213 Miles From Shea

Sandy Alderson had a conversation with Mike Francesa today where he revealed there are 16 players on the board that he is looking at this season (Source). Seven players are free agents and Nine players would be via trade. I didn’t hear the interview but I assume this means he isn’t looking at adding all 16 (that would be insane and impossible) but he sees that he 16 options for moves to fill in the holes on the roster.

What I’m about to say is biased by how much I want to see change, but this makes me feel good. I’ll of course feel better once something materializes, but its nice to hear that the work has been laid out to get some moves done. Also, I’m curious to hear who these players are. I’d assume that Aoki and Fowler are probably on the list of 9 based on various reports we’ve heard so far this winter.

The other interesting tidbit from his interview is in regards to Syndergaard and Montero (Source). Syndergaard sounds untouchable, which is predicted but maybe Montero is more untouchable then I originally thought (or he’s trying to build more value for Montero). Montero is slightly ahead of Synergaard in terms of heading to Queens and Sandy expects both to come through at some point next year. That’s and exciting thought of having a rotation in 2014 of Wheeler, Syndergaard, Montero and Niese (and then Gee? Free Agent signing?) and even more exciting to think about 2015 of Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Montero and Syndergaard. Crazy exciting.

A couple of days have passed since the incorrect rumor involving the Phillies trading Brown for Bautista and now there is a rumor about the Phillies trying to trade Ryan Howard for David Price. Early this morning (like really early, like sun is not up early) my twitter and facebook were buzzing with this rumor. Even at 5 AM, this seemed like a major stretch, so lets search the source of the rumor.

Does this rumor have any weight?

No. At least not that we know of.

The rumor originates from a Sports Radio show and was brought to forefront by Jason Collette:

Please don’t have any carbonated beverage in your mouth when you listen to this http://t.co/hjLil2OGAm

— jasoncollette (@jasoncollette) November 14, 2013

So I’m going to be clear here, this rumor has close to zero weight. The source in the video link heard from a “friend in Philly” which is the making of a bad rumor. (However, of course anything is possible, but I still don’t believe this rumor).

If you see any sites trying to perpetuate this rumor as true, just ignore them. Unless it turns out to be true. In that case I’ll be enjoying a green sky with flying pigs.

Earlier today, Wilpon hinted that something is about to happen that they are meeting with teams and agents something should happen by later tonight (Source, Metsblog). This of course can mean a lot of things since he didn’t say what he would say later tonight, just that there would be an announcement. Technically it could be that the Mets will be changing their colors to Fire Truck Red and Purple because that would be an announcement. I’m hoping that its something regarding a player move since fans are ready for something positive.

Heyman earlier today broke down the market for Ike Davis (Source). So far the suitors include the Astros, Orioles, Rays, Brewers and Rockies.

The Rockies are interesting here. There have been connections in the past between Fowler in the Mets, and Fowler seems to be publicly the only player the Rockies are willing to discuss. I’d imagine though if the Mets are going to move Davis, and looks like they will, they will ask for either Tulo or CarGo from the Rockies.

Davis for Fowler, maybe one to one straight up, only works if the Mets sign a power bat via free agency or do another trade. However if Fowler is picked up, this will hurt the shortstop search because Fowler projects closer to the profile (offensively) the Mets are looking from Shortstop.

Lets see what happens…

Edit: Hosing the Fire. If you read this earlier you could probably sniff out my deep undertones of not believing the one source. A more reliable Jon Heyman has weighed in.

Dumbest radio request of day: to come on to talk about false rumor of bautista for brown trade. It’s false! How’s that?

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) November 13, 2013

Original Post:

I woke up this morning twitter on fire a rumor that the Phillies are in serious talks to get Bautista from the Blue Jays.  A deal would include Dom. Brown and others.

#phillies GM Ruben Amaro deep in serious talks w #bluejays to acquire OF Jose Batista. Can also play 3rd. Phils would deal OF Dom Brown plus — Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) November 13, 2013

This rumor from a Phillies reporter spread quickly. All articles about this possible trade, at least of 5:30 AM, are rooted from here. For example Bleacher Report, Canoe and theScore, all with different opinions on the weight of the rumor are based soley off of Eskin’s work.

