Category Archives: Baseball

Random Saturday postgame notes

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Jose Reyes said David Wright knows him better than anyone else on the team. Wright saw Reyes wince while throwing, and called Jerry Manuel out to remove Reyes from the game. According to Reyes, Wright stressed how important it was to the team for Reyes to be fully healthy for the second half. Reyes maintains that he didn’t further injure his strained oblique by playing today or this week, but said that Wright expressed concern that he might.

The good news is that David Wright is around and vigilant. The bad news is that Reyes is visibly hurt but somehow it’s up to the Mets’ third baseman to keep him out of games.

Jerry Manuel said that Reyes would be sent to the All-Star Game “with a note,” which really made it sound like it’d be pinned to Jose’s shirt by the kindergarten teacher. Adam Rubin has since Tweeted that Reyes will be out of the All-Star Game entirely, but I didn’t hear that part.

Angel Pagan has a “Retire 21” sticker in his locker. He also has an .832 OPS on the season. Jeff Francoeur is at .694.

Ruben Tejada changed lockers and is now in the spot where Ryota Igarashi used to be. Tejada’s old locker is mostly empty except a few jerseys, a couple of gloves, and a label on top that says “BELTRAN 15.” This makes me unreasonably excited. I’m pretty sure it’s the same locker Beltran had last year, for whatever it’s worth.

I wonder if Igarashi’s translator went with him to St. Lucie. I assume he did.

What? No.

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However, Reyes added a new twist by telling Viloria that while he would prefer to stay at short, he “hasn’t ruled out” changing positions. More specifically, Reyes mentions that “I played several games at second base for the Mets,” referring to the 43 games he logged at the keystone in 2004.

Reyes’ preferences aside, there is an argument to be made for bumping the 27-year-old one slot to the right. First of all, one of the team’s top position prospects (along with Fernando Martinez and others) is 18-year-old shortstop Wilmer Flores, who has been showing promise at the lower levels of the Mets system—though some see his future outside of the infield. In any event, once the Mets are free of their commitment to Luis Castillo at the end of 2011 (or sooner by trade), there is no ready replacement within the upper levels of the system save Ruben Tejada, a natural shortstop like Reyes but without his speed or offensive ceiling.

– Nick Collias, MLBTradeRumos.com.

No disrespect to Collias, but there really isn’t any argument for it at all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that Reyes is willing to do whatever the team asks. But there’s just no reason the team should ask him to switch positions as long as he’s an above-average defensive shortstop.

I just don’t understand the logic here, even a little bit. Am I missing something?

Just a friendly reminder

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If anyone asks, remember: Tonight’s Braves starter, Tulsa-born Tommy Hanson, is first cousins with the pride of Tulsa, the band Hanson.

Commenter Brad Gates, whom former roommate Ted reports to be the nephew of Bill Gates, will tell you otherwise. But even though he claims to know the pitching Hanson personally, he is just deceiving you on behalf of his friend. Tommy Hanson doesn’t want to be known as the first cousin of the band Hanson because Tommy Hanson has set out to make it on his own, without the type of favoritism generally bestowed upon relatives of pop icons.

But look, there’s evidence. Here are all the Hansons at a recent family reunion:

Jayson Werth brings shame to great beards

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Look, truth be told, if a player on any other team did the same thing I’d say, “Meh, he was obviously in the heat of the moment and ballplayers are intense competitors, he probably regretted it later.”

But Werth’s a Phillie, so the Eck thing applies again. Plus the fan in question was also in the heat of the moment, and was probably too busy looking at the ball to have any idea that Werth was charging at him. And I’m sure after he got yelled at in front of his kid by a member of their favorite sports team, he was intentionally vomited on by some drunk guy in the row behind him. He’d almost be a sympathetic figure if he weren’t a Phillies fan, deserving of the public humiliation and inevitable vomit bath. Plus you gotta assume he’ll pay it forward anyway.

On the brink

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The Knicks didn’t get LeBron James, but the Yankees were on the brink of obtaining Cliff Lee late last night for a package that would include top prospect Jesus Montero, the Post has learned.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman and Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik have been in constant contact over the last week, but it was only last night that the Seattle GM told Yankee officials he wanted to move quickly, possibly before the All-Star break…

In the offseason, the Yanks tried to make a deal with Philadelphia and offered Montero as the key piece. But the Phillies decided to take the Mariners’ offer instead.

