Slip Sliding Away

Three hours until the trade deadline. I stil don't think anything is going to happen. Two brief comments on Mets-related content from Jon Heyman's deadline blog today:

10:58am: Competing GMs say the Mets' Omar Minaya is "itching'' to do a deal. And it's no wonder with the Yankees stealing the show across town and the competing Marlins close to possibly adding superstar Manny Ramirez. However, a lot of Mets people want to hold onto their top prospects, including outfielder Fernando Martinez, and pitchers Jon Niese, Eddie Kunz and Robert Parnell. Seattle requested "two premium prospects'' for outfielder Raul Ibanez, and Mets people don't like that idea. Minaya is spending more time on the relief situation, which is looking iffy lately, especially with Duaner Sanchez's radar gun readings down.

This will make Angst/Joey Walnuts happy, but it makes me nervous. Minaya strikes me as the type of general manager who will make a trade just for the sake of doing so, which almost never works out well. Oh, and Seattle is crazy if they think anyone is trading two premium prospects for Raul Ibanez. If the Mariners wanted to trade Ibanez for Eddie Kunz and Bobby Parnell, I would be fine with that, since I have no faith whatsoever in those guys. They aren't premium rospects and the idea that Kunz and Parnell are anything other than cannon fodder at the major league level is pie in the sky dreaming.

9 am: One bullpen option the Mets have kicked around is to try to pry disappointing starter Ian Snell from Pittsburgh with the idea of employing him as a reliever for the remainder of the year. Snell could then be used in the rotation next year when the Mets may need starters. Pedro Martinez likely won't be back and Oliver Perez could leave as a free agent. The Mets are continuing to make left-hander Jon Niese unavailable because they'd like to see him make the rotation next year.

I like that idea a lot. Ian Snell has talent and is a tough customer who hates losing. He could be rejuvenated playing for a franchise that actually gives a damn about winning. If the Pirates were dumb enough to take a C prospect for Snell - and God knows the last 15 years have proven that they are - the Mets would have to jump all over that.

UPDATE: 1:49 pm: The Mets are talking to the Nationals about a deal for reliever Luis Ayala, SI.com has learned. Mets GM Omar Minaya badly wants a reliever and wouldn't mind making a deal. This could be it.

Minaya has a good working relationship with Jim Bowden, so this wouldn't be surprising. Luis Ayala isn't very good; even when he's going well he gives up more than a hit per inning and has a low strikeout rate. He is strictly bullpen filler, so hopefully Minaya won't offer anything more than a marginal prospect for his services.

UPDATE: No deals done. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mets continue to pursue Ayala; I don't imagine he'll have much trouble passing through waivers.

The Trade Deadline Approaches ...

Fans love the trade deadline. Every team within 10 games of first place deludes themselves into believing they are a potential playoff team and find themselves acting accordingly on the trade market. It's all very exciting, because fans naturally like to believe that their favorite team is just one or two players away from a league pennant. The reality, of course, is that most of these teams are fooling themselves and are only hurting their chances at future success by not committing to a long-term improvement plan.

This is not the case for the Mets, who play in a relatively weak division in a relatively weak league. When you're in first place after nearly 110 games, it's a sign that your team is a playoff contender, regardless of how mediocre the National League East might be. The Mets are one of the five best teams in the National League, but they clearly trail the Cubs and the Brewers on that list.

Still, don't expect to see any new players in a Mets uniform before 4 pm tomorrow. The Mets simply don't have any trade chips they're willing to part with, and the 10 0r 15 sellers on the trade market have no obligation to part with their better players at cut-rate prices just to satisfy Mets fans.

The Mets are in their fifth straight year as “buyers,” although they really had no business doing so in 2004 and 2005. Mets’ brass completely misread their team’s fortunes in 2004; despite being three games under .500 and owning the fifth-worst record in the National League, ownership and fanbase alike were seduced by what it perceived to be a slim 6.5-game deficit in the NL East.

(That sounds a lot like what the Rockies are doing right now, which is another reason why there's no reason to believe Brian Fuentes will be wearing a Mets uniform this season.)

Another ignominious chapter in franchise history was the result – the Mets made three trades involving some of their best prospects for players who would not only fail to push the Mets into a playoff berth, but would also end up having undistinguished careers in New York.

The first deal actually didn't turn out so badly, in the long run. The Mets traded Ty Wigginton and two highly regarded prospects to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for Kris Benson and Jeff Keppinger. Wigginton had no place on the team with the emergence of David Wright, but Huber and Peterson were two of the Mets' better prospects and seemed destined for a bright future (think Carlos Gomez and Phil Humber in terms of where each player ranked in the system at the time). Neither panned out, a break for the Mets and typical luck for the Pirates.

