Category Archives: Baseball

Mets’ offseason priorities

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To summarize, we’re looking for starting pitching, we’re looking for left-handed relief and fourth and fifth outfielder possibilities — I’d say in that order of priority.

– Sandy Alderson.

Well, good. I’d probably say a fourth outfielder should be a higher priority than a left-handed reliever, but I’m willing to grant that Alderson might know more about the potential effectiveness of in-house candidates like Mike O’Connor and Eric Niesen than I do.

Though the Mets’ GM doesn’t say anything groundbreaking, all of Adam Rubin’s interview with Alderson is worth reading, if only because it’s refreshing to hear a GM speak logically and without nonsense. The big takeaways: Luis Castillo will probably only be around if he wins the starting second-base job in Spring Training, the Mets will very much look at Daniel Murphy at second base, and Chin-Lung Hu will probably be on the roster as a utility infielder.

The cost of Garza

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Rumors are swirling that the Rays and Cubs are finishing a deal to send starter Matt Garza to Chicago. In return, the Rays will supposedly get prospects Chris Archer, Hak-Ju Lee, Brandon Guyer and Robinson Chirinos.

Last month, about 70% of Tedquarters readers said they would not trade Wilmer Flores and Jenrry Mejia to get Garza. I countered that I might, since both players appear so far off from contributing to the Major League team and Garza is a durable if unspectacular starter under team control though arbitration for several years.

Obviously we have no way of knowing how the Rays value the Mets’ and Cubs’ prospects, but as a point of comparison: John Sickels gave Archer a B+ and Lee a B in his most recent overview of the Cubs’ system. He gave Flores a B+ and Mejia a B.

Archer, like Mejia, is a hard-throwing right-hander who has had success up to — but not beyond — Double-A. Archer is a year older than Mejia, but his status as a prospect benefits from the fact that he was never in the hands of Jerry Manuel. Unrushed, he was able to stay in Minor League rotations for 142 1/3 innings in High A and Double-A. Mejia threw 81 1/3 across five levels (including rehab stints).

For what it’s worth, Mejia had a much better reputation as a prospect than Archer did coming into the 2010 season, before the ill-fated eighth-inning-guy experiment. But Archer’s stature grew thanks to an excellent season.

Lee, like Flores, is a young shortstop who played in A-ball this season. Other than that, they don’t have a ton in common. Scouting reports say Lee is a plus (or even “special”) defender, while few experts believe Flores has any shot of sticking at shortstop. Flores projects to hit for a lot more power, but Lee has shown a lot more discipline in the low Minors.

Still, by Sickels’ admittedly shorthand rating system, Archer/Lee and Flores/Mejia is basically a wash. But since both Flores and Mejia have spent time on both Baseball America‘s and Keith Law’s Top 100 prospects lists in the past, let’s say the Mets pair would have slightly more trade value, if only based on their reputations.

But then on top of Archer and Lee, the Cubs traded Guyer and Chirinos, two players that likely enticed the Rays. Sickels had them at B- and C+ grades, respectively, but both enjoyed success in the high Minors in 2010. Chirinos, a 26-year-old righty-hitting infielder-turned-catcher, appears ready to at least backup to John Jaso behind the plate after a .999 OPS across Double-A and Triple-A in 2010.

I’m not sure there are great comps for either in the Mets’ system. But using sweeping strokes at players of similar caliber, let’s say the Mets could have landed Garza for Mejia, Flores, Sean Ratliff and Dillon Gee (not that the Rays need starting pitching, but whatever). Would you make that deal?

I’d say no. Not because I’m convinced any of those guys will ever produce as much in the Majors as Garza will in the next few seasons, but because it’s simply too much bulk to give up from an already thin system. The Mets, as I’ve been saying for years now, need dudes. Cost-controlled, contributing, non-star dudes. And the best way to get those is to develop them, and the best way to successfully develop players is to hang on to as many as possible, knowing that most won’t pan out.

What am I doing wrong? Is there more comparable package of Mets’ prospects than the one I created? Would you trade that package for Garza?

No love for Johnny Franco

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GC at Can’t Stop the Bleeding passes along this Marty Noble article about John Franco appearing on only 4.6% of Hall of Fame ballots, which means he drops off future ballots for good.

Franco is by no means a Hall of Famer, but he probably has a better case than some Mets fans realize. Franco is 17th all time in ERA+ among pitchers with 1000 or more innings pitched. Franco has a better rate over more innings than Hall-enshrined closer Bruce Sutter, though Sutter pitched far more innings per season (just way fewer seasons) and likely earned votes for both his reputation as inventor of the splitter and his possession of perhaps baseball’s best-ever beard.

Franco didn’t pitch nearly as many innings in relief as fellow Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage, plus he didn’t have nearly as cool a name. Also, for whatever it’s worth, Gossage was an All-Star nine times and Fingers won the Cy Young and MVP in 1981. Franco made only four All-Star teams and finished in the top 10 of Cy Young voting only once, in 1994.

