Tag Archive for Jacob deGrom

Super Bowling

Hi, did you know the Mets begin camp this week? It’s been awhile since the last update… I kept waiting for them to get a guy I’d heard of but little luck in that department.

My Super Bowl Sunday read on the ’24 Mets is that they will have a hard time keeping up with the pitching of Atlanta or Philadelphia but hopefully can hit with them, portending lots of 7-6 victories. If they’re in it still come July then they go get the starters they need.

So who are these guys? And what number are they gonna wear? Here’s an early breakdown of the 40-man roster with little help from the Mets’ roster pages.

Tyrone Taylor appears to be issued No. 15. He’s the speedy reserve outfielder we picked up from Milwaukee along with pitcher Adrian Houser, for Coleman Crow, one of the guys we got from the Angels in the Eduardo Escobar trade. I’m getting a Collin Cowgill vibe from Tyrone, hopefully his results are better.

As for Houser, he’s among a bunch of guys–three-fifths of the projected starting rotation–waiting to be assigned uniform numbers. Houser wore 37 in Milwaukee so he’s looking at a change. Taylor was 15 there.

Free-agent infielder Joey Wendle is shown with 18, his number with Miami. Give the Mets’ plans to retire 18 for Darryl Strawberry this summer, it’s a good bet this doesn’t last.

The Mets will be the 9th team for journeyman lefty sidearmer Jake Diekman, who appears to be bound for No. 35. He signed a 1-year+option deal with the Mets.

You know the roster is unreliable when there’s huge swaths of unclaimed digits but two guys assigned the same number. That’s what’s going on with No. 48 where two free agents–outfielder Harrison Bader and reliever Jorge Lopez— both have a claim. Lopez wore 48 with Minnesota and Baltimore. Bader wore 48 with St. Louis. Either guy would be the Mets first 48 since Jacob deGrom.

Free agent reliever Michael Tonkin is listed in 59. I suppose he’s the Mets’ answer to losing Luis Guillorme to the Braves.

Rounding out the 40-man roster but without assigned numbers are starting pitchers Houser, Sean Manaea and Luis Severino; former Pittsburgh reliever Max Kranick; infielder Zack Short; and reliever Yohan Ramirez. They are all new  to the Mets this year. Youngsters Alex Ramirez and Luisangel Acuna will also be assigned numbers too.

Manaea has worn 55 most often in his career and that would appear to be available here. Severino was 40 with the Yankees; that belongs to Drew Smith now.

Finally there’s free agent reliever Shintaro Fujinami. The Mets haven’t even made his signing official a week+ after the news got out but I’m hoping he joins so as to have a No. 11 on the mound. When he joins there will be a guy whacked. I’d reckon one of Reed Garrett, Grant Hartwig or Josh Walker but who knows.

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Cy Old

It didn’t take long for the Mets to address the vacancy of Jacob deGrom as Steve Cohen threw a pile of money at Cy Young winner Justin Verlander who joins 38-year-old Max Scherzer at the top of the rotation. Verlander will be 40 next year so I’m tempering my expectations while still fretting over the prospect of retaining or replacing Brandon Nimmo, securing a reliable designated hitter, and making sure the club has a rotation that’s young enough and deep enough to count on. Carlos Carrasco, the current No. 3 starter, will be 36. Then you’ve got the relatively unproven arms of Tylor Megill and David Peterson. Another arm would be nice.

Verlander will be the first Mets 35 of any substance since Dillon Gee (2010-2015) even though eight guys have worn it since him, most recently the emergency catcher Michael Perez.

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Exes in Texas

If you believe the reports there wasn’t anything that could have been done to prevent Jacob deGrom to fulfill his childhood dream to play for the Texas Rangers, which I always thought to be one of those teams who every so often bang a fist on the desk and insist they win a free agency lottery.

As wonderful a player as deGrom was–and he was awesome from the start–he was also inscrutable and frustrating. Even his injuries were mysterious, and it hurts that he turned his back on us like it did when Darryl Strawberry departed, albeit with a more obvious chip on his shoulder. Let’s say deGrom is departing with a chip on his elbow.

