Monthly Archives: July 2009

July 29, 2009

The Phils get Cliff Lee…and the Mets look to 2010

By Richard Gross

While Omar Minaya stayed out of the limelight today and prepared his flaming bag of poop for Adam Rubin, his Phillies counterpart Ruben Amaro, JR pulled a meisterstroke and got Cliff Lee from the selling Cleveland Indians. Let’s look into the deal that more or less sealed the deal in the National League East for 2009.

The Phillies get Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco. Francisco is a righty outfielder that has been hot (.329/.435/.643 in July) and has played 35 games in center field, but is only passable anywhere in the outfield (-5.9 runs in center field career, -11.8 runs overall this year). He’s better against lefties (.810 OPS versus southpaws, .755 against righties), so he’ll probably be the guy that spells Raul Ibanez (.758 OPS versus lefties career) against the occasional strong lefty.

Cliff Lee is the big haul. He may not be as good as last year (22-3; 2.54/1.11), but add this year’s numbers look more sustainable (3.14/1.30), although the ERA looks a little low for that WHIP. He does it by not walking anyone (BB/9 under 2 two straight years), and striking out enough to keep the opponents honest. One big step forward for him last year, which he sustained last year, was getting his fly ball rate down under 40% for the first time. That’s huge for him going into that bandbox in Philadelphia. Expect his HR/9 rate to go up (1.02 career, .59 this year), but the ERA may not change much as he’ll have some free outs while pitching to opposing pitchers.

Lee immediately vaults a previously suspect pitching staff into the elite in the division and decent in the league. Cole Hamels, Lee, Joe Blanton, Jamie Moyer and J.A. Happ is solid all the way through and strong at the top. Now the team has no need to depend on Pedro Martinez, another plus.

The best part of the whole deal for Philadelphia is that it didn’t give up any of the elite prospects that the Toronto Blue Jays were rumored to covet. The team’s top-4 prospects, outfielders Dominic Brown and Michael Taylor, and pitchers Happ and Kyle Drabek are still in the organization, which is a huge coup. That is not to say that the Phillies did not give anything up. Cleveland got an okay haul, but the group lacks a high upside, impact player.

Carlos Carrasco doesn’t have great overall statistics in the minor leagues (4.14/1.32), but recently the righty has been striking out about a quarter of the batters he’s faced, and his 8 K/9 career is promising. His fastball can reach the mid nineties but is usually in the low 90s, but it’s his changeup that is his outpitch. He’s also improved his walk rate steadily over the last three years and can probably be a middle-of-the-rotation starter if he continues to refine his slider and smooth out his motion.  Right there, an alarm bell should have gone off in Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro‘s head. Shouldn’t the best prospect in the deal have the upside of the player you are giving up?

Some reports have the jewel of the trade as single-A righty Jason Knapp, however. He certainly has nice numbers, but he was born in 1990. He won’t be in the majors for a little while. 11+ K/9 with a sub-1.2 WHIP means that there is a lot to like. The thinking is that if he can’t harness his secondary pitches better, he’ll end up in the bullpen.

Catcher Lou Marson has some defensive questions, but his .276/.372/.388 line provides some optimism for his bat, even if its a little underpowered. In the higher minors, he’s shown he can hit for average and if he stays behind the plate, he can give his new team some insurance if top prospect Carlos Santana doesn’t work out. (This also means that Victor Martinez is probably out the door, and I’d guess he’ll go to Boston.)

Shortstop Jason Donald rounds out the four-man group. He is really struggling this year (.235/.296/.33) across two levels), but his overall line (.286/.369/.436) is impressive for a shortstop. He’s shown good range (3.93) and has cut his errors this year all the way down to four in 51 games. He can be a shorstop, the question is, will he hit?

