It's Time Again for the Hot Stove League!

So the Mets may sign Bartolo Colon in his quest to win six more games to become the winningest Latin American pitcher in history.

Makes perfect sense, after signing Adrian Gonzalez.  

Wonder if Omar Vizquel is up next for the Mets?

I do not think there is any kind of organized collusion by teams this year. Partly they are all keeping powder dry for what is considered a much better free agent class next year. But there has also been what I think is a permanent diminution of the value of free agents. Teams see that with increased international recruitment and more emphasis on resources in the minor leagues that there has been a larger increase in young talent. And that on the flip side, be it due to the cracking down on steroids or amphetamines, a decrease in the productivity of free agent age players. So I do think that those who expect monster contracts last year may be disappointed unless they are a top top free agent.

mfpark said:

So the Mets may sign Bartolo Colon in his quest to win six more games to become the winningest Latin American pitcher in history.

Makes perfect sense, after signing Adrian Gonzalez.  

Wonder if Omar Vizquel is up next for the Mets?

There's always Julio Franco to coax out of retirement.

Or John Franco, for that matter.

Colon might end up being the #3 starter on this team, after everyone gets hurt.  I think he's worth a shot.  He eats innings, hits for power, what more could you ask for?

Hits for power!!!!      

FilmCarp said:

Colon might end up being the #3 starter on this team, after everyone gets hurt.  I think he's worth a shot.  He eats innings, hits for power, what more could you ask for?

Latin American scouting and recruiting is currently very important to success in MLB. It is a big part of the reason why Omar Minaya is back with the Mets. Giving Colon a chance to do something historic can only help with that effort.

giving guys minor league deals or MLB minimum deals is so low-risk that it's just stupid when Mets fans criticize it.  But there are an awful lot of knucklehead Mets fans.

Wilpons are cheap and that is the reason they go after the MLB minimum players.   

And yes, every now and then one of those players might pan out but signing older or broken down players is not going to get them to the playoffs.   

Mets are banking on their pitchers staying healthy this year - but usually teams with good pitching go after good defensive players since they know their hitters will not carry the team.  Mets potentially have good pitching but their defense is below average which will frustrate the younger pitchers when all those grounders find holes instead of being easy outs.    

depending on who they get to play 2B, the defense will be much improved over last year.

ml1 said:

depending on who they get to play 2B, the defense will be much improved over last year.

Not saying much.  still weak at 1b, outfield is average, and not sold on their SS.  And the mets seems to feel they need a 2b who can hit first, defense second.  Just a really mediocre team with two really good pitchers.  Harvey might regain what he had but who knows.  add that to a new manager and hard to see this team beating out the Nationals.   

It seems these days that there is no way to predict outcomes.  It all depends on number and lengths of injuries.  On paper at full strength Washington is a better team, but who knows who will actually play.

FilmCarp said:

It seems these days that there is no way to predict outcomes.  It all depends on number and lengths of injuries.  On paper at full strength Washington is a better team, but who knows who will actually play.

Dodgers had more days lost to injuries than any team in baseball last season and somehow they did ok.  

Yes, they did.  Does that exception  make me wrong?   

Ok, I know most folks around here don't care much about the Milwaukee Brewers.  I mean, no one here will likely be upset that the Brewers just summarily axed their long-time, loyal, hometown, unionized hot dog and brat vendor (Klement's Sausage) for a union-busting filler-stuffing competitor without even a chance to negotiate a new deal (although the Brewers may lose the racing bratwursts as a result--not sure on whether the team or Klement's holds the image rights).

But perhaps you might find it interesting that the Brewers just traded a top prospect and three decent prospects for Christian Yelich, late of the Marlins.  He is absolutely worth every prospect they gave up.  He is 26 years old, hits well for average with moderate pop, runs exceptionally well, and can play all three outfield positions.  He is good for their need for a center fielder, assuming they don't also land Lorenzo Cain (they are one of four teams reportedly in the hunt).  Yelich is controllable for four years at relatively below-market rates (especially compared to Cain or even Bruce) all locked into a contract, with a $15M club option for the fifth year against a modest buy out. 

Yelich is the type of young player you build clubs around--a solid role player who has enthusiasm and multiple skills.  Of course, the Mets could not be players here because they have almost no prospects to trade.  The Brewers have been stockpiling prospects for the last two years by trading off veterans, and now even with this dump they still have several good outfield prospects to trade for pitching, plus a low enough payroll (Yelich is low impact) to still chase Cain or perhaps Yu Darvish.  Another example of how the Mets are in a deep hole and it is going to take a number of years to dig themselves out.

Meanwhile, I pity the poor Marlins fans.  Jeter will go into the Hall of Fame in 2020 on the first ballot, but Miami fans will likely be burning his effigy rather than celebrating his induction.

Yelich does not figure in the Mets plans, cheap owners or not. I don't get the slamming of Mets on that (elsewhere on web). Cespedes-Lagares (give him the job, fer pete's sake)-Bruce-Conforto-.....Nimmo

Outfield is done, trade for an outfielder not a good fit.

