In case you missed it, from last night…
Jose Reyes has a slight tear in the tendon between his knee and the hamstring, he will rest for two days and then be reevaluated.
From what I can gather, people connected to the Mets believe he is likely to be out of action through at least the All Star break.
However, people close to Reyes believe he could be back sooner, because it’s the tendon not the actual hamstring that has been comprised.
Nevertheless, the question now is: Who will play shortstop?
Jerry Manuel has said he does not see Alex Cora as an every-day player, because he is so valuable in other spots.
That said, Wilson Valdez is not the answer, either.
Mark Grudzielanek is also still a free agent.
The A’s may look to trade SS Bobby Crosby, though he’s batting just .207 with two HR and 21 strike outs in 42 games, and it has been years since he ended a season hitting over .230, though he has played every position on the infield this season.
Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette believes the Pirates will look to trade SS Jack Wilson, who is hitting .264 with just 11 extra base hits.
The Red Sox and Royals have both been linked in rumor to Wilson.
From what I can gather, Wilson will be much easier to acquire if the new team is willing to pick up all of the $13 million left on his contract between now and the end of next season.
There have been slight rumblings in baseball that the Blue Jays could look to trade SS John McDonald, while the Indians might field offers for Johnny Peralta, who hit roughly .275 with 20 HR each of the last two years.
Last week, there was a lot of talk about the Mets having interest in Indians infielder Mark DeRosa, but I believe the team views him more of a solution for the bench, first base and third.
For what it’s worth, I have not yet found a person in baseball who believes DeRosa is capable of playing strong defense at short, where he has played just eight times in the last three seasons.
In the minor leagues for the Mets, Triple-A SS Jonathan Malo is hitting .242 in his last 10 games; however, 19–year-old Double-AA Jose Ruben Tejada is batting .281 with 13 extra base hits and a .381 OBP.
Omar Minaya once told me an interview that he had interest in signing SS David Eckstein prior to last season.
Eckstein is hitting 242 in 53 games for the Padres, where he has been starting at second base, though there have been no published reports suggesting he is yet available in a trade.
Regardless, the way I see it, whomever the Mets lean on to play shortstop must be on the field every day, since it is important to have a consistent person at such a key defensive position.
Can someone please tell me if this medical staff actually have degrees, or are they Dr’s in the same sense that Dr. Dre is a doctor. Because this is ridiculous how awful they have been the last 3 years. If Omar has something to with this then he should be fired as well. The fact that if reyes was rested for 15 days 3 weeks ago, he would be fine. It took over 2 weeks to diagnose delgado who could be back 2 weeks sooner.
This is so frustrating.
Yes, the training staff is to blame for these injuries – are you kidding me? Wright, Beltran, Delgado and Reyes missed a collective, what, 10 games last year? Does the training staff get credit for that? Just because we rode the high horse and were able to get away without key injuries last year, doesn’t mean that injuries don’t happen. This is sports.
It isn’t that injuries happen, it is the medical staff’s approach seems to always draw things out for longer than necessary. Last year with Church is a prime example.
Not only Church, Wagner too. They seem to have the wrong diagnosis for almost everything.
I think they screwed up on Wagner…although they had his arm tested and scanned and i think it was ok initially (not torn that is)
Church is a weird situation…not a common injury and one of the most inconsistent injuries to treat. Players react differently to concussions and it was the 2nd one that killed him but how could you prevent that
Agreed, but when you’re talking about head trauma the most conservative approach is what is warranted.
I have been continually baffled by the way this team, not just the medical staff approaches injuries. It really makes no sense at all to try to downplay the severity of a player’s injuries. It will become apparent sooner or later what the actual issue is and then the organization has to endure scrutiny and criticism that they themselves have manufactured by creating unrealistic expectations among their fans.
It has nothing to do with playing in New York. Yes there are expectations, but you’re only making it worse when you try to conceal something that’s going to come to light eventually anyway. It strikes me as an almost juvenile approach that’s rooted in PR as much as it is self-delusion.
their communication tot he public is puzzling…no question.
What troubles me about Reyes is that they kept talking about him having pain behind his knee…but thats all they told us. Did they really not know there was something more to it?
If you’re trying to replace an injured player, downplaying the injury is exactly what should be done so that you’re not taken advantage off by the other GM’s…
I’m not so sure about that. I mean once you go shopping for a specific position it basically tells the rest of the league what the real score is as far as an injury.
