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1. HowardMegdalThe Mets probably have become an easier team to like for some fans so that's a bonus but this could be a move that blows up in the Mets face. There's been some talk that the pitchers don't like working with him but I don't think the numbers back that notion up. I can't say I like this move. Broadway isn't an upgrade to anyone on the Mets pitching staff so he'll probably just be stashed away in the minors.
Omar traded a Latino for a guy named Lance. Is that even legal?
BTW, Jefry Marte hit two homers today. The sad thing is that he raised his OPS to .556.
Why not ask me? I was AT the game.
Well?
OK, no, I didn't see him.
Yes, but how is he defensively?
Kinda sucks, actually.
watching both, Castro may be the better play but you can see that he'd get frustrating to manage.
I won't tout many observed "Santos intangibles" because of a short body of work and he may hit .190 in the next 6 weeks.
But am I surprised by this?
No
It'd have been nice if they could have gotten someone who might project to help them.
What kind of people if not rapists commit indecent assault?
And the obvious response is to trade the best player for a crappy middle reliever.
Who will put bubblegum on people hats?
We all have been to some extent or another. He's the Mets response to the Phils' Ibanez.
I don't think we should trade Murphy. Nor do I think that he's particularly valuable right now.
I would say our most valuable trade chip is either Parnell or Putz, followed by either Mejia or Holt.
I dunno, with Valentin and to a lesser extent Cancel at AAA, I think it's one area where they actually have some OK depth.
Castro's a better player than Schneider; they're both terrible defenders at this point. I'm curious to see how much $$$$ the Mets save with this deal.
None. They pay $1.4 million to make this ridiculous mistake.
I will say that I like Javier Valentin a lot, and he is mashing at Triple-A. They could have had Valentin and Castro, had they been primarily concerned with putting the best players on the field.
Look, I can now root wholeheartedly for Santos to succeed. It was hard the last couple of weeks, because while I wanted him to succeed, I knew if he did in this short time frame, it would push the Mets to do something ill-conceived.
Not that Lance Broadway is a big loss, either. I guess the appropriate reaction is "meh".
Well, he certainly makes the gay Mets' fan swoon. (Click on the fourth picture . . . .)
As for the trade generally, my reaction is basically Dewey's: I'm having trouble caring one way or another about Ramon Castro. He was a great big "might have been" for the Mets, and to worry about trading this guy is just bizarre to me. Look:
1) His future with the Mets is limited to whatever percentage of 115 games he would have played. Maybe -- maybe -- 65 games.
2) With his history of injuries, the odds he wouldn't have missed half of THOSE (or more) weren't all that good anyway.
3) There were enough strong hints coming from the club -- including the unofficial megaphone of the pitching staff, Ron Darling -- that the pitchers strongly prefer NOT pitching to him that I am inclined to believe that the defensive side of this was a lot more important to the decision than the offense. Of course, no one was going to say anything overt as long as Castro was on the team, but you could read between the lines. And you can certainly tell from the fact the Mets were willing to pay the White Sox $1.4M to take Castro and take Lance Broadway in return that they strongly feel Santos is the better bet. And that ain't because of his bat, folks.
Bottom line: what has Ramon Castro ever actually DONE for the Mets, as opposed to what you hoped he MIGHT do, that will make you miss him? He's had more than 157 PAs in a season for the Mets exactly ONCE, and that time it was only 240. Sorry, that's not a player I'm going to worry about.
More good news on the injury front: backup infielder Alex Cora started his rehab assignment at Triple-A Buffalo yesterday and could rejoin the Mets as soon as he is eligible June 2.
Cora was placed on the disabled list on May 18 because of a torn ligament in his right thumb.
The difference between having Alex Cora as the Mets' back-up middle infielder and Ramon Martinez is bigger than the difference between Castro/Schneider and Santos/Schneider. Cora's presence allows Reyes to get healthy without rushing back. When Reyes is back, he allows Castillo not to be overplayed into rickety exhaustion. And he adds another bat who can get on base to the line-up.
