Author Archives: Matthew Cerrone

ESPN.com’s Keith Law names one young player in each organization who could be a sleeper prospect in 2012.

According to Law, 20-year-old Mets RHP Domingo Tapia is worth watching.

“Tapia hits triple digits as a starter with some sink on the pitch,” Law explains. “He pairs it with a solid to above-average changeup that produced a reverse split in his 50 innings in Kingsport last year.”

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“He’ll need a more consistent breaking ball to project as a top-end starter, but the velocity and changeup are a good start,” Law concludes.

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Here is video of Tapia pitching BP during Mets spring training last year:

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To see Law’s sleeper picks for the rest of the league, click here for ESPN.com.

In a report for the Daily News, beat writer Andy Martino talks with Jason Bay‘s friends and teammates about the $66 million left-fielder about his struggles the last two years.

“I have seen him snap,” David Wright told Martino, who says Bay might walk into the clubhouse and go bonkers, Paul O’Neill-style, after a bad at bat. ”When no one is looking, and when there are no cameras around, and the younger players can’t see him, he will let it out.”

Bay told Martino he still believes ’100 percent’ that he can again hit 30 home runs in a season.

Bay, who has a full no trade clause, will earn $16 million each of the next two seasons, after which he has a $17 million option that kicks in with 600 plate appearances in 2013 or 500 in both 2012 and 2013, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

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 Michael Baron: For the first time since he joined the Mets, he had quick hands through the zone and appeared to attack pitches middle-in towards the end of last year, which allowed him to pull balls down the line with consistency and authority. He also wasn’t waiving at the outside pitch. He either laid off those pitches or drove them up the middle. The question is: Was this a renaissance of sorts or an aberration?

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Matthew Cerrone: I’m keeping my expectations very low for Bay this season. For what it’s worth, he did hit left-handed pitching rather well last year. Also, much like with Wright, because it is had been so difficult for right-handed hitters to go the other way with authority in Citi Field, pitchers pitched them away to kill any threat of pulling the ball. So, Bay and Wright very much became one-dimensional hitters forced to stand away from the plate, speed up their swings and try to pull everything, which I think a) increased their propensity to strike out, and b) created habits that just totally messed them up. Hopefully, this changes with the new outfield dimensions in 2012.

By the way, this is an outstanding report by Martino. Read it. It’s very good, and it’s the type of work newspapers should be focusing on and producing more of given their level of access and staffing.

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To read Martino’s full report, click this link and read the Daily News.

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Here are results from a poll on MetsBlog.com in January asking: “How many home runs do you expect Jason Bay to h it in 2012?”

Earlier this week, Newsday reported that Sterling Equities (Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz) made an appeal to the Supreme Court, in regards to Irving Picard’s Bernie Madoff lawsuit.

Today, Picard responded publicly to Ownership’s request to dismiss the case, according to the Daily News. Also today, Capital New York ran a story about a woman’s testimony that accuses Ownership of knowing about the Ponzi scheme.

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Matthew Cerrone: Here’s the problem, I have no idea what these stories are about. Seriously. I read them, I read them again, and somewhere in the middle I start daydreaming about actual baseball and Opening Day and I start thinking about my daughter and if I need to pick up milk at the store and then my mind wanders to blog designs and other projects I’m working on. It’s not a copout, it’s just I am either too unfocused, too confused or I just don’t care enough to know every little detail of every tit-for-tat, he-said, she-said element of this case. I’m a baseball fan. I really only care about the end game here and how this impacts the product on the field. Conspiracy theories as to why it is hurting the team now, or did in the past, or might in the future, to me are less interesting then the reality on the field and how this all will play out. The thing is, though I know I don’t understand each little detail and would sound like a buffoon trying to write about it, if I don’t write about then people accuse me of avoiding it so not to piss off the Mets, which is ridiculous by the way. In either case, it’s a Catch 22. I either look like coward or I sound like an idiot.

So, I always assumed that when actual news occurs – and it will – when an actual conclusion is reached – and it will be – when a ruling is handed down and the dust settles – because, eventually, it will – I will read it, talk to experts and insiders, try to understand and then weigh in on how I feel it impacts the New York Mets and their fans (because, in the end, the roster and fans is what I care about). Until then, I just can’t pick through the details and speculate, because a) every expert in law and finance I know keeps telling me not to bother, because even people close to the situation don’t know what’s going to happen or what it means, and b) it’s just not that interesting to me.

However, that’s not necessarily fair to you, or other people who rely on MetsBlog to keep them in the loop on things. Plus, I realize there are some fans who are very obsessed with this story, and that’s totally cool too. It’s just not where my brain is at, as we’re finally just two weeks away from pitchers and catchers and that’s what I want to enjoy.

Nevertheless, if you want links and paraphrasing and updates on every little report and back-and-forth news item that is published between now and the trial in late March, I’ll post them. Of course, I probably won’t synthesize them or explain them in any detail, because, frankly, I’d need someone smarter than me to do that for me. So, instead, I will try to bring on a lawyer and finance expert to do it and post their reaction to the blog to help make these posts more credible and insightful.

On the other hand, if you don’t care about each bit of news, every day, as it happens, if you prefer I focus on baseball and only relay hard and relevant news as it pertains to Ownership, Maddoff, etc., that’s also fine by me. But, I’d rather you make the call… so, please, vote here and leave comments to let me know what you think is best.

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