Really, the type of player you look for says more about the severity of an injury than anything else. If you’re in the market for a defensive replacement with hitting way down on the priority list, it’s usually a safe bet you only need a stopgap for a short-term hole in the lineup. However, once you start looking for an everyday guy with good numbers, other teams know you anticipate a long-term injury to a key piece of your offense. That’s where the asking prices jump.
Whatever the front office says about injuries is taken with the same grain of salt by GM’s as the fans, which is why it serves virtually no purpose other than to make the front office look like a mess.
There was a time when I thought criticism of our medical people was greatly overblown. But there has been a continuing series of problems. The pattern of a slight injury turning into a slightly worse injury then becoming a signicant injury has repeated itself too often. This is like Chinese water torture. This cannot continue and if it means firing/replacing people then I would hope the team acts. The time for execuse-making and minimizing the damage is long past. I have no confidence in the organization’s ability to properly assess player injuries.
I know he is ancient, but Omar Visquel would be a suitable defensive replacement. And he even hits sometimes.
I love Viquel and he costs no prospects. Sign him up and save prospects for a SP!!
Vizquel
This reminds me of Jose’s injury in 2004 – is he coming back? really? Can this team win? No Reyes, No Delgado, Beltran with bad legs ala 2004, Perez in a strait jacket and Gary Sheffield in the cleanup spot. Is David Wright Michael Jordan? Is it too early to fold on the season?
Unfortunately, the answers to your questions are not encouraging.
heh, Perez in a straight jacket… well done, that was funny… sad, but funny…
This Reyes injuries not only affects how we handle the shortstop situation, but it makes me wonder how we should not handle the other trades we were looking to make.
This season is startng to look bleaker and bleaker as there are just too many holes that need to be filled. I’m not sure now if I want to trade my farm right now for one bat that is probably not going to help anyway.
I think we should just keep all the young players up and just play this season out to see what happens. Trading big players for Nick Johnson or Matt Holiday is not really going to do us much good for this year anyway.
you know…this might be one positive out of the Omar Minaya contract extension. With it, he may not feel the pressure of HAVING to force trades and such to build a winner this year. Obviously Winning is the priority and it still is this year, but point is he may feel a little more relaxed at the trigger, and that could be important with all these injuries.
That’s exactly where I was going with my post. There’s no way that Omar can replace Delgado, Perez/Redding (take your pick), and Reyes. Obviously he knows better than anyone, but filling one of these holes won’t get us anything at all. Might as well play Murph and FMart all year and see what they got…
I don’t understand the premise that Alex Cora is more valuable as a fill-in than a temporary everyday player. This team has too many issues and too little talent to try to solve the Reyes problem by going elsewhere. If Cora is most valuable to this team by playing everyday at SS, then that’s where he plays for the time being. From day one, and especially after Delgado went down, this teams biggest issue has been lack of a stabilizing force in the middle of this lineup. From what I’ve read, Jermaine Dye can be had and the Mets have what it takes to broker a deal for him. You cannot count on Gary Sheffield on playing 100 games, plus a possible post season and you cannot count on FMart being Shane Spencer.
Too many issues…this team needs to focus on what it can fix and fix it NOW!
The question that you need to ask yourself is, with all the struggles and injuries to this team, is Jermaine Dye going to bring you a championship? How about get you to the playoffs? If the answer is “no” then you shouldn’t trade anyone for him…
Excellent question. I don’t believe there’s any “guaranteed” acquisition out there.
Every play has some form of risk. I guess I’m saying that the risk behind signing a Dye is minimal. He would be a stabilizing force for an otherwise unstable 25-man roster. If you believe that Sheff is not suited to give you 100 games, then I think you have to make a move like this.
I understand what you’re saying, but my point is, that Dye will be nowhere near enough a stabilizing force for this team to move forward. Imagine Dye being a Delgado replacement. What about Reyes, starting pitching? Who’ll replace Putz? It’s hard to say that any trade will be able to plug all the holes. Or that we get the one player who will make the other holes irrelevant. Sure, this will be a better than .500 team and will finish not too far from a playoff spot, but when the season ends in September, does it matter?
Right…I didn’t explain myself enough. I don’t believe you can do nothing. This team, even with the injuries, has proven capable of winning ball games. What I meant was that you have to focus on all the issues and see what might have an acceptable in-house solution vs outside solution. Then, you have to be reasonable in what you can expect to get outside in a trade.
We have Alex Cora and Parnell in house. Are they great solutions, no. However, they are solutions. Both can get the job done at some level. Next, we need power…we really need power. We can talk all day about Adam Dunn and Matt Holliday. I don’t suspect they’re either A) available or B) available for us with our talent pool. I suspect Jermaine Dye can be had for a middling prospect or two.