Personally I will be a little surprised if Brown is the main centerpiece of the deal because it seems like the Blue Jays really need pitching (unless if the Blue Jays feel they can trade another piece of their team for pitching). Brown fits the profile of an MLB ready player, but I seriously doubt a deal can get done without a pitcher moving as well (and I’ll admit, I don’t know the Phillies system well enough to figure out who that young pitcher is).

To some degree, when it comes to the Blue Jays, my gut disagrees that pitching is what they are really looking for in a trade. My gut says that they are looking for a move that is going to retool their farm system that was demolished last season to give the team multiple ways to move this off season and some depth for next year. While that gut prediction works well for the Phillies and the trade rumor from last night, it also still holds well for the Mets that could put together a Duda/Davis with Montero and someone else deal for Bautista.

I’m curious to see how this shakes out today.

My opinion about this jersey are consistent with my opinion on all of the iterations of the Stars and Stripes hats, the camo MLB hats and the USMC hats and jerseys.

I’ve been writing for the last 3 or 4 years on this site about the conflation of patriotism (including the military) and sports and why the trend is disingenuous to the causes it has been reported to support.

The opening to this article at Uni – Watch from earlier this year does a good job at almost poetically explaining my frustration. If you can’t open the link, it shows a picture of a Dominican player for a Canadian baseball team wearing a jersey that celebrates the American military.

Before I continue, I have to explain that I’m not anti-military or anti-American. Part of the problem of debating the merits of Military uniforms in sports is the person making the point against the uniforms always has to confirm that he or she is still pro-military or pro-American (which is another issue altogether that these ideas of pro-military and pro-American go together, that someone can have a view point that separates military goals from military members from American goals from American Politician goals, but this isn’t a political website).

It remains inconclusive that if sales from these Jerseys go to support the military. Even if they do, how much? Why do they have to be worn so much? How do they actually honor the military by dressing up as soldiers glorifying war? Are the Mets actually doing something to help the military or is this another form slacktivism, like updating your facebook status on Veterans day to thank veterans rather than actually doing something actively and productively accomplish the goal.

On a more political side, or maybe more personal side, its now like we are rooting for the military when the Mets play on Monday nights. War isn’t a game. It’s war. There are no analogies. Baseball players don’t go to battle on the baseball field. They don’t wear armor, they don’t have weapons. War is war and sports are sports. All major sports in America, in my personal opinion, need to stop conflating these two.

I’m thankful for the soldiers that serve and I’m glad that the Mets will be honoring them during the games this year. I don’t see the necessity of extending this to the uniforms especially when the Mets are not allowed to wear FDNY/NYPD hats on 9/11 because they aren’t sanctioned by the league and produced by an official uniform provider.

The GM/Owners meetings historically are not meant for trading and free agent signings but that trend has changed over the last few years (or, I’ll admit, maybe I’ve started to pay more attention over the last few years and it just seems that way). Anyway there are a few Mets related stories starting to surface for the upcoming week.

The smaller story involves Boras. Both MLBTradeRumors and Metsblog are both reporting that the Mets will meet with Boras with regards to Choo and Drew. It is still widely expected that the Mets will not be major players for Choo and it is widely expected that the Mets will be interested in Drew but are also interested in Peralta.

The real story will come out of trade talks. Alderson will be gauging the market for interest in Ike Davis (and others) to see what he can get in return for a trade. If you were to comb over the internet you’d see the rumors, mostly pundit based and then blogger repeated, you’d see the trade market routes look like:

• Davis to the Brewers for Aoki
• Trading with the Dodgers for either Ethier, Kemp or Crawford
• Trading starting pitching and others (Davis?) to the Blue Jays for Bautista (and others?)
• (Not reported anywhere but I needed something crazy for the end of this article) If the Cards can work out something for Troy Tulo from the Rockies, could the Mets work out something for CarGo? Three Way Trade?

As a slightly different way to gauge progress through the off-season, every so often we’ll take a look at the Mets starting lineup/rotation/bullpen to see how the team is progressing going into Spring. This is a good week to start since all of the Free Agents have declared and the Mets (or really anyone) has yet to make a move that would change this in any way.

