The Reds have decided to take it back eight years to 2006, the last time the Black Reds hats were in rotation. Back then the hats were the primary road hats, now the hats will serve as an alternate hat that joins their home all reds, road red tops with black bill, home red BP and road BP that has a similar color scheme to the “new” black caps. Anyway here’s the hat:
So there’s that.
The Mets drafted Reese Havens in 2008, back then, the Mets were finally able to draft players in the first round after a couple of years of signing their draft picks away. In 2008, the Mets drafted Ike Davis, Brad Holt and Reese Havens. Havens was instantly considered a prospect in the middle infield. Back in 2009, I wrote a prospect preview and in 2008 I wrote a draft pick review, both covering his status as a prospect and his stats in college.
He was considered a Mets Top Ten Prospect by Baseball America for a while:
Reese Havens was constantly held back by injuries. Each of those seasons above saw a multitude of articles predicting his future in the middle of the Mets infield, especially at a time where second base was a mystery (pre-Murphy Mets) and a need at short stop (post-Reyes Mets). Its sad that injuries curtailed his career.
Wishing him the best on his future endeavors!
As mentioned in an earlier post, the Minnesota Twins will be wearing four sleeve patches this season. Normally they have three patches, but the All-Star game requires another patch. Right now, they wear two patches at a time, one being the All-Star game and the other being the base patch for the jerseys.
The earlier post did a poor job of showing the patches, so the purpose here is just to offer a closer view of patches:
All Star Game Patch, Road Patch (Both Road Jerseys)
Home Patch, Home Alternate Retro Patch
(All images from the Minnesota Twins Shop)
With the Mets not trading Davis or Duda, the Mets will have an interesting situation at Spring Training. The Mets have the following players in the outfield and at first base, creating a bit of a log jam on the bench:
First Base:
Outfield:
Flores is only listed at first because of his bat and no natural position anywhere else. He has an outside, outside, like Major League “just a bit outside” chance at first. Josh Satin lines up as the most logical back up for first base because of his splits and how he hits where Duda and Davis can’t.
Granderson and Lagares are locks in the outfield.
Chris Young is a much better defender than Lucas Duda, which is why he should start much more often than Duda in outfield. Duda and Young though match on the platoon side. Duda has a .356 OBP against right handers vs .302 against lefties. His OPS also goes from .812 to .643 from RHP to LHP. Chris Young goes from .295 OBP to .363 from RHP to LHP. His OPS goes from .710 vs RHP to .929.
From the data, Chris Young should pretty much always play when the Mets play against a Left Handed Pitcher. Between Chris Young’s defense, offense, and track record, he should also have some playing against RHP’s as well, as long as Duda isn’t in a hot streak. This is frustrating because Duda has potential, but is being placed out here due to defense and a similar player in Ike.
Ike on the other hand will probably split time with Satin, from a statistics sense it is logical. Ike Davis has an OPS of .827 vs RHP and .602 vs LHP. In limited major league experience, Satin has .661 vs RHP and an .862 OPS vs LHP. However if Ike struggles, then Duda should also see time at first. If Satin struggles, then one of Davis or Duda will see time at first vs LHP.
What makes this frustrating is by having both Davis and Duda, it makes the Mets have the possibility for four part time players (Chris Young, Ike Davis, Lucas Duda, and Josh Satin). By having so many player combinations, the Mets will need to have superior communication in the field for proper defense.
It also begs for a situation where one of Davis or Duda could still be traded, thus quieting this heavy rotation between outfield, first base and bench.
The MLB added their 2014 collection to most (if not all) teams yesterday a few teams, like the Twins, finally updated their uniforms for the 2014 season. Minnesota will be hosting the All-Star game this year and like the Mets did last year, and most teams have done in the past, they have added patches to all of their uniforms.