So the haul wasn’t impressive and it’s possible that Mark Shapiro got took. On the other hand, this should be doubly upsetting to the average Met fan: Not only did the Phillies get better, but there’s no way that Omar Minaya could have made this deal. He doesn’t have the prospects, no matter what he claims. Prospects #5-9 on the Mets wouldn’t have gotten the team 2 months of Jarrod Washburn, much less 8 months of Cliff Lee.

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July 27, 2009

Omar Minaya has a Bad Day

By Richard Gross

Omar Minaya had a very terrible day today. It may have been just as terrible for the average Mets fan to watch.

To give some of the backstory first, we have to introduce a man by the name of Tony Bernazard, the (former) Vice President for Player Development. Apparently, Tony has a problem with his temper. Amid whispers of unrest and gruff behavior that led to players mocking the VP behind his back, enterprising young reporter Adam Rubin decided to investigate.

Rubin has been covering the Mets as a beat reporter for the Daily News since 2003. He also blogs daily on Surfing the Mets, a recommendation for all of you Mets fans out there. By all accounts, he is a hard worker that knows the minor league system up and down and produces volumes of analysis about the Metropolitans. For our taste, he doesn’t always reference the advanced statistics of the field, but then again, he is published in the Daily News. Perhaps numbers aren’t huge in their demographic.

I digress. Rubin checked out Bernazard’s behaviour and found a couple incidents worth writing up. In an article he published on July 22, Rubin told the story of a steaming and confrontational front office employee that lorded his status over the players and employees beneath him. Buried in the story was an anecdote in which Bernazard loudly berated an employee in the middle of an inning for not being more expedious in confiscating a seat for the VP from a Diamondbacks scout.

But the lead, of course, was that Bernazard took over a team meeting in AA Binghamton and displayed some bizarre behavior for a VP of Player Development. Apparently, he took his shirt off and challenged the players to fight him. He deluged a couple players in particular with some salty words, and even singled a player out for his unmanly performance. Binghamton had been blown out for a couple straight games, you see, and have one of the worst records in all of the minor leagues. He couldn’t have that.

As strange as the story may already be, it only got weirder as Omar Minaya became involved. He claimed to Rubin that the team was looking into it at first, but that there was no action imminent. Then, seemingly, the story changed a little and Minaya admitted that there was a three-week-old HR investigation into the VP’s behavior. Then came today’s press conference.

An obviously upset Minaya was shaking at times with emotion as he described that the situation had determined that he must cut ties with a (former) valued employee. An HR investigation had found that his behavior had been inappropriate, and the relationship couldn’t continue. The emotion of the hour seemed to be anger, yet resolution to move forward. Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post confirmed my suspicions on Twitter when he replied to me that it was obvious that Minaya was very upset at having to fire “his buddy.”

Unfortunately for Minaya, he turned that anger on a man in the room. As a complete non-sequitur, Minaya attacked Rubin during questioning. Watch him go off the deep end:

Omar Minaya: No, no, I’m not saying that. All I’m saying was, that I know that when you wrote the reports, but I am saying, that in the past, you have, have lobby for a player, for a for a job …

Adam Rubin: If I were interested in working in player development somewhere in the major leagues at some point in my life, how did that impact this situation at all?

Omar Minaya: I said, because, when the reports came out a lot of these things were cross… I said ‘Who’s writing these reports?’ and I said well OK who’s writing the reports and in the back of my mind, Adam, you have told me you have told other people in the front office that you want to work for player development in the front office.

Adam Rubin: So what you’re alleging is that … the only conclusion I can draw from that is that you’re trying to allege that I tried to tear everyone down so that I could take their position. Is that what you’re saying?

Omar Minaya: Adam …

Adam Rubin: It seems pretty despicable to say that.

It’s not sticking up for the fellow writer to say that Minaya looks terrible here. Not only is this a terrible forum for him to air his greviences, it is also not his place to question the integrity of the columnists covering his team. That’s for their editors. If he wants to put in a call to the Daily News, I think Rubin’s editor would take the call. In fact, Rubin’s editor-in-chief, Martin Dunn, DID have something to say:

This was a well-reported, well-researched, exclusive story, and it’s a shame that the Mets deemed fit to cast aspersions on our reporter instead of dealing with the issues at hand. We stand by Adam 1,000 percent.