Do I believe his presence is a lock to get us to the playoffs…no? However, I think he’s a good enough bridge to help us win a few more games during the time we are missing Reyes and Delgado.
Vizquel is not a FA; he’s on Texas.
yea exactly. he’s been there all year…he’s been like a player/coach…helping their prized SS rookie.
He actually would interest me as a FA b/c the guy can still field.
But just bc he is not a FA, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be part of the equation.
We have to have a piece that could bring him onboard.
Let me caveat this by saying that I do not believe Ruben Tejada is ready for the Major Leagues. But he is riding some kind of hot streak.
Since May 1 (104 AB):
.317/.402/.433, 7 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 14 BB, 9 K, 3/3 SB, 4 E in 32 G
Again, I don’t think he’s ready. He’s only 19, and he struggled last year at St. Lucie and was promoted to Binghamton out of necessity more than anything. That said, he’s looked absolutely great for the past few weeks.
Peralta is probably the best player on the list, but It doesn’t make a lot of sense to bring in a multi year solution.
I would be open to promoting Tejada and signing Grudzielanek, who will need a few weeks to get in game shape.
The talent pool isn’t very deep and players we could trade for to fill in aren’t much better than the Tejada/Grudzielanek option. Why spend any minor league talent when FA or minor league talent will get the job done?
Jose is one of our MVPs in the sense that he is our spark plug, he brings energy, he’s messes with opposing SP when on base, and plays gold-glove-caliber defense at SS.
its a big hit. Remember though, Jimmy Rollins missed 25 games last year… I knoe Reyes will miss more than that, but Im just saying.
But Jimmy Rollins isn’t that good except for that one fluke year in 2007. Shane Victorino fills the same role and is better than him. And based on how he’s doing this year (.224 avg), the Phillies would be better off with Wilson Valdez as their shortstop.
I don’t think the issue is who plays short…the issue is how does the rest of the team hit to replace Jose’s bat. We know that none of the guys mentioned can hit (except Peralta), so why not make defense a priority (with Valdez or somebody like Vizquel) and try to get a power bat like Adam Dunn. He is on a one-year deal and with the Nats going nowhere I’m sure they’d love to get rid of his contract.
Dunn is on a two year deal
You’re right…that said, he puts up the exact same numbers every year and I’d love to have him for 2010.
I heard the Nats want a legit young SP in a trade for Dunn. Thats what one of the ESPN guys said in response to Red Sox being interested in a 1B.
Good point…how about a crappy young middle reliever? Eddie Kunz anyone? And if he doesn’t like Kunz, he can expect a couple more CYMR’s come draft day!
lol…we could give them some money so they can afford Stratsburg..and then they give us Dunn…sounds good to me.
omar and the pons basically tossed this season when they failed to sign dunn at a discount price. especially with an unsettled OF and an injury waiting to happen at 1B.
Carlos Delgado has averaged 147 games per year since he left Toronto. Dubbing him “an injury waiting to happen” is pretty far out. And with the 2nd half he had last year, there was no reason to even think of replacing him – otherwise his option wouldn’t get picked up. Dunn at the time didn’t fit because as a big left handed bat who strikes out a ton, he had no fit behind Delgado.
The question I have to ask, if the season is over as some have questioned, can Carlos Beltran get us a young 1B and CF that we could groom to be ready by 2010?
Doesn’t he have full no-trade protection?
Beltran’s no-trade veto power doesn’t click in until the end of next season (as a 10 year player and 5 years with the same team), but he’s got to stay. Best player on the team right now and starting to show leadership by speaking up yesterday.
We are not the Nationals or Rockies…the season is not over on June 5th.
And Carlos Beltran should go no where. We will be a stronger team in 2010 and 2011 with him here.
Don’t know if I agree about the season not being over – at least not yet, but it sure is not looking good. But Amen on Beltran. Why people keep on floating ideas to trade him every year I have no idea
what team has those 2010 ready pieces that needs Beltran and $17M on their payroll, that just does not makes sense at all
With this economy, I highly doubt that Carlos will net anything (if any) especially with his price tag. In addition, he has been good. More precisely, there are teams more likely to shed payroll not add them.
Yes, let’s trade away our best hitter…not to mention the best CF in the game. Sounds like a plan, Mr. Duquette
……
Where have you gone, Rey Ordonez?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
(Woo woo woo)
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Rey-O’ has left and gone away?
(Hey hey hey – hey hey hey)
…….
