Funny thing is Daniel Murphy is actually celebrating Scott Hairston‘s home run here. Or trying to chop the bullpen fence in half. One of those.
Daniel Murphy is Pure Chaos
Baseball players don’t have enough cool nicknames. So when Ted Berg suggested, via Ike Davis, that “Pure Chaos” would be a good nickname for Daniel Murphy I decided to run with it. It may not describe his hitting style, but I do think it applies to his general approach to the game. Before you say anything, The Irish Hammer does not count as a nickname.
Howie Rose: “Coming up in the bottom of the inning for the Mets: Niese, Tejada and Pure Chaos.”
Sports Radio Update Guy: “It was all Pure Chaos at Citi Field last night, as the Mets walloped the Phillies eight to one.”
Around Metsopotamia: Links Galore!
First up, Daniel Murphy!
Mets Infielder Daniel Murphy To Be Honored With Inaugural “Rising Star” Award At Thurman Munson Awards Dinner On Tuesday Night, January 31, At Grand Hyatt Hotel
***Joins Teammate R.A. Dickey, Yogi Berra, Mark Teixeira, Chris Mullin and Dikembe at Benefit for AHRC New York City Foundation***
New York, January 19—New York Mets infielder Daniel Murphy will receive the inaugural “Thurman Rising Star Award” at the 32nd Annual Thurman Munson Awards Dinner on Tuesday night, January 31, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, it was announced today by AHRC New York City Foundation.
Murphy will be cited for his perseverance in returning from injury and for his community spirit and involvement in a wide variety of Mets community programs, particularly in reading for youngsters and the military. The 26-year-old Jacksonville, Florida native hit 313 in his rookie season in 2008 in limited action, and a torrid .320 last year. Murphy has battled several knee injuries since joining the Mets, and is a second base hopeful in 2012.
Murphy joins Yankee Hall of Fame icon Yogi Berra, Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira, Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey, St. John’s/N.B.A. recently inducted basketball Hall of Famer Chris Mullin, and Georgetown/N.B.A. star center Dikembe Mutombo as this year’s honorees.
The gala, which remembers the late, great Yankees catcher and captain, benefits AHRC New York City Foundation. Berra will receive the Legend Award in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1962 World Champion Yankees, while Mutombo, Teixeira, Dickey and Mullin will each receive “Thurmans.” For tickets and information on the Munson Awards Dinner call 212-249-6188.
Diana Munson, Thurman’s widow, will attend her 32nd straight benefit, having been involved since its inception, raising nearly $11 million to assist children and adults who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Thurman Munson Awards are presented for success on the fields of play and philanthropic works off the field.
The AHRC New York City Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that supports programs enabling children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to lead richer, more productive lives, including programs of AHRC New York City. AHRC New York City is one of the largest organizations of its kind, serving 12,000 children and adults who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injuries and other disabilities.
Second up? The Mostly Mets Podcast! Patrick Flood, Ted Berg, and Toby Hyde do a great job with their weekly podcast. I usually plug it into my car radio and get to avoid a day or two of hoping the local radio stations are talking about something worthwhile while driving to and from work. They released the latest episode yesterday afternoon. One of these days I’ll write up a formal review.
Kerel Cooper at On The Black chimes in with his expectations for Jason Bay. If you recall I tried to find some optimism along that front recently.
If you haven’t read R.A. Dickey’s posts in the Times about his climb of Mount Kilimanjaro…well, I’m really not sure why you wouldn’t have read that already, but here it is again.
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Will You Second Guess Sandy Alderson?
The general consensus about the Mets new general manager is that he’s a great hire and going to do great things for the franchise. That he’s capable of advanced analysis and really understands the game. Sure, some fans are skeptical, but for the most part we’re happy that he’s leading this club.
He’s already joked that the honeymoon is over, but how long will we truly give him until we second guess his decisions? Will we ever give him the benefit of the doubt or will we insist we know better if he chooses someone for the roster we disagree with?
Specifically, if Sandy Alderson watches Oliver Perez throughout Spring Training and determines that he can add value to this team by being on the roster, will we be okay with it?
I doubt it. A recent poll on Metsblog suggested that more fans would rather Perez fail than succeed. I find this disturbing. Oliver Perez is on the Mets, and when players on the Mets do good, the Mets do good. The Mets doing good is what matters the most.
