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December 11, 2007
5 milk spills - or how evaluation & $5m might cost us an Ace
So the Mets prospects aren’t good enough to land a front-line pitcher. Would being able to hand over a larger number do the trick? If so there are four key decisions that might have made a difference. 1. Winter 2005: Sign Ramon Hernandez instead of trading for Paul LoDuca. Lo Duca & Brian Schneider cost $22.3m for 4 years. Hernandez cost $5.2m more over the same 4 years. But that $1.3m a year would have kept Gaby Hernandez & Lastings Milledge in blue and orange. The Marlins, those keen evaluators of young pitching, are high on Hernandez and claim he could win a spot in their 2008 rotation. I’m a little partial to him having witnessed his 2005 Father’s Day no-hitter for Hagerstown. 2. Spring 2006: Ignore the commish & offer Pedro Beato another $200k. Raised in Queens, the Mets 17th rounder (2005) wanted to sign with the club. He went off to Junior College to prove he was recovered from TJ surgery & raise his 2006 draft status. He did, going 1st round supplemental to Baltimore. The Mets knew he had become a 1st round talent & could have signed him shortly before the O’s drafted him in ‘06 if they’d come up with a little more dough. He may or may not pan out but as a 6’ 6”, 19 year old with a 90+ fastball, there was no good reason NOT to sign him. I mean it’s not like they were trading him for say . . . a catcher. He was one of the O’s two reps at the 2007 Futures Game. 3. Winter 2006: Bannister for Burgos. Never made sense. Last off-season the Mets needed starting pitching while the pen looked to be a strength. Bannister had won a job the year before and looked like a viable, if unspectacular #5 for 2007. Burgos was a risk for a position that looked solid. Bannister in 27 AL starts: 12-9, 3.87 ERA; Sosa + Pelfrey in 27 NL starts: 10-14 5.07. What would Bannister fetch today? Would Pelfrey’s stock (and confidence) have fallen if he’d been mowing down AAA hitters for all of 2007 instead of getting rocked at Shea? The Mets have one tarnished prospect when they might have had two hot ones. 4. Winter 2006: Check the 40-man roster two, three, four times before leaving Jesus Flores off it! I could be wrong on this one (I can’t dig up who was on the 40-man a year ago) but I’d be surprised if at least one roster spot wasn’t taken up by some retread or never was. By simply protecting Flores on the 40-man, the Mets could have given him a year at AAA where if he performed as well as he did in the majors in 2007 he’d be in huge demand. How might a package of Bannister, Hernandez, Gomez & Flores sound to Billy Beane for Dan Haren? Even with handing all of them over the Mets could still have kept: Milledge, Humber, Pelfrey, Beato & F-Mart! Instead we might have to give up every one of the remaining guys (Gomez, Humber, Pelfrey, F-Mart) & more (Heilman) to even get a shot at an ace. The Twins don’t need a catcher but Jesus could have been spun for a different piece to put into the above package for Santana. Again while keeping several valuable prospects. Of course this sounds like hindsight – but there was plenty of head-scratching around each of these 4 moves when they happened. Maybe that’s why I’m nearly bald now! But is there a point, aside from whining over spilt milk? Yes: Does Omar know how to evaluate young talent with no big league track record? Remember his trading away of prospects as Expos GM? He’s done well acquiring guys with some major league tea leaves to read: i.e. Ollie & the then much less proven John Maine – but remember these guys were the “add-on” player in each of those deals. Without Jorge Julio & Roberto Hernandez there would have been no deals. Omar’s faith in Pelfrey has yet to be rewarded & his handling of him has substantially eroded his value. Ditto for Lastings. Shipping off Bannister was and remains a head-scratcher. Gaby was a promising young 90+ mph pitcher who is on track. And this doesn’t even touch the bullpen blunders of letting go of Bell, Lindstrom, Owens & Ring. With them we might be looking at Santana AND Haren. Just kidding. As it stands now, the club’s best shot at landing an ace might be a very long shot: sign the Japanese hurler Kuroda & then turn Perez or Maine into trade bait for an ace. The bottom line is that given the current hot trend of needing a quantity and quality of “hot prospects” to make deals to improve your club, Omar