What makes the Twins different is the Twins have three different sleeve patches on their uniforms, therefore the All-Star Logo, which looks good on its own merit and with Target Field, doesn’t necessarily fit with all jerseys (Edit: this post does a poor job of showing the patches, so click here for a better look):
The only jersey it doesn’t really fit is on the middle jersey. The All Star Patch has a semi-retro font and on a retro jersey that has fonts of a different era, it just doesn’t really fit, even though the patches have similar shapes.
Over the weekend the Mets made a minor league signing of John Lannan, a player the Mets have been connected to a few times over the past few years. Lannan came up through the Nationals system and spent some time with the Phillies. The Mets need pitching depth that aren’t prospects in case injuries require call ups, Lannan makes sense here.
Lannan will be 29 this upcoming season, and it will also be his 8th season in the majors if he is called up at some point. His strongest years were between 2008 and 2011 where he pitched 122 games with a 4.00 ERA and a 36-49 record. Over that stretch he pitched over 180 innings in a season three times include one year where he logged 206.1 innings. He also recorded more than 100 strikeouts in 2008 and in 2011.
Overall he has pitched in 148 games with a 4.12 ERA and a 45-58 record. In the last two seasons he has pitched in 20 games with a 4.96 ERA while posting a 7-7 record. During that time he also logged 107.0 innings.
Lannan is a solid veteran pick up at a very low risk. The rotation right now looks like (in no order) Colon, Wheeler, Niese and Gee. The fifth spot is an open competition between Mejia, Torres, deGrom and now Lannan. It gives Lannan a good inside shot for a veteran presence and insurance going into 2014. Montero and Syndegaard will come up at some time in 2014, just in case they aren’t ready to come up yet, Lannan can give them the space they need.
This isn’t a rock star signing to make the playoffs, but it is a solid signing that improves the team. Let’s see what happens in 26 days.
In coordination with the 100th anniversary of Wrigley, the Cubs showed off 10 new jerseys last week. In that misleading statement, only one of them, a Road Alternate, is a uniform in the regular rotation. They will have 9 throwback uniforms, which we’ll look at when the Cubs wear them on the field. Anyway, here’s the new Cubs uniform via:
It’s classy and retro. I hope they wear it to Citi FIeld this year!
33 days until Spring Training!
We continue our journey up and down the Non-Roster Invitee list with a look at Adam Kolarek today. You won’t find Kolarek in any of the of the popular top 10/15/20 prospect list for the Mets as he’s been largely unknown in the Mets organization, at least to fans.
As a heads up though, I will probably be biased for the rest of this prospect preview. Kolarek and I went to the University of Maryland College Park at the same time. I’ve never met him (which is not surprising given the tremendous size of Campus) and I never watched any baseball games because I almost always had class during them. Yet, we hail from the same school and we’re both from Baltimore so I have a predisposition to root for him. He was drafted from Maryland’s flagship university in 2010 out of the 11th round. He will be 25 in the 2014 season (actually, he’ll be 25 in a few days).
In four minor league seasons he is 15-8 over 144 games and 227.2 innings with a 2.69 ERA. Let’s break it down by year:
2010 (Kingsport/Brooklyn): 2-1, 22 G, 37.1 IP, 3.13 ERA, 1 SV, 0.964 WHIP, 4.1 BB/9, 10.8 K/9
2011 (Savannah/St. Lucie): 7-1, 26 G, 60.0 IP, 2.85 ERA, 5 SV, 1.283 WHIP, 3.4 BB/9, 8.7 K/9
2012 (St. Lucie/Binghamton): 3-3, 50 G, 63.1 IP, 2.70 ERA, 19 SV, 1.326 WHIP, 3.6 BB/9, 11.1 K/92013 (Binghamton/Las Vegas): 3-3, 46 G, 67.0 IP, 2.28 ERA, 1 SV, 1.149 WHIP, 3.4 BB/9, 8.6 K/9
There are some important trends here. His ERA has dropped each year. In 2012, it looks like he spent a significant portion of the season as a closer as his innings increased with the amount of games he appeared in (also the huge spike in saves). As his ERA dropped with his innings increasing, his WHIP increased, but last year his WHIP dropped by a noticeable amount. His BB/9 have mostly stayed constant and his K/9 has bounced from being high to being above average.
