and contact prowess, he should have been a major utility piece for the Mets last year struggling with defense. But the Mets gave him an extremely limited role. He ended up hitting only .209/.284/.239 in 35 games and 74 PA’s despite what felt like him being up in the league for a sizable chunk of the season. It’s just not fair.

Depending on what the Mets do next year, he’ll probably start the year in Syracuse. Personally, if the Mets don’t sign some infield depth for the bench, Luis should be on the major league team, regularly coming into the game after the 7th inning. Hopefully he gets an AB or 2 in the process.

The worst case scenario is the Mets call him up, either early or in the season or right away, and then don’t use him again. He needs regular playing time as well.

Essentially, dear Mets, please do not sign Jose Reyes this year to block Luis Guillorme. He was right on track where he should have been in his development until the Mets Mets’d everything up.

Spoiler Alert; Ronny Mauricio was named the #3 Prospect in the Mets farm system for 2019 last week (ahead of Kelenic and Dunn) so he must have had a good year. Let’s dive in.

Baseball America notes that Mauricio was the #3 international prospect when the Mets signed him at 16, signing him for more than Rosario back in 2012. Baseball America noted that he has a good arm and range, below average speed and projects to have plus power. There was debate about whether he ends up at short or ultimately third because of his speed.

2018 was going to be the switch-hitters first season with the Mets and he made his debut in the Gulf Coast league where he was 2.7 years below the average age. In 49 games and 212 PA’s he hit .279/.307/.421. Nineteen of his first 55 hits were for extra bases including 3 triples and 3 homers (the former being surprising because of his projected speed, the latter being expected). He earned a short promotion to Kingsport playing in 8 games getting 35 PA’s slashing .233/.286/.333 seeing a dip in power in a very small sample size.

At the same age, Amed Rosario hit .241/.278/.358 in his first pro-season and spent the next season in Brooklyn and Savannah. Andres Gimenez played at two levels in the Dominican Summer League at 17 years old. He hit a combined .350/.469/.523. Gimenez was sent directly to Columbia the following year and hit .265/.346/.349.

Using those two players as a guide, I assume that the Mets would like to have Mauricio start in Brooklyn and then go to Columbia at some point.

It’s now been a day after the Mets presser for Cano and Diaz where it became clear that the Mets were after Realmuto. Realmuto will cost the Mets one of Conforto/Nimmo/Rosario. Part of the issue is not the promise than any of these three players have but the Mets are already down an outfielder after trading Bruce and a team that is in it to win it wouldn’t count on getting Cespedes back in July.

(This seems like a good time to interrupt and undermine my own article by suggesting the true way to build a winning team – trade Nimmo to get Realmuto and then sign Harper. Or trade Rosario and sign Machado. Or just sign Grandal and Harper. If money wasn’t a limiting factor, these would be the immediate best moves for the Mets).

A day after thinking about Realmuto and Pollock as a solution, I’ve grown concerned. We’ll need two outfielders in this case and it will be difficult to sign another good outfielder after getting Pollock, if that outfielder knows his time will be significantly cut after Cespedes comes back. Pollock also has a giant injury question mark hanging over his head.

Then there’s Realmuto himself. The Marlins were fleeced on a couple of trades last year and seem hellbent on making up for it in the Realmuto trade. The last two years Realmuto has slashed a reliable .278/.332/.451 and .277/.340/.484 but that has led to only a 99 and 113 DRC+ (last year was his first DRC+ above 100) and a BWARP of 4.5 and 4.3.

Grandal on the other hand has had a DRC+ above 100 five times in his first seven seasons, averaging at 110 and has a BWARP of at least 4.6 in the last 4 seasons. He’s two years older than Realmuto, but signing Grandal doesn’t mean the Mets have to trade away their center fielder.

Which means the Mets can look beyond Pollock for the outfield. Brantley at age 31 is coming off back to back years of above 100 DRC+ hitting (108 and 124) and has had a DRC+ above 100 in 5 of the last seasons leading to a career DRC+ of 112 (his first three seasons were his lowest at 86, 82, 92). The one season where it wasn’t over 100, 2016, he played in only 11 games. He’s also had a BWARP of above 3 in three of the last five seasons.

