No replacing Yoenis Cespedes, so here’s another idea for the Mets

Yoenis Cespedes, set to have surgery on both heels and expected to miss up to 10 months and perhaps more leaves the New York Mets in a predicament of how to replace his production. He has been riddled with injuries since signing his four-year, $110 million contract to remain with the Mets and the team’s fortunes have spiraled in direct proportion with his absences. When he’s played, they’ve been good; when he hasn’t played, they’ve been bad.

The positive aspect to the announcement is the end to the ambiguity. The Mets had functioned with a daily dread that even when he was deemed healthy, he was one step away from another injury that would keep him out for three months.

So, now they know.

Replacing him is a separate matter, especially considering the uncertainty in the front office with the departure of Sandy Alderson, the current tri-head GM of John Ricco, Omar Minaya and J.P. Ricciardi, and the club’s unknown strategy and payroll going forward.

There are calls for the Mets to tear down the entire structure and rebuild, but such a position is absurd. Trading the likes of pending free agents Asdrubal Cabrera, Jose Bautista, Devin Mesoraco and Jerry Blevins is obvious. Players under team control through 2019 – Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores – should be moved if there is a sufficient return, albeit steeper than what they will get for those approaching free agency.

Regarding the idea of trading Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard, what sense does that make when there are three different people who are vying to get the top job and no set plan in place?

If the Mets are truly thinking about trading deGrom or Syndergaard, that is a decision that must be made by the new permanent head of baseball operations, whoever that is.

That brings us to how best to move forward if the Mets truly intend on competing in 2019.

Given the structure of the club being built around pitching and the opportunity to get younger, a spin from Alderson-led strategy of slow-footed, feast or famine players who played station to station and did little other than hit occasional home runs, the Mets have an opening to do something that has not been done full tilt since the Whitey Herzog St. Louis Cardinals of the 1980s: build a team based on speed and defense with the pitchers to back up that strategy.

The Mets have been notoriously slow in recent years. They have been lacking athleticism, devoid of versatility, and shoddy defensively.

The words “small ball” have been largely extinguished if not outright excommunicated from the game like they’re a toxic disease that only anti-vaccination fanatics fail to see the damage they can do, but with deGrom getting losses or no-decisions in 12 starts in which he pitched at least six innings and surrendered 3 or fewer earned runs, would the Mets not have been better-served to get runners on base in the early innings, push the envelope by stealing bases, bunt them along when appropriate, get a lead and force the other manager’s hand to make desperate moves because they cannot fall behind by one run?

This is contingent on starting pitching – something the Mets have in comparative abundance.

Some have indulged in delusional speculation that with the money the Mets will save via insurance payments for David Wright and now Cespedes, they should go big in this winter’s free agent market by pursuing Manny Machado and/or Bryce Harper. Hypothetically, if the Mets were willing to make that level of expenditure, why would players in demand like Machado or Harper want to join the Mets with the club’s reputation for disarray, dysfunction and injury?

More to the point, the type of players who would fit into the aggressive style of play are available should the club be willing to eschew the glossy signing and go for an actual planned construction with players who can do more than one thing.

Ian Kinsler may be 36 and struggling at the plate in 2018, but he remains a superlative defensive second baseman with speed to steal 15 to 20 bases and hit 20 home runs. He’s a free agent, won’t cost a draft pick, nor ask for a long-term contract.

Billy Hamilton is available and despite his poor OPS, he’s a defensive stalwart in center field who, if turned loose, could easily steal 80 to 100 bases.

With Amed Rosario playing better and more aggressively, Brandon Nimmo’s skill at getting on base, the remaining potential in Michael Conforto, hackers like T.J. Rivera and Jeff McNeil who might not bring the precious walks that sabermetrics advocates pine for, but collect hits, would this type of team have a better chance at competing than the ones the Mets have put on the field in 2017-18?

When the club is slumping offensively and is not hitting home runs, what do they do to score? There’s no stopping speed; there’s no viable defense for the panic that ensues when there’s a runner on base who might steal at any moment and the team is aggressively forcing the action with hitting and running, exhibiting derring-do on the bases and showing fearlessness. In games where they’re not hitting or getting on base, their defense will be a contribution.

Since the Mets have failed in every other attempt to fill in and replace costly players who are hurt; with their annual strategies imploding as if that was their intent, how much worse could they be if they did something that hasn’t been done since the mid-1980s – and worked – with their most hated rival at the time that twice sabotaged the dominant Mets teams of Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry?

Those Cardinals ran wild on the bases, caught the ball, and won three pennants in six years. This is a preferable strategy to the Mets trading their cost-controlled faces deGrom or Syndergaard for “Random Prospects X, Y and Z” and the team couldn’t be any worse than it is now. They’d certainly be more interesting.

Keep subsidizing the Mets’ lies and ineptitude and the lies and ineptitude will continue

For the record, when typing the word “lies”, I initially typed “liens” which, when discussing the New York Mets, could also be accurate.

There’s an unfounded and borderline delusional expectation that one day a light switch will turn from off to on and the Mets will understand that random jumping from one philosophy to another, doing just enough to maintain fan loyalty that tomorrow will be different, and a series of moderate changes are no longer sufficient to build a consistently thriving organization whose location in New York City should yield a commensurate bottom to top structure with competent management and proper funding.

The Mets operate on occasional success and point to it as validation of their haphazard strategy. They won the pennant in 2015 and a Wild Card spot in 2016 – isn’t that enough for you?

They spent big from 2005 to 2010 and almost won the 2006 pennant and would have won the World Series had they reached it. If there was the extra Wild Card in 2007 and 2008 as there is now, the Mets would have made the playoffs in both years.

Aren’t you happy with that?