If Rubin had gotten anything wrong, Minaya might even have a case. But here is the GM of the Mets, basically insinuating that a lead beat writer was orchestrating some sort of witch hunt in order to get him and his cronies out of their leadership positions… so that the writer could take their jobs. Does it get any more ludicrous? Rubin himself was (almost) lost for words:

I’ve never asked Omar directly for a job in baseball. I’ve spoken with Wilpon in the sense of probing him about how do you get a job in baseball. I don’t know how I’m going to cover the team now. I’m absolutely floored. To make this the story now is obscene.

Someone must have told Minaya that he was inappropriate, because he hastily called a press conference before the game and apologized. The half-hearted apology just focused on one thing: “For what I raised before, that was not a proper forum for me to raise those issues,” he said. Yes, but what about the core assertion itself, that Rubin was angling for your job? That wasn’t ludicrous, it just was timed incorrectly?

Some writers cross over into the baseball front office. But would Adam Rubin suddenly become the GM of the Mets? Would he even be considered for the VP of Player Development? No. This is Minaya, being paranoid. This is Minaya, lashing out at his critics. This is Minaya, cornered.

This is Omar Minaya, the (former?) GM of the New York Metropolitans.

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July 25, 2009

What about Brad Holt?

By Richard Gross

While reading a competitor’s blog recently, I was shocked to find reference to Nelson Figueroa as a prospect. People, a 35-year-old minor league veteran spot-starter should never find himself in the same sentence as the word ‘prospect.’ Perhaps the writer was just being facetious.

Of course, within that statement was the less ludicrous assertion that Brad Holt was the Mets’ best pitching prospect right now. And that’s an entirely different assertion. I’m sure that Holt’s name comes up all the time as Omar Minaya goes trolling around the big leagues to see what he can get for his struggling team. Should Minaya consider trading the youngster?

Holt is Minaya’s first round draft pick from last year. A 22 year-old, he improved his velocity, strikeout rates and walk rates every year at North Carolina Wilmington, and hit the ground running by continuing his improvement in the Mets’ minor league system. He’s a big 6’4″, 195 pound right-hander that has newfound velocity in his last two years.

Now he sits in the mid-nineties with his fastball and has a nice, clean delivery according to most scouts. His inconsistent slider is getting better with every pitch, and has good upside. His changeup is continually getting better but will always be his third pitch. The knock on him going into the draft was a lack of an out pitch, but he’s currently striking out over a man per inning, so that secondary stuff must be developing nicely right now.

Counting his first 14 starts in rookie ball and 16 starts so far this year, Holt has put up a full year with a 3.06 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 11.2 strikeouts and 3.4 walks per nine. He’s giving up 1.8 homers per nine innings right now, which is a bit of a warning sign with a player that was supposed to lack an out pitch. Another warning sign is his age: as a college-bred pitcher, he has been old for every level so far.

If he can improve his secondary stuff further, better his home run rate and continue his success without his strikeout rate dropping any further, we should be seeing Holt in the major leagues by September. Actually, we’ll probably see him even if he doesn’t do all those thigns: this bullpen could certainly use the help.

Given how favorably Holt’s statistics and makeup compare to Bobby Parnell‘s, it seems that the best way for Minaya to think about the two is that Parnell is the tradeable asset and Holt is the one to protect. For one, we know that Parnell is no starter, yet Holt is still starting and shining in the minor leagues.

The verdict? Don’t trade him!