So while I certainly have favorite players and guys I would like to see make the club like Nick Evans and Daniel Murphy, ultimately what I want is the best 25 guys that will lead to the Mets having the best possible club to start the season. If that means Oliver Perez, Luis Castillo, or even Jose Canseco, I’ll root for them to do well.
What To Watch For In Mets Spring Training Camp
All teams have a variety of different roster spots open for the taking in Spring Training. So what should we be watching in Port St. Lucie with the Mets? (And if you’re watching on SNY, the games will be in HD this year!)
Health
Keeping players healthy is definitely number one. This includes building up arm strength and recovering from an injury that ended last season, or simply not getting hurt. Jason Bay, Francisco Rodriguez and Daniel Murphy ended up the season on the disabled list. The primary goal from them is to get to Opening Day without experiencing any pain or lingering effects of what ailed them last year. Bay and Rodriguez have both been reported healthy and pain free, but it’ll be good to show that in real spring training games. Daniel Murphy has had some knee issues, and the best shot he has at winning a job this season is to not be hampered by lingering pain that prevents him from putting in the work both at second base, and at the plate, that he needs.
Some guys have been injured frequently, to various degrees, and may be at risk again. Chris Young, Chris Capuano, Carlos Beltran are three of the most recent cases. Beltran has mainly been dealing with one issue, a lack of cartilage in his knee, and may have that under control via an understanding of what ails him, and a knee brace that keeps his knee bones from bruising further. Beltran’s goal this spring is to prove the brace hasn’t reduced his range significantly in center field, and to get the reps at the plate he needs to keep up to speed without needlessly stressing his knee in exhibition games.
Young and Capuano have more to prove if they want to earn a spot on this team and continue contributing for the entire season. Consistent starts this spring with no reports of pain or soreness would go a long way to giving us confidence that can give us some quality innings.
Jose Reyes often gets mentioned in the injury discussion, but really he was healthy for most of 2011. He had a medical condition that had him almost literally rolling out of bed and into the field in April, and had a slight oblique strain mid-season that was so poorly managed by the Mets and their manager that it probably cost him twice as many games as it needed to. Players get nicked u, and an oblique strain isn’t something to worry about. Given these parameters, it seems like 2010 is the absolute floor of what we can expect out of Reyes for any given season, and given a full spring worth of preparation it’s not unfair to expect him to be much better again.
The Stars
The results may not matter, but it’s still fun to watch some of the best in the game play. The Mets have a nice core of excellent players. David Wright and Jason Bay can launch home runs and bash the ball all over the place. Jose Reyes can run wild and be his energetic, fun to watch self. Carlos Beltran may go back to making difficult defensive plays look easy while blasting home runs.
While maybe not on the same level, yet, many other players that have jobs secured are fun to watch. Ike Davis has some great power and is maturing as a hitter. R.A. Dickey is an amazing guy and watching him taunt hitters with the knuckleball is always fun. Jon Niese progressing with his devastating curveball or Bobby Parnell blowing guys away with his occasionally triple digit fastball will make highlights reels all spring long.
Rounding Out the Roster
Which guys will make the team seemingly out of nowhere? Who will have a monster spring and launch themselves into the conversation for 5th starter, or long reliever, or first pinch hitter off the bench? A lot of the bullpen is open for guys looking to have a strong showing. Beyond second base that has a couple of favorites, but is an open competition, there are a couple of different ways the Mets could fill out the extra bench spots. Could it be Nick Evans? Or Scott Hairston? What about Jason Pridie or Justin Turner?
The Future
What’s more exciting than seeing what may be on tap for the years to come? Jenrry Mejia make a lot of noise last spring, enough that he mistakenly got a roster spot in the bullpen. He’ll be exciting to watch this year to see how’s he progressed and if he’s someone we can look forward to in the future. You’ve got some possible outfielders that look exciting, like Lucas Duda or Kirk Nieuwenhuis.
The Broadcast
Besides the games finally being in high definition, Gary, Keith, Ron, and Kevin are a joy to listen to do a game. Just like Spring Training is a little more lax than the regular season, so are the broadcasts. Obviously most of us don’t have the opportunity to listen to them live, because most games are on at 1pm, but if you do get a chance it’s well worth it.
