Some Random Math About Bay and 2012

The Mets offense has the potential to be pretty excellent next year.  That next level to ‘really excellent’ depends a lot on Jason Bay.  He’s shown some improvement lately, perhaps there were lingering effects of the concussion that he didn’t even realize.  Still, he’s been pretty bad overall.   I think how well Jason Bay plays the rest of 2011 will go a long way towards how the media feels about the Mets in 2012. I’m proposing a direct relationship between Jason Bay’s home run total through the rest of the season, and the Mets predicted win total in 2012.

 

He’s got 9 right now.  11 seems a stretch, but if he got to 20 I feel like people would proclaim him ‘back’.  I’ll set that as the absolute ceiling, and say it equates to 89 wins.   Each home run less than that will be worth 1 win.  If he doesn’t hit another, the Mets will be predicted to win 78.  If he hits 5 to finish with 14, 83 wins.

The Positives of Pelfrey as Closer Talk

There are good things to be inferred by the Pelfrey as closer talk. Him actually pitching as a closer is a bad idea; you can’t replace those 200 innings he pitches and the closer position is extremely overrated. Still, it’s good to see the Mets trying to think of solutions to make this team better in 2012. Many of the thoughts will be bad ones like this, but some of them may turn out to be great ideas that help the Mets become more competitive in the future. It’s nice to have guys in charge trying to come up with each and every way to make the Mets a better baseball team.

Free Falling

The Mets have been in a free fall, plummeting towards worthlessness and erasing all the good will they achieved this season. It’s not totally their fault; They’ve been struck with a lot of injuries, and Sandy Alderson traded two expendable, but useful, parts for prospects once it was obvious the Mets weren’t going to make a real run at the playoffs. Still, despite the occasional fight they show, they’ve also showed a fair amount of looking flat too. They misplay balls, take bad approaches at the plate, and make bad decisions.

Take last night’s game. The Mets got guys on bases with plenty of opportunity, and turned around and let Worley off the hook. They refused to swing the bat and struck out five times looking, all with runners in scoring position. They worked Worley, but as soon as they gave up the lead they made 12 consecutive outs letting Worley go deeper in the game than he probably should’ve. They misplayed balls in the outfield and made bad throws.

This isn’t to say the Mets have quit. They look more depressed than disinterested. They press and make desperation plays or throws, or look almost fearful at the plate. The word I would use is lost. They look like they don’t know what to do, and have lost some of the routine and instinct that guides most baseball play in an effort to try to do too much.

You can see the effects already. People talk about the Mets as if they’re a horrible disaster of a team, despite playing competitively for a good chunk of the year. The stories about financial disaster are back, false rumors about not being able to spend money and sign players. They’re writing off 2012 without having any idea what will happen with the prospects or free agents this offseason.

Just like the Mets bounced back from 5-13 early, they’ll bounce back from this as well. They won’t play this badly the rest of the way, and that last month will set a tone and provide a lot of info about the off-season direction they need to take. But they have erased much of the goodwill they got for playing hard and being resilient during the midseason. Some may write a positive story overall about the season, but most will dismiss the Mets as anything worth thinking about no matter how this season ends.

 

Faith and Fear in Flushing also has a post today, as probably many Mets bloggers do, about free falling and not being able to get up.  Great minds thinking alike and all that.

Time To Put Lucas Duda in Right Field

Just last week I suggested the Mets bring up Fernando Martinez to get some playing time at the major league level.  This week he’s returned to the DL.   Maybe the guy will eventually stay healthy, but right now he’s not an option. 

Terry Collins mentioned getting Lucas Duda some playing time in right field, and now seems like the time.   One of the Mets other almost ready prospects,  Kirk Nieuwenhuis, is also on the Dl rendering another RF option unavailable.  These are two of the probable candidates for Duda to compete with in Spring Training for a job in 2012 ,and right now it looks like he’s got the leg up having been successful at the major league level, and having stayed healthy. 

I don’t really care to see a ton of Scott Hairston, Jason Pridie or Mike Baxter.  Nick Evans is another guy that seems like he’d like to compete for that 2012 RF job but probably won’t be a real candidate.  Evans can play first at least, and I’d rather Evans get those AB than the other bench guys, but the Mets might as well give Duda an extra month or reps in the outfield with an eye on 2012.   He’s definitely starting to look like a solid hitter that will need a position for the future.

Get Me Fernando Martinez

Photo by Michael Baron

It’s not like we’re expecting Mike Baxter, Nick Evans, or Scott Hairston to be the solution in right field, so why not bring up our oft-injured forgotten prospect Fernando Martinez?  He’s back from his latest injury, is already on the 40-man roster, and has already had his option burned for this year.  He’s 11/36 with 2 walks, 1 HR and 5 doubles since returning to Buffalo.

