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In a post to his blog for ESPN.com, Buster Olney writes that the Mets seem to prefer to land a catcher who is not Paul Lo Duca.
According to Olney, ‘the guy who makes the most sense’ is Orioles C Ramon Hernandez, ‘who is coming off a lousy year but could be revitalized playing for a contender, and in being reunited with former Oakland pitching coach Rick Peterson.’
Olney suggests the Mets engage the O’s in 
talks involving not only Hernandez, but also 2B Brian Roberts and RHP Chad Bradford.
…in reading olney, it’s sounding as though he feels a package from the Mets, which includes either Lastings Milledge and Carlos Gomez, could net them all three, considering that bradford and ramon make a good chuck of change, and roberts is a free agent after next season…
In 156 games for Baltimore last season, the 30–year-old Roberts hit .290 with 12 HR, 42 doubles, 57 RBI and stole 50 bases.
…like Luis Castillo, or David Eckstein, roberts would be a perfect fit batting behind Jose Reyes…hey, any shot Erik Bedard can drive them all to shea, and, you know, just stay for a start or two…
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a couple things:
hernandez is better than paulie…and he actual CAN ocassionally throw out a runner (that would be a refreshing change)…but ramon is laaaaaazy
and, how about working BEDARD into the deal?
Bedard Roberts & Hernandez for Milledge, Pelfrey, Heilman & Gotay
Milledge, Pelfrey, Heilman, Humber and Gomez for the three?
Okay, this seems the most rational choice. Trade to get Hernandez for a mid-level, somewhat high prospect. Sign Castillo and there you go you just filled 2 holes without giving up a farm. If there was a package that would include Bedard and Hernandez, I would definitely consider. No need to trade for bradford when we can get same or if not better value like Linebrink, Percival, Affledt.
Omar may be waiting for the results of the MItchell report before pursuing Roberts.
Get Bradford Back NOW!
I think that that would be a little bit dumb… What with the cost, the need of a starter, Linebrink in the agency and the young arms we have available.
That’s just stupid. The Mets don’t need Bradford, Roberts is solid, but is a wash with Millz. that’s the mets two top OF prospects for a second baseman. I’d do it if you take a couple second tier prospects and Gomez for Hernandez and his contract and Roberts.
The Mets dont need Bradford????? did you watch the Mets at all last year? Their bullpen was one of the Main reasons for their failure. How can you possibly say they dont Need Bradford?
Yes, Bradford will save the Mets! What was I thinking.
Wrong Orioles…they need Bedard. Rovberts is great but unless he is pitching , I don’t get it. For the submarine crowd we have Smith. Oh, and Hernandez is lousy.
Smith was a flahs in the pan, I think he is best suited to work out the triple A guys……. check the numbers, Lo Duca is the best catcher available minus his throwing out runners. With that said, lets get him back asap.
Smith dominated before his lack of experience pitching every day for that long came back to hurt him. There’s no way you can say he’s a flash in the pan at 23 years old. He’s got experience now, and will be an important part of the bullpen next year. No reason for Bradford
Not so fast mets dude…. You’re ready to bank on smith based on a month of good baseball vs. being sent down, only to come back up and implode again? Bradford is proven, and that’s the direction we need to go.
Smith wore out by Willie pitching him almost every day the first two months of the season.
LoDuca throwing out runners last year, that was a flash in the pan. He never did anything like that in his career.
see ya Paulie! Let’s get Ramon Hernandez, and please Omar just Ramon Hernandez. Roberts is a waste on this team, unless the price tag is reasonable, which I doubt because the owner loves Roberts and wouldn’t give him up unless the O’s were getting alot.
And Cerrone, please stop writing about Eckstein. The last thing the Mets need is the new Joe McEwing (minus the defensive versatility). Gritty McHustlepants is nice in the white-bread midwest, but here in NY, where we accept players of all colors, there is no need for guys like Eckstein.
I’m not a super paul loduca supporter, but please, check the numbers ramon hernandez vs loduca. I vote for getting the best catcher available, and sticktly by the numbers it’s loduca…
Yeah but LoDuca will probably only continue to decline in his age 36 season, while Ramon Hernandez’s value might be at its lowest it will possibly be until he reaches a similar age mark (he’ll be 32 next season). He posted superior seasons with OPS ranging from about .770-.820 between 2003-2006. During that time, LoDuca only cracked .760 once, and that was in 2006 when he hit second in the Mets lineup. Even last season, which wasn’t particularly good for either, Ramon’s batting numbers were slightly better aside from Batting Average and Games played. He even finished with 8 more RBIs in 13 fewer games.
