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Moises Alou told reporters that he will be ready for action against the D’Backs this weekend, after learning that he does not have a fracture in his ankle.
…in case you’ve forgotten, alou is the tall, skinny guy with quick wrists, who hit well for the Mets at the end of last season…don’t worry, you’ll know him when you see him…
Meanwhile, Brian Schneider remained in the hospital yesterday with a staph infection in his thumb.
…the common theory seems to be that schneider will be activated when alou is activated, when the team can demote Gustavo Molina back to Triple-A…Ramon Castro is still not an option…he has been playing games in extended spring training, but, according to Omar Minaya, who talked with reporters yesterday, castro is still limping when he runs…
Meanwhile, Matt Wise is also expected to join the Mets in Arizona on Thursday, after having been on the disabled list since April 8 due to a bruise on his right forearm.
…so, who will go when wise enters…logically, it would have to be either Jorge Sosa or Joe Smith…sosa will need to pass through waivers to remain in the organization, while smith can simply be sent to Triple-A with no consequence…obviously, smith should stay (from a talent point of view), but sosa may need to stick around for a while from a roster management point of view…
Lastly, Jose Valentin was in town to have his neck examined by team doctors and told reporters that he has been cleared for baseball activities.
Valentin will soon report to extended spring training in St. Lucie, where he’ll be able to do light throwing and hit from a tee.
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horrendous. another situation where contract determine splaying time. it is the sunk-cost fallacy. joe smith and jorge sosa both should stay with the team in the pen. the worst reliever should be gone, contracts should not determine playing time. it’s shooting yourself in the foot at your own expense, based on what you hoped you’d get in production months prior based on salary. so stupid.
It isn’t salary (Sosa doesn’t make that much) it is really being able to keep guys.
If you keep having to DFA guys (like Sosa), you wil deplete the depth in th esystem. Now, Sosa may not be great, but the logic is, what happens if someone else goes on the DL and they need a replacement?
My opinion, of course! ALthough Sosa does fill a different role (the long man). WIhtout him, the pen is all 1 inning guys (or less). And no emergency starter.
Lack of confidence aside….Aaron Heilman can be a long inning/emergency starter if need be.
nope…he needs to be stretched out, and this recent slump aside, his value is being a setup guy.
I believe he’s talking about wise?
We can send Joe Smith down to the minors.
He’ll only be there a day or two before Alou injures himself again anyway!
Or, maybe there could be a trade in the works? Might be better to try and trade some BP excess (assuming some team wants it!) for something you need (like the Morales for Heilmann idea)
By BP, do you mean batting practice? :-)
bullpen
haha…i know. but sosa and heilman have pretty much been bp (batting practice).
plus there is no such thing as bullpen excess… they’ve all been needed, and sometimes havent been enough.
I would feel much more secure with Smith and Muniz at AAA, than just Muniz and losing Sosa.
I would feel much more secure with Smith and Muniz pitching in games that matter than Sosa.
Heilman, Sosa and a A ball prospect for Morales. I would jump up and down all day.
I love that idea.
I say send Sosa down. If he gets claimed , so be it. Its not like he’s been lights out for the mets. Call up Vargas if you need a “long man.”
Would anybody claim Sosa off waivers?
its very likely with the lack of good arms around baseball.
Now that team may turn around and DFA him in a three weeks… but he likely wouldnt make it through waivers. The Braves are short on pitching…
Sosa is a replacement-level pitcher at BEST. If another team is dumb enough to claim him, and we need another arm, we have Muniz, Collazzo, etc. I really can’t see them sending down Smith — he’s been a valuable piece of the pen.
Out of Sosa, Wise, and Smith, Sosa should be the odd man out. GIven Wise’s past numbers, hes the better pitcher. He actually looked pretty good against the Marlins before giving up that homer — it was mainly stupid pitch selection that cost him the game.
However, Willie used Sosa last night and he had an easy inning. Anyone ever think that Sosa’s value diminishes when he gets used every night?
Think about it. Last year, when he first did some spot starting and then bullpen work, he was very good. Later in the season, after he appeared in about 130 games, he started to regress. Same with this year. He started off OK, then started serving up the gopher ball. I think he had a few days off and had a 1-2-3 inning last night.