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July 22, 2009

Why Omar Minaya Needs to Listen

By Richard Gross

Omar Minaya went on the offensive a little bit while in the booth on SNY during last night’s game. Perhaps he is feeling the heat. To paraphrase the gyst of his discussion, he basically said that it doesn’t matter if people think that the Mets organization doesn’t have prospects because ‘people that know’ and ‘people that evaluation skills’ are the only ones that matter.

Let’s just leave out the fact that he didn’t point out any people that DID matter, or what those people might think. That isn’t something he’d admit on television, and probably because it isn’t pretty. And let’s also leave out any hurt feelings a member of the blogosphere might feel at hearing words like that. Though he made some vague references to being in New York and people that didn’t know what they are talking about, this blogger understands that he’s never been to scout school, and that he’s learning every day.

But let’s not leave out all the people that do know what they are talking about. There are plenty of news organizations that have scouts on their staff and some cache in the business of baseball, and across the board, they agree: the Mets have a barren minor league system.

Baseball America: The premier source on prospects had this to say about the Mets’ prospects this year:

The Mets also included Venezuelan righty Deolis Guerra in the deal that brought Johan Santana to New York. While they’d make that move again and again, it further depleted a system that was already thin at the upper levels. When injuries created a need for an outfielder in July, they had to promote third catcher Robinson Cancel because their Triple-A New Orleans affiliate was barren.

Baseball Prospectus: Though a little more numbers- based than BA, BP also gives a nod in the direction of traditional scouting. They ranked the Mets’ minor league system at 18th in the major leagues and remarked that they may some day get out of the bottom half. When waxing negative on the system, they also had this to say:

Ike Davis‘ debut was so bad that they can’t just write it off; the defensive home of fellow 2008 first-rounder Reese Havens is still uncertain; Brad Holt needs to improve his secondary stuff to avoid being categorized as a reliever; will Fernando Martinez ever stay healthy for an entire year?

FanGraphs: A leading website on statistics and analysis, FanGraphs features unique statistics cited by leading media figures. They’ve had writers that have entered mainstream baseball work, and they have had this to say about the Mets’ minor league system in their organizational rankings:

Minor League Talent:: B-

Is Fernando Martinez the next Hanley Ramirez or Ruben Rivera? His aggressive promotion schedule makes his performances tough to judge in proper context, but most still believe in his physical abilities. Jon Niese is a good but not great pitching prospect, and Wilmer Flores and Jefry Marte are high upside guys that aren’t anywhere close to the majors. So, while there’s talent, there’s not a lot of upper level depth, and there aren’t any guys on the system who don’t have a real question mark that needs to be answered.

Scout.com: A website that focuses solely on prospects, Scout.com aggregates information and has a scouting and writing staff of its own. After a partnership with Fox, their profile is rising. They felt that the Mets only have two prospects with 3 or more stars in Wilmer Flores and Fernando Martinez, and that the Mets as a whole have only eight of the top 300 prospects in baseball this year.

So it’s not just a couple bloggers in their underwear saying that the Mets’ farm system is barren at the top and questionable at the bottom. Plenty of people with ‘evaluation skills’ also believe that to be the case.

Now, with the Daily News reporting that the VP of Player Development, Tony Bernazard, took his shirt off and cussed at the AA Binghamton team before the all-star break, Minaya’s management skills are beginning to be looked at as questionable, as well. Apparently, Minaya knew of the situation and didn’t think it was a big deal. Until the news leaked today. Now the Mets are ‘taking the allegations very seriously.’

But the rumors have it that Tony Bernazard will keep his job. Someone‘s got to light a fire under these mediocre prospects, eh?

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July 20, 2009

Omar Minaya gets Mets' Boss Wilpon's Vote of Confidence

By Richard Gross

Today, SI.com reported, and the New York Post’s Joel Sherman confirmed via twitter, that Jeff Wilpon gave Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel votes of confidence two weeks ago. You see, with all the injuries, this disasterpiece can’t be blamed on the two guys at the helm. It’s just the way the hamstring tears, you see.

I call shenanigans.