I can only imagine how Steve Cohen will take this bit of news but I’m preparing for one or two big strikes on the free agent market. I’m not a big fan of 40-year-olds, but Justin Verlander is out there; a decade younger but with a spottier track record in Carlos Rodon, then there’s the promising Japanese League import Kodai Senga with whom the Mets have reportedly met in person. I could see the club sign two of the three and bring back Chris Bassitt too.

Meantime the Mets continue to collect obscure castoffs that might make for bullpen depth or sixth starters: Most recently ex-Ray Jimmy Yacabonis; and Denyi Reyes, formerly of Baltimore.

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Going, Going, Dom

Dom Smith, who on his best days looked to be a challenger for Pete Alonso and on his worst an AAA outfielder/first baseman who couldn’t fulfill the glaring need for a left-handed hitting DH, was nontendered by the Mets last night, ending a career with the club that started as a first-round draft pick in 2013. Smith was tossed aside along with Sean Reid-Foley, the bulldoggish reliever who came over from Toronto in the Steven Matz trade.

Dom Smith departs as the Mets’ all-time leader in home runs among guys who wore No. 2 (with 21, surpassing Marv Throneberry‘s 16!) but it should be remembered that Smith spent the early part of his career wearing 22 where his 25 jacks rank a distant third to Kevin McReynolds (122) and Donn Clendenon (45).

You could make a case that Smith was the Mets’ all-time No. 2 but Mackey Sasser is the best compiler (most plate appearances, most RBI and the highest batting average). Free-agent Justin Turner would be third. Of the brief visitors let us not forget Juan Uribe, though my all-time No. 2 remains Bobby Valentine.

Reid-Foley was released while undergoing rehab from Tommy John surgery. Smith had his own injury woes over the years including a famous sleep disorder and an ankle sprain. The acquisition of Daniel Vogelbach and his more cost-effective salary sealed Dom’s fate.

These moves came as the Mets shore up the fringes of the 40-man roster which as of now has just 33 guys, so there’s a lot more to come, presumably more impactful than the quintet of DFAed relievers they’d also recently acquired. They are William Woods, a righty fringe prospect from the Braves; two former Marlins arms, righties Elieser Hernandez and Jeff Brigham; Stephen Ridings, a towering righty from Long Island who pitched last for the Yankees; and Tayler Saucedo, a lefty snatched from the Blue Jays. None of these guys have assigned numbers yet. Hernandez and Brigham cost the Mets a low-level prospect in hard-throwing Franklin Sanchez.

They Mets made no moves to protect their eligible prospects from the forthcoming Rule 5 draft–outfielder Jake Magnum seemed the likeliest–but it would seem the Mets could add this way if they so chose while keeping an eye on resigning or replacing dudes like Seth Lugo, Jacob deGrom, Brandon Nimmo, Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker and Adam Ottavino.

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Losing Nimmo

The 2022 Mets were built to win but are they built to last?

Although closer Edwin Diaz signed a new 5-year deal already, there could be three starting pitchers on their way out: Jacob deGrom who apparently has interest in Texas; Chris Bassitt, who rejected the qualifying offer, and Taijuan Walker who didn’t get a qualifying offer.

Then there’s Brandon Nimmo, who could depart for Colorado on the verge of becoming the undisputed all-time No. 9 in team history.

He’s pretty much that now, I’d ague, even if Todd Hundley has a season’s worth more games played, more home runs (123-63) and way more RBI (388-212). But Nimmo has the superior OBP (a 9-best .385) and his slugging percentage is just a tick below Hundley’s at .441 to Todd’s .447. Nimmo is in fact 4th overall in career OBP among all Mets, so he’s not the kind of guy a contending team wants to lose.

The Mets have a lot of decisions to make including replacing president Sandy Alderson. I’m pretty much out of ideas myself, so what do you think?

 

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Sucker Punched

Nothing to be alarmed about, but now I have a different reason for temporary spotty availability. But while I’ve got the chance to say it I was shocked the Mets didn’t do any more at the trade deadline and underwhelmed with what they did but that it appears to be working so well shows how little I knew, and not for the first time. The takeaway as I see is Billy Eppler and Steve Cohen’s hedge-funded baseball geniuses might know more than me and I should trust them now, or we’ll find out I was right along but now I don’t want to right now.

