Morning Report – July 28th – Wild Card Update, Hot Stove, Mail Box

Last 5 starts for SP Zack Wheeler - 1.41 ERA in 32 IP



Lucas Duda has 25-HR and 75-BB over last 162 games played



Jacob deGrom now has a 1.37 ERA in his last 7-ST, 45-IP, 1.13 WHIP... 0.66-ERA over last four starts



The prospect side bars are up-to-date through Saturday’s games.

Wild Card Update – 

            Mets – record since all-star break:        5-5 (thru Sun)

                         record last 20 games -               13-7

                                    This week’s opponents: - Phillies, Giants

I guess we should be thrilled going .500 on a road trip like this, but it sure feels like we lost more games than we should have. As you will see as you keep reading, very few teams are cooperating with us by letting us catch up to them. We need another 8-2 run to get things going... 

            Nats – record since all-star break:         6-3 - (thru Sun)

at this point in the 'race', we all want to definitely become Nats fans when they play the Braves. It seems to me that it will be close to impossible to pass both these teams, but we could slip in as one of the Wild Card teams if Atlanta finishes this season behind us. 

                                    This week’s opponents: - at Marlins, Phillies

            Braves – record since all-star break:     4-5

                                    This week’s opponents: - San Diego, at Dodgers, at San Diego

            Marlins – record since all-star break:   7-3  (thru Sun)

The Marlins are playing excellent baseball right now and have won six of their last seven games.
              

                                    This week’s opponents: - Nats, Reds

            Brewers – record since all-star break:   6-4 (thru Sun)

Remember, regardless of how many times this team loses to us, this is the team you want to root to win their division and knock off the likes of  St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. 

                                    This week’s opponents: - at Tampa Bay, at Cards

            Cards – record since all-star break:       5-4  -  (thru Sun)

you need to root for Milwaukee to win the central division... thus, you want them to sweep the Cards next week in their three-games series.

                                    This week’s opponents: - at Padres, Milwaukee

Reds – record since all-star break:         1-8-  (thru Sun)

boy, it must be hard to be a Reds fan these days… you go into the All-Star break thinking you not only have a great chance to be a wild card team, but also win your division and this happens

                        This week’s opponents: - Arizona, at Marlins

Pirates – record since all-star break:     5-3 - 

the Pirates have been on a roll. Theyhave trailed most of the games they have played since the break only to fight back and win. We need some help here, both by the Giants and Arizona

                        This week’s opponents: - at Giants, at Arizona

Giants – record since all-star break:     5-5

                        This week’s opponents: - Pirates, at Mets

Dodgers - record since all-star break:   5-4

Right now, you want to root for the Dodgers to win all their games against the Giants.

                        This week’s opponents: - Braves, Cubs


Summary -  We'll keep this up for at least another week or two, but if the Mets can't play better than one or two of the teams competing for a Wild Card slot, you have to ask yourself if you are really competing anymore.

SP Noah Syndergaard pitched yesterday for Las Vegas and he once again pitched too many pitches early on. Yes, he struck out eight batters and gave up only one earned run, but all this happened over only five innings where he had  103 pitches (68-strikes). This will go down in the books as a positive outing, but he needs to go deeper into the game if he's going to be successful at this, or the major league level.

Hot Stove –

Adam Rubin/ESPN reports that Mets sources close to him have told him that the Mets are not close to any trade for nobody…

The New York Yankees have told the LA Dodgers that they have ‘no interest ‘ in OF Matt Kemp

Ken Rosenthal -  drawing interest in A. Cabrera from teams with need at either SS or 2B. CLE exploring deals for both youngsters, veterans.

The Giants have an interest in Ben Zobrist

Mail Box -

Bob Gregory to me -

Mack, one pure hitter is what this team needs.  A True clean-up hitter.  With that in mind, the Mets can choose to aim for the best or something that could possibly work out.

If the Mets choose to go with a wish and a prayer it seems that Matt Kemp may actually be the best bet.  Reports seem to indicate that the Dodgers may be willing to eat some of the contract and/or accept a lesser prospect haul.

I would hope the Mets would rather choose to aim for the best.  This will definitely be costly in terms of prospects, but I think talent wise, the Mets could be in a good position now to tempt a team that would not normally plan on trading away a talented bat.