Would’ve, might’ve, should’ve. There’s a time when these words are applicable, but not as a blueprint.

Winning teams that consistently succeed do not operate that way. There are standards. There’s structure. There’s a real blueprint crafted by professionals who can explain why they’re doing what they’re doing and take steps to bring it to fruition.

There are teams like the Mets who are sort of trying and there are teams that are legitimately trying. They’re not saying they plan to make improvements, they make improvements! Now, it’s possible that those improvements will not result in the desired end of a championship, but it cannot be said that they only tried when it was convenient for them and they were selling fans on a mythical product that only occasionally works with the fans (customers) continuing to buy it out of brand loyalty.

Are the Mets as cruel and dismissive of their fans as the media narrative seeks to purvey?

No.

They did spend money in this past offseason and the idea that the Wilpon family does not want to win is preposterous. They’re not operating in the Jeffrey Loria vacuum of profit above all else with nothing – the law, league rules, good taste – getting in their way. There is, however, an aspect of doing just enough to keep the fans coming back and then knowing – not hoping, knowing – that there will be a large faction of customers who will keep purchasing the product no matter what.

Is there a defense for the Mets with the ongoing drama and rumors regarding a potential Jeurys Familia trade? Until said trade is completed, there’s no fair judgment of it.

Is there a defense for the Yoenis Cespedes drama? The Mets were reluctant to trade for Cespedes because of his mercurial reputation and that he was a pending free agent. The trade won the Mets a pennant. Cespedes wanted to stay with the Mets and the Mets were again reluctant amid concerns that once he was paid, he would settle into a lackadaisical “I’ll play when I feel like it” attitude. They re-signed him to a mutually beneficial contract where he could opt out after one year. In 2016, he was an All-Star, a top-10 finisher in the MVP race, and a Silver Slugger award winner. Then he opted out and the Mets, with pressure from the fans and media, re-signed him to a contract worth $110 million. In the year-and-a-half since then, they’ve gotten 110 games played and the constant fear that he will tweak, pull or tear a muscle or claim to have an injury that he could potentially play through just because he feels like taking some time off and is annoyed about something when no one knows what.

Now that he’s back on the active roster and played one game after missing two months, hitting a home run and being that mid-lineup threat, he says he has calcification on his heels and will need surgery to fix it. The recovery time is eight-to-ten months.

The Mets are being whipped for this information when, with Cespedes, there’s a sense that the medical diagnoses are being revealed as they come out of his mouth and the club was completely unaware of this new sequence of events until they heard it for the first time when Cespedes said it.

Are they at fault? Partially for having a strength and conditioning coach who allows Cespedes to bear squat half a ton; and partially for enabling him; but Cespedes is at fault as well and the Mets’ fears of giving him a long-term contract have largely come true.

Despite the objective truth that most of the big free agents who would have filled Mets holes and signed elsewhere have been mediocre at best and terrible at worst; that the players the Mets signed have inexplicably all been disastrous, the fundamental flaws in the Mets structure are the root of the problem.

The Yankees and Dodgers can absorb mistakes because they have the money to do so and the willingness to admit it and swallow it – something the Mets should have and obviously through financial limitation, conscious choice or both – do not. But there are other issues that the Mets face and are based on borderline incompetence. The Yankees and Dodgers have the farm systems to trade prospects for upgrades or to recall those players and have them contribute. The Mets do not and there’s no excuse for it. Having a healthy organization goes beyond money and the willingness to spend it on upgrades at the major-league level; it means having a system that, at minimum, has players who can play competently and the decision makers have the ability to accurately judge them or sell them to other clubs.

That does not happen in Queens.

The media is complicit in the narrative and it garners the desired reaction from already angry fans who need little prodding to respond like a Pavlovian dog. The Mets’ financial situation has been the catalyst for a vast proportion of the expectation that money above all else will be the determinative factor in how a trade like the one they are struggling to complete with Familia plays out. So, it’s easy to rile up the fans when one of the tri-headed GMs, John Ricco, says the Mets are willing to eat money on contracts to get a better return and then that story is flipped upside down as the Mets are negotiating that trade. Saying that they plan to spin terrible 2017 and 2018 seasons around quickly is one thing, taking the steps to do it is another.

Beat writers, insiders and columnists have been spending their time with ludicrous ideas of a Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard trade to the Yankees when even they know it is not going to happen. They seem to get valid information just seconds before it is announced by the club and cannot be trusted any more than “FAKE TWITTER ACCOUNT X PURPORTING TO BE AN INSIDER”.

They too should be ignored.

The fans are the key. The ones who keep buying the product and then complaining about what they bought are making the basic error in how to get a better product: Stop buying it when it’s not good and wait until it is good.

Don’t buy tickets.

Don’t go to games even if the tickets are free.

Don’t buy memorabilia.

Don’t call sports talk radio discussing the team.

Don’t take part in any activity related to the team.

This is simple economics and business. If the entity would like to continue earning a profit and the customers are no longer buying what is being sold, the entity needs to change so the customer will again feel confident enough to spend money on it.

Until that happens, the Mets will keep going as they have with ownership dropping occasional crumbs dropped to loyal fans amid the belief that it will keep them quiet and buying for a few years. And the owners have been right. Once they’re wrong and the fans do not keep swallowing the storyline, subsidizing the lies and ineptitude, things will change. Not before then.

Mets trade candidates: Will they stay or will they go?

With Manny Machado the first star name to be traded with just shy of two weeks before the non-waiver trade deadline, let’s look at the New York Mets trade candidates, who will stay and who will go.

WILL BE MOVED

Jeurys Familia

It is a certainty that Familia will be traded. Even if the Mets have an eye on re-signing him, it makes zero sense to retain him for the remainder of this season. They are not making the qualifying offer for a closer so they cannot even make the “draft pick” argument to retain him. They’re not crawling back into playoff contention. There’s no point in keeping him.