I never thought Contreras, even as he fit one need rather nicely, being a catcher who could hit, was quite the right solution (catchers are hard to break in the best of circumstances and with Alvarez en route, foolish to put those kinds of expectation on him in the moment). It also tells us the Mets had seen enough of the each of nearly every opening-day best-case-scenario options at DH (Robbie Cano, Dom Smith and JD Davis), have all three failed given the shots they had; but also they saw none of the temp-depth guys (Inciarte, Jankowski, Blankenhorn, Lee, Plummer) belong here at least now.

Plus Tyler Naquin was the last of the three Reds I might have taken soonest (Luis Castillo and Tommy Pham were available too, no surprise).

And that they had a lot more faith in me of the following:

We’d see Jacob deGrom ever again.

That Trevor May would ever resurface. Maybe even Tylor Megill.

That the problem with Drew Smith wasn’t, as I’d suspected, part of the bad luck all around the night Max Scherzer called for the trainer and walked off the mound, when it appeared all Smith could do to resist an inappropriate thing on on a baseball field with 30,000 watching with one of the three Sports Illustrated swimsuit models throwing out a ceremonial first pitch right there between home plate the pitcher’s mound (she seemed to be considering it is all I’d say as a body language interpreter in the Promenade that night). Instead it was some kind of injury, only the kind of injury that makes you give up way too many home runs.

So that’s also why we have Mychal Givens in the bullpen, along with May, and deGrom is in the rotation but I missed most of the game. Givens is a guy whom I know Buck trusted, so you have to think he asked for it too and though so and I’m beginning to definitely trust in Buck. Like Megill, Givens’ first name seems spelled wrong too.

Quick wrapup for these Mets who are unpredictable in all the right ways and went sneaky-smart at the deadline when balls-out was the seeming call to action.

Naquin is hitting the crap out of the ball in 25. Givens is No. 60. Darin Ruf (who seems to spell his first AND last names improperly) was assigned 28 and platooning with Babe Ruth Vogelbach at 32. That Davis-Ruf trade was also a straight-up Uni-Swap and I think the Mets paid more for him and for Vogelbach as I liked Holderman and Davis but I’m not arguing with results.

That was a magical win over Atlanta last night, in a magical year, and they did it while the Braves did seemingly did so much more to prepare. I watched the game last night and wanted nothing more that to be there. That was something, and I was at the Wednesday night Yankees game.

Someday I’ll tell that story.

 

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What Outfield?

It’s a shame Sandy used that joke already because anything to diffuse the one on the field every night would be welcome. Lots of bad news on the injury front–besides the return of Jacob deGrom this evening which I’ll be watching live (or dead) in Citifield tonight.

Quickly catching up on Team Scrubeenie, there’s Yennsy Diaz in 64; Brandon Drury in 35; Wilfredo Tovar (man he’s put some weight) in 72 and as expected, Cameron Maybin in 15. James McCann is hitting 3rd and playing first base because Tomas Nido is the best hitter on the team. Johneswhy Fargas is the second-best so he went and collided with the wall last night.

 

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Quattlebombed

What’s next for these guys?

As you might have noted I’d been kinda leaving the Mets alone in hopes they’d reveal themselves as one thing or another but looks again that might be a while.

Waiting to hear the result of Jacob deGrom’s MRI as I write this and fresh off the midnight whacking of the club’s two hitting coaches, still waiting for any kind of consistency, injuries, frustration, dreadful slumps, sloppy play, moments of glory, innings of crap, hours of games: Mets Baseball 2021!

I even got out to Citi Field for the first time in more than a year a week ago tonight and can report that it remains 20% colder and damper than anywhere in NYC. That evening Peterson struggled, the offense struggled even more and we lost to a Red Sox team that should have beaten us worse. I’m now fully vaccinated, licking doorknobs, and you’ll find me out there most every Tuesday night.

Catching up on roster moves we’ve seen the debut of Jose Peraza (18) finally after a couple non-appearances and had Daniel Zamora (73) up and back. Word is Jordan Yamamoto (45) is on the way and I thought only hours ago that could be for Stroman and not deGrom.