If he can put another season of a low ERA together partnered with a high K/9, he could be an intriguing addition to the bullpen as a left handed pitcher. He also one of two non roster invites who throw lefty in camp, which brings down competition.
A strong spring campaign and Kolarek could be in the blogs as a discussion point towards the end of March. Let’s see what happens!
Pitchers and Catchers report in 34 days!
In preparation, the Mets announced this week a list of additional non-roster players to come to camp. Non-roster invites run the gambit from prospect, to veterans trying to make a come back and to players who are prospects, but experts have predicted limited ceilings.
The latter is where Daniel Muno sits right now. He’s not listed as a top 15 prospect from Fan Graphs, or Baseball America in 2014, 2013 and 2012. At the end of the 2013 season, he didn’t make MLB.com’s top 20 prospects for the New York Mets. The only accolade he has received from any publication was in 2012 and 2013, Baseball America said he had the best plate discipline. However in 2014 he was replaced in that spot by Brandon Nimmo.
Muno was drafted by the Mets in 8th round of the 2011 draft from California State, Fresno. His first season with the Mets he mostly played shortstop, since then he has mostly played second but still has played at least 17 games at short each year. Offensively:
2011 (Brooklyn): 220 AB, .355 BA, .466 OBP, 23 2B, 3 3B, 2 HR, 24 RBI, 9 SB
2012 (St. Lucie): 289 AB, .280 BA, .387 OBP, 16 2B, 2 3B, 6 HR, 39 RBI, 19 SB2013 (Binghamton): 449 AB, .249 BA, .384 OBP, 27 2B, 3 3B, 9 HR, 67 RBI, 15 SB
Trends:
His first season in Brooklyn was tremendous. He hit for average, had some extra-base power and got on base. His on base and average, and extra base hits like doubles took a hit in 2012. His homerun power rose though, as did his speed.
In 2013, he had significantly more at bats, his batting average dropped farther but his on base stayed consistent. His doubles and homers rose in step with the increased at bats but his stolen bases dropped.
He has shown that he can hit, although it is troubling to see his numbers drop as he moves up in each league. Spring Training should be good for Muno to get some exposure to higher level pitchers in preparation for the 2014 season. He will be 25 this year, so his clock for breaking into the leagues is starting to tick. I don’t think he has much chance of breaking camp with the Mets this year, but he does have the opportunity to turn some heads and get on the short list for late season call-ups.
Signing Drew through the 2015 season might make sense for the long term development of the Mets.
Right now the Mets have a protected first round pick. They already lost their second round pick signing Curtis Granderson and would lose a third round pick if they sign Drew.
If you take a look at next year’s free agent class, the notable shortstop choices:
Each of the above players could be either an extension candidate, require a draft pick and a long term deal. If the Mets pass on Drew and go with Tejada this season, and that doesn’t work out, they will either need to trade for a short stop next season, or sign one of these players.
The players lead a weak free agency class in terms of bats, so prices will run high. If the Mets finish in the top 20 in the league, which is easily possible, and hopeful, their draft pick won’t be protected next season. Which would increase the price.
On the flip side, if the Mets sign Drew to a year deal, they’ll be free of the contract in 2016. That will be around the same time Amed Rosario is ready to come to the majors. It will also be around the same time, although maybe a year early, that Gavin Cecchini is also ready to be called up.
In other words, signing Drew to a 2-year deal, makes sense for the current farm system the Mets have. If Tejada, Rosario and Cecchini don’t look ready by 2016 then the Mets could either extend Drew or sign another short stop at that time.
The downside to Drew in the short term is he eats up contract space financially. The upside to a short term deal is he could be turned over when prospects are ready and the Mets won’t have to give away draft picks next year, which could be pricy in the long term.