Stanton of course would be the prime target here.  Would his every day performance be worth parting with 2 pitchers/prospects such as Wheeler, Syndegaard, deGrom.  Could the Mets maybe add an additional option by acquiring another attractive prospect in return for Colon and/or Murphy?

The result would be Stanton and possibly Flores in the line-up every day vs. losing probably Wheeler and then either Syndegaard, deGrom, or prospect obtained in Murphy/Colon trade from the rotation.

Heck, imagine how nice Springer from the Astros would look in the Mets Line-up.  Again not available, but would the cost in prospects it would take to change the Astros mind be worth it?

In the post-steroid baseball world, is an everyday hitter like Stanton or Springer worth more than pitchers?

Just how much are things changing and are you able to be ahead of other teams in realizing just how much values have shifted?

What do you think? Thanks –

            Mack – Hey Bob, it’s always great to hear from you.

Re “one pure hitter”, there are only so many of these in the game these days and, right now, three are available in a trade… Tulo, CarGo, and Kemp.

You’re going to pay extra for these guys… they come with injury history, some grey in their beard, and a big-ass contract to fulfill.

Also, we haven’t even addressed what each team would want in return, but the Mets have what it would take to pull off a trade with either the Dodgers or the Rockies… young pitching.

We don’t have to spend any time discussing either Stanton or Springer. Neither one of these guys are going anywhere.

Nothing is worth more than young, team controlled pitching. Every successful team is built with them and every other teams want them.

What has Stanton been worth so far to the Marlins? Well, how many playoff games have the Marlins had since Stanton joined the team?

Bob, you get only so many chances to draft in the early rounds. The Mets, first under Omar Minaya and now, under Sandy Alderson, decided to concentrate both their drafting and International signings with young, talented, high ceiling pitching.

I wrote earlier this week that the Mets have 14 possible rotation pitchers through now and 2016. Fourteen. If you have fourteen pitchers that can survive as a major league level rotation pitcher, you can bargain your way for whatever you need.

I’ve said this a number of times… let’s give Alderson through next week to see what he comes up with to address left field. Brandon Nimmo seems capable of playing at the pro level, but I don’t think he’s the kind of outfielder that’s going to make you happy.

Michael Conforto just might be your cup of tea but you’re going to have to wait 2/3 years.

My guess is you will be disappointed this mid-season, but let’s give it to the end of the month.

Bob, one last thing about which pitchers to keep and which ones to offer up in a trade. The Mets have plenty of people in Flushing, Las Vegas, Binghmaton, and roving coaches sent out from the Extended Camp in Port St. Lucie.

They have seen enough of all these guys both as minor leaguers and in ‘Da Bigs, and let me tell you something… everybody that saw Matt Harvey knew he was something special and no one saw any reason to hold him back, He had the talent THEN and he was ready THEN.

What this also means is that pitchers like Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard, and Rafael Montero projected as a pitcher just as great as Harvey was, but they still had to learn to translate that on the field in game conditions.

Wheeler got off to a rocky start, but he’s now becoming the SP2 that Alderson will only trade for someone like CarGo, Kemp, or Tulo… even up.

The wild card that works for the Mets was Jacob deGrob. Once in a while someone comes around like this and makes your job easier.

Syndergaard and Montero have under-preformed their expectations and could head up a list of guys like Colon, Gee, and Niese that all available for the right superstar shortstop of left fielder. Not all of them, but maybe two or three with a Wyoming outfielder thrown in for grins.

Minor Notes –

Lucas Duda is now 12th in NL in OPS, ahead of Robinson Cano, Freddie Freeman, and Adam Jones… Las Vegas OF Andrew Brown now leads team with 17 home runs… Zack Wheeler averaged 97 mph on his fastball Friday night, via Brooks Baseball, and got 16 whiffs on 51 swings… Matt Bowman has dominated after promotion to AAA. Tossed 7 scoreless innings for Vegas before surrendering solo homer in 8th to Salt Lake.,,,  

Mets SS since 2012 entering today: 596 G, 2025 PA, 13 HR, 132 RBI, .075 ISO, .249/.317/.323, .285 wOBA, 81 wRC+, 3.2 fWAR... 

Tulo since 2012 entering today: 264 G, 1090 PA, 54 HR, 161 RBI, .235 ISO, .316/.399/.551, .408 wOBA, 147 wRC+, 11.8 fWAR...