At least when talking about Omar Minaya, there shouldn’t be a vote of confidence applied. And you may be surprised, because I’m not talking about the offense. When you lose men both young (Jose Reyes), middle-aged (Carlos Beltran), and old (Carlos Delgado), you’ve got some bad mojo going. You’re not going to trade Reyes just because he’s had some hamstring injuries in the past. In Beltran’s case, there was little precedent to think that he was breaking down. He’s only 32, and he’s played an average of 149 games since coming to the big city, and though he’s had some tweaks here or there, there’s hardly been a pattern that Minaya should have worried about. Carlos Delgado – well, Delgado was supposed to be backed up by promising young Daniel Murphy, wasn’t he?

No, a team with Alex Cora and Daniel Murphy as the primary reserves on offense seems like it could actually well-built, if a little weak against lefties. From Reyes down to Delgado, the lineup was supposed to be good, and in any other year, might still be. But is that the case with the pitching staff? Decidedly not.

Omar Minaya built a bad starting rotation. There, I said it. It was bad, and it was all based on his obsession with mediocre (but ‘tested,’ oh, there tested!) veterans. The staff had all the makings of a Minaya staff, which is to say that it was top-heavy, veteran-heavy, and had virtually no depth.

Some of the depth he sacrificed in order to get a reigning Cy Young winner in Johan Santana, but Philip Humber and Deolis Guerra probably wouldn’t be helping right now anyway. That seal of a trade was the last good thing he did for this staff.

He inexplicably followed up a good signing (Francisco Rodriguez) with a poor trade in getting JJ Putz. Putz, in 2008, showed a disturbing lack of control (BB/9 over 5, career BB/9 of 3.14) that, mixed with his injury issues that limited him to 47 games with mediocre results, did not make him a good candidate to be the setup man in New York. Hindsight is 20-20 so we’ll give him a pass for JJ Putz. And the fact that he decided to build the rest of the bullpen with young guys and cheap veterans – that was good thinking. Relief pitchers are notoriously fickle, and their production varies too much from year to year to pass out $5 million per year contracts to left-handed specialists. At least Minaya seems to understand that much.

However, let’s get back to that rotation. That rotation is a mess. Why does the team have so much confidence in Mike Pelfrey? I hate to keep harping on it, but I’ve written about how he has one pitch, and uses it too often. If he doesn’t develop a secondary or tertiary pitch, then he’s bullpen material. He’s certainly not a number 2. And yet it was obvious the team was depending on Big Pelf to come through this year. Even in his breakout season last year, he struck out less than five a game. That’s below-average, folks. That’s not a number 2 guy.

John Maine could be a number two, but you can’t depend on him either, not coming off of a year where he tallied 11 starts, had surgery, and showed declining strikeout rates combined with ballooning walk rates. No, Maine was depth: a guy that should have been penciled in as a #4/5 or 6.

The biggest mistake of Minaya’s career was signing Oliver Perez for 3 years and $36 million when one more year would and $24 million more have netted him Derek Lowe. I think it’s obvious that he chose poorly. Yes, Lowe is older. But Lowe has been a better pitcher every year of his career, and when you need a #2, you go get him. When you are the Mets, you don’t settle for a guy that has walked almost five batters per game his whole career, and is called the ‘little girl with the curl’ by the local media (when he’s good, he’s very good, but when he’s bad…).

Think how much better this team would be with even Lowe and his currently unexciting 4.40/1.40 steady hand behind Santana’s. Suddenly, we’re talking about Livan Hernandez as a #5 again, where he belongs. And we’re not talking about Livan as the second-best starter on the Mets currently. That mind-blowing fact is on Omar Minaya’s head.