Like almost every closer in baseball today, Familia is occasionally shaky. He loses the strike zone and is prone to the longball. However, he does have a predominately successful postseason resume and his fastball is reaching the upper-90s again. There should be a good return for Familia of perhaps two top 10 prospects from an interested organization.

Asdrubal Cabrera

Cabrera will also be traded. Another player who would not receive a qualifying offer from the Mets, he is having a “sing for his supper” season with 17 homers, and an .824 OPS as he heads toward offseason free agency. He has remained on the field for the entire season and would be a solid addition to a contender as a second or third baseman. With that pending free agency, he would not complain about being shifted back to third, opening the door for multiple teams.

They’re not getting a giant return for Cabrera, but a reasonable expectation would be mimicking the Curtis Granderson for Jacob Rhame deal from 2017. Rhame has struggled, but has a promising arm.

Jerry Blevins

Blevins has been miscast as a pure lefty specialist by manager Mickey Callaway. As he too heads for free agency and with a proven track record as a dependable reliever despite his poor results in 2018, the Mets will still not get much for him – a low-level minor leaguer probably outside of a club’s top 15 prospects – but teams will have interest and he will be sent to the middle of a pennant race. Perhaps a landing spot is back where he began his major-league career in Oakland with the surprising Athletics.

MIGHT BE MOVED

Zack Wheeler

The Mets are in a difficult spot with Wheeler. Although his injury history and penchant for losing the strike zone are problematic, he has hit a groove under Callaway and pitching coach Dave Eiland that is clearly giving the organization pause before dealing him when he finally appears to have figured it out.

The offers on the table for him should predicate their next move. If it is a return that surpasses a potential 2020 draft pick from a rejected qualifying offer when he hits free agency after 2019, they should pull the trigger. Short of that, maybe they’re better-served to retain him and hope his evolution is legitimate.

Wilmer Flores

Flores is a free agent after 2019 and it’s difficult to discern whether he’s playing first base regularly because the club is showcasing him or that they have seen more than enough of Dominic Smith to realize that Smith is not the answer and Flores should be playing ahead of him regardless of Smith’s status as a first-round draft pick, service time and trade considerations.

Flores has two positions: first base or DH. With the talk that the DH may be coming to the National League sooner rather than later and Flores’s still untapped 30-home run power and history of late-game heroics, unless it’s an offer too good to refuse, the Mets should hold onto him.

Devin Mesoraco

Mesoraco has acquitted himself well since joining the Mets in exchange for Matt Harvey. Teams might be interested in him via trade. There is an argument that since so many entities insist that based on the numbers Kevin Plawecki is a serviceable starting catcher, the Mets should open the door to play Plawecki every day for the remainder of the season to get a better gauge on him by moving Mesoraco.

A free agent at the end of the season, there is no qualifying offer attached to him – not that the Mets would offer it anyway – so he’ll get a job for 2019. Given the sorry state of the catching market, he could end up back with the Mets. The return would be light, so it makes little sense to trade him.

Jose Bautista

Bautista has rejuvenated himself sufficiently with the home runs, walks and defensive versatility that the Mets could get a middling prospect for him. If that is the case, they need to pull the trigger and likely will.

99.9% WILL NOT BE TRADED

Jacob deGrom

Much of the chatter comes from agenda-driven media outlets and from deGrom’s own representatives.

None other than Michael Kay came up with a Twitter-based poll with shocking results straight out of North Korea or the MAGA/Fox News wing of the Republican party that Mets fans would be fine with trading deGrom to the crosstown Yankees.

Columnists are pushing the idea under the pretense that the Mets can immediately replenish their farm system with a bounty of prospects. While true, it’s also a storyline that generates a lot of web hits, shares and retweets. Just because this is a fact does not mean they should do it.

For his part, deGrom expressed his desire to remain with the Mets, but his agent created a controversy over the All-Star break saying that if the Mets are not willing to sign him to a contract extension now, perhaps they should trade him.

It’s all noise. The Mets are under no obligation to trade him because deGrom has no bargaining power. He’s not a free agent until after 2020. If he says, “Trade me.” The Mets can say, “No.”

And that’s the end of that.

Financially, deGrom would certainly like the security of a $100 million deal or more, but he’ll get $12 million to $15 million in arbitration for 2019. For someone like deGrom, it’s unlikely that he’s a guy who wastes his money frivolously; nor is he Curt Schilling believing that he’s going to be a billionaire with cockamamie schemes.

If the Mets are planning on hiring an outsider as GM, it makes no sense to trade deGrom before knowing what the new GM’s plan is. A caveat is that the question of what the prospective GM wants to do with deGrom et, al. will be asked during the interview process. If the GM wants to trade deGrom and Jeff Wilpon doesn’t, that person is not getting the job. Ultimately, it’s up to ownership. Based on that, they will not want to trade a good soldier who brings fans to the park and is one of baseball’s best pitchers.

The only scenario in which deGrom will be traded is if there is a deal on the table that is so lucrative that the team making the trade will be savaged for it. It’s certainly possible, however unlikely.

Noah Syndergaard

Most of the same factors that apply to deGrom also apply to Syndergaard. That said, there is a slightly better chance that Syndergaard is moved than deGrom. The return would be nearly identical because Syndergaard’s injury history and that he’s not having the all-world year deGrom is will be mitigated by him being four years younger and having an extra year of team control. Syndergaard has expressed his desire to stay just as deGrom has, but Syndergaard’s position sounds more like “this is what I’m supposed to say” than the squeaky-clean deGrom. Syndergaard has more of an edge to him.

Regarding both pitchers, if the Mets are truly intent on doing a quick spin and contending in 2019, then they need to retain deGrom and Syndergaard. Presumably, they know that.

