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It’s Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing, where Greg Prince takes a look back at Steve Trachsel win against the Marlins from June, 2004.
In the New York Post, Bart Hubbach talks with Nelson Figueroa about his long journey back to the major leagues.
According to Brian Moritz, in the Press & Sun Bulletin, Robert Parnell has a lot more confidence than he did last season thanks to his brief time with the big-league club this spring.
Lastly, in the New York Sun, Tim Marchman believes the Mets may soon regret the players they let go during the last few years, such as Jeff Keppinger and Jesus Flores.
Well, personally, I hope players like Jesus Flores, Jeff Keppinger, Lastings Milledge, Mike Jacobs, Brian Bannister, the Minnesota 4, etc continue turning into serviceable major league players or better. What that says is that our advanced scouting and farm system are working. Eventually, we’d need to start learning how to better evaluate our own talent so that we can retain more of it, but I’d say this is definitely a step in the right direction. Hell, even if that doesn’t happen, we’re bound to keep a couple by accident. Certainly better than the Alex Escobar and Generation K.
Be careful … you’ll be attacked for being a whiner and complainer, simply for stating your opinion.
Huh? I’ll concede that I do my fair share of whining and complaining, but I thought this comment was rather positive and optimistic.
I was just being sarcastic. Just ignore me.
Oh, my bad. I’m a little slow in the mornings. I get up at six, but I let my brain sleep in on Fridays. It’s an understanding we’ve reached…
hahaha … no problem. It had more to do with the overall comment section than it had to do with what you said.
No Mikey,
this is actually a well thought out, reasonable point of view regarding our front office and scouting.
Not the typical “WHY CAN’T OMAR DO THIS?! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE DIDNT DO THAT!…WHAT IS WRONG WITH OMAR AND WILLIE?!?!?! I’M SO MUCH BETTER THAN THEM”
Good job PerfectGame…completely agree
Yo Roach, what’s the difference between “I’m so much better than Omar and Willie” and “My opinion is so much better than yours” ??
I’m not a complainer. I say positive things too. I’m just wondering what the difference is.
Hmm. The silence is deafening. Interesting. I guess there’s no difference.
“The Mets are, far more than they need be, a collection of bland players in their baseball middle age, who came up elsewhere and will retire elsewhere having made no real impression and done nothing unique. This isn’t the worst of all possible situations; but things didn’t need to be this way.” – New York Sun
Whoa! Omar is pwnded FTMFW! Everytime I see Bannister, Gomez, Milledge, Keppinger or Flores in a highlight reel, I become sick to my stomach.
Gomez??
REALLY? dude…I can understand being sick to your stomach about the rest of em, but Gomez helped bring us Santana..neither of them has shown anythign yet…and that trade was a good one..
Flores, I agree, since he was a rule 5 …
Milledge, jury is still out in my opinion on that trade
Bannister…eh
Keppinger …eh
That Marchman article needed to be written. One or two of those losses could be written off as mistakes but the whole lot of them is troubling.
For all the good moves Omar has made, he still needs to be held accountable for some very, very bad moves, including Bannister, Bell, Lindstrom, Keppinger, Flores, and most likely, Gotay. The Maine acquisition was brilliant, but we can’t consider the Perez deal a brilliant deal yet. Don’t get me wrong — I love Ollie, but he has been good, though inconsistent, for the Mets (17-13) and he cost us Nady (still a good young hitter) AND there is probably an 85% or greater chance that he will leave the Mets after this season.
So while the Mets have invested a lot of time, money and effort into making Ollie a better pitcher, he has rewarded them with some brilliant games and some real stinkers. And now he will most likely take the money and run. Then the Mets will be left with nothing (except maybe a supplemental pick) for Xavier Nady. Contrast that with the money and the resepct he has bestowed upon Moises Alou and Orlando Hernandez — who have done so very little for the Mets — and you really have to question his judgement.
The only player I am truly upset about losing was Jesus Flores. That is because there was no reason TO lose him. Omar dropped the ball completely. As far as the others, those guys are filler material (keppy and Gotay,) or couldnt produce in NY (Heath Bell,) or were traded for significant pieces (Mike Jacobs) I’ll argue until i’m blue in the face that the Bannister deal was a worthwhile deal even though Bannister has done well in KC and Burgos is injured.
I’ll always be somewhat disappointed Kep didn’t get a real shot at 2B, and losing Flores was indefensible.
While I’ve read some valid points regarding Bannister, I agree that, at the time, it was a totally reasonable trade. I really hope at least two of the guys we gave for Santana end up ok–stoneman inherited a terrible position, there–and I do think Milledge turns out, too, but that it also works out in our favor. I see a lot more on the plus side of Omar’s ledger than the minus side.
That “filler material” is a LOT cheaper than the $7-8 mil we’re tossing Castillo for about the same performance this year… never mind the $18 mil we’ll be tossing him for shuttling on and off the DL over the next couple of years.
In the same way, there is a LOT of value in guys like Keppinger, Bell, Owens, et. al… and that value has been lost for practically nothing.
I like the “big” moves he has made. It’s just that there’s been a LOT more to Omar’s tenure than Milledge/Santana/Beltran/Pedro… all of it bears consideration when and if his future employment is considered.
i love jesus flores and im sure the mets did too, but with the rule5 the way it is, it was impossible to keep him. im sure the mets didnt expect someone to be able to pick him and keep him on the roster all year. but with the nats in the cellar, they could afford the flores’ growing pains in the big leagues. just sucks for us lol
It seems cheap to cherry-pick bad moves well after the fact while largely ignoring the good ones. Can someone tell me whom they should have left unprotected besides Flores and why? Why Heath Bell showed promise at the time and shouldn’t have been traded, etc.
I can argue that I should have hit on 18 when I know after the fact that I’m going to get a 3, but that doesn’t make it the rational move at the time.
I’m not saying Omar made all the right decisions–I myself can’t properly judge–but to be fair you have to put them in the proper context…
1-Trash-man won yesterday for the Orioles. I don’t care what anybody says, he could have been our fifth starter. He’s as good/or bad as any number 5 out there (except for his human rain delay traits.)
2-Omar is not a bust. You need defense behind the pitching. Castillo is better than Keppinger and miles ahead of Gotay in that department. Milledge was a two for one. We got a defensive catcher that is better than any we’ve had in a few years plus an outfielder who’s decent. Milledge may turn out to be great but it seemed he might be a headache personally. Decent catchers are hard to find. As far as Bannistar for Burgos, this was the only one I dodn’t like. His MO was that he walked guys but the batting average against him would be low. Pick your poison. I would rahter have Bannistar than Burgos, even if he was healthy.