Ramon will have a good chance of getting back towards his career numbers next year, which would basically make him Paul LoDuca with a few more Ks (nothing out of control though) and a slightly lower BA to go with more power and RBI production. For a bottom of the order hitter, that’s definitely preferred right now. Plus if you add in Brian Roberts you can snag a draft pick for Luis by offering arbitration (assuming he’d reject in favor of garunteed playing time and longer, more lucrative deal) and possibly add Chad Bradford on the two year deal Omar initially wanted, plus maybe snag a decent deal on Bedard for taking all that salary off the Orioles hands.
This is by far the best trade proposal I’ve heard. It fills ALL the Mets needs if it could get done (assuming beefing up the package and taking all that salary off the O’s hands could make Bedard available). Maybe some package of Gomez, Guerra, and two or three out of Heilman, Humber, Pelfrey, and Mulvey for Bedard, Hernandez, Roberts, and Bradford. I think you have to seriously think about that if your Omar. You could restock the farm with four picks before the second round even begins in the draft (between the pick they have, the two for Glavine, and the supplemental for Castillo) and your plans for 2008 with Milledge in RF are intact. Spend the money you would have spent on the FA market on locking up Bedard and Oliver Perez and maybe even John Maine and Brian Roberts if you can. Spice it up with some more of Omar’s signature international signings, and you’ve made your big league club much stronger while only doing minor damage to your farm, maybe even making it stronger if Omar drafts well.
What is so exciting in that group that requires giving up a “top package” to the O’s?
Hernandez should be available for next to nothing by assuming his contract. Bradford did OK, but he is a pretty highly paid situational reliever with a large, 2 year contract.
Roberts could be interesting, but he is a rental FA to be. Why give up a ton for him? Not sure how much he makes, so is there a salary dumping componenet?
But, that would be a lot of speed up top in the order, and he has got to be overall better than Castillo! Although I honestly have no idea how good of a glove man he is.
Still, this is a package that covers 2 (maybe 3) gaping holes for the Mets. Not long term solutions, unless you resign Roberts, but it helps plug the gaps for 2008.
Milledge might be too much alone to give up for this package back, considering that leaves a hole in RF, and all the salary (probably over20 million?) the mets would be absorbing.
So, get this package (even without bradford) for a modest outlay of prospects, and it would make a huge dent in Omar’s off season plan. Just have to get a few SPs an a pen guy or 2, and be done with it.
Bedard is crazy, with Roberts, we can do something called “re-sign.” Roberts is a great hitter, runner and fielder. I’d take him over Gotay in a second.
Ship Milledge, Heilman, Pelfrey, Humber and Gotay for Roberts and Bedard.
They can’t reject it…. Heilman is a young bullpen force to add to Bradford, Ray, Cherry and Walker. Pelfrey and Humber are young starters with some good potential, or at least Pelfrey is. Gotay and Milledge are nice, young, solid hitters who can build around Markakis. If they can send Tejada to the Yankees for at least Cabrera, they’d be starting on a decent young core.
Well Roberts would be a good addition and you could do worse than Hernandez. I would not offer Milledge. Maybe Gomez, Humber and Carp. As for Bradford I would trade a low prospect for him either way. O’s don’t need him and his salary and he would be a good addition to our pen at only 2 years instead of 3.
I think by this posting we can all begin to learn what the Mets “Prospects” are worth on the open market, I’m a huge Mets Fan, a fan who would like to see these guys actually develop for the Mets.
Lets resign Castillo, and Start Castro, why trade these kids who could be great, for such crap…ie Hernandez (who’s washed up) Roberts( whos a steroid addict) and Bradford ( an overpriced reliever)
Castro isn’t a starter. He had a decent year as a backup. He’s never been a starter and he’s 32. His career average is .234, his career high in HRs is 11.
Lo Duca is going back to New York, and in a Mets uniform.. I guarantee it.
I sweat Roberts, he’s tremendous.
I’m not familiar with Roberts, but I don’t like the idea of trading our best chips for a second basemen who is not special.
And Bedard?
milledge and gomez gone without significantly improving the pitching. brilliant!
My take on reading what Matt wrote is that it would be Milledge OR Gomez, not both. I know he wrote “and”, but based on the word “either” before “Milledge”, I think that was just a typo and should have read “or”.
Perhaps he will read this and clear it up.
i’d hope so. not sure i’d give one up though. for a good starting pitcher, yes. for position players who the mets can just re-sign (castillo and castro or lo duca) it’s not smart.
roberts, hernandez, and bradford = $40m+ in salary next couple of years
yanks offered mariano $40m+ for 3 years
i wouldn’t trade mariano and either milledge or gomez for that package. sign mo and trade an outfielder in a big package for a starter.
I think that if we can center the package around Gomez (I prefer Milledge’s major league readiness) it’s something we should consider.
It improves us in three spots. Maybe not huge improvements, but improvements nonetheless.
Hernandez had an off year last year, most likely due to injuries. When healthy, he’s been pretty good for a catcher. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect: .275, 18+, 75rbi from him. That’s quite a bit better than LoDuca, and pretty good from your 7th or 8th hitter.