Steven Matz/Seth Lugo/Robert Gsellman

All three would bring back a good return, but it makes precious little sense to trade them when there has been a stated intent to contend in 2019 and they’re part of the solution, not part of the problem.

The Mets must trade Zack Wheeler before the MLB trade deadline

It’s easy to become hypnotized by Zack Wheeler’s arm and paralyzed by the fear that just as he appears to figure out how to harness his gifts and seems to be healthy, the New York Mets are debating whether to trade him or not.

There should be no debate. The Mets not only should trade Wheeler before the approaching MLB trade deadline, but they must trade Wheeler. Here’s why:

• He’s only locked in as a Met through 2019.

Wheeler is under team control for one more season after this one. Given the poor state of pitching in general across the major leagues, should he remain injury-free and be little more than serviceable, that should be worth at least $30 million in the current climate. Despite reports that the Mets are in a stronger financial situation than they’ve been in years – believe it or don’t – the approaching trade/sign decisions on Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard take precedence over Wheeler.

Beyond his arm and the perception that he might have put the puzzle pieces together, a major factor of why Wheeler is so attractive as a trade chip is that he is not a rental and whichever team trades for him will have him for another year at a reasonable price.

His current salary is $1.9 million. A guesstimate of his 2019 arbitration award with his 2018 production should come in at around $4 million. Sure, the argument could be made that the Mets could use that themselves, but with them unlikely to sign him long-term and their status as a contender for 2019 hinging on issues that go far beyond the 150 innings Wheeler might give them in a reasonable scenario, it’s better to maximize his value when it’s at its highest.

• Barring a miraculous jump, that value will never be higher to the Mets.

Had the Mets traded Wheeler at any point preceding this one, they would have received very little in return. Since he’s pitched far better than his basic statistics indicate in 2018, has regularly gone beyond 100 pitches and provided six innings-plus in 13 of his 18 starts and has been consistently effective, this goes beyond eye-popping velocity and secondary stuff including a new and impressive split-finger. His control has drastically improved; his mechanics are cleaner and more easily repeatable; and he’s taken the ball every fifth day without the multiple maladies that negatively impacted his early career.

Clearly, manager Mickey Callaway and pitching coach Dave Eiland have had a good influence on Wheeler. That he’s healthy right now makes it of greater importance that they think about this logically and are not hindered by “what if?” Wheeler has always been a “what if?” A few months does not eliminate that the answer was rarely positive until now and it remains speculative.

• He can return after 2019 when the Mets have a better idea of what they are.

Wheeler has been adamant in his desire to stay and, unlike most players, it sounds genuine. He had called Sandy Alderson in 2015 and told him he wanted to stay when he was part of the original trade for Jay Bruce – one year before the Mets acquired Bruce. Alderson said it did influence him.

But this is about current need and pure business. If Wheeler continues his upswing and truly likes being a Met, there’s the looming free agency a year-and-a-half from now. He can return.

The state of the Mets is more pressing in this process than Wheeler himself. Their farm system is weak and they do not yet have a permanent general manager to replace Alderson. They are not contenders and are preparing a selloff of their pending free agents. They are debating what to do with deGrom and Syndergaard. Wheeler is several levels down from those two and is not as franchise-altering should they trade him and it turn out to be a mistake.

Without a permanent GM and a known blueprint as to where the organization is headed – retool or rebuild – nothing major will be done unless a team make a so-called Herschel Walker offer where the question goes beyond the Mets having traded one or both of their aces but to, “They got that much?!?” and openly fleeced the other party.

• He’s healthy.

Wheeler’s Tommy John surgery was more complex than most and was a case study that the procedure is not guaranteed to succeed in the customary time frame, if it succeeds at all.  After missing two full seasons with the surgery and its aftermath, how far he’s come is notable. That said, it cannot be ignored that he finally got back on the mound in 2017 and missed time with biceps tendinitis and arm fatigue.

Almost all pitchers are one pitch, one move, one step away from a long stint on the disabled list. Wheeler has a documented history of it. While he’s making his starts and providing length, it’s better to maximize that than retain him hoping it’s not a mirage.

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These same arguments can be spun around to make the case to retain him. However, judging by the Mets’ needs and the current circumstances, it makes zero sense to hold onto him based on a few months when he’s been with the organization for seven years and this is the first since 2014 where he can be trusted to take the ball every fifth day with solid results. Much of that was due to injury, but it was also because there were times when he seemed to have zero clue where the ball was going once it left his hand and his durability was nonexistent.

It’s always a scary thought to trade that type of talent, especially for prospects. When considering all the variables, the wise decision is to move him and do it soon.

Phun With The Phillies

Todd Zolecki’s piece on MLB.com about the Phillies’ drama sums the situation up perfectly at the end when he writes:

But simply, this is a meeting that never would have happened if the team was playing well. But with the season on the brink, things like this get magnified.

It is nothing a winning streak can’t fix.

Team meetings and entreaties from manager Charlie Manuel and general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. for the club to act professionally won’t go very far. The Phillies’ fortunes will be decided on the field. With a veteran team that has had success for the majority of the past seven years and with players who are earning significant guaranteed paychecks, what precisely can the manager and GM do to get them to “behave” anyway?

Cliff Lee’s reaction to the meeting and scolding was indicative of the attitude that has gotten Lee traded so frequently and placed his name out there as a negotiable commodity again. He can be a moody, petulant brat who is tolerated when the team is going well and he’s performing as one of the best pitchers in baseball, but his act wears thin when the club fortunes are not heading in a positive direction and his attitude grows darker and more sullen. Teams will continue to want him as a true ace at the top of a rotation, but they’ll also be willing to deal him when it gets to be too much. Lee’s pitching great and the team is staggering, placing the depth charges for an explosion like we saw the beginning of over the weekend. When a player moves around as much as Lee does, there’s a reason for it and there seem to be a vast subsection of baseball people who tire of his act. If the Phillies fade out and do trade Lee, it will be to get his salary off the books, to bring back some prospects and to get him out of the clubhouse, not necessarily in that order.