– Joel Sherman, N.Y. Post.

OK, lots of stuff here. First, the requisite skepticism. Sherman’s generally not the type of baseball columnist that traffics in unfounded or sensationalized scoops, but I’ve learned to take all trade rumors with many, many grains of salt until the deal is final.

Second, if the deal really includes a package of three prospects including Montero, Mets fans should be happy their team will not match it. Like I said in the talk with John Hickey yesterday, the assessment of the Mariners’ scouting department ultimately matters more than Baseball America‘s, but BA ranked Montero No.4 overall among all prospects this offseason. Going by that ranking, the Mets would have to gut their system to beat the Yanks’ offer.

Third, and again, going only off that ranking and a few others, it’s a little bit bizarre if it’s true the Phillies opted for the Mariners’ package instead of one built around Montero in the offseason. None of the three prospects the Phils received appears to have anything like the upside of the Yanks’ mashing young catcher, and all have been pretty crummy in the Phils’ system this year. A lot can change, of course, and who knows how or why the Phillies’ preferred the guys they got to the ones they supposedly could have got, but Ruben Amaro’s administration has made a whole lot more eyebrow-raising deals than clearly good ones so far.

If Jack Zduriencik pulls this off, he should be commended, even if his Mariners have been terrible this year. A completed deal would mean he spun three underwhelming prospects for at least one awesome one, with 13 amazing starts from Cliff Lee thrown in as gravy. If Double-A second baseman David Adams is also in the deal, as Sherman has reported, then the Mariners get back at least two prospects who are, on paper at least, better than any they gave up.

Lastly, many have wondered why the Yankees should work to upgrade their rotation when they already have a lot starting pitching, much of it high-priced. The Yanks need more help in the bullpen, or maybe the outfield, they say.

Only it doesn’t work like that, and Brian Cashman seems to understand as well as any GM in baseball. Instead of targeting a specific position where his team needs an upgrade and seeking the best available player in that role, he finds the available player who will best improve his team. This trading season, it appears Lee is that.

There are many ways to win baseball games and playoff series. You can do it with a ton of offense, like the Yanks did last year, or you can do it with an unbelievable and unbelievably deep starting rotation, as the Yanks are apparently trying to do this year.

The idea of Ted Lilly

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Matt Cerrone passes on news from Newsday’s Ken Davidoff (a worthy Twitter follow, if you’re not doing so already) that the Mets “like the idea of getting Ted Lilly.”

Moving past the requisite jokes about trade-rumor language, I like the idea of the Mets getting Ted Lilly, too. He’s no Cliff Lee, mind you, but he’s a nice pitcher with good control and a reasonable history of staying healthy. Plus he yields an absolute ton of flyballs, which hurts him in Wrigley Field but would probably play well at Citi.

The big issue, of course, is the cost. Lilly is owed about $6 million over the rest of the season, which should drive his price in prospects down a little bit. But his contract is up after 2010 and he stands to be a Type A free agent, meaning an acquiring team would have to present the Cubs with a package more enticing than the two draft picks they’ll receive if they hang onto Lilly and let him walk after the season.

I have no idea what that means. But it sounds like the price on Cliff Lee is getting steeper by the moment, and that certainly factors into any team’s pursuit of Lilly.

If getting Cliff Lee would indeed require Angel Pagan — a trade I wouldn’t make in the first place — and getting Lilly would not, then Lilly probably makes more sense for the Mets.

The difference, in terms of wins, between Pagan and his replacement in the outfield playing every day for the rest of the season is likely at least as big as the difference between Lee and Lilly. Factor in that Pagan will be under team control through 2012 and there’s really no question Lilly would be a smarter target.

That assumes a lot, though. It assumes the Mets will continue starting Pagan regularly after Carlos Beltran returns, that Pagan will continue playing this well, and that a trade for Lee will require a player of Pagan’s caliber and a trade for Lilly will not. And I don’t know if any of those things are true.

Most importantly, Ted Lilly is a proud member of Team Ted, an exclusive group. Plus his full name is Theodore Roosevelt Lilly, which is awesome.