Here are your 2014 New York Mets:

Catcher: Travis d’Arnaud
First Base: Ike Davis / Josh Satin
Second Base: Daniel Murphy
Shortstop: Omar Quintanilla / Ruben Tejada
Third Base: David Wright
Left Field: Eric Young Jr. / Matt den dekker
Center Field: Juan Lagares
Right Field: Lucas Duda

Starting Rotation:
Jon NieseZack Wheeler
Dillon Gee
Jeremy Hefner
Carlos Torres / Jenry Mejia

Bullpen:
Bobby Parnell
Vic Black
Scott Rice
Carlos Torres / Jenry Mejia
Gonzalez German
Scott Atchison

The Mets didn’t lose too much by way of free agency. The big piece lost is LaTroy Hawkins who they hope to resign. This roster looks slightly better than end of the season because Parnell is back from injury a long with a few others. That’s pretty much it from the positives. The other way to look at it are all of the question marks:
– 2 Holes in the rotation
– At Least One Hole in the Outfield- Questions at First Base (and moving Duda would make 2 Holes in the Outfield or moving Murphy would make a hole at Second)
– Shortstop needs an upgrade

Right now it is very difficult to make a batting order because of the position battles. If Young gets LF, then he hits leadoff. If den dekker does, then Lagares gets lead off. If the lineup has den dekker, then dekker or Tejada battle for the bottom part of the lineup. If Satin is in the lineup, then first base hits much later. Hopefully the Mets make a move or two so there becomes a clear Leadoff and a clear cleanup hitter (which right now is either Duda or a prayer with Davis)

Lets see what happens over the next few weeks!

The Blue Jays last year depleted their farm system between a trade to the Mets for R.A. Dickey and a trade with the Marlins for the majority of their roster. This year, the Blue Jays are looking to use free agency more as a route to improve their team (Source).

The Free Agency field this year is packed with buyers and players. However, there are a lot of teams this year that can dump a lot of money to get players (Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Rangers). A few years ago, the Yankees were able to set the tone of the market by outbidding everyone else for major players (the year they picked up CC) but this year with so many of the big market large finance (ie not Mets) clubs ready to go after big pieces, its crowding a lot of teams (like the Mets, Blue Jays) who have multiple holes to fill to the next Free Agent tier.

The Mets have an advantage in that they have some payroll room to buy players, but they also have several pieces they can ship out to other teams in trade.

This is where the Blue Jays come in.

The Blue Jays have very little flexibility in the trade market. If they are going to trade, they need to sell a major player, like a Jose Bautista or Jose Reyes. If they could bring back a major leaguer and a couple of prospects for one or both of those players, they will have the ability to make other trades later or fill in multiple holes so they can focus on what might be a high bidding free agency market.

On the Mets side, the Blue Jays have what they really need, an outfielder that can hit for power. The Blue Jays also have Jose Reyes who is not the same Jose Reyes as the one who left, but would still be a huge upgrade compared to the SS situation we have going on now.

Holding back a move would be the trade talks from last year. Specifically, the highest level prospect the Mets would give up in a trade might be d’Arnaud who was acquired from the Blue Jays. However with Davis who could be moved with Montero, maybe the Mets and Blue Jays could make a deal that helps both teams in the long and short run.

There has been a good amount of Curtis Granderson news in the last week:

• Curtis Granderson could consider taking the 1 year offer from the Yankees
• The Yankees do not want Granderson to take the qualifying offer
• The Phillies could look to Free Agency to upgrade at CF which includes players like Granderson
• The Mets have some interest in Granderson
• Both Chicago Teams are interesting in Granderson

As far as the Mets focus on Granderson goes, I think it is deeply tied to the Ike Davis market.

If the Ike Davis market goes towards a SS or leadoff hitter (like Aoki) then Granderson would make a lot more sense for the Mets.

If the Davis market though becomes power bat heavy, not depending on the position, then I think the Mets may lose interest in Granderson. This could mean a certain player from the Rockies who plays SS (which I highly, highly doubt will happen and is a pie in the sky pipe dream) or a much more likely situation with Blue Jays or Angels. In this case, the Mets would spend money to fill in SS or the rotation.