Okay, I am not saying bring back Rey Ordonez, but I have to disagree with Matt, I think Wilson Valdez can be an every day player, at least in the short term. Sure he has no offense, but either did Rey-O. But for his one error, I think Valdez has all the tools to be a great defensive SS. Give him the job, I think we will all be pleased. It will be the second coming of Rey-O (bat and all!)
I’d take Rey-O only if you give me John Olerud at 1B and Fonzie at 2B
All of the people mentioned depress me. The truth is there is no solution, i guess we need to get someone to play defense for the next 8 weeks, pray Jose comes back stroing andhope the team can somehow hit which they have not done lately.
Too bad Jose Valentin quit at the start of the season.
We’re in a tough spot here…b/c its not worth trading for a young replacement who we’d have no room for once Jose is back be it this year or next. And the available FA dont seem any better than Alex Cora. It’d have to be a veteran in their walk year…but then you dont want to trade too much for a rental player.
WILMER FLORES!!
Way to early. I appreciate a fellow fan
Yes, we should just get someone that wont cost us anything or give a kid a shot from the minors, maybe they will surprise us.
mike bordick.
let’s see…whos this teams melvin mora? murphy? he doesn’t have a position per-say.
man…that trade is tough to gauge…bordick helped us get to the WS, but he didnt doing anything to help us win it though…and trading away mora hurt us the following few seasons.
Has Rafael Santana offically retired? :-)
Jose Valentin is probably kicking himself for not sticking it out in AAA. He would have had a shot at the job.
Let’s see what we can get out of Alex Cora…This is the reason we gave him 2 million…to back-up Reyes and/or Castillo.
He played plenty of SS with Boston last year, albeit not very good, but still…and I like what I heard about him taking FMart under his wing.
There’s no need to panic. Reyes will presumably be out a month. We can get by with Cora/Valdez until then. There’s absolutely no reason to bring someone like Wilson in, who would cost about 4 million the rest of this year plus a half million buyout for next year.
There’s really no way to “replace” Reyes. Anyone we could possibly bring in to play SS won’t bring what Reyes does. That said, it’s not time to pick up our bat and ball and go home, either.
So, who to bring in? Whoever it is needs to be able to play elsewhere other than SS (or be a bench player later in the year, though we already have Cora to fill that role), since Jose WILL be back, and he WILL be our SS when he does. This issue is even more important if there’s years remaining on the contract of whoever we get after this one. So I don’t think Wilson makes a lot of sense. I like the Crosby idea, as he’d probably come cheap and there’s a chance his offense would return with a change of scenery. On the other hand, the way things are going this year and given his history, he’d probably break his leg boarding the plane to fly to NY.
How can Alex Cora not be an every day player to fill in for Jose Reyes???? He was good enough to be an every day SS for the Red Sox last I checked and they’re a pretty darn good team.
I’m sorry, I think the idea that Cora is “too vaulable” in other places is a load of crap. We signed him exactly for this reason, I don’t see what the problem is.
Manuel doesn’t really aggrivate me too many times but I 150% disagree with his statement. This is nuts. His job is to field the best team that gives us a chance to win every game. With Reyes out, Cora is that person.
Exactly. I would imagine that Manuel’s comment refers to a permanent state, not a fill in until reyes is back.
Cora will be fine and the infield will be fine. What the mets need urgently is a bat to give shef a rest.
I agree with that. As long as we dont hear in 2 days that Jose will miss the season with surgery it doesnt make sense to acquire any of the decent SS mentioned because what do we do in 6-8 weeks when Reyes comes back?
Let Cora hold down the fort and go after a power bat or a starter because we know we will need that for the entire season
This is a VERY radical solution (even though it doesn’t solve anything for this season), but nonetheless it should be considered:
Keep Martinez in the bigs. Let him play every day while the injury-prone Church and Sheffield platoon.
Call up either Niese or Gee (when he is healthy) and let them finish the season with NY. AKA, the Mike Pelfrey treatment (although Pelfrey was rushed much faster). Let them learn from the best, not some scrub AAA coach.
Offer Schneider in a trade (for anything decent we can get, really) and call up Thole to platoon with Santos behind the dish. If the kid can hit, let’s see it. We did it with Murphy, why not do it with someone who has much more upside?
Call up Ruben Tejada. Again, we brought up Reyes to the big leagues when he was 19, so why not Tejada? Quite frankly, I’m tired of pathetic old guys plugging up our roster because the front office is clinging to impossible hopes of winning a WS this season.
The fans are not stupid. If you continue the youth movement, they will realize you are preparing for the future. I think more fans hate old, overpaid players than young prospect in the big leagues.