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July 18, 2009

Possible Met Moves

By Richard Gross

Last night’s 11-0 thumping may have been the nadir, the absolute bottom, for the Mets this year. At least, we hope it was. Cause we don’t want to see if it gets any worse than poor defense, poor pitching, and no offense at all. With Gary Sheffield cramping and out of the lineup for the next couple days of least (and it looked much worse at first), here is your Mets current starting lineup and starting rotation:

CF Angel Pagan
2B Luis Castillo
3B David Wright
RF Jeff Francouer
1B Daniel Murphy
SS Alex Cora
LF Jeremy Reed
C Omir Santos

SP Johan Santana
SP Mike Pelfrey
SP Livan Hernandez
SP Oliver Perez
SP Fernando Nieve

Certainly I expect moves from Omar Minaya, and probably shortly. Here are the moves he could make immediately that would cost less than a grade C prospect a couple hundred thousand dollars, and would immediately upgrade the team slightly:

1) Call up Jonathon Niese
He’s as ready as he’ll ever be, having logged over 500 innings in the minor leagues. His current ERA and WHIP (4.12/1.34) in AAA may not bowl anyone over, but he has 8.2 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9, so he’s been a little unlucky so far this year. And, anyway, he’s more a more attractive option than pretty much any Met starter not named Johan Santana. It’s time to see what he can do for an extended period of time in the major leagues.

2) Demote Mike Pelfrey to the bullpen
As I detailed in this recent post, it’s looking like Pelfrey only has one decent pitch. Though the ability to get ground balls with that decent pitch is good, there’s a place for one-pitch pitchers: the bullpen. He can be the double-play inducing middle reliever that can still help the team. It’s getting hard to watch the yo-yo that is Pelfrey from start to start. Let him clear his mind and rack up some good innings in the bullpen for a while. Just because he was a high draft pick and is young doesn’t mean he deserves to keep getting the ball. In 67 starts and 397 innings, he has a 4.50 ERA and a 1.48 WHIP. Jonathon Niese can probably manage that for now, with upside to boot.

3) Trade a grade C prospect to the Diamondbacks for Tony Clark
It may not be the sexiest move in the book, but the Mets are currently putrid against southpaws. Look at that lineup above and let it register that Jeremy Reed and Daniel Murphy are both bad against lefties, making a mediocre-to-bad lineup even worse. Even Carlos Delgado is bad against lefties. Acquiring Clark and his .800+ OPS against lefties would be an immediate, cheap upgrade at a tough spot for the Mets.

4) Sign Julio Lugo to a minimum deal
Lugo is already supposedly working out at a Mets facility in the Dominican Republic, and Jose Reyes reportedly had a setback in his hamstring recovery yesterday. The Mets deny an eyewitness report from the New Jersey Star Ledger that said that he grabbed his hammy and left an agility drill yesterday. All hand on deck means that Lugo, and his .352 OBP, can give some top-of-the-order help that Alex Cora has so far been unable to provide.

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July 15, 2009

How the Mets Rank in the National League

By Richard Gross

It’s an off day and it’s time to lick wounds and cross fingers. Hopefully the trainers had a good weekend working on Jose Reyes and his thigh, John Maine and his shoulder, and Carlos Beltran and his knee. So, first, here’s an update on the injured veterans:

Carlos Beltran is riding a stationary bike as of a week ago, and he still feels discomfort in the knee, even when not running. Being back by the end of the month would be a minor victory.

Jose Reyes did agility drills and looked good, but despite the good news and the lack of a noticeable limp, he just got a Cortisone shot a week ago, and probably won’t be in the lineup until a little later in the month.

Carlos Delgado has now hit in a cage and done fielding and agility drills with good results. He told the New York Post that he feels positive about cranking it up recently. The original target, July 28, is looking more and more reasonable.

John Maine was scratched from his rehab start and got a cortisone shot June 26. Since then, he’s thrown a side session and ‘felt good,’ but Jerry Manuel thinks he won’t be back until the end of the month, so we’ll have to watch Livan Hernandez, Tim Redding and Oliver Perez battle for the title of next guy to go to the bullpen for another two weeks.