Realmuto is a great player but trading for him means that the Mets will have to spend even more money to fill a new hole they will create in the process. If the Mets are reluctant to go after Harper/Machado due to financial reasons, creating more reasons to spend seems counter intuitive.

This week is DRC+ week at Baseball Prospectus where they debuted a nifty new stat to figure out how good a hitter really is. If you haven’t checked it out, go do it! It’s a nifty way to check out how good players are to each other. For context, here are the Mets DRC+ leaders from last year:

Any surprising names on this @Mets leaderboard? To learn more about DRC+ and read analysis from the team @BaseballPro, check out https://t.co/2O55lg1VQm #DRCWeek pic.twitter.com/gxGojqzWa8

— Baseball Prospectus (@baseballpro) December 3, 2018

In that spirit let’s talk about Realmuto. The Mets are rumored to be after Realmuto and Realmuto will cost the Mets at least one of Conforto or Nimmo. Last year:

• Nimmo DRC+ 119
• Realmuto DRC+ 113
• Conforto DRC+ 112

Which is slightly misleading because overall, Conforto is better than Nimmo and this would suggest that Nimmo/Conforto are basically Realmuto when it comes to production at the plate.

Realmuto’s value comes from him being a catcher, and that it will probably be easier for the Mets to replace Nimmo or Conforto’s on the free agent market. Let’s look at DRC+’s for free agent outfielders in 2018:

• Harper 135
• Pollock 113
• Brantley 124
• McCutchen 116
• Cruz 132

And it wouldn’t be fair to not at least address the other free agent catchers the Mets could consider:

• Grandal 115
• Ramos 109
• Maldonado 73

Let’s break this down. First, from the offensive perspective Maldonado doesn’t make sense. The current options on the Mets are better and he would really be a solution for offense.

The Grandal comparison isn’t fair either because age. Realmuto should have more years ahead of him of the same if not better DRC+ while Grandal should start to decline.

The same is true for the outfield situation. Cruz and Harper are not really that close. McCutchen had a good year last year, but the amount of good years he has left is probably a lot less than Conforto who is still in the upward arc of his career.

So the question really is do you take Grandal/Ramos through the decline while holding onto Nimmo/Conforto through their upward rise or do you lose one of Conforto/Nimmo, for several years of Realmuto in his prime and hope to replace Conforto/Nimmo with someone comparable?

The big splash move for the Mets would be to sign Harper and then Nimmo becomes expendable. While it stinks for a personality point, there’s no denying that moving from an 88 DRC in Plawecki to 113 in Realmuto will drastically improve the offense. Harper, a generational player, absorbs the loss of Nimmo several times over. It’s also unlikely the Mets do this.

Also knowing the injury history of the Mets, should they trade Nimmo/Conforto since who knows when Cespedes actually comes back?

When you look at Realmuto’s numbers, and consider his age as a sign of his trajectory, it’s hard to say no to a trade for him even if the Mets have to give up Nimmo. But then the Mets will need to make at least one, possibly two outfield signings to make up for it. Thanks to DRC+, we can see there are players available with similar production to Nimmo/Conforto, but at a much higher price.

It’s been about a week again since we’ve returned to this series and during that time the Mets have traded prospects in this guide book including #3 Justin Dunn (setting up for an awkward article in two weeks) and #25 Gerson Bautista. That’s a sign that I need to kick these posts into a high-gear-blog-post-turning-out-machine or risk more awkward writing by the end of the month.

Just like #13 Gavin Cecchini, you already know the #12 prospect in the Mets system – Tomas Nido.

Going into the 2017 season, Nido was way down the depth chart. He was in the system for a while at that point and 2017 was going to be his first time moving up to Double A (which had to happen because he impressed with his bat in St Lucie in 2016, more on that later). The goal going into 2017 was that d’Arnaud was finally going to be healthy and he would platoon with Plawecki who finally find his solid swing that aided him so well at every level except the big leagues.