The days of players having to listen to management have been over for almost two decades. The players know they’re going to outlast the manager and GM and if they don’t, they’re going to get paid anyway. Rookies who are hungering to stay in the big leagues and get big contracts of their own are more likely to listen to what they’re told. In certain instances there are the rookies who don’t adhere to the hierarchy and clubs exercise the option to demote them or get rid of them as the Diamondbacks did with Trevor Bauer last winter. That was a form of cutting losses, something the Phillies must consider now.

With the Phillies, what can Manuel or Amaro say to Lee or anyone else who they feel needs to set an example and take things a bit more seriously especially when the team is getting blown out and the players are acting as if they don’t care? “Please stop”? Of course it looked bad to have the Phillies goofing around in the middle of the game, but they don’t want to hear that and won’t listen to it. A manager today can’t be a taskmaster and disciplinarian unless he has a young team that doesn’t have any choice but to listen. A club like the Phillies that has veterans with long-term contracts and has been with the same manager for nearly a decade is going to tune him out when he tries to pull in the reins. It’s just the way the game is today.

What is seen as a laxity of discipline for a team that’s losing is seen as looseness for a team that’s winning. If the Phillies were 20 games over .500 and heading toward the playoffs, joking around even during a blowout would be seen as shrugging off a bad day. As they’re under .500 and debating whether or not to start dealing veterans like Chase Utley, Jonathan Papelbon and Lee, it’s seen as complacency or out-and-out not caring.

The Phillies’ problem isn’t their behavior or their perception. It’s that they don’t have the players to compete with the younger, stronger and better teams in the National League, their farm system is dilapidated at best, and with their contracts a full-blown rebuild is out of the question. They’re in a vacancy. Whether the players sit in the dugout with their hands folded in their laps, cheer on their teammates like it’s high school, or behave in such a way that it spurs the manager and GM to take action to quell it doesn’t make a difference unless they play better and that’s something they do not appear to have the capability to do.

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8:25 AM–MLB Deadline Day

Let’s take a brief look at the trades that have been completed up to now, at 8:25 AM EST.

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White Sox acquire Francisco Liriano from the Twins

It’s increasingly looking as if Twins’ “interim” GM Terry Ryan probably should’ve stayed retired. Getting Eduardo Escobar and Pedro Hernandez for a lefty arm in Liriano—even one who’s a pending free agent—is a nonexistent return on a potential difference-maker down the stretch. And why trade him 3 days before the deadline? Why not wait? The only situation in which to jump at a trade that early is when there’s an offer on the table not to be refused. This was a deal that the Twins should’ve refused, or at least waited to see if anything else came up.

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Blue Jays trade OF Travis Snider to the Pirates for RHP Brad Lincoln

Snider was a 1^st round draft pick of then-Blue Jays’ GM J.P. Ricciardi in 2006 and is the prototypical lefty masher with pop that the supposedly stat-savvy once coveted. He’s gotten chances to play with the Blue Jays and shown flashes of being a 15-20 homer man, but has also endured horrific slumps. Snider’s more of a Matt Stairs-type than an everyday player.

Lincoln was also a 1^st round pick in 2006 who failed as a starter—amid blame being doled on former Pirates’ pitching coach Joe Kerrigan for changing his mechanics—and has found a home in the bullpen. Perhaps the Blue Jays are going to try him as a starter; perhaps the Pirates will give Snider a legitimate chance to play.

Neither is a kid anymore with Lincoln 27 and Snider 24. Both could use a change.

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Cubs trade LHP Paul Maholm and OF Reed Johnson to the Braves for RHP Arodys Vizcaino and RHP Jaye Chapman

Vizcaino is recovering from Tommy John surgery, but had a 100-mph fastball before he got hurt. Chapman is 25 and stagnating at Triple A. He strikes out a batter-per-inning. Johnson is a speedy and useful extra outfielder who can play all three positions.

I’ve always liked Maholm and felt it was a drastic mistake for the Pirates to turn down his contract option when they could’ve held onto him and used/traded him. Maholm is not a rental for the Braves as he has a contract option for 2013 at $6.5 million. That said, this trade is in line with the Braves looking for an “impact” starter such as Zack Greinke, but also placing the likes of Jason Vargas in the category of “impact”. Vargas is not that and nor is Maholm, although Maholm is better than Vargas. It’s a useful and not earth-shattering pickup.

If it were a team president/GM combo in Chicago that was the target of ridicule by the self-proclaimed “experts” in the media and clever purveyors of snark, does anyone doubt that the joke would be made that the Cubs are under the mistaken impression that the combination of an Arodys and a Chapman means they’re getting a 200-mph fastball in some weird Frankenstein mixing and matching of human parts?

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Cubs trade C Geovany Soto to the Rangers for RHP Jacob Brigham

Brigham’s numbers in Double A haven’t been impressive over the past two seasons, but Cubs’ boss Theo Epstein is cleaning house and accumulating arms. Soto was a burgeoning star once, but injuries and apparent apathy from playing with a team spiraling so far, so fast appears to have affected him negatively. The change to a contender with a very friendly home part for hitters is a good move for him.

In a corresponding move, the Rangers designated Yorvit Torrealba for assignment. Is there anyone, anywhere who doubts Torrealba’s going to wind up with the Mets?