I had wondered if he may be out of options.  The rule is a little confusing, but it seems to state that a player is on optional assignment in any year that he is on the 40 man roster but spends 20 or more days in the minors.  This would apply to 2011,2010, and 2009 for Martinez.  A player may be optioned a fourth season if he has less than five years of professional experience.  Martinez first year of pro ball was in 2006 at 17 with three different Mets minor league teams, which would give him six years of experience, so it seems like he cannot be optioned next year.  A little digging seems to find an interview with Paul DePodesta saying he does have another option for next year, so it’s probably not D-Day for him yet.  It looks like him being injured in the majors in 2009 prevented it from counting as an option year.  If you’re curious about which players do and do not have options, there appears to be a handy little list right here by tpgmets.

Still, it’s growing close and 2012 will be the last season you can easily bring him up and down.    Obviously the biggest concern is injuries keeping him from getting full seasons of plate appearances in the minors.  He’s never played 100 games in a season, although if he doesn’t have another injury this season he will.   He can prove he’s healthy just as easily in the majors as in the minors, and it seems like giving him the opportunity to prove he’s ready is pretty much win-win for the Mets.

Trading him is certainly an option too, but he’s had DL stints this year and hasn’t exactly destroyed AAA although his .766 OPS isn’t bad either.  You’d basically be trading low, given his history, unless he shows you something through the rest of the season.  The best way for that to happen is for him to show it at the major league level where it has the most clout.  If he can hit major league pitching over the next six weeks in the majors, it only increases his value and the options Alderson will have regarding him.

As the Mets injuries pile up and they continue to prove they’re not going to make a significant break with .500 and legitimately chase the Braves, it seems like it’s in everyone’s best interest to promote Fernando Martinez to the big club.   At this point I’d suggest just releasing Willie Harris, who isn’t very good and isn’t part of a solution.

Carlos Beltran in 2012

My ideal situation with Carlos Beltran is that he has a good year, and the Mets negotiate a new, reasonable priced contract with him and he moves to right field in 2012. I know this might not be the perfect baseball move, that from a pure numbers standpoint it may not make sense to retain Carlos, even if he has a good year without injury.  Baseball is more than a fantasy draft of the best statistical robots that put up a certain line of stats; it’s also very emotional, and I happen to like Carlos Beltran.  I’d be very happy for him to finish successfully, and one day add his number to the wall of retired Mets out in left field.  Beltran has been a great teammate and a great part of the New York community since he’s arrived, and I think continuing that into perpetuity would be great for both him and the Mets.

So while other fans seem to be counting the days until Beltran is no longer a Met, or thinking about possible trade targets for him now or by the trading deadline, I’m hoping he somehow remains a successful Met for the rest of his career and thinking about ways that that can happen without sacrificing team success.

The biggest issue with Beltran is that he has bone bruises on his knees that don’t heal easily, and he may never fully recover from them.  The brace he wears is meant to minimize the damage to his knees and those bruises, but he’s only been wearing the thing for two months worth of games so it’s hard to get a sense of how much it affects him.  His bruises were better at the end of the season than they were when he started rehabbing to return, which is a good sign.  The perfect, if unlikely, situation would be that his knees heal completely and that the brace becomes second nature to him and doesn’t inhibit his swing or ability to run in any way.

So if Beltran were to prove himself healthy and productive in 2011, what would be a reasonable contract for him to satisfy my emotional desire for him to remain here, and yet not inhibit the Mets from being great, and continuing to be great?  His contract currently pays him 18.5 million dollars, which is definitely too much.  Technically he’s only making 13 million, as 5.5 of it is deferred.  Even if the compromise was the same amount in his paycheck, that’s probably also a bit high for anything but a one year deal for a player turning 35 at the start of the 2012 season.  Something more along the lines of three years at 27 million seems to be what he might be worth going forward.  The Mets could lace it with all sorts of incentives for games played and awards received.  If three seems too much, maybe two plus a vesting option based on games played, and therefore health, for the third year.

I have no idea if that’s something Carlos Beltran, or his agent Scott Boras, would accept.  I have no idea what, if anything, Carlos could do to make the Mets consider keeping him.   Based on his work in the community, and his comments about staying a New York Met, I do believe Carlos wants to be here, but often money talks.  This is all predicated on Beltran having a good 2011 season and looking like he can continue to produce for multiple years anyway, but based on how he was doing in September last year I believe that he can definitely contribute if he can manage the situation with his knees.