To be fair, he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor indecent assault. I don't know the circumstances of the case, though.
ahem...
an incident others are mentioning was what screwed up his best clear shot at a starting job
- and that was self-inflicted
If Castro can stay healthy, the Sox may have him caddy for Tyler Flowers in either 2010 or 2011. There are worse plans (like having Ben Davis on a major league roster).
Broadway succeeds more with polish than overwhelming stuff. His fastball is just average, but he has a plus curveball that he can locate in and out of the strike zone. His delivery and command are solid, and his makeup is a huge asset. He's developing a changeup and is gaining more confidence in the pitch. He has a strong, lean frame and there may be a little more velocity in him.
If you look at his numbers, he seems to have made a nice improvement in his command in 2008, when he cut his walk rate almost in half (from 4.5 BB/9 IP to 2.7), pitching in the same league he had in 2007.
I don't know. Twenty-five year old pitcher with a good curveball. Could still develop into something moderately useful. God knows Buffalo could use him.
But then his home run rate jumped.
I think any hope for Broadway lies in his ability to improve his two-seamer. He can't stay above 90 with his four-seamer.
Sounds like the perfect Citifield pitcher! Pitches to contact, and everybody hits fly balls off this guy, and they go out of every park but his home field.
Omar's a mad genius, I tell you!!!
Sure. He also noticed that Tyler Flowers is hitting .436/.451 in one of the toughest parks for hitters in Double-A.
Moreover, Kenny isn't getting two years of a "front-line" pitcher for Flowers and the magic beans that came along with him from the Braves.
I didn't like the Vazquez trade, and still don't, but that's a little unfair.
1. 64 innings is a pretty small sample size.
2. We all know that Vazquez can be good (that is, has the skills to be good). But we also all know that he hasn't figured out how to be consistently good (hence the 131-133 career record). If Vazquez finishes this year with an ERA+ above 100, that would be great, but it would also be just the second time he's done so since 2003. His full-season ERA+ numbers from 2004-2008: 92, 100, 98, 127, 98. With Vazquez, about 1/4 to 1/3 of the time, you're going to get a great pitcher; the rest of the time, not so much.
3. Vazquez's real strength is that he throws a boatload of innings. His real weakness -- at least, according to Ozzie, and his performance down the stretch last year -- is that he can't pitch in big games. Is Ozzie wrong about this? Maybe. I certainly wish he had kept his mouth shut about it -- that would have meant that they could have kept Vazquez, or possibly traded him for more. But asking Ozzie to keep his mouth shut is easier said than done.
You're drawing the wrong conclusion. They had Vazquez for three years. He didn't approach "front-line" pitcherdom for two years. They decided to move on, and got a decent return.
If they had Vazquez, he could've easily been the same sub-.500, sub-100 ERA+ pitcher he was for the Sox (league change might've done him good), and they'd still be looking for a "front-line" starter with $10 million less to work with.
Vazquez really turded it up when they needed him last year. That's not exactly "front-line."
However, I did believe that getting Vazquez out of Chicago and into Bobby Cox's clubhouse would be a good thing. I've had a number of problems with Bobby over the last couple years, but he and Javy have always had a mutual admiration and I think its the right environment in which for Vazquez to prosper.
I concede that Chicago may not have been the place for Javy to maximize his potential, but sending away a pitcher who at worst is gonna give 200 IP of league averagish performance in return for a guy who most impartial observers think is not gonna stick at catcher and some marginal prospects AND then just two months into the next season make it obvious to everyone that you're going after pitching seems short-sighted.
Hrm. Another example of our fine legal system at work?
But they're not in dire need of it. They just happened to shed a lot of money this year, have a ton of money coming off the books next year, and think they can find a bargain.