Just an observation. Didn’t look up numbers to back the points up, but it seems that way. Maybe he just isn’t effective when used like he is.
Seriously, though, Willie’s been using Sosa A LOT. This is not the long-man role in the way Willie has used the long-man in the past. Darren Oliver would go weeks between appearances sometimes.
It really looks like they’re trying to shop Sosa, a lot like they did with Jorge Julio before Julio was traded.
I agree. Get innings out of him while you can and hope he does well enough to trade him.
Funny you mentioned Darren Oliver. That’s the comparison I was going to make.
Willie uses Sosa for one inning one night, say the 7th. Then, the next night, he tries to get two innings out of him, say the 6th and 7th. Two days later, he may be asked to come in the middle of an inning.
He is the long man and should be treated no differently than Darren Oliver was.
actually, this use of Sosa was exactly why the Mets didnt make him a starter this year. They planned to be able to use him as both a long and short reliever, maybe just not this much.
He can soak up innings, and unless Wise can do that, they may have to look to Heilman to be the long man. He is already not the 8th inning guy, so he might as well be used more when the starter goes out in the 6th.
I’ve been saying that all year. He is great when he is relatively fresh. When he’s used on a consistent basis he becomes very hittable, otherwise he is fairly good.
Sosa’s tenure on this team is coming to an end. At some point this season, Figgy will be moved into the pen and take on the duties of the long reliever. May as well bump Sosa now, and let Vargas take his spot until get get a healthy Pedro.
I’m for keeping Joe up here.
Fig is getting skipped in the rotation anyway. He can get us through the weekend.
There are various guys in AAA who we can give a shot to.
Lugo and Armas may not be worse than Sosa. They can give some length in the pen. We have to give other pitchers some looks.
Stokes had an excellent start last night, he would also be a long man candidate. And Vargas has already pitched 5 innings, so he’s ready as a long man, if not starter…
Between those four they should be able to find someone who can pick up Sosa’s long man work. The short man work would have to go to Smith and Wise. I guess they could get by without Sosa afterall…
who do you trust more sosa or heilman? sosa can’t be the worst guy in the mets bullpen. i am of th ebelief that you keep the best players you have on your team.
In the past Heilman has been more successful than Sosa.
Heilman isn’t far behind Sosa if his issues are not resolved…..which is a shame.
I trust Heilman more, if you take the long view (and not really that long!) I just don’t see Sosa as ANYTHING that can’t be replaced by a Muniz, Vargas, Armas, eventually Figgy; whereas Heilman has been very good at times not including the past couple weeks. You have to believe he will work out of this funk if he is used properly…and not completely demoralized by the fans sitting right over the dugout.
Man, if I could afford those seats…
At this point I would love to see a trade of Heilman, Sosa and Endy/Pagan for a decent 1B/OF. Don’t know if the Angels would be interested in Heilman or not. Maybe the Tigers? Anyway I would rather have a BP of Muniz, Smith and Wise than Heilman, Sosa and Wise. At least with Smith and Muniz they are young and will hopefully get better. Heilman’s confidence looks shot and Sosa is shot.
If no trade could be worked out, I would just risk it with Sosa. As for not having a long man, Heilman and Wise can both go multiple innings.
It is hard to tell how much faith the organization has in Sosa. It seems to me — too much, which would indicate sending Joe down even though he has been very good, simply because it doesn’t risk losing a player. I think the risk of loss on Sosa is very low — if he clears waivers, nothing changes; if he is claimed, he seems very easily replaceable by really anyone on the AAA roster. But Willie continuously going with him over Smith seems to suggest they like Sosa — or maybe just Willie does.
At any rate, Endy and Pagan are really the most duplicative players, particularly once Alou returns (for however long he returns…). I wonder if they are considering sending Pagan down as an option?
You know what? My neighbor’s five-year-old can do some light throwing and hit from a tee. Maybe the Mets should activate him too.
Well, if he can hit consistently off a tee, he’d be ahead of Delgado at least.
I wonder if the reason Sosa has been used so much is to try and keep the innings off of Smith? Maybe they know that Sosa will have to go or be traded so they want to get as many innings out of thim as possible.