Travis impressed, until he went down with an injury. Plawecki didn’t take full advantage of this period, also Rene Rivera was having a resurgence that as the season slipped away from the team, people were hoping would lead to a prospect or something at the deadline (that wouldn’t happen). So Nido got a cup of coffee at the end of 2017.

Similar story last year – d’Arnaud struggled with health. Plawecki was good but not good enough to turn heads and Nido in turn got a longer look.

As Baseball America points out, the question about Nido has always been his bat. He’s seen as a plus defensive catcher with pop but doesn’t get on base enough. This changed in 2016 when he got the batting title in St Lucie after hitting .320/.357/.459 while still being 0.8 years below the average age of a player at that level.

In 34 games and 90 PA’s last year he hit only .167/.200/.238 at the major league level. (He spent the bulk of his time at Binghamton though where he hit .274/.298/.437). Nido’s spot on the Mets this year completely depends on who the team signs. If they sign another catcher on the market, and keep d’Arnaud then Nido will have to split playing time with one of d’Arnaud or Plawecki at Syracuse If the Mets don’t sign anyone, then Nido will get the bulk of the Syracuse playing time and will probably be called to the majors sooner than later with the Mets injury history.

Baseball America concludes their Nido section by calling an ideal backup catcher, and that’s definitely where the Mets see him and need him in 2019.

Last week the Oakland Athletics and Portland both released renders of how their future ballparks. The difference being, Oakland has a team and make the ball park a reality (finally) and Portland doesn’t have a team yet. In an error when almost every team tries to make a ballpark that looks retro, both ballparks seem like modern marvels:

The ballpark at Howard Terminal returns the baseball experience to the roots of the sport, while reimagining the ballpark anew. A “ballpark within a park,” the intimate stadium is nestled carefully into its urban surroundings. https://t.co/vLuiX01aT0#RootedInOakland pic.twitter.com/ZjTXknlU1A

— Oakland Athletics 🌳🐘⚾️ (@Athletics) November 28, 2018

“We are excited to build a bold, iconic ballpark at Howard Terminal. This design will allow us to blur the boundaries of a traditional ballpark and integrate into the surrounding neighborhood.” – @DaveKaval https://t.co/vLuiX01aT0#RootedInOakland pic.twitter.com/g46FK7N2ny

— Oakland Athletics 🌳🐘⚾️ (@Athletics) November 28, 2018

“We are also committed to delivering a baseball experience for our fans like no other. Our proposed two-project approach will enable us to deliver on our promises to both our fans and community.” – @DaveKaval. For more information, visit https://t.co/vLuiX01aT0#RootedInOakland pic.twitter.com/HSqZX7DlH8

— Oakland Athletics 🌳🐘⚾️ (@Athletics) November 28, 2018

I love parks, so I’m a huge fan of Oakland’s new park that looks like the upper deck is a sloping park terrace. This new park takes openness to its most fundamental level as it feels completely open and at the same time feels whimsical, something not emphasized at any major league park.

Also redeveloping the old ballpark into a huge park and playable field with bowl seats is an awesome idea (as long as the public actually has the ability to play in the bowl, and the bowl doesn’t end up behind a fence).

Well, yesterday was fun! It was exciting to share with you the progress we have made on our project and the support we have received has been overwhelming. Now we need YOU to sign the petition to bring #MLBtoPDX https://t.co/Ddi79kP4i7 pic.twitter.com/OKPZdm4Pqc

— Portland Diamond Project (@PDXDiamondProj) November 30, 2018

“We believe this has the potential to be a transformative landmark project for this city.” -Portland Diamond Project Founder and President Craig Cheek. pic.twitter.com/Ydh34nikfQ

— Portland Diamond Project (@PDXDiamondProj) November 29, 2018

Building an iconic, state-of-the-art ballpark along the Willamette River will catalyze economic development and capture great views of both the urban scale of the city and regional character of the Pacific Northwest. pic.twitter.com/jzCU7V5UH8

— Portland Diamond Project (@PDXDiamondProj) November 29, 2018

Portland’s ballpark feels more traditional, especially with the wall of seats behind the mound that look to have a more limited view from the concourse at the top level. From first base, to the outfield back to third base is where this ballpark’s modern look comes from. There are definitely some Tampa Bay vibes here as well with a glass ceiling.