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More Pressure For a Quick Start
It’s not just Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya that have to worry about fast starts to the season or their jobs being in jeopardy. The same case could be made for Jeff Francoeur,
Daniel Murphy, and Rod Barajas. The way Ike Davis, Fernando Martinez, and Josh Thole have been playing in a way this spring that makes you suspect they’ll be knocking at the door to Citi Field sooner rather than later.
With Reyes possibly being out some, or all, of April the pressure on the starting pitching has just doubled. The most recent report on April suggests that he may be back closer to mid April, but that’s still a rough estimate.
We’ve known for a while that the season was going to hinge on the starting pitching. The offense was projected to be one of the top in the league, and surely would’ve won some games on it’s own even when the pitching struggled. With Reyes and Beltran out, they may not have that cushion for a while, but this doesn’t mean the Mets are doomed to a 9-13 type record to start the season.
The fast start is more important than ever, and if Maine, Perez, and Pelfrey can have a good month of April the Mets will still win games. We all know they’re each capable of pitching good games. It was expected before the season that they could definitely pitch competitively and keep us in games, but now they may be pressured to actually win the games. Instead of quality start performances and limiting the opponents to three runs over six innings, stepping up and going seven innings and occasionally limiting the other teams to merely one or two runs becomes important to the Mets early success.
This isn’t to say the Mets lineup is useless, and that they won’t occasionally put up a crooked number, but Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran are two of the most irreplaceable players in the game today. The season is never won and lost in April, but if the pitching can step up and win more games than they lose, not only will it minimize the damage caused by losing Reyes and Beltran, it will set them up nicely once they return.
This post, and vibrant discussion about it, also featured on The Real Dirty Mets Blog.
Excited for Spring, Rooting for The Mets
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20 Days until Pitchers and Catchers and Injured Players report to Port St. Lucie. I’m excited. To me, it’s hard not to be. It’s still Mets baseball, and no matter how you feel about the Wilpons, the front office, or the team, there are still fun games to be played this season, and fun players to watch.
Johan Santana’s due to make 33 or so starts, and every one of those games is worth watching.
Jose Reyes is reportedly healthy and is always a joy to watch play the game. He’s due to be out there on the field at least 155 games or so.
David Wright, Jeff Francoeur, and Daniel Murphy may have varied amounts of upside or talent, but all three of them play their hearts out. You can’t ask for more out of a baseball player. You can truly believe that these guys want to win at least as much as you want them to.
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Exciting rookies like Josh Thole, Jonathan Niese, Fernando Martinez, and maybe even Ike Davis are candidates to make appearances this year. It’s always fun to watch homegrown guys try to break out and become major leaguers.
You may be down on Mike Pelfrey a little, but he’s going to work out to do better this year. He’s still a young, talented, homegrown pitcher who will hopefully have a bounceback type season, and there is a good chance we see Niese come up and pitch this year.
The 2010 season won’t be won in January, it won’t be won on paper, and when April 5th comes and the Mets take the field, they’ll do so tied for first place. This is small consolation right now, but anything can happen. There is still time for a trade to happen for another pitcher. It’s entirely possible that one of the Mets starters has an excellent season and pitches great to compliment Santana. The offense isn’t bad, and it’s entirely possibly Beltran is back and healthy by May and Francoeur continues his resurgence and everyone plays well. If some of these things happen, the Mets will be extremely competitive and rather than berate the players I think will fail I’m going to focus on rooting for them to succeed. Isn’t that the point of being a fan?
Francoeur and Valentine
With Bobby Valentine talking to ESPN, it suggests that the Mets aren’t talking to him. Which could mean the Mets are planning on repeating the Manuel mistake in 2010. Which would be a shame, because replacing Manuel would be the easiest and cheapest problem to fix on the Mets.
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Couple this with rumors that the Mets are talking about signing Francoeur to a three year contract, and it becomes obvious that the Mets just don’t get it. Francoeur, while not the problem, is not the solution either. He’s not a very good player, despite his small sample size with the Mets this year. While I’d rather the Mets look at signing another pitcher, a left fielder, and two catchers and keep Francoeur in RF for the time being, they can do that without committing to him beyond next year. Even worse is what this represents.