needs to pick up his evaluation game big-time. 4 Responses to “5 milk spills - or how evaluation & $5m might cost us an Ace”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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I have to disagree with you on the bannister trade, at the time the mets felt they had an excess of quality pitching at AAA, which is where Bannister would’ve been, and Burgos was a very young live arm with unbelievable talent. Given what Rick Peterson did with Ollie and Maine the previous year it was not unthinkable that he could turn Burgos into the lights out reliever/ closer that he had the potential to be. Bannister on the other hand was at best a #4 starter who for a very brief period for the Mets the prior year demonstrated that he could slip out of potential disasters, it felt like he loaded the bases almost every inning. There was nothing that he did in that stint that showed he would be as good as he was last year, or that he would be better than Jason Vargas who was only a year removed from a very good year with the Marlins at a very young age. Unfortunately Burgos got hurt and Bannister had a good year, but it was a matter of luck rather than poor judgement on Omar’s part. Same thing goes with the relievers who had either struggled in the majors, Ring and Bell, or were considered too old to be legitimate prospects, Owens and Lindstrom. Despite Bell’s performance in AAA it is likely that he would’ve never matched the year he put up in SD, here due to his early struggles. Also while Ramon hernandez may be younger than Lo Duca, he has been hurt frequently, and despite Paulies off the field issues, Hernandez would not have displayed the leadership that Lo Duca did during his tenure hear, although I do miss having Gaby Hernandez in the system. But the Flores and Milledge fiascos were solely the fault of Omar, and those two moves alone may be reason enough to be furious with his decision making and player evaluation.
What Trent said. If there were a way to short Bannister in 2008 you’d get rich, he’s a lock to regress to the mean faster than you can say “Peripheral ERA.”
Great journal entry, many thanks.
I agree with the others on Bannister– re-evaluate after 2008 please.
As for Bell, we tend to forget that he was out of options. and
they had to keep him in NY all year or risk losing him. After
the year the pen had in 2006, and with the expectation that Sanchez
could return in ST (remember, he had a 2nd injury this spring), I
can completely understand how he felt that he didn´t need to keep Bell.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Omar´s biggest mistake as GM was not protecting Flores las year.
I agree with a lot of this but not all.
1. Don’t forget that Hernandez would have cost us money (more money than he signed for the Orioles as he ended up getting less than we offered him), and he also would have ended up costing us another 1st round pick (which we have not had a lot of because of FA signings). I see your point here, but I would still have made the trade at the time. There is no reason to assume he would have accepted the Mets offer either, it isn’t like we didn’t try to sign him.
2. The Bannister-Burgos thing is still an open issue, but I do not think that Bannister had a shot of taking Pelfrey’s spot as the 5th starter last year going into the season. I think the Jacket (and Willie) had already decided Pelfrey was the guy. And I don’t buy Bannister’s numbers in KC, he was in a zero pressure situation and not facing the “best” of what the opposing teams could offer on game day. People don’t get “up” to play KC and that is why they often play down to their level, same can’t be said for the Mets. I could end up eating my words, but Bannister would have had less trade value after a year on the Mets not more.
3. I think we made some mistakes with the pen, and it is odd because Omar has traditionally looked to stockpile arms in the pen so I was surprised to see all of those arms go. This was clearly a mistake on Omar’s part that I think he would like to have back.
4. I don’t really take Omars moves in Montreal because I think he was trying to change the culture there and was expecting more backing from the owners because they wanted to have an on the field product that would sell for more value.
To those who pointed out Flores, yes, I agree that is a really bad move on Omar’s part. (Of course, Omar has a few pretty darn good moves as well)