I think Bradford improves our pen (although I’d still like to get someone else to handle the 8th inning. I’d love it to be Duaner, but I don’t want to COUNT on him.)
And I think Roberts is a tremendous player. I think he’s a big upgrade from the likes of Castillo or (yuck) Eckstein.
It all depends on what we’d have to give up behind Gomez. But considering the salary we’d be taking back, I wouldn’t think it would be too much.
I have seen Hernandez a bunch of times in person and Lo Duca is way better. It will really be bad if he becomes the Mets catcher.
He didn’t do anything defensively either . We will probably get him and then you all can see what I mean. Sigh.
Mets fans would love Roberts he and David Wright have the same baseball DNA. I bet Roberts would love NYC too.
How about the mega deal. O’s send Bedard, Hernandez, Bradford, and Huff to the Mets for Gomez, Pelfrey, Heilman. O’s clear a ton of salary and obtain MLB ready players on the cheap. The Mets get every offseason goal accomplished. Bradford to help the pen, Hernandez to catch, Bedard becomes the #2 and Huff gives us the LH bat that can platoon in the OF and back up Delgado.
forget bradford and huff. roberts bedard hernandez for gomez milledge pelfrey and humber, you may have to throw in a mid level guy too. re-sign roberts.
I have been saying all along in these threads that the O’s are a perfect fit for us to trade with….But I only want Roberst and Bedard….screw everyone else.
i think we need to target bedard (if hes even available) and maybe get hernandez as a salary dump ala lowell in the beckett deal with the marlins and sox. roberts is great and would be absolutely perfect in the two hole, plus the OF cant play on the infield dirt when hes up, but i gotta figure it would be tough to get bedard roberts and hernandez in the same deal although if it were id be willing to trade the farm for that package.
If I see Eckstein’s name one more time I’m going to puke. Heart and guts and short and grit does not equal good at baseball.
originally i was open to the idea of eckstein at 2nd base but after looking at his stats please no. my original opinion was based alot on his overachieving efforts in the 06 playoffs.
Wayneo,
how dare you tarnish the name of Sir Hustley McDirtdog also known as Little Hustley McGrittstein?
F Eckstein!!
Eckstein would not be a perfect fit hitting behind Reyes. Eckstein’s career SLG% is .362. He sucks. He has no business being in the 2 hole in any line-up. Roberts’ is .432. A big upgrade over Castillo and an ENORMOUS upgrade over Eckstein. Stop talking about signing Eckstein. Please stop. If any of you want to see the Mets win, you will stop talking about Eckstein. He sucks. He’s a below average shortstop and he’d be an even worse second baseman.
Once upon a time stats didn’t matter at every position. Witness Rafael Santana, the shortstop on our ‘86 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP team. Eckstein plugged into the 2 hole wouldn’t be bad at all.
The dude’s a winner, give him some credit. 2 WS rings on teams he was an integral part of.
Rafael Santana was also bad at baseball.
if you read Olney her says
“The O’s could use a young center fielder, and the Mets have two on the rise, in Lastings Milledge and Carlos Gomez”
which I dont read as including both in the deal..
I like the idea of replacing Castillo with Roberts.. and Bradford would be a nice throw in..
Ramon, Roberts and Bradford for Gomez and Pelf?
I agree. I said the same thing above. It was a typo and should have read “Milledge or Gomez”. Matt wrote “either” before Milledge’s name. You wouldn’t do that if it was to include both.
Would be nice if he fixed it though..:-)
The one issue that gives me pause for using the Orioles as one-stop shopping is this is a loser franchise for a reason ….
Good point, but I do like the addition of Roberts as long as his name doesn’t appear in the Mitchell Report. That would give us a comparable infield to the Phllies, which is–this hurts–the team to beat next year.
I would like Roberts. I think he’s a poor man’s Utley at best, Tim Teufel at worst. Either way, he’d be an improvement over Castillo. I definitely would like to get Bedard also. Hernandez or Bradford would be nice throw-ins for us, much the way Maine once was, but I wouldn’t trade much in the way of value to pick up either Hernandez or Bradford.
As for Roberts and the possibility of being mentioned in the Mitchell Report, it doesn’t matter to me. Even if you consider his 2007 as a down season, Roberts was still better than many other 2B last year, and certainly better than Castillo offensively and defensively. At 30 years old, he’s not so old that he’s going to fall apart all of a sudden. I like his speed very much at the top of our lineup with Reyes, and he’d be a nice 2-hole hitter with a little pop. If the Mets were willing to sign Mota who was already serving a suspension for steroids and that didn’t faze Minaya in the least when he did that… then Minaya should NOT be affected to trade for Roberts just on the off chance he once used steroids.