It's obvious now, only after he surprised the hell out of everybody by arranging a trade for Peavy. He'll go back under the radar soon enough.
From the pic Sam linked, it looks like he goes for the clean skin look, none of that theatrical pancake. Whatever works.
Obviously, you know what you're gonna get from Buehrle. Assuming one of the two youngsters struggles and having no idea what Colon and Contreras have left, having a consistent innings eater and K machine like Vazquez would lend to some success. And getting the return that they got on Vazquez and seeing what he's doing in Atlanta, Kenny has gotta a little perturbed at Ozzie for pushing Javy out. Granted, he probably needed a league change because if you just look at the splits from NL to AL it's obvious, but getting Flowers, who is destined for 1B or DH, Lillibridge, who really only provides defense at this point, and Gilmore who is little more than a throw in, it's farely easy to point out the winner of this trade.
I think that Williams decided that 2009 was a good opportunity to step back and re-tool for 2010 and beyond. The middle of the lineup - Dye, Thome, Konerko - is very old and very limited defensively (relatively speaking), as is A.J. So he took the opportunity to bring in Flowers (and Lillibridge) after bringing in Quentin last year and he left spots open for Getz, Fields, and maybe Anderson to show what they can do. In terms of pitching, Colon and Contreras give a little depth but still leave open the chance to work in some young starters to see if they can make the jump - as Richard appears to have done. So now they go into 2010 with a potentially solid, and relatively young, front 4 of Buerhle, Danks, Floyd, and Richard. If Getz and Fields work out, that frees Kenny up to work on replacing the old guys on offense.
Meanwhile, 2009 is a good season to do something like this (which, if it doesn't work out, produces a 65-70 win season) precisely because the AL Central is weak, and also because the White Sox have residual goodwill built up among their fanbase from having won their division last season.
There's no doubt the Braves did well to fill a much-needed hole, but the Sox are getting what they need out of it, too, at this point.
A. Does Omar see ANYTHING in Broadway? Looking at the numbers and his history, there's nothing to like about him. Did he just start calling around and tell GMs, "Um, can you give me anything for Castro?"
B. With the Mets in first place, despite all their injuries, is the team now displaying sufficient grit? Santos does, indeed, seem gritty.
C. I'm happy that Jerry defended Fernando. I'm excited that he has two hits today.
A. Does Omar see ANYTHING in Broadway?
- well, who knows, but let me tell you that sam and i DEFINITELY do. lance is mmmmm mmmmmmmm GOOOOOOOOOOOOD
you know that boy's a texan and i sure wouldn't mind meeting him and, um, pressing the flesh....
So re-tooling means trading Richard, Poreda, and other parts for Peavy, after trading Vazquez for Flowers, Lillibridge, and Gilmore. After winning the division and seemingly having the right pieces to compete again, why wouldn't they have one more go with the parts they had. They could have dealt Vazquez this coming offseason if he came up "unclutch" again, with still a year left on his deal.
Last year was the "one more go with the pieces we have" year - this is essentially a rebuilding year.
That nets you a better starter who's four years younger along with a top-flight catching prospect. How is that not re-tooling?
Maybe they're setting up a Wright trade ;)
My point (and I really don't know if you're criticizing me here or not) was that Kenny's focus this offseason and this season has been on optimizing for 2010 - 2011. Trading Vazquez for Flowers gets you there because Vazquez is getting older and Flowers gives you youth to replace A.J. Trading Richard/Poreda for Peavy gets you there because Peavy is a much better pitcher and he's under contract for like 4 more years. And when you put them together, the consistency becomes, in my opinion, more obvious: you net out a better, younger pitcher (who's signed longer) and you get prospects, particularly a very good one at a position of need, on top of that.
As Dewey pointed out, 2008 was a "last hurrah" sort of run. If you keep trying to squeeze out one more "last hurrah" eventually it's all going to come crashing down and you're left with a crappy old team and no prospects coming through the pipeline.
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