You beat me to it, mfpark! I LOVE Yelich. What a player. Disciplined power hitter who hits for average, above average speed, AWESOME glove and he's SO YOUNG. Good for Yelich. He wanted out after seeing the heart of the batting order (and 2/3 of the outfield) go bye bye. But what the heck is Jeter doing?! This unloading is about the worst I've seen from the Marlins, a team that has traded over the years Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, Mike Piazza (after a week), Al Leiter, Edgar Renteria, Moises Alou, Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Kevin Brown, A.J. Burnett, Livan Hernandez, Ryan Dempster...I'm sure I'm leaving a bunch out. He's going to be, if not already, the most hated man in Miami. I wonder what JT Realmuto or Martin Prado are thinking now?

mfpark said:

Meanwhile, I pity the poor Marlins fans.  Jeter will go into the Hall of Fame in 2020 on the first ballot, but Miami fans will likely be burning his effigy rather than celebrating his induction.

Trust The Process!

Indeed, Lorenzo Cain to the Brewers for $80M over 5 years.  The Brewers now have Cain in center field, Yellich in one of the corners, and four decent other outfielders for the other corner position (including an aging but still solid Ryan Braun who is likely to see a lot more DH at bats this year). 

Here is why I am bashing the Mets, my NL hometown team that is boring me to tears these days:  The comment above was that "Yelich was not a fit for the Mets, their outfield is set."  Well, the Brewers had no room for Cain and Yelich both, with their main needs in the starting and long relief areas.  But the Brewers realized that they had a chance to grab two really good outfielders, one for a relatively cheap price with long term control, and then use their other outfielders as trade chips to improve their pitching.  It is that kind of thinking that eludes the Mets brain trust it seems.

DaveSchmidt said:

mfpark said:

Meanwhile, I pity the poor Marlins fans.  Jeter will go into the Hall of Fame in 2020 on the first ballot, but Miami fans will likely be burning his effigy rather than celebrating his induction.

Trust The Process!

There are indications that Project Wolverine is relying on some fuzzy math and dubious revenue assumptions:  http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/barry-jackson/article192646499.html

mfpark said:

(including an aging but still solid Ryan Braun who is likely to see a lot more DH at bats this year). 

How many can that realistically be?

Train_of_Thought said:

mfpark said:

(including an aging but still solid Ryan Braun who is likely to see a lot more DH at bats this year). 

How many can that realistically be?

Sorry, meant when they play AL games.  Not sure how he will fit into their lineup with Yelich and Cain on board this year

 "....every MLB team next spring will receive a one-time payout of $50 million as a result of MLB’s sale of digital media company BAMTech to Disney."

WTF is Bamtech 

BAMTech is behind all those ballpark cameras recording exit velocity, fielding range, etc.

(Not to be confused with CHS’s MOMTech.)

ETA: Disney’s Big Bet on Streaming Relies on Little-Known Tech Company https://nyti.ms/2yQE0NO

OK.

I have no interest in knowing how fast Melky Cabrerea ran to track down that fly ball to left center.

That stuff is total overkill.

Exit velocity of the ball off the bat is the probably the dumbest and most useless stat ever conceived by baseball aficionados.  And there are a LOT of useless stats in baseball.

DaveSchmidt said:

BAMTech is behind all those ballpark cameras recording exit velocity, fielding range, etc.

(Not to be confused with CHS’s MOMTech.)

ETA: Disney’s Big Bet on Streaming Relies on Little-Known Tech Company https://nyti.ms/2yQE0NO

I'm not a big fan of WAR, either.

And yet they just made a lot of money off of it.

if metrics are applied in the right circumstances, they can be enlightening.  For instance, I wouldn't use WAR to try and determine if a guy's batting average in May is due to a truly bad start, or some bad luck.  But I might look at average exit velocity and BABIP to see if he's due to regress toward his lifetime average over the next couple of months.

Fact is, there are a lot of really smart guys whose well-paying careers are dependent on them winning baseball games.  And those guys use these metrics when they are trying to put their teams together, and trying to decide whether guys should stay in the lineup, or be benched.  

And most of the metrics that are being used to evaluate players aren't particularly esoteric anyway.  WHIP is a straightforward stat, as are BABIP and OPS, K/9 and K/BB.  

ml1 said:

iAnd most of the metrics that are being used to evaluate players aren't particularly esoteric anyway.  WHIP is a straightforward stat, as are BABIP and OPS, K/9 and K/BB.  

My hunch is that most of the opposition to the newer metrics is that they are new.  Even as I can appreciate them intellectually and analytically, they are still very foreign to my brain and they do not speak quickly to me.  It is kind of like when older folks (like me) try to learn to live in a world of Celsius and grams and kilometers--i.e., a metric universe.  No matter how much time I may spend in Canada or England or France, my first thought will be to reach for a heavy winter coat and hat when I hear on the weather report that it is 23 degrees out.

Even though I realize that a batting average is a relatively weak descriptive statistic for hitting prowess, it is still a comfortable and readily understandable metric for me since I have been tracking it from childhood.  Similarly, even as I know that OPS is a more comprehensive descriptor, I still have to stop and ponder what the figure means every time I see it.  

I know immediately who the batting average .427 refers to, or .406 (and I bet a lot of you do as well).  But the OPS of 1.42 and 1.38 mean nothing to me, and in fact, leave me kind of cold and not connected to baseball history (these are the two highest OPS figures recorded, both belonging to Barry "The Clear" Bonds).  

And then someone will argue that the OPS+ is yet better, and someday soon someone will come up with yet another stat, based on a statistical model used to analyze black holes, that captures all environmental data in the stadium during each at-bat including humidity, wind speed and direction, crowd noise level, and varieties of beer sold in the stands.  

At some point it becomes impossible for this old brain to integrate all these new measures and models, and it is comforting to wrap myself back in the simple stats that I inhaled along with the smell of stale gum from the backs of baseball cards.