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Your 2012 Trade Deadline Reality Check for a 2011 “Guaranteed” World Series Participant—Part II

In this vein, I discussed the Red Sox yesterday. As a postscript, they shouldn’t let a series win in Yankee Stadium delude them into thinking they should do something drastic to salvage a doomed season. It would only make things worse going forward.

Today it’s the other 2011 “guaranteed” World Series participant on the docket and they’re having a far worse season than the Red Sox. I’m talking about the Philadelphia Phillies.

In 2011, the Phillies had put together an “unstoppable” starting rotation and, unlike the Red Sox, they fulfilled their part in the bargain by winning 102 regular season games before getting bounced in the first round by the Cardinals.

Currently 45-57, an unfathomable 16 ½ games behind the Nationals in the NL East and 9 games back in the Wild Card race, they can forget this season. There’s not going to be a 50-10 run to 95 wins this year. With most GMs, I’d say they understand that and will act accordingly, but Phillies’ GM Ruben Amaro Jr. has been haphazard in his decisions. To his credit, he learned from his mistakes and rectified them such as when he traded Cliff Lee away and accepted that he’d left his club woefully short on pitching and traded for Roy Oswalt at the next trading deadline; then he turned around and re-signed Lee.

I doubt there’ll be a blockbuster addition of a bat to gloss over a team that’s 12 games under .500 and reeling after experiencing what the Mets have experienced for years in their house of horrors known as Turner Field in a 3 game sweep at the hands of the Braves. The Braves looked like they took glee in kicking the Phillies after the Phillies (in a retrospectively regrettable decision) ably assisted the Cardinals by playing all out in the last three games of the 2011 season and completed the Braves’ collapse from a post-season berth they should’ve clinched in mid-September.

The Phillies are done for 2012, but that doesn’t mean they can’t prepare for 2013 with much the same core cast. They don’t have much choice with some players. Jimmy Rollins has two guaranteed years left on his contract and is a shadow of his former MVP self. There’s talk of dealing Hunter Pence to free up money, but all that would do is create another hole they’ll have to fill—it’s not going to happen. Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton will be traded. Ty Wigginton and Juan Pierre are probably going as well. Placido Polanco would’ve gone too if he hadn’t been placed on the disabled list with a sore back. If he’s able to play, he’ll get through waivers in August and be traded.

Truth be told, they’re not going to get much for any of the above players. The Phillies will get some volume for their dilapidated minor league system and save a few bucks to bolster the veterans they’re going to have for the foreseeable future. This team in 2013, 2014 and 2015 hinges on the players in their early-to-late 30s, Roy Halladay, Lee, Rollins, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and the other star-level players signed long-term Jonathan Papelbon and the newly signed Cole Hamels.

With Hamels, the Phillies were faced with signing him or signing someone else’s free agent and given his post-season accomplishments and that he’s able to handle the tough town of Philadelphia, keeping Hamels made sense, even for $144 million. There’s not going to be a rebuild in Philadelphia. It’s this crew or bust and they do have the foundation for a rebound in 2013.

There was a stupid concept of them trying to trade Papelbon. It’s ridiculous.

Other speculation has centered around Lee. They’re not trading Lee now and if they even consider it after the season, they’re in essentially the same spot as they were with Hamels in a different way. Any trade would have to bring back a Major League ready player whether it’s a centerfielder and/or a young pitcher who’s going to give them the 200 innings they’ll be surrendering with Lee. They’d also be hamstrung in where they could trade Lee due to the $87.5 million remaining on his deal after this season and his limited no-trade clause. Are they moving forward with a top 3 rotation of Halladay, Hamels and Vance Worley in 2013? For a team whose window is rapidly closing? I highly doubt it. If Lee is put on the block, it would be a year from now and only if 2013 is a repeat of 2012.

That there would be a thought of trading Lee as a “well, maybe we could…” tells me that Lee’s decision to re-sign with the Phillies after they’d unceremoniously dumped him following the 2009 season was a business decision on both ends and there wasn’t all that much “love” with the City of Brotherly Love for Lee and the Phillies. He didn’t want to pitch for the Yankees and the Phillies offered the most money and a venue that his wife preferred. I’m also getting the impression that Lee is a frontrunner. When the team was rolling to 100 wins and he was notching shutouts, all was wonderful; when he’s got a record of 1-6 as we enter August, he’s making faces at his outfielders’ misplays and putting forth the attitude of, “What do you want me to do? I pitched great, these guys can’t score or catch the ball.”

And that’s not good.

The Phillies need to accept reality and that reality says they’re not going anywhere in 2012 and their only hope against spiraling to a 100-loss disaster by 2015 is if their veterans find their games and are healthy and they’re able to clear enough money to import proven commodities to surround them.

This is the team they have and there’s not going to be a housecleaning. It’ll be more of a moderate refurbishing, nothing more.

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The Pirates Are Where The Astros Hope To Be 3-5 Years From Now

Reviving a dead franchise doesn’t happen overnight and creating a Frankenstein monster of discarded body parts (AKA players who no one else wants and have to be overpaid to join a perennial loser) while hoping for lightning to strike at just the right moment is random, desperate and doomed to fail. The Pirates of the past two decades were in the same position as the current Astros club multiple times with rebuilds, plans, schemes and different architects. Now the Pirates are winning with their own young players and a low payroll. The Astros are starting over after years of trying to win immediately and neglecting the farm system. Both sides are acting intelligently.

The Pirates have the prospects to get any player they want via trade, but chose to take the conservative route in getting Wandy Rodriguez from the Astros.

The Astros are clearing the decks in preparation for their move to the American League.