You might be going a tad too far with all of these guys, but I like the premise.’
If you have a chance to start breaking in a guy you are counting on in the future, might as well do it now.
Of course, a rel talented veteran is a better option, but if your actual choice is a wasked up old scrub, go with the kids.
You do run into roster issues though (40 man, rule 5) unless these are guys you expect to be up for good real soon.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your overall statement but I disagree about the amount of younger talent you’re offering to bring up to our team.
By bringing up those players, you’re essentiall, in my opinion, throwing in the towel for the rest of the year.
When you’re in a pennant race, which we most certainly are, you cannot afford the luxery of having devolping talent on your team. Sure, you can but it needs to be extremely limited.
I’m all for keeping FMart up, I think his time has come and it’s sink or swim for him. But the other three need to develop more. We’ve got Cora, so he should slot the SS position. We can trade for a LF and a LF that we’ll use next year as well. As well as attempt to trade for a Pitcher…personally, I rank our need for a Pitcher is far greater than our need for a LF.
I see no reason to rush out and get a shortstop– it is a waste of assets. Cora and Valdez can hold down the fort; if Cora can’t truly go with his finger, well, then, that’s another story.
And with regards to the medical staff, I don’t know if we can really criticize them. On the one hand, as fans, we want our players to play even with aches and pains (so we can call them “tough” and not “soft”). Medical staffs of professional teams try and get their players ready, no matter what condition. You don’t DL a player if the observable facts don’t merit it and he has a chance of taking a couple of days and then coming back. So, on the other hand, if we suddenly want our team to take a conservative approach to injuries, we will always DL players, sometimes unnecessarily so. Which way do you want it?
dwright5godsend….u do realize if the mets sweep the nats everything will go back to normal….and people will have hope again….step away from the ledge..and also id be shocked if the mets gave fmart the starting LF job…hes been ok…but nothing good enough to warrant the starting spot after a week
I actually disagree on F-Mart. I think he is worth a continued look– and there is no reason to rush Church back– it’s not like he was hitting.
That being said, you can still activate Church, send down Brown, and play Church and Martinez against righties, resting Sheffield.
nope, because the nats are the worst team in recent memory, and beating the nats doesn’t indicate anything about our ability to beat the rest of the league.
i don’t understand the cora hate. none of the players listed except peralta are better than cora, and peralta won’t be worth what he would take.
i’d really be happy if we just packed this season in, honestly.
There are no go good replacement options for Reyes that can be acquired for a reasonable price. Cora/Valdez will have to do until Reyes comes back.
We need to maintain/build our farm system, not trade away our best commodities in a panic move. I actually like what I see from FMart. Kid is 20 and seems to be adjusting well as he gets used to the majors. He should keep getting regular playing time and Sheffield needs alot more rest. Breaking down in the beginning of June is not a good sign.
The roster right now doesn’t seem like a playoff team but there isn’t a magic player out there that we can acquire that will be the difference maker.
As an aside, how good would Derek Lowe look right now instead of OP for just 2M/yr. and 1 addl year in commitments. We would at least have one less position issue to deal with.
In the What If world…
The Mets signed Raul Ibanez to play LF and Derek Lowe to be the #2 starter.
I’d say this team right now could more than hold it’s own despite the injuries.
But, alas… we’ve got to win with what we’ve got!
Unless Jose Reyes is going to be out longer than August, there is ZERO chance this team makes a move to fill his spot.
Here are the holes to fill in order of importance:
1. Starting Pitcher
2. First base
3. Corner OF, if FMart isn’t the guy
4. 8th inning reliever
5. Shortstop
First base as your #2 concern? We’ve got Murphy there and he’s doing fine. I think he’s going a solid job and would love for him to be our future 1B after the departure of Delgado…unless, of course, Pujols becomes a free agent eventually!!
I’d put a LF at #2. Yes, Sheff and Church are formidable but that’s about all they are. We need a younger guy with power there. Holliday or Bay (if available this offseason) should fit in quite nicely.
What the Mets do with the corner OF position comes down to what they think they can get from FMart this year. If he can solidify RF, then I platoon Church and Sheffield in LF and get some pretty good production there.
I’m not sure Delgado will be back at all this year, but if Murphy can do the job, then GREAT! Like I’ve said in a previous post… Pitching, Pitching, Pitching… that’s what should be on Omar’s to-do list!
They really need to make a legitimate play for Bay. I believe the Red Sox and his agent will not discuss anything until after the season is over.
He would be such a great addition