Will this ballpark happen? Who knows. Portland is definitely a favorite city along with Montreal, San Juan and Mexico City to get an expansion club.

The non-tender deadline has gotten more interesting the last couple of years as players on the tender/nontender bubble are not making significantly less than free agents, thus teams rather risk it than going to arbitration to save money. There are some names the Mets should consider on the non-tender list as they retool their bench for 2019.

While the Mets have had an absurd amount of injuries the last couple of years, that hasn’t excused their lack of depth from the bench, mostly because the Mets have been bringing back the same group of players and hoping for something different.

Who could the Mets target?

Billy Hamilton: The player everyone has already heard about non-tendered, Hamilton would make a lot of sense on the Mets from a defense standpoint. He essentially works as a second Juan Lagares, and knowing Juan Lagares, it means Hamilton could be the only Juan Lagares if Juan is injured. Would he accept the role though of being 4th/5th outfielder with haphazard playing time?

Blake Parker: He has a 128 ERA+ with a velocity problem. Ultimately if the goal is to overload the pen, and the Mets still have another spot, and Parker hasn’t found a home yet, why not roll the dice?

Robbie Grossman: If the Mets don’t get Billy Hamilton, or anyone else, they need another outfielder. Tne minors are bare of players. Robbie gets on base and would have to be alright initially projecting as a 4th of 5th outfielder.

Mike Fiers: If the Mets needed a low risk competition for Jason Vargas, this could be it. I see Fiers working if by spring training he doesn’t have a contract yet and the Mets give him a contract he can walk out of if he doesn’t make the team.

Matt Davidson: Honestly I put him here because I’m fascinated by two-way players and he may try to dabble in relief.

Chris Owings: The Mets need players on the bench that can slot in everywhere.

Tim Beckham: If the Mets don’t find major league playing time for Guillorme, Beckham could be an interesting alternative as he can slot all over the infield.

The Mets made a controversial splash into the Hot-Stove this week as they acquired Cano and Diaz from the Mariners for Kelenic/Dunn/Bautista/Bruce/Swarzak. The Mariners also sent over 20 million, considerably less than originally thought but still a solid chunk of money.

The Negative View of the Trade:
The Mets are diving in to a win-now mode with this trade. Kelenic is one of the better hitters the Mets have drafted in a while so they are saying goodbye to a solid position player down the road. Dunn finally turned a corner last year and Bautista’s arm is incredibly lively. This is a high price to pay for an aging second-basemen coming off a PED suspension and one of the best closers in the game who does have bone-spur in his elbow that has been known about since he signed a contract. This is an incredible amount of risk. The GM of the Mariners is apparently euphoric about the trade which is also concerning. The trade also wipes the Mets farm system clean of move-able prospects outside Gimenez and Alonso (the latter who is not going anywhere).

The Positive View of the Trade:
The Mets are clearly going into a win now mode as long as they follow up this trade with smart free agent signings. Cano has been better than most aging stars. Passan has already reported that he sees Cano and Diaz both as 10 WAR players. Cano makes the lineup better for at least the next two years also allows the Mets to get creative with McNeil (although it would be better to keep him). Moving Bruce and Swarzak also gives the Mets some financial freedom. The Mets need to take it and reinvest the money back in the club. Since Swarzak and Bautista were moved on this trade, the Mets would be smart to sign 1-2 of Britton/Ottavino/Robertson.

There have been cases in the last decade or two where the Mets have traded prospects and it turned out alright. For example in the Johan Santana trade, Carlos Gomez became the only bona fide star. In the Carlos Delgado trade only Petit became a regular, long term baseball player.

I’m going to take the easy way out and just wait a bit. It was hard to predict a month ago that the Mets would go after Cano, so who knows where the Mets go to next.

Coming into 2018 Gavin Cecchini was the #13 prospect in the Mets system. So much (and then so little) happened with Gavin in 2018.

