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During yesterday’s win over the D’Backs, with the score tied in bottom of the eighth, Pedro Feliciano made a poor throw over first base, allowing D’Backs 2B Chris Burke to extend a routine bunt in to a potential triple.
However, Ryan Church hustled, picked up the ball – now rolling towards right field – and tossed a one-hop bullet to David Wright to leg Burke sliding in to the third for an out.
…by the way, it was a acrobatic tag by wright, as well…
Church, speaking to reporters after the game:
“The biggest thing was getting a grip on the ball…In that situation, the key is not to panic. It started to tail a little bit, but David made a great play to get to it and make the tag…That guy could have been on third with nobody out. Whatever helps, just chip in. I didn’t get it done with the bat, just do it with defense.”
Church also made a running catch of a liner by Chris Young in the sixth to get Santana out of a bases-loaded jam in what would prove to be the Mets ace’s final inning of work.
Meanwhile, in a post to Brooklyn Met Fan, Adam apologizes to Omar Minaya for having criticized the acquisition of Church for Lastings Milledge, writing, “I’ve completely reversed my position on this trade and I hereby stand down. You made the right call. I thank God you did because I can’t imagine what kind of shape this team would be in without Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.”
…as i said at the time, this was a deal that worked for both teams, and it was not about milledge’s shortcomings…in fact, the sense i got was that people connected to the Mets knew that milledge would eventually develop in to the type of player they’d regret having traded away…the thing is, given the pressure to win now, the Mets did not have time to wait for that day to come…let us not forget, too, that church is under 30 and under contract…
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I didn’t like the trade at the time, but not because I thought Milledge was going to turn into anything special. I actually don’t think he will. My problem with the trade is that Omar waited too long to do it, after Lastings’ value had plummeted. He should’ve pulled the trigger back in July when he was hot. Now, that said, I absolutely love what Church has brought to the table, so maybe this will end up being a steal. A little too early to tell.
By the way, I’m Guiseppe Franco. I’m not putting my good name on the line for something that doesn’t work. (Sorry that was just on TV as I was typing this).
I was in the minority as a “for” this trade when it first happened.
I like Lastings, always have, but I just see him as a guy who will never live up to the potential. I also thought he wasn’t a great fit here at his current maturity level.
That said, I can also see us taking him back again in a few years if we want to….a win-win.
. Ya gotta love the guy.
You know I love you gals out there, always have.
It’s never going to be a good trade, Matt. This is just like when Zambrano strung a few starts together and people were running to defend the Mets in that one. I’ve always liked Church, and he’s a nice player, but Milledge was traded at a low value point and projects to be much better.
That’s the problem, though. You are valuing this deal in the wrong context. It’s not about who will be the better player in five years. It’s about who is the better player right now, in a year when expectations are high. Who is the player you can most count on to not make rookie mistakes? Who is the more stable player? Etc. That is the context in which this deal was made. It was not made in a stats-only, five-years-down-the-road, fantasy-baseball type mindset.
But trades like this are not won/lost in the month of April. I am enjoying these two players, but we still might live to regret it.
Only time will tell.
I was against the trade at the time and even with the success Church has had through 5 weeks of the season, I still expect Lastings to be the better player in the future.
Schneider was the piece that I did not value too much but after having seen him play….he is definitely a plus plus caller of a game and defender of his position. That kind of evens out this deal in my opinion. Now Church is a very good defensive player and so far seems to have a bit of Paul O’Neil type clutchness on both sides of the ball.
If he can keep this up…his timely O and D, I may come all the way around and say it was a good trade for both. I hate trading within the division. We will see Lasto over and over again for the next 5 years (until he hits Free Agency) and it will likely pain me when I see him doing well….which I do expect Lastings to do)
I live in D.C., so the performance of both players is not a surprise to me.
I said at the time of the trade that in a vacuum, I really liked both players. I just didn’t think Milledge should have been moved. We’re always patching up holes with quick fixes and never developing anybody as an organization. It sucks.
Any reasonable critic of the trade knew that year 1 would probably be a win for the Mets.
