Promising pitching prospect Christian Scott is arriving even sooner than I would have guessed and without an obvious need for a starter (unless they cut bait on Adrian Houser or something). Clubhouse video from Florida, where Scott will start tomorrow, shows he will wear No. 45, which belonged last to Sam Coonrod (it belonged to Cole Sulser in Spring Training, only to see him turn up in 54 for his ineffective appearances).
I’m glad they are giving Scott a pitcher number to begin his career and so won’t have him looking like a clown as they’ve forced Jose Butto into with that unseemly No. 70. Butto should go to the clubhouse and demand No. 21 while its still available. He’s a good enough pitcher to pull that off.
Yesterday we saw Danny Young become the all-time Mets leader in wins by a guy wearing No. 81. If you remembered that Johneshwy Fargas was the first to wear 81, you win a prize of some kind.
These Mets have a little scrappiness about them that I like, with a better-than-expected bullpen and a streaky offense that’s not afraid to come from behind like inferior versions of the Mets. But I’m concerned with offense out of the catching position, we were much better off before Alvarez went down and he wasn’t even hot.
Catching up on the downroster churn:
Michael Tonkin was DFA’ed for Julio Teheran, and traded to the Twins
Yohan Ramirez was DFA’ed for Cole Sulser, and signed with the Orioles
Julio Teheran was DFA’ed for Dedniel Nunez and wound up with the Cubs
Tyler Jay was DFA’ed for a returning Michael Tonkin, and re-upped with Syracuse
Kolton Ingram was DFA’ed for Tomas Nido, and re-upped with Syracuse
Michael Tonkin was DFA’ed a second time as Sean Reid-Foley returns, and lands with the Yankees
Zack Short was DFA’ed as JD Martinez arrives,
I can’t think they fired Buck Showalter only to wind up with a Yankee coach nobody’s ever heard of, so it seems like someone miscalculated the ease with which they’d gather in Craig Counsell. I was no fans of Counsell anyway so I’m glad he’s not here but in the end I’d have stayed with Buck all along.
Carlos Mendoza will wear No. 28, and said all the right things at his press conference, but we’ve heard plenty of good press conferences before.
Mendoza’s staff will include returning hero John Gibbons as bench coach, Jeremy Hefner remains as pitching coach and Eric Chavez mercifully becomes the hitting coach again. New to the staff is first-base coach Antoan Richardson and third base coach Mike Sarbaugh. None of these new guys have been assigned numbers yet; Gibbons wore 8 for the Mets until Gary Carter came along, then took 43 and 45.
I don’t pretend to know what awaits the Mets on the free agent and trading markets but reports that the Yankees somehow have a leg up in the Yamamoto sweepstakes by reserving his No. 18 seems worth a thought here. The Mets could play that game too if they weren’t suddenly retiring every number. They in fact used 18–a number traditionally reserved for aces in Japan–for Takashi Kashiwada and Ryota Igarashi, though safe to say, neither was an ace. But both came years after Darryl Strawberry left Flushing in 1990 and nobody seemed to care.