Coming into 2018, Gavin had major league playing time in both 2016 and 2017 in the middle of the infield. 2016 he got very little playing time, getting 6 AB’s scattered across 4 games and recording 2 hits, both doubles (he hit .325/.390/.448 in Vegas). In 2016 he was battling both Matt Reynolds and TJ Rivera for playing time. The former was the utility player that looked to get the bulk of the time and the latter ended up surprising a lot of people.

Gavin then got an extended chance over 77 AB’s in 2017 but hit only .208/.256/.273. Combined with Vegas numbers of .267/.329/.380, this was a massive step back. Gavin was given an extended look at the end of the season when Rivera, who was turning heads again, went down and needed Tommy John.

Cecchini had a strong spring and was hitting .301/.347/.469 in Vegas until early May. In Queens, the Mets were struggling with Reyes and for a third straight season, it looked like a door was about to open for Gavin. Gavin fouled a ball off his foot and wasn’t able to play for the rest of the season. Then Jeff McNeil emerged. Even a healthy Gavin at the end of the season would have struggled to find playing time on the 2018 Mets.

So that’s where we are with Gavin. He plays a position where the Mets have a bit of depth (and a lot of health question marks). He’ll be competing for a bench role or maybe another team will try to pry him away for the Mets. It feels unfair that his moments of brilliance didn’t coincide with doors being opened by injuries and his own injury opening the door for another player.

For the purpose of the argument “Where Else Do The Mets Improve the Lineup?”, we are going to ignore the later effects / costs of Cano’s contract and ignore the starting rotation entirely. Right now the Mets set up something like this:

• Catcher: d’Arnaud/Plawecki
• First: Smith/Bruce/Alonso
• Second: McNeil
• Short: Rosario
• Third: Frazier
• Outfield: Nimmo
• Outfield: Conforto
• Outfield: Bruce / Lagares / Cespedes

We’re glossing over some details in the above.  It’s a complete mystery when Cespedes comes back. Who knows when Alonso will be called up. Will the Mets bring back d’Arnaud?

If the Mets trade for Cano and do not get Haniger, their lineup will now shift to something like this:

• Catcher: d’Arnaud/Plawecki
• First: Frazier / Alonso (assuming Smith and Bruce go over in the trade)
• Second: Cano
• Short: Rosario
• Third: McNeil/ Frazier
• Outfield: Nimmo
• Outfield: Conforto
• Outfield: Lagares / Cespedes

If the Mets do get Haniger also:

• Catcher: d’Arnaud / Plawecki
• First: Frazier / Alonso
• Second: Cano
• Third: McNeil / Frazier
• Outfield: Nimmo / Cespedes / Lagares
• Outfield: Confoto / Cespedes / Lagares
• Outfield: Haniger / Cespedes / Lagares

First, somehow receiving Haniger in the trade will completely change the depth the Mets have in the outfield. Nimmo/Conforto/Bruce isn’t the most defensively minded outfield and giving up Bruce really opens a reliance on Lagares and Cespedes’ health. So if the question is where else can the Mets improve if they get Cano, if they don’t get Haniger at the same time, they need an outfielder.

The next most obvious hole that can be filled is catcher. Plawecki was a slightly above average catcher last year but that’s only slightly above average. We also don’t know how he responds to a whole season and the depth right now isn’t great behind him. (Nido hasn’t stepped up yet and Sanchez is too far away). I would love for d’Arnaud to be great this season but his injury record is almost as bad or worse than Lagares.

Finally there’s the question of first base. The most obvious answer is to let Alonso play from the start. If the new GM is creative enough to pull off a Cano trade that brings in Haniger or Diaz, then maybe the front office will actually play prospects. Who knows.

When I started writing this article, I was against the Cano trade. I’m entirely sure if this convinces me but if McNeil can play third base then maybe the Mets can get creative with the outfield. The outfield would be cheaper to fix than 3rd (without Donaldson seems like a Machado or bust situation) which leaves more money to fix bullpen and bolster the rotation.