Both sides gain from the deal that sent Rodriguez from the Astros to the Pirates for three minor leaguers, lefty pitcher Rudy Owens; lefty pitcher Colton Cain; and outfielder Robbie Grossman. Rodriguez’s contract stipulations and the amount the Astros are paying is below, clipped from this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Rodriguez’s contract pays him $10 million this season and $13 million next year as part of a three-year, $34 million contract he signed before the 2011 season. He has a $13 million club option for 2014 that becomes a player option because he was traded.

According to an industry source, the Pirates are responsible for $1.7 million of Rodriguez’s remaining salary in 2012, $8.5 million in 2013 and $7.5 million in 2014. The Pirates only receive cash from the Astros in 2014 if Rodriguez exercises his option.

Rodriguez has long been underrated, is durable, and throws strikes.

In addition to the Rodriguez move, the Pirates are recalling top outfield prospect Starling Marte. It’s doubtful that they’re doing it to showcase him for a trade as other clubs would; the Pirates let their prospects play and it appears as if they’re saying that they’re going to win with their youngsters and a financially sensible plan rather than deal them for veterans, increase the payroll and commit to older players. It’s simplistic to say, “Get ‘X’ veteran star and a young team on the way up will automatically be a contender,” but it doesn’t work that way. The Pirates have turned the corner, in part, because this group was allowed to develop together and there are no star divas in the clubhouse to interfere with manager Clint Hurdle’s discipline. I’d be hesitant to mess with the chemistry by importing a star. Rodriguez is not a star, but he’s pretty good and he’ll benefit from the Pirates vast home park and good defense.

For the Astros, the criticism of Jeff Luhnow sounds similar to the grumpy and idiotic ranting of the crotchety old men who wouldn’t understand OPS if it was mixed in their Metamucil as they scoffed and ridiculed the Astros’ hiring of “non” baseball people Sig Mejdal and Stephanie Wilka to be integral parts of his front office. Luhnow partially invites the eye-rolling with the new age titles such as “Director of Decision Sciences” for his hires and his over-technical manner of speaking as if to say, “These are complicated matters,” when they’re really not all that complicated. But none of that matters once the decisions start being made and the Astros are making the right decisions. Are they supposed to spend money on mediocre veteran players to win 70 games when, by the end of this season and next, it’s going to do more damage to the organization?

They’re moving to the American League West in 2013 to a division with the Rangers, Angels, resurgent Athletics and a Mariners organization flush with young pitching. It makes zero sense to keep or acquire veterans now. As for the suggestion that the Astros are getting middling prospects for their veterans, what were they supposed to get? Their system was barren when Luhnow arrived and he’s stocking it with volume and players he might be able to use. He’s slashing players with high salaries like Rodriguez, Carlos Lee and Brett Myers who aren’t going to be with the team if and when they turn the corner into contention. He’s doing the smart thing.

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Where Do the Marlins Go From Here?

This Marlins group is not a “team”. It’s a glued together collection of individuals whose mutual interests—of the front office and players—mixed together to create a toxic mess that’s being dismantled as hastily as it was built. A plan that changes when it doesn’t reap immediate dividends is not a plan at all and with the decision to start clearing the decks and apparently listen to offers for anyone and everyone on the roster, where they go from here is unclear.

It began yesterday with the Marlins trading righty starting pitcher Anibal Sanchez and infielder Omar Infante to the Tigers for three youngsters including top pitching prospect Jacob Turner, catcher Rob Brantly and lefty pitcher Brian Flynn.

Turner, the 9^th overall pick in the 2009 draft, appeared to have fallen out of favor with the Tigers and his status moved from untouchable to gone, but he’s only 21, has a great curve and a prototypical pitcher’s body. The Marlins have gotten torched in dealing for Tigers’ prospects before as Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin didn’t pan out after they were acquired in the Miguel Cabrera trade, but Turner is more polished than Miller was.

Sanchez is a free agent at the end of the season and, when he’s on, is very difficult to hit. He’s had a history of arm problems that he’s overcome in recent years and is going to be more of an immediate help to the Tigers than Turner. Infante is a reliable veteran who plays good defense at second base and has some pop.

Getting Turner is a positive for the Marlins, but does this signal a housecleaning? The construction of the 2012 Marlins wasn’t about putting the best possible pieces in place, but about buying stuff to stick in their gaudy new home. Like the impulse purchases of an instant millionaire, aesthetic and functionality were placed on the backburner in the interest of generating headlines. They needed a manager who was going to spark buzz and had a history of winning? Trade for Ozzie Guillen. They needed a closer? Heath Bell’s out there and he’s a closer. Let’s sign him. They needed a third baseman? Sign Jose Reyes and move Hanley Ramirez to third base. They needed starting pitching? Sign Mark Buehrle and trade for Carlos Zambrano.

It’s simple in the George Steinbrenner sense and actually sometimes works. It did for the 1970s Yankees and the 1997 Marlins, among others. But it’s also failed as it did with the 1980s Yankees and the 1992 Mets.

Who knows what would’ve happened this season had Guillen not caused an immediate uproar by fulfilling his mandate by ranting (mostly incoherently) to draw attention and idiotically said that he admired a loathsome figure in the Miami area, Fidel Castro? If they’d made sure Ramirez was onboard with the move to third base and was committed to being a Marlin, playing hard every day and behaving himself? If Logan Morrison spent as much time concentrating on playing and not expressing his freedom of speech rights on Twitter? If Zambrano was, as Guillen apparently expected, reachable to a countryman and friend who knew him well?

There’s no room for wouldas, shouldas and couldas with the Marlins. Owner Jeffrey Loria and the baseball people act quickly when they’re building and demolishing so this concept of being ready and willing to talk about the entire roster is not foreign to them. The attendance at their new ballpark is 12^th in the National League. They’re not cohesive nor do they appear to like each other very much. It’s understandable to give up on the season and try something else, but what is there to try? Who stays and who goes? And what’s going on in the heads of the free agent signees Reyes and Buehrle? They presumably had it in mind that the Marlins couldn’t care less about promises they may or may not have made at contract time and that the organization will dispatch them at a moment’s notice, sending them to live out the remaining time on their deals in a locale that they wouldn’t have chosen on their own. They signed with the Marlins knowing their history and they have to deal with the fallout.