This IS a VERY VERY interesting idea!
Roberts IS a PLAYER and even if just for a season,it’s not a
“rental”. Love Loduca but, at this point, given age and arm-
Hernandez IS a better player. PLUS with HIM tied-up for just’08
you keep options open for the future.
Bradford IS and has always been a pretty solid RP AND not just
against rightys.
But and However, to made this type of move I think the Most
you can give-up is Millage.
I know it’s alot and I am biased against him since I really don’t
think he’ll ever be an Eric Davis type BUT more likely a Carl Everett type.
But, I could be wrong
Milledge and Gomez are the Mets top two prospects, Can’t spend either of them on anything but quality starting pitching. Certainly not a middle reliever, so-so catcher and above average 2B.
This would be awesome. I could stop wearing my Mets Bradford jersey with irony and go back to wearing it with pride.
Knew I’d be seeing you here eventually.
You bought what?
If the O’s are trying to get rid of Hernandez and his salary, then it should take way less than any top tier prospect the Mets have. I’d give them Collazo and Nickeas and call it a day. I’d rather give Gotay a shot at 2b than Roberts and assuming it didn’t work, revisit a trade for Roberts (if truly available,) by the trade deadline. Now if you are going to expand the deal to include Bedard, now you’re talking Pelfrey or Humber or both.
i’d like all three of these guys but not at the expense of milledge
I think people have an unrealistic sense of Milledge’s trade value. What we or the Mets think he will become isn’t really relevant. From what I have seen, the market values him less than four of five of the Dodgers’ prospects/young players alone. Over and over again it is reported that the Mets can’t really compete for either Santana or Cabrera because other teams have better packages of prospects/young players to offer.
Putting aside the PED issue, Roberts would probably be an upgrade over Castillo because he is younger and appears to be healthy, hits with more power, and steals more than Castillo. Also, he has consistently hit better on the road than at home, suggesting his numbers may have been suppressed a bit by playing half his games in Baltimore. I don’t know about his defense.
Maybe Ramon Hernandez isn’t an upgrade, but the Paul Lo Duca of 2007 was a pretty significant weakness for the Mets.
I would agree that we should probably save our best trading chips for starting pitching — but there aren’t a lot of good ones available. We simply aren’t going to be able to acquire Santana or Danny Haren with what we have to offer, unless we lose someone like Maine or Perez, which makes no sense. The starters who are reasonably available to us through trade are not that great, and if we could acquire a truly valuable player who is not a starting pitcher, I would be willing to give up one or more of the “chips.”
Olney is crazy to think it should cost Milledge or Gomez for that package of players. None of them are needed to the point that the Mets should part with their 2 most tradeable position players. You’d do just as well to resign Castillo and Castro, and pursue a guy like Linebrink or Affeldt.
How is that equal to Milledge?
No thanks.
And yes, if you put Bedard into the equation, well then you can dangle a combination of players that only excludes Wright, Reyes and Beltran.
Hernandez is an upgrade over LoDuca — I dont think he liked Baltimore and was hurt last year.. but he’s younger, hits and throws better and has worked well with Peterson
Roberts is an upgrade over Castllo in terms of speed, youth and power.
Bradford - would add to the Pen mix. Hes pitched in NY and succeeded..
for next year the only payroll you are adding is 7 mil
Catillo/Roberts is a wash
RHis +3.5 and Brad is +3.5
it improves you in three spots and all you have to give up is 2 prospects?
sign me up.
Bedard should be a part of any deal that involves Milledge. If we’re going to give up L Millz, it should probably be for an impact pitcher, being that that’s our main need and all. How much better do we get by bringing in Brian Roberts and Ramon Hernandez to replace Castillo and Lo Duce (a modest upgrade, at best) in exchange for our young player (Milledge) who’s probably worth the most right now and who if he doesn’t get dealt should be our starting right fielder next year.
Similar to the Marlins in salary dump mode, this concept makes a lot of sense. However, I strongly feel that this makes more sense for us to take on some of this salary for the Orioles, if they’re dangling Bedard into the mix.
Personally, and trying to be as realistic as I can,
Mets
-Milledge
-A Hernandez
-Heilman
-Mulvey, Pelfrey or Humber
-Two High ceiling AA Prospects that interest the Orioles that the Mets would be open to considering
Orioles
-Bedard
-Hernandez
-Roberts
-Bradford
I think it works for both, losing salary for Baltimore AND aquiring MLB ready players, and picking up a pitcher plus empty spots for the Mets
Personally, I imagine that Bedard is about as untouchable as David Wright.
But, if we have to speculate on a pitcher on the Orioles staff, how about Daniel Cabrera. Cy Young stuff; Anthony Young performance. He might be worth the risk, just like Oliver Perez was two years ago.
I want Bedard for christmas, Bring him in, and all is forgiven, Omar.