AAOP: Second Place

by Eric Simon on Dec 8, 2009 12:00 PM EST

The second-best AAOP entry we received -- with an average score of 8.00 -- was My Day in Omar's head by MangoMetsFan. The highlights.

Traded Luis Castillo for Albert Arias (or any reliever, really).

Signed Carlos Delgado for one year, $5 million. Delgado's health is a huge question mark but this deal is pretty low-risk. If he plays 120 games he'll be worth this and more.

Signed Matt Holliday for six years, $108 million. He's the only superstar on the free agent market, and this move was included in 25 of 42 AAOPs (60%).

Signed Ben Sheets for one year, $3 million, with incentives that could bring it to $10 million. Sheets didn't pitch at all in 2009, so this is a high-upside signing with a fairly low probability of that upside being realized.

Signed Erik Bedard to same deal as Sheets, expecting Bedard to pitch maybe half of the season.

Signed Gregg Zaun for one year, $2 million. Zaun actually signed with the Brewers for $1.9 million, so the contract was spot-on.

Signed Placido Polanco for two years, $12 million. Got the money right, but Polanco signed with the Phillies for three years. His peanut-shaped head would have been a nice fit at second.

Traded Brian Stokes for basically nothing.

Signed Pedro Feliciano to a three-year deal.

Signed Nelson Figueroa as rotation insurance.

Signed Kelvim Escobar to a minor-league contract. I'll bet Escobar gets a big-league deal from someone, maybe even the Mets.

Signing both Sheets and Bedard is an interesting move, and even if each contributes just a half-season of solid pitching they'd be doing so at $6-8 million combined, which is a pretty good return on investment. The rotation overall is still suspect, with Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, and John Maine slotting in behind Johan Santana. Figueroa provides some depth there, but the over/under on the number of these starters who will spend time on the disabled list in 2010 is four. Also, if Delgado is hurt then the Mets are back to Daniel Murphy at first, which is a little frightening. Still, the Mets improved their offense considerably with the signings of Holliday and Polanco and managed to improve their defense at the same time.

One thing that distinguished this entry from the pack was the inclusion of some substantive commentary at the outset, as MangoMetsFan wrote a bit about the current state of the Mets and described what the Mets' offseason strategy should be before ultimately unfurling his game plan. He also included detailed WAR and salary projections for 2010, a nice addition that was absent from most of the other submissions.

For coming in second, MangoMetsFan wins a copy of the Bill James Handbook 2010 (review here) courtesy of ACTA Sports.

Tweet Comment 18 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

What the heck is wrong

with Stokes? He’s not getting paid a lot and he’s servicable.

"I got my pregnant wife (the Yankee fan) with me. Hoping my kid learns to kick her everytime the Mets score." -Schifftis-

by future on Dec 8, 2009 12:26 PM EST reply actions

He's horrible

by Sam Page on Dec 8, 2009 12:35 PM EST up reply actions

He's decent, not great, but not bad.

"We're just as bad as the old Mets, but this time nobody's laughing"
-Dallas Green

by Stephen Schmidt on Dec 8, 2009 2:25 PM EST up reply actions

2009 numbers = Sub-Replacement Level

70.1 IP, 72 Hits and 38 BB with only 45 K. 1.56 WHIP. Not good.
K/BB ratio of 1.18 is horrible.
xFIP (Fangraphs) of 5.06.
tRA (StatCorner) of 5.50.

I don’t see decent. I see a case of addition by subtraction.

by MangoMetsFan on Dec 8, 2009 3:09 PM EST up reply actions

Well

1) He was jerked around all year by Jerry.
2) He seemed to suffer from some epically awful defense in big situations.

Those aside, I don’t understand anyone hating on him.

Look at his splits based on days off: 0 days off, 1 day off, 2 days off, he was pretty damn good. 3 days off there is a huge spike. 4 days off he goes back to being above average…and then see 5 and 5+ and the stats are horrendous.