Benson, meanwhile, pitched reasonably well for the rest of the 2004 season and was a capable mid-rotation starter in 2005, but he will be best remembered for his wife and the fact that the Orioles eventually gave the Mets John Maine in exchange for Benson's services. Keppinger was never given a chance for New York and was eventually swapped for Ruben Gotay, who was released at the end of Spring Training this year. Keppinger simply hits everywhere he goes and has finally settled in as a valuable utility player for the Cincinnati Reds.

It was, of course, the other deal that resonates to this day. Emerging superstar Scott Kazmir and a nondescript middle reliever was traded to the then-hapless Devil Rays for Victor Zambrano and a nondescript middle reliever. To make matters worse, I remember nearly driving off the road on Yellowstone Boulevard and shrieking in horror at the radio when the trade was announced.

Never before has a trade gone so lopsided so fast, and the Mets were understandably spooked into paralysis at the 2005 trade deadline.

In Defense of Adam Dunn

Now that one of the corner outfielders the Mets were targeting is off the market, let's turn our gaze to the guy I really want - Adam Dunn.

Yes, I hear the detractors shouting from the rooftops already. Adam Dunn walks too much. He doesn't drive in enough runs. His batting average is too low and his strikeout totals are too high. He's a terrible defensive outfielder, bad to the point of indifference. Some people have gone so far as to call him indifferent to all aspects of the game. The chic comparison is Dave Kingman, whose name is often the one bandied about when attempting to devalue Dunn's offensive prowess.

These are all just talking points that have more to do with taking unwarranted potshots at Adam Dunn then they do with actual baseball analysis. I would argue that calling Dunn "Dave Kingman with more walks" is something like saying Tony Gwynn is "Mitch Webster with more hits." It's a bad comparison that seems to be built on disparaging a good player by saying he is merely better than a not-so-good player.

This strange notion that middle-of-the-order hitters shouldn't walk simply doesn't make any sense to me. Adam Dunn walks so often because National League pitchers are afraid he will hit a home run off them. They pitch around him, because when you challenge Adam Dunn by throwing strikes you are risking the possibility that the baseball will land 450 feet away from home plate.

It seems as though his detractors would prefer that Dunn swings at all these pitches out of the strike zone instead of taking a walk, even though that would lead to more outs and less production. If you don't like his .230 batting average and his 175 strikeouts a year now, what will you to think of his statistics when he's swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone?

Dunn's patience does not clog bases, as it has been suggested; he unclogs them by hitting home runs. Dunn is nowhere near the slowest guy in baseball and he is not a notably bad baserunner either. He steals five to 10 bases a year, which is an eminently reasonable total for a 40-home run hitter. Why is it a bad thing that he creates RBI opportunities for the players behind him when he's not hitting home runs? Should Carlos Delgado (who once went four straight seasons without stealing a base) stop taking walks because is slower than Dunn and less adept at running the bases?

The HR to RBI ratio is a fallacious argument. Dunn's batting average and slugging average with runners in scoring position are .244/.561, both of which are higher than his overall numbers this season (.234 and .547). RBIs, however, are completely dependent on the batter having runners on base to drive in. If the Reds don't put runners on base ahead of Dunn, how on earth can he be expected to drive them in?

Dunn has mostly batted fifth for Cincinnati this season. The on-base percentages for the 1 through 4 hitters in the Reds' lineup this season has been .323/.320/.340/.325. Compare that to the Mets, who have gotten OBPs of .363/.370/.389/.367 from their 1 through 4 hitters. That's an additional 40 to 50 points of on-base percentage at each position, which works out to approximately 80 more baserunners in front of the fifth-place hitter in the lineup. Had Dunn been batting fifth for the Mets all season and put up equal numbers, he would be good for an additional 20 RBIs or so. Would his detractors sneer at 29 home runs and 88 RBIs in 99 games?

(How did I come to that conclusion? Dunn is batting .244 with runners in scoring position, almost exactly one hit every four at-bats. With 80 more RBI opportunities in the form of 80 baserunners, I'm simply assuming he'll convert one-fourth of them into RBIs.)

Adam Dunn is the most under-valued player in baseball. Which GM is going to be smart enough to see past the talking points and add an excellent offensive player to their lineup?

No Twin Killing Here

I was reading Mets Fever on Tuesday, where Ed Ryan was musing about the possibility of adding Michael Cuddyer to address the Mets' corner outfield needs. I'm not a big fan of Cuddyer; he's having a terrible season in 2008 and only recently migrated to right field on a full-time basis. Cuddyer strikes me as more of a potential platoon partner for Ryan Church, although he has not hit lefties as hard this season as he has throughout the course of his career. He's also in the first year of a 3-year, $24 million contract with a club option in 2011. Verdict: Pass!