Either way, I still think you have to let Sosa go. I don’t get the depth part because unless a bullpen arm gets injured if you want Smith on the team you have to lose one of them.
Maybe possibly showcasing Sosa.
Maybe Willie is still looking for some hope in Sosa.
Crazy theory but maybe Willie is looking for Sosa to fall on his face so the decision is easier.
So using Sosa now is like abusing that crappy car rental before u bring it back.
Exactly. Where else can you dump White Castle wrappers and not feel guilty? Look at it this way, you may be polluting the air, but you’re not littering.
Jumping ahead a little but Micah Owings (Arizona pitcher this Friday) is reportedly having right ankle issues but will pitch his turn. It’d be nice for the Mets to work the count as much as possible as wear the righty down and that solid bullpen early.
BIG PICTURE WOULD DICTATE SMITH DEMOTED, SOSA SAVED FOR SITUATIONS LIKE LAST NIGHT WHEN U MAY NEED 3+ IP IN XTRAS. SOSA STAYS UNTIL PEDRO OR DUQUE RETURN WITH FIGGY REPL SOSA. LET’S ALL FACE THE FACTS, PAGAN, CHAVEZ, FIGGY, SMITH, SOSA ARE ALL SERVING AS SUPPORT VEHICLES FOR THE TRUE ROSTER COGS. WE EXPECTED NOTHING OUT OF THEM AND GOT QUITE A BIT SO FAR WHICH IS A DEFINITE PLUS. JUST LIKE GOTAY, KEPPINGER, A-HERN, McEWING BEFORE THEM, THEY ARE EXPENDABLE & U SHOULDN’T GET OVERLY ATTACHED OR INFATUATED WITH TEMPORARY OVER-ACHIEVEMENT. THERE WAS A TIME, NOT SO LONG AGO, THE DODGERS THOUGHT THEY’D DISCOVERED LIGHTNING IN LIMA-TIME. THOSE WHO FAIL TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE CERTAINLY DOOMED TO REPEAT IT. ONCE AGAIN, SORRY FOR CAPSLOCK REQUIREMENT FROM MY DISABILITY.
Why can’t we just send heilman down to the minors so he can work out his problems down there…I’m thinking he still has options and he’s obviously not helping us in the majors right now…I think it’s a no brainer assuming he has options.
He does, and it would make sense for a short term trip to St. Lucie to work on whatever is tipping pitches or not working. But he would be back in 10-15 days and they would still have to remove someone from the pen.
All of this when they really should just get rid of Wise. He was pitching scared. And I could see Wise very easily making people long for the days of Mota. We’re gonna see A LOT of this guy trying to “get into his groove.”
Aside from that, PLEASE, Mr. Alou. Please stay healthy. You’ve been missed.
i’m not saying your necessarily wrong about wise…but let’s give this guy a chance
OK, I’m all for giving him a chance, but you know how hard it is for this team to get rid of dead weight. So if his rejoining the team doesn’t mean we lose someone that can help in an emergency, fine, let him go for a little while.
But don’t let him be the next Danny Graves or Mota. Once it’s obvious that it’s not going to work, say goodbye. No more trying to turn guys lives around at the expense of the rest of the team. And I say you can do that a little bit for Heilman since he’s been here for a while. Like him or not, he’s a Met. You don’t owe that kind of trust or loyalty to some of these other guys. Give him a couple of weeks (which in Willie Time means 14 appearances), and if he’s stinking up the joint, show him the door.
He’s thrown one inning! Are you kidding me?!
I’ve seen a lot of this guy. It’s not about him not being good. He’s scared. He has freely admitted that he is afraid of hitting someone again. That was a big deal and it’s not something that’s out of his head yet. It won’t take long for you to want him out of here.
Cant wait till the Diamonback series. Great early test against a really good team and we are FINALLY going to have the team we were supposed to open the year with(for the most part). It will be interesting to see how we do having alou and thank god schnieder back. Hopefully we can stop treading water and start building a lead in the division.
With all the injuries on this team, you can’t just let guys walk. Smith has options – he goes down.
Frankly I’d love to see Heilman go down ot get his head on straight – I admire the Giants for doing someting about Zito while we just keep running Heilman out in critical spots and he keeps wetting the bed. But it’s not going to happen.