As rapidly as this was tossed together, it’s being taken apart with the only question being where they go from here. Since it changes so rapidly and without remorse or introspection, I don’t think anyone can provide an answer because not even the Marlins know.

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Mid-Season Player Trade Predictions—American League

If you read the mainstream sites and clearing houses of “rumors”, you’ll see that at any given time approaching the July 31^st deadline there are around 30 different trades with 50+ players that are supposedly being discussed. The problem is the majority of the purveyors of this sludge claim to have “inside information”. But it’s always the same players going to 10 different places, staying put, signing contracts or whatever other fiction they can come up with and it’s done to accumulate webhits and play you for a fool. Most of it is garbage. It’s probably wise to just ignore the “rumors” that pop up since most of them are formulated based on search engine analysis and have little-to-no basis in fact.

Let’s have a logical look at players that are or might be available along with predictions of where they’ll end up or if they won’t be traded at all. The teams listed are sellers, possible sellers or those who are willing or have the need to do something drastic. The National League will be posted at another time.

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Tampa Bay Rays

James Shields, RHP—He won’t be traded mid-season unless a team gets desperate and offers 2-3 legit prospects to get him. He’s signed through 2014 and the Rays are still in contention. I do believe he’ll eventually be traded, but it won’t be until the winter.

Wade Davis, RHP—They won’t trade him.

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Boston Red Sox

Kelly Shoppach, C—He’ll get traded in an “if this, then that” deal meaning if the Red Sox have to trade someone from the current roster to improve the starting rotation, they’ll trade Shoppach simultaneously to fill the created hole.

He’ll end up with the Mets.

Carl Crawford, LF—No one’s taking that contract now. They’ll try to deal him after the season to free money to sign Jacoby Ellsbury long-term and might find a taker if Crawford’s healthy and plays well over the final 2 months. Both Crawford and the Red Sox seem to realize that it would be best if the sides parted. The Red Sox signing him was a mistake; Crawford signing in Boston was a mistake.

Josh Beckett, RHP—Since the media created a ridiculous rumor out thin air that would’ve sent Crawford to the Marlins for Heath Bell and Hanley Ramirez, I’ve got one of my own (only not ridiculous). If they’re going to get rid of Beckett, they’ll have to take a similar contract in return. Beckett is owed $31.5 million through 2014. If the Marlins are desperate to get rid of Bell, how about Bell, Anibal Sanchez and Randy Choate for Beckett?

I’m sure Bell and Bobby Valentine would get along about as well as Valentine and Kevin Youkilis. Or Valentine and anyone else. Which is to say not well. At all.

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Toronto Blue Jays

Yunel Escobar, SS—Escobar may have irritated his way out of another venue and the Dodgers need a shortstop. For some reason, the Blue Jays fancy themselves as contenders and need pitching.

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Kansas City Royals

Jeff Francoeur, OF—He was with the Rangers when they went to the World Series in 2010 and if he was a defensive replacement for the Nelson Cruz in the 2011 series, they would’ve won. Jon Daniels and Nolan Ryan won’t forget that.

Bruce Chen, LHP—They’re not going to trade him.

Jonathan Broxton, RHP—His strikeout numbers are down, but he’s had a solid comeback season as a closer. The cross-state Cardinals need bullpen help.

Jose Mijares, LHP—Everyone needs an extra lefty. The Dodgers are ready to buy.

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Minnesota Twins

Justin Morneau, 1B—They haven’t made clear that they’re going to trade him, but if he goes I say—and have said for months—that he goes to the Dodgers.

Josh Willingham, OF—They’re not trading him.

Denard Span, CF—They’re not trading him.

Francisco Liriano, LHP—He’s in heavy demand and can start or relieve. The Yankees have long coveted him and could use him in either role.

Carl Pavano, RHP—He’s back in his office (the disabled list). He won’t be back in time to be dealt at the deadline, but he’ll get through waivers in August and wind up somewhere. The Red Sox will take him for nothing.

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Oakland Athletics

Grant Balfour, RHP; Kurt Suzuki, C—The A’s can’t justify dumping salary while they’re hovering around contention. They’re not making the playoffs and are playing over their heads, but they’re playing well and moving anyone for reasons other than to improve the team is not feasible.

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Seattle Mariners

Jason Vargas, LHP—Once the bigger names come off the board, Vargas is a viable back-of-the-rotation starter who’s relatively cheap and under team control through 2013. The Braves do lots of yapping about being in on “big” names like Zack Greinke, then wind up trading for a Vargas-type.

Felix Hernandez, RHP—They’re not trading him.

Brandon League, RHP—League is a mediocre reliever, but throws hard and has been unlucky this season. The Giants are always interested in improving their bullpen.

Chone Figgins, INF/OF—What happened to this guy? The only thing I can see as possible is if the Angels are so desperate to get rid of Vernon Wells that they pick up the difference in the two contracts and send Wells to Seattle to get Figgins back. He was a very good player for the Angels.

Kevin Millwood, RHP—I’d probably prefer the veteran Millwood to Vargas. He’s been serviceable this season and has post-season experience. The Cardinals need some starting pitching.

Ichiro Suzuki, RF—According to GM Jack Zduriencik, Ichiro (.264/.290/.358) is still a “franchise” player. Jack Z can start cleaning out his office. Someone would take Ichiro, but evidently he’s not available. This is how teams that lose 90+ games for four straight years are built and maintained!

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