That was a strange firing, a weird press conference and some curious dat-after reactions: I miss the beat writers in the clubhouse to sniff these things out. I found Zach Scott’s detachment and business-speaky remarks dissatisfying, as were the softball questions from the participating journos and the day-after narrative: Pete Alonso crying? After last season? The strong relationships Davis forged over zoom? Has anyone noticed Francisco Lindor has 3 RBI, is leading the team in plate appearances, and is hitting .160?

The roster doesn’t yet list the uni numbers of the new coaches, perhaps we’ll know when deGrom’s diagnosis comes in. By the way, coaches all wear sweatshirts over the unis anyway–and I’m certain Chili Davis didn’t suit on Zoom last year– so I’m barely aware that they Davis had been wearing No. 54 and Slater 56. You’d think Hugh Quattlebaum and Kevin Howard would take those respectively, then wear sweatshirts over them.

 

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Giveaway Day

We’re piecing the numerical roster together as guys appear and the job would have been easier and less stressful had our overmatched young manager Luis Rojas not made a complete disaster out of last night’s opener, showing off his new team instead of trying to win.

I probably don’t need to remind you of this but Rojas was the second choice of the previous administration, managed the best-hitting team in the league to miss the playoffs by a mile in the easiest season there ever was to make the playoffs then shamefully turned last night’s mismatch into a giveaway.

I’m trying not to come off as your dad here. Rojas himself said deGrom would have been good for 100 pitches beforehand, only to fall back on a cowardly and unconvincing revelation that it was “ups” and not pitches all along, but essentially, arguing that either would have valid when neither was. This is a confused and untrustworthy kid out there. What an awful waste. I hadn’t been so excited for an opening day in five years.

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Star Search

Well the season remains frustratingly hopeless, and I’ll shortly be off to Flushing to watch Zack Wheeler (along with returning bullpen stiffs Avilan, Familia and Wilson) audition for the Yankees, but let’s take a moment to celebrate the naming of three deserving All-Stars from this year’s roster.

It needed to be pointed out to me that Jeff McNeil became the first Met All-Star ever to wear the number 6; then again, McNeil is doing lots of things no No. 6 has ever done. And that prompted my pals at the Crane Pool Forum, particularly Faith & Fear’s own Greg Prince, to assemble this handy numerical list of all Met All-Stars, by the number. (correcting the accident of transposing the Cone appearances):

1 Ashburn (two games-1962), L. Johnson
2 Valentine (Mgr)
3 Harrelson (2)
4 Snider
5 D. Johnson (Mgr), Wright (7)
6 McNeil
7 Kranepool, Reyes (4)
8 Berra (Mgr), Carter (4)
9 Hundley (2)
10 Collins (Coach 2x, Mgr)
12 Stearns (4), Darling
13 Alfonzo, Wagner (2)
14 Hodges (Mgr)
15 Grote (2), Beltran (4)
16 Mazzilli, Gooden (4), Lo Duca
17 Hernandez (3), Cone-1992
18 Youngblood, Strawberry (7), Saberhagen
20 H. Johnson (2), Alonso
21 C. Jones
22 Leiter
24 Mays (2)
25 Bonilla (2)
26 Kingman
27 Familia
28 B. Jones, Murphy
29 Viola (2)
30 Conforto
31 Franco, Piazza (7)
32 Matlack (3)
33 Hunt (2), Harvey
34 Syndergaard
35 Reed (2)
36 Koosman (2)
37 Stengel (Coach)
40 Zachry, Colon
41 Seaver (9)
43 Dickey
44 Cone-1988
45 McGraw, Martinez (2)
47 Orosco (2), Glavine (2)
48 deGrom (3)
49 Benitez
50 Fernandez (2)
52 Cespedes
57 Santana
75 Rodriguez

Well, this means the Mets still need an 11, a 19, a 23, a 38, a 39 and a 46 to make the All-Star club.

As to the roster changes, relievers Wilson, Avilan and Familia are up and that means Brooks Pounders, Steven Nogosek and Chris Mazza are down. Along with Carlos Gomez’s recent DFA, that’s a lot of high-uni numbers banished. Also, Luis Guillorme is back, and Chris Flexen is down. Lotsa high numbers out.

 

 

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