Wise is a guy who could take that 6th-7th inning, with Feliciano and Scho, with Sanchez now back in the 8th. That leaves Heilman for Jorge Julio duty – ie, get some innings in in non-critical spots to get his confidence back.
UNFORTUNATLY, I BELIEVE WE’RE STUCK WITH FIXING HEILMAN SINCE THE PEN WAS BUILT ON A PREMISE THAT HE WOULD BE AVAILABLE IN THE 8th, SANCHEZ’ RECOVERY HAS BEEN A HUGE PLUS; BUT AS WE’RE STARTING TO SEE HE’S NO LONGER THE 70-80 APPEARANCE GUY WE’ LOVED & RELIED ON IN ‘06. HELL, THINGS CHANGE. PERSONALLY I WOULD HOPE WE CAN GET ALL OUR PIECES BACK ON LINE PRIOR TO 7/31. KEEPING AS MANY BULLPEN OPTIONS UNTIL THEN IS KEY SINCE BULLPEN BODIES ARE USUALLY IN THE BIGGEST DEMAND. SOSA WILL HAVE VALUE AT THE DEADLINE. WHILE I SERIOUSLY DOUBT IT WOULD HAPPEN; BUT A CERTAIN SOUTHERN TEAM I SUSPECT WILL BE FLOUNDERING IN LATE JULY HAS AN IDEAL 1B THEY CAN’T RETAIN PAST THIS SEASON AND A HUGE NEED FOR BULLPEN ARMS ESP WITH A BULLPEN EXPERT AS PITCHING COACH. WHO KNOWS JOHNNY S IS OUT OMAR’S GOT BIG ONES & WHAT BETTER PLACE FOR OUR MOST HITTABLE RELIEVERS?
I was with you until around the halfway point.
Another thing that’s stuck: Your CAPS LOCK key
I was going to mention that, but I was distracted by what I think was a proposal of a Jorge Sosa for Mark Teixeira trade.
The guy has a disability that requires Capslock…he’s mentioned it before, including in this thread.
Sorry, I can’t read every post or I would never get any work done. I wasn’t really that interested in the capslock anyway. I meant what I said about being with him for the first half of his post, but the second half was like something I would try to do back when I played MVP 2005. :)
The earlier comment comparing Sosa’s use to that of Darren Oliver deserves some additional commentary. Don’t forget that, in 2006, we were ahead in many games, and the bullpen was not an overused as it has been this season (and last). I think it is ideal to have the situation we had in 2006, but sometimes you play the hand that is dealt.
Let’s also give credit where it is due— Willie’s handling of the bullpen this season has been right on the money— right down to getting Heilman in the game in the 7th in a “clean inning” (as one TV analyst described it– i.e., no runners on).
Let’s win one today, and hopefully we are catching the Dbacks when they are cooling off and can take 2 out of 3. (We always play well there…)
Mets need to get rid of Heilman while he still has some “value” left… Willy graduated from the Torre school of burning out your Bullpen.
HEY, MISSSHEA, EVER CONSIDER A MONIKER ALTERATION TO MS SHEA? (LOL, SORRY COULDN’T RESIST). WHILE I DOUBT ATL WOULS GIVE MUCH MORE THAN SMOLTZ’ SWEAT FOR SOSA, A PKG OF SOME, INCL SOSA, OF OUR BULLPEN/AAA PITCHING(NON-PROSPECT) MAY ENTICE SOME ATL INTERST, IF NOT DIRECTLY THAN WITH OPOSSIBLY A 3-WAY. VERY COMPLICATED AND WOULD REQ LONG PLANNING. WREN KNOWS HE CAN’T KEEP TEX, THUS HIS EXCLUSION FROM BRAVES TV PROMOS. WITH BOSOX & NYY INTEREST IN HIM IT BEHOOVES OMAR TO BE PROACTIVE & PREEMPTIVE. LORD KNOWS WE’RE EXPOSED @ THE POSITION. WE HAVE SOMEWHAT OF A SALARY ADVANTAGE IN AS MUCH AS WE’ ALREADY HAVE INVESTED $16M IN THE POSITION FOR ‘09+ SO INCREMENTALLY THE HURT WON’T BE AS BAD. THANKS FOR ACCOMODATING MY CAPS…