What was so amazing to me is that Ed was speculating about Cuddyer based on a Charley Waters column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press this week:

It will be interesting whether the Twins try to package Michael Cuddyer and Livan Hernandez in a trade for a slugging third baseman before the July 31 deadline, saving $20 million in guaranteed money to Cuddyer and $2.5 million to Hernandez ... One problem, though: finding a team willing to take on the salaries. The Twins say they haven't had room for (Francisco) Liriano in the starting rotation.

I guess it would be interesting in the sense to see how quickly a general manager who gave up a slugging third baseman for that package would be fired. Cuddyer is a better player than his 2008 numbers indicate, but his poor start means that the Twins are destined to get a poor return if they trade him while his value is low. Hernandez, meanwhile, is simply the worst starting pitcher in baseball.

He actually got off to a fast start in 2008, winning his first three starts and giving the Twins seven good innings each time out. But in 20 starts overall, Hernandez has a 5.44 ERA - nearly a run and a half higher than the league average - and a 1.624 WHIP. Those numbers rise to a 6.05 ERA and a 1.747 WHIP in the 17 starts made after April 11, which are frighteningly bad numbers.

In case you aren't convinced of Hernandez's awfulness, here's one more stat to consider - opponents are batting .342/.368/.506 against Hernandez in 2008. That's like turning every hitter you face into the 1971 version of this Hall of Famer.

It makes all the sense in the world for the Twins to want to trade Cuddyer and Hernandez, but I can't imagine there's another team in baseball who would want both of them. Certainly not the Mets, who would then be stuck with Cuddyer for two more years and might even make the grave mistake of trying to find room for Hernandez in their rotation. I wouldn't give up Jimmie Feldman for that package of players.

Trade Targets, Part 2: Corner Outfield Edition

OK, I'm back. Sometimes my job interferes with the real world. This will be a little anti-climactic, but the only players we thought fit the bill were Raul Ibanez and Brian Giles.

Ibanez is in the final year of his deal and at 36, might not be in the Mariners' future plans. It's a lost season in the Pacific Northwest, so the Mariners have no reason to hold onto him. That said, Ibanez has been a reliable performer for many years - he's generally good for 20-25 home runs and a line in the range of .285/.350/.460. Plenty of teams would take that for a corner outfielder, so the likelihood of the Mets being outbid for Ibanez seems high.

Giles has a $9 million option for next season that can be bought out for $3 million, so the Padres may be willing to let him go for less in return, just as long as they get out from under that option. Giles is having a bit of the renaissance year, but still hits for power like Luis Castillo on steroids. Oops, probably shouldn't mention "steroids" and "Brian Giles" in the same sentence; someone might ask questions about his home runs from 1999 to 2002.

Giles has mostly been a rightfielder since 2004, so he would be taking Ryan Church's spot if Church's concussion woes linger. Otherwise, I'd have to believe he's adept enough to go play left when Moises Alou isn't available (read: the rest of the season). I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't quite understand Zone Rating and don't know where to find the stat listed, so I can't tell you much about Giles's range in the outfield. Any suggestions where I could go for a primer?

Trade Targets, Part 1: Corner Outfield Edition

I had a conversation with Joe about the Rich Harden trade last night, which in my mind is just a fascinating situation. Talk about a risk/reward situation - the Cubs either got themselves a Cy Young candidate a la Rick Sutcliffe in 1984, or they just paid nearly $10 million and four prospects for a career-ending injury waiting to happen.

Harden is a devastatingly good pitcher when healthy; I'm not sure there's a better pitcher in all of baseball when everything is right with him. Of course, everything is rarely right with Harden, which may explain why Oakland GM Billy Beane was willing to trade him with the A's eight games over .500 and trailing the Angels by only five games in the American League West.

Anyway, I was disappointed that the Mets were never able to pry Matt Murton away from the Cubs to help with their corner outfield woes. Murton was part of the six-player deal, mainly because somewhere along the line the Cubs decided that he wasn't a major league outfielder. His track record certainly doesn't suggest that and I have a feeling Murton will look mighty good in the green and gold of the A's before the season is out.

Joe, of course, is expecting an immediate counter-strike by Omar Minaya. He wants a corner outfielder and he wants one 90 seconds ago, even though the Mets have very little to offer in return for someone decent. (Joe is willing to make a challenge trade and use Aaron Heilman as bait - what a surprise, a Mets fan who thinks Aaron Heilman is good trade bait! - but I have no reason to believe the Mets will subtract from the major league roster to go after another bat.)