Oliver Perez is in the rotation for now, but we will quickly wish that he was on the disabled list again if he continues to walk seven per start as he did last week in his return.

So it doesn’t look like help is on the way immediately, but if the Mets can stay within striking distance in the next two weeks, reinforcements will be on their way by the end of the month. Three games under .500, the Mets are only 6.5 games out despite playing mediocre ball. On the other hand, the Phillies have been playing well and are 10 over .500, and have scored almost 100 runs more than the Mets this year so far. They were 9-1 on the way into the all-star break, and if they stay that hot, the Mets will fall out of the race quickly.

Let’s just take a look at some basic stats for the team and see where they rank in the National league. Just for reference, there are 16 teams in the National League.

Runs Scored: 375, good for ninth in the league. They aren’t the San Diego Padres, at least, but only seven runs separate the Mets from San Francisco and 13th in the league. That’s as many runs as are between the Mets and the eighth-best run scoring offense in the Washington Nationals. That’s right, the Nationals are outscoring the Mets and this is the prime indicator for the problems in New York.

Home runs: 52, good for 16th in the league. Here, the Mets are worse than the Padres – much worse. The Pads have 79 home runs, a good 50% more than the Mets. Perhaps Citi Field is playing as PetCo East, eh? Let the year playout first, but the power outage in the Met lineup is the most damning feature of the offense that is the main problem for the team.

Batting Average: .270, good for second in the league. If there isn’t a better argument that batting average is an arcane and useless stat in many ways, it’s this one. If you own a .270/.344/.391 slash line as the Mets do as a team, the batting average is meaningless and it’s that last number that jumps out of the page at you. You have to have some slugging or you just won’t compete, good batting average or no.

Earned Run Average: 4.33 and 11th in the league. When your numbers three through five starting pitchers are devoid of upside as Tim Redding, Oliver Perez and Livan Hernandez are, it begins to look a little bleak for your team. We talk as if pitching isn’t a problem, but that’s not quite true. It’s just that the batting is more of a problem. Will John Maine even improve this team ERA, though? Maybe, if only by replacing Oliver Perez and his 8.78 ERA.

Strikeouts: 558 and 14th in the league. No need to mention the starters any more than necessary, but other than stud Johan Santana, only Oliver Perez has an above average K/9 (around 6). And Perez, well, he contributes a lot to:

Walks: 343, or second-most in the league. Yeah, Perez is walking close to 10 per nine. But Fernando Nieve and Francisco Rodriguez are both up around five per nine, too. And the only person in the bullpen with an elite walk rate is Pedro Feliciano, a former lefty specialist masquerading as the setup man this year.

So yeah, actually things seem much worse now than they did before we started this exercise. Looks like Omar Minaya is stinking it up right now, actually.

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July 13, 2009

Why Not to Trade for Jeff Francouer

By Richard Gross

Omar Minaya pulled an old-school baseball trade the other day. Instead of trying to pry a veteran loose from a team that was out of contention, he pulled a challenge trade. My under-performing young outfielder for your under-performing young outfielder.

But maybe that’s not really the best way to describe these two players. At some point, you are who you are. 2462 at-bats into his career, Jeff Francouer owns this mediocre slash line: .267/.307/.429. That’s actually less than mediocre, and bordering on fourth-outfielder status.

Ryan Church has 1557 at-bats and his own mediocre slash line: .272/.344/.443. Those numbers aren’t going to blow any doors down, but you might notice some key differences right off the bat. Church doesn’t give away as many at-bats – his 9.1% walk rate is above average in fact. And though Frenchy had a great debut, Church is the one with the better slugging numbers overall.

Defense is often named as Frenchy’s calling card. Certainly, his tools are impressive, and his arm ranks among the best in the league. He’s been worth almost 35 runs above the average left fielder in his career, mostly because of that arm. Church’s arm doesn’t rank with Frenchy’s, but in some years he’s shown more range than the newest Met, and he’s been worth 16 runs above average in his shorter career. In overall defense per game, some metrics actually have him ahead.