Still, if Franco had managed to muster something like 15 more innings per season, a reasonable case could be made for his Hall of Fame worthiness. I’m blinded by bias, of course, but the guy was a very good reliever for a very long time and pitched through an outrageous offensive era.

Franco, quoted in Noble’s piece, sounds disappointed that he won’t stay on the ballot but resigned to his fate as a non-Hall of Famer. But the awesome thing about John Franco is you kind of know he thinks he’s a Hall of Famer no matter what anyone says. I once watched Franco throw four straight changeups — three of them right over the middle — to strike out Barry Bonds in the midst of Bonds’ ridiculous stretch of dominance.

I know a lot of Mets fans have soured on Franco for a variety of reasons, but I’ll forever think he was pretty sweet. Good pitcher, great mustache man, exemplar of New York-guy bravado.

Sandwich of the Week

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Early Sandwich of the Week this week because I took a break from them on vacation, because I ate an excellent sandwich last night, and to coincide with Hall of Fame balloting results.

The sandwich: Cemita al Pastor from Tulcingo del Valle, 47th St. and 10th Ave. in Manhattan.

The construction: Seasoned pork, pineapple, Oaxaca cheese, refried beans, papalo and chipotle sauce on a sesame-seed bun.

Important background information: Tulcingo del Valle spans two storefronts on 10th. The north half, which I only saw because I needed to use the bathroom, is a clean, cozily lit restauranty-looking restaurant. The south half, where I ate, clearly used to be a deli and still kind of is. It has table service, but it still has a refrigerator running the length of one wall in the Manhattan deli style. It even has some refrigerator sections with sliding doors and some with those weird dangly clear plastic things that I’ve never seen anywhere but delis in New York city.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Good. The thick shreds of pork are moist, fatty and flavorful. There is enough pork to fully cover the bun, it’s hardly overstuffed. The bread was flaky on the outside and absorbent enough on the inside to soak up the sandwich’s delicious mix of sauces, juices and greases but maintain its structural integrity.

Oaxacan cheese, it turns out, is awfully similar to (the same as?) queso blanco I used to buy in the supermarket in Prospect Heights. For the uninitiated, it’s similar in flavor and texture to mozzarella, only perhaps a bit chewier — which worked on the sandwich.

The avocado was soft, ripe and delicious, and, along with the cheese, added a creamy quality to the sandwich. I thought the papalo was cilantro until I reread the Grub Street Top 101 Sandwiches post this morning. It has a sharp, clean bite that went well with the remarkable spiciness of the chipotle sauce.

About that: Whoa nelly. I generally enjoy spicy food. I order my wings hot or extra hot and I pour Cholula on many of my lunches. Actually, when the waitress dropped off my sandwich at Tulcingo Del Valle and walked away, I briefly regretted not remembering to ask for hot sauce.

But there was no shortage of heat on this sandwich. The plentiful chipotle sauce was hearty, smoky and fiery hot, and tasted less like a vinegary Tabasco-style sauce and more like eating an actual fire. Still a delicious wood-burning fire, mind you, but perhaps a bit painful. This sandwich might have actually been a touch too spicy. By the time I got to the second half of the thing, my mouth, throat and esophagus were burning.

I didn’t even know there was pineapple in the sandwich until I revisited the Grub Street post. I believe that it might have been on there because there was a mess of ingredients and an explosion of delicious flavors in this sandwich, but it was hard to distinguish any pineapples with the eye or taste buds.

What it’s worth: The Cemita al Pastor and a soda cost me $10 plus tip. Plus it was about a 20-minute walk there from my office and a half hour from the restaurant to Grand Central to get home. I always enjoy a good post-sandwich stroll, though.

How it rates: If the Sandwich Hall of Fame were determined by a group of voters instead of my own whims, I imagine the Cemita al Pastor would not immediately earn entry. Yeah, it had some great elements, but ultimately that chipotle sauce hurts its case by physically hurting the consumer.

But then people who really like spicy food will say, “Certainly the Cemita al Pastor deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Look at the inspired, delicious ingredients! And that spiciness is part of what makes it so good.”

And then some people will be all, “Yeah, you know what? You’re right. Come to think of it, before the pain set in, that was a really delicious sandwich.”

But others will be like, “What? Don’t let them talk you into it; that sandwich was too spicy! No sandwich should be too spicy to finish. Look at the bacon cheddar burger from Bill’s Bar and Burger — now that’s a Hall of Famer! Sure, perhaps it’s not the most original sandwich in the world, but it’s consistently very good and always a joy to eat.”

And then spiceheads and their sympathizers in this case will say, “A good bacon cheeseburger that’s not even Top 5 in the city for the Hall of Fame? Your standards are all wrong and you are stupid.”

And then the remaining people hellbent on keeping the Cemita al Pastor out of the Sandwich Hall of Fame will say, “I’m stupid? You’re the cretin with an indelicate palate!”

And then further arguing and more heated name-calling will continue until most people ultimately realize the Cemita al Pastor is probably a deserving hall of famer. 91 out of 100.