For all the people who want to use xFIP and tRA look at the common sense of the fact that the dude when pitching regularly was decent and when he had to rot in the bullpen he sucked: which is no surprise.

"I got my pregnant wife (the Yankee fan) with me. Hoping my kid learns to kick her everytime the Mets score." -Schifftis-

by future on Dec 8, 2009 9:23 PM EST up reply actions

Not hating the player

I don’t think that anyone is hating Stokes….I just don’t like what I expect his contribution to be to the team.

To your point about being jerked around – a few notes: (1) He’s paid to get people out, period. When he’s called on, he needs to perform. (2) If you look at his splits over the last 3 years, you’ll see that days off doesn’t matter. His performance is pretty bad all the time. I think that just looking at last year is cherry picking a small sample size. (3) I think that the days rest split is very misleading for a reliever. These guys get up to warm up many times during the season and don’t get into games. So, he is throwing and presumably keeping sharp…even if he doesn’t get into games.

If you want a situation where Stokes could be useful…he’s obviously capable of being an alright ROOGY. The guy can’t get lefties out though. I don’t think that the Mets can afford to carry the guy as a ROOGY though. They need crossover guys in the pen…especially without a proven set-up man / bullpen ace on the team.

by MangoMetsFan on Dec 9, 2009 11:03 AM EST up reply actions

Stocks?

Who?

- Rivers McCown, From Mom's Basement | Twitter

by riversmccown on Dec 8, 2009 12:55 PM EST up reply actions

you mean Sir Dr. Socks III esquire, phd, MD, DDS, ESP

by KeithsMoustache on Dec 8, 2009 12:59 PM EST up reply actions

Why couldn't you tell us during the competition that top three get a copy of BJH?

I would have made a bit more of an effort than just writing something up during a class.

by boom_roasted on Dec 8, 2009 12:54 PM EST reply actions

Simple:

I didn’t realize we’d have second- and third-place prizes to give away at the time of the contest.

by Eric Simon on Dec 8, 2009 9:59 PM EST up reply actions

Oh, that's a good explanation.

by boom_roasted on Dec 9, 2009 1:06 PM EST up reply actions

jokes on you guys

coming up with these complicated AAOP’s – I just captioned a picture and got a handbook.

BTW, Eric, mine arrived in the mail. Thanks!

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Dec 8, 2009 10:54 PM EST up reply actions

Will you release the scores for all entries?

Could be fun to get feedback and see how others fared, etc.

by saberkeith on Dec 8, 2009 12:59 PM EST reply actions

Seconded--it would be interesting to see how we all did.

by SeanSchirmer on Dec 8, 2009 8:04 PM EST up reply actions

I'm not sure everyone would want everyone else to see their scores

especially the really, really awful ones.

by Eric Simon on Dec 8, 2009 9:59 PM EST up reply actions

Stokes was okay

I think his K-Rate could increase with the stuff he has. He was jerked around most of the year. If he can work on a change-up to get some lefties out, he’d be above average.

Is anyone depressed when they read these posts, because there’s no way any of these well thought out plans will come anywhere close to fruition?

by Mackey Sasser on Dec 8, 2009 6:31 PM EST reply actions

And hey, MangoMetsFan!

Some good stuff,

BUT THAT ROTATION’S WAAAAAY TO RISKY.

by SeanSchirmer on Dec 8, 2009 8:05 PM EST reply actions

I like this slightly more than the 3rd place one

Because with Sheets and Bedard, there’s a better chance that at any given time, the rotation won’t be back to what it was last year. But if our luck from last year continues and they both get hurt at the same time, we’re back to square one. I prefer the AAOPs that invested in a 2nd tier starter that helped deal with the possibility that Bedard/Sheets/Harden get hurt again, that Ollie implodes again, and that Maine’s health or stuff is not up to snuff.

by Joamiq on Dec 9, 2009 2:24 PM EST reply actions