I’m not sure that it’s a stats-only mindset to value a player based on tools and scouting. I think the trade is good, and Matt, you’re right, it will work for both teams. But by saying “It’s about who is the better player right now, in a year when expectations are high”, you could have just as easily defended trading Melvin Mora for Mike Bordick, which was thr wrong move.
Except that Mora was the better player, then, at the time of that deal.
If it’s about who the better player is right now, when expectations are high, how do you trade Brian Bannister (who was good enough to be the 4th starter to start 2006) for a project reliever in Burgos last year when the team is in dire need of starting pitching?
You can find a million ways to defend things - one way one year, the other way the next.
Bottom line is you don’t trade a better player because you don’t like his rap albums or whatever. Which is the real reason, because projection-wise, Church and Milledge are very similar for even this year. Long term, Milledge projects to be significantly better.
Matt is 100% right here. This was a trade for this year and maybe next. Omar (and the fans) could not wait for Milledge to overcome his “growing pains”.
Church and Schneider will be better than Milledge this year (most likely) and that’s what Omar was trading for.
The added benefit is Matt’s other point, that Church is under 30 and under contract.
If you continuously make trades for short-term gains, it’s going to come back and bite you back hard.
I agree with you 100%. But then I moan when the young guys are struggling. We are difficult fans.
“Go young but win now” is tough. The D-backs are only a couple of years away from 111 losses. In this market we (the fans) will never stand for that. So executives have to build on the fly.
I was against the Milledge move but Church has been much better so far that I thought. I am not saying who got or will get the best of the move here but as far as on-the-fly building this has been a pretty good move so far.
What would the fan reaction be if Milledge was on this team right now? You could make the case that the team would be 1 or 2 games under .500.
It’s not that these moves should never be made, it’s that it’s the only type of moves that the Mets seem to make. Anyone can figure out that Wright and Reyes should be placed in the lineup as young guys and left alone. They are the most elite of all prospects. Who else have the Mets developed as a position player?
We simply need to get better at developing and integrating young players. The whole team doesn’t have to be young, but we should be able to work a young player like Milledge into the lineup and not miss a beat with our payroll.
except we turned Milledge into 2 starting players, one young enough that he could be around for a while and be a major contributor. Milledge may still turn out to be a good player, no one’s saying he won’t, but this trade WAS about this year. The Mets needed to win this year or at least be competitive after last year, the fans demanded that, and this trade helps that. You say you want to keep young players, but when you do that, you’re team isn’t as good, like it wouldn’t be this year, and then all the fans would be calling for Omar’s head for putting together a not good enough team. That’s just how it is man. Milledge has already proven in DC he hasn’t really grown up and having that kind of problem on a team with postseason aspirations just won’t fly. It’s not about Milledge being a better player in 5 years. In 5 years, we could have an even better player, who isn’t Church, on this team, so who cares.
well said darkstar
It’s a slippery slope though, darkstar. I’m not killing the move, just suggesting that the lack of development of players in the Mets organization is rather troubling and a sign of bad things to come.
We are VERY fortunate to have the resources to make up for our inadequacy in this area. Of course, if we were better at it, we could rule the NL.
Exactly, if the Mets win the world series in the next couple years than know one will even care about this trade. With our aging vets in Alou, Delgado, Pedro, El Duque, etc, the mets couldn’t afford to wait for Milledge to develop, they had to put together a team that can win now and church and Schneider give them the best chance to advance thru the playoffs this year and next year. Milledge can be a 10 time all-star in a couple years but that doesn’t help us TODAY!
i dont think the real problem here is trading away Milledge for two established players. The real problem is that the Mets scouting system sucks, which will come back to bite them in the ass. I think the Mets need to find some better scouts to assess talent especially with 3 top draft picks coming our way in June.
Well Church for Lastings straight up would have been a fair deal based on performance but what is the most underrated portion of this trade is the Schneider part. I saw a stat the other day that the staff ERA is a full run lower when he’s behind the plate. He makes Pelfrey a major league starter and that is worth the price alone.