If Francoeur is a given in right, and obviously we’ve got Beltran in center, what’s going on in left field? Either the Mets have no faith in Fernando Martinez playing for the Mets any time soon, or they have no serious plans to go after a power hitting acquisition to play there, unless we’re talking a one year deal, which would be harder to pull off. While I don’t think straight out bombers are what the Mets need, although if Manuel is staying it’s more important because it fits his style better, the Mets do need to add another bat. The free agent options are better for an outfielder than a first baseman, and Murphy plus an outfielder is a better team than trading for a 1B and whatever leftover piece you’d have for left.
The Mets are more than capable of competing in 2010, but they do have a lot of work to do in the off-season as well. So far the rumors I’ve heard regarding what they plan are not reassuring.
Daniel Murphy, the Iron Man of the Mets
Of all the position players originally selected to take the field on Opening Day, only Daniel Murphy has not spent any time injured. Luis Castillo has also been mostly healthy, with the exception of the couple of days from when he fell down the stairs.
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Daniel Murphy hasn’t exactly put up super numbers in his consistency, even factoring in his platoon status early on. The more I watch though the more I want him to be a part of the Mets next year. Personally I’d rather spend money on left field and get a power bat that way, and hope Murphy can hold down first base. He looks like can he do it defensively, and he’s shown some skill offensively at times. I know his batting average is still kind of low and he doesn’t have the typical power you expect from a first baseman, but if you replace Delgado’s power with a left fielder and Beltran and Wright return to home run hitting norms next year, I don’t think we’ll be a team that struggles.
You may argue that we could’ve used more power this year, even with no injuries, but I’d disagree. While power couldn’t have hurt, I feel like this team’s strength is speed and aggressiveness. I do not feel Manuel is the best manager for that role however, and I think he’d be a better manager with a power team. Given the option, and given Manuel’s general ineptitude, I’d rather replace him as the manager than try to remake the team into a power team.
If the Mets need to get at least a left fielder, a catcher, another starter and a first baseman it’s unlikely they’ll be able to afford adequate replacements for all of them. So of Daniel Murphy, Angel Pagan, Gary Sheffield, Brian Schneider, and Livan Hernandez/Tim Redding I think it’s pretty clear that Daniel Murphy is the player to keep for an everyday role next year.
Start Daniel Murphy
The Murphy/Tatis platoon perplexes me. It’s not just because Murphy already looks to be a better defensive first baseman, although that does help. It seems Tatis hasn’t been solid defensively anywhere he’s played this year. He’s not a liability, but he’s not good either. Sometimes you have to look at the upside.
The best case scenario for Tatis is that he’s a solid guy off the bench, and can spot start at first or in the outfield a couple of times and contribute offensively. The best case for Murphy is that he develops into a solid major leaguer and is your everyday first baseman for the future. Depending on how good that best case is, that future could easily be 15 years.
For a team that could use some more offense, shouldn’t we find out what Murphy’s got as an everyday player? He platooned most of the time last year as well. Maybe it’s time for him to be put out there for 10 games and see what he looks like everyday. Some lineup consistency couldn’t hurt.
In my fire Manuel rants I’ve suggested that Manuel sets up his players to fail. Here’s another test: Manuel says Murphy will start one of these two games against the Phillies. Tonight is the lefty Cole Hamels who is a pretty good pitcher. Thursday is the lefty Jamie Moyer who hasn’t had a good year and lefties are able to hit. I would start Murphy both games, but if Manuel’s going to choose one the obvious choice is Moyer. Tatis had a good game last night, and it wouldn’t hurt to try to ride out that success by starting him again today. Murphy would be better suited to hit Moyer than Hamels. The only downside is that Murphy is a better defender for the ground balls of Pelfrey tonight, versus Redding tomorrow. Let’s see what Manuel does, but starting Murphy against Hamels and then claiming he can’t hit lefties if he doesn’t hit one of the better ones is not fair.
Sidebar: I didn’t see a lot of Phillies fans on television. No surprise there, they’ve never traveled here as well as we’ve traveled there. The ones that do only come to cause trouble. I noticed this at the last series, and I’ve heard stuff from last night as well. The Phillies fans come in bearing 2008 flags that they like to wave around and be obnoxious with. Luckily there is always a drunk Mets fan somewhere that will run in and grab it. I saw this happen in the Pepsi Porch in May, and I saw reports of it last night as well.