After some back-and-forth, a few basic criteria for trade targets were established. The only realistic possibilities were players currently on a team that is going nowhere in 2008. They must be performing well, but not playing at such a high level that it would take at least one good prospect to acquire him. Finally, the player should be a veteran without a burdensome contract that is no guarantee to be re-signed by his current team next season.

Shockingly enough, that didn't leave a lot of possibilities.

Back in a few hours with Part 2 ...

Roster Move: Bye Bye Gotay

The Mets put Ruben Gotay on waivers yesterday, a decision that’s drawing a predictable level of condemnation in some circles. I don’t like the decision either, though, and I think it’s indicative of Omar Minaya’s short-sightedness in the area of roster construction.

Gotay’s being squeezed out of a position because of Minaya’s foolish decisions to bring back Damion Easley and Marlon Anderson, even though neither one is a good fit for the 2008 roster. Easley is 38, coming off a broken ankle and although he appeared at five positions last season (mostly at second base), he didn’t play the field particularly well at any of them. Anderson is only 34 and, like Easley, can’t play a lick of defense. He’s turning into a latter-day Manny Mota, which is nice, but National League managers can no longer afford to allow a pinch-hitting specialist to take up a roster space. You have the 12-man bullpen to thank for that – a topic which I’ll be tackling down the road.

The Anderson deal is especially galling, because Minaya actually gave him the Julio Franco treatment and locked him up for 2009 as well. At least Easley can – and probably will – be released by the time August rolls around. Marlon will be gumming up the works next year as well.

Now all that said, let’s not kid ourselves about Gotay’s future. He showed some signs of being a productive MLB second baseman last season, but I don’t think he’ll ever be anything more than a lower-echelon starter or a solid-hitting backup. He’s not a great fielder and although he can hit a little, nothing about his track record makes me think that Ruben has the ability to hit .300 or smack 20 home runs over a full season. I’d still much rather have the guy we traded for Gotay in the first place, who may finally be getting a chance to play with the Reds this season. I am convinced that Keppinger simply needs to get 450 at-bats this year and he will put up a .315/.360/.430 line.

Still, I was struck by Gotay’s energy level last season and liked the fact that it looked like he was having fun playing the game. Maybe it’s naive of me to still value that in a ballplayer, but it’s one of the few “intangibles” I actually believe in. I think most baseball fans have a natural affinity for guys with a certain style and flair – unless they happen to be black, in which case they’ll simply be chastised by the holier-than-thou white guys in media circles about “playing the game right.”

If Minaya had played his cards right, his position players could’ve stacked up like this:

CATCHERS
Schneider
Castro - DL
backup catcher who will be sent to AAA when Castro returns

INFIELDERS
Delgado
Castillo
Reyes
Wright
Gotay
Tatis

OUTFIELDERS
Alou - DL
Beltran
Church
Chavez
Pagan/Clark/generic right-handed fifth outfielder

I know a lot of people aren’t too happy about Tatis, and the chances of him being an abject failure and earning his release by June 1 is nearly 100 percent, but I actually don’t mind this move coming out of Spring Training. He’ll back up Wright at third base and can platoon with Delgado at first against some left-handers. He’s fits the exact profile of what this roster needs right now – although Minaya needs to begin scouting the league to find a similar player to replace Tatis with if and when he proves to be a washout.

Instead, the Mets will likely break camp with a roster looking something like this:

CATCHERS
Schneider
Castro - DL
backup catcher who will be sent to AAA when Castro returns

INFIELDERS
Delgado
Castillo
Reyes
Wright
Easley
Tatis

OUTFIELDERS
Alou - DL
Beltran
Church
Anderson
Chavez
Pagan/Clark/generic right-handed sixth outfielder who will be sent down or released once Alou comes off the DL, thereby depriving Ryan Church of a sorely-needed platoon partner.

Easley is a downgrade from Gotay both with the bat and in the field, while Anderson robs the Mets of the chance to platoon in right field while having no actual position to speak of. His new nickname will be “Albatross.”

The set-up probably costs the Mets a game or two in the standings when all is said and done, the kind of thing that sometimes comes into play over a 162-game season. The real concern is 2009 and beyond, especially if Gotay goes on to have a few cheap and reasonably productive years before his 30^th birthday.

Minaya can minimize his latest roster folly if he can find a way to trade Gotay for Matt Murton, who is inexplicably about to be sent to AAA by the Cubs. The Cubs might be interested, since they've been chasing a second baseman all winter with no luck. Murton would be the perfect fit for the Mets – he can start in left until Alou comes back and then shift into a platoon with Church in right field while waiting for Moises’s next injury. He’s a good young hitter who had success as a regular in 2006, with a minor-league record that suggests he has the potential to take the left field job from Alou in 2009.

Minaya, of course, will completely miss the boat on this one as well.