Yup. And do you think it was a coincidence that Santana gave up only 1 run, and the Mets a total of 2 runs when Schneider returned? I like what he does behind the plate.
Not to mention Ollie. We place too little value on a catchers ability to control his staff but Schneider seems to know the hitters and umps so that he makes our pitchers better.
I think Schneider’s greatest influence is on Pelfrey.
I definitely agree with you here. He seems to force Pelfrey to be aggressive and trust his stuff.
I loved the trade at the time. I had really liked Lastings, and loved seeing his parent’s trailer at spring training. He seemed like a great kid and a great talent. But I soured quickly on him. I don’t think I got to the place of “know your place rook”, but I was getting there. The fact that someone (Wagner) had to even get to the point of leaving a public notice speaks volumes.
I had always liked Schneider, but knew nothing about Church. But, after dodging the bullet known as Y. Torrealba, I was very psyched to get Schneider (an experienced, not so old catcher is hard to come by–and now we’re set for a few years anyway), and with a major league ready OF in Church the deal seemed very good. Now it seems like pure serendipity. Chruch was ready to explode it seems. He’s shown guts and poise, and seems a great teammate and seems very well liked by the rest of the guys, s does Schneider. When building a “team” it’s not just talent that’s important. Well, now it seems that Schneider and Church have talent, drive, smarts, and they’re great teammates too. All good.
Church seems like a lefty version of Xavier Nady this year (with less raw power). Could see him becoming a fan favorite/steady player that Nady was in his brief time here.
Let’s just hope that Duaner can stay out of taxi cabs at 4AM in Miami.
Well I hated the trade at the time, but I was probably overreacting. To say I love it now would be overreacting. It seems to have worked for both teams thus far, but I still think in the long run Lastings will emerge the best player by far.
Love Church. He’s been great so far. This may just be my opinion, but I’m thoroughly unimpressed by Schneider’s pitch blocking. Let’s just say Santana did not throw 3 WILD pitches yesterday. He seems to call a good game, but Piazza could smother a ball in the dirt better than Schneider can (maybe he’s just rusty from the injury, but he does have a bunch of passed balls already too).
semi off the main topic here, but what in hell is wrong with Feliciano? Besides a couple strong innings he has been a contstant miss this year. Walks and errors have been a big issue for him and he was always solid the last two years. Very strange to see him go down the tubes this year.
where in the world is Ricardo Rincon?
“Where in the world is Ricardo Rincon?”
Certainly not with Carmen San Diego, but more than likely playing in Low-A Ball…..where he belongs.
Feliciano has been out of it lately, makking boneheaded plays and throwing hanging sliders that get crushed. But he has an excuse: family issues (remember he was late for opening day) due to an ill daughter that required her to have open heart surgery. As she recovers, I’m sure Pedro will recover his focus. Right now, his mind, rightfully it seems, is elsewhere.
To scew the words of Ron Darling: As a person I feel for Feliciano, as a Mets fan he needs to start getting people out.
Gang, is it only me or does everyone think Brian Schneider sucks defensively as a catcher? Yesterday catching Santana he had 3 passed balls. And he dropped a routine pop-up…..
During opening day at Shea vs. Phillies, he had 2 passed balls and didn’t hustle to retrieve. IMO, this guy sucks moose -ick!
I would really like people’s opinions on this because maybe I am missing something…….
He’s better than this. I saw him in DC for 3 years and he’s fantastic. One of the passed balls yesterday was a perfect example of how Schneider is still getting used to the stuff of every pitcher on the staff. Santana threw a changeup that Schneider tried to reach out with his backhand for and catch, but it had so much sink that it bounced before his glove. If Schneider was more familiar with Santana, he would have known to turn his glove over and block it with his chest.
He had some hammy issues in spring training, so he didn’t get to catch all the pitchers as much as he would have liked. He’ll be fine back there.
I agree that he doesn’t block balls well. Said that above. He tries to backhand a lot of stuff rather than move his body in front and I guess he never broke in that glove. Schneider basically gave the D’backs three free bases yesterday, but luckily it didn’t come back to bite the Mets. Unfortuna