Neither one of these guys plays a cornerstone defensive position, though. The importance of defense in the corner outfield is a little less than the importance of getting elite offense from those positions. But also playing in games is important, too, and Omar Minaya had a money quote in the Star Ledger:

“One thing we like about Francoeur is the amount of games that he plays.”

That seems pretty stupid at first, to put it bluntly. Just playing is not actually a skill, is it? And more innings of less production is not really something to target. The facts are clear, however. Over the last three seasons, Frenchy has played in an average of 160 games a year. Church has averaged 101 games per year over the same time period.

Minaya is in a tough spot. No team could expect to compete with the number of top players hitting the disabled list that the Mets have had this year. Lose that many players, and suddenly a player that has remained healthy his whole career looks better than the player you have that has had concussion problems and some problems getting on the field in recent times.

Yeah, that healthy player can start to look good. Even if he’s the demonstrably poorer talent. Welcome to the team, Frenchy!

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July 11, 2009

Don't Trade Church!

By Richard Gross

Not much time to post today, but not happy about the trade yesterday. Ryan Church is a reliable hitter with a good glove. Jeff Francouer has shown us that we can’t trust him. Don’t get the thinking on this one.

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July 10, 2009

Trade Bobby Parnell?

By Richard Gross

Before we take a look at Bobby Parnell and whether or not he should be traded if another team covets him, I just wanted to give Daniel Murphy some propers. He gets a lot of derision for his poor play in the outfield, but he acquits himself reasonably well at first base, both by the eye and by the numbers. He has nice range there (7.8 RF) and doesn’t make too many errors (his Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) is positive).

Plus, he made this eye-popping play:

Behind the Back Flip

I still believe Daniel Murphy is going to be a big part of this team going forward. Right now, the ball is not really bouncing his way (.260 BABIP currently / .303 career). If he can line the ball up a little better (17% line drives / 22.6% career), he can use his decent speed to be a good batting average, gap-power first baseman with good defense. Plus, he’ll be cheap. I think the Mets should hold on to him.

But Bobby Parnell? I’m not sure I understand Omar Minaya’s obsession with him.

In the minors, his 4.03 ERA and 1.397 WHIP over 470 innings don’t leap out at you. However, he had a K/9 over double digits in a few stops, and his 7.9 K/9 overall are decent. His 3.9 minor league BB/9, however, was the source of his downfall as a starter.

When you move a starter to the bullpen, the K/9 goes up, the BB/9 goes down. When you move to the major leagues however, your K/9 goes down, and your BB/9 goes up. So what happens when you move the the major leagues and to the bullpen at the same time? You guessed it, they stay about the same. Parnell’s major league K/9 is 7.58 and his major league BB/9 is 4.50. These numbers don’t scream ‘keep this guy’ to me. The major league average K/9 is usually around 6.5, and the major league average BB/9 is around three. So he’s got a little above-average punch and a little below-average control.

He’s not going to turn into a closer. If this is what he’s doing as a bullpen guy, he probably won’t turn into a good starter either. What does Omar see in him? He was rumored as part of a Mark DeRosa trade, and part of the reason why that trade didn’t happen. Of course, DeRosa is hurt now, but why would giving up Parnell be a hindrance to future trades?

There might be some velocity-loving happening here. Parnell does own a 95 MPH fastball in a time of declining velocities around baseball. Between that fastball and his 86 MPH slider, 97% of his pitches are accounted for. And the fastball has above-average movement on it – up to an inch more vertically than the average major league fastball.  But the slider has less movement than the average major league slider. It’s a little faster than the average but there’s still the lack of movement.

So, to recap: lots of velocity, decent fastball, and an okay slider. Sounds pretty